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“Your Majesty, we’ve brought the prisoner,” the guards announced as they ushered the man into the chamber. Nox studied him silently.
“Leave us.”
“But, Your Majesty—”
“I said leave us.” Nox’s voice was calm, but final. The guards hesitated, then bowed and exited, leaving the man kneeling before the throne.
The man glanced around, wide-eyed. “This is… the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.” He looked up at Nox. “Wait—you're a guy, right? Why did they call you ‘Your Majesty’? Not that I’m trying to misgender you or anything, it’s just—”
“What era are you from?” Nox interrupted.
“What?”
“You’re trapped in the book too. What year are you from?”
The man blinked. “Uh… I guess the 2000s? Wait—are you a vampire?” he asked, suddenly hopeful.
“No,” Nox replied coldly. “But I will spill your blood if you don’t answer my questions. Who are you, and how did you end up in this book? Did you try to steal it?”
“Book? You mean the one under glass, surrounded by cameras? Yeah, no—I wasn’t trying to steal it. I just saw it at the museum. So did like a thousand other people.”
“I’ve been trapped in this book for centuries,” Nox murmured, staring down at his hands. The man noticed the shimmer of tears gathering in his eyes.
“Hey… look, I don’t know you,” the man said cautiously, “and I’m still not convinced you’re not a vampire, but… it’ll be okay.”
Nox’s voice cracked as he snapped, “No, it won’t, you idiot. I’ve been stuck in this cursed book for centuries. I was nobody in my time—just a Victorian street rat—but even that was better than this.”
The man blinked, trying to process. “This is a dre—”
“It’s not a dream!” Nox shouted, his voice echoing through the chamber. “You’re trapped in this book, just like I am. It never ends. You’ll have eternities to live in here. Just like me.”
“I should throw you back in the dungeons,” Nox said coldly, eyes narrowing. “I’m still not convinced you’re not a thief. But I need answers… so I’ll free you. Not that there’s ever freedom in this book.”
The man blinked, stunned. “This has to be a dream. I have bills to pay. If I don’t, they’ll sell my apartment. And my cousin… Deacon. I have to make things right with him. And my parents’ grave—I need to make sure it looks good.”
Nox’s expression softened slightly at the mention of parents. A quiet ache stirred in his chest—familiar, but distant.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, voice low. The man’s grief felt like a ripple in the vast ocean of Nox’s own suffering. At least he had parents to mourn. Nox couldn’t even remember his.
“What’s your name?” Nox asked, his voice low but firm.
“Chase.”
Nox raised an eyebrow. “Your parents really named you Chase?”
“That’s my name.”
Nox nodded slowly. “Fine. Keep it close, Chase. This book… it casts people into roles. If you don’t hold onto your name, your identity, you might forget there was ever a life outside of it.”
The next morning, the book had a new role for Chase: the heroine role.
Every character now called him Princess, and any clothes he tried to wear instantly transformed into shades of teal or pink. Chase frowned, holding up a plain white shirt that shimmered and turned bubblegum pink in his hands.
“This is like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty,” he muttered. “Should I be team pink or team blue today?”
He glanced over at Nox, who stood brooding as usual.
“And you,” Chase added with a smirk, forming horns with his fingers above his head, “you’d definitely be Maleficent.”
Nox blinked, then—despite himself—snorted.
“I guess the princess role makes sense for you…” Nox said quietly. “You mentioned being depressed when you saw the book—after your parents passed.”
He winced as the words left his mouth, realizing how insensitive they sounded. Chase didn’t respond right away. He just looked away, eyes distant, lips pressed together.
After a long pause, he finally spoke. “I won’t have to go to any graves, will I? I mean… I know my parents’ bodies are back in the real world, but I still don’t want to cry at any of my book parents’ graves.”
Nox’s gaze softened. “I can’t promise you won’t,” he said. “The book… it has its own way of torturing you. But… we’ll see.”
“So you think the book made you the villainess because you tried to steal it years ago?” Chase asked, frowning. “That’s messed up. I mean, I don’t know much about history, but I know the Victorian era was corrupt. They had child labor, for Christ’s sake. And you, Nox… you were just nineteen.”
