Lord of Mysteries: The Dream That Waits

The path out of the Archive of the Unwritten was unnaturally quiet. Klein and Yeaia walked in silence, their footsteps echoing against the endless stone shelves. No new books stirred, no pages fluttered in unseen drafts. It was as if the Archive itself was holding its breath.

Yeaia exhaled slowly, rolling their shoulders as if shaking off the remnants of whatever had tried to erase them. "That was… unpleasant."

Klein glanced sideways at them. "Unpleasant is one way to put it. It wasn't just trying to erase you—it was trying to make it so you never existed in the first place."

Yeaia nodded, their mismatched eyes still burning faintly. "Which raises the question—who?"

Klein didn't answer immediately. Instead, he traced a fingertip along the spine of an unwritten book as they passed. The cover was blank, but something about it felt… wrong. It wasn't merely a story that had yet to be written. It was a story that had been removed.

Something flickered at the edge of his vision. A smear of ink, glistening unnaturally under the dim Archive lights. It wasn't dry.

He stopped walking.

Yeaia noticed immediately. "What?"

Klein knelt, touching the inky stain with a gloved finger. It moved, twisting away from him like a living thing. But before it could retreat completely, he murmured an incantation and sealed it in place.

The ink quivered. Then, it spoke.

"You are reading what was never meant to be read."

Klein stiffened. Yeaia took a sharp step forward, eyes narrowing. "That voice—"

The ink shifted. Slowly, painfully, it began forming words on the stone floor, letters bleeding into existence one by one.

"Your presence is a mistake."

A sharp tension crackled in the air. Klein's fingers twitched slightly, ready to invoke a miracle if necessary. "Who are you?"

The ink bled into new words.

"I am the Scribe That Erases."

A cold sensation crawled up Klein's spine. That title—Scribe That Erases—was not one he had ever encountered before. And yet, the weight of it felt ancient, as though it had existed for as long as stories themselves.

Yeaia crossed their arms, watching the ink move. "And what does the great Scribe want with me?"

The ink trembled.

"Your existence is wrong."

Klein's grip tightened around his cane. "Wrong? According to who?"

There was a pause.

Then, in slow, deliberate strokes, the ink wrote:

"According to the Book That Was Never Meant to Be."

Silence stretched between them.

Klein felt something shift—an awareness settling over them, pressing at the edges of reality. A force watching.

He had been at the mercy of fate before, but this? This was different. This was not just fate unwinding. This was a deliberate act of revision.

Yeaia's expression darkened. "Well, that's a shame," they murmured, crouching beside the ink. "Because I have no intention of being erased."

And with a casual flick of their hand, they smudged the words out of existence.

The ink writhed violently—then vanished, as if it had never been there at all.

A ripple passed through the Archive, and for the first time since entering, Klein felt something close to anger from the space around them.

The Archive had noticed.

Yeaia rose to their feet, exhaling slowly. "We should leave. Now."

Klein agreed. The answers they sought wouldn't be found in this place—not anymore.

But as they stepped forward, Klein cast one last glance at the empty stone where the ink had been.

Somewhere out there, someone—or something—had decided that Yeaia Nolas should never have existed.

And whatever The Book That Was Never Meant to Be was…

It was still being written.

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End of Chapter 56...this was 54 before...

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