I was drowning in pages.
The words were everywhere. They twisted in the air around me, in my lungs, in my very blood. Every time I took a breath, they flooded me with their weight, pressing down like an unrelenting force.
"She must write. She must finish the story."
The book had taken control. The eyes — the eyes were still watching, blinking, shifting. It was no longer a book. It was a world, a prison, and I was trapped inside it.
I could feel the ink seeping into me, into my thoughts. It was rewriting me, one sentence at a time.
"You can't escape," the girl whispered, appearing beside me like a shadow in the chaos. Her face was an empty mask, her eyes wide, unblinking. "The moment you touched the page, you became part of it. You became the story."
I recoiled, stepping back. "I'm not part of your story," I said, but my voice wavered, unsure.
The book pulsed around us, as though hearing my words. The pages trembled, and the words began to shift, turning faster, building toward something.
I realized then: It didn't matter what I said. The story was already written. It was my story. It was our story.
The story of the girl. The story of the house. The story of me.
And the book wanted me to finish it.
I looked down at my hands, trembling. The words were written on my palms now. My skin was a canvas, and the ink was alive, crawling beneath the surface.
"You can't stop writing," the girl said again, her voice growing colder. "The story must be complete. You don't get to choose the ending."
But I did have a choice. Didn't I?
I wasn't just some character to be written and discarded. I was real. This book wasn't the only thing that existed. I had a life, a world outside of these pages, outside of this endless story.
The pages swirled around me, faster now, tightening like a noose.
I could feel the pressure building. It was overwhelming, suffocating.
And then, for the first time, the book spoke.
"You are the ending. You are the author."
I gasped, my heart pounding. The words were alive, more than just ink on paper. They spoke, they moved, they willed themselves into existence.
I was the author. But I was also its prisoner.
The walls of the bookroom began to close in, and the voices grew louder. "Write." "Finish." "Complete the story."
It wasn't just the girl. It was everyone. Everyone who had ever fallen into the story. Everyone who had been consumed by the pages. They were all here, trapped in the ink.
My mind raced. How could I finish a story that had no beginning, no end?
And then, it came to me.
The answer was simple.
I was already writing.
Every time I tried to escape, every time I ran, every choice I made, I was shaping the story. The ending wasn't something I could avoid. It was something I had to embrace.
I had to stop running.
I had to write.
I took a deep breath, my fingers trembling.
I reached out for the pages, pulling them close to my chest, feeling the weight of every word. Every choice I had made, every path I had walked, had led me here.
And now, I had to finish it.
But what would the ending be?
I didn't know. But I could choose.
As I closed my eyes, I let the ink take me. The final chapter was coming.