Nox’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt. His eyes drifted to the shadows dancing along the stone walls.
“I wasn’t innocent,” he said finally. “But I wasn’t evil either. I was desperate. Hungry. Alone. And the book… it doesn’t care about context. It casts you in the role it wants.”
Chase looked at him, sympathy flickering behind his eyes. “Still. You didn’t deserve this.”
Nox gave a bitter smile. “Deserve has nothing to do with it. Not in here.”
“And I’m no blue-blooded princess,” Chase muttered, tugging at the pink sleeve of his enchanted outfit. “I get why authors kill off parents—it’s supposed to spark empathy, mark the start of some coming-of-age arc. My cousin says it’s in tons of books. Honestly, he’d probably handle this place better than I am. But I’m already grown up, so… why cast me as a princess?”
Nox tilted his head. “I don’t know, Chase. You said you didn’t try to steal the book. Did you… dream about anything the night after you saw it?”
Chase froze. “Shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean… yeah. I know the book people see me as a woman, but when I saw the book, I saw you. All dark and brooding. And that night, I dreamed about you—but it wasn’t really you. It’s just… I’ve always had a type for goths.”
Nox raised an eyebrow. “So you had a dream about me… and ended up here?”
Chase held up his hands defensively. “I swear, it wasn’t a creepy dream.”
Nox let out a low chuckle, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “Well, Princess, next time you fantasize about someone, maybe don’t do it near cursed artifacts.”
“Maybe I ended up here because of my parents passing,” Chase said quietly. “Or maybe it was both—the grief and the dream. I mean, I get it. Heroines in stories… they’re always dealing with dead parents, right? It’s supposed to make readers feel something. Then they either reunite with their family or fall in love—or both. That’s the arc.”
He paused, eyes distant. “Maybe that’s why the book chose me. Maybe those two things—the loss and the dream—were enough to trigger it.”
Nox watched him for a moment, then spoke, his voice softer than usual. “The book doesn’t need much. Just a crack in your soul. It slips in through grief, longing… even fantasy. And once it’s in, it decides who you’ll be.”
Chase gave a bitter laugh. “So I’m the grieving dreamer turned princess. Great.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry your dream about me turned out so badly,” Nox said, glancing down at Chase with a smirk. “You’re not really my type anyway—so small and helpless.”
“Gee, thanks,” Chase replied dryly. “Good thing I don’t fall in love with jerks.”
Nox raised an eyebrow, lips twitching. “Oh no, you just fall for blood-sucking vampires.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “They’re brooding, mysterious, and emotionally unavailable. It’s a classic.”
“And deeply impractical,” Nox muttered. “But I suppose cursed book royalty isn’t much better.”
“So, as the queen” Chase said with a dramatic flourish, “are you gonna give me the grand tour of this book? I’d love to actually see it now that I’m not rotting in a dungeon. I mean, I’ve always wanted to explore a fairytale world that isn’t just overpriced Disneyland.”
Nox blinked. “What’s a Disneyland?”
Chase groaned. “Oh boy. I’ve got a lot to fill you in on. Welcome to the two-thousands, where dreams come true—if you can afford the ticket, the merch, and the $12 churro.”
Nox raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a kingdom ruled by thieves.”
“Corporate ones,” Chase muttered. “But hey, at least they don’t turn your clothes pink.”
Nox led Chase through the winding corridors of the storybook realm, gesturing to the characters they passed—a knight who bowed and called Chase Princess, a cluster of ladies-in-waiting who curtsied with rehearsed grace.
Then Nox stopped before a staircase that twisted upward… and ended abruptly in midair.
“These,” he said quietly, “are the staircases to nowhere.”
Chase frowned. “What do you mean?”
Nox pointed to the walls surrounding the broken steps. They were sealed off with layers of wet, decaying paper—pages that had once held stories, now sagging and unreadable.
“Each one belonged to a human reader,” Nox explained. “People who entered the book like you. They loved certain scenes, certain characters… but the book didn’t just let them watch. It pulled them in. And when they couldn’t find their way through the narrative, when they gave up…” He gestured to the rotting paper. “The story sealed itself off. They died here. Forgotten. Never to see the world again.”
