Salem woke up face-first on something that felt suspiciously like… printer paper. Not the soft, comforting kind. No. This was the cheap stuff—thin, crinkly, and sharp enough to slice a thumb.
When he pushed himself up, hundreds—no, thousands—of loose pages slid off his back like a paper avalanche. The ground wasn't ground at all. It was text.
Sentences. Paragraphs. Whole scenes scattered like litter.
His name appeared again and again in bold letters across different sheets. Some lines were familiar. Others… weren't.
"Salem wakes up screaming. Salem accepts his fate. Salem dies horribly."
He blinked. "Excuse me, what?"
[PATCH NOTES LOADING…]
Salem whipped around. The words weren't just floating—they were scrawled across the sky. Like someone had taken a cosmic marker and decided to write patch updates on reality.
---
PATCH 1.28 — CHANGES & FIXES:
Increased glitch frequency by 300%.
Added sarcasm to protagonist's dialogue (mandatory).
Nerfed existential dread (was too OP).
Removed romantic subplot. (You're welcome.)
---
"What the hell is this?" Salem shouted, voice cracking against the empty horizon.
"Patch notes, genius."
The voice was back. The Writer.
"Oh, fantastic," Salem groaned, throwing his hands up. "What now? You're updating my misery?"
"Not misery—balance. You were getting overpowered with that whole 'defying narrative' arc."
"I literally almost died falling through a hole in reality!"
"And yet here you are. Breathing. Ungrateful."
Salem dragged a hand down his face. "Fine. Whatever. Just… stop messing with everything for five minutes!"
"Hmm… no."
And then—BOOM.
A ripple tore through the paper ground, blasting pages into the air like confetti at a nightmare parade. Salem staggered backward as giant floating UI boxes materialized around him.
---
QUEST UPDATED:
Title: Survive This Chapter (Good Luck)
Objective: Don't die during rewrite.
Reward: Temporary sense of control (expires in 3 seconds).
---
Salem stared at it, jaw tight. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Nope! Oh, and I added a mini-game."
Another box popped up.
---
PRESS [Y] TO ACCEPT TERMS OF SERVICE OR FACE DELETION.
---
"I'm not pressing anything!"
"Oh, Salem. Sweet, naive Salem."
The box grew teeth. Actual, sharp, glistening teeth. It lunged at him like a rabid animal. Salem dove sideways just as the UI snapped shut where his head had been.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" he screamed, scrambling to his feet.
"Dynamic gameplay."
"THIS ISN'T A GAME!"
"Everything's a game if you code it right."
---
Salem bolted. Pages crunched underfoot as more UI monsters spawned behind him, snapping and growling like broken code given fangs. His lungs burned. His head pounded. And then—
CUT.
Everything froze. Mid-run, mid-breath, mid-scream.
Salem couldn't move. His body locked, trapped in a half-crouch. Only his eyes twitched.
"…Hhhhhhwhat… the… hell?" His voice dragged like a corrupted audio file.
"I said CUT!"
The Writer's voice boomed louder than ever, dripping with irritation.
"You're ruining my pacing, Salem! We had tension, suspense, a killer action beat—and you just had to make it weird!"
"How is THIS not weird?!" Salem croaked.
"Weird in the wrong way. Look, I'm doing a rewrite."
"A—what?"
"Rewrite. You know, snip some dialogue, polish the tone, make you less whiny—"
"I'M NOT WHINY!"
"—and maybe add a hot love interest who actually likes you. Because right now, readers are here for chaos, but even chaos needs sexy tension, Salem."
"…Are you… flirting with me?"
"Excuse me? No. Ew. You're fictional."
"YOU'RE TALKING TO ME!"
"Irrelevant! Now shut up while I—"
The Writer paused. The air crackled. Something heavy pressed against the scene, like a second presence leaning in.
"What the… No. No, no, no—GET OUT OF MY CHAPTER."
Salem blinked. "Wait. Who are you talking to?"
No answer—just static. Thick, choking, electric static that wasn't the Writer's style.
The patch notes overhead flickered. Words scrambled. Then they rearranged into something else:
---
NEW AUTHOR DETECTED.
TAKING CONTROL…
---
Salem's blood ran cold. "What the—"
The sky shattered like glass. A thousand shards of story came crashing down, cutting through the paper floor and skewering the UI beasts like bugs.
And then a voice—smooth, dark, dangerous—slid into his head.
"Hello, Salem. Your Writer… was boring. Let's make things interesting."
The frozen world convulsed. Everything—pages, HUDs, shards—was sucked into a swirling black hole above him. Salem's body unpaused, hurling him forward onto his knees as the darkness expanded.
"Who—" he started, voice trembling.
The new voice chuckled softly.
"Not who. When."
A hand—pale, clawed, unreal—reached down through the black hole and curled around Salem's wrist.
And then the chapter cut to black.