The broken spires of the Realm of Forgotten Titles stood silent behind him, their jagged outlines dissolving into pale mist. Ezra held the silver key in one hand, but his gaze was fixed forward on the presence that had emerged from the edge of nothingness.
A six-fingered hand. Cloaked in digital static. Not of this world.
The being didn't move. It glitched blinking in and out of perception, like an image half-rendered by a corrupted god.
Ezra's instincts screamed.
[System Notice: Unknown Entity Detected – No data available]
[Prime Directive Fragment Alert: "Witness Detected"]
[Caution: Do not initiate direct conflict]
That last line caught his attention.
The System itself didn't advise. It commanded. Yet this warning was… soft. Hesitant.
"Who are you?" Ezra asked, voice steady despite the weight pressing against his soul.
The figure shimmered again. Its outline stuttered and re-formed not entirely humanoid, not entirely machine.
Then it spoke.
But not aloud.
Its words arrived as overlapping code, binary and language entwined.
"You break the locks. You alter the script. You are unauthorized."
Ezra narrowed his eyes. "The System made me. If I'm unauthorized, then why exist at all?"
"You were not made. You were… invoked."
That stopped him cold.
"What does that mean?"
The Witness didn't answer. Instead, it extended a hand, and the air around Ezra shifted.
Images flashed like shattered dreams replaying themselves:
A girl sitting in an ancient library, writing furiously in a book no one could read.
A throne made of typewriter keys, cracked down the middle.
A page burned in half, with his name still legible.
Ezra fell to one knee, gasping as the memories seared across his mind.
[Memory Chain Activated]
[Anchoring Core Identity... Complete]
[You have resisted Temporal Distortion – Trait Gained: Scriptwalker]
You can now perceive echoes of altered timelines and corrupted plots.
The Witness paused. Its voice lowered in frequency.
"Six locks. One truth. When the final seal breaks, you will no longer be the reader... but the rewritten."
Ezra stood, trembling but unbroken.
"I don't fear being rewritten," he said. "I fear forgetting who I am."
The glitching presence tilted its head.
"Then remember this
Not every Editor is benevolent. Not every Author is sane."
And with that, the Witness vanished scattering into fractal echoes, like a sentence never finished.
The Silent Thread
Ezra stood alone again, but something had changed.
The System responded slower now. His menu flickered as if uncertain.
[New Function Unlocked: Thread Trace]
Track anomalies across timelines. Warning: High energy cost.
He activated it without hesitation.
The world split momentarily into layers. Like peeling back the skin of reality.
In one thread, he saw himself dead, his head crushed beneath a throne.
In another, he sat in a prison of golden chains, watched over by blind Archivists.
And in one—only one—he stood with the Forgotten Author beside him, holding hands, the world whole again.
Ezra locked that thread into his memory.
[Thread Anchor Placed: 1/1]
[Timeline route saved – "True Path?"]
He deactivated the vision.
His head spun.
His body ached.
But the fire in his chest burned hotter than ever.
The Road to Lock Two
Leaving the Realm of Forgotten Titles wasn't as simple as turning around.
It demanded a toll.
A price in memory.
Ezra approached the exit a swirling void of unbeing. A massive gate made of quills and ink blocked his way. A spectral figure emerged, robed in parchment.
"The price," it said, "is a truth. A truth you've never spoken. Not even to yourself."
Ezra hesitated.
Then he stepped forward, hand clenched.
"When I first awoke in the System," he said slowly, "part of me hoped I wouldn't survive."
The figure paused.
"I was tired of my old life. Of being powerless. This world offered me a chance... not just to be strong.but to be seen. And I wanted that more than anything."
The gate shimmered. Then slowly dissolved.
The figure smiled.
And vanished.
Ezra walked through, back into reality but something followed him out.
Not an enemy.
A thread.
Unraveled, yet tied to him.
System Update
[Narrative Progression: Lock 1 Cleared (1/6)]
[Unlocked: Memory Chain, Scriptwalker, Thread Trace]
[Incoming Location: The Archive of Sins]
Ezra exhaled as solid ground formed beneath him again.
A darkened plain stretched before him littered with broken tomes, skeletal ruins of libraries, and screams trapped inside jars.
Above all of it loomed a floating island of fire and sorrow: The Archive of Sins.
Where all rewritten mistakes went to rot.
Ezra took his first step forward.
And the ground whispered beneath his boots:
"Your next lock waits within. But beware...
Not all sins stay buried."
---
The Archive's Libraria
The air in the Archive of Sins tasted like ash and broken promises.
Ezra descended through a skyless dusk, walking on fractured obsidian tiles that whispered beneath his boots. Each step sent faint ripples of guilt through the ether, brushing against his skin like cold fingers. The stench of scorched paper lingered like rot, heavy and cloying.
