Snow fell without sound over the capital.
Not soft, not gentle—but thick, suffocating, as if the sky itself were trying to bury the city alive.
Edrin Vale did not look up.
He had long since stopped noticing the seasons.
In the Archive Hall, time did not move. It only accumulated.
Dust. Ink. Forgotten names.
And lies.
He dipped the quill into black ink and continued copying the final page.
"Year 312 of the Crown—The Hollow Plague was contained.The Kingdom endures."
The sentence was clean. Precise. Official.
It was also wrong.
Edrin paused.
Not because he doubted it.
But because, for a brief and flickering moment—
he could not remember writing the line before it.
A small thing.
A lapse of attention, perhaps.
It happened sometimes, in long hours of copying records.
Still, he frowned.
Edrin turned the page back.
The ink was fresh.
His handwriting—undeniably his.
And yet—
he had no memory of forming the letters.
A cold sensation crept up his spine.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Just… awareness.
Like standing on the edge of a thought he could not quite see.
He flipped to the last page.
There was something there.
A line that did not belong.
It was not part of the official record.
Not in structure. Not in tone.
Not in intent.
It was written in the same ink.
The same hand.
His hand.
Edrin stared at the words.
And the words stared back.
"If you are reading this—"
His fingers tightened around the page.
A faint tremor, almost imperceptible.
"Do not trust the Kingdom."
The Archive Hall seemed quieter.
Too quiet.
"Do not trust them."
A drop of ink slid from the tip of his quill and spread across the margin.
Like something bleeding.
And then—
the last line.
"Do not trust yourself."
Edrin stopped breathing.
Not intentionally.
His body simply forgot how.
There was more.
A final note beneath it.
Smaller. Pressed harder into the page.
As if written in urgency.
Or desperation.
"I have already failed."
His vision blurred for a second.
"So this time—"
"Kill me."
Silence swallowed the room.
Edrin did not move.
Could not move.
The words felt… heavier than ink.
As if they were waiting for him to understand them.
Then—
a sound.
Footsteps.
Distant at first.
Measured. Metallic.
Echoing through the stone corridors beyond the Archive Hall.
Edrin's head snapped up.
No one should be here at this hour.
No one ever came here.
The footsteps grew closer.
More than one person.
Armored, by the sound of it.
"—Clear the lower wing."
A voice. Low. Controlled.
Not a scholar.
Not a clerk.
Edrin's pulse quickened.
He glanced back at the page.
The words stared at him.
Kill me.
The door to the Archive Hall creaked open.
Light spilled in—cold, white, unnatural.
"Who's there?"
A sharp voice cut through the silence.
Edrin stood slowly, hands raised slightly—not in surrender, but in habit.
"I work here," he said. "Archive division."
Three figures stepped inside.
Dark uniforms. No insignia he recognized.
Their eyes swept the room.
Then fixed on him.
"Name."
"Edrin Vale."
A pause.
Too long.
One of them tilted his head slightly.
"…There are no registered personnel assigned to this facility."
Edrin frowned.
"That's not possible. I've been here for—"
He stopped.
For how long?
Another step forward.
Boots against stone.
"You are in a restricted site," the man said. "State your authorization."
"I just told you—I work here."
"No," the man replied, calm and flat.
"You don't."
Something cold settled in Edrin's chest.
"That's absurd," he said. "Check the records."
"We did."
A beat.
"You do not exist."
The words landed harder than they should have.
Edrin shook his head.
"That's not—"
The man moved faster than expected.
A flash of movement.
A sharp crack of light—
Pain.
White. Blinding. Immediate.
Edrin gasped as something struck his neck.
His body seized.
Muscles locking.
Vision shattering into fragments of light.
He collapsed to his knees.
The Archive Hall twisted around him.
The page—
the words—
Kill me.
They blurred.
Faded.
The last thing he heard was a voice:
"Subject secured."
Darkness closed in.
And just before everything vanished—
a single thought surfaced.
I wrote that.
Then—
nothing.