The one who wrote back(4) [final]

Dara sat in the quiet of her apartment, staring at the empty notebook in front of her. It had been a week since she had finished Elias's story—since the moment he vanished from the Library of Whispers.

She had woken up back in her room, the candle on her desk still flickering, the ink on her manuscript dry. But the book itself was gone. As if it had never existed.

For days, she had wondered if it had all been a dream. If Elias had ever been real.

But then, the letters began arriving.

The first one appeared on her desk the morning after. A folded piece of parchment, written in a familiar hand:

I am free.

Dara's heart had nearly stopped when she read those words.

The second letter came the next day.

The world is vast, and I am learning what it means to exist beyond the page.

The third letter was even shorter.

Do you still think of me?

And now, a fourth letter lay before her. She hesitated before unfolding it, her pulse quickening.

Would you like to meet again?

Dara's breath caught. She traced the words with trembling fingers. Meet?

She had assumed that once she finished the book, Elias would be lost to her forever. But if he could still write back… if he could still reach her from whatever world he now inhabited…

Then maybe—

A knock at her window made her gasp.

Slowly, she turned.

Outside, in the dim glow of the streetlights, stood Elias.

He looked different now—more solid, more real. No longer a figure bound to her imagination, but a man who had stepped beyond it.

Dara rose to her feet, her heart hammering. She opened the window. The cool night air rushed in, carrying the scent of rain and something else—something familiar.

Elias smiled. "I told you," he murmured. "You wrote the ending. But stories never truly end, do they?"

Dara swallowed hard, emotions knotting in her chest.

"No," she whispered. "They don't."

And as she reached out, feeling the warmth of his touch for the first time in the real world, she knew—

This was only the beginning.