1st POV----
I learned three things on the day I realized I was already dead.
First: the palace bells rang for everyone except me.Second: history had finished writing my name.Third: I was still hungry.
That last one felt especially unfair.
My name, at least, the one printed in the Annals of Veritas was Prince Alaric Veyne, third heir of the Solarian Throne, executed for treason in the winter of the forty-second year of King Halbrecht's reign. According to the book, I had knelt calmly, confessed nothing, and bled beautifully on the marble steps.
According to me, I woke up choking on cold air and incense smoke, lying on a palace floor no one bothered to sweep for ghosts.
I wasn't Alaric.I was Evan Mercer, doctoral candidate in comparative literature, caffeine addict, and proud owner of a completely unremarkable life on Earth.
I would have preferred being stabbed. At least that would have made sense.
The palace of Solaria smelled like old paper and sun-warmed stone. I noticed this because I had nothing else to do but observe. When servants passed through the corridor, their sleeves fluttered straight through my hands. When I spoke, my voice echoed once, softly, then vanished like a footnote no one bothered to read.
That was when I understood my situation.
I had transmigrated.
Not in the heroic sense. Not even in the embarrassing "villain wakes up in a novel" sense. I hadn't taken over a body. I hadn't replaced a soul.
I had arrived late.
In Veritas, there is a concept called an Ending. Everyone knows it, the way people on Earth know gravity exists but pretend it doesn't apply to them. An Ending is the moment when your life aligns perfectly with the Annals birth, rise, fall, death. Once your Ending is recorded, the world considers you complete.
Prince Alaric's Ending had already been written.
And I had appeared after the period.
They call people like me Unwritten.
I learned that term from the first person who could see me.
His name was Julien Crowe, Royal Historian of Solaria, Keeper of the Annals, and the only man in the palace who flinched when I spoke.
He was sitting alone in the Archive Hall when I drifted in because drifting was all I could do staring at a massive book chained to a stone pedestal. The book was alive. Not metaphorically. Its pages turned on their own, ink rearranging itself like a thoughtful animal.
The Annals of Veritas.
Julien looked exhausted. Ink stained his fingers permanently, like guilt. When I cleared my throat—a useless habit carried over from Earth he dropped his quill.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing," I said, then paused. "But you're solid, so that seems rude."
He stared directly at me.
Not through me.
At me.
We both froze.
"That's impossible," he whispered.
"I've been hearing that a lot today," I said. "Listen, if this is a dream, could you at least make me less dead?"
Julien stood slowly, like one does when approaching a wounded animal. "State your designation."
"My… what?"
"Your name," he said, more gently. "For the record."
I hesitated. Saying Evan Mercer felt dangerous, like lying in a court where the judge was reality itself.
"Prince Alaric Veyne," I said finally. "Unfortunately."
Julien's face drained of color.
"That entry was sealed this morning," he said. "His Execution completed the Winter Arc."
Ah. That explained the bells.
Julien explained the rules because historians love rules, especially when they're breaking.
The Annals of Veritas are not written by gods. They are maintained by them. The book records what the world agrees is true. Once something is written in permanent ink, it becomes inevitable. The role of a historian is not to invent events, but to witness them closely enough that the ink accepts them.
"Think of it as a contract," Julien said, rubbing his temples. "Between the world and its people."
"And what happens when someone breaches it?" I asked.
His gaze flicked back to me.
"We don't know," he said. "Because it has never happened."
That was flattering. I had always wanted to be unprecedented.
Unwritten individuals, Julien explained, are anomalies people who exist without a current entry. Most appear briefly, fade quickly, and are absorbed into the background like rumors.
None, apparently, arrive as posthumous princes.
"I can't touch anything," I said. "I can't eat. I don't show up in reflections. But I can think. And remember Earth. Does that matter?"
Julien swallowed.
"Memory is the anchor," he said. "Those who forget their origin become… stable."
"Stable sounds nice."
"It also means they never leave."
Ah.
There it was.
The unspoken question pressing against my ribs like a second heart.
"How do people leave this world?" I asked.
Julien laughed once, sharp and humorless. "They don't."
I found the others that night.
Or rather, I felt them.
Being Unwritten comes with side effects. One of them is a tugging sensation behind the sternum, like homesickness with a direction. When I followed it, I passed through walls and into the city beyond the palace.
Solaria at night was beautiful in a way that made me angry. Lanterns floated above the streets, held up by nothing but belief. Towers leaned at impossible angles, confident they wouldn't fall. The world trusted its own story completely.
That was when I heard a voice shouting:
"Oh, come on! That's not even my fault this time!"
A man was sprinting down the street, pursued by guards who were tripping over absolutely nothing. He skidded to a stop in front of me, doubled over, hands on knees.
