The Pen That Wrote Before Time

Chapter 10: The Pen That Wrote Before Time

> "You think you're writing to remember.

But the truth is — you're writing to keep forgetting."

— Etched into the spine of the pen

---

He opened his eyes.

But the world didn't return.

Not fully.

The walls were wrong — slightly stretched, breathing like lungs remembering how to collapse.

The desk was there… but older.

Not like it aged — like it had always been older than him.

On the desk:

The notebook.

Still pulsing.

Still watching.

And beside it: a pen.

He didn't recognize it.

But it recognized him.

It was dark — a black so dense it pulled light inward.

Its shape was uneven, like bone carved by something blind and patient.

Warm.

Alive.

He reached for it.

It moved first.

---

> The moment his fingers touched it… something entered.

Not a voice.

Not a memory.

A presence.

Images cracked through his mind like lightning:

A vast library without walls, built on screams.

A city made of reflections — all looking inward.

A boy writing a story that had no beginning and no author — just ink that fed on belief.

Then came a sentence, carved into the silence behind his thoughts:

> "The first writer wasn't human."

---

He tried to let go.

The pen refused.

It lifted his hand — gently, like an old friend.

And together, they began to write.

Not on the notebook.

On reality.

The light dimmed.

The air folded.

Words appeared on the walls, the floor, his skin — stories that shouldn't exist.

> ❝Chapter 11 — Written by Something Else❞

Already waiting. Already titled.

Already inevitable.

---

He looked at his hand.

It wasn't his.

It was still writing.

And deep down, he felt it:

This wasn't possession.

It was inheritance.

He wasn't being taken.

He was being remembered by something that wrote him first.

---

> The pen doesn't choose the hand.

It chooses the mind willing to vanish.