The system processed the merge for seven seconds.
In human terms: an eternity.
The console went dark. The air thickened.
And a low hum rose from the floor, like a thousand thoughts trying to scream—but unable to.
Then, without warning, part of the wall sank inward… and opened like a mechanical iris.
A hidden passage.
Narrow, dark, lined with unfinished symbols.
Sera lit a flicker of her magic. The light trembled, as if it didn't want to touch the place.
"This isn't part of the world," she murmured. "It's part of the draft."
"The what?"
"What existed before this world was 'written.'"
---
At the end of the tunnel, a frosted glass gate revealed an impossible chamber:
Endless shelves.
Books without pages—just lines of code printed on paper.
Some glowed.
Some wept.
Some… were stained with blood that no one had spilled.
Sera walked forward like she already knew the way.
"This is the Library of Rewriting," she said. "Every line here is a possibility that was never used. A discarded fate."
She grabbed one of the volumes.
Its title wasn't written in letters, but in an error message:
> [404_EVENT_NOT_RENDERED]
"What does it do?" I asked.
"If you read it… you can make it happen."
—
The catch: each reading erases something else.
A memory.
A death.
An entire city, if you're unlucky.
And the worst part… is that you don't get to choose what's erased.
---
I approached a tome that pulsed like a heart.
> [VARIANT: Extra_9387 replaces a Canon Hero]
When I touched it, my name glowed in the margin.
The book recognized me.
Sera stopped me before I opened it.
"We can't toy with this. Just observe… for now."
I nodded. But something inside me had already decided otherwise.
Because if this world insisted on treating us like glitches…
Maybe it was time to write one on purpose.