Chapter Text
The December sun blazed brightly in the clear sky with comfy blue and golden colors, casting a warm glow over the snow-covered landscape of the bustling streets. Cars honked by, while groups of students laughed and chatted on the way to the school building and their breath was visible in the chilly winter air. Despite the bright sun slowly covering everything in its light giving the streets some kind of warmth, a cloud hung over Lorin. He trudged toward the school gates, the snow was crunching under his boots, each step weighed down by a mix of delight that had settled in him throughout the week.
Since the winter holidays will start in a day, chaos has taken hold of the grade 9 classes. Many of his classmates had been skipping classes, going to plazas and other hangout places, and choosing fun instead of school. However, Lorin couldn't say that the last days of school in this year were boring, they were doing interesting things on lots of subjects. The cold air bit at his pale face, giving him a red blush, and making it look dry. As Lorin stepped into the school, he took off his black beanie from his curly, blond hair and walked toward his locker, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. As he reached to open the lock, He swung the door and accidentally hit his forehead, with a groan he quickly backed away massaging the hidden area then with a sigh he took off his brown coat and hung it on the hook of the locker, and changed his already wet boots to black sneakers.
On the last day of school, he felt as if the universe by itself was planning to go against him. Every teacher seemed to focus their stares just on him, determined to make him fail. When the last bell rang, he understood the painful truth: he had been left behind in every class he attended, all 3 of them!
The hallways, once bustling with life, now felt like empty echoes of a future he couldn't reach. While his classmates cheered, tossing papers and celebrating their freedom, he stood frozen, the weight of his failure anchoring him to the spot.
He had failed.
Not just the tests, not just the assignments he had failed himself. The expectations, the promises he'd made, and the effort he had sworn to put into it all crumbled like a house of cards.
The world outside seemed brighter, the laughter sharper, the sun crueler as it shone on everyone but him. He clenched his fists, trying to drown out the whispers in his mind.
This wasn't how it was supposed to end. This wasn’t how he was supposed to end.
But as he walked out the school doors, he realized something. Failure wasn’t the end, unless he let it be. He tried to recover some sanity, convincing himself that his failures weren’t entirely his fault. The teachers had been out of spite asking questions he hadn’t expected.
Nevertheless, his fourth failure's sting cut deep; it felt unjust, almost like a personal attack. Literature class, the last hour of the day—perhaps of the year—had turned the tide against him. Mr. John Doe, known for his strict enforcement of school rules and harsh manners, had called on him during a heated discussion about the story they read.
“For this part of the sentence, the one to analyze it to me will be ... Lorin.” Mr. Doe began, his voice deceptively calm, “What does the ‘Jerry vanished into thin air’ mean, and which literary device?”
Lorin felt a flash of confidence and jumped in with his answer.
“It’s a metaphor and it means he disappeared. Like, uh..poof! Disappeared. Gone. Not here anymore.”
For a brief moment, it seemed he had decided it only to be met by Mr. Doe’s raised eyebrow, a silent signal that crushed his hopes in an instant, and asked calmly.
“Yes you're right about metaphor, but, are you sure that’s all it means? Think carefully about where he might have gone. What implications does this quote hold beyond mere disappearance?”
Suddenly, Lorin’s confidence crumbled. What more could he say? He paused and looked at some of his classmates in the hope someone would help him, desperately grasping for a deeper understanding that remained just out of reach. The silence in the room stretched painfully, interrupted only by the rustling of papers and an occasional cough from a classmate. Finally, the bell rang, telling all the children that it was time to pack up. However, before he left, Mr. Doe shook his head in disappointment. As Lorin trudged out of the classroom, he felt more foolish than ever; his earlier answer had been so stupid!
Lorin reached for his black hat, pulling it over his blond wavy hair, feeling the snug warmth enveloping his head, he adjusted the collar of his coat, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the school building into the cold, his face shot with cold air instantly as he marched slowly. As Lorin walked down the busy streets he tried to walk as slowly as he could, however, Lorin didn’t walk the more tired he got and as a result, he would end up at home anyway.
