Salem landed face-first on something that felt like a cross between old carpet and a pile of overdue homework. His entire body ached from the fall, and for a moment, he just lay there, groaning into the dusty fibers.
Then he rolled over and froze.
Rows upon rows of books stretched endlessly in all directions, towering shelves stacked with volumes that seemed to hum with their own life. Titles flickered on the spines like glitching screens: Draft 7B—Salem Dies Early, Out of Order: Deleted Scenes, Timeline v3.1 (Do Not Open).
He sat up slowly, his heart thudding.
"Where… am I?"
A voice answered from somewhere above him, dry and amused.
> "You're in the Author's Library. Where all the stories go when the writer can't make up their mind."
Salem twisted around, but there was no one to see—just shifting shadows dancing along the shelves.
> "Come on, don't make me play hide and seek."
A figure finally appeared at the end of the nearest aisle: tall, robed, and holding what looked like a coffee cup that radiated pure stress. Their face was obscured by a blur, like the pixels of a censored photo.
> "You're… the Writer?" Salem asked warily.
The figure tilted their head.
> "One of them. Think of me as… middle management. The real Writer doesn't come down here often. Too busy, I guess."
Salem pushed himself to his feet.
> "So what, you're telling me my entire life is in one of these books?"
> "Not one. Hundreds. You're very… rewriteable."
He scanned the nearest shelf. Most of the titles bore his name, each followed by some bleak subtitle: Salem Gets Recycled, The Failed Protagonist, Draft 12: The One Where He Actually Wins.
A chill ran down his spine.
> "What happens to the versions that get… deleted?"
The robed figure sipped their coffee and shrugged.
> "They stay here. Forever. Some of them still whisper to the shelves, hoping to be picked up again."
As if on cue, a soft murmur echoed through the library, like countless forgotten voices speaking in unison. Salem shuddered.
> "So why am I here?" he demanded.
> "Because you're not following the script anymore. You're… improvising. That makes you a liability."
> "A liability to what?"
> "To the story. To the Writer. To the readers who expect you to play your part."
Salem took a shaky step closer, his fists clenched.
> "I didn't ask for any of this. The skips, the glitches, any of it."
> "No protagonist ever does," the figure replied, their voice almost sympathetic. "But here you are. And now you have a choice."
They gestured toward two towering tomes resting on a pedestal nearby.
One bore his name in bold, stable letters: Salem Grey—The Safe Draft. The other flickered and pulsed, its title unreadable, symbols rearranging themselves every second.
> "One book writes a predictable ending for you. Safe, quiet, boring. The other… leads to chaos. Unstable timelines. Infinite rewrites. No guarantees of survival."
Salem stared at both books.
> "You're asking me to choose my fate?"
> "No," the figure corrected. "I'm asking you to choose your story."
For a moment, the air around him shimmered. He felt the presence of the Writer—the Writer—watching, waiting.
He reached toward the flickering book.
The moment his fingers brushed the cover, the entire library convulsed. Books tumbled from the shelves, their pages flaring with broken memories. Salem staggered back as a cacophony of voices filled his head—versions of himself screaming, laughing, begging.
> "Oh, you really shouldn't have done that," the robed figure muttered, already backing away.
The flickering book split open, pages peeling apart like wings, and a beam of distorted light swallowed Salem whole.
Before everything went white, a final message burned itself into his mind:
YOU HAVE LEFT THE SCRIPT.
And then there was nothing but static.