Chase stared at the staircase, a chill creeping down his spine. “So every one of these… is someone who gave up?”
Nox nodded. “A scene never played. A life never reclaimed.”
“Were you close to any of the human readers?” Chase asked.
Nox scoffed. “Most of them were elite scholars. They laughed at me for not having a title outside this cursed book. To them, I was just a character—less than real.”
Chase frowned. “I’m sorry. Even if you weren’t close with any of them… it must’ve been hard. Being alone.”
He reached out, placing a hand gently on Nox’s shoulder. But Nox caught his wrist, firm and unflinching.
“Listen,” Nox said, voice low and sharp. “We might both be trapped in this cursed book, but that doesn’t make us friends. I’ll protect you—because the book made you my princess—but don’t expect us to be best buddies. I’m not your friend, not your pet, and definitely not your sidekick.”
Chase gave a small, crooked smile. “No… you’re just a buddy, I guess.”
“He’s writing something… on the computer,” Chase said, squinting at the flickering image. “It’s about dropping out of medical school. He’s dropping out—yes—no—yes… I mean, he never wanted to be a doctor, but now he’s quitting because he thinks I’m dead or kidnapped. Oh no, we have to tell him I’m alive!”
Chase scrambled for a piece of paper, pressing it against the shimmering wall and trying to stick it there with saliva.
Nox gently pulled him back. “We can’t, Chase.”
“Go get a pen, Nox! We have to try to write something back!”
Nox’s voice was steady, but heavy. “Even if we write, he won’t see it. The book only shows us glimpses—it doesn’t let us reach through. It’s part of the torment.”
Chase’s hands trembled as he held the paper up again, desperate. “But he’s giving up everything because of me. I have to try.”
Nox looked at the image of Deacon, then at Chase. “Trying is brave. But don’t let this book break you the way it broke the others.”
“Guards, grab me a pen,” Chase snapped, eyes locked on the flickering image of Deacon. The guards hesitated, glancing at Nox, who gave a curt nod.
“Don’t write it in cursive, Nox,” Chase warned as he held the paper up with trembling hands, pressed against the shimmering wall. “Deacon won’t believe it’s me if you write in cursive.”
Nox sighed. “You’re holding the paper up with saliva, Chase. I’d say you’ve lost the right to be picky. And again—it won’t work.”
“We have to try,” Chase insisted, voice sharp with desperation.
Nox took the pen and scribbled a few lines. But suddenly, the pen jerked from his grip, slicing across his palm with deliberate force. He hissed, clutching his bleeding wrist.
“I told you,” he muttered. “The book doesn’t let us reach out. It punishes hope.”
Chase stared at the fading image of Deacon, his cousin’s figure already dissolving into the mist of the page.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just… I don’t want him to think I’m dead. I’m still alive. We’re still people. And my parents… even though they’re gone, I can’t let them down. I need to fix my family.”
Nox didn’t speak. He simply watched Chase, the pain in his wrist forgotten, as the last trace of the real world vanished behind the veil of paper.
“Technically, you are dead,” Nox said, his voice quiet but firm.
Chase stared at him. “What?”
“I mean, you’re not dead dead,” Nox clarified. “But your body isn’t on Earth anymore. So in a literal sense, yes—you’re dead. Not in the corporeal way. Your spirit’s still alive, still here. But even if you manage to escape this book…” He paused, eyes darkening. “There’s no telling what state your body would be in.”
Chase swallowed hard, the weight of that truth settling in his chest.
“I used to think it was like being a cat with nine lives,” Nox continued. “That maybe you could just hop back into your body. But now… I don’t know anymore.”
“You said there were scholars who entered this book,” Chase said, watching Nox carefully. “So… if they came willingly, they must’ve thought they could hop back into their bodies.”
Nox shrugged. “Maybe. But like I said—they all gave up.”
Chase hesitated, then asked softly, “Why haven’t you?”
Nox went silent for a long moment, his gaze drifting toward the crumbling pages lining the walls.
