The blank book opened by itself.
There was no dramatic surge of light this time, no rush of sound to announce the moment — only a quiet, deliberate stillness, the cover falling open as though it had simply decided, after however long it had waited in silence, that the time had finally come. The Forgotten Reader, still standing beside the shelf where the volume had first appeared, watched it happen with a wariness that had not left his expression since the title first bled into view.
What he saw within its pages, however, was unlike anything he had encountered in all his ages tending the Hall of Unfinished Stories.
There were no words.
