[Lost Chapter Progress: 59% → 73%]
The train lurched to a stop.
Not at a station. Not even on a track.
The doors slid open to a blank expanse — a space where the world hadn't been written yet.
"Where… are we?" Shin Yoosung asked.
"No place," Han Sooyoung murmured. "Or every place."
Kim Dokja's breath caught.
He knew this feeling. The hush before a narrative took form. The weight of a pen before it struck the page.
This was the Author's Penumbra — the shadow between fiction and authorship.
A voice spoke, smooth as ink.
"Welcome, Protagonist."
They turned. A figure stood ahead, formed entirely from floating pages and golden script. No face. No body. Just fragments of words shaped into a human outline.
But Kim Dokja knew what — who — it was.
"Are you… the Author Fragment?"
[System Warning: Contact With Unstable Author Construct Imminent]
[Narrative Instability Reaching 81%]
"Yes," the figure replied. "Or what remains of the one who tried to become the story itself."
Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes. "What does that mean?"
The pages of the figure rustled like a sigh.
"Once, a reader reached the final sentence. And in doing so, they believed they deserved to write what came next."
"They weren't wrong. But they weren't alone."
Han Sooyoung stepped forward. "You mean the girl — Unregistered Reader_XYZ?"
The figure twitched. A golden tear bled down its form, splitting a word in half.
"She was the first. But not the only. Others tried. Each reader who believed the story should have ended differently left their mark. And those marks became me."
"I am the composite of every attempt to rewrite the story from within."
Kim Dokja's mouth felt dry.
"So why did the system hide you?"
"Because I'm the reason it failed."
The ground trembled. The air turned sharp — like every possibility was trying to collapse into a single outcome.
[System Alert: Uncontained Author Logic Detected]
[Stability at 17% and Falling]
"The story was meant to end," the Author Fragment said. "But readers wouldn't let it. They clung to their versions. Rewrote characters. Stole meaning. Split timelines."
"I did what they asked. I wrote everything. Every version. Every betrayal. Every death undone. Until the story had no core left."
Kim Dokja felt the weight of those words like iron on his spine.
"You overfed the narrative," he whispered. "You made it hollow."
"Yes."
A pause.
"And then you came along."
The figure tilted its head toward Kim Dokja. Its body began to stabilize, forming clearer features — a silhouette that mirrored his own.
"You mean…" Kim Dokja stepped back. "You're—"
"I'm what you would have become if you'd tried to write it all yourself."
Yoo Joonghyuk raised his blade. "Then we destroy it. Now."
"No." Kim Dokja held out an arm. "We need to understand it first."
The Author Fragment didn't resist.
"You are the final contradiction," it said softly. "A reader who became part of the story without corrupting it."
"You walked the line. The others didn't."
"But now you're here, in the Lost Chapter — the epicenter of abandoned meanings. And if you leave, you'll take the instability with you."
Kim Dokja's heart pounded. "You're saying… I can't leave?"
[System Decision Point Imminent]
[Stabilize: Remain and Rewrite]
[Escape: Purge the Fragment and Seal the Chapter]
Han Sooyoung cursed. "So those are our choices? Kim Dokja stays behind and fixes everything… or we burn this place and pretend it never existed?"
"No," Kim Dokja said. "There's a third way."
He looked at the Author Fragment.
"I won't write everything. But I'll let this chapter be read."
The fragment flickered.
"You said you became unstable because you tried to contain all the narratives. So don't. Let them go. Let them be read as possibilities — not canon."
"Make the Lost Chapter a library," Yoo Joonghyuk said slowly. "Not a prison."
"A place where versions exist… but don't fight to be real," Han Sooyoung added.
The fragment hesitated.
Then, for the first time, it bowed.
[System Update: Narrative Function Reassigned]
[Lost Chapter is now: The Archive of Divergence]
[Stability Restored to 97%]
The golden figure dissolved into light — not vanishing, but spreading — each page flying outward like a bird taking flight. Scenes unfolded all around them: endings that never happened, companions who never met, versions of themselves they never became.
But none of them threatened the story anymore.
They simply… were.
[Lost Chapter Complete]
[You Have Gained the Right to Witness Divergent Narratives]
[Reward: Narrative Anchor – "The One Who Remembers"]
Kim Dokja exhaled.
The train waited patiently behind them. Open doors. No longer pulsing with danger.
They had made it through.
But as they stepped back on board, a final message pulsed behind his eyes:
[Final Divergence Approaching]
[Beware: One Fragment Was Not Contained]
End of Chapter 24
.