After stepping into the apartment on the 6th floor Lorin made known that he had come from school, he took off the outdoor clothes with the boots and burst into his room. His backpack tumbled to the floor, and notebooks, and crumpled assignments with chewed pencils and pens spilled across the hardwood in the wake of his anger. He landed down into his chair, his mind swirling with chaos and memories, and immediately got onto his computer, checking emails, doing homework, and seeking solace in the satisfying explosions and chaotic battles of digital warfare. Hours slipped by as he engaged himself in the game, and finished assignments, the real world fading into the background. Outside his window, the laughter of other children playing in the snow contrasted with the storm brewing inside him. They were carefree, enjoying the season, while he was caught in a web of anxiety and self-doubt.
Lorin lowered over his wooden desk, stealing glances at the piles of textbooks piled on one side. Everyone was lost in their studies, they packed for the big exams coming up at the end of January. These tests were super important and it would've affected their future careers. But there was Lorin, daydreaming away, totally distracted by everything and anything. Lorin knew that he should be already studying too, however this plan never
Deep down, he recognized that this cleverness was just a cover for something else: he wasn’t really gifted or exceptionally smart. Instead, he relied on easy routes, choices that stemmed from a strong sense of pride.
Suddenly, the chaos of his thinking was interrupted by a loud voice from the other room—his older brother, whose head felt like an order.
“Lorin! Come here and boil some spaghetti for dinner!”
The shout pulled Lorin out of his little world with a sigh, he responded,
“Yes, yes! I’m coming” one that traded the preparation of homework to holidays for the chores. Slowly, he pulled away from the screen and went to the kitchen. The room quieted down, illuminated only by the pale winter sunlight streaming through the half-opened window. A cold breeze crept in, making the curtains sway gently in the stillness. On the desk by the window sat an open notebook titled "ENGLISH COURSE NOTES GRADE 9," surrounded by scattered pens, sticky notes, and a mug of cold black coffee. The page was marked with the prompt: "Describe the character’s transformation over time."
The breeze rustled the pages of a nearby workbook, flipping them as if impatient for answers. A pink blotting paper tucked inside escaped its grip, fluttering like a tiny bird before landing softly on the notebook. A crooked sketch of a bird adorned the corner of the blotting paper—a small circle for the head, a larger one for the body, stick legs, and a broom-like tail.
The sunlight poured in through the frosted window, forming a golden pool on the desk. It fell upon a beetle lying motionless outside. Its metallic shell glinted faintly, unmoving at first. Then, as though roused by the warmth, its legs twitched, antennae flicked forward, and it scurried off, disappearing into the shadows.
On the windowsill rested a crumpled leaf, brown and brittle. The sunbeam lingered on it until the leaf quivered, revealing itself as a moth. Its delicate wings, patterned like frost-kissed glass, unfolded. It flitted to the desk, landing near the pink blotting paper.
The sunlight finally reached the blotting notebook and illuminated the sketch of a silly person. For a moment, the drawn person seemed to stir, its stick legs straightening, its tail swishing. Then, with an uneven flap of its wings, it let out a tiny chirp and hopped onto the notebook’s open pages, where the sections of the English course lay neatly divided: grammar, short story, book club, and poetry.
The person-looking bird immediately jumped onto its stick legs, shook itself off, flapped its wings, and began to sing with its ringing and pitched voice :
“Oh God! This notebook, it’s messy,
this notebook is tight,
And life here isn’t
At all a delight.
Grids and boxes
On every page,
For a person like me,
It feels like a cage.
But the wind blew through,
Set everything right,
And now I’m free,
Out in the light!”
“Now I’m free completely,
Free indefinitely,
It’s quite extraordinary,
Oh, it’s simply heavenly!”
The bird became cheerier and hopped onto the workbook. It jumped across the page, singing happily. Then all of a sudden, the bird noticed a small red mark on the page, where Lorin had drawn a tiny circle. The bird hopped closer, inspecting it with curiosity. It tilted its head and tapped the mark with its tiny foot.
