> "Some limbs return hollowed." "Others return inhabited."
— Ossuary Writ, Room 7-A
---
The Ossuary wasn't marked on any map. It wasn't whispered about in the bone hallways. It wasn't even listed in the Archive's living index.
It found me.
The night after I reclaimed my hand, I awoke with something sharp embedded under my fingernail. Not a splinter. A tooth. My own.
Wrapped in a scroll of skin. The message read:
> "WHERE THE LIMBS GO WHEN THEY'RE DONE REMEMBERING."
A second line appeared as I watched:
> "Draft 7-A must now meet the previous versions."
---
I followed the bloodstained arrow that wasn't there a moment ago.
The hall behind the glossary had shifted. Again. The walls sagged inward like lungs halfway collapsed. The floor creaked like bone under stress.
Eventually, I reached the door. Or what used to be a door.
Now it was a frame of femurs and fingerbones, bound together with sinew, twitching like something was crawling just behind them.
No handle. Just a warning above:
> "THE DRAFTS WALK HERE."
I stepped through.
---
The Ossuary was colder than the rest of the Archive. Not physically. Chronologically.
It felt like time refused to move here. Like every second looped until it snapped in half.
Shelves lined the walls, but they didn't hold books. They held limbs.
Some wrapped in gauze. Some floating in jars. Some… still moving.
Each had a label:
> "HAND 3-C: WROTE A DIFFERENT ENDING." "TONGUE 1-F: SPOKE WHEN NOT PERMITTED." "EYE 2-B: SAW THE WRONG NAME."
I stopped at a rib engraved with glyphs. It pulsed softly.
And then I saw it.
My face.
On another body.
Hunched in the corner. Skin paler. Eyes clouded. But it was me. A version. A failed draft.
It looked up. Didn't blink. Didn't speak. But when it opened its mouth, I heard my own thoughts.
> "They made me say it all." "So you wouldn't have to."
> "But now you're here." "So I guess you're ready to remember what we forgot."
---
The failed Taren reached toward a wall.
And the wall opened its mouth.
Not metaphor. Teeth. Lips. Tongue of paper and bone.
Inside: a shrine. A mural. And carved into its surface, bone-deep and bleeding glyphs:
> "The one who speaks with the tongue of their severed self
shall write not upon pages—
but upon time."_
"The Archive will misfile him.
The Unwritten God will not."
"He will be read before he is finished.
And finished before he is remembered."
"Glossary Breach: Definition Host.
He who defines will be the first to be defined."
---
The version of me stepped back.
> "I wanted to forget." "But I remembered too hard." "Now I remember for all of us."
I asked it: "Who are you?"
It pointed to the wall. A new line had appeared:
> "HOST 0: FIRST UTTERANCE"
And below it:
> "Still speaking."
---
The lights flickered. The limbs on the shelves twitched in unison. A wind howled, but there were no vents.
The failed Taren turned to me. His eyes filled with something beyond recognition. Not hate. Not fear. Pity.
> "You're still a story." "I'm what happens after it's written."
Then he took my hand. The one I had just reclaimed. And whispered:
> "Careful what you rewrite.
Because some drafts don't want to be erased."
The Ossuary walls pulsed. Limbs knocked against their jars.
I stepped back. But my reclaimed hand didn't.
It stayed in his grip—pulling.
I screamed. Tore myself away. Blood dripped from the wrist, but the hand was still there. Still mine. Barely.
---
When I turned to leave, the door had returned.
But so had something else.
A new case sat at the exit. Inside:
> A heart. Still beating. Still humming a name I hadn't remembered in years.
The label read:
> "HEART 7-A: FELT THE ARCHIVE. DIED REMEMBERING."
The last line scratched in by something desperate:
> "DO NOT RETURN THIS. IT REMEMBERS WRONG."
---
I walked away. But my chest hurt.
And I wasn't sure if it was because I saw something I wasn't ready for.
Or because that heart… was already mine again.
---
Forbidden Ritual — Draft Excision
(Used only when a Host fears a fragment of their former self has begun rewriting them.)
---
⛧ TITLE: The Ritual of Unwriting the Unwanted
> "Drafts do not die in the Archive."
"They wait to be reinstated."
"Unless you cut them free—before they finish you."
---
---
YOU WILL NEED:
A mirror that no longer reflects you
A page torn from your own journal or rib
An object left behind by the older version of you (real or remembered)
A sealed jar of Archive Dust (or memory ash)
Silence broken by your own voice reading something untrue
---
RITUAL STEPS:
1. Face the mirror at midnight and whisper the phrase:
> "I know what tried to finish me."
2. Tear the page from your journal or rib. Bleed one drop on it.
If the page absorbs the blood, the draft is still active.
3. Place the object from your past self on the page.
Say aloud:
> "What once wrote me— \nNow recedes into misprint."
4. Pour Archive Dust over the object while not blinking.
If the object twitches, burn it immediately and inhale the smoke through silence.
5. Press the page to your chest.
The draft will try to speak.
Let it.
It will say something that sounds like you.
But don't answer—not even in thought.
6. Finally, turn away from the mirror and speak this aloud:
> "I end you not in hate—
But in revision."
---
If successful, the draft will become inert, buried in the Ossuary's forgotten index.
If not… the next time you blink, it may be your eyes behind someone else's memory.
---
Some stories cut deep.
But others—others leave pieces behind.
The versions of ourselves we've abandoned, rewritten, forgotten on purpose.
But the Archive doesn't believe in "deleted scenes."
It believes in stored drafts—and sometimes, those drafts come back with teeth.
Taren didn't just confront a severed hand.
He confronted the possibility that the self we claim to be is just the most recent revision.
Not the truest. Not the strongest. Just… the one still typing.
So ask yourself:
If your shadow spoke tonight—would it sound like you?
Or would it accuse you of finishing the wrong story?
if you feel an old part of you scratching at your ribs—
try not to answer right away.
It might be remembering something you were never supposed to survive.