“I guess… because even though this place is a prison, at least I had food,” he said finally. “Any food I wanted, delivered to me. I never had that out there in the real world. I was always hungry. Always scrambling. So that was enough to keep me going. As long as I wasn’t starving… I could hold on a little longer.”
“Let’s have a picnic,” Chase said, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.
Nox tilted his head. “A picnic?”
“Yes. Any food you want, Nox. We’ll have it—tea, biscuits, scones, cake. All the gluten I can’t touch in the real world. Let’s enjoy it here, in this ridiculous book. And I’ll sing for you—a proper princess ballad. Would you like that?”
Nox stared at him for a moment, unreadable. Then he gave a slow, reluctant smile.
“You’re absurd,” he said.
“I’m a princess,” Chase replied with a mock curtsy. “Absurdity is part of the job description.”
The two of them sat on parchment—pages of the book itself—spread like a picnic blanket across the throne room floor. When the wind stirred, the paper crinkled and whistled, as if the book were sighing with memory.
Chase strummed a guitar, its strings humming softly in the stillness. His voice rose in a gentle melody, something wistful and warm, a ballad fit for a princess but sung with the raw edge of someone who’d never felt like one.
Nox sat beside him, silent between sips of tea.
On another day Nox wandered through the gallery, the air thick with the scent of old parchment and candle wax. The statues loomed like silent witnesses, but it was the portraits that stopped him cold.
The frames labeled The Late Queen and King had always been empty—just placeholders in the story’s architecture. But now, the canvas shimmered with fresh paint. Two figures stared back at him: a regal woman with warm eyes and a gentle smile, and a man with golden hair that caught the light just so.
Nox’s breath hitched. He didn’t recognize them at first—until he saw the man’s hair. That golden hue. That jawline.
“Oh… oh no,” he whispered.
The book had filled in the blanks. It had taken Chase’s deceased parents and cast them as royalty—immortalized in the story, but unreachable. A cruel tribute.
When Chase arrived moments later, his eyes locked on the portraits. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
The silence said everything.
Princess Chase! Princess Chase!” they sang, their voices full of joy.
Chase smiled and knelt to speak with them, but his smile faltered. His eyes darted to the toys. A blue dinosaur with a chipped tail. A handheld game console with a cracked screen. A stuffed bear with one ear missing.
He flinched.
Nox, watching from the edge of the scene, narrowed his eyes. These weren’t toys from a fairytale world. They didn’t belong in a book set in the 1800s.
“Where did you get these?” he asked one of the children.
“They were here when we arrived,” the child said cheerfully. “They’re the princess’s toys!”
Nox turned to Chase, who was now pale and silent.
“These were yours,” Nox said quietly. “From your real life.”
Chase nodded slowly, his voice barely a whisper. “I thought they were lost.”
The book hadn’t just pulled Chase in—it had scavenged pieces of his life. Memories. Objects. Proof that it was watching long before he arrived.
And now, even the children played with echoes of his past.
The book was leaking again.
Thick rivulets of oil paint dripped from the ceiling, pooling across the marble floor like melted dreams. Nox cursed under his breath, frantically trying to salvage the room before the colors soaked into the walls and warped the story beyond repair.
He was worried. Chase hadn’t shown up that morning. And when the book began to bleed, it usually meant something was changing—something dangerous.
“Chase?” he called, voice tight.
Then, just as Nox was about to storm out, Chase appeared in the doorway, breathless and wide-eyed.
“It’s another vision,” Chase said, pointing to the wall where the paint had begun to swirl into shapes.
Together, they watched as the colors settled into a scene: a small living room in the real world. At the center sat Prunella, the eight-year-old girl Chase used to babysit. She was hunched over a canvas, painting with messy, determined strokes—pictures of castles, crowns, and a boy with golden hair.
Her parents stood nearby, their faces heavy with sorrow. They watched her paint, unsure how to explain that Chase wasn’t coming back. That he had vanished without a trace.
“She’s still waiting for me,” Chase whispered, his voice cracking. “She’s painting for me.”
Nox didn’t speak. He just stared at the vision, the oil paint dripping like tears down the walls.
“The book’s cruel,” he said finally. “It shows you what you miss. What misses you. But it never lets you touch it.”
