Chapter 1 The vanishing page

Ori woke to the scent of burning paper.

For a moment, they thought it was a dream. But the air was thick with smoke, and the familiar hum of the Library-the low, endless whisper of stories weaving themselves into existence-had stopped.

Ori sat up, their pulse quickening. Silence was impossible here. The Library of Creation never slept. Every second, books were being written, new worlds spinning into existence with every stroke of a storyteller's pen.

Yet now, the air was empty.

And something was missing.

They scrambled out of their cot, pulling on their coat, and stepped into the corridor of endless shelves. The Library stretched in every direction, an infinite maze of bookshelves that towered into the darkness above. Ori had spent years memorizing their way through it. They knew every hallway, every stairwell, every winding path through this world of words.

But something was wrong.

A section of shelves-an entire wing of the Library-had collapsed into dust.

Ori inhaled sharply. Books were missing. Not misplaced, not stolen, but gone.

When a book vanished, so did the world it described. Somewhere in the vastness of the universe, entire cities, civilizations-maybe even entire planets-had simply ceased to exist. Unwritten.

And it was happening again.

Ori knelt, brushing their fingers over the thin layer of dust where the books had once stood. It wasn't just destruction-it was erasure. As if these stories had never been told.

They stood quickly, their mind racing. The Library had been decaying for years, losing small fragments of itself to time. But never this fast. Never this violently.

Ori turned to the great Index, the enchanted catalog that recorded every book in existence. They pressed a hand against its gilded cover. The book shuddered beneath their fingertips, its pages flipping wildly before settling on an entry that shouldn't exist.

A book that hadn't been written yet.

A book with no author, no title.

Just one name.

Ori.

And beneath it, an even greater impossibility:

Ori woke to the scent of burning paper.

For a moment, they thought it was a dream. But the air was thick with smoke, and the familiar hum of the Library-the low, endless whisper of stories weaving themselves into existence-had stopped.

Ori sat up, their pulse quickening. Silence was impossible here. The Library of Creation never slept. Every second, books were being written, new worlds spinning into existence with every stroke of a storyteller's pen.

Yet now, the air was empty.

And something was missing.

They scrambled out of their cot, pulling on their coat, and stepped into the corridor of endless shelves. The Library stretched in every direction, an infinite maze of bookshelves that towered into the darkness above. Ori had spent years memorizing their way through it. They knew every hallway, every stairwell, every winding path through this world of words.

But something was wrong.

A section of shelves-an entire wing of the Library-had collapsed into dust.

Ori inhaled sharply. Books were missing. Not misplaced, not stolen, but gone.

When a book vanished, so did the world it described. Somewhere in the vastness of the universe, entire cities, civilizations-maybe even entire planets-had simply ceased to exist. Unwritten.

And it was happening again.

Ori knelt, brushing their fingers over the thin layer of dust where the books had once stood. It wasn't just destruction-it was erasure. As if these stories had never been told.

They stood quickly, their mind racing. The Library had been decaying for years, losing small fragments of itself to time. But never this fast. Never this violently.

Ori turned to the great Index, the enchanted catalog that recorded every book in existence. They pressed a hand against its gilded cover. The book shuddered beneath their fingertips, its pages flipping wildly before settling on an entry that shouldn't exist.

A book that hadn't been written yet.

A book with no author, no title.

Just one name.

Ori.

And beneath it, an even greater impossibility:

Final Page: Missing.

Ori staggered back, heart pounding. The Library had recorded every story in history, from the birth of the first star to the fall of forgotten empires. But a book without an ending?

That had never happened before.

And if Ori didn't find that missing page...

They feared they might be erased next

Ori's hands trembled as they turned the Index's ancient pages, staring at the impossible entry before them. A book without an ending. Their name in the title. A missing final page.

The weight of it settled in their chest.

This wasn't just another disappearing book. This wasn't just another vanishing world.

This was personal.

A cold gust of wind swept through the Library's corridors-impossible, because the Library had no wind. Ori turned sharply, the candlelight flickering in the vast emptiness between shelves.

They weren't alone.

Somewhere in the labyrinth of books, something was moving.

Ori hesitated only for a second before snapping the Index shut and tucking it under their arm. If the Library was erasing stories, if even the Keepers were no longer safe, then they needed answers-and fast.

And there was only one place to start.

The Restricted Archives.

The Path of Lost Stories

Ori moved quickly through the dark corridors, their boots silent against the marble floor.

The Restricted Archives lay deep beneath the Library, hidden behind doors that hadn't been opened in centuries. This was where the forgotten books were kept-the ones that were never finished, the stories abandoned before they could be told.

Most of them were unstable.

Some were dangerous.

But if the Library itself was disappearing, then perhaps the answers lay in what had already been lost.

As Ori reached the grand spiral staircase leading downward, the whispering began.

At first, it was just a murmur, the sound of pages turning in an unseen wind. But as they descended, the voices became clearer. Fragments of sentences. Half-told stories. Names that had been erased.

"...a kingdom swallowed by the stars..."

"...the writer who was never born..."

"...turn back, Keeper..."

Ori clenched their jaw and pressed forward.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the great iron door loomed before them. Its surface was engraved with words from forgotten languages, shifting and rearranging like ink spreading across a page.

Ori exhaled slowly, placed a hand against the door, and whispered the keyphrase passed down through generations of Keepers:

"All stories deserve to be told."

The door groaned open.

And inside, a book was waiting.

A book that should not exist.

It lay open on the pedestal at the center of the room, its pages fluttering even though there was no breeze. Ori approached cautiously, their pulse hammering.

They traced a finger along the book's cover. The title was written in a language older than the Library itself. But Ori could still read it.

"The First and Final Story."

Their breath caught.

This book... it wasn't just a record of a single world.

It was the origin of all stories. The first tale ever told.

And as Ori turned the pages, they realized something chilling.

The ink was fading.

The first story was being erased.

And if it vanished completely-

-so would every story that had ever been Written .