The line in the grass hadn't disappeared.
He kept walking anyway.
Eventually, the field ended—not with a forest or a building, but with a doorframe standing alone, freestanding in the open. It had no walls, no hinges, just a knob on one side and an arch at the top. Someone had painted it a dull gold, and the paint was peeling like it had aged without ever being touched.
He stepped through it.
The world turned dark.
Then pale.
Then patterned.
Then… familiar.
A long corridor of warped shelves. Paper-thick air. Ink in the lungs.
The Archive.
The Archivist was waiting by a table.
No desk this time. No books.
Just a stack of blank pages.
The man didn't look up.
"You've made it further than you usually do," he said.
The protagonist didn't sit.
"I was outside."
"I know."
"You left a stage mark."
"You saw it," the Archivist said softly. "Good."
"I don't want to be part of this."
The Archivist looked up at that. Not startled. Just… sad.
"You already are."
The lights above them flickered.
In rhythm.
Not like electricity.
More like breathing.
More like blinking.
The Archivist tapped the blank page in front of him.
"It's being written again. As we speak."
"By who?"
The Archivist's smile was thin.
"Someone is still reading."
He took a step back.
The floor didn't creak. It waited.
"Reading what?"
"You," said the Archivist. "Or what's left of you."
"I don't understand."
"No," the Archivist said. "And if they keep going, you won't get to."
He flipped the page.
Blank.
Another.
Blank.
Then:
"You are forgetting this story in real time."
The protagonist felt his mouth dry.
His thoughts were slow.
There were no clocks here, but something in the Archive had changed. It felt… less stable. More brittle.
He turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" the Archivist asked.
"I don't know."
"You'll forget this part anyway."
And then, like a stage curtain falling—
he was gone.