A Glitch in the Ending

The world had changed again.

Eren stood at the edge of a crumbling bridge that led nowhere, the sky above him glitching between blood-red and deep purple. Trees blinked in and out of existence. Pages from unseen books fluttered across the air like trapped butterflies, each etched with a different version of his life.

But Eren wasn't confused. Not anymore.

He was starting to understand.

Ever since he'd touched the original manuscript—the divine blueprint of the story—it had been reacting to his presence. Bending. Shifting. Adapting to his emotions, his thoughts, his choices. It was no longer just a story someone else wrote.

He was writing it too.

But that made him dangerous. To the plot. To the characters. To the very foundations of the world he once read from the comfort of his old bed.

A notification floated in the air:

[Narrative Authority Interference Detected]Initiating Rewrite Protocol… Error. ERROR. Unable to override. Subject: Eren is no longer bound.

That made him smile.

"I guess I'm not a side character anymore."

From the bridge's end, something stirred. A low hum, like forgotten voices speaking in reverse. Then a shape appeared—tall, shrouded in a glitching cloak that shifted through thousands of forms each second. At one moment, it looked like a librarian. The next, a knight. Then a shadow with a glowing quill in hand.

Eren recognized it immediately.

The Plotkeeper.

The one meant to enforce the original story's rules.

"You're not supposed to be here," the Plotkeeper's voice layered over itself, male and female and mechanical all at once. "You have violated causality. Defied foreshadowing. Broken the sacred arc."

Eren tilted his head. "Maybe. Or maybe I just found the pen."

He raised his hand—and in it, held the Quill of Correction. A weapon that wasn't forged with steel but with words, truth, and imagination. It had chosen him when he confronted Chapter Zero and denied the fate written there.

The Plotkeeper moved. So fast the air cracked. It lashed out with a paragraph—a literal attack made of text, sharp and spinning like a blade. Eren ducked under it, the words cutting across his cheek and instantly forming a small wound shaped like a comma.

But he didn't retreat.

He swung his quill like a sword, and glowing script burst out, slashing through the attack. The sentence unraveled midair and collapsed into letters.

"Impressive," the Plotkeeper said. "But you are still incomplete. Your narrative thread is thin. Fragile. Your existence is an error."

"Maybe. But errors… sometimes lead to evolution."

The battle began.

Every move the Plotkeeper made was a cliché turned deadly. A tragic backstory unleashed like a chain. A redemption arc hurled like a bomb. A twist ending fired like a bullet.

And Eren countered them all.

He rewrote attacks midair, scribbled protective metaphors around himself, and turned tropes into traps. The bridge shattered under the weight of two story-wielding beings colliding with purpose.

And yet, Eren was losing.

Each time he landed a hit, the Plotkeeper regenerated by referencing an earlier chapter. Its entire being was backed by the weight of the Author's will—the original plan that Eren was trying to undo.

Then came the moment of silence. The final strike charged.

The Plotkeeper summoned a massive narrative structure in the form of a tower—"The Ending." It fell from the sky with thunderous force, intending to seal the story forever.

But Eren wasn't afraid.

He looked up, smiled, and spoke not with his mouth—but with his intent.

"I don't want an ending."

And with that, he did something no character had ever done before.

He tore out a blank page.

The tower froze midair.

A ripple passed through reality. The laws of the world stuttered. Time fractured. The page hovered, glowing, trembling with raw possibility.

Eren dipped his quill in blood—from the wound shaped like a comma—and wrote five words:

"This story is still beginning."

Boom.

The tower shattered. The Plotkeeper screamed—not in pain, but in confusion. It looked down at itself and saw gaps forming. Holes in its existence. Its body was being unwritten.

"You—You don't understand what you've done," it rasped.

Eren looked calm, almost sad. "No, I understand it more than you ever did. Stories don't have to end. They evolve. They live. And sometimes, they glitch—so we can see what was broken all along."

The Plotkeeper dissolved into ink, whispering ancient tropes as it vanished: "Foreshadow… Destiny… Tragedy… Closure…"

Silence fell.

And in that silence, a door appeared before Eren. Unlike any he'd seen before, it wasn't made of pages or ink—but code. Transparent, humming with both magic and logic.

A message hovered:

[Welcome, Final Boss Candidate.]Enter the Glitch Realm to complete your Ascension.

Eren stared at it, breath shallow. His heart beat like war drums. This wasn't just a side quest anymore. He was about to step into a part of the story even the Author had never finished writing.

He stepped forward.

But then paused.

In the distance, he heard something strange.

Clapping.

Slow. Steady. Mocking.

From the shadows stepped a man. No, not a man. Something… other.

He looked like a reader.

Wore modern clothes. Carried a phone. Had messy hair and dark circles under his eyes. But his presence was unreal. Like a mirror reflecting everything and nothing.

"You really think you're free, Eren?" the man asked, smiling. "You think breaking one arc rewrites the whole genre?"

"Who are you?" Eren asked, tightening his grip on the quill.

The man raised his phone. On the screen was Eren's face. His stats. His choices.

"I'm the Original Reader," he said. "I read this story before it was even written."

Eren's breath caught.

And the man continued, walking past the crumbling remains of the bridge.

"You're not the only one who got inside. I read all the endings. All the rewrites. Even the discarded drafts."

He grinned.

"And I decided… to write my own."

A new page formed in the air. This one not written by quill, magic, or code—but typed.

And it had a title.

Chapter One: The Reader Becomes the Author

Eren's eyes widened. "No… it can't be."

"Oh, but it is," the Reader said. "Welcome to the true story, Eren."

Then, like a virus, the page exploded with light.

The world blinked.

And everything began again.