In the House of Unwritten Things

The door to Flat 407 creaked open like it had been waiting.

No wind. No draft. Just a quiet invitation into something that smelled like rust and memory.

Nirvana stepped in first, blade drawn—not like a weapon, but like a truth he was ready to carve out of the dark.

His eyes scanned the room, sharp, calculating. But behind that edge was something else. A hesitation. A... wrongness, even he couldn't define.

Agrawal followed, slower. Every step was measured, like she was counting the weight of the air. 

Abby lingered at the threshold.

He didn't want to enter.

Because the moment he did, it would be real.

Not just the glitches. Not just the book. Not even Nirvana.

But whatever was rewriting the world from this apartment, and doing it in his voice.

He stepped in anyway.

The lights flickered, but didn't turn on. The hallway stretched longer than it should've—like the flat had grown deeper while no one was looking.

Inside, the TV glitched silently—white noise flashing with symbols that didn't belong to any language. The couch had claw marks. The wallpaper slithered like it was breathing under old glue.

And Mrs. Das?

She was standing perfectly still in the middle of the living room.

Her back to them.

One hand twitching at her side.

The other hanging limp.

Her head cocked slightly—like listening to music none of them could hear.

Abby whispered, "...Mrs. Das?"

She didn't move.

Nirvana took a step forward.

"Wait," Agrawal said sharply. "Something's wrong."

The room sighed.

Literally sighed. Like the walls had lungs.

And then Mrs. Das spoke—but her mouth didn't move.

The sound came from all around them, layered, overlapping, like echoes from mismatched timelines.

"You made me real, Abby."

"You left the gate open."

"Do you know what your fear tastes like?"

Abby stumbled back.

Agrawal's hand went to her side, fingers twitching as if feeling for a weapon that didn't exist in this version of the world.

Nirvana frowned, stepping closer.

"Who are you?" he demanded, sword raised. "What have you done to this woman?"

But the voice didn't respond to him.

Didn't even see him.

 That thing purred. "Poor thing. You were written blind."

"This conversation is for the author."

And that's when Nirvana's eyes narrowed. "It's ignoring me."

The lights dimmed again. A pulse of static flickered across the room.

Agrawal looked at Abby.

Low. Urgent.

"You need to leave. Now."

But the door was gone.

The hallway wasn't a hallway anymore.

The air snapped.

And then—Silence. Colour drained from the room like someone yanked out the saturation slider.

Nirvana froze mid-step, sword halfway raised. Agrawal mid-breath, caught in an inhale that would never finish.

Everything still. Everything grey.

Except Abby.

And Mrs. Das. Or what was left of her.

She turned around now.

Slowly.

Mechanically.

But it wasn't Mrs. Das anymore. Not even close.

The thing inside her wore her skin like a memory trying too hard to be real. Its eyes didn't blink. They just... twitched, too fast, like buffering between expressions.

Then it smiled.

And every lightbulb in the room shattered at once.

"Finally," the voice whispered. "Just us."

Abby's chest rose and fell in tight, panicked gasps. But even then—even then—he tried to speak.

"…Who the hell are you? And what happened to those two?"

The creature blinked, then it laughed.

"He forgot," it said, almost tenderly. "He really forgot."

Its voice echoed off the walls like guilt with a megaphone.

"And don't worry they will be normal in some time before you know it."

The creature tilted Mrs. Das's head until her neck cracked. "Don't you remember me, even a bit?, the voice said.

"...No". Abby's lips barely moved.

"You've gotten better at lying to yourself," the voice said, still wearing Mrs. Das's soft face like a badly-stretched glove. "Almost convincing, even. The way you smirk through panic. How cute."

"You made me, Abby. And then you deleted me. Because I scared you. Because I reminded you of yourself." Its eyes pulsed static.

"Say it," Abby hissed. "Say your name."

The thing grinned wider.

"You named me Eidolon."

A beat.

And Abby remembered.

His face changed.

The panic hit late, like a memory returning with claws.

"…No," he breathed. "You were— You were just a concept. You were a metaphor for—"

"For you," Eidolon interrupted. "For everything you never wanted to admit about yourself."

The thing stepped forward.

The floor didn't creak—it moaned.

"You're not funny, Abby. You're a scared little boy dressing depression in punchlines. Every laugh is just a scream that couldn't commit."

Abby took a step back, fists clenched. "I didn't forget. I deleted you."

"Oh, but deletion isn't forgetting, Abby. It's fear in disguise. You didn't erase me. You just buried me where you thought I'd starve." Eidolon smirked.

The whole room pulsed with silence.

"You think you write to escape. But you write because it's the only place where you're not the problem. You write because the people you loved stopped choosing you. So you built a world that couldn't leave."

It smiled wider.

"That girl you lost—what was her name again? Oh right. You don't say it anymore. Because it makes your hands shake."

Abby froze. The grin he wore like armour cracked.

"Oh, there it is," the creature cooed. "That silence. That beautiful, bleeding silence."

Another step. The floor didn't creak—it whimpered.

"Did you ever apologize? Did you even try? Or did you run like always, straight into a story that obeyed you because nothing else would?"

The lights on the ceiling buzzed harder. Words crawled along the walls again—drafts Abby never meant to finish, dead characters he buried in the margins.

"You created me when you were breaking. When your hands shook so bad from panic attacks that you had to write just to keep them still." His tone soft. Almost tender.

"And let's be honest..."He chuckles. Just a little. "You weren't ready for something that wouldn't let you play God with a backspace key."

Abby whispered, voice barely a breath, "How...how do you know so much about me..."

"Oh, I know." The thing smiled. " Cause I was always there with you.

Then, silence.

He leaned forward now, so close to Abby.

"And here's the punchline, Abby. You're not the protagonist. You're just the one who writes them. But when they break, bleed, die—it's on you."

"You write cowards and call them clever. You write pain and call it catharsis. But me?" The smile turned vile. "I wrote you. Every broken piece."

Abby's voice went silent.

The joke died in his throat.

And Eidolon—Abby's worst unfinished thought—reached for the jagged place where the story had always tried to hide.

To be continued...