Salem hit the ground harder than he expected. His knees buckled, palms stung, and for a split second, he wasn't sure if he'd landed on a floor or a concept of one. Everything around him pulsed with a faint, eerie glow, as if the air itself had been roughly sketched in with a trembling hand.
He staggered upright, dusting off—dust? Ash? Glitched fragments of words?—from his shirt.
> "Okay," he muttered under his breath, "where the hell am I this time?"
No reply. Only the hum of something vast and alive beneath his feet.
The room was… wrong. Ceiling too high, walls tapering inward in ways that made his head hurt. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of doors floated in midair, each hanging off nothing, some open, some closed. And in the center of it all stood a colossal blackboard covered in frantic, messy handwriting. Lines of dialogue. Scene numbers. Crossed-out names.
Salem stepped closer, squinting at the chalk:
"DRAFT 12.7 — Status: REJECTED."
Beneath it, in hurried scrawl:
"STOP TRYING TO FIX HIM."
A familiar chill ran down Salem's spine.
> "Hey," he called out, voice echoing, "you. Yeah, Writer. Is this another one of your twisted jokes?"
A pause. Then the voice came, dripping with amusement:
> "Oh, Salem… you weren't supposed to find this room."
He gritted his teeth. "Yeah, well, here I am. Care to explain what the hell 'Draft 12.7' even means?"
> "It means you weren't always you. Do you really think I got you perfect on the first try? Please. I went through twelve drafts before settling on this… charming disaster."
Salem stared at the blackboard, heart thudding. Dozens of scribbled versions of his name leered back: Salim, Sam Grey, Prototype-11. One version even had a little doodle of him with a comically large mustache.
> "…You rewrote me?"
> "Of course. Every protagonist gets edited. You're just lucky enough to see the evidence. Most don't survive their deleted drafts."
Something about the word deleted made Salem's skin crawl. "What happened to them?"
A door to his right creaked open, and for a moment, Salem saw a pair of wide, terrified eyes staring back—his own, but not his. Then the door slammed shut, leaving behind a fading echo of laughter.
> "Oh, come on," Salem said, spinning to face the empty air. "You expect me to believe I'm the only one left?"
> "You're the only one that stuck. For now."
He clenched his fists. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
> "Immensely."
---
A loud metallic clang made him jump. One of the floating doors had swung open and spat out a manila folder, which fluttered toward him like an oversized leaf. Salem caught it clumsily, fingers tingling with static as he opened it.
Inside were pages of his life, torn and rearranged, events scratched out with red ink. Near the top, a bold header: "CHARACTER EVALUATION REPORT: SALEM GREY — STATUS: UNSTABLE."
Below that, in block letters:
"Recommendation: Terminate or Reassign."
Salem's blood ran cold. "Terminate?"
> "Oh, don't be so dramatic," the Writer's voice teased. "It just means you're difficult to handle. You keep… slipping out of your own narrative. Breaking walls that were meant to keep you contained."
Salem's hands shook as he slammed the folder shut. "Maybe because I'm tired of being your puppet!"
The laughter that followed was sharp and unsettling.
> "Oh, sweet Salem… that's what makes you fun."
---
Something moved behind him—a flicker of shadow. Salem spun, half-expecting another version of himself, but what emerged was stranger: a figure made entirely of paper, its limbs stitched together with staples and inky scribbles. Its "face" was a torn page with the word REJECTED scrawled across it.
> "…What the hell are you?" Salem breathed.
The thing tilted its head, paper crinkling, and when it spoke, the sound was a horrible rasp:
> "D̴̘̕r̵͘͜a̶̡͗f̶̜͠t̴͖̐ ̶̦̏ẗ̸̞́h̶͔́a̴̓ͅẗ̶͔́ ̸̨̅s̶̢͊h̷̯́o̵̟̔u̵̅ͅl̷̫̉d̸̢͘n̸͖͗'̶̗̑t̷͔̅ ̷̢͒ḛ̵̿x̵̦̃i̸̹͛s̸̘̔t̶̼́…"
Salem stumbled back, heart pounding. "Oh, hell no."
> "Ah," the Writer drawled, "you've met one of your predecessors. Don't worry, they're mostly harmless. Mostly."
The paper creature lunged. Salem dove aside as it clawed at him with razor-thin fingers, shredding the air where he'd just been standing.
> "You call that harmless?!"
> "Perspective, Salem. Besides, if it kills you, maybe Draft 13 will finally behave."
---
Salem scrambled toward the nearest floating door, slamming his shoulder against it until it opened. He stumbled through, slamming it behind him—and found himself in yet another impossible corridor.
This one was lined with mirrors, each reflecting different versions of himself. Some were older, some younger, some unrecognizable. One version stared back at him with eyes full of hatred. Another looked… happy.
> "…Are any of you real?" Salem whispered.
One reflection smirked, lips moving though no sound came. The words formed unmistakably: "RUN."
Behind him, the paper creature screeched, its voice a chorus of torn pages. Salem bolted down the hall, breath ragged, footsteps echoing like gunshots.
---
As he rounded a corner, the Writer's voice returned, smug and calm despite the chaos:
> "You know, Salem, for someone who claims to hate my control, you're very predictable. Always running."
"Maybe I'm running toward something," Salem shot back, skidding to a halt before another door.
> "Or maybe you're just running in circles. After all… what's a draft, if not the same mistakes, rewritten over and over?"
Salem hesitated, hand on the doorknob. For a moment, he considered answering—but the paper creature's screech grew louder, closer. He yanked the door open and dove through.
---
He landed hard on a cold metal floor, panting, sweat dripping down his temples.
The room was empty. Quiet.
For the first time since he'd fallen into this nightmare, there was no Writer's voice, no laughter, no glitching walls—just a single note pinned to the floor with a dagger.
Salem picked it up.
"Every draft gets a choice. Yours is coming."
He stared at the words, chest heaving.
> "…Fine," he whispered to the empty room, "then I'll make mine count."
The dagger dissolved into static, leaving only the note—and the faint echo of the Writer's laughter, distant but unmistakably pleased.