Salem came to, gasping, in what could only be described as the aftermath of a cosmic printer jam.
The world around him wasn't a world at all—just an expanse of floating, half-rendered scenery. A broken city skyline hovered at odd angles, some buildings cut off at the middle like someone had forgotten to finish drawing them. Fragments of text scrolled across the air: [Insert Character Development Here], Scene Missing: Fix in Revision 2, and Error: Salem.Grey not found in database.
He pushed himself up, every joint aching.
> "Okay… this is new," he muttered.
The ground beneath him flickered from cracked pavement to checkerboard grid, glitching with each step he took.
> "Where… am I?"
A familiar voice, dry and laced with dark humor, answered from everywhere and nowhere at once:
> "Congratulations, Salem. You've officially fallen out of the story."
> "Writer?" he asked, scanning the broken horizon.
> "Of course. You tore up the script and now you're in… well, we call it The Null Chapter. Where abandoned plot threads go to sulk."
> "And how do I get out?"
A pause. Then a laugh—sharp, amused, not entirely comforting.
> "Oh, you don't. Not unless you make yourself interesting enough to rewrite back in."
Salem groaned and kicked a nearby chunk of glitching pavement, which promptly turned into a question mark before dissolving into code.
> "So I'm just… what? Stuck here forever?"
> "Technically, you could always appeal to me," the voice teased. "Plead your case. Grovel. Readers love a desperate underdog."
> "I'm not begging," Salem shot back.
> "Suit yourself. Enjoy the void."
The voice faded, leaving him alone with the buzzing static.
---
He wandered aimlessly through the fragmented landscape. Occasionally, he'd stumble across pieces of familiar places—a café counter from two chapters ago, a bloodstained hallway he was pretty sure hadn't happened yet, a journal page with his own handwriting scrawled across it:
"Trust no one. Especially not the author."
Eventually, he found a door.
It wasn't attached to anything—just a simple red door standing upright in the emptiness. A hastily scribbled sign hung from the handle: "EXIT – PROTAGONISTS ONLY."
Salem hesitated.
> "I am the protagonist," he muttered, though it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.
He reached for the knob.
The door blinked out of existence, reappeared five feet to the left, and then again ten feet behind him.
> "Oh, come on!" Salem groaned, chasing it across the glitching floor. Each time he got close, the door shifted just out of reach, as if mocking him.
Finally, out of breath, he collapsed in a heap.
> "Fine. I give up."
A slow clap echoed across the emptiness.
He turned to see a figure approaching—a warped version of himself. Same face, same eyes, but with an unsettling grin that stretched too wide.
> "Who… are you?" Salem asked.
> "Me," the double said simply. "Or rather, the version of you that didn't survive the last draft."
The doppelgänger crouched, tilting his head.
> "Funny thing about being deleted—does wonders for your sense of humor. You're in my chapter now."
Salem scrambled backward.
> "Stay away from me."
The double laughed, the sound jagged and wrong.
> "Oh, relax. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to give you a choice."
He gestured, and two items materialized in his hands: a jagged key, pulsing with unstable energy, and a small, dog-eared script.
> "One of these gets you out. The other… puts you back in the story, but not as you. Think carefully, Salem. You don't get a do-over."
Salem hesitated, his mind racing. The buzzing static around them grew louder, more insistent, like the story itself was waiting for his decision.
> "Why are you helping me?"
> "Because if you don't move forward," the double said with a smirk, "we both get erased."
Salem stared at the key, then the script.
> "Which one is the right choice?"
The double grinned wider, teeth catching the glitch-light.
> "Oh, Salem… since when has anything in your life had a 'right' choice?"
The static surged, wrapping around them like a living storm. Salem lunged for—