Chase pressed a hand to the wall, smearing the paint. “I don’t want her to think I left her.”
“She already has,” Nox said as Chase sobbed into Nox’s shoulder.
Nox stayed up through the night, sitting in the dim glow of the book’s shifting pages while Chase slept nearby, curled beneath a blanket of parchment. The walls around him flickered with ink—this time not in paint or voice, but in glowing lines of text.
He leaned closer, watching the words scroll like a digital whisper: text messages, the book called them.
Deacon’s name appeared again and again, his words sharp with frustration.
“I dropped out because no one’s doing anything. He’s missing, and you act like he’s already gone.”
Then came the reply, labeled Mom.
“Chase was a lost cause. It’s not your fault. You have to move on.”
Nox didn’t understand everything about Chase’s life outside the book. He didn’t know what medical school was, or why people would argue through glowing letters. But he understood pain. He understood abandonment.
And as he sat there, watching the messages fade into the paper, he felt something unfamiliar settle in his chest.
Sadness.
Because outside of this cursed book, it seemed no one truly loved Chase—except for his parents, now immortalized in oil; his cousin, still fighting for answers; and a little girl named Prunella, who painted castles for someone the world had already forgotten.
Nox looked over at Chase, still asleep, unaware of the world’s quiet betrayal.
“You deserved more,” he whispered.
Textmails. Voicemails. Emails. Visions of the real world flickered through the book like cruel reminders—each one a needle threading through Chase’s heart. Prunella’s show-and-tell about heroes, where she held up a drawing of Chase and called him “the bravest person I know,” had nearly broken him.
But the worst came when Chase wandered down to the storybook bakery, just trying to escape the suffocating quiet of the castle.
The scent of cinnamon and sugar filled the air, warm and familiar. Behind the counter stood the baker—a woman with soft eyes and a gentle smile.
Chase froze.
It was his mother’s face.
He rushed forward, arms outstretched, and hugged her tightly, burying his face in her apron.
“Mom! Mommy!” he whispered, voice trembling. “You’re here… you’re really here…”
But the warmth faded.
The figure in his arms began to dissolve, her skin peeling into parchment, her smile crinkling into ink. She melted into paper, fluttering to the floor like autumn leaves.
“Mom! Mommy, don’t leave me again!” Chase screamed, falling to his knees.
Nox arrived too late to stop it. He stood in the doorway, watching the last scraps of the illusion drift away.
The book shifted again.
This time, Chase found himself high above a burning net, balanced on a narrow trapeze wire. Flames licked at the edges below, and the air was thick with smoke and cruel whispers. The book repeated every insult he’d ever heard—fool, idiot, failure—echoing like a chorus of ghosts.
On the other end of the wire stood Nox, arms outstretched, eyes wide with uncertainty.
“Nox, what do I do?” Chase called out, voice trembling.
Nox looked around, helpless. “I don’t know. This has never happened before. I guess… you walk. Walk to me, Chase. I’ll—I’ll catch you.”
Chase took a step. Then another. The wire wobbled beneath him, the fire roared louder. He stumbled—tripped—and fell.
But Nox lunged forward, catching Chase’s wrist just in time.
Chase gasped, his arm bleeding from the fall. Red blood.
Nox’s hand gripped his tightly, but something was wrong. Where bone should be, Chase felt something hollow, mechanical—like the interior of a pen. And Nox’s blood, dripping from his own wrist, was black as ink.
Chase didn’t say anything. He just let Nox pull him up, the fire vanishing beneath them as the book spat them out of the scene and into the next.
They landed hard on a cold floor, breathless and shaken.
Neither spoke.
But something had changed.
Chase held Nox’s injured hand gently in his own. The ink-black blood still dripped from the wound, and beneath the torn skin, Chase could feel the strange, hollow structure—like the inside of a pen, not bone.
Nox flinched, instinctively trying to pull away.
“It’s okay,” Chase said softly, his voice steady despite the tremble in his chest. “I don’t care if you were human… or if you’re just a storybook character who thinks you are.”
He looked down at the hand again, tracing the lines of ink and metal with his thumb.
