It started with a book.Not one I bought. Not one I borrowed. Not one I'd ever seen in my life.
It was there one rainy afternoon, lying in the attic of my house like it had always belonged. Dustless. Pristine. A black leather cover with no title. The kind of thing you'd expect to find in a horror movie or some cursed novel that swallows the reader whole.
I wasn't expecting much when I opened it.Just… curiosity. A way to pass the time.
Then I read the first line.
In the year of falling stars, she was born cursed and alone. A girl with power no one understood. A name no one dared speak with warmth: Elowen.
And suddenly I couldn't stop.Page after page, I read like a man possessed. Every scene played out in my head like I'd lived it myself. Elowen, the feared noble girl who spoke to no one. The world that feared her. The nobles who mocked her. The hero who rose against her—and the day she died, destroyed and broken, after slaughtering half the kingdom.
And me.I was there, too.
Not as a hero. Not as a villain. Just… a boy. Her friend. Her first and only friend. The only one who wasn't afraid of her. The only one whose death sent her spiraling into darkness.
I died before the story even began.
The next thing I knew, I blinked—and the world had changed.
I wasn't in my attic anymore.I was standing in a garden.A beautiful, haunting garden filled with white flowers that shimmered in the shade. The air smelled like morning dew and magic. And I—my body felt off. Lighter. Shorter.
My hands were smaller.
I caught my reflection in the surface of a nearby pond. A boy stared back at me. Nine, maybe ten years old. Brown hair. Pale skin. Eyes that weren't mine, but somehow felt familiar. He was the boy from the novel. The one Elowen had loved before everything went wrong.
My heart skipped.
This couldn't be real.
But then I heard the whisper.
A breath of wind. A shift in the air. And the softest voice behind me, distant and cold:
"...You're not afraid of me?"
I turned.
She stood beneath the shade of a twisted white tree, her silver hair tangled in the breeze, her violet eyes wide and unreadable. A girl in a frayed black dress, barefoot in the garden. Her hands were clasped behind her back like she was trying to hide them. Like she didn't trust herself not to hurt me.
Elowen.
She was just a child here. Fragile. Quiet. Lonely. And yet… already dangerous in the eyes of the world.
This was the moment.
The moment in the book when she met the boy. When she asked the question that no one ever answered right. Because everyone feared her. Her powers made people dizzy. Sick. Some said just standing near her too long brought nightmares.
But the boy in the novel hadn't felt it.And neither did I.
"No," I said softly. "I'm not afraid."
Her eyes widened, just like the story described. But what came next wasn't in the book.
"…Why?" she whispered.
That line had never been written. The book hadn't shown her thoughts. Only her actions. It had been from the hero's point of view. Not hers. Not mine.
I walked toward her slowly, carefully. She didn't back away.
"I don't think you're scary," I said. "Just… sad."
She looked down.
"You shouldn't be here," she murmured. "Mother says I'm not allowed to talk to people anymore. Not after what happened last time."
I remembered. In the novel, another child had gotten too close—one from a noble house. He'd touched her hand. Started screaming. Lost his sight for a week.
But that didn't happen to me.Not now. Not in this version.
I reached out and gently took her hand.
Elowen flinched—but nothing happened.
No screams. No pain. No visions.
She stared at me like I was a ghost. Like I was impossible.
"You're not sick," she whispered.
"Nope," I said with a smile. "Guess I'm special."
And just like that, something inside her cracked. A tiny, tremulous smile touched her lips. Her first smile in the novel. The first real one she ever had.
I had just rewritten the story.
That night, I lay in a soft bed in a room far too luxurious to be mine. Servants came and went. The name they used for me wasn't mine either.
"Young Master Caelum."
The boy's name. My name now.
I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about everything that had happened. The garden. Elowen. Her hand in mine. The way her eyes had softened, just for a second.
In the novel, Caelum died in Chapter 3.His death was the match that lit Elowen's rage.
But now… maybe I could stop it.Maybe I could rewrite everything.
Still, one question haunted me.
That book. The one I found. Why was it in my attic? Who put it there?
And why did I remember a story that no one else had ever written?