I stood barefoot in a vast, shifting plain where the ground wasn't earth but pages — endless pages, fluttering with ink that bled into shapes. Every gust of wind scattered them, only for new ones to fall from the sky.
Shadows gathered at the edges, taking form. Not one, but dozens. Then hundreds. They stepped forward in slow procession, their faces indistinct, blurred like half-erased charcoal sketches. Each carried the same hollow light in their eyes — weary, scorched, and… familiar.
A man draped in merchant's silks approached first, coins spilling endlessly from his sleeves, clinking against the page-floor as he moved. His voice was brittle with shame.
"I wished to have all the money in the world," he said, holding out trembling hands. "and drowned in them. You, boy… you carry my story now."
Another stepped forth — a pale girl in cracked porcelain mask, her dress frayed with centuries. She whispered, almost sweetly, "I wished for absolute beauty. My face and my body was loved, and then envied, and then… torn apart. You carry mine, too."
One by one they came — a farmer with a broken plow, a soldier in armor heavy with rust, a child who held a melted toy. Their voices overlapped, rising into a cacophony. Wishes upon wishes. Regrets carved into flesh.
I staggered back. My pulse drummed. "You're… you're all—"
"Predecessors."
The word echoed like a hammer. I turned. The Unknown stood there, but not quite the same. He was taller, fractured, pieces of him stitched together from the shadows of the crowd. His grin was thin, skeletal.
"They came before you," he said, his voice spreading like oil across the dream. "Each one gave me a name. Each one made their wishes. Each one thought they were clever enough to endure the stories."
The crowd pressed closer, whispering in unison, a sea of broken prayers. My skin crawled.
"Why… why show me this?" I choked.
The Unknown leaned in, eyes gleaming like a starless void. "Because, Souta… you are only the next chapter. And chapters, no matter how stubborn, always end."
The pages beneath me shifted violently, tearing loose and spiraling upward in a blizzard of ink and voices. Hands — countless hands reached for my arms, my throat, my eyes.
Then there was a sudden silence.
The grip on my arms vanished. The storm of paper froze mid-whirl, each page suspended in the air like moths trapped in amber. The world hung still.
A lazy voice broke through the silence.
"Boring," the Unknown said.
The shadows shuddered once, then folded in on themselves, dissolving into ink that soaked into the pages beneath my feet. The predecessors — the merchant, the porcelain girl, the soldier, the child — blinked out one by one, their voices swallowed like candles pinched out.
I spun around, my chest heaving. "What did you—"
"Storytime's over," the Unknown interrupted, stepping out from the nothing, his grin sharp but weary. "Even eternity has filler arcs. You'll thank me later."
Kae's voice cut through the storm of pages. "Souta! Wake up!"
The hands faltered. The pages shrieked like torn cloth, and the world collapsed inward.
I shot upright with a gasp, drenched in sweat. The ceiling tiles of the nurse's office swam above me. My chest heaved like I'd run a marathon.
Kae was leaning over me, her palm firm against my shoulder to keep me from thrashing. Her face was close, hair shadowing her eyes. "You were shaking," she said, her tone flat but not unkind. "And… muttering things, old names I've never heard before."
My mouth went dry. "Just… nightmares," I rasped.
Her expression didn't change, but she lingered, studying me with that unnerving stillness of hers. "Nightmares don't usually make the room feel strange." She glanced around as if she expected the walls themselves to move, then shook her head. "Forget it, sleep. You look like you'll break if you stand."
She pulled back, dragging the chair closer again and settling into it with folded arms. For all her sharpness, her presence pressed against the fever like ice on a burn.
I swallowed, my throat raw. "You don't… have to stay."
Her eyes flicked to me, unreadable. "Someone has to make sure you don't roll off and crack your skull. Think of it as… community service."
And that was that. She leaned back, silent as stone, as though guarding something without admitting it.
High above, where the light didn't reach, the Unknown chuckled. "She notices the oddity. Intriguing, mortals like her don't come along often."
I turned my face toward the window, refusing to let the words hook into me. But deep down, the heat in my veins and Kae's unshakable stillness knotted together into something I couldn't name.
Suddenly, Kenta slammed the door open so hard the nurse nearly spilled her tea.
"Yo! Souta!! Still alive?" he barked, dragging Hiro in behind him.
"Keep your voice down," Kae said, not lifting her eyes from me. Her tone wasn't warm — more like a warning — but it was enough to make the two boys pause for half a second.
Hiro grinned, adjusting his glasses. "Ohhh, so the rumors are true. Our boy's got a personal guard dog now."
"Dog?" Kae's gaze flicked up at him, cold as a knife. Hiro coughed and instantly decided the wall was very interesting.
Meanwhile, Kenta was already by the bed, poking my cheek like he was testing a melon.
"Still feverish? Or just faking it to skip Math test? C'mon, blink twice if you can hear me!"
I groaned and swatted weakly at his hand. "You're… idiots."
"Hey, that's three blinks, he's alive!" Kenta announced, throwing both fists up like he'd just won a championship.
