Six months.
That was all it took for my life to completely change.
And within a year, I wasn't just writing again—I was successful.
Every morning started the same way.
I would wake up, grab my phone, and check the latest chapter statistics before I had even gotten out of bed.
The numbers kept climbing.
Views.
Bookmarks.
Recommendations.
Comments.
Everything that had once felt impossibly far away was now right in front of me.
Every time I refreshed the page, dozens of new comments appeared.
[Rico: Author, this has to be your best work so far. Don't drop it!]
[Lily99: I stayed up all night binge-reading this. Please update faster!]
[DarkMoon: This protagonist is insane... I love it!]
[Stay Alone; Don't Fall in Love: Ugh, it's a crime I found this so early. Please post more. I'll pay anything.]
[CoffeeAddict: I skipped work to finish reading. Worth it.]
[AstralKnight: Crown Prince is about to destroy everyone and I'm here for it.]
[MoonlitReader: Why is every chapter better than the last?]
[KingOfMemes: Author is cooking harder than any writer on this site.]
The silence that had haunted me for years was gone.
My comment section was alive.
Readers laughed together.
They argued over theories.
They fought over who the best character was.
Some even created fan art.
For the first time in my life, people genuinely cared about something I had written.
Sometimes I would spend hours reading comments instead of writing.
It still felt unreal.
Years ago, I had stared at empty comment sections, wondering if I was simply screaming into the void.
Now strangers from all over the world were eagerly waiting for every new chapter.
Waiting for my words.
And every time I saw another notification appear, I remembered the message that had started it all.
Rebecka.
The mysterious reader who had handed me this story.
The lifeline that had pulled me out of the grave I had dug for myself.
But alongside the excitement, one question never left my mind.
Why me?
And more importantly...
Who exactly was Rebecka?
I tried contacting Rebecka again.
And again.
And again.
I sent messages.
Replies.
Emails connected to the account.
Anything I could think of.
Nothing.
No response ever came.
At first, I worried.
What if they suddenly appeared one day and accused me of stealing their ideas?
What if they exposed everything online?
The internet loved drama.
A single accusation could destroy years of work.
But nothing happened.
No posts.
No messages.
No demands.
Rebecka simply vanished.
It was as if they had fulfilled their purpose and disappeared from existence.
Leaving behind only ideas.
Ideas that had transformed me from a failed writer into one of the platform's fastest-rising authors.
And just like that, a year passed.
My life became busier than I had ever imagined.
Publishers started contacting me.
Interview requests appeared.
Fan communities formed around my novel.
There was even talk that The Astral Empire's Fallen Crown Prince Will Rise Again might receive its own WToon adaptation.
Nothing had been officially signed yet.
No contracts.
No announcements.
Just rumors.
But rumors alone were enough to make my heart race.
A WToon.
Something I had once only dreamed about.
I could already imagine it.
The Crown Prince standing atop a battlefield.
The Astral Empire stretching across the stars.
The Demons marching beneath blood-red skies.
My story would no longer exist only as words.
It would have art.
Movement.
Life.
I should have been celebrating.
I should have been the happiest person alive.
Yet somehow...
I wasn't.
One night, I sat alone in front of my computer.
The room was dark except for the pale glow of the monitor.
A blinking cursor waited patiently on an empty document.
The strange thing was that writing had become easy.
Too easy.
The chapters flowed effortlessly.
Scenes appeared in my mind with perfect clarity.
Dialogue practically wrote itself.
Sometimes it didn't even feel like I was creating anything.
It felt like I was remembering something.
As if the story already existed somewhere, and I was simply copying it down.
That thought always made me uncomfortable.
And whenever I noticed it, I would hear the same faint whisper in the back of my mind.
Keep going.
Just like that.
Don't stop.
I quickly shook my head.
Success was success.
Who cared where inspiration came from?
Still...
Late at night, I often found myself opening my old chat logs.
Scrolling back through every conversation I had ever shared with Rebecka.
Every word.
Every message.
Every strange hint.
I had memorized them all.
And every time I reached the end, I found myself asking the same question.
Where did you go?
The answer never came.
Months passed.
The novel continued growing.
But something else started happening.
Something strange.
Most comments were normal.
Readers discussing theories.
Readers praising chapters.
Readers demanding updates.
But occasionally...
A different type of comment would appear.
One that left an uncomfortable feeling in my chest.
[Watcher_01: Finally, it begins.]
[SilentReader: The fall of the Crown Prince... it is proceeding exactly as expected.]
[UnknownUser_77: Author, don't change the ending. We're watching.]
[EclipseObserver: Chapter 143 confirmed it. The timeline remains intact.]
[StarWitness: Good. The invasion should occur soon.]
The first time I saw them, I laughed.
Internet weirdos existed everywhere.
Nothing unusual.
But the comments kept appearing.
And what bothered me wasn't what they said.
It was that they always knew.
Somehow, they knew future plot points before I wrote them.
They predicted character deaths.
Major reveals.
Entire arcs.
Sometimes weeks before those chapters were published.
At first, I assumed they were guessing.
Then I started noticing how accurate those guesses were.
The feeling became harder to ignore.
And every time one of those comments appeared...
The whisper returned.
Keep going.
You're almost there.
I told myself I was imagining things.
That success had simply made me paranoid.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Eventually, I stopped thinking about it.
Or at least, I pretended to.
---
A few more months passed.
Part One of The Astral Empire's Fallen Crown Prince Will Rise Again was nearing its conclusion.
The framework Rebecka had provided was almost exhausted.
Soon, there would be nothing left.
No outlines.
No hidden notes.
No mysterious guidance.
After that, everything would depend on me.
Oddly enough, I wasn't worried.
A year ago, that thought would have terrified me.
Now?
I welcomed it.
I wasn't the same failed author who had nearly quit writing.
I had readers.
Fans.
Success.
People genuinely wanted to read what I wrote.
Surely I could carry the story forward myself.
With renewed confidence, I started planning future arcs.
I even began outlining an entirely new novel.
The excitement reminded me of why I had fallen in love with writing in the first place.
For the first time in years, I felt hopeful about the future.
Then came the day I finished Part One.
I uploaded the final chapter.
Readers exploded with excitement.
Comments flooded in faster than ever.
[AstralKnight: MASTERPIECE.]
[Lily99: NO WAY YOU ENDED IT THERE.]
[DarkMoon: Part Two when???]
[Watcher_01: The first stage is complete.]
I stared at that final comment longer than I should have.
Then I shook my head and laughed.
Coincidence.
Just another coincidence.
Right?
I opened a new document.
My fingers settled onto the keyboard.
The title of the next chapter sat at the top of the page.
[The Demon's Invasion]
And then—
Something felt wrong.
At first, it was just dizziness.
A slight blur in my vision.
I rubbed my eyes.
The feeling only worsened.
The room suddenly became too bright.
My monitor's light expanded until it swallowed everything.
White.
Nothing but white.
My hands froze above the keyboard.
I tried moving them.
Nothing happened.
My breathing became shallow.
My chest tightened.
Panic surged through me.
"What the—"
The words never finished.
My limbs stiffened.
My body stopped responding.
Fear gripped my heart.
Was it overwork?
Stress?
Some sudden illness?
I didn't know.
And I no longer had time to find out.
My vision darkened.
My thoughts became sluggish.
The last thing I saw was the chapter title glowing on the monitor.
[The Demon's Invasion]
Then the whisper returned one final time.
Closer than ever before.
As though someone was standing right beside me.
Good.
You've reached this part.
And then everything went black.