“Your hand looks pretty cool, honestly. And even if you don’t have a body to go back to in the real world…” Chase paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I think you’re great. Just as you are.”
Nox didn’t speak. His eyes flickered with something unreadable—surprise, maybe. Or something deeper. He let Chase hold his hand a moment longer, the ink smearing between their fingers like a signature neither of them had written.
The book didn’t stop.
It didn’t scream or lash out—it whispered. Slowly, deliberately, it chipped away at Chase’s mind, rewriting his sense of self one dream at a time.
Some mornings, Chase would wake up in silk sheets, crown askew, convinced he was royalty. He’d speak in rhymes, curtsy to the mirror, and ask the guards to prepare his royal carriage.
Nox would find him like that—draped in velvet, eyes glazed with storybook haze.
“Chase,” he’d say gently, kneeling beside him. “You’re not a princess. You’re human. You’re real.”
And for a moment, the dizziness would lift. Chase’s eyes would clear, and he’d blink as if waking from a fever dream.
“Right,” he’d whisper. “I’m Chase.”
But the moment never lasted. The book always found new ways to blur the line—new scenes, new roles, new illusions.
Nox kept reminding him. Every day. Every time.
Because even if the book was winning, Nox refused to let Chase forget who he was—not completely.
It happened only once.
Chase had been unraveling—his mind fraying at the edges, lost in the roles the book kept forcing on him. That day, he couldn’t remember his name. He couldn’t remember if he was real.
Nox had found him in the garden, curled beneath a tree made of folded pages, whispering lines from a fairy tale that wasn’t his.
And Nox, who had always kept his distance, knelt beside him. He didn’t speak. He just leaned in and kissed him—softly, briefly, like a promise to anchor him.
The book didn’t punish Chase.
But it punished Nox.
Later that night, in his private chambers, Nox doubled over, vomiting thick streams of ink onto the floor. It spilled like grief, staining the parchment tiles, pooling around his boots. His body convulsed, rejecting the moment of tenderness like it was poison.
He didn’t tell Chase.
He cleaned the ink in silence, his hands trembling, his chest hollow.
Because in the book’s eyes, love wasn’t allowed to live—not between characters who dared to remember they were human.
The book shifted again—its pages curling like smoke, its ink bleeding into new shapes. Chase sat alone in the quiet chamber, and the vision unfolded before him like a stage play written in memory.
Deacon was writing.
Sometimes it was memoirs—fragments of childhood, stories of golden summers and laughter that echoed through old hallways. Other times, it was fantasy—elves and warriors, kingdoms and quests. But even when the stories weren’t about Chase, they carried his shadow. A background character with golden hair. A brave knight who sang lullabies to frightened children. A lost prince who never found his way home.
Chase watched every draft, every revision, every email Deacon sent to his editor. The book showed it all—not to comfort him, but to torment him. To remind him of the world that moved on without him.
And then, one day, Deacon held his first bestseller in his hands.
He cried.
And so did Chase.
“I knew you could do it,” Chase whispered, pressing his hand to the parchment wall, as if it could carry his voice across the veil. “I always knew.”
But Deacon couldn’t hear him.
And the book, cruel as ever, let the moment linger—just long enough to break Chase’s heart all over again.
Nox gripped Chase’s shoulders, steadying him as the book’s vision flickered to life once more. Ink swirled across the walls, forming a glowing screen that played out a talk show in the real world.
Deacon sat under studio lights, his expression raw and vulnerable.
“My cousin Chase disappeared five years ago,” he said, voice tight with emotion. “But when I went to a museum recently to talk to kids about writing, I saw a book. I know it’s not my Chase, but one of the characters was named Charlie Hollow—that’s Chase’s legal name. Chase was just his nickname.”
He paused, glancing down at the photos the panel displayed—side-by-side images of the book’s character and Chase before he vanished.
“This book was anonymously donated in the 1800s,” Deacon continued. “And I know people think I’m crazy, but the resemblance is uncanny. I don’t know… I guess it gives me a bit of comfort. Not that it actually happened, but it’s like Chase fell down into a fairytale.”
Chase stared at the vision, his breath caught in his throat.
