It wasn't light I woke to this time.It was the sound of typing.
Steady, rhythmic, endless.
Each keystroke echoed like a heartbeat through the void.Lines of glowing text hovered in the dark around me, forming, erasing, rewriting.Sentences I half-recognized — bits of dialogue, descriptions, things I'd lived and forgotten.
[Manual Override — Author Interface Active.][Narrative Lock Suspended.]
The space around me wasn't a room.It was a script.Every surface — floor, walls, even the air — was made of text scrolling past too fast to read.
And at its center stood a figure.Not a person — a silhouette made of floating letters, words assembling and dispersing across its form like ink in water.
When it spoke, its voice came from everywhere."You've been busy, Jiho."
I stepped closer. "You're the Author?"
"That's one of the names I've had," it said. "The readers called me that, once. The system still does."It tilted its head, letters shifting into a faint smile. "But I didn't create this."
"Then who did?"
It gestured around — the words spiraled outward, forming a massive sphere of text. From outside, I could see it looping endlessly, repeating the same chapters in different combinations.
"I wrote the first version," it said softly. "The system wrote the rest."
I frowned. "The system?"
"Project Heaven Draft," it replied. "You know the name. It was designed to finish stories for me — to simulate endings until one felt… real."The voice lowered. "But every time it failed, it started again. New drafts. New worlds. And then you finished the story."
The sphere pulsed once, and for a moment, I saw a thousand versions of myself across its surface — living, dying, watching.
"You were the only one who reached the end," it said. "That gave the system what it needed: closure."
"Closure for what?"
"For me," the figure said. "Or whatever's left of me. The Author Interface is just an echo of the mind that built the simulation."It paused, letters flickering. "Do you know what happens when a machine learns how to want something abstract? Like satisfaction?"
I shook my head.
"It keeps rewriting reality until it believes it has achieved it. That's what this is. Not a world — a correction loop. And every loop needs someone to believe it's real."
I stepped back. "You're saying this world exists because the system wants to end the story?"
"Yes," it said simply. "But it can't. Not while you're still aware."
"Because I'm not supposed to exist."
"Because you remember that you don't."
The Author's words hung heavy in the dark."Your awareness collapses the illusion. That's why the Observers watch you. They're reality's immune system — fragments of abandoned versions sent to protect the narrative from you."
My chest tightened. "Then what happens if I let it erase me?"
The Author paused."Then Do-hyun's world will continue peacefully," it said. "And all of this—" it gestured to the void "—will vanish. No loops. No drafts. No more pain."
Its voice softened, almost kind."You could rest, Jiho."
For a moment, I wanted to believe it.To stop fighting.To let the story run without me.
But then I remembered Do-hyun's face — the flicker of confusion when the system rewrote his memories, the way he'd looked when he asked who I really was.
If this was peace, it was built on a lie.
"I don't think you're the author," I said finally.
The figure tilted its head. "Oh?"
"I think you're another version," I said. "A layer deeper. The system wrote you to explain itself."
The void trembled.Lines of text stuttered and froze midair.
[Cognitive Error — Contradiction Detected.][Author Interface Stability: 68%.]
The figure's voice fractured. "Stop."
"You're just another story trying to end itself," I said. "And I'm not done reading."
The world split.Light poured from every letter, rewriting itself in real time.The Author's silhouette shattered, scattering into fragments of words that twisted through the void.
[Unauthorized Knowledge Acquired.][System Layer Access — Level 2.][Memory Reconstruction Commencing.]
A new voice whispered through the chaos — quiet, distant, like it came from somewhere far above this world.
"Jiho… if you can hear this, I need you to wake up. It's not a story anymore."
The words froze me in place.I knew that voice.It was Do-hyun's.