"Stories are eternal. They exist before us, and they will outlive us. But what happens when the storyteller becomes part of the tale?"
There's a certain irony in writing a tragedy.
It's the illusion of control—believing you're the master of every scene, every word, every fate. You sculpt the lives of characters with a few strokes of the pen, decide their joy or sorrow with the click of a keyboard. All-knowing. All-powerful. A god in your little fictional world.
But what happens when the tragedy swallows the god whole?
I suppose that's my story.
...
Before I woke up in this world, I was just a man—ordinary, unremarkable, and perhaps a little bitter. I wasn't the kind of person you'd stop and notice on the street. My life was simple, as all forgotten lives are. Wake up. Work. Write. Repeat.
The only thing that separated me from the crowd was my obsession with stories.
It started when I was young—when I first discovered the escape that fiction offered. Books, games, movies, comics… I devoured them all. The real world was dull and restrictive, but in stories? You could be anyone. A hero, a villain, an emperor, a shadow lurking behind the scenes.
Eventually, I decided I'd write my own.
And I did.
For years, I poured everything I had into my manuscript. The Chronicles Of Avaris—a story of power, fate, and control. It was my magnum opus, the one thing I was proud of in my otherwise uneventful life. The characters lived in my mind: the hero with unwavering conviction, the villain who danced on the line between madness and brilliance, and the world I built from scratch—one brimming with magic and mystery.
I loved it all.
And yet, when the story ended… so did my purpose.
"What's next?" I'd ask myself. But no answer came. The world moved on without me. Rejections piled up, my manuscript gathering dust on forgotten shelves. I'd created something beautiful, but the world didn't care.
Slowly, neither did I.
…..
The day it happened was no different than any other. The same cracked coffee cup sat on my desk. The same dim light flickered above me. I sat hunched over my computer, staring at the final line of my story:
"The world may be written, but its ending is never truly set in stone."
I remember lingering on that sentence, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. It felt… final. Like a door closing.
And then, the light went out.
The room plunged into darkness.
"What the hell…?" I muttered, fumbling for my phone. But before I could reach it, something strange happened. A sound—like whispers, soft and urgent—filled the air. I couldn't make out the words, but the voices grew louder, like a thousand pens scratching against paper.
The screen of my computer flickered back to life.
Only… the words were changing. My manuscript, the one I'd written with my own hands, was being rewritten before my eyes.
"You are not the author anymore."
"What—"
A blinding light exploded from the screen. I didn't have time to scream.
…..
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the cold.
The air bit at my skin, and the ground beneath me was hard—stone, smooth and unyielding. I blinked against the strange, flickering light above me and sat up.
A throne.
There was a throne in front of me. Ornate and golden, its red velvet seat inviting yet menacing. And sitting upon it… was him.
A man who looked like me, yet didn't. Sharper features. Darker eyes. An aura of power I could never possess.
It took me a moment to realize who he was.
The villain.
My villain.
The one I'd created with my own words.
And then I saw my reflection in the mirrored walls surrounding us. The blood drained from my face.
Because the man staring back at me… was him.
The villain.
The whispers returned, louder now.
"Welcome back, Author. Your story's narrative has changed."
I don't know who brought me here, or why. I don't know who's pulling the strings now, but I know this:
I'm no longer the one holding the pen.
I am a character in my own story—a villain with no place, no allies, and a world that hates him. But if there's one thing I still have, it's this:
I know the ending.
And I'll rewrite fate itself if I have to.
Because this isn't just my story anymore.
It's our story.
And no one—no one—will decide how it ends but me.