The sky's fissure closed with a snap, sealing the whispers away.
But their echo lingered in my skull, gnawing at me. The Candidate persists.
I tightened my fists. Was I the only one? Or… were there others before me?
The thought was unsettling. If someone else had been chosen and didn't survive, then this "Archivist Candidate" title wasn't a blessing—it was a test. And tests had failures.
The herb field lay in ruin, trampled by the Glitch Entity. Blue stalks flickered, half-formed, as if the world couldn't decide if they existed. I plucked a few more glowing leaves—careful this time—and tucked them into my makeshift inventory.
[Beginner Herbs: 4/5]
Almost done. Just one more.
I scanned the horizon. Beyond the green patch, the tiled ground stretched again, endless and empty. But in the distance—was that a shape?
I moved cautiously, Verdant Impact still humming faintly in my fist.
The shape resolved as I approached. It wasn't a structure. It wasn't a monster.
It was a person.
My chest tightened. A body lay sprawled across the cracked tiles, face down.
I hesitated. My instincts screamed to stay away, but curiosity dragged me forward. I knelt beside the corpse and turned it over.
The face was pale, waxy, frozen in terror. The eyes wide open, glassy, staring at nothing.
And the strangest part—he looked like me.
Not identical, but similar enough. Same age, same build, same dark hair. Like we'd been pulled from the same draft template, with only minor edits.
[Dead Player Detected.]
[Cause of Death: Paradox Overload.]
[Warning: Archivist Candidates are vulnerable to paradox accumulation.]
I recoiled. Paradox overload? Was that what would happen if I abused Annotation too much?
The body's chest flickered, momentarily glitching transparent. Inside, fragments floated like broken glass, pulsing faintly.
A prompt appeared:
[Draft Assimilation possible. Absorb fragments?]
I hesitated. This was another human—or had been. Was it right to consume what remained of him?
Then again… this world wasn't real. Was he?
I pressed my palm to the corpse's chest. The fragments dissolved into me.
[Fragments Assimilated.]
Failed Skill: Null Annotation.
Allows editing attempts without cost, but 80% chance of failure. Incomplete.
Memory Fragment: "Don't trust the Editors."
The skill shimmered weakly before lodging into my System. But the memory fragment… it struck me like lightning.
For an instant, I wasn't myself. I was him.
Running across endless tiles. Typing frantic annotations. Watching as the sky split open and something descended. Hearing whispers that promised salvation if he surrendered.
Then—darkness.
I gasped, jerking back to reality, the vision fading.
"Don't trust the Editors…" I murmured.
Who were they, really? The enforcers of stability? The authors of this Archive? Or something else?
And if this corpse was any indication… they didn't tolerate Candidates who bent the rules too far.
I stood, unsettled, glancing once more at the lifeless figure. Was I destined to end up the same?
The thought chilled me deeper than the silence ever had.
I pushed on.
Not long after, I found the last herb. It grew alone on a cracked tile, glowing faintly as though taunting me. I plucked it quickly.
[Beginner Herbs: 5/5]
[Quest Updated.]
Eliminate 3 Training Dummies (Completed)
Collect 5 Beginner Herbs (Completed)
Reach Level 2 (Completed)
[Tutorial Quest Complete.]
[Reward: Access to World Gate.]
A rumble shook the ground.
Ahead, a massive circular pattern etched itself into the tiles. Glyphs spiraled outward, glowing faint gold. In the center, a shimmering portal bloomed—liquid light, swirling endlessly.
The World Gate.
It called to me. A doorway out of this abandoned tutorial. A chance to step into something bigger.
But as I took a step forward—
The corpse's memory whispered again in the back of my mind.
"Don't trust the Editors."
A chill prickled my spine. What waited on the other side of the Gate? Another abandoned draft? Or something worse—an Editor waiting to erase me?
I clenched my fists, staring at the swirling light.
One step forward would mean leaving behind the silence, the dummies, the glitch fields.
One step forward would mean plunging deeper into the Archive.
And one step forward would mean accepting that I was not the first Candidate… and might not be the last.
Behind me, the corpse lay still.
Ahead, the portal pulsed.
The choice wasn't really a choice at all. If I stayed, deletion was inevitable. If I went… maybe I'd find answers.
I stepped into the light.
The world shattered.
Tiles peeled away into fragments. The frozen sky collapsed like torn parchment. Words rained down—snippets of quests, broken dialogues, half-finished lore entries. All dissolving into nothing.
And then—
Darkness.
For a heartbeat, I floated in a void filled with whispers. Voices arguing, rewriting, editing. Some wanted to erase me. Others wanted to use me.
And one, faint, almost drowned out, whispered directly into my mind:
"Write yourself, Candidate. Or be written."
Light flared.
A new world unfolded before me.
Not flat tiles this time. Not frozen clouds.
But a sprawling city of towers made of paper and ink, shifting endlessly, as if the buildings themselves were manuscripts constantly rewritten. Streets bent into paragraphs. Doors opened into footnotes. Citizens flickered like half-drawn characters, their outlines unstable.
And above it all, massive quills floated in the air, scribbling reality into being.
[Welcome to Draft World #27: City of Manuscripts.]
[Warning: World stability—27%. Collapse imminent if left unattended.]
I stared at the living city, heart pounding.
This wasn't just a world. It was a story being written, rewritten, abandoned, all at once.
And somehow, I was supposed to survive in it.
To be continued…