The Library of Endings
Chapter 00– Prologue
"You probably think I'm the hero. I'm not."
"Heroes save kingdoms. They slay dragons, rescue the innocent, change the world. Me? I get dropped into their stories halfway through, with no warning and no glory. Sometimes, I don't even have a real name—just whatever the author scribbled in for a side character who was supposed to die."
"But I change the endings. That's my curse. Or maybe it's my purpose. I don't know anymore."
Right now, I'm a stable boy in a kingdom on the brink of collapse. I sleep on hay that smells like iron and sweat. My hands are blistered from reins and sword hilts, even though no one in this world believes I can fight. They call me "Kale." That's the name I woke up with when I arrived in this book two weeks ago. In this story, the prince is meant to betray his kingdom, doom thousands, and rewrite history in blood. That's the ending. Or it was.
I haven't decided if I'm going to stop it yet.
Sometimes, the endings are painful for a reason. Sometimes, they're deserved.
I used to be a boy with too much time and too few answers. Aeon—that's my real name. Not Kale, not Dren, not Mavien, or any of the others I've been called in these books. Just Aeon. I grew up in an orphanage that forgot about me even while I was still inside it.
It wasn't cruel, just... tired. The walls were always quiet. Too quiet. No laughter, no crying, just the sound of pages turning. Those pages were my world. The library wasn't big—just around containing 71 books but I read every one of them until the covers faded and the spines cracked like dry skin.
Fantasy. Mystery. Tragedy. Romance. I consumed them all.
Not because I wanted escape—but because they made me feel. Feel seen. Feel real. The characters had destinies. Pain. Power. Even when they lost, they mattered.
I never did. Not until the night I opened that book.
I still remember the title. The Ash Prince.
It was the kind of story that sticks with you—not because it was perfect, but because it tried to be. The characters burned with feeling, the plot twisted like smoke, but the ending... gods, the ending was hollow. The main character died alone. Betrayed. Forgotten. It felt like it was written just to hurt the reader, like a punishment for caring.
I finished it late that night in my corner of the dormitory, curled under a ratty blanket. And when I turned the last page, I whispered to the dark:
"I wish I could change it."
Just like that.
Not a ritual. Not a prayer. Just a tired voice. A stray thought. But something must have heard me.
Because when I opened my eyes... I was there.
In the book. In that world. Not as the hero, but as a servant in the palace. I didn't understand it at first. I thought it was a dream. But the pain was real. The hunger was real. The story was alive.
And it was happening again.
So I stopped it.
I warned the Ash Prince. I changed a single decision, shifted one conversation—and the tragedy unraveled. He survived. Lived. Loved. The kingdom endured.
And when it was over, when the story reached its new ending, I felt something pull me away. Like a hand through mist. I woke up back in the orphanage, The Ash Prince still open in my lap... but the final chapter was different. The words had changed.
No one believed me. Of course they didn't.
But a week later, it happened again.
That's the rule, you see. I can only enter the books from that library. No new ones. No outside ones. Just the seventy one that I practically memorized growing up. But they're not the same anymore. They've shifted. Rewritten themselves. Rearranged.
Each time I go in, it's harder to tell what's original and what's changed because of me.
I've entered fifty books so far. And not all of them went well.
One was a murder mystery where I tried to save the wrong suspect. Another was a world where time looped endlessly until I made the right choice—but by then, I wasn't even sure what "right" meant. One story didn't want to be changed at all. It fought me. Bent reality around me. That one still haunts me.
I try to make things better, but not every story wants a happy ending.
And here's the worst part: I think something is watching. Waiting. Like the stories are aware now—like they know I'm the one who doesn't belong.
Sometimes I wonder if the books are using me. If each change I make isn't rewriting the story, but feeding something else. Something larger.
I've found pages that weren't there before. Whole scenes that don't belong to any version I read. And once, just once, I saw a blank book on the shelf. No title. No author. Just waiting.
I'm scared of what might happen when I open it.
Because I think that book... is about me.
So no. I'm not the hero. I'm not the villain either.
I'm just the one who walks between endings, who slips through pages and picks at the threads of fate. Maybe that makes me a fool. Maybe something worse.
But if you're reading this, maybe you're like me.
Maybe you grew up in the quiet places. Maybe you whispered things to the dark, not expecting anyone to hear. Maybe you loved stories so much, you lived in them.
If so... I hope you never find this library.
But if you do, remember this:
Every ending can be rewritten.
But not without a cost.