The past is a ribbon, albeit very long, and because it leads to the future, it cannot simply cease existence. It is an imperceptible reality, but it is still there.
The future, however, is like a tapestry unraveling from the end. It cannot unravel from where it starts, only from where it ends.
"Was that it!? Why did I waste fifteen days reading this crap? I disposed of the valuable time I could have spent reading a book with at least a half-decent ending."
Hoku vigorously closed the cover of the thick book he spent many days reading, gazing at the surface with resentment.
Despite his imposing understanding of the complex scenarios, he hated that the story ended with the protagonist choosing to shatter his soul into terminal fragments rather than living together with his companions.
How selfish! He thought, both the author and protagonist!
Hoku slumped deep into a wooden chair, with a motionless expression. He ran a finger along the white crease on the book's spine.
Jiang Hao, his current caretaker, whom he still needed since he was seventeen, which is still the scope of a minor, worked as a history professor at an unpopular university.
Hoku's first meeting with family apart from his parents was by all means ill-fated.
His uncle, who claimed with documentation to be his father's brother, shook hands with him in a hospital.
The only details that burdened Hoku's identity were an unidentifiable hospital uniform, a lanyard with a broken clip, and abnormal responses when the nurses tried to inspect him.
His current situation wasn't as abnormal, the room he resided in was a gaudy vast room of books.
The walls shelved mostly antique books, an inevitable collector's interest when one's life revolves around teaching history.
Some of them were newer, but not too recent.
Further down the stacks were books written by authors that were old, but still alive.
Those were the stories that fascinated him most.
Hoku sighed, standing from the chair, dragging it across the room to the edge of the shelf, and pushing down on the backrest as he positioned himself onto the top of the chair.
There was a gap in the high-middle shelf precisely the same width as the book in his hand.
He pushed the book back into place.
Hoku has never shared admiration for the pieces of history that his uncle received, as gifts from female colleagues who were rather fond of him or online websites he spends his nights scrolling through rather than marking his students' theses on Industrialism.
He glances at the top shelf as he steps down from the chair.
Within that half-second peek a particular book with a stark white spine and no dust cover, or engraved title, slipped through the breaches of his usual philosophy of an eye-catching book cover.
He stands for a moment staring at it perhaps because it was the only white book on a shelf of books with eroding spines.
He pulled the book from its hold on the shelf, brushing his thumb over the pages while inspecting the peculiar blankness of the cover.
Upon opening the book, the pages snap apart as if they had never been opened during the presumably long period it had been published.
No dedications, just a vacant page without an author's signature.
The next page is the same.
Nothing.
So is the third page seemingly as though any title of ownership were pulled into a white void.
Hoku flips through the pages quicker, every other page more puzzling than the last. Somewhere in the pages, there is a wordless illustration.
This book is odd.
The page after it also had a picture with no text.
He turned the page back and forth as though context would appear in doing so.
The image on the twenty-third page was a neatly detailed drawing of what appeared to be the inside of an outdated house.
The interior was vast, and walls were heaped with messy bookcases that contained only clutter.
The drawing had a linear perspective, and some candelabras on the side walls were shaded darker than the ones on the main wall.
The next page had an atmospheric perspective of the main wall.
There was a book on the shelf that wasn't tinted like the other ones around it.
The book had a stark white spine.
The cover of the book he was holding also stood out on the shelf.
Almost like it was preserving itself from the damage of time.
Hoku flipped through the pages to see if there were any more peculiar illustrations, it was something that oddly intrigued him.
Blank. Is it supposed to be symbolic? Like an art piece?
He looked a second time at the filled pages.
Nothing looked out of place.
There was a rather large painting of a key propped against one of the bookshelves, the matrix of the painting was absent, and it was only a key.
Hoku thought that maybe it was an unfinished painting.
Losing interest, he rested it on the edge of the shelf, not feeling the need to put it back right away.
There wasn't enough space on the edge to balance the book, however, and it fell to the floor when he let go of it.
Hoku studied the book on the floor.
His uncle granted him access to almost every book in the room, but set distinct limits on the ones at the top.
Figuring he could hide it in the desk, he bent down to pick it up, but something was there that he hadn't noticed amidst flipping through the pages before.
The corner of a page, a shade much whiter than the other pages, was sticking out from the back.
Pulling the page from where it was seemingly hidden, revealed that it was not content from the book itself, but rather a poorly folded envelope that appeared to have been in the book sooner than when it was 'published'.
Maybe a birthday card? Is this a late gift?
Hoku turned the envelope to the back, and neat text composed a short message.
"Do not amend their mistakes, pertain to the present."
He scrunched his eyebrows in puzzlement and picked at the yellow wax on the other side.
Accidentally peeling it off came easier than understanding what had been written on the inside of the paper.
A series of numbers, separated by a degree symbol, and apostrophes were written at the end of the page, normally where someone would address themself after a letter.
There were also letters written in the array of digits, an N and an E, followed by a short message above them.
"This is a guide for the one without a sequence.
Our lonely navigator. See you soon 'Hoku' "
'Another strange entry from a mysterious correspondent.'
Rule 3
Sending written letters to the past will not change the future. Instead, the recipient will lose memories of the letter. If the correspondent personally delivered the letter... both parties are doomed.
Rule 4
Never go near a paradox. There are three kinds, all of which you should avoid.
Nonetheless, it is possible to escape some of them. The regular paradox is a single place where time has warped into a cage of recurring past. Rabbit holes are multiple parallel time frames.
Think of it as an addition to the same concept as a regular paradox, except multiply your chances of escaping by how many times you will be teleported to a different outcome of the past. Someone has yet to free themselves from an upside-down frame.
A reversed paradox does not repeat itself, nor can it alter an environment. There's no way of knowing you're inside until it is too late.
To be continued...