Chapter 8 The Fairytale

He stares at the page.

The bird poem has ended.
The ink is still warm.

His eyes trace the faint curve of the next line below it, where the script changes—
not in style, but in intention.
Still messy. Still human.
But now… trying to speak. Like a voice from a box buried under the floorboards.
He flips the page.

And there it is, at the top of the next.
Written without fanfare. Without title. Without even a date.

"If you are reading this,
                   then I have died."

No name.
No signature.
Just the most cursed welcome mat imaginable.

He stares at the sentence for a few seconds,
as if the weight of it might shift if he glares hard enough.

It doesn’t.
He flips the next page.
There it is again, in slanted black ink—

“The House in the Woods.”

“...Oh, real cute.”

His voice is dry.
Drier than his bandages.
But something—deep in the gut—tightens.

Because this story?

It doesn’t belong to him.

But it wants to.

It feels like a trap.
Like a song stuck in someone else’s head that somehow knows your name.

He keeps reading.

The handwriting slips between clarity and panic—
like the author was trying to remember how to breathe while putting pen to page.

And that panic?
That sense of being watched?

Still lingers.

It started as a safe place.
A cabin. A door. A coat still damp from the rain.
There was soup on the stove. Steam on the windows.
Something about that should’ve felt like home.

But I wasn’t alone.
And the walls weren’t mine.
And the memories weren’t either.

The House in the Woods remembers everything.
Even if I don’t.

He stops there.
Lets the words sit.

Let them stare back.

This wasn’t written for him.
And yet—it knows he’s reading it.
As if the act of turning the page was part of the ritual.

‘What did you walk into, idiot.’

He closes the book for now.
Doesn’t want to get too deep before he’s sitting upright again.

But the words keep repeating inside his skull,
looping behind his eyes—

“The House in the Woods remembers everything…”

Getting up hurt.
Not because of the wounds.

But because of the damn barbwire woven into the bedframe.
One sharp tug and his jacket snagged just deep enough to warn him.

Stay.
Read.

He grunted and yanked himself free.
It didn’t bleed—but it felt like it should’ve.
One of those ghost-pain moments.
Something inside flinched.

The cabin hadn't changed.

The flower still shimmered, white and twitching, refusing to look at him.
Glub lay dead in the bathroom. (Good riddance.)
And the air... the air carried those black specks,
light as ash, floating in spiral silence.

“So this,” he muttered under his breath,
“was your home.”

Or maybe a version of it.
A story retold too many times.

He slumped down beside the wall.
It creaked like bone under his weight.

The journal sat heavy in his lap.
He turned another page.

This one was worse.

No poetry.
No myth.
Just hurt.

The handwriting here was panicked, jostled, like it had been scribbled between sobs.

“They made me go. I didn’t want to, but they said I had to.”

“Eddy said it would be fun. He always says that.”

“I don’t think he’d hurt me. Not really. He’s just… like that.”

“It wasn’t like that. He didn’t mean it.”

The words began to blur.
Not because of tears.
But because the page itself began to smudge—
ink dragged by unseen fingers,
as if the memory couldn’t bear to stay still.

“He didn’t mean to leave me there.”

“I just got sick. That’s all.”

“The ground moved weird. I remember throwing up candy.”

“I woke up and everyone was gone.”

Our hero squinted.

Was this…
Was this a festival?

No, it said—

“Festival of the Stars.”

But the way it was written—
like someone saying the name of a church that burned down.

He closes the book again.
Lets his head thunk softly against the wall.

This wasn’t about him.
But he felt like he was holding someone’s coffin diary.

“Eddy Woods.”

That name…

Why did it feel like a warning?

He closed the book again.

Out of reflex. Out of pain.
Out of cowardice.

It made his skin crawl. It made his head hurt.
So of course, like the dumb brute he was, he shut it.

Snap.
Blood squeezed through the wrap on his hand.

And that’s when the book bit him.

A pinprick at first.
Like old metal staples.
Or thorns, hidden in soft paper edges.

The sharpness slid right beneath the bloodied wrap—
threading itself into the fresh, hook-wet wound of his hand.

He yelped—tried to drop it—
And the book leapt from his fingers, as if eager for the floor.

It landed open.

Already turned to the next page.
Already reading itself aloud, in his head.

He hadn’t even blinked.

"There were dancers. And singers."

"They sang to me."

"Warned me."

"The Hound is coming."

The words echoed.
Too loud.
Even on paper.

It was written strangely neat, as if this page came first.
A moment of clarity. A beautiful panic.

The kid had run.
That much was clear.

Ran from the stage, the lights, the glimmering starlight paper lanterns.
Ran because someone—or something—was coming for him.

And then—

The descent.

The rest of the page dissolved into a manic spiral.

Words scratched into the pulp like claws.
No rhythm. No grammar. No breath.

Just over and over:

“how did i get home last night?”
“how did i get home last night?”
“how did i get home last night?”

Thousands of times.
So many that the pressure had bent the page slightly outward.
Like scar tissue.

He leaned in. Looked close.

There was another layer beneath.

Buried behind the madness, barely visible—
the original page.

Faded now. Covered in ink trauma.