“He… he went to the same museum as me,” he whispered. “He was so close to…”
“Saving you?” Nox asked gently.
Chase nodded, tears brimming in his eyes.
"It's nice to meet you, Charlie Hollow," Nox said softly, his voice steady but kind.
Chase wiped his tears with the sleeve of his storybook tunic, eyes still red from the vision. He looked up at Nox, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Don't call me Charlie, please," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I like being called Chase."
Nox nodded, no hesitation. "As you wish."
"I have another idea," Chase said, scribbling song notes across the parchment walls, the ink glowing faintly in the candlelight.
Nox watched him, arms crossed, brow furrowed. "What are you planning to do?"
Chase didn’t look up. "You ever read Horton Hears a Who?"
"What?"
"Okay, so in the book, there are these really tiny people living on a speck, and they need to make a lot of noise or else they’ll be boiled alive."
Nox blinked. "That sounds horrible."
"I didn’t write it," Chase muttered. "Anyway, they find a child—the last voice they need—and they’re saved. The theme is a person’s a person, no matter how small."
He turned to Nox, eyes bright with a fragile kind of hope.
"So I’m thinking… there’s wind in this book. It has to come from the outside world, right? If we make enough noise—if we sing, shout, anything—maybe Deacon will hear us. Maybe he’ll know I’m still here."
Nox stared at him, the idea hanging in the air like a half-written lyric.
"You think your voice can reach through the pages?"
"I think it’s worth trying," Chase said. "Even if it’s just a whisper. Even if it’s just one note."
The courtyard shimmered with candlelight and music. Fairytale characters gathered from every corner of the book—knights with flutes, witches with tambourines, talking animals strumming makeshift guitars. Nox had invited them all, hoping their noise might stir the wind, might carry Chase’s voice beyond the pages.
Chase stood at the center, singing with everything he had. His voice was raw, beautiful, threaded with longing. The melody wasn’t from the book—it was his own, a song stitched together from memory and hope.
Then, without warning, Chase reached out and grabbed Nox by the waist, pulling him into the circle.
“You’re coming with me too, Nox,” he said, breathless.
Nox froze. “Chase… we don’t even know if I’ll… still be alive in your world.”
Chase looked at him, eyes fierce and full of tears. “Then we’ll find out together. If this plan works… I want you with me.”
The music swelled. The wind began to stir.
Inside the museum, the display case began to tremble.
The book—ancient, bound in leather and mystery—flipped violently from page to page. Each scene burst to life with song: fairytale characters dancing, knights harmonizing, witches crooning lullabies, even the dragons humming in tune. The melodies spilled into the air, defiant and wild.
The book writhed, desperate to silence them. Ink bled across the margins, trying to blot out the music. Pages tore themselves free, fluttering like birds, swirling around the glass case.
Then—crack.
The glass shattered.
Security guards rushed over, stunned as the book levitated, spinning in place, shedding parchment like feathers. One guard reached for his radio. Another just stared, mouth agape.
None of them understood what was happening.
But inside the book, Nox and Chase clung to each other as the world around them shook. They didn’t know the glass had broken. They didn’t know the museum was watching.
But their plan was working.
The songs were reaching through.
And somewhere, in the real world, someone might finally hear them.
The book roared in protest.
Its pages whipped into a frenzy, the winds growing harsher, more violent. A tornado spun through the chapters, tearing through scenes like a storm of fury. Characters clung to lampposts made of ink, musical notes scattered like confetti, and the melodies that once filled the air were now drowned in the book’s rage.
But Chase kept singing.
His voice cracked, his breath short, but he didn’t stop. Not even when the sky darkened above him, not even when the book conjured a tree—gnarled and furious—that bent low and swung a branch toward him like a hammer.
“CHASE!” Nox shouted.
He lunged forward, grabbing Chase by the arm and yanking him out of the way just as the branch slammed into the ground where Chase had stood. The impact sent parchment flying, and Chase stumbled, dazed, blood trickling from a cut on his temple.
Nox held him close, shielding him from the storm.
“You almost—”
“I know,” Chase whispered, breathless. “But I had to keep singing. I have to.”
