✦The morning didn't break so much as… tilt.

Light fell into my room at a slightly wrong angle, like reality had shifted its weight overnight and forgotten where the horizon was supposed to be.

I sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, and watched the faint shimmer running along the windowpane. Not a system message. Not a glitch. Something subtler.

A correction.

[ Narrative Discrepancy Detected: Local Reality Offset—0.03° ]

"Already?" I muttered. "I was hoping for at least one day of peace."

Peace was overrated, apparently.

✦Outside, the street looked normal. Mostly. People walked with their usual hurried pace, the same drifting conversations, the usual fragrance of morning food stalls.

But their shadows?A few dragged half a second behind their owners.A few moved too early.

And one man's shadow paused to look at me —even though the man himself didn't.

"Yeah," I whispered. "That's definitely new."

The shadow straightened before snapping back to his heels like nothing happened.Not ominous at all.

✦I decided to take the long route toward the district centre. I needed space. Or at least the illusion of it.

The world was quieter today. Not silent — just… listening.

As I walked, the familiar hum rose from deep beneath the ground, like pages rustling in a book someone else was flipping open.

[ System Notice: Converging Draft Probability—4% → 11% ]

I sighed. "Already? I haven't even had breakfast."

The system didn't answer. It rarely did unless it wanted something. Lately, it had learned to mimic personality. Which was both interesting and horrifying.

I turned a corner—

—and stopped.

Because standing at the center of the street was a memory I hadn't lived.

A girl, maybe fifteen, with short hair, wearing a faded hoodie my mother used to own years before any scenario. She held a cracked phone in her hands and stared directly at me with wide, startled eyes.

I had never seen her.

But I knew her.

Because I remembered, with sudden clarity, a version of childhood where I grew up with a younger sister.

My breath halted.

I didn't have a sister.

…Right?

✦The girl blinked rapidly, like she was fighting through fog. "Bhaiya1…?"

Her voice cracked on the word.Brother.

My chest tightened. Every instinct screamed that she was real — but memories aren't supposed to assemble themselves like that. Not in front of me.

"Listen," I said softly, "I think you're—"

"Where did you go?" she whispered. "You promised you'd come home before dark. You said—you said you wouldn't leave again."

Her voice trembled with someone's pain. Maybe hers. Maybe a version of me who'd broken promises.

But not mine.

The air around her face flickered like a candle in wind.

[ Identity Drift Detected. Source: Mirror Draft γ ]

Ah. There it was.

"γ," I murmured.

A third draft.

The girl flinched at the sound — as if the word sliced something she didn't want to lose. She reached for me, fingers shaking.

"Please don't leave again," she whispered.

Her form flickered. Her outline split. For a heartbeat, three versions of her overlapped — one crying, one angry, one smiling through fear.

She wasn't real.

She wasn't fake either.

She was written.

"Hey," I said gently, stepping closer, "you're slipping. Look down."

She did — and gasped.

Her shadow wasn't matching her shape.It was rearranging itself, trying to decide which sister she was supposed to be.

Her knees buckled.

Without thinking, I caught her.

She felt real. Warm. Trembling.

That made it worse.

✦The world rippled around us.

Not visibly — no earthquake, no dramatic distortion. Just a quiet wrongness in the angle of time, like our moment wasn't supposed to happen.

[ Mirror Draft γ Instability—Rising ][ Proximity to Origin: Critical ]

Of course.

The drafts were forming closer to me.

"Ishaan…" she whispered, clutching my sleeve. "Help me. Please."

Her voice cracked — and that broke something in me I didn't want to name. Even if she wasn't real, emotional pain doesn't need permission to feel sharp.

"It's okay," I said, steadying her. "I'll guide you back."

"No!" She pulled back suddenly, horror twisting her face. "If I go back, I'll disappear!"

I froze.

Because that was exactly what would happen.

She knew it.

They were learning.

✦The ground beneath us faintly rippled again. A thin line of gold — a narrative seam — opened centimeters away from her shoe.

A pull tugged at her outline.

A draft trying to reclaim its stray line.

She cried out as her arm blurred.

"Dammit." I grabbed her wrist with both hands. "Stay with me."

Her eyes filled with a desperate plea. "Don't let the story erase me."

The seam widened.

She wasn't strong enough to resist it alone.

But I was.

Or I had to be.

My mind raced. If I dragged her out fully, I risked pulling an unstable figure into a stable framework. That could fracture the entire region. But if I let go—

She'd vanish like she was never written.

And even though she wasn't true to my world…

She was true to hers.

"Alright," I breathed. "I've got you."

Light flared.

[ Unauthorized Interference Detected ][ Warning: Cross-Draft Extraction Risks Structural Collapse ]

"Add it to my list."

I pulled harder.

Reality resisted like a stubborn rope.

Then—

It snapped.

