I Reincarnated into a Book I Never Wrote

"A character born to be written… now holds the pen."

The Final Epilogue pulsed violently.

Pages spiraled through the air, filled with a thousand contradictory futures — lives Veyra could live, or destroy.

She stood before the orb, arms spread, hair floating, expression frozen between serenity and sorrow.

Behind us, the Cult of the Erased began their approach. Arith Kael's boots struck the parchment floor like drums of war. Zane hovered above them, blank-eyed, silent, and utterly still — not dead, but erased from within.

Mira leaned close to me, her voice trembling.

"If Veyra chooses wrong, everything — even you — will become retroactive fiction."

And I realized:We weren't watching her choose.We were living in the prelude to the choice she already began making.

The orb spoke in her voice.

"Let me write... just once. No roles. No Author. No expectations."

Then it shattered.

Instead of an explosion, a pulse spread across Apostrophis.

Time paused.

The cult froze mid-step.

Even Zane stopped, the threads of corruption twitching but still.

Only I could move. Only Veyra and I.

She turned toward me, now glowing with faint gold lines — glyphs from our earliest drafts.

"You don't know this, Arin," she said softly, "but I was supposed to love you."

My breath caught.

"What…?"

"In one of your early plans, I was meant to fall for you. But you rewrote it. Changed me. Again and again. Loyal sidekick. Antihero. Sacrifice. Shadow."

She stepped forward, eyes brimming with something painful.

"I remember all of them now. Because I've lived all of them."

I said nothing. Because… I had.

Back in school, Zane and I tried so many versions of her:

Veyra the Guardian, who protected the Author with her life.

Veyra the Betrayer, who killed him to free the characters.

Veyra the Forgotten, who was written out of the ending.

And now she stood before me as the one who remembers it all.

She wasn't just the protagonist.

She was the embodiment of our indecision.

She lifted her hand.

And suddenly, three Veyras appeared beside her — illusions, or fragments:

The Savior, bathed in light, carrying a rewritten future.

The Destroyer, cloaked in flame, eyes full of vengeance.

The Realist, cracked and tired, holding nothing but truth.

She looked at me.

"You still think I'm choosing, don't you?"

I frowned. "Aren't you?"

She shook her head.

"No. I already chose. I just need you to witness it."

The three Veyras stepped into her.

And the glyphs across her body turned black.

The sky cracked.

Reality bent inward.

"I chose to end the Author."

She raised her hand — and from it emerged a new Quill, forged from the Final Epilogue's core.

But she didn't strike.

Instead, she walked to Zane — the corrupted Editor floating midair.

And gently placed the Quill against his chest.

"I free you."

The corruption burst out of him, screaming like all the words he'd ever censored. Zane collapsed, breathing for the first time in what felt like years.

Then she turned to Arith Kael — who was already raising his weapon to strike.

Veyra simply breathed.

And Arith froze.

Because he wasn't real anymore.She'd written him into memory — a story with no readers. No weight. No meaning.

He dissolved like ash into ink.

And then…

She turned to me.

"I'm not ending you, Arin. I'm ending your control."

I stepped back.

"But—"

"You never reincarnated into a book you didn't write," she said."You reincarnated into a story that started writing itself."

A blinding light.

Then—

Darkness.

When I woke, we were back on the shores of a quiet lake. An earlier draft.

The world was… still.

Zane lay nearby, unconscious but breathing. Mira sat alone, paging through her book. The cult was gone.

And Veyra?

Veyra stood at the water's edge, watching her reflection ripple.

I joined her.

She spoke without turning.

"The Final Epilogue is gone. Not opened. Not closed.Just... rewritten as a beginning."

"A beginning for what?"

"A story not about you."

She finally faced me.

"You may still write. But you're no longer the only pen in this world."

And for the first time since I woke in this strange world…I felt peace.

But only briefly.

Because Mira raised her voice behind us.

"Arin… there's something moving through the Lower Drafts."

I turned.

She was holding a page we hadn't seen before.

A wanted poster.

With my face on it.

Below, it read:

"Dead Sentence: The Reincarnated Author"Issued by: The Council of Self-Written Gods