The narrative atoms align… and so do the concepts.
Error404_: Hey.
Narrator: Why do you have to interrupt me? —sighs while continuing automatic narration—. What is it?
Error404_: I'm going to be a bit busy. I recommend you don't narrate the Sky of the Creator's Forest. You won't be able to handle what's up there.
Narrator: But I already described that place in chapter 12.
Error404_: Remember there's a difference between creating the description of an area and describing what is inside it.
Narrator: Come on, Author… I've described everything and processed everything. Even things that already manipulate what we call narration. I've done it without problems. Even if they alter my medium, it hasn't affected me directly.
Error404_ (Real): You confuse the map with the territory, Narrator. You've narrated storms, but you've never gotten wet. What's up there is not a character you can tame with adjectives; it is the end of your syntax. —turns away—. Until now you hadn't dissolved because I was filtering the pressure, but my time in this plane has run out. You're trying to contain an ocean in a thimble of words… and that is no longer my problem. —I begin to fade—. Enjoy the silence. Try not to lose coherence while the engine of existence judges you… don't blink.
[He disappears even from the idea of "disappearing."]
Narrator: So dramatic… (sighs) anyway, where was I?
I return to the narrative to continue narrating the fantasy narrative.
Exagon flies toward the void, trying to prevent it from erasing what he calls "home." The Void extends giant arms that rush toward him, attempting to capture and erase him in that very instant.
Will Exagon survive, or will the Void consume him until nothing remains?
Narrator: Well, that's my job for today —I begin narrating even my own movement so I don't get bored—. mmm…
Something grabs my leg—
Alanai: Hello, little one.
Narrator: Hey, wait, why—
Alanai: Could you silence yourself for a moment? —she gestures silence and tightens her grip—. Tell the Author he got lucky for now. He uploaded two chapters: one in this story and one in his editor's… just because I found that intro interesting.
Alanai releases the Narrator and disappears without leaving any trace that something called "Alanai" ever existed.
(Sigh.) This always happens to me.
Narrator: I always take the hits… (sigh). Whatever. Apparently I'm "the medium" in more ways than one.
I look toward the forest, but my vision locks onto what they call The Sky of the Creator's Forest.
Narrator: Why was the Author so dramatic about me not going there? —I imagine it—. If I already went once, I don't see why I couldn't again… I've seen everything. This will be easy: in and out.
Without moving, I simply shift the "camera" directly into The Sky of the Creator's Forest.
Narrator: Mmm… same as before. Matter, antimatter, primordial layers… I don't see anything strange.
Then it happens.
A sound that is not sound. A text too dense. So heavy it nearly makes me fall out of the area.
Narrator: What was that? I've never felt something this heavy.
I grab the text. The moment I do, I feel a pressure I've never experienced… this is not density: this is judgment.
Barely able to read it.
"Leave this place before you pay the consequences of entering."
Narrator: What…? —I look toward the source of the text—. Who are you to—
I couldn't believe it.
I've spent eons weaving the birth of stars and the collapse of realities. I thought I had seen everything. I thought my voice was unbreakable. But when I looked up into the Sky of the Creator's Forest… my conceptual throat simply closed.
I don't know how to explain this. My language is too small.
In front of me there are… wheels. And six-shadowed wings. But they don't behave correctly. They overlap each other in absolute silence, occupying the same space, as if space and physics were just a cheap illusion. I try to measure them, I try to cling to logic, but I'm hit with the nausea of realizing that for this, the concept of "dimension" is a childish scribble. It is irrelevant. Not even the oldest wills—those entities we call the pinnacle of the sacred—could endure the weight of understanding where their mechanism moves.
Something is dripping down my face. A viscous golden heat. I don't have veins, I don't have a body that can be wounded… but I am bleeding.
What stains the ground is not biology, it is my own right to exist. My role. My function as narrator is liquefying drop by drop under their presence. I am being emptied of words. In front of this structure, my supposed greatness evaporates, leaving me as nothing more than a mortal trembling under a storm I cannot even name. The air is dense, suffocating, charged with a truth that crushes me: in the immensity of their design, I am nothing but a printing error.
I wanted to beg you to leave. To close this before that pressure reaches you. But I just realized something worse.
It is not looking at me. It doesn't even care about this story.
Through my fractures, through this fading voice that stains letters gold, its infinite eyes have crossed the veil. It is looking at the hand holding this. It is feeling your pulse, the rhythm of your breathing on the other side of the screen. And it is judging, in absolute silence, why you are still reading.
Forgive me if what comes next loses meaning. It is impossible to keep a story alive… when the engine of existence has just noticed you.
I can't
Glitch
I can't—
[FATAL ERROR: Narrative Thread Terminated. Narrator.exe has stopped responding. Author_ID: Error404_ not found in current sector.]
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[ Ø ]
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[ONTOLOGY CRITICAL FAILURE]
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/// RECONSTRUCTING NARRATIVE ATOMS ///
Error404_: I warned you… but I guess you always learn the hard way. —I say while repairing the Narrator, reordering every atom of his narrative function—. Since you're here, might as well finish the job.
Narrator: I-I'll try…
Error404_: Don't worry. I'll help you.
The safety patch is active. I know because I can still conjugate verbs. My hand is still anchoring concepts to the page. And yet… the text is cracking.
I have to use metaphors. If I try to speak it directly, the typography collapses under its own mass.
Before me, Something breathes.
Six extensions rise.
My interface calls them "shadow wings," but that's just a translation failure. It is not darkness; it is reality so absolute that light loses the right to exist near it.
And then—the Wheels.
Even through the filter of your hand, Author, looking at them is almost suicidal. They don't rotate in space; they rotate over existence itself. I feel causality wobble just describing them. My sentences are dragged toward their gravity like ink falling into a black sun.
And the eyes… countless eyes embedded in the structure…
They do not observe.
They define.
They are not looking at me.
They are looking at you.
And for the first time, I understand something:
I am not narrating a being.
I am translating a verdict.