The bone needle felt ice-cold against Lena's skin, burning her palm.
Mira was gone—if she'd ever really been there. The hotel room reeked of rust and damp paper. The walls seemed to breathe with the book's whispers.
"The first name you write will be someone you love."
Lena stared into the cracked mirror—but the face staring back wasn't hers. The woman in the reflection grinned, mouth stretched too wide, teeth too sharp. The ouroboros tattoo coiled around her arm, its scales shifting like living ink.
She clenched the needle.
It wasn't just a tool.
It was a key.
---
THE THREADS OF FATE
As soon as the needle pricked her finger, reality came undone.
Dark threads poured from the cut—not blood, but stories. Each one was a life the book had devoured. They wrapped around her wrist, whispering names:
- Eleanor Shaw. Car crash. (Did she scream?)
- Marcus Renfield. Heart attack. (Did he beg?)
- Jenna Park. Stabbed. (Did she see it coming?)
And the threads pulled her.
The hotel room vanished. Lena stood in a vast library where the shelves went on forever. Every book had a name on it. Every name throbbed with life.
In the middle stood the Last Witness. Its mouth, once sewn shut, now hung open. The threads binding it had snapped.
"You've got it wrong," it said in a dry whisper. "The needle doesn't stitch flesh. It stitches fate."
It pointed to the book in Lena's hands. Its pages turned to a blank section—but instead of lines for writing, they looked like sutures.
---
THE FIRST STITCH
A whisper slithered from the walls:
"Mira Sokolov. Tonight. Hanged by her own veins."
Lena froze. No.
But the book craved it. The ouroboros on her arm tightened, sending a sharp jolt up her nerves. The needle twitched, threading itself with one of the dark strands.
"Every Keeper must choose," the Witness said. "Give the book a stranger... or let it take someone you love."
Lena's breath hitched. Her hand shook. The needle hovered over the book's spine—
—and then she was somewhere else.
A narrow alley in Prague. Rain splashed against the stone. Mira was there, crouched by a rusted grate, fingers trembling as she pried it open.
"It's here," she whispered. "The monk's final prayer. The only thing that can stop the book."
But something moved behind her.
Something with Lena's face.
---
THE HORROR UNSPOOLS
Lena tried to scream, to warn her—but no sound came.
The other Lena stepped forward, her mouth sewn tight with black thread. The ouroboros now wrapped around her neck like a noose.
Mira turned.
And in that instant—she knew.
"Oh, Lena," she whispered. "What did you do?"
The stitched-mouth Lena lunged.
The vision shattered.
Lena was back in the hotel room. The needle had buried itself deep in her palm. Black ink oozed from the wound and spread across the floor, forming two chilling words:
"Too late."
Her phone buzzed. A news alert:
"American Tourist Found Dead in Prague—Suicide Ruled Out"
The photo showed Mira's lifeless body, wrists cut with clean, parallel lines.
But that wasn't the worst part.
On the wall behind her, scrawled in what looked like blood, were the words:
"Lena, you were right. It's better if I go first."
---
THE BOOK'S ULTIMATUM
The Last Witness loomed above her, ink dripping from its eyes onto the book.
"Now you understand," it murmured. "You were never the Keeper."
The book flipped to its very first page—a page Lena had never seen.
In her grandfather's handwriting, she read the truth:
"The book doesn't choose the Keeper. It chooses the sacrifice. The last name written... is the one that matters."
Below the note, a single name glowed like a fresh wound:
Lena Carter.
---