"Hey," he panted. "You look dead."
"I am," I said. "You look like a problem."
He grinned. "Name's Felix Rowan. Former Earth resident. Current narrative disaster."
Felix was Unwritten too. I could tell by the way the lantern light avoided him, bending subtly around his outline. He explained his situation cheerfully while we watched the guards run past us without noticing either of us.
"I keep dying," he said. "Not metaphorically. Literally. Different ways. Falls, poison, heroic sacrifice very versatile. The Annals reset me every time."
"That's horrifying."
"Yeah," he agreed. "But sometimes it's hilarious."
I laughed before I could stop myself. It came out broken.
Felix clapped his hands. "Oh good. You still have emotions. That means you're early."
"Early for what?"
He looked at me seriously for the first time.
"For the choice."
By dawn, I had met three more.
Marcus Hale, a battlefield surgeon who smelled perpetually of iron and regret.Theo Ashcroft, a boy with too-old eyes and memories that slipped backward instead of forward.And Brother Silas, a monk who smiled like he already knew how this ended.
They all remembered Earth.
They all wanted to go back.
They all knew somehow that not everyone could.
"The world only allows six Endings per cycle," Silas said mildly, sipping tea he definitely should not have been able to drink. "There are seven of us."
Felix whistled. "Math has always been my enemy."
Julien arrived last, pale and furious, carrying a loose page torn from the Annals.
"This wasn't written," he said. "Which means it's possible."
The page was blank except for a single line, forming slowly:
One story must remain unfinished.
I looked at them, this strange, broken group bound by accident and ink, and felt something tighten painfully in my chest.
I thought of Earth. Of unfinished dissertations. Of unread messages. Of how ordinary my life had been, and how fiercely I wanted it back.
"I was already finished once," I said quietly. "Maybe I can stay unfinished here."
Julien met my gaze, eyes dark with something dangerously close to hope.
"History hates loose ends," he said.
I smiled, thin and tired.
"Then let's make it choke on one."
Third POV
Alaric--Evan--stood very still.
From the outside, he looked like a man pausing before a decision. From the inside, his thoughts were a room full of papers thrown into the air, none of them landing where they belonged.
Six others.A torn page.A world that behaved as if it were being read.
He had studied stories all his life. He knew narrative structures, knew how people searched for meaning where there was only coincidence. But Veritas did not feel like coincidence. It felt precise. Cruel in the way only well-edited tragedies were cruel.
He turned his gaze to the blank page in Julien's hands.
"It's still writing," Alaric said.
The ink trembled, as if embarrassed to be noticed.
Julien nodded. "The Annals respond to observation. When too many contradictions gather, they… hesitate."
"Hesitate like this?" Felix asked, leaning far too close to the page. "Because I've seen hesitation, and this looks more like panic."
No one laughed. Felix scratched his head and stepped back.
Alaric inhaled, though breathing was more habit than necessity now. "Start from the beginning," he said. "All of you. Pretend I know nothing."
"That won't be difficult," Marcus said dryly.
They gathered in the historian's side chamber--a circular room built around absence. No windows. No doors in the conventional sense. Just shelves curving inward, leaving a hollow space where something used to be.
"The Living Annals," Julien said, gesturing around them, "are not merely books. They are… agreements."
Alaric frowned. "Between whom?"
Julien hesitated.
"That's one of the questions," Silas said gently. "We know the what. Not the who."
Julien continued, choosing his words carefully. "Veritas believes that existence requires coherence. A person, a city, a war, anything that persists must be narratable. Once it can be told from beginning to end, it becomes real enough to stay."
"So stories make reality," Alaric said.
"Not exactly," Theo murmured. The boy sat cross-legged on the floor, tracing patterns only he could see. "Reality makes stories. The Annals just… don't let them contradict themselves."
Felix snapped his fingers. "Right. Think of it like this: if enough people believe something happened, the book writes it down. Once it's written, the world stops arguing."
"That's horrifying," Alaric said.
"Yes," Julien agreed softly. "We call it stability."
Alaric's gaze drifted to the shelves. "And people become… what? Characters?"
Marcus folded his arms. "Roles."
That word landed heavily.
"Every person born in Veritas," Marcus continued, "is born incomplete. Their life moves toward an Ending, a moment where their choices, actions, and consequences align perfectly. After that, they're… done."
"Dead," Felix said.
Marcus nodded. "Usually."
Alaric felt a chill crawl up his spine. "And if they don't die?"
"Then they vanish," Julien said. "Or become background. The Annals lose interest."
Silas smiled faintly. "An unremarkable Ending is still an Ending."