“You’re not a line, not just a mark,
Not simply a tiny mark...
Are you a checkmark, bright and small?
Or perhaps… a bird, after all?”
The mark shifted, then fluttered into the air, transforming into a small red bird with feathers as vibrant as a sunset. This new bird held itself with a calm and dignified posture, almost as if it were a creature of importance.
“What do you want from me?” asked the red bird in a firm yet kind voice.
“I’m from the blotting paper. Lorin drew me there. I…”
The red bird interrupted with a gentle flap of its wings:
“Ah, so you’re from Lorin’s notebook? Then tell me, what’s her story like? What does she write in these pages?”
“I… I don’t know. It’s all a bit chaotic, to be honest. But if you want, we can take a look together,” the blotting paper bird offered.
Excited, they both hopped toward the pages of Lorin’s notebook.
“You open it,” warned the blotting paper bird, “for if I try, the notebook might snap shut, and we’ll be stuck inside forever.”
The red bird gripped the cover with its beak and carefully opened it.
The first page was full of doodles and messy handwriting as if Lorin had been deep in thought. A huge blotch of ink in the shape of nobody knows what stained the center of the page, while scribbled thoughts and words seemed to spill out every which way.
The red bird fluttered its wings and chirped in surprise.
“Oh my! What a colorful mess!”
With a polite chirp, the red bird addressed the blotch:
“Excuse me, dear Ink Blot, but what is this? Is this the soul of Lorin’s work?”
The ink blot let out an annoyed growl, shifting slightly as if trying to stretch its inky form. Then it grumbled in a deep, sarcastically voice:
“Well, what do you expect? I’m a creation of chaos, after all!”
The red bird blinked, unsure how to respond to this odd creation, but chirped brightly,
“Well, chaos can be beautiful, too. Maybe it’s just waiting for the right moment to shine.”
And with that, the bird hopped off the page, feeling that somehow the notebook, though messy and imperfect, was full of life and possibilities.
The ink blot settled back down, continuing to mumble under its breath.
"Oh sir…please, go to sleep," the red bird said, sounding a little offended. "I could even cover you up." And with that, the red bird gently closed the notebook.
For a while, the cover continued to shift as low murmurs of grumbling could be heard from beneath it.
After a moment of silence, the red bird spoke again.
"This is terrible!"
"Yes!" added the bird, drawn by our messy protagonist, "It's terrifying to think that I spent all my time trapped with this annoying creature in the same notebook!"
"Oh, I'm not talking about that," the red bird replied with a sigh.
"The ink blots are just blots. They're all like that. What worries me is Lorin. All this time, he hasn't solved a single problem. Now that’s truly dreadful. Let’s go further! And find more creatures!"
The bird pecked curiously at the grammar section. The orderly lines of text braced themselves, punctuation marks standing like soldiers in formation, ready to face the chaos of imagination. Every rule and definition stood firm, anchoring the sprawling creativity of the surrounding pages.
Next, the bird hopped to the short story section. Here, the words seemed to shimmer and rearrange, painting scenes of vivid imagery. A hastily sketched house transformed into a towering structure, its walls alive with quotes from characters’ conversations. It was a world brimming with dialogue and untold tales, beckoning the bird to stay.
But it moved on, landing in the book club section. This page was alive with tiny figures, miniature people laughing and playing, leaping between the lines of text. Some carried books; others whispered fragments of stories, their voices blending into a warm hum. It felt like a lively gathering, celebrating shared narratives and camaraderie.
The bird paused before fluttering to the poetry section. The words here danced like leaves in the wind, forming fleeting rhymes and fragmented verses. Streams of thought flowed in and out of coherence, their beauty lying in their imperfection. The page shimmered as if infused with emotion, inviting the bird to lose itself in its dreamlike rhythm.