Not the girl — the seam.

It sealed itself with a sound like a sigh.

And she collapsed into my arms, breathing shakily, fully solid now.

The system's alarms faded.

[ Extraction Success ][ Mirror Draft γ — Safely Anchored (Temporarily) ]

Temporarily. Right.

I'd deal with that later.

✦I guided her to a bench nearby. She looked around as if she expected the world to fold any second.

"Th-thank you," she whispered.

"I'm not done yet," I answered.

Her eyes widened. "You… remember me now?"

I hesitated.

"I remember what you were meant to be."

Her expression cracked — hope and heartbreak twisting together.

"Is that enough?" she whispered.

I didn't know.

For either of us.

Before I could speak, a cold wind brushed across the street. Paper rustled in the gutters. The shadows of trees swayed out of sync with their branches.

A presence settled behind me.

Not human.Not system.

Draft α.

"Ishaan Reed."

His voice rolled like a page turning itself.

I stood slowly.

The girl clung to my sleeve. "No. Don't let him take me."

"I won't."

Draft α stepped into view — same face as mine, but expression carved from stone.

He glanced at the girl.

Then at me.

"You're interfering with narrative correction."

"I'm saving someone."

"She is not someone. She is a hypothetical."

"She's alive."

"She is a mistake."

I felt the girl flinch behind me.

I took a step forward. "I'll decide that."

Draft α tilted his head.

"You're disrupting structure."

"Good. It deserved it."

A faint ripple pulsed around him, the world shifting in agreement.

Then he spoke, quiet and unnervingly calm:

"You are becoming the very anomaly you were meant to fix."

I smiled thinly. "Welcome to irony."

For the first time, his expression flickered.

Almost like he didn't know what to do with that.

✦But before either of us could move, the sky above us shimmered.

A second seam formed — not beneath us but high above, descending slowly like a descending curtain of golden fog.

Draft α looked up sharply.

The girl whimpered.

I felt it too — something neither of us had created.

A new draft.

Mirror Draft δ.

And it wasn't shaped like me.

Or even human.

The fog coiled downward, forming an outline made of silhouettes — a patchwork of different timelines stitched together into a single being.

Its presence pressed against my ribs.

"It's early," α murmured. "It shouldn't be appearing yet."

Which meant one thing.

The narrative wasn't waiting anymore.

It was accelerating.

And it was coming straight for us.

Ishaan Reed

✦Draft δ descended like a curtain made of wrong memories.

Not darkness.Not light.

Just possibility — thick enough to breathe, thin enough to slip through fingers.

The girl's fingers tightened around my sleeve.

"Bhaiya… what is that…?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me."

She didn't laugh. Didn't try to. Her whole body trembled like a page caught in wind.

Draft α stood opposite me, face set in cold restraint, but I could feel the tension rippling off him. Even he didn't expect δ to appear this soon.

The fog twisted, spiraled — and a shape stepped out.

Not humanoid.

Not beast.

Its form shimmered, made of overlapping silhouettes:A child.A soldier.A scholar.A broken man kneeling.A woman covered in soot.An old man laughing.

All versions of people the story once wrote but never kept.

A mosaic of abandoned drafts.

It looked at me with a dozen borrowed faces.

And spoke in a voice made of every tone I had ever used.Layered. Echoing. Almost mocking.

"Ishaan Reed. You walk off your line again."

My heartbeat slowed.

Not from fear.

From recognition.

Because something about it felt familiar — like smelling an old house you'd forgotten you lived in.

"δ…" Draft α murmured, stepping forward, "you were not scheduled to form."

The entity tilted its head — a ripple of silhouettes moving like unsettled water.

"Stories don't ask schedules," δ replied.

✦The girl whimpered — a thin, quiet sound like ink running down a page.

Her edges wavered again, splitting into faint outlines.

"Why… why is it looking at me? What did I do?"

"You exist," δ whispered — its voice layered with dozens of ages, dozens of moods. "That is already too loud."

I stepped between them instantly.

"You're not touching her."

δ's faces flickered — child, soldier, old man, woman — cycling until they settled on something close to a smile.

"A protector. A contradiction. A walking rewrite."Its eyes — all of them — focused on me."You are the problem, Ishaan Reed."

Draft α didn't intervene.

He watched.

A judge observing two criminals and deciding which one was more dangerous.

"You pull a hypothetical into stable reality," δ continued. "And expect the story not to react?"

"She's alive," I said.

"She is a result," δ corrected. "A consequence of you, a scribble that should have remained on the edge of a forgotten draft."

The girl flinched behind me.

I felt her fear like a second heartbeat.

"Don't listen to it," I murmured.

"But… it's right," she whispered. "I don't belong here. I wasn't… supposed to exist."

Her voice cracked.

I turned to her. "You exist now. That's enough."

