The fog grew heavier after midnight.
Echo moved quickly through it, navigating the glitchy terrain like she'd done it a hundred times. Frei followed, hands cold, thoughts colder.
He didn't ask where they were going.
He already knew.
Not in words.
But in instinct.
In echoed memory.
He had dreamed of this place long before he'd seen it. A narrow staircase carved into air, each step humming with unseen code. No rails. No destination visible.
Just steps into nothing.
At the base of the steps, Echo paused.
"You sure?" she asked.
"No," Frei said.
"But I'm done playing my part."
The air thickened as they walked downward.
The staircase pulsed beneath their feet, each step a beat in a rhythm too ancient to understand.
Around them, faint voices whispered in languages Frei didn't know
or maybe used to know, in other drafts. Fragments of other selves.
Then the staircase ended.
Not on a floor.
But into a room made of light.
A vast circular space surrounded by bookshelves that looped upward into infinity, curving and twisting like a Möbius strip. The books shifted colors. Titles rearranged. Some flickered between languages. Others had no titles at all just static where ink should be.
"This is it," Echo said quietly.
The Library Between Drafts.
"Who built it?" Frei asked.
"No one knows. Maybe characters who refused to end. Maybe a version of the Author who wanted to be forgotten. Maybe you."
She shrugged.
"Time doesn't really work in here."
The moment Frei stepped inside, a light flickered at the far end of the library. One single shelf lit up red.
He walked toward it like gravity was pulling him there.
There were six books on the shelf.
Each had a spine marked with his name -FREI-followed by a number.
• FREI 1.0
• FREI 2.1 (REJECTED)
• FREI 3.4
• FREI 4.0 (TERMINATED)
• FREI 5.1
• FREI 5.2 (CURRENT)
And one more.
The last book was black.
No title.
No spine.
But when he touched it, it burned
not from heat, but from something else.
Recognition.
He opened it.
The pages were handwritten.
But it wasn't his handwriting.
It wasn't Maeda's either. Or Naomi's.
The writing looked unfinished, like it had been written in real-time by someone still deciding how the story should go.
He flipped forward.
And found words that chilled him:
Chapter 17 – Frei stares into the fourth wall and whispers the Author's name aloud.
But by then, it's too late.
The others are watching.
He finally understands that this book is not his life.
His life is the price of the book.
He dropped the volume. It hit the floor and vanished in a splash of static.
Echo watched him with unreadable eyes.
"You found your final chapter," she said.
"Why?" Frei whispered. "Why would someone write this?"
"I used to ask that too," she said. "Then I realized: maybe they didn't write it. Maybe they just recorded it."
"Recorded?"
"Like a dream. Or a memory. From somewhere... or someone... else."
They returned to the heart of the library.
There was a wall made entirely of strings red, blue, black strung like nerves across the air.
Each one vibrated slightly.
Echo reached out and touched one.
It sang, softly. A name echoed from it: "Naomi."
Frei touched one next to it.
"Frei_3.4"
"Termination via mirror recursion."
Another string nearby was labeled:
"Echo. Status: never existed in original draft."
Frei recoiled.
"You're not... real?"
"I'm a side character," she said. "But I glitched out. Refused deletion. Became... an accident they couldn't correct."
"Then why help me?"
Echo gave him a soft, tired look.
"Because you're not an accident. You're the proof."
Frei looked up at the strings.
Then whispered something he hadn't dared ask:
"What if I cut the strings?"
Echo smiled.
"Then the story ends."
Just as they turned to leave, the wall of strings pulsed once.
A voice rippled through the library:
"Unauthorized access detected. Draft 5.2 is out of bounds."
The lights dimmed.
Books began vanishing.
Pages burned mid-air.
A final message appeared on the glowing floor before them:
"Return to your roles.
Or be rewritten as ghosts."
Echo grabbed Frei's hand.
"Run."
YOU ARE READING
Factured Strings
Mystery / ThrillerFrei, a tall, reclusive man living in modern Tokyo, battles with depression and dissociation. As his life spirals into surreal events and strange encounters, he begins to uncover disturbing truths about himself, memory, and reality. Slowly, he reali...