Alaric thought of his execution. Of how calm the book had described it. How beautifully final.
"So an Ending is the point where the story stops needing you," he said.
No one contradicted him.
"And the Living Annals record this to keep the world… consistent."
"Yes," Julien said. "Veritas does not tolerate paradox. A king cannot die twice. A war cannot be lost and won. A man cannot exist after his story is complete."
Alaric let out a slow breath. "Except I do."
Felix raised a hand. "So do I. Repeatedly."
Alaric looked at him. "You said the Annals reset you."
Felix's grin dimmed. "Yeah. I'm what you'd call a recurring anomaly. Every time I die, the book decides it made a mistake and rewinds to the last 'acceptable' version of me."
"That sounds like immortality," Alaric said.
"It's not," Felix replied quietly. "It's rehearsal."
Silence settled again.
Alaric's confusion thickened, but beneath it was something sharper: anger. "If this system exists," he said, "why doesn't anyone question it?"
Julien laughed without humor. "Because it works."
Marcus added, "Because people here don't know it's a system. Fish don't debate water."
"And those who notice?" Alaric pressed.
"They become Unwritten," Theo said. His voice was small. "Or they forget."
Alaric turned to the boy. "Forget what?"
Theo tilted his head, brow creasing. "I'm not sure anymore."
That was worse than silence.
"So let me get this straight," Alaric said. "Veritas is a world stabilized by stories. The Living Annals record what becomes undeniable. Endings lock people into place. And anyone who exists outside that structure--"
"--threatens the coherence of the world," Julien finished.
"And yet," Silas said, "the world summoned us anyway."
That thought settled uneasily in Alaric's chest.
"Why us?" he asked.
Six sets of eyes avoided his.
Felix shrugged. "Wrong place, wrong time."
Marcus said nothing.
Theo stared at the floor.
Silas sipped his tea.
Julien closed the book.
"That," Julien said, "is one of the mysteries."
Alaric exhaled, frustrated. "You're telling me this world runs on narrative logic, but no one knows who designed it, why it breaks, or what happens when it collapses."
"Yes," Julien said.
Felix grinned weakly. "Welcome to Veritas."
Alaric pressed a hand to his face. "On Earth, we wrote stories to escape reality."
"In Veritas," Julien said, "stories are reality's prison."
Another question burned at the edge of Alaric's mind. "You said there are seven of us."
"Yes."
"And only six Endings per cycle."
Marcus's jaw tightened. "That's what I've observed."
"Observed how?"
Marcus hesitated. "By saving people who were supposed to die."
Julien looked sharply at him. "You didn't tell me that."
Marcus met his gaze. "I didn't know how."
Alaric's confusion sharpened into dread. "You mean Endings are… limited?"
"Everything in Veritas is," Silas said. "Stories take space. Closure takes energy. The world can only resolve so many contradictions at once."
"So if seven of us try to leave--"
"--the world won't allow it," Felix finished. "Something has to stay unresolved."
Alaric's thoughts spiraled. "And how do we leave? No one has actually said that."
The room grew tense.
"That," Julien said slowly, "is another mystery."
Felix rubbed the back of his neck. "I've seen hints. Patterns. When the Annals glitch, when people forget details that should matter--"
Marcus interrupted him. "Don't speculate."
Felix snapped back, "Don't pretend ignorance is safer."
Silas raised a hand, and somehow the argument stopped.
"We know fragments," Silas said. "Not conclusions."
Theo spoke suddenly. "If you finish your story… completely… you disappear from Veritas."
Alaric looked at him. "Disappear where?"
Theo shook his head. "I don't remember."
That answer felt like a warning.
Julien turned to Alaric. "You are unique among us."
"Because I'm dead already?"
"Because your Ending is written," Julien said. "And yet you persist. That shouldn't be possible."
Alaric stared at the blank page again. The ink had stopped moving, as if listening.
"I studied stories," Alaric said quietly. "Endings give meaning. Without them, everything just… keeps hurting."
Felix snorted. "You're telling me."
"But stories can be revised," Alaric continued. "Annotations. Margins. Footnotes."
Julien's breath caught.
"No," Julien said sharply. "Those are dangerous."
"Why?"
"Because the Annals hate commentary."
Alaric smiled faintly. "Then maybe that's where we belong."
For a moment, something like fear crossed Julien's face.
"You don't understand," Julien said. "If the Annals reject you completely--"
"--I stop existing," Alaric finished.
Julien shook his head. "No. Worse. You exist without meaning."
Alaric considered that.
He thought of Earth again. Of unfinished papers. Of half-lived days. Of how meaning had always been something people argued over anyway.
"That doesn't sound new," he said.
Felix laughed, startled. Marcus almost smiled.