: Names That Shouldn’t Be Spoken

: Names That Shouldn't Be Spoken

The world did not remember.

It dreamed of memories, yes—of cities once shaped from broken timelines and of monsters birthed from forgotten pages—but it did not remember. The closing of the Final Paragraph had done more than seal away the Ink. It had rewritten the canvas once more, leaving behind a reality unfamiliar even to its survivors.

Wale walked among ruins no one else recognized.

Stone archways curved like questions, roads bent away from the stars, and towers hovered on cliffs that never cast shadows. This was not the world they had saved. This was something new… something curated by an author that no longer existed.

And still, something watched.

Chris had taken to silence. Where once she would talk freely—sometimes stubbornly, always passionately—she now measured her words like a swordsman balancing a blade on his fingertip. Grey, on the other hand, became a chronicler. He carried no weapons anymore, only a charcoal-stained ledger, sketching out what he saw in the world around them. He feared forgetting more than he feared death.

They knew something was wrong, though none of them would say it directly.

Because to name it…

Was to invite it.

It began when they reached the Hollow Valley.

A place unmarked on any map, which is to say—it was important.

The wind there whispered in verses. Trees refused to grow upright. And birds sang songs no one remembered teaching them. It was Chris who noticed it first: a repeated name, embedded in the roots, the rocks, even the patterns in the moss.

Aurn.

Not a god.

Not a person.

Just… a name.

But one that shouldn't have existed.

Wale crouched near the riverbed and dipped his fingers into the water. Instead of ripples, letters spread from the touch. Not his own writing. Someone else's.

"You see that?" he asked.

Chris knelt beside him. "It's speaking again."

Grey stood behind them, flipping through pages in his ledger. "This name. It appears three times in the oldest myth cycles—once as a betrayer, once as a forgiver, and once as a thing devoured by silence."

Chris frowned. "That's not a name. That's a placeholder for something worse."

Wale wiped the letters from the stream. "Then why is it surfacing now?"

The answer came in the form of a howl.

Not near.

Not loud.

But layered in the earth itself, trembling upward through the soles of their boots.

Something buried had shifted.

They made camp near a crumbling statue that resembled nothing. Literally nothing. Where the face should have been, there was only smooth stone, perfectly unmarked. No chisel could achieve such emptiness.

Grey stared at it for hours before speaking. "This wasn't built. It was forgotten into existence."

Wale shivered. "You think Aurn is still here?"

Chris fed the fire, her eyes distant. "No. I think we're walking into a place where names undo themselves."

They slept in shifts.

Even so, they all dreamt the same dream.

A garden.

An empty throne.

And a name whispered so softly it burned.

Aurn.

Morning was worse.

Wale woke to find Grey gone. His ledger left behind, open to a page that hadn't existed before. No ink. Just impressions—a kind of writing by absence.

Wale traced the indents.

Chris, rubbing sleep from her eyes, looked over his shoulder. "He went toward the statue."

"I know," Wale replied. "But something else followed him."

They hurried through twisted paths and fractured landmarks, the sun staying locked in a single position—as if watching them.

They found Grey at the base of the statue.

Kneeling.

Murmuring.

Chris reached for him, but he jerked away.

"She's listening," he whispered.

"Who?" Wale asked.

Grey's head turned too slowly, too stiffly.

"The one who was never written."

And then he smiled—not in peace, but in surrender.

Grey collapsed.

Not dead.

But emptied.

His skin grew translucent, like he was turning into a page—each vein a line, each breath a flickering margin. Chris held him, eyes wet but fierce.

"We're not letting this happen."

Wale stood frozen. "We need to run."

Chris snapped at him. "We need to fight."

But he shook his head. "You don't understand. This isn't a monster. This is a concept. It isn't bound by form. Or time. It erases by being remembered. The more we say the name…"

He stopped.

Because he'd almost said it again.

Chris looked at Grey's now-unmoving form. "Then what do we call it?"

Wale whispered, "We don't."

They buried Grey beneath the statue.

Not with prayers, but with stories.

Each one a lie.

Each one designed to confuse whatever might be listening.

Chris spoke of Grey's triumphs—most of them exaggerated, some outright fabricated.

Wale spoke nothing at all.

And the sky turned darker.

Later that night, Chris asked the question neither of them wanted to speak.

"Do you think it's stronger than the Ink?"

Wale stared at the fire.

"It is the Ink," he said. "What we sealed away was its shadow. This… is the author's mistake that survived every rewrite."

She nodded slowly.

"The first unspeakable thing."

He looked at her.

"And we've said its name five times now."

They both sat in silence.

Somewhere, in the hills they hadn't crossed yet, something moved.

It wasn't fast.

But it was coming.