Sunday was quiet.
Too quiet.
August didn't leave his room. Didn't answer texts. Didn't even check if Alex wanted to hang out (which would definitely result in concerned messages by evening). The sketchbook sat open on his desk, waiting at Chapter 10.
The last chapter.
The death chapter.
He'd been circling it all morning like it might bite. Made breakfast (cereal, eaten standing up). Checked social media (boring). Pretended to do homework (lasted four minutes). But the notebook pulled at him like gravity.
Finally, around 2 PM, with afternoon light cutting sharp lines through his blinds, he couldn't avoid it anymore.
He sat down at his desk. The chair creaked. Everything in this house creaked, like it was all held together by habit and hope.
Chapter 10 stared back at him. His twelve-year-old handwriting looked alien now. Smaller. More careful. Like he'd been trying to make every word count.
"There were no trumpets," it began. "No grand last stand. Just Arthur, broken on cold stone, breathing like he was trying not to disturb anyone."
August shifted uncomfortably. Right. He'd been that kid. The one who wrote death scenes at twelve.
The prose was simple. Too simple for how he remembered feeling when he wrote it. No metaphors about destiny or speeches about honor. Just a person dying quietly while the world pretended not to notice.
"His body was done. Ribs cracked, fingers bent wrong, one eye swollen shut. Blood pooled under him, black in the moonlight. But he looked calm. Like death was just the next room over and he'd already peeked inside."
August rubbed his face. Why did this hurt? He'd written tons of character deaths before. Whole stories where everyone exploded or got eaten by space wolves or whatever. But this felt different. Personal. Like he'd killed something that mattered.
The description went on. Arthur's last moments drawn out in painful detail. Not dramatic. Just… tired. Like even dying took too much effort.
"He tried to speak once. Lips moved. No sound came. Whatever last words heroes were supposed to have, he'd forgotten them. Or maybe he'd never believed in them anyway."
August's throat felt tight. He remembered now, vaguely, sitting at the kitchen table writing this. Mom making dinner. Reece asking about cartoons. Him, scribbling away, trying to end something he didn't understand.
"He looked at no one. Said nothing. But his hand never let go of the sword."
Such a twelve-year-old detail. Of course Arthur died holding his sword. What else would he hold? August almost smiled, but the next line killed it:
"Not because he was brave. Because he didn't know how to let go."
Jesus. Had he really written that? At twelve?
Then came the last line. The one that made his chest tight:
"If you remember me… don't bring me back."
August sat there for a long time. Outside, someone's dog barked. A lawnmower started up, puttered, died. Normal Sunday sounds. Inside his room, everything felt suspended. Held breath. The space between heartbeats.
He stared at that final sentence. Don't bring me back. Like Arthur knew what would happen. Like he was asking for the mercy of being forgotten.
"Why did I write that?" August whispered.
He turned the page.
Blank.
He started to close the notebook, then stopped. Something felt wrong. The blank page looked too empty. Too waiting.
Then, as he watched, words began to appear.
Not all at once. Letter by letter, like someone was writing them in real time. Black ink bleeding up from nowhere:
"But you kept drawing me anyway, didn't you?"
August's hand jerked back from the page.
The words were still forming. Still wet. He could see the ink gleaming before it dried, like watching someone write in real time except there was no hand, no pen, just words birthing themselves from white paper.
This wasn't old writing bleeding through. This was new. This was now.
This was impossible.
He touched the words carefully. The ink smudged under his finger, fresh as if someone had just put pen to paper. His finger came away stained black.
"Okay," he said out loud, needing to hear his own voice. "Okay. I'm losing it. This is it. This is how I find out I need therapy. Or a priest. Or both."
But even as he said it, his hand was already reaching for a pen. Blue ink. Different from anything on the page. He found a blank space and wrote:
Who are you?
He waited. Watched. Didn't blink. His eyes started to water from staring.
Nothing.
A minute passed. Two.
"Of course," he muttered. "Can't be easy. Has to be all mysterious and—"
He glanced away for half a second, just to rub his eyes.
When he looked back, there was an answer:
"I'm what's left."
The pen slipped from his fingers, rolled across the desk, fell to the floor with a small clatter.
He picked it up with shaking hands and wrote:
Left of what?
This time he forced himself to look away. Stared at his wall, at the water stain shaped like a rabbit, and counted to three. Looked back.
"Of what you made. Of what you ended. You forgot me. But I didn't forget you."
