Test

The book pulsed beneath Ash's fingertips, its presence more alive than he dared admit. Sitting in the dim light of his apartment, he traced the edges of the cover, half-expecting it to breathe. A paradox bound in leather and ink his protector and his cage.

Across from him, Lyle and Ellen watched. They had given him space, but their silence carried weight. They were waiting.

He sighed. "Alright. What's next?"

Ellen leaned forward, her gaze sharp. "We need to test the book."

"Test it?" Ash raised a brow. "You make it sound like a malfunctioning gadget."

"In a way, it is," Lyle said. "It responds to you, but you don't control it yet. That has to change."

Ash leaned back, dragging a hand down his face. "Right. And how do you expect me to 'control' a reality-warping anomaly that apparently operates on eldritch whims?"

"By understanding its nature," Ellen said. "And using that knowledge to bend it to your will."

A humorless laugh escaped him. "Fantastic. And here I thought I was just a historian. Turns out I'm some kind of occult programmer."

Neither of them refuted him, which was perhaps the worst part.

He glanced at the book again. It had been subtle before words shifting when he wasn't looking, pages whispering in the silence. But now? Now he could feel it, a latent energy beneath the cover, like a beast curled in slumber. It was waiting, watching.

And, if Ellen was right, it was his to command.

He exhaled, placing both hands on the book. "Fine. Let's see what happens."

The moment his fingers pressed against the cover with intent, the room shifted. The walls seemed to stretch, elongating into shadowed corridors that had no place in his apartment. The air grew thick, humming with unseen forces. For a fleeting moment, Ash felt like he was standing in two places at once the familiar world and something just outside it.

Then the book flared with light, and his mind was elsewhere.

He stood in a library no, a memory of one. Shelves upon shelves stretched into infinity, stacked with books that should have never existed. The air smelled of old paper, ink, and something deeper dust from forgotten realities.

"Ash Mercier."

The voice was not his own, nor did it belong to Lyle or Ellen. It came from everywhere, an echo of something old and untraceable.

He turned, pulse quickening. In the dim light, a figure watched him a man in a dark coat, his features blurred, as if the world refused to acknowledge his existence.

"You are meddling," the figure said. "You are looking where you should not."

Ash crossed his arms, forcing a smirk. "Yeah? Well, you guys should've done a better job covering your tracks."

The figure did not react. "The Keepers of Concordia do not cover tracks. They erase them."

Ash stiffened. So it's them.

"Then why am I still here?" he challenged.

The figure tilted its head. "Because you are an anomaly. An anomaly with a paradox in your hands."

Ash followed the figure's gaze to the book in his grasp. Even here, even in this dream or vision it burned with an otherworldly presence. A device and a shield. A curse and a weapon.

"Everett Miren," Ash said carefully. "What did he find?"

The figure's form wavered, but the voice remained steady. "Truth."

"Not vague enough," Ash shot back. "Try again."

The figure was silent for a long moment. Then, with the weight of finality, it spoke. "The truth that history is a lie. That the past is written, not remembered. And that those who do not belong in the script… vanish."

Ash's grip tightened on the book. "And what about me?"

The figure stepped forward, the shadows recoiling from its presence. "You were supposed to vanish, too."

Ash gasped as he was wrenched back into reality. His breath came fast, sweat clinging to his skin. Lyle and Ellen were still there, but their expressions had shifted to wary concern.

"What did you see?" Ellen asked.

Ash swallowed, his mind still struggling to process. "One of them," he murmured. "A Keeper."

Lyle's jaw tensed. "And?"

"They know about me." He exhaled, his heart still racing. "And they're waiting to see what I do next."

Ellen exchanged a look with Lyle before she spoke. "The Keepers don't just erase people, Ash. They erase everything about them. Records. Memories. Even the smallest traces of existence. Those who vanish are rewritten, as if they never were."

Ash clenched his fists. "But that's impossible. You can't erase someone from reality itself."

"You're holding proof that they can," Lyle said, nodding toward the book. "It's the only reason you still exist to them."

Ash stared at the book, its presence thrumming beneath his hands. His mind raced, weighing options, justifications, risks. A thousand reasons to walk away, to let go of this madness. But each rationalization collapsed under the weight of a single, undeniable truth:

If he let this go, he would never know who he really was. Or who had decided he shouldn't be.

For years, he had been content unearthing old mysteries, solving them like puzzles in dusty archives. But this was no puzzle.

This was a war.

And he had just been conscripted.

"Everett Miren's work," he said. "We need to find it."

Lyle nodded. "And we will. But first, we have to figure out how."

Ash exhaled, his mind clear now. He wasn't just looking into the past anymore.

He was rewriting it.

And the Keepers would do everything in their power to stop him.