Her pulse was a frantic bird trapped beneath the skin of her wrist.
I held her there, pinned against the cold wood of the door, and for a moment, the world narrowed down to the space between our breaths. The scent of her vanilla perfume was losing the war against the sterile, biting ghost of the bleach.
"Ryo, please," she whispered.
Her voice didn't sound like the confident editor who had championed my career. It was thin, brittle—the sound of glass about to shatter.
"Look at me, Mika," I said.
My voice was a stranger's. It was flat, devoid of the frantic anxiety that had defined my life for the past two years. I felt a terrifying, crystalline calm. I wasn't Ryo Kanzaki anymore; I was a surgeon performing a necessary operation on reality.
She looked.
In her eyes, I saw the reflection of a man I didn't recognize. My face was a mask of cold intent, my eyes dark pools where the "prodigy" had finally drowned.
"You found a mistake in the text," I said, gesturing toward the bloodstain on the doorframe with my free hand. "A small, red error. You were always so good at catching the things I missed."
"Ryo, you're scaring me. Let me go. We can talk about this. We can get help."
"Help?"
I laughed. The sound was a jagged edge.
"I don't need help, Mika. I need a conclusion. I was a ghost before this. I was a man dying of silence, staring at a white screen that felt like a shroud. And then he came. He brought the ink."
I felt Nox behind me. He wasn't just a shadow anymore. He was a pressure, a cold weight pressing against my back, urging me forward. His long, smoky fingers seemed to weave through my own, guiding my grip on her.
"Show her," Nox hissed into my ear. "Show her the beauty of the sacrifice."
I dragged her toward the desk. She struggled, her heels scuffing against the floorboards, a rhythmic, desperate sound that the laptop immediately began to translate into prose.
*The protagonist drags the witness to the altar of his ambition,* the screen typed. *The sound of her resistance is the melody of his salvation.*
"Look!" I shouted, forcing her to see the screen.
Mika stared at the glowing monitor. Her eyes widened as she read the lines appearing in real-time—lines that described her fear, the exact shade of her coat, the way her breath was coming in short, ragged gasps.
"How... how is it doing that?" she gasped.
"It's the Muse, Mika. It doesn't want imagination. It wants truth. It wants the marrow of the bone."
She stopped struggling. A different kind of terror took hold of her—the kind that freezes the muscles and turns the blood to ice. She realized then that she wasn't dealing with a man who had lost his mind. She was dealing with a man who had found a new, darker one.
"You killed that man," she breathed. "The one the detective was looking for."
"I redacted him," I corrected. "And in return, he gave me the best opening chapter in the history of Japanese literature."
I let go of her wrist.
She didn't run for the door. She knew I was faster, and she knew the door was locked. Instead, she backed away until she hit the kitchen counter, her hand instinctively reaching for something—anything—to defend herself.
Her fingers brushed the handle of the kitchen knife I had used to cut the plastic earlier.
I saw her eyes flicker toward it.
"Go ahead," I said, spreading my arms wide. "Take it. Become a character. Give me the conflict the third act needs."
"I don't want to hurt you, Ryo."
"But you will. Or I will hurt you. Either way, the book wins. Don't you see, Mika? This isn't about us anymore. We are just vessels. We are the pens. The story is the only thing that is real."
She grabbed the knife. Her hand was shaking so violently the blade rattled against the marble.
"Stay back!"
I took a step forward.
*He moves toward the blade with the hunger of a martyr,* the laptop clicked. *The steel is an invitation. A period waiting for its sentence.*
"Ryo, stop! I'll use it! I swear!"
"Then use it," I whispered. I was inches from her now. I could feel the heat radiating from her body, the raw, vibrating energy of her terror. It was intoxicating. It was better than any drug, any praise, any drink. It was the pure, undiluted essence of inspiration.
The air in the room began to thicken. The shadows from the corners of the apartment stretched out like questing tongues, licking at the edges of the light. Nox stood between us, his face a void of shifting smoke.
"The blood is the ink," the demon chanted. "The scream is the prose."
Mika lunged.
It wasn't a calculated strike. It was a blind, panicked thrust.
The blade sliced through the air, catching me across the shoulder. The pain was sharp, sudden, and magnificent.
I fell back, my hand clutching the wound. Warm, wet life spilled through my fingers.
I looked at my hand.
Red.
I looked at the screen.