Outside, snow began to fall, blanketing the world in silence. Yet, inside the little apartment, the air felt warmer, as though the life within the notebook’s pages had seeped into the room itself. The soft scratching of the bird’s feet on paper mingled with the faint hum of imagined voices and laughter, turning the cold December day into something softer and brighter.
Meanwhile, two brothers, Jannik and Lorin, sat in the dimly lit kitchen. The glow of the lightbulb illuminated the quarters, contrasting with the dusk from outside. On the circular glass table were a teapot, two cups, and two plates of spaghetti topped with sliced sausages. The siblings had just begun their dinner.
Jannik, the older brother, calmly poured green tea into both cups. The younger brother, Lorin, watched the liquid swirl with mild disdain; to him, it wasn’t tea but ‘goat’s pee.’ Still, he kept his thoughts to himself, focusing instead on chewing a sausage threaded with strands of spaghetti. He deliberately avoided making eye contact with Jannik, his unease steaming just below the surface.
“Lass es dir schmecken” Lorin crookedly smiled at his brother and wished him to enjoy his meal.
“Danke” older brother answered and weakly smiled at him and started consuming spaghetti
The silence in the room felt overpowering. While the kitchen seemed cozy in appearance, Lorin couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort. His brother’s piercing grey-blue eyes seemed to hold the power to strip away his thoughts, leaving him vulnerable and exposed. Every clink of cutlery on the plates only served to amplify the tension he felt.
Jannik, on the other hand, ate with calm efficiency, his movements unhurried, as if he hadn’t noticed his brother’s stress or perhaps he had and simply chose not to make him know it. The quiet stretched on, broken only by the sip of tea or the scraping of a fork against cut sausage.
For Lorin, the silence was anything but a peaceful moment where both of them could just sit together and without any negative feelings enjoy their meal.
“Also.. wie wer dein Tag?” Older asked dryly on Deutsch, interrupting the silence with the sound of scratching his short, blond hair before standing up and marching to the kitchen with the dirty plate.
“Yeah, yeah everything was the same as usual”
Lorin tried to eat as slowly as he could. However, the more he tried to eat the more he was getting hungry. Jannik was cleaning the dishes from his cooking and piercing the young one with his gaze. He knew that when he finished his dinner the older brother would continue his interrogation. The bright ginger color kitten had multiple brown patterns on his back and the collar on his neck with the inscription “Wald”. Wald jumped from the windowsill of the kitchen and looked at the Jannik with its pure green eyes before rubbing its head with the older brother’s leg and affectionately meowing.
All of a sudden, the home phone rang, woohoo! Lorin was safe for now because he knew that it was one of his friends or mom with dad and they for sure wouldn’t let him get from the phone for less than an hour.
“Wenn du mit dem Essen fertig bist, geh bitte deine Hausaufgaben machen, Lorin.” Jannik ordered his younger brother before quickly marching out from the kitchen to the source of the ringing.
“Bitte räumen Sie Ihren Schreibtisch auf!” Jannir yelped at his younger brother from the other room.
Loren sat at the dinner table, fully thinking about what he had to do and finish the culminating task about the course which he hadn't even taken a look at yet. He twisted the last threads of spaghetti around his fork, forming a spiral around it before consuming it.
The older brother was loudly chattering with their parents while Lorin was left alone. It's amazing how much he didn't want to do his homework. Of course, if he had a strong will, he would have taken it upon himself out of spite and done it. His friends probably had a strong will. Lorin’s parents say that everyone can develop willpower and character if they face challenges and scorn danger. But what challenges did he have to face? They say: laziness. But is laziness a challenge?
He felt very miserable. What is misery? In Lorin’s opinion, it's when someone is forced to do what they don’t want that's misery.
He stood up holding his empty plate with the cup put into the sink and marched to his room with a dull expression on his face.
When he opened the wooden door of his room everything was the same as he left, perhaps only the computer was turned off, and some books were across the table. With a sigh, he moved forward to his desk and looked at all the materials that were on his table.
