„This chapter is broken.
Not by accident.
By design."
**Because to survive the story, Frei must destroy it.**
Frei held the Format Breaker in his hand.
It was warm.
Not like metal — but like a heartbeat.
He didn't think.
He didn't plan.
He used it.
And the story responded.
It glitched — not violently, but deeply. From within. Like a virus rewriting the story's DNA.
The chapter begins to fold:
Frei walks into a / hallway that was / already behind him / but ahead of itself.
Narrative logic bends.
[LOCATION: {undefined}]
[TIME: 13:17, 13:17, 13:17, 13:—]
His thoughts start being written before he thinks them.
Frei considers betrayal before loyalty.
He bleeds blue.
He forgets his mother's name, though she was never written.
His body is pulled in two directions:
→ One toward the reader.
→ One into the margin.
The prose itself becomes unstable:
Frei
breaks
And yet. somehow. he holds on.
Suddenly... someone else speaks.
But not Frei.
Not Echo.
Not Kira.
You're not supposed to be here.
The font changes.
So does the voice.
It's the Narrator...
but stripped of polish. Stuttering. Unsure.
This isn't how the chapter ends. This isn't how stories work. You need conflict... you need structure...
Frei laughs.
Not because it's funny.
Because it's true and he doesn't care anymore.
He answers with words that don't belong in his character profile:
"I don't want resolution. I want reality."
The Narrator stammers.
You're breaking tone. This doesn't match your arc. You're-
Frei interrupts.
"I'm done being read. I want to be felt."
Scenes begin bleeding into each other:
• Frei's childhood bedroom overlays the battlefield of Chapter 6.
• Echo flickers between her three versions: alive, corrupted, idealized.
• Dialogue overlaps.
"You were never meant to win."
"You replaced me."
"He forgets."
And through it all...
Frei begins to write back.
Not in notebooks.
Not with keys.
But with thought.
He writes a scene where no one dies.
Then erases it.
Then writes one where he never existed at all.
And the chapter tries to correct him.
But fails.
In the middle of the page, a tear opens.
Not a door.
Not a portal.
A gap, a place where nothing has ever been written.
It hisses.
Not with sound, but possibility.
He hears voices from beyond:
"What chapter is this again?"
"Why is the font wrong?"
"Wasn't he supposed to die in Chapter 10?"
Frei steps to the edge.
And looks through.
What he sees makes no narrative sense -
images from a world beyond the book:
• A desk with a blinking cursor.
• Fingers typing.
• A screen that says: "Wattpad | Last Saved: 5 mins ago"
His breath catches.
Because what's on the other side of the tear is not fiction.
It's a reader.
The chapter begins to reboot, but it's too late.
Frei smiles-
genuinely, for the first time.
The scene around him turns to static.
Then silence.
He speaks not to any character, not to any narrator.
But to you.
Yes, you, reading this.
"If you're still here, that means I've made it through the page. Past the format. Past the plan. Past the point of control."
He places a hand on the tear.
"Next chapter, I find who wrote me."
And the chapter ends.
But not with a period.
With a cursor blinking.
Waiting.
For what you type next.
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...
