The glow of her laptop was the only thing in the Alina's room half-light. Outside, the city was quiet, save for the distant of traffic. Alina started at the blinking cursor in the chat box Her heart was pounding like she'd just run a marathon, through all she had done was sit on her chair and stare at one sentence .
''Don't you think it's cruel to leave a story..... and your..... reader without an ending.''
She sat cross-legged on her chair, half-ready to log off, half-ready to never return. She had almost convinced herself the earlier messages weren't real, just some cosmic accident, some stranger who'd wandered into her forgotten corner of the internet. But no, he was still there, waiting.
Her throat tightened . After fiver years of silence... Someone still remembered?
She bit her lip and typed.
Alina:Not every story deserves a happy ending.
She hit send button before she could second guess herself. The message felt too sharp, Too defensive. A confession wrapped in barbed wire. She leaned back, folding her arms like she could protect herself from whatever he'd throw back. She couldn't help it. Writing had once been her lifeline and abandoning it was the wound she still carried in secret.
The reply came almost instantly. he wasn't someone who randomly message her and disappear. He was still there.
ScriptBreaker: "True, But some stories deserve better ending, than the way end them"
Alina froze when she heard him say it. It depends on us how to end it. his voice feels like echo the voice wasn't mocking... just steady, calm, the kind of statement that felt like the truth pressed the flat against her skin and that was precisely and why does it hurt me.
Because she had spend nights drowning in silence, mind that doesn't stop generating new ideas and new scene. Pages staring back at her, stories she had started but she could never finish. She knew the ache of reaching halfway and then falling apart. She knew what it was to write a love story so much that it becomes a piece of her heart, only to abandon it because the weight became unbearable.
She didn't want to show it to anyone, but she felt it ... the sting of someone stepping on the very nerve she had been hiding.
He doesn't understand. How could he? To him, maybe stories were puzzles, broken but fixable, always deserving of better ending. To her, they were fragile veins of glass that sometimes cracked beyond repair.
She typed-
Alina :"You don't get it'' [Then undo it, a lots of things were in her mind but she couldn't be able to type, all of them]
She started at her words.
Too raw.
She tried again-
Alina : Sometimes stories don't reach their ending because they die along the way. Do you know what it feels like ? To hold something so close, To pour yourself into it , only to watch it bleed out before you even make it to the last chapter?
No. He'll never understand.
Backspace. Delete!
her thoughts aren't leaving her alone. one ..... another one..... one after one.... her mind filling her slowly... slowly... When her heart refuse to move forward . the story is still alive in her head , but, spirit is too tired to carry it to the end
Her gaze landed on the pamphlet still lying on the table, the one that had brought her here. Words about ''Genuine love stories" started back mocking.
She typed again -
Alina:You think unfinished story deserve better? Then tell me .... what do you do with the ones that crushed you hallway through? The ones that left scars on your chest because you couldn't save them, no matter how hard you tried?
She couldn't press enter. Couldn't give hose words away.
Too personal. To close. Too dangerous.
Backspace. Delete.
again.
Alina:You don't get it. Sometimes stories die before the ending arrives. Sometimes you run out of strength before the words run out.
She pressed send and immediately regretted it. It slipped too easily.
The reply came slower this time, like he was considering every syllable.
ScriptBreaker: I've read countless stories, but only yours left me haunted.
Alina's chest tightened. No one had ever asked her that. Not Maya, not her classmates, not even herself. She had buried the unfinished manuscript like it was a wound she didn't dare reopen.
Alina: It doesn't matter anymore. It's been five years. People moved on. Even I moved on.
It didn't took a minute for him to reply.
ScriptBreaker:You didn't. If you had, you wouldn't still feel this ache when you look at it.
Alina blinked at the screen. Ache. That was the word. He'd named the thing she couldn't explain, the quiet sting she felt every time she saw her old notebooks stacked in the corner, gathering dust. Her hands trembled slightly as she typed.
Alina:Why does it matter to you? Why after all this time?
ScriptBreaker: Because you don't understand what you gave me. I found pieces of myself in your words. And when you stopped… it felt like someone turned off the light in the middle of my favorite chapter.
Her throat went dry.
She hadn't imagined her writing had reached that far. She thought of the nights she stayed awake at seventeen, hunched over her notebook, pouring pieces of herself into the story, believing nobody would ever care. And yet...someone had cared... someone out there read her words just like she felt when she wrote it.
Alina: You make it sound like it was more than just a story.
ScriptBreaker: Isn't it? A story.... is... a ...mirror. Yours reflected in me. In ways I can't explain.
Alina closed her eyes. She hated this. How he could make her feel seen without even knowing her. It was dangerous. It was addictive.
She typed slowly, almost whispering to herself as she wrote:
Alina:And if I told you I never had an ending in mind? That maybe the story was always meant to stay broken?
There was silence. She stared at the empty chat box, heart pounding.
Then, finally.....
ScriptBreaker:Then I'd say the ending isn't always what you write. Sometimes the ending is what you choose to live.
Her breath caught. She sat frozen, the glow of the screen reflecting the tears she hadn't realized were gathering. It was absurd crying over words from a stranger. But it wasn't just the words. It was the timing. The way they landed exactly where she had built her walls. For a long time, she didn't reply. She tucked her knees to her chest, staring at the blinking cursor as if it held the answer to her life.
And then, finally, she typed:
Alina:I don't know who you are..... but right now, it feels like you understand me more than anyone else does.
The answer came, sharp and soft all at once:
ScriptBreaker:Maybe that's because I don't see who you are. I only see who you are in words. And words don't lie, the way people do.
Alina's chest rose and fell unevenly. She couldn't stop staring at that sentence. She wanted to argue, to say that words do lie, that even her stories were masks sometimes. But deep down, she knew he was right. Her words....the ones she'd written years ago....hadn't lied. They had been the truest version of herself. And now this stranger was holding them up to her like a mirror she couldn't avoid.
Alina:You've reminded me of something I tried to forget. What do you expect me to do?
ScriptBreaker:Write. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of her laptop. She wanted to slam it shut, to shut him out before he dug deeper. But another part of her....the part that used to stay up until dawn chasing sentences was wide awake again. Her lips trembled as she typed:
Alina:You're impossible.
ScriptBreaker: And you're predictable. You'll come back. Maybe not tonight. But soon. You'll write again, Inkheart.
Alina's breath caught. Inkheart. A username she had chosen years ago, back when she believed in magic and words, when she thought she could bend stories the way children bend light through glass. Nobody had called her that in five years. Seeing it again felt like someone had gently cracked open a door she'd bolted shut. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She wanted to say something dismissive, don't call me that. but her hands betrayed her.
She pressed a hand against her mouth, a startled laugh slipping out. Half disbelief, half something warmer. She hadn't been called Inkheart in years, and suddenly, hearing it from a stranger felt like being reminded of who she used to be.
The chat fell silent after that. Alina stared at the last line, glowing on her screen.
"You'll write again, Inkheart."
Her heart ached, but for the first time in years, it wasn't from regret. It was from possibility.