The wasteland stretched endless.
Kael trudged across dunes that shifted beneath his boots like liquid, grains of sand sliding over one another in restless currents. Each step felt both too heavy and too light, as though gravity itself flickered. When he looked back, his footprints were gone—swallowed in an instant.
The two suns above did not move. Their light was flat, draining the world of shadow and depth, leaving everything washed in gray. Kael couldn't tell if minutes or hours passed. A story with no time… The thought unsettled him more than the silence.
Only the tower anchored the horizon, fractured glass rising higher than mountains. The chains wrapped around it rattled faintly, sometimes jerking as if pulled from within.
Kael paused on a dune's crest and touched the indigo book pulsing at his chest. "You brought me here. But what am I supposed to do?" His voice cracked in the emptiness. "Preserve… rewrite… or just survive?"
The wind rose, carrying whispers. Not words exactly—more like fragments of them, syllables cut loose from meaning. They brushed his ears, sharp as glass, then vanished. Kael shivered. "Even the air is breaking apart."
He pressed on.
---
Hours—or moments—later, he found the first sign of something living. At the base of a dune, a figure lay half-buried in sand. Its body was made of parchment strips, torn and curling, with black ink bleeding across its surface like veins. Its head was a hollow mask, blank, no eyes.
Kael knelt cautiously. The figure twitched, then reached up with trembling fingers, clutching his wrist. Its touch was dry, brittle, yet burning.
"…Actor…" it rasped. The voice was like pages tearing. "…The story… unravels. Fix… or fracture… no middle…"
Kael's throat tightened. "You mean me. I'm the actor."
The figure's grip weakened. The parchment strips unraveled further, scattering in the wind until nothing remained but a smear of ink that hissed into the sand.
Kael sat frozen, staring at the emptiness left behind. Fix or fracture. No middle.
His heartbeat echoed that phrase with every step as he moved onward.
---
The closer he came to the tower, the harsher the world became. The dunes grew jagged, edges cutting like blades. Shards of glass jutted from the sand, reflecting the still suns. They formed broken paths that threatened to slice his boots open.
And the whispers grew louder.
"…Unmade…"
"…Forgotten…"
"…Rewrite me…"
Kael clenched his fists. "This isn't just a story. It's… people. Voices trapped inside."
At last, he reached the shadow of the tower. Up close, it was worse than he imagined—vast walls of cracked glass, seams crawling with black veins of shadow. The chains clanked, each link as thick as a man's torso, embedded deep into the glass.
From within, faint and haunting, came the song again. A voice, melodic but strained, repeating the same four notes.
Kael pressed a hand against the glass. It was cold, trembling beneath his touch. The song shifted for an instant, as if aware of him.
He swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
The chains jerked, and the tower groaned in answer.
Kael took a step back. He didn't know if he had just awakened a prisoner… or something far worse.