*The author bleeds for his work,* the cursor wrote, the font turning a deep, bruised violet. *The pact is sealed in the salt of his own pain.*
Mika dropped the knife. She collapsed to the floor, her face buried in her hands, sobbing with a sound that felt like it was tearing the very fabric of the room.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
I didn't answer. I walked to the desk, leaving a trail of dark droplets on the floor. I sat down and began to type with my one good hand.
The words came like a flood. They were more than words; they were sensations. I could feel the cold of the steel, the heat of the blood, the crushing weight of Mika's guilt. It was all there, being transcribed with a precision that was borderline divine.
"Ryo?" Mika's voice was small. She looked up, her eyes red and swollen.
I didn't look at her. I was writing the most beautiful scene I had ever conceived.
"We can't go back, Mika," I said, my eyes fixed on the screen. "You've spilled the ink now. You're part of the manuscript. You can't leave until the story says you can."
"What are you going to do to me?"
"I'm going to make you immortal," I said.
I turned to look at her.
"But first, I need you to tell me how it feels."
"How what feels?"
"To know that you're the only reason I'm still alive. To know that without your fear, I am nothing but a blank page."
She stared at me, and in that moment, the last thread of her affection for me snapped. It didn't break with a bang; it died with a hollow, empty click.
"You're not a writer," she said, her voice turning cold. "You're a parasite."
"A parasite is just a collaborator who doesn't ask permission," I replied.
The doorbell rang again.
It wasn't the rhythmic, insistent ring of the detective. It was a heavy, rhythmic pounding.
*BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.*
"Police! Open up!"
Mika's face lit up with a desperate hope. She scrambled toward the door, but I was already there.
I didn't block her. I didn't grab her.
I simply pointed at the laptop.
The screen was flashing.
*The detective stands at the door,* it read. *He has no warrant. He has only a suspicion. If she screams, he will enter. He will find the blood. He will find the knife. And the book will be confiscated. It will be burned. It will never be finished.*
I looked at Mika.
"Is that what you want? To kill the only beautiful thing I've ever made? To turn this masterpiece into a police report?"
She hesitated.
She was an editor. She had spent her life protecting the work. She had spent her life believing that literature was more important than the people who wrote it.
The pounding continued.
"Mr. Kanzaki! We know you're in there! Open the door or we will force entry!"
I leaned in close to her ear.
"If they come in, I'll tell them you attacked me. I'll tell them you're the one who killed the thief. I've already written the evidence, Mika. The book is the only record that matters."
She looked at the knife on the floor. She looked at the blood on my shirt.
She looked at the laptop, where the story was already weaving her into a web of lies.
"Decide," I whispered. "Are you a witness? Or are you a collaborator?"
Mika Aoyama, the woman who loved books more than life, closed her eyes.
A single tear tracked through the dust on her cheek.
She walked to the door.
"Everything is fine!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "I'm Ryo's editor! We... we were having an argument about a scene! He's fine! I'm fine!"
The pounding stopped.
A long, agonizing silence followed.
"Ms. Aoyama?" Hartmann's voice. He was there. "Are you sure? We heard a scream."
"It was... it was for the book! We were acting it out! Please, leave us alone! We have a deadline!"
She leaned her forehead against the door, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
"Very well," Hartmann said. His voice sounded skeptical, heavy with a promise of return. "But we'll be watching the building. Good day, Mr. Kanzaki."
We heard his footsteps retreat.
I felt a surge of triumph so powerful it nearly made me faint.
I looked at Nox. He was bowing to me, a courtier to a king.
"The Point of No Return," the demon whispered. "She has lied for the work. She is ours now."
I walked back to the desk.
I didn't feel the pain in my shoulder anymore. I felt only the hunger.
"Mika," I said.
She didn't move from the door.
"Get the champagne," I commanded. "We have a lot of work to do."
She didn't answer. She just stood there, a broken character in a story that refused to let her go.
I sat down and began to type.
*Chapter Five: The Manuscript of Bone.*
*The editor realizes that the door was never locked from the outside. It was locked from within her own heart. She has chosen the lie. And in the dark, the Muse begins to hum.*
The cursor blinked.
Waiting for more.
I realized then that the detective wasn't my greatest enemy.
Time was.
I had to finish this book before the blood dried.
I looked at Mika.
"Sit down," I said. "Tell me what happens in Chapter Six."
She turned, her eyes dead, her soul redacted.
"In Chapter Six," she whispered, "everyone dies."
I smiled.
"Perfect."
The laptop clicked.
The ink flowed.
And the world outside began to fade into a white, silent void.