A library once stood proud here. Now only jagged shelves remained, rising like broken ribs from a dying beast. Books lined them still chained shut, bleeding ink, trembling.
They were not books.
They were memories.
Forgotten. Forbidden. Forsaken.
[System Alert: Archive of Sins – Danger Level: ???]
Warning: Emotional contamination possible. Use caution.
Ezra drew his cloak tighter and pressed forward.
A shadow moved between aisles. Not hunting. Waiting.
He followed it without speaking.
Turning corners that folded space, climbing staircases that descended, he finally arrived at a great, circular chamber its dome cracked, constellations of forgotten constellations leaking through.
There, behind a grand desk made of cracked stone and flickering code, sat a figure.
Clothed in robes made from torn system scripts and memory strands.
Eyes glowing with unread lines.
The Librarian.
They looked up without blinking.
"Ezra."
The name fell from their lips like dust.
"You've come to unearth what you buried."
Ezra tensed. "You know me?"
The Librarian offered a thin smile. "I remember you. Even when you don't."
[Narrative Triggered: Memory Chain – Echo 1]
[Flashback fragment initiated…]
Ezra stood beside the Librarian once before the fall. Before the first rewrite.
He wasn't a player then.
He was something else.
Something ancient. Something almost divine.
Together, they cataloged anomalies. Preserved forbidden lore. Protected the integrity of all written reality.
Until Ezra betrayed the Archive.
And rewrote himself into the System.
[Flashback ends.]
Ezra stumbled backward, gasping.
"What… what did I do?"
The Librarian stood. "You severed yourself from your role to become something new. You invoked the System to create you… but doing so erased your title. Your origin. Your truth."
Ezra's hand trembled. "So I was… never meant to be a player."
"No," the Librarian whispered. "You were meant to be its protector."
System Prompt: Major Memory Fragment Unlocked
Title Recovered: Warden of the Lost Script
Passive: All hidden knowledge can now be revealed with focus.
Perk: Gain bonus resistance to memory-altering effects and illusions.
Trait Unlocked: Echo-Bound Mind – Your thoughts leave imprints; be wary of readers.
Ezra breathed in deeply.
His identity was no longer just shaped by the System.
He existed before it.
He broke it, reformed it, and forgot.
But now… he remembered.
The Librarian stepped forward and extended a trembling hand.
"Then take this," they said.
A small, silver quill, stained with red.
"This is the Pen of Oaths. Only the worthy may use it to rewrite what was done. You are not yet worthy."
Ezra accepted it.
[Item Gained: Pen of Oaths – Dormant]
Can only awaken when faced with an eternal truth.
"What must I do to earn it?" he asked.
The Librarian's voice became grave.
"Survive the Sin Echoes. Your past will come to claim you. The people you left behind. The ones you erased. If you cannot face them if you falter they will rewrite you instead."
Suddenly, the chamber darkened. The dome above cracked fully, revealing a swirling maelstrom of echoes and shadows descending.
Faces. Familiar.
Voices. Accusing.
Eyes filled with pain and betrayal.
Ezra's chest tightened.
"They're… people I failed."
The Librarian stepped back into the mist.
"You must walk among them. Speak with them. Atone or refuse. But choose, Ezra. That is the burden of the Warden."
System Notice: Sin Echo Sequence Initiated
> Objective: Confront the Five Echoes
Echo One: A Sister Who Waited
Echo Two: A Friend You Betrayed
Echo Three: A Lover You Forgot
Echo Four: A Life You Stole
Echo Five: The You Who Remained
The first echo stepped forward, her form stabilizing into that of a girl barely sixteen. Auburn hair, teary eyes, a red ribbon tied to her wrist.
Ezra's throat tightened.
"Y-you're…"
"I waited," she whispered. "At the edge of that dying world. You said you'd come back. You said we'd leave together. But you erased the world. And me."
Ezra's knees weakened.
She wasn't a side character.
She was his sister.
His real sister before the rewrite.
He had chosen power over saving her.
A storm of guilt surged.
But now… he could choose again.
He stepped forward, voice shaking.
"I didn't forget you. I ran from you. From the guilt. I became someone else to escape the memory of what I couldn't fix."
She stared at him.
And slowly, she smiled through tears.
"That's… enough."
She faded.
Leaving behind a ribbon of red light.
[Echo One Complete: A Sister Who Waited]
[Ribbon of Remembrance Obtained – 1/5 Echo Tokens]
Ezra caught the ribbon in his hand. It wrapped around his wrist like a promise.
Only four more echoes remained.
And each would be harder.