Chapter 53 The Editor’s Blade
The clicking of the machine stopped. The silence in the white room was sharper than any knife. I stood there, my hand still locked in Kael’s, staring at the woman who looked like me. She didn’t have glowing eyes. She didn’t have glass skin. She looked like a professional killer in a fancy suit.
"Who are you?" I demanded. My heart was thumping against my ribs. "And why do you have my face?"
"I’m the author, Eara," the woman said. She adjusted her glasses, her eyes cold and bored. "I’m the one who decided your mother would be a monster. I’m the one who killed your father. And I’m the one who keeps putting Kael in your path just to rip him away. It makes for a great story, doesn't it?"
I felt a wave of pure, sick horror. Every ounce of pain I had suffered, the resets, the deaths, and the betrayal, wasn't just a machine. It was a choice. My life was a script written by a woman who viewed my blood as ink.
"You’re the master," Kael growled. He stepped in front of me, his body shielding mine. "You’re the one behind the Hive."
"The Hive is just a plot point," she said, waving the gun dismissively. "The readers love a big, scary villain. But we’ve reached the final chapter. The contract is ready. All I need is a tragic ending to make it a masterpiece. If the hero and heroine die together, the numbers will skyrocket."
She aimed the gun at Kael’s forehead.
"No!" I screamed.
I didn't reach for the Weaver's power. I reached for the desk. I flipped the heavy table with a roar of strength I didn't know I had. The clicking machine flew into the air, and the woman had to dive to the side to avoid being crushed by it.
"You think you can fight me?" the author laughed, rolling back to her feet. "I created you! I know your every move before you make it!"
"Then you know I’m tired of your story!" I yelled.
I lunged at her. We crashed onto the white floor. She was fast, but I was fueled by fifty chapters of revenge. I grabbed her wrist, trying to twist the gun away. We rolled across the room, hitting the walls that felt like cold plastic.
"Eara, get back!" Kael shouted. He was trying to find a way to help, but the room was changing.
The white walls began to show lines of text. Thousands of words scrolled past us in a blur of black and white. I saw my own name. I saw the word "death." I saw the word "ending."
"If I die, the world vanishes!" the author hissed, her knee slamming into my stomach. I gasped, the air leaving my lungs. "You’ll be nothing! Just a memory in a closed book!"
"I’d rather be nothing than a toy for you!" I choked.
I bit her hand, hard. She screamed and dropped the gun. It slid across the floor toward the scrolling text on the wall. Kael dived for it, but the floor opened up beneath him.
"Kael!"
"I’ve got it!" he yelled, hanging onto the edge of the pit with one hand and clutching the gun with the other.
The author kicked me out of her office office and stood up, smoothing her suit. She looked at Kael with a sneer. "You’re just a glitch, remember? I can delete you with a single thought."
She closed her eyes, and Kael’s body began to turn translucent. He let out a cry of pain as his legs started to vanish into digital smoke.
"Stop it!" I begged, crawling toward her. "Take me! Kill me instead! Just let him be!"
"Oh, Eara," she said, looking down at me with fake pity. "You still don't get it. The pain is what makes you special. Your suffering is the only thing that's real in this entire universe. If you’re happy, the story is over. And I can't let the story end yet."
She reached for the clicking machine on the floor. "I’ll just reset you back to Chapter One. We’ll try the 'Green World' again. Maybe this time I'll make Kael your brother. That would be a fun twist."
"No more resets," I whispered.
I didn't go for her. I went for the gun in Kael’s fading hand. I lunged across the pit, grabbing the weapon just as Kael’s fingers turned into mist.
I didn't point the gun at the author.
I pointed it at the scrolling text on the wall. I pointed it at the words that said Chapter 53.
"If I destroy the page," I said, my voice shaking but certain, "the story stops. Right here. Right now."
"You wouldn't," she said, her face turning pale. "You’ll erase yourself!"
"I’m already erased," I said.
I pulled the trigger.
The bullet didn't hit the wall. It hit the air, and the air shattered like glass. The white room exploded into a million pieces. The author screamed as she was sucked into a vortex of ink and paper.
I felt myself falling. I felt Kael’s hand grab mine one last time.
"Eara!" he shouted.
We hit something hard. Something cold.
I opened my eyes.
I wasn't in a white room. I wasn't in space. I was lying on a sidewalk in a busy city. Cars were honking. People were walking past us, looking down at their phones. It was real, cold, wet rain.
I looked at my hands. They were dirty. I had a scar on my palm. I felt the cold pavement against my skin.
"Kael?" I turned.
Kael was lying next to me. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He looked like a normal guy. He looked at me, and his eyes were wide with shock.
"We're... we're out?" he asked.
I looked up at a giant screen on a building across the street. It was an advertisement for a new book. The cover showed a girl with glass skin and a crown of black glass. The title was The Weaver’s Revenge.
And then, a black car pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down.
The woman from the white room was sitting in the back seat. She wasn't wearing a suit anymore. She was wearing a hoodie, and she looked terrified.
"Get in," she hissed. "The Publisher is coming, and he doesn't like it when the characters escape into the real world."
Behind her car, the street began to turn into black ink, swallowing the people and the buildings. A giant, silver pen descended from the sky, its tip aimed directly at the car.
"He's going to cross us out!" the woman screamed.