The tornado raged on, but somewhere in the distance, a faint breeze stirred—not from the book, but from beyond it.
The outside world was listening.
“I don’t get you…” Chase said, staring up at the ink-stained sky, voice trembling but fierce. “You trap people in your pages. You kill off half your cast like they’re disposable. And for what?”
The wind howled through the torn chapters, but Chase didn’t flinch.
“Books are supposed to teach empathy. They’re supposed to help people understand each other. But you—you just torture your characters. You twist their stories until they break.”
He stepped forward, voice rising.
“But there’s one thing you forgot. One thing you can’t control.”
He spread his arms wide as the melodies swirled around him.
“Music.”
“It doesn’t care about your rules. It doesn’t need your permission. Music demands to be heard—even when you try to silence the singer. Because music is how people survive pain. It’s how they scream without breaking. It’s how they remember who they are.”
The book trembled.
And Chase sang louder.
The book shrieked in fury.
It hurled a fireball through the air, a molten burst of ink and flame meant to silence the song once and for all. Chase saw it coming—just barely—and dove to the side.
But Nox didn’t.
The fire struck him squarely in the chest, and he screamed as his body began to burn—not like flesh, but like parchment. His skin curled and blackened, edges crisping into ash. Ink poured from his wounds, thick and endless, staining the ground beneath him.
Chase didn’t hesitate.
He ran to Nox, grabbed his hand—what was left of it. The skin had peeled away, revealing not bone, but the hollow interior of a pen. Metal rods, ink chambers, gears where joints should be.
“No,” Chase whispered, voice breaking. “You’re not just a character. You’re you. You’re real to me.”
Nox trembled, his form flickering like a candle in wind. But Chase held on, refusing to let go.
The book roared again, but something shifted. The fire began to sputter. The wind slowed. The pages stopped turning.
The book at the museum convulsed violently, its spine cracking, pages spewing into the air like a storm of forgotten stories. A nearby window burst open, and the wind carried the parchment out into the city—fragments of fairytales, songs, and memories swirling like autumn leaves.
Across town, Deacon stepped out of his apartment, coffee in hand, keys jangling in his pocket.
Then he saw it.
A single page fluttered down from the sky, landing at his feet. It was thick, yellowed parchment, the kind museums keep behind glass. He bent down, curious.
The moment his fingers touched it, the page pulsed—once, like a heartbeat.
Then it split open.
Two adult-sized figures spilled out onto the sidewalk, collapsing in a heap. Deacon stumbled back, dropping his coffee mug, which shattered across the pavement.
“Chase?” he whispered, voice cracking.
Chase lay unconscious, his face pale but unmistakable. Beside him was Nox—human in form, except for one hand. It was prosthetic-looking, sleek and strange, covered in glistening black ink that dripped slowly onto the concrete.
Deacon fumbled for his phone, hands shaking.
“Nine-one-one, I need help,” he said. “Two people just… appeared. I think one of them is my cousin. He’s been missing for five years.”
The wind settled.
The pages stopped flying.
And somewhere inside the museum, the book finally closed.
Nox opened his eyes to a world that made no sense.
Towering buildings loomed overhead, and strange metal beasts—automobiles, Chase had called them—rumbled past on paved roads. The ground beneath him was hard and cold, nothing like the parchment floors of the book. His body ached, and his skin felt heavier, more real.
Beside him, Chase stirred, groaning softly as he blinked into the sunlight.
“Welcome to happily ever after,” Chase said, cracking a weak smile.
Nox turned his head and saw Deacon a few feet away, speaking urgently into one of those strange glowing devices Chase had once described—phones, he remembered. Deacon’s eyes were wide, his voice frantic, but filled with something else too: relief.
They were battered. Bruised. Barely conscious.
But they had done it.
They had reappeared in reality—whatever that meant now. The rules were different here. The air was heavier. The colors sharper. And Nox, for the first time, felt the weight of a world that wasn’t made of ink.
He looked down at his hand—the one that had burned. It was still prosthetic-looking, sleek and strange, covered in dried ink. But it moved. It worked. And Chase hadn’t let go.
They weren’t trapped anymore.
Not in someone else’s fairytale.
This was their story now.