The nurse sighed. "If you're all going to act like children, I'll throw you out myself."
Kenta dragged a chair across the floor with an ear-splitting screech and flopped down beside my bed like he owned the place. Hiro, of course, stayed standing, arms folded, smirking at the scene as if he were watching a stage play.
"You look like hell, man," Kenta said cheerfully. "Seriously, what did you do, wrestle a train?"
"More like… it wrestled me," I muttered, voice raspy. My skin burned one moment and iced the next, the fever twisting my thoughts.
Hiro adjusted his glasses again, eyes narrowing just slightly. "He doesn't look like any fever I've seen. Are you sure you didn't… push yourself too far, Souta?"
Something in his tone made my stomach knot. Hiro was sharp — sharper than I wanted him to be.
Before I could scrape together a reply, Kenta leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and jabbed a finger toward Hiro.
"Oi, don't start with the detective act. You always make it sound like he's hiding some top-secret spy life."
Hiro's smirk curved just slightly as he adjusted his glasses. "I'm just saying, he's a little… off. Not the usual Souta who mouths off at everything."
Kenta snorted. "Off? He looks like a boiled shrimp, that's all." He thumped my leg lightly, grinning. "Don't die on us, alright?"
I forced a weak laugh. "No promises."
The tension eased, and for a moment, the pounding in my skull dulled. Hiro still watched me — not with accusation, but with quiet curiosity, like he was puzzling over an equation he couldn't solve. But he didn't press further.
Kenta kept laughing for a while but the sound died when Kae's voice slid into the air like a knife cutting clean through.
"You're hiding something."
The room stilled.
My eyes cracked open, throat dry. "What—?"
Kae leaned against the wall, arms folded, gaze sharp enough to pin him in place. "Don't play dumb. You look worse than sick. And it's not just today. You've been… off." Her tone wasn't accusatory, but steady, measured, as if stating a fact.
Kenta blinked, glancing between them. "Eh? Hiding what? Since when are we in some kind of mystery drama?"
Hiro didn't say anything, just adjusted his glasses again, a faint smirk tugging at his lips like he wanted to see where this went.
I tried to laugh it off, but the sound came out thin and cracked. "It's just a fever, Kae... Don't make it sound like I'm plotting world domination."
"Maybe not," she replied evenly, "but you're hiding something. And if you keep it to yourself, it's going to crush you."
The words landed heavier than I wanted to admit.
Kenta, oblivious, stretched and yawned. "Man, this is way too heavy for a sickroom conversation. I thought we were just here to annoy him back to health."
My head throbbed, and I pressed a palm to my temple. My lips parted, searching for something that would sound normal, something that wouldn't crack under Kae's stare.
But then the air in the room shifted — like the fluorescent lights above had dimmed by a fraction. A whisper slithered through the fever haze, cold and mocking.
"How long can you dance to the tune, boy?" the Unknown crooned, every syllable dripping like oil. "Every step you take is to my rhythm. Pretend all you like… the music won't stop."
I jolted, my hand clenching the blanket. The sudden movement made the cot creak sharply, drawing all three pairs of eyes to me.
Kenta leaned forward, startled. "Whoa, easy, man. Did you dream of a ghost or something?"
"I—" My throat scraped raw, words failing. I forced my breathing steady, but the tremor in my hands betrayed me.
Kae stood, chair legs screeching against the floor. She stepped closer, eyes narrowing like blades. "You're hiding something," she said flatly. Her tone wasn't curious anymore, it was a verdict. "And don't tell me it's just the fever."
Her shadow fell over me, long and sharp. My pulse hammered against my ribs.
The Unknown chuckled again, louder this time, though still unheard by the others. "Ah, she presses close. Will you let her peel the mask away, or shove her aside and stumble? Choose carefully, chapter-boy."
The sound of it coiled inside my skull until I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the mattress as if it might keep me tethered to the room.
Meanwhile, Far above the city, on the shadowed rooftop of an ancient temple, a girl crouched, fingers tracing a glowing device etched with runes. The moonlight caught only the edges of her figure, keeping her presence hidden.-
"Eve… are you sure IT is active?" she whispered into the device, eyes flicking to the darkened streets below.
Eve's voice, filtered through the coded network, crackled back. "Yes. IT is on the move. The entity we've been tracking — for now, I haven't fully confirmed what it is yet, only that its presence is… unstable."
The girl's eyes narrowed. "Understood. Eve… but IT may have sensed the observation, things could get messy."
"Keep to the shadows and do not confront. We're not ready, One wrong move and Vescarion might awaken fully. We only watch and see for now." The girl continued.
"Copy that. But… is it truly that Vescarion?"
The girl's reply was brief, steady. "Might be. Maintain your distance and keep up the survelliance."
Below, the city slept in ignorance, unaware that threads of fate were pulling taut above them.
And somewhere far away, Souta — fevered, fragile, and unknowing — lay trapped in his own mind, wrestling with the infinite lecture and history of wishes that was now tangled with his every heartbeat.
Above and below, the game was quietly beginning.