Lena held the pen, hovering between her fingers and the Last Witness's reaching hand.
Her body had turned see-through. Ink flowed in her veins like dark lightning. All around her stretched the endless library of her possible deaths—each book whispering a different brutal ending.
The Witness grinned with her face.
"Tick-tock, Keeper," it said. "Ink dries fast."
Lena's hand inched toward the pen—
Then the book screamed.
Not in her head like before. It was a loud, physical cry that shattered the illusion. Shelves crashed down like falling buildings. The Witness's face rippled, seams splitting, melting like hot wax.
Lena woke up gasping on cold stone.
She was back in the crypt.
And she wasn't alone.
---
THE BLEEDING WALLS
Mira was beside her—real this time.
But her left eye was gone. The socket sewn shut with black thread. Her one good eye burned like fire as she pressed a rusted iron key into Lena's palm.
"It's still in you," Mira said, voice low and sharp. "The dagger didn't disappear. It's sleeping."
Lena froze. She could feel it now—cold and heavy under her ribs. Not the physical blade, but its essence. The monk's final prayer, alive inside her.
Black ink dripped from the crypt walls, pooling on the ground. It spelled out a message:
"She lies. The dagger is dead. You are dying."
Mira grabbed Lena's face, panicked and urgent. "The book doesn't want you to be its Keeper—it wants to use you. As its new binding. That library? It was a trap. To make you choose your own destruction."
Then came a sound—sick and heavy.
A body hit the floor above them.
Then another.
And another.
---
THE SHADOW GOD'S WHISPER
The stairs were gone.
In their place was a throat—a long, pulsing tunnel of flesh. The air stank of blood and rotting pages.
And in the reliquary…
The monk's bones were moving. Snapping back into place. The jaw opened wide—
But the voice wasn't his.
It was something ancient.
"Alistairssss..."
Lena's blood froze.
Her grandfather's name.
Mira went still. "It's not the book we should fear. It's what the book was locking away."
The key in Lena's hand burned.
She touched it to the reliquary—
The glass shattered.
And the real Last Witness crawled out.
Not the stitched one.
The original.
A mass of ink and screaming faces, its shape flickering between man, shadow, and something with far too many teeth. It stared at Lena with empty eyes and whispered:
"You shouldn't have woken me, little Keeper."
---
THE CHOICE
The crypt shook. Stones fell from above.
The god's limbs stretched out, touching the walls, the ceiling, Lena's skin—leaving trails of black veins wherever it grazed her.
Mira shoved Lena into the reliquary. "Do it. Now."
"Do what?!"
"What the monk couldn't." Mira's voice cracked. "Become the dagger."
The shadow god laughed. A sound like pages tearing. "She doesn't understand. The dagger wasn't the weapon. The hand that held it was."
Lena's vision blurred. The key burned hotter.
And the thing inside her chest—the echo of the dagger—woke.
She got it now.
The monk hadn't failed.
He had gone too far.
He didn't just trap the shadow god in a book—
He bound himself into the dagger.
And now, it was her turn.
---
THE FINAL SACRIFICE
Lena drove the key into her chest.
Not to die.
To unlock what was hidden inside.
The pain was unbearable—pure fire, like being torn apart.
The crypt vanished into swirling ink, howling spirits, and the shadow god's scream of rage.
Then—
Silence.
Lena stood in a white void.
The god flickered like a candle near death.
"Clever girl," it said. "But I'm the first story. The oldest hunger. You can't kill what is."
Lena looked at her hands.
They weren't hers anymore.
They were his—the monk's. Stained in ink.
In her grip—
Not a dagger.
A pen.
The shadow god faltered.
Lena smiled.
"Then I'll write you a new ending."
She stabbed the pen into the god's chest.
---
THE LAST PAGE
She woke up screaming.
Back in the church.
The crypt was sealed. The key—gone.
And Mira…
She was on the altar. Her throat cut wide. One eye staring at nothing.
But worse than that—
The book was open on her chest.
Its pages weren't blank anymore.
They held a single sentence, written in Lena