Lord Of The Stories

"Sector Eleven again?"

Nathan lowered the communicator and sighed. "Of course it is."

He pulled his coat tighter and walked down the narrow path from the tram station. The streetlamps buzzed faintly, casting pools of sickly light onto cracked pavement. Water dripped from somewhere above, even though it hadn't rained in days. That was Twilight for you…. leaks, smoke, silence.

His boots hit the stone with steady rhythm.

"Detective Black?"

A shaky voice called from a doorway. A young man, no older than twenty, stepped forward, clutching a faded coat to his chest. His eyes darted around like someone was following him.

Nathan didn't stop walking. "Not now."

"I… please! I heard about the body. They're saying there's a name list. People like me are next… no abilities, no family… "

"Then stay indoors," Nathan muttered. "Sleep near a weapon. Trust no one."

"That's it?"

 He paused then looked at the kid. "If someone wants you dead badly enough, advice won't stop them. Keep your head down."

The kid's mouth opened as if to argue, but Nathan had already moved on.

Ten minutes later, he stood in front of a rusted metal door. No nameplate. Just a faint chalk symbol, the same one from the last two cases. A downward arrow with a broken circle around it.

He knocked.

Nothing.

He knocked again, louder. Still nothing.

"Standard procedure," he muttered. He pulled a narrow tool from his pocket and worked the lock. Took five seconds. The door clicked open.

The smell hit first. Old blood mixed with something faintly metallic.

Nathan stepped inside.

The light from the hallway barely reached the back of the room, but it was enough. A body slumped in the far corner, legs twisted, eyes open. A young man. Early twenties. No visible ID.

Nathan crouched beside the corpse, checking for pulse even though he already knew.

"Third this week," he muttered to himself.

He pulled out his notebook, scribbled a few notes, and swept his flashlight across the room.

No broken furniture. No forced entry. No signs of struggle.

Too clean.

He checked the man's coat.

Nothing in the left pocket. Nothing in the right.

Then, inside the inner lining—folded parchment.

He unfolded it carefully.

Four words, same as before:

"I reject your script."

Nathan read them out loud under his breath. "Still no signature."

Back outside, he lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.

A voice cut through the fog.

"You look like shit."

Nathan didn't even glance. "Evening, Elira."

A tall woman stepped beside him. Long coat, grease-stained sleeves, goggles pushed up over her tangled hair. Elira worked with the resistance engineers, one of the few who could stand being around him longer than five minutes.

"Another one?" she asked, nodding toward the door.

He exhaled slowly. "Same pattern. No Ability. Dead clean. Phrase left behind."

"'I reject your script'?" she asked.

He gave her a look. "You've heard it?"

"Twice. People down in Sector Thirteen have been muttering it. Like it means something."

Nathan flicked ash onto the stone. "It does. I just don't know what."

"You think it's some kind of code?"

"No. A message."

"To who?"

He glanced at her. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

She shifted her weight. "You know people are starting to talk, right? About the Story. The Author. Ascenders. They think it's real."

Nathan didn't answer right away.

He took another drag. "It's not real. It's myth. A lie people use when they're tired of the truth."

Elira raised a brow. "Which is?"

"That no one's coming to save us."

They stood in silence for a while.

She finally said, "I'll keep my ear to the ground. Let you know if anyone else whispers about rejecting anything."

"Appreciated."

She turned to go, then paused. "You ever think about it?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Think about what?"

"What it would mean if it was true. If we really were just… written."

Nathan flicked the cigarette and watched the sparks fall. "If someone's writing me, they're doing a terrible job."

She snorted and vanished into the fog.

Back at his office, Nathan pulled the blinds halfway shut and dropped into the worn chair behind his desk.

He opened the top drawer. Inside: two old photos, three notebooks, a cracked lighter, and a small folder labeled Reject Cases.

He opened it.

Three victims. Three crime scenes.

All normies. All low-income. No known enemies. No history of activism. All left the same four words.

He placed the new note beside the others.

"I reject your script."

He stared at them.

He didn't believe in gods. He didn't believe in fate.

But he did believe in patterns.

And this one?

Nathan stared at the notes on his desk.

Three scraps of parchment. Each one with the same four words, lined up in silence under the dusty lamp.

"I reject your script."

"I reject your script."

"I reject your script."

Same ink. Same handwriting. Same jagged pressure in the letters. It wasn't just a message anymore.

It was a pattern.

He opened the bottom drawer of his cabinet and pulled out a file labeled Fringe Incidents. Mostly junk: conspiracy theories, Enforcer coverups, whispers of rogue Abilities or fake gods. He didn't believe most of it.

But something about the last note had felt different.

He flipped to a page from two years ago, an old witness report from a mechanic in Twilight Sector Nine. The man swore he'd seen someone who "glitched." A person whose reflection didn't match their movements. Who spoke in phrases that didn't sound like they came from their own voice.

Nathan had dismissed it back then.

Now… he wasn't so sure.

He pulled the new note into better light. The paper was slightly thicker. The texture wasn't like anything used locally. The fibers shimmered faintly, like they didn't belong here.

The edges of the note had no fray. The ink didn't bleed. It almost looked printed but not by any machine Nathan recognized.

His communicator buzzed.

He answered without looking. "Black."

A voice replied, low, steady. From an Enforcer clerk, probably assigned to border checks.

"We logged an entry this morning. City gate scan flagged it as anomalous."

Nathan's brow furrowed. "Anomalous how?"

"No residency stamp. No faction. No occupational tag. No ability log."

"That happens. Twilight's full of ghosts."

"This wasn't a ghost. System couldn't track movement history. No travel trail. Just… appeared."

Nathan sat up straighter. "Name?"

"Leo Samuel. We think he is from Daylight, but there's no trace of him on record. Nowhere."

Nathan didn't answer.

"Thought you'd want to know. Case type matches your previous flag."

The line went dead.

He lowered the communicator.

Leo Samuel.

Not a name he'd heard before. An odd one actually 

But the way the system reacted? That wasn't just a missing file. It was like the man had walked in from a place that wasn't mapped.

Nathan glanced at the notes again.

The messages had started three days ago.

Now a new arrival with no past and no signature entered the city.

He tapped the edge of the newest parchment, then leaned back, eyes on the cracked ceiling.

"Alright, Leo," he said quietly.

"Let's see where you came from."