But his textbooks lay on the table. They were torn, stained, dirty, and unbearably dull. Yet they were incredibly powerful. They kept him in this stuffy room, making him complete all of them!
"Argh! I’m tired of everything! I’m tired of these stupid studies!" he cried in a voice that didn’t sound like his own and threw all his notebooks with full anger across the room.
The notebook flashed and the bright sparks of light burst out with loud sounds reminding the sound of fireworks filling the whole room, it made Lorin yelp loudly before losing his senses and falling onto the colorful carpet face down to cover his face from the bright and blinding light, the carpet was bold reds and dark blues standing out against the pale, cracked walls. The design was interesting yet chaotic, a dance of flowers and shapes that seemed to spiral endlessly, pulling his eyes deeper into its labyrinth and mesmerizing his mind.
“Chirp! Chirp!” The human silhouette reminded a bird that grew in front of blinded Lorin and chirping grew rhythmic, almost like a song, carrying an otherworldly resonance that filled the room. Its eyes glowed softly, shimmering like fragments of a distant galaxy.
"Do you hear it? The words between the worlds?
The ink of thought spilling into the ether,
Binding creation to dreams untold."
As Lorin slowly lifted his head, the light in the room began to shift. Shadows danced across the cracked walls, shaping letters that seemed to breathe with a life of their own.
"Open your eyes, Lorin!
For you stand at the threshold of the unwritten.
A realm where the page becomes the stage,
And each thought a spark of power."
The bird's wings unfurled, sending a cascade of shimmering dust into the air. It hovered before him, a tiny yet commanding figure.
The World of Literacy.
Where Grammar holds the laws of existence,
Where Poetry whispers the language of the soul,
And where OSSLT spins the threads of life by himself.
Your journey begins, not in anger, but in awe.
Will you step forward, or will the light fade?"
The light around him grew brighter, swirling in colors beyond his comprehension, pulling him into something vast and infinite. The chaotic carpet beneath him seemed to shift, its patterns aligning into a path leading toward a glowing doorway that hadn’t been there before.
"Lorin!" Was treibst du da draußen?! "Mach endlich deine Arbeit!” asked the older brother from the other room.
“Ya! Ya! Ich bin gerade dabei, daran zu arbeiten-” Panic surged through Lorin as a cold grip suddenly tied around his throat, stealing his breath. He could feel the force pressing into him, making it incredibly difficult to call out for help. Sorrow filled his eyes as he struggled, his voice caught, weak.
Surrounding him were tiny figures, reminiscent of cartoon characters, their child-like faces twisted with anger. They stood around the table with an air of authority, their large, expressive eyes staring down at him, each radiating a disturbing blend of anger. Lorin realized their sheer numbers and unusual strength outmatched him. He knew something had to change, and quickly.
"Ah! Who are you?" Lorin almost whispered and asked them in a weak voice. He could not breathe properly to make himself heard.
“Take a closer look, and maybe you'll figure it out,” replied a boy who was behind the figure that almost choked him.
“He's not used to looking at us carefully, period,” hissed a boy whose shirt reminded him of a comma or some kind of blot, his voice dripping with frustration. Although he still held Lorin's throat, his grip had loosened so Lorin could make at least one gulp of air.
"Lorin Fredrick Shafer! You failed all four subjects! All of them straight!" The voice that rang through the room was sharp, and loud and almost yelled about its authority. When he looked up to see the figure who had spoken he saw the guy who was about Lorin's height, but his posture was stiff, his shoulders squared as if each word he spoke carried weight. His face was flushed with anger, his eyes wide and blazing, his mouth twisted in a scowl. The sharpness of his voice cut through the air, and Lorin felt a rush of dread surge through him. Each word felt like a hammer strike, reGrammarerating in the space around them.
The figure wore a sleek, angular peaked cap made of glossy, leather-like material, with a metallic band featuring an exclamation mark symbol at the front. His outfit was immaculate: a fitted cloud-white jacket that matched the bold style of his cap. The jacket had clean, defined lines that only emphasized his commanding presence. He also wore dark trousers and well-polished shoes where Lorin could see his own reflection.
