When the Story Falters

The changes were subtle at first.

A knight insisted we had passed through a village that none of us remembered visiting. A merchant thanked the Hero for saving his brother—someone who, according to the records, had died months ago. Small contradictions, easily dismissed as mistakes.

Except they kept happening.

I noticed it in my notebook before anywhere else. Lines I had written about the Third Hero began to echo elsewhere, appearing in unrelated entries. A phrase describing hesitation surfaced in the Hero’s latest battle report, despite my not having written it there.

The world was borrowing from itself.

During our next stop, a town crier announced the Hero’s deeds to the crowd. Halfway through his speech, he faltered.

“—and with unwavering resolve,” he read, then paused. “No… wait. That’s not right.”

The parchment in his hands trembled.

“With… great resolve,” he corrected quickly, sweat beading on his brow. The crowd didn’t seem to notice, but I did.

That night, I dreamed of pages turning on their own.

When I woke, my notebook was open beside me.

A new sentence had appeared.

Stories resist change.

I hadn’t written it.

Panic crept in slowly, like ink spreading through water. If the world could react, then it was aware—on some level—of what I was doing.

And awareness meant opposition.

The Hero approached me the next morning, his expression unusually serious.

“Do you feel it too?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

“Like the world is… correcting itself,” he said. “As if it doesn’t like uncertainty.”

I hesitated, then nodded.

He exhaled sharply. “Good. I thought I was losing my mind.”

We continued on, but the atmosphere had shifted. Priests whispered more often. Messengers came and went from the capital with increasing urgency. I caught glimpses of sealed letters marked with sigils I didn’t recognize.

They knew.

Late one evening, the thin man found me again.

“You wrote something you shouldn’t have,” he said quietly.

“I wrote something that was already true,” I replied.

“That distinction doesn’t matter here,” he said. “The world has a preferred version of itself. Deviate too far, and it will push back.”

“How?”

His gaze drifted toward the Hero’s tent.

“By removing inconsistencies.”

I understood the implication immediately.

If the Hero became inconsistent with the story…
If I became inconsistent…

Someone would be erased.

That night, I made a choice.

I began a second notebook.

One that no one else would ever see.

If the world demanded a single story, then I would give it one.

And keep the rest alive in secret.