Kaien stood at the entrance of Arcanum Academy, staring up at the grand structure before him. The towering building loomed like a forgotten titan, its walls a mix of gleaming white marble and shifting ink, as though the foundation itself was alive, breathing with the pulse of magic. Veins of glowing runes snaked through the stone, winding up and down like veins in the human body, pulsing with light that shifted as though it could hear the rhythm of the world itself.
It was beautiful. It was grand. And yet, there was something deeply unsettling about it. The grandeur felt... incomplete. Half-finished. As though the very architecture had been hastily pieced together in the hours before a deadline. The walls shimmered with symbols Kaien couldn't quite comprehend—glyphs that twisted and undulated in ways that defied logic. They were improvised, not carefully constructed. It was as if the academy, the grand institution, had been written by someone with only a vague idea of what it should be.
As Kaien crossed the threshold, he could feel the air shift around him, the hum of power that resonated through the stone and the very air he breathed. His footsteps echoed unnaturally in the wide corridors, the sound somehow warped, as if they were happening just a beat too late. The floors beneath his feet felt soft, like a freshly-inked page—fragile and yet alive with the presence of magic.
"What the hell is this place?" Kaien muttered, taking a hesitant step forward. The large doors behind him swung closed on their own, the soft whisper of magic sealing them shut.
He walked deeper into the academy, unable to shake the feeling that something was watching him, something unseen that was not a part of the story he had written. He was surrounded by students, all wearing the same navy-blue robes emblazoned with sigils of the academy's various factions, but none of them seemed to pay him any attention. Their faces were vague, distant—hollow—as if they weren't fully formed.
He passed by one group of students chatting animatedly, but when he tried to listen, their voices sounded distant, muffled, as if they were speaking through a thick curtain. It was like hearing a conversation from a dream—familiar, but unreachable.
A strange unease prickled the back of his neck. He had expected this place to be grand, but it felt too real. Every detail of it, every object in his peripheral vision, felt like it had been hastily sketched in—unfinished. He had written a few minor details about the academy—just enough to give context to the story—but never fleshed it out fully. And now, the consequences were clear. This world wasn't real. It was like a half-baked script, and he was living inside of it.
Factions. His thoughts returned to the factions he'd written into his manuscript. The Scriptors, the Magisters, the Guardians—all powerful, all dangerous in their own right. And somewhere within the sea of students, he felt his own place. The Scriptors had been a simple idea in the original draft—those who could manipulate the written word, weaving spells through ancient glyphs and inked scrolls. He was a part of them now.
Kaien found himself herded into a large, open hall filled with hundreds of students. The high ceiling was adorned with suspended, floating bookshelves, the spines of which shimmered with ancient, arcane symbols. The air smelled faintly of parchment and something… more alive. A strange mixture of perfume, ink, and the faintest hint of something… wrong.
At the front of the room stood an imposing figure—Headmaster Vellius, as tall and thin as a shadow, his robes cascading in folds like layers of black silk and gold leaf, his eyes glowing with an unnerving sharpness.
Vellius smiled, his lips curling into a grin that was both welcoming and entirely too knowing. His eyes swept over the room of students, pausing for a brief, unsettling moment as they seemed to settle on Kaien.
"Welcome to Arcanum Academy," the headmaster's voice boomed, and the words felt too loud, too deep, vibrating in Kaien's chest. "Here, you will learn to master the written word. Magic flows through us, and we—"
The rest of the speech became a blur. Kaien's mind was reeling from the sheer absurdity of it all. This was not how he had written the academy's orientation. There was nothing about vibrating air or glowing eyes. Vellius' presence felt like it was being improvised, like he wasn't fully written into the scene. His words felt like they were pulled from some deeper, hidden layer of the narrative that Kaien hadn't touched.
After the disorienting speech, Kaien was ushered into small groups, mixing with other students from the Scriptors faction. Most of them were silent, their eyes wide and curious but somehow vacant, like actors who were forgetting their lines. Kaien tried to engage with them, but every attempt felt like he was talking to paper cutouts, their responses robotic, scripted, and far too perfect.
One girl, a lanky student with a dark braid and sharp features, finally broke the awkward silence. "You look lost," she said, her voice too clear, too predictable.
Kaien blinked, surprised. "I'm just… getting used to this place. It's… different from how I imagined it."
She tilted her head, her gaze piercing. "That's how it feels, doesn't it? Like it's all half-formed." She paused, as if considering something, before adding, "Some of us are still waiting for our purpose."
Her words struck Kaien in a way he couldn't quite explain. Purpose. He'd written purpose into every character's backstory, but hearing it from her—this incomplete girl—felt unsettling. Was she aware that she was a character? Was she… aware of her own half-formed nature?
Kaien could only nod, though the dread in his stomach grew with each passing second. He needed answers, and he needed them quickly.
The following hours passed in a haze. Kaien was guided through various buildings on campus, each one more bizarre and improvised than the last. The classrooms were vast, with floating scrolls and magical artifacts embedded into the walls. The Scriptors had their own wing, a labyrinth of bookshelves that stretched toward the ceiling like endless mountains of knowledge. The air was alive with the hum of incantations and the subtle whispers of inked words.
He was led back to his dorm, a modest room with a window that seemed too clean to be real. The walls were bare, save for a single, tall bookshelf filled with books he had never seen before. Kaien collapsed on the bed, his mind swirling with the impossible.
Then, as if it were fate itself, something strange caught his eye. A parchment lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, glowing faintly with an ethereal light.
It was an old, crinkled scroll, edges worn but inscribed with dark ink. The words on the parchment glowed faintly, pulsing like the heartbeat of some unseen entity. Kaien's hands trembled as he reached for it.
The title read:
"Your Role in the Story".
He stared at the words, feeling the weight of them pressing down on him. This was it. This was the moment he had feared.
The parchment flickered, and a cold chill filled the room. The words began to shift, changing before his eyes as they rearranged, forming sentences he hadn't written.
"The Author is lost. The Written is incomplete. Your role, Kaien Lior, has already been decided."
A sickening realization settled over him. This wasn't just fate—this was manipulation.
And Kaien Lior was nothing more than a pawn in a story he didn't control.
To be continued…