"AY! AY! Listen to me! Please! I know I messed up today, but why do you care about it?! Lorin stammered, his voice trembling. "But what do you want from me? I don’t even understand who…what are you!? How did you get into this apartment anyways!?"
The dwarf boy with white hair like his skin, black eyes like buttons, and a drawn-on white shirt comma-like symbol leaned in closer, his voice cold but slightly amused. "What are we, Lorin? We're the fragments of everything you've ignored, everything you’ve cast aside in frustration! We are punctuation marks."
The fiery-eyed boy beside Lorin, identical to the others but marked with an apostrophe instead of a comma or any other punctuation, slammed his hand on the table so hard that the echo rang through the room, making Lorin jump in surprise. He was ready to bet that if he did the same thing he might be already spinning on the floor in pain holding his hand and hissing from pain, but he was almost immediately got out of his trance by a dwarf boy's voice. It was screechy, sharp, and unrelenting, each word charged with an electric energy that prickled at Lorin’s skin and forced his focus back. The glowing eyes of the boy narrowed into an intense glare, their fury amplifying the raw, grinding steel-like quality of his tone. The voice rose, crackling with feral intensity, like glass shattering in slow motion, each syllable striking Lorin like a lash. Every word was suffocating, wrapping around his chest like an iron chain, leaving him breathless under the weight of it.
But beneath the searing anger, there was something heavier, unspoken yet unmistakable. It wasn’t just fury—it was desperation, a storm raging against the inevitability of silence. The fiery-eyed boy’s words lashed out not just to hurt but to force action, to demand acknowledgment, his voice a reflection of something deeper and unresolved. Lorin hesitated, feeling the weight of that desperation settle over him like a leaden cloud, and for the first time, he truly looked into the boy's glowing eyes.
"Oh no, no, no young man, you’ve got no right to give up right!" he growled, his tone cutting like glass. "Ain’t no one gonna bail you out, Lorin. You think throwing’ a fit and whining’ about it’s gonna change a thing? You’re wasting’ every chance you’ve been given, and for what? 'Cause it’s hard? Life’s hard, Lorin! Suck it up!"
The boy stepped even closer, his presence suffocating, his words relentless. "Don’t you dare look away from me!" he barked, his voice rising. "You’ve got too much ridin’ on this to act like some preschool child! You messed this up and now you’ll have to get through everything by yourself!” the apostrophe guy hissed.
“Trust me if you don’t get your mind to work right now you are going to face some consequences from your actions."
For a moment Lorin was just gazing at him and trying to digest all the information he got before the Exclamation guy’s tone changed
“Oh goddess, Apostrophe! Enough of your pointless chatter, We can’t let anyone wait anymore in this tight room!" The Exclamation Mark barked at the boy with his loud but bass voice filling the room. His presence was overwhelming, his sharp tone cutting through the tension like a blade on the skin. He stepped forward, gripping Apostrophe’s shoulder firmly, his piercing eyes moving between Lorin and the Comma. “Oh! And you, Comma! Let go of him already! Can’t you see that his face is already having a' color of plum! Have a conscience, Lorin can’t even get a word out!”
The Comma grumbled but did what he asked to do, stepping back to join the others in the row. They stood in a rigid line, each of them wearing shirts marked with symbols: a Period, a Dash, an Apostrophe, and others Lorin couldn’t quite place. They were strange, otherworldly figures, their presence both fascinating and suffocating.
Lorin’s eyes darted to the doorway glowing faintly in the corner of the room. He couldn’t understand why his brother hadn’t come. Surely, he must have heard the noise? The air felt heavy with the strange energy of the figures, their expressions unreadable yet filled with purpose.
“Chirp! Chirp!” a sketch of a red bird mockingly started
“From my perch, I see it all unfold,
A tale of a boy, both young and bold.
Lorin, your dreams are shattered, tossed,
No matter the cost, all hope is lost.