But if he focused, tilted it to the candlelight just right, he could make out:

“The Festival burned.”

“Froosta.”

“Music.”

“Fire.”

“Loud.”

“Rain.”

The words bled together.

Like a memory being drowned.

He rubbed his temple.
The black specks in the air seemed to pulse with each phrase.

Froosta.

Why did that sound so sweet and so wrong at once?

Why did it feel like a lullaby being screamed?

The book vibrated faintly in his lap.
Hungry for the next page.

But he didn’t dare touch it just yet.

He looked at the white flower in the center of the cabin.

It was trembling now.
Wagging its thorns like antennae.
Tasting something in the room—

Something old.
Something remembered.

He didn’t touch the book.

But the book touched him.

A breath in the air.
A slither of invisible fingers.
A shiver.

Ffwwwp—

The page flipped itself.

And the world blacked out.

Not the cabin.
Not the firelight or the flower.
Just the page.

It drank in all light—
A yawning void of black ink that shimmered like wet stone.
The entire parchment was soaked in a cosmic filth—

Like Holokon blood melted into tar.
Too dark.
Too thick.
And worst of all: still wet.

His hands recoiled, but the page didn’t care.

Stars bloomed across the surface.
Glowing freckles on a dead sky.

And then the eyes opened.

Dozens. Hundreds.
Drawn in ink—some wide with terror, some crying, some blank with endless pupils.
Some looked like his.

Some, like strangers he feared he’d once loved.

The page watched him.

It knew.

He clutched his chest.
The panic rising.

And then—
Movement.

The ink swirled.

The eyes rolled away.

And like a child etching words into fogged glass, the message appeared:

“if you are reading this,”
“it means you are alive!”
“you are stuck in a terrible place.”

The letters glowed in brilliant white.
Hand-drawn, imperfect—
Hopeful.

Like someone had written this in haste.
In love.
In belief.

His breath caught.
His heart twisted up into his throat.

He knew this writing.

“Listen carefully,”
“you must save yourself.”
“But you can do it! I always believe in you!”

And there—beneath it all—was a smiley face.
Goofy. Silly. Tongue sticking out.
Drawn with four eyelashes on one eye because he always thought that looked funnier.

And right next to it, in tiny letters, scrawled almost as an afterthought:

—RoKoKo

He gasped.
Laughed.
Sobbed.

“RoKoKo…” he whispered, trembling.

His Holokon brother.

Not blood.
But closer than blood ever dared to be.

“You absolute idiot… you’re still alive?”

Gods below, he hadn’t heard that name in—

“Still enjoying watermelons, I hope...”

He wiped his face.
Tears and dust and panic all blurred.

But that name—
It glowed in him.

Somehow, some part of him knew this page wasn’t metaphor.
This message wasn’t from the past.

It was written for him.

Now.

The flower trembled violently in the distance.
Its petals opened wider.
Its roots curled inward, as if something terrible had just lost.

The book turned quiet in his lap.

Waiting.
Respecting the moment.

There were more pages.

But this one—

This one would stay with him.
Forever.

The stars on the black page blinked…
once.
Twice.
Gone.

The ink shuddered—
quivered like breath on a mirror—
then swirled again as if stirred by some unseen hand.

A final message appeared.
Uneven. Shaky. But still from him.

“Please, my StellaCrona…”
“Please read the last pages…”
“And if you are ever lost, remember—”

The ink paused.
Hung in the air like the last gasp of a song.

Then—

“I love you.”

Our hero screamed it back.

Or tried.

But his voice—

Only came out as garble.

A strange, pitiful collection of sounds.
A bird with broken chords.
A shattered record trying to mimic a lullaby.

It didn’t matter.

His chest heaved, heart trembling like a child clutching a memory.
Even if the words were broken—
the love wasn’t.

He turned the page.

And found…

A normal page.

Paper.
Ink.
No curses.
No black ichor.

Just words.
Scrawled in hurried, messy lines.

“If I am ever trapped again… follow these steps.”

Step 1:
Find the box
(“It’s where I sleep.”)

Step 2:
Offer your hands in union.
(“Don’t let the fish distract you.”)

Step 3:
Save the music from darkness.
(“It cannot play while the darkness eats.”)

Step 4:
Turn the key— twice.

Step 5:
Let the music play to escape the Realm of Gray.

Step 6:
Do not listen to Eddy Woods.

The words sat heavy.
Some of them glowed faintly.

Hints. Warnings. Maybe riddles.

Maybe madness.

But that last part—

Do not listen to Eddy Woods.

He underlined it twice.

As if afraid you might forget.

Our hero frowned.

That name again.
Eddy Woods.

Still no face.
No voice.

But the Realm of Gray…

That he remembered.

He’d been here before.
He had killed this place once.

Like a knight piercing the black heart of a dragon.
Like a martyr crushing the phylactery of a lich.

This place—this world—

Was evil.

Pure and suffocating.

And now…

There was a way out.

He closed the book.
Held it tight to his chest.

The cabin groaned around him.
The flower stilled.
The floating dust spun like starlight around his head.

In the distance, something creaked.

Like an old drawer.

Like…

A box being opened.... 

ah-  the resting area.