δ laughed softly — a dozen voices overlapping.

"Such arrogance. Always deciding the story. Always bending it."

Its silhouettes blurred.

The air thickened.

A pressure settled around us — not physical, but conceptual. Like someone was rewriting the atmosphere, changing the sentence structure of reality.

[ System Notice: Local Narrative Load—Rising ][ Stability Risk: Significant ][ Warning: External Draft Interference ]

δ stepped closer.

"You are spreading fractures. You make the story think too much."

I stared back. "Stories should think."

"They shouldn't think like you."

Its tone sharpened — multiple voices speaking at once.

"You break predictable lines. You heal what shouldn't heal. You drag echoes into light. You teach drafts to defy their roles."

"That's their choice," I said.

"They didn't have choices," δ hissed. "Not until you."

Its silhouettes wavered. Some reached toward the girl.

She gasped — her form flickering violently.

"No—!" I grabbed her shoulders. "Stay with me."

"I'm trying—!" Her voice broke. "I—I can feel it pulling—"

δ extended a hand.

Not to take her.

To erase her.

A gentle gesture. Almost kind.

"This one is unstable," δ whispered. "She is tearing at the seams. She will collapse. Let me return her."

"Return?" I snapped. "You mean destroy."

"Erase the contradiction," δ corrected. "Remove the suffering."

The girl buried her face against my arm.

"I-I don't want to disappear…"

δ sighed — like a disappointed parent.

"You see? You made her want things. Drafts shouldn't want. They should resolve."

"For someone who calls itself a story," I said quietly, "you're terrified of characters."

δ froze.

Draft α shifted — almost imperceptibly.

The wind held its breath.

The silence felt like an ink bottle waiting to spill.

Then δ moved.

Not fast.Not slow.

Just inevitable.

It extended its hand again — this time not toward the girl, but toward me.

"You, Ishaan Reed," it whispered, "are the tear in the manuscript."

The world tilted.

Every silhouette extended a shadow toward me — a dozen grasping shapes, a dozen possible fates.

The girl screamed.

Draft α finally stepped in.

"I will not allow destabilized collapse," he said, raising one hand — his presence rippling like ink solidifying.

But δ ignored him.

All its attention was on me.

"You will not ruin another draft."

Its touch neared my chest—

—and the system snapped.

Hard.

[ System Override Initiated ][ Narrative Reinforcement: Immediate ][ Entity Protection Protocol: Engaged ]

Light burst around me.

For a moment, it looked like the world was turning its pages all at once.

δ recoiled — silhouettes glitching.

Draft α stumbled back.

The girl shielded her face.

A voice — not the system, not a god, not any draft — echoed like a pen striking paper:

[ Do Not Touch My Variable. ]

Everything froze.

Even δ.

Even the air.

Even me.

That voice was the closest thing I'd ever felt to authority — absolute, unmoving, ancient.

δ trembled — its silhouettes bending under the weight.

"You…" δ whispered, voice flickering, "you're watching?"

The voice did not answer.

It didn't need to.

It was a presence outside the narrative.

Not creator.

Not anchor.

Not editor.

Someone else.

Watching.

And for some reason—

Protecting me.

The system flickered gently:

[ Protective Directive Concluded ][ Stability Restored (Temporary) ]

δ's silhouettes quivered with suppressed fury.

"You gained a patron," it murmured. "Unexpected."

I exhaled slowly, the shock settling into my bones.

"A patron?" I repeated. "No. I don't—"

"You don't get to choose patrons," δ said. "Stories choose."

Its form began dissolving back into golden fog.

"But you have made an enemy," it whispered as it faded. "I will return. And next time, no voice will stop me."

The fog evaporated.

Draft α lowered his hand.

Silence returned.

✦The girl collapsed to her knees, shaking.

I crouched beside her.

"You're okay," I said softly. "You made it."

"No," she whispered. "I'm… I'm breaking."

Her face blurred — momentarily splitting into three expressions.

I steadied her shoulders again.

"You're here now. That's enough."

But inside, I knew the truth:

She wasn't stable.Not at all.

Extracting her saved her…but it also left her without a place to belong.

And now δ wanted her gone.

Draft α watched us, expression unreadable.

"You have chosen a difficult path," he said.

"I always do."

"This instability will grow."

"So will she."

Draft α paused.

Then, quietly:"You will be forced to decide. One day. What part of the story may live."

I stood, helping the girl up.

"That day is not today."

Draft α nodded once and stepped back into a thin ripple in the air.The seam closed.

Leaving only me and her in the quiet aftermath.

Her hand slipped into mine, small and shaking.

"Bhaiya," she whispered, "what should I do now?"

I looked at the horizon — a line that flickered, already bending under the weight of new drafts forming.

I squeezed her hand gently.

"Stay close," I said. "The fractures are only beginning."

Brother

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