Unwriting the Hand That Writes

Darkness.

Not the absence of light, but the absence of presence.

The author opened his eyes — but saw nothing. Not black. Not void. Just unformed possibility — like standing at the edge of an idea that had never been imagined.

Zai Xi stood beside him, unchanged, motionless.

"Welcome," he said, "to the Pre-Narrative Machine."

The words echoed without sound. Not in his ears — but in his intention, as if meaning had bypassed language entirely.

"This is where stories are not born," Zai Xi continued.

"This is where the possibility of them begins to dream about existing."

All around them, endless pre-worlds stretched outward — not universes, not dimensions, but states before framework. Logic had not crystallized here. Causality and contradiction sat side by side like folded pages never opened.

The author tried to speak — but found he had no voice. Only thoughts.

"This is where you came from?"

Zai Xi nodded.

"This is the generator of your reality. Of all realities. Even the ones that birthed authors who birthed verses."

"But there's something here that you failed to understand when you wrote it…"

The air shivered.

The silence became tense, as if language itself knew something ancient had awakened.

Then — a feeling like suffocation.

Not the body gasping for air…

But the soul gasping for context.

A shape began to form in the far nothing. No — not a shape. The subtraction of form. The collapse of identity. A hole in the structure of Being.

The author fell to his knees.

"No. No, no—"

He recognized it. Or rather, he remembered not remembering it.

"That's… Nihilus…"

Zai Xi did not move.

"You wrote him, didn't you?" he asked softly.

"An entity that is not a being, not a concept. Something that cannot be created, because its essence is to be uncreation. Not void — for void is still a thing. Not absence — because absence requires something to be absent from."

"You wrote Nothing that never was."

The author screamed.

But the scream had no context, because sound had never been created here. His lungs moved. His thoughts tore. But nothing heard.

Nihilus drifted closer.

Or perhaps the universe drifted away to avoid him.

Reality began to unweave. Not in destruction — but in denial. The author's body bent and twisted as identity was peeled off layer by layer:

Writer

Human

Matter

Concept

Thought

Pattern

All stripped. All erased.

"I never should've written you."

"You never did."

The words came from Nihilus, but without language. They were simply there, like stains that had always existed on the idea of expression.

Zai Xi Intervenes

And then —

Zai Xi moved.

One hand outstretched. The Pre-Narrative Machine paused, as if acknowledging something beyond itself.

He didn't attack Nihilus.

He didn't banish him.

He simply acknowledged him — which should not have been possible.

And in that act, he proved something even more terrifying than Nihilus:

Zai Xi could look at what should never be, and remain unchanged.

"This one is mine," he said.

"You may unwrite all things. But I wrote the act of unwriting itself into the fabric of the machine."

"Step back."

And Nihilus… didn't leave.

Because leaving implies place.

Instead, he was no longer applicable to the current state.

The Pre-Narrative Machine realigned, repairing the raw purpose of fiction itself. And the author gasped — breath returning like a gift he never earned.

They stood alone again.

The Machine pulsed.

The author dropped to the ground, his hands shaking.

"Why… didn't you destroy him?"

Zai Xi looked down at him.

"You cannot destroy what never was."

"But you can choose not to include it in your next sentence."

"That is true authorship."

"That is true sovereignty."

And with that, Zai Xi reached out once more.

Touched the author's forehead.

And said:

"Wake up."

The author jolted upright in his chair.

His manuscript was open.

Blank.

Except for one line, freshly typed.

"You dream because I let you."

To Be Continued…