The quill in Elliot grey's hand froze, its tip hovering over the page, shaking slightly. The scene was almost done—just one more line, and it would be perfect.
The character was about to face their fate, the villain holding a knife, ready to strike. But something caught in Elliot 's chest. A tiny spark of humanity in the villain's eyes—was it mercy? Regret?
It didn't fit. He couldn't finish it like this.
Elliot 's hand shook with frustration, but no matter how hard he tried, the quill refused to move. The ink at the tip dried into a crust. The story was almost done, but he couldn't reach it.
What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he write?
Anger and confusion swirled in his mind. He slammed his fist down on the desk, the quill snapping in two, and ink spilled across the page like dark blood. It was just one line. He only needed one more line.
In a burst of rage, he grabbed the manuscript. His hands, shaking with rage, tore it from the desk and threw it into the fire.
The flames crackled, eagerly consuming the pages.
But something strange happened. The fire didn't burn the manuscript the way it should have.
It hesitated.
The flames flickered unnaturally, like they were fighting back. The words on the paper twisted and moved as if the ink itself refused to burn.
Elliot took a step back, a cold chill running down his spine. Could it be? Could the words… be alive?
He stepped closer to the fire, heart pounding. The manuscript curled and blackened, but it still didn't burn completely. The edges of the pages reached out like fingers, grasping for something, anything. They finally snapped away.
And then he saw them.
Their faces.
His unfinished characters. Some were barely sketched out. Others were more complete but still broken; incomplete.
There was the soldier, frozen in battle but missing the lines that would finish his fight. The woman, her arms forever reaching for a hug that would never come. Their eyes were empty, full of silent pain, staring at Elliot .
They looked at him, mouths moving but no sound came out.
Elliot 's breath caught. The fire split. The air turned cold, and from the smoke and ashes, a hand appeared—his hand.
But this was no ordinary hand. It was darker than any shadow, dripping with ink. Sentences crawled across the skin like snakes, scratching at him, pulling at his very soul.
The grip was firm and unyielding as it grabbed his arm. The ink bled into his veins, flowing through him like cursed vines. He gasped, but no air came. He tried to scream, but his voice was swallowed by the very words he had written.
The manuscript—his manuscript—came back out of the fire, whole again, but the words… the words were wrong.
The hero, once brave and kind, was now cruel, their every move full of hate. The villain, once evil and heartless, was now gentle and kind. The story he had written had twisted, its meaning turned upside down.
Elliot tried to pull away, but the hand dragged him into the flames.
And then, darkness swallowed him whole.
Elliot grey woke in the Limbo of Lost Stories.
It was a dark place, made of shadows and broken dreams, where the air hummed with the sound of forgotten words. It was a world of unfinished chapters, lost dialogues, and abandoned plots, stuck between what was and what could have been.
Elliot 's body felt strange. His skin was covered in half-formed sentences, like ink had become his flesh. His fingers were long and stained with dark ink. His eyes were empty, like something important was missing.
The quill he had once used to write was now a weapon.
He could feel it—alive with power, but for what? For whom? He no longer remembered why he wrote, or even who he was.
But there was no time for answers.
He walked through the Limbo, every step echoing with the weight of lost potential. He could hear the whispers of stories that would never be finished. The broken characters from his pages wandered aimlessly, their eyes dull, their futures lost.
Then he saw it.
The first story he would destroy.
A lonely hero walked down a dirt road, bound by clichés. Their fate was already set—a rise, a fall, and a final victory. It was the same story he had written a thousand times, the same ending over and over.
Elliot's blade glowed coldly in the dim light. He raised it, and with one strike, he tore through the story. The hero's path shattered beneath their feet, the road disappearing into nothing.
The hero fell as the story crumbled before them.
Elliot Grey, the Hunter of Narratives, took his first tale.
And it would not be his last.