Your anger rises, your fists are tight,
Yet soon you’ll learn—there’s no escape tonight.
The island awaits, cruel and cold,
And your story begins as the old one folds.”
The rhyme stung, its words sinking deep into Lorin’s chest. He clenched his fists, trying to steady his breath as fear and anger wrestled within him. He glanced back at the doorway, then at the strange figures surrounding him. Their eyes seemed to pierce right through him, unblinking and unyielding.
“Is there any way not to go there?” he asked, his voice low but steady despite the quiver in his tone.
“Of course not!” the Exclamation Mark shouted, his voice booming through the room. He leaned forward, his large presence heavy on Lorin. “Maybe you should just shut your mouth already?”
His eyes blazed as he hissed through clenched teeth, his fists trembling with barely contained fury. “If I was ordered to take you there, then it will be done, no matter what! Nothing—nothing—will stop me from completing this task!”
Lorin raised his hands in a sign of surrender, trying to add a touch of humor. “Alright! Okay! Calm down! No need to snap at me.” He looked away, mumbling, “I would rather not argue with you anyway.”
The Exclamation Mark stood firmly, staring at Lorin as if daring him to say more. Before the tension grew, the Dash boy moved quickly, striding to the door with determination.
With a grand motion, he opened the door, revealing a bright light that seemed to stretch on forever. The light flooded the room, creating an otherworldly glow. The figures stood out sharply against the brightness, casting shadows that danced with the light.
The air felt charged, making it hard for Lorin to breathe. A thread ball rolled into view and stopped at his feet as if it was inviting him to move forward.
Before Lorin could grasp what was happening, the Exclamation Mark stepped closer, his movements strong and purposeful. The room felt smaller with him there. His deep voice cut through the silence.
“Enough! Lorin Fredrick Shafer!” he shouted, each word hitting Lorin like a hammer. “You will have to go there, whether you want it or not.”
Lorin staggered back, struggling to catch his breath. “Aw.. Guys! C’mon, please let me go! I don’t even know what is on the other side of the door!”
The Exclamation guy let out a sigh and mumbled trying to keep his aggression with himself. “After you step in you will see by yourself but I can say that you will confront one of the most powerful units. ”
The other punctuation marks watched in silence, their eyes fixed on Lorin. Even Apostrophe, usually sharp with criticism, stayed quiet in the Exclamation Mark’s presence.
“But… how?” Lorin stammered, glancing at the glowing doorway. “How am I supposed to handle all that? I don’t even know where to start!”
The Exclamation Mark straightened, towering against the light of the door. “You won’t face this alone. You have been given a guide—a chance to redeem yourself.” He pointed sharply to a worn thread ball in the corner: its surface was scratched, showing signs of many games, but it seemed to glow faintly with energy.
Lorin looked at the ball, confusion on his face. “what? a thread ball? Are you serious? What am I supposed to do with that–”
The Exclamation Guy’s voice boomed again. He held a ball in his hand and kind of threw it hand to hand.
“Now, now! Didn’t you read fairytales?! Ok, whatever! You can say that it will guide you. However, you understand this: the ball will not carry you. It is a tool, not a crutch. If you lose it somewhere you will stay in this land forever.”
Lorin gulped, his legs shaking as he turned toward the glowing doorway, the threaded ball rolled to him, stopping at his feet. The energy it gave off sent a chill through him, but he picked it up, the rough texture keeping him grounded.
The Exclamation Mark’s voice rose again, filling the room. “What are you waiting for?! Go already!.”
Lorin nodded, gripping the thread ball tightly as he stepped forward.
“Miau, miau!” meowing sounded under the bed and ran to Lorin willing to get a thread ball with its claws.
“Wald! Wald! No! Get away!” he screamed at the ginger cat before falling to the ground on the other side of the door. The light from the doorway engulfed him, erasing the room and the figures inside. As the final echoes of the Exclamation Mark’s voice lingered in his mind, stern, powerful, unwavering Lorin found himself in a completely new world, the thread ball in hand.