The Key pulsed in Syra's hand like a breath between chapters. It wasn't hot. It didn't burn. It simply existed—pure concept, forged from five fragments she'd torn from gods and illusions.
And yet, it felt incomplete.
Five lights orbited her body, fragment-laced and humming with divine resonance. Each one had once belonged to a deity who either fell by her hand, surrendered their truth, or was unwritten by fate itself. Together, they should've unlocked the final door. The moment felt right.
But it wasn't.
Something was wrong.
The lights didn't settle.
They hovered—halting, restless. Two more places in the orbit remained open, dim, unlit. The spiral of fragments spun slower now. Then paused.
Riven: "That's it, right? The full ring. The final power."
Syra (quietly): "No. There should be seven. There are only five."
She held the Key closer, expecting it to pulse brighter. Instead, it dimmed. Not rejection—hesitation.
The fragments vibrated faintly.
Two began to flicker.
Riven: "You had them. You earned them."
Syra: "I earned five. Not seven."
She stepped back, and the Key floated mid-air. Its glow, once steady, now flickered like a sentence questioning its own meaning.
Syra: "Where are the last two?"
The world didn't answer.
But the ink did.
A low ripple shivered across the space behind her—like paper folding in on itself. Then came the voice.
"Gone."
Author emerged from the page between moments. Not from a door, not from a spell—he simply was.
No mask.
No cloak.
Just eyes that held the weight of too many rewrites.
Author: "You've done what no other has. Five fragments. A Key. You should be proud."
Syra: "Don't tell me how to feel."
Riven: "Where are the rest?"
Author: "Missing."
Syra: "You mean stolen."
Author: "No. Worse."
Syra (stepping forward): "Then say it clearly."
Author: "They've been unwritten."
The word dropped like a divine hammer.
Syra felt her stomach twist. Her breath caught. Even the Key in her hand pulsed irregularly—like it didn't want to be held anymore.
Syra: "That's not possible."
Author: "Neither were you. And yet… here you stand."
She shook her head. "Who would erase them? Why?"
Author: "Not erased. Removed from structure. Even I can't trace them. They weren't taken by gods. They were pulled out of reality."
Riven: "By what?"
Author (flatly): "Something above me."
Riven let out a low, sharp laugh. "You're the Author. There's nothing above you."
Author: "Then why do you think I write with caution? Why do you think I created her?"
Syra: "Created who?"
The Author turned his eyes to her, slower than before.
Author: "You."
A pause.
Then: "And one other."
Silence.
Even the fragments stopped vibrating.
Syra: "You mean there was someone before me."
Author: "Yes. Another Rewritebearer. One who didn't follow the arc. One who made a different kind of choice."
Riven: "Where is she?"
Author: "Buried. Or so I thought."
He paced slowly, fingers brushing the air. With each step, text formed in the sky, disjointed and unfinished.
Author: "She tried to tear open the Archive of Everything. Not to rewrite it. But to burn it."
Author: "I stopped her. Or I believed I did."
He looked at the spiral again.
Author: "The moment you forged the Key, two fragments blinked from existence. Not shattered. Not lost. Unwritten. As if they had never been planned in the first place."
Syra (whispers): "But they were."
Author: "Yes. And their removal wasn't an accident. It was a message."
Riven: "From who?"
Author: "From the one I erased. The Rewritebearer who refused to stay dead."
The world tilted.
The sky groaned.
And somewhere in the heavens, stars rearranged themselves into a single glyph:
"REMEMBER ME."
Syra stumbled backward.
Syra: "What does this mean? That she's still alive?"
Author: "Alive? No. That would be simple. She's beyond life, now. She's possibility unfiltered. I erased her with the power you now hold. But she found a way to exist in the spaces between ink. In the margins no one edits."
Riven: "She's a ghost?"
Author: "No. She's a sequel I never meant to write. And now she's back. And she's rewriting from outside the story."
Syra looked at the fragments. Five remained. Two blank spaces still orbited like ghosts waiting to speak.
Syra: "So I can't complete the circle."
Author: "Not unless you find her."
Syra: "You want me to find the last Rewritebearer?"
Author: "No. I want you to stop her."
Syra: "You said she was like me."
Author: "She was. But she's not now."
He turned. The ground beneath them cracked and ink poured upward like black vines curling into sigils. In the center, a single word formed:
"BEGINNING."
Author: "She's gone to the start. Not of the story. Of the entire Archive. She's unthreading the idea of endings."
Riven (low): "If she succeeds…"
Author: "Then everything collapses. No finales. No fates. No change. Only loops of power feeding themselves until meaning starves."
Syra clenched her fists. The Key glowed brighter, feeding off her will.
Syra: "How do I find her?"
Author: "With the Key. But not yet. She's rewriting the vault that stores who deserves to wield the fragments."
Syra: "The Vault of Worth?"
Author: "No. Older. Deeper. She's reaching for the Origin Chapter. A page so sacred not even I was allowed to finish it."
Syra (flat): "Then I'll write it first."
The Author studied her.
Author: "Just be warned. When you meet her, she will know your story better than you do. She will know your doubts. Your edits. Your deleted scenes."
Riven: "And if she tries to overwrite Syra?"
Author: "She won't. She'll invite her."
That shook Syra more than anything else. The thought that her greatest enemy wouldn't be a monster or a tyrant—but someone who offered her peace.
Syra: "I'll refuse."
Author: "Make sure you still believe that when the offer comes."
He stepped back.
Reality tried to close behind him.
But not before he whispered one last truth:
Author: "There's a reason the Archive fears two Rewritebearers existing at once."
Author: "Because if you ever write together—"
He didn't finish.
He couldn't.
The page tore him away.
And the wind fell still.
Syra stood in the silence, her heart pounding, the Key glowing in her hand.
Syra (to herself): "Then I'll be the only one left writing."
The fragments whirled once more—five lights strong.
Two missing.
Two that never were.
Not yet.
End of Chapter 16 – Two That Never Were