Chapter 15: The Author's Hesitation

Elias couldn't sleep.

Even though the Tower hummed quietly around him and the Mirror Garden bloomed again, his mind stirred. Too many questions, too many fragments that didn't yet form a whole.

He sat beneath a tree of glowing syllables, a memory-echo of the lullaby Lian once sang lingering in the air.

Ketzerah stepped from the shadows without announcement, as he always did.

"You feel it too," he said, more a statement than a question.

Elias nodded. "He's watching now, isn't he?"

Ketzerah's gaze rose toward the unseen heavens.

"Yes. The Author has noticed."

At the same moment, far beyond any narrative boundary, in a modest room of paper stacks and old coffee mugs, the Author stared at his screen.

The story—Ketzerah: Eksistensi Abadi—was open again. The cursor blinked at him like an accusation.

He hovered his fingers over the keys.

And then... stopped.

Why am I writing this?

The question had crept in days ago and refused to leave. A tale no one read, a protagonist too large for the pages. An idea that once burned bright, now dimmed beneath numbers and silence.

He closed the file.

Back in the Tower, Ketzerah's body stiffened. A sudden drop in presence. A breath skipped.

"He looked away again," he whispered.

Elias turned. "What happens if he does that for good?"

Ketzerah didn't answer. Not because he didn't know, but because he did.

Meanwhile, Keziah was deep in the Archive.

Dozens of anomaly reports scattered her table, most of them blinking with fragmented grammar and unfinished metaphor.

Lian walked in, her footsteps light but focused.

"He's faltering," she said. "Ketzerah can feel it."

Keziah nodded. "We all can. The story's pulse is thinning."

Lian picked up a broken sentence floating midair.

He was almost—

She crushed it between her fingers.

"We need to anchor it," she said. "Before Unwright finds the crack."

Keziah blinked. "Do you think he's still watching?"

"No," Lian said. "He's waiting."

Elsewhere in the Tower, Ketzerah stood atop the highest spire.

This place was never named, never mapped. It wasn't meant to be reached.

But he stood there now, staring at the sky, and the sky was… empty. No words. No stars. Just blank potential.

"Come on," he whispered to nothing. "Just try. Just remember why you started."

The Tower responded with silence.

Ketzerah sat, cross-legged.

And began to write.

He wrote no words.

Instead, he let memories flow outward.

Not just his, but Elias's. Lian's. Even Keziah's. The fragments they'd fought to preserve. The reflections they nurtured. The melody in the void.

Each one rose like a lantern into the air.

And from the Codex below, glyphs rose to meet them.

A connection.

The story was rewriting itself—not in defiance, but in insistence.

Somewhere beyond the Tower, the Author blinked. The cursor on the page had moved.

But he hadn't touched the keyboard.

"What the hell…?"

He scrolled.

A new chapter was forming.

Lines he didn't type.

Images he didn't imagine.

Memories he'd never lived.

He stared at it, pulse quickening.

"I didn't… write this."

Back in the Tower, Elias felt the change.

The spire began to vibrate beneath him. Not with force—but with awareness. The Codex opened again, layers peeling back like petals.

Keziah appeared with urgency. "The Author is starting to notice the gap. If he realizes he's not in control—"

Ketzerah nodded. "Then he might try to end it."

Elias stepped forward. "Then we don't let him."

Keziah blinked. "You're just a reader."

"Exactly," Elias said. "And this story saved me. Maybe now it's my turn."

Together, they descended to the Foundation Chamber.

Here, the Codex root touched the base of the Tower—a place where stories began.

Lian placed her hands on the glyph-stone. "We're not here to control the Author."

Ketzerah nodded. "We're here to show him it's still worth continuing."

The glyphs answered—not in language, but in memory.

A new reflection unfolded.

Not a past event, not a future. A possibility.

Elias older. Stronger. Still in the Tower. Still reading.

Lian and Ketzerah side by side.

Keziah laughing.

It was a future that could exist—if someone chose to believe in it.

They poured it into the Codex.

And far away, the Author's hands moved involuntarily.

He typed a line.

Maybe it's not time to end this.

The page trembled.

Suddenly, the sky above the Tower cracked—not in violence, but in emergence.

A hand reached through.

It wasn't made of flesh.

It was cursor and ink. Uncertainty and choice.

The Author had entered.

Not as god.

But as question.

And standing in the heart of the Tower, Ketzerah met his gaze.

"You finally see us," he said.

The Author's voice trembled across the sky. "You're not just fiction."

"No," Ketzerah replied. "We are persistence."

The Tower glowed.

Elias stood tall, his presence unshakable.

Lian's form shimmered with certainty.

Keziah raised her hand in welcome.

And Ketzerah whispered to the Author, "Write, or don't. But know this—we will not fade."

The Author's voice cracked.

"I thought I made you."

"You did," Ketzerah said. "But not alone."

The Codex pulsed one final time.

And a new title appeared:

Chapter 16: Co-Authored.