His throat felt dry. This wasn't happening. Couldn't be happening. The rational part of his brain scrambled for explanations. Stress hallucination. Gas leak. Elaborate prank by Alex involving invisible ink and perfect timing.
But the words were there, in his own handwriting but not his thoughts.
He wrote:
Are you… Arthur?
The pause was longer this time. He could almost feel something thinking. Considering. The air in the room felt heavier, like before a storm.
Then, slowly:
"I was."
Past tense. Like Arthur was something that used to exist fully but now…
August set the pen down. His hands were trembling too much to write clearly. He clasped them together, knuckles white.
"Why now?" he asked the empty room.
When he looked at the page again, new words had appeared:
"Because you started remembering."
Remembering what?
The answer came in pieces, like it hurt to write:
"What you wrote. What you buried. What you ended before the story was finished."
August's eyes burned. Because that was the thing, wasn't it? He'd never actually finished Arthur's story. Not really. He'd just… killed him. Quick. Clean. Like ripping off a bandaid. Like closing a door on something that scared him.
But stories didn't work like that. Real stories. The ones that mattered. They demanded proper endings.
He picked up the pen again:
I thought the story was finished.
The response took longer. When it came, the words looked heavier somehow, pressed deeper into the page:
"You wrote my death like it was the only ending I deserved."
August flinched.
More words appeared, faster now, like a dam breaking:
"But I didn't want to die. I waited. I waited years."
"In the dark."
"In the nothing."
"You forgot me."
"I didn't mean to," August whispered.
The page stayed blank for a long moment. He could hear his own breathing, too loud in the quiet room. Then, at the very bottom, one more line appeared. Smaller. Softer:
"Then why did you bury me?"
August closed the notebook gently. His chest ached in a way that didn't make sense. You couldn't mourn something that wasn't real. You couldn't owe apologies to fiction.
But sitting there, with the closed book under his hands, he felt like he'd abandoned someone.
His phone buzzed. Alex, probably. The real world intruding. He ignored it.
Instead, he opened the notebook again. Flipped past the death scene. Found a blank page.
And started to write:
"I buried you because I was thirteen and scared and I thought sad endings meant something. I buried you because I didn't know how else to let go of whatever I was feeling. I buried you because—"
He stopped. The truth sat heavy in his chest like swallowed glass.
He finished the sentence:
"Because I was afraid if I kept you alive, I'd never stop needing you."
The page stayed empty for a long time. Long enough that August started to think maybe it was over. Maybe admitting it was enough.
Then, in small letters:
"I needed you too."
August put his head down on the desk and tried very hard not to cry. The wood was cool against his forehead. He could smell the faint chemical scent of his mom's furniture polish.
After a minute, he sat up. Wiped his face. Looked at the page again.
New words had appeared:
"You were young. I know that. But I was young too. We were both just children trying to understand pain."
August picked up the pen:
You were never a child. You were a character. My character.
"Was I?" appeared instantly. "Or was I the part of you that hurt too much to keep?"
August stared at the words until they blurred.
More appeared:
"Every scar you gave me. Every loss. Every moment alone. Where did those come from? Your imagination? Or your memory?"
"I gave you my name," the words continued. "But you gave me everything else. Your loneliness. Your anger. Your fear of being forgotten."
"And then you killed me for carrying it."
August's phone buzzed again. Then again. Then started ringing. Definitely Alex now, probably worried. He let it go to voicemail.
"I'm sorry," he wrote.
"I know," appeared below it. "But sorry doesn't unmake endings."
What do you want?
The longest pause yet. August could almost feel the weight of thinking, of choosing words carefully.
"To be remembered properly. To exist as more than just your buried grief. To finish the story you were too scared to tell."
How?
"Let me tell it this time."
August stared at those five words. His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
"Let me tell it this time."
He closed the notebook. Stood up. Paced his room, hands in his hair. This was insane. Actually insane. He was having a conversation with a fictional character through a notebook. A character he'd created and killed when he was barely a teenager.
But…
(There was always a but.)
But it felt real. More real than anything had felt in years. Like something sleeping had finally woken up.
He sat back down. Opened the notebook.
New words waited:
"You're scared. I understand. I was scared too. For years. Alone in the dark you left me in."
"But fear isn't an ending."
"It's just another beginning waiting for courage."
August picked up his pen. Put it down. Picked it up again.
Finally, he wrote:
How do I know you're real?
The answer came immediately:
"How do you know you are?"