The shadow figure drifted closer, the dripping quill leaving a trail of ink on the marble floor. The moment it stepped into the light, it had no face only an endless black void, like someone had cut a hole in the world itself.
Lilith stood in front of Francisca, shielding her. Emanuel stepped to her side.
The cloaked figure didn't speak.
Instead, it held out the quill and pointed it toward Lilith.
Then, it opened the book in its hand her book. A blank page fluttered forward and the figure wrote:
"She will give in to fear. She will forget who she is.
She will lose."
"No," Lilith said quietly, her voice trembling with defiance. "That's not the ending."
The figure paused.
Lilith stepped forward. "I don't know what you are, or why you're doing this. But you don't get to decide who I become. That's my story. My voice."
The figure tilted its head, and for the first time, a low, echoing voice rumbled from within the void:
"Then write."
The book snapped shut and vanished. A new one floated before her blank. The quill hovered in midair.
Lilith hesitated.
"What if this is a trap?" Emanuel warned. "What if writing in it gives them more control?"
But Francisca clutched Lilith's hand. "Write us home."
Lilith reached for the quill.
As her fingers curled around it, a spark of pain shot through her arm it wasn't ink she was writing with. It was blood.
Her own.
Each word etched into the page carved itself into her skin in glowing red lines.
Still, she wrote.
"She remembers who she is. She is more than pain, more than fear.
She fights. She survives."
The Watchers screamed from across the chasm. Their faces melted into the darkness.
The floor beneath the shadow figure cracked. The sky above them began to peel open like paper burning at the edges, revealing a blinding white void beyond.
Then everything shook.
The ink trail writhed like a living thing, wrapping around the quill. The book in Lilith's hands caught fire, and with it, the burning words lifted off the page and formed a symbol in the air:
A single eye watching.
"What does it mean?" Francisca asked, her voice small.
Lilith stared at it, heart racing. "It means we're not alone in this world. Someone something has been watching all along."
And just like that, the world shattered.
They weren't in the library anymore. They stood on a bridge suspended in darkness, with no end in sight. Far ahead, a faint red glow pulsed like a heartbeat.
Emanuel looked around, dazed. "Where…?"
"I don't know," Lilith whispered. "But I think we just crossed into the final layer."
The wind howled, carrying a whisper that chilled them to the bone:
"You can't escape the author… because you are the ending..