There was something unnervingly hypnotic about the blinking of a cursor on a blank screen.
Kieran Vale had been watching it for nearly an hour now — a silent metronome that mocked him from the glowing frame of his laptop. One blink. Two blinks. Still no words.
He leaned back in his chair, exhaling a tired breath that came out more like a sigh of defeat. The apartment was quiet, save for the ticking of the old analog clock mounted above his bookshelf. Even that sound seemed too loud in the dead of night.
2:13 AM.
A strange hour. Not quite late enough to be morning, not quite early enough to be a new day. Just a forgotten pocket of time where the world held its breath — where strange things had always seemed just a little more likely.
Kieran's eyes drifted toward the window. Outside, the city was draped in mist and shadow, the flickering streetlamps casting ghostlike silhouettes across the pavement. Nothing moved. Not a car. Not a bird. Not even a breeze.
It was the kind of night that felt suspended — like a page yet to be turned.
"Writer's block," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "Or maybe just life block."
Truth be told, he hadn't written anything in months. Ever since graduating, his days had become a blur of meaningless part-time jobs and quiet, slow evenings that melted into one another. He didn't hate it. But he didn't love it either.
Just… drifting.
He had once dreamed of writing stories. Of publishing a novel, or maybe even a series. But somewhere along the way, that dream had been filed away in a forgotten drawer, alongside old notebooks and fading ambition.
Now, even his inspiration felt secondhand.
The only thing that still stirred something inside him — truly moved him — was a single story. A strange, obscure web novel he'd stumbled across during his final year of university.
The Forgotten Pathways.
It hadn't been popular. There were no comments, no reviews, no fan art, no theories posted on forums. Just a handful of readers, most of whom dropped off after the first few chapters. But Kieran had devoured it.
It was the strangest story he had ever read. A layered, surreal narrative of secret organizations, mystical sequences, and eldritch forces that whispered between the lines of reality. The prose had been maddening, fragmented at times, and yet compelling — like a puzzle that didn't want to be solved.
And then… it vanished.
Just as it neared its climax, the site hosting it disappeared. No warnings. No archives. No author notes. The story had been wiped from existence.
Kieran had searched everywhere — old forum caches, dead links, even the Wayback Machine.
Nothing.
But the story refused to leave his mind.
Even now, years later, he could remember entire passages. Scenes. Dialogues. The names of characters who didn't exist in any other medium. The pathways. The rituals. The code phrases. The strange rules of power.
It was almost as if…
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
Kieran flinched, heart jolting in his chest. The sound echoed too loud in the silence.
Who would be at the door at this hour?
He stood cautiously, the floor cold beneath his bare feet. Approaching the door, he peered through the peephole — but the hallway outside was empty.
No footsteps. No fading silhouette. No delivery man walking away.
Just… nothing.
He frowned and opened the door.
A package sat at his doorstep.
No name. No courier markings. Just a box wrapped in aged parchment, bound with an inky black ribbon tied in a perfect bow.
Kieran hesitated before picking it up. It was surprisingly heavy — like a thick book. The parchment had a strange texture, almost like dried skin, and there was a wax seal on top. Pressed into the wax was a symbol he didn't recognize:
A quill, dipped in a swirling spiral, surrounded by a ring of eyes — unblinking, watchful, etched in such detail that they almost seemed to move in the dim light.
Kieran closed the door, locking it behind him. He sat at his desk and stared at the package for a full minute before finally unwrapping it.
Inside, wrapped in delicate tissue and smelling faintly of ink and ash, was a book.
Old. Leather-bound. No title. The cover was marked only by that same sigil — the quill and spiral surrounded by eyes — embossed directly into the material.
He opened the first page.
And froze.
His breath caught in his throat.
The page bore a single heading:
"Chapter 1: The Book That Shouldn't Exist."
And beneath it — paragraphs written in flowing ink.
His story.
Every word he read described what had just happened. His writer's block. His thoughts about The Forgotten Pathways. The knock at the door. The empty hallway.
Even his exact reactions.
His name was printed clearly in the first paragraph:
Kieran Vale sat at his desk, unaware that the manuscript before him was about to change the trajectory of his existence.
No. This couldn't be. This had to be a prank. Some elaborate psychological trick. But who would go to such lengths? And how would they know so much?
He flipped the page in a daze.
The next entry read:
Kieran's pulse quickened. He would soon begin to question reality itself — unaware that the Codex he now held was not merely a book, but a living echo of a story that had once failed to be written.
The Forgotten Pathways had returned. But not as he remembered.
His fingers trembled as he turned to the bottom of the page.
There, one last line stood alone in bold ink:
"And in the next minute, he would hear the knock that would change everything."
A sharp knock rang out.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
Kieran's blood ran cold.
Not at the front door.
From inside the apartment.
Three knocks.
Coming from the hallway that led to his bedroom.
He turned his head slowly, heart pounding so loud it nearly drowned out the sound.
There was no one there.
Just shadows.
But something moved in them.
Something he couldn't quite see — a shape, a presence, a faint ripple in the air.
He looked back at the book.
A new line had appeared on the page.
"Do not run. Do not hide. If you open the door now… your story begins."
His hand reached for the hallway door on instinct — though every nerve in his body screamed for him to stop.
He opened it.
The shadows parted.
And something stared back.
Not a monster. Not a man.
But a mirror — impossibly large, embedded in the wall where no mirror had ever existed before. In its surface, he saw himself — standing exactly as he was — except the reflection wasn't mimicking his movements.
It was watching him.
And then, it moved.
It raised its hand slowly, holding up a book.
The same Codex.
But in his reflection's version… the cover bore a different title.
"Volume 0: The Story That Shouldn't Be Read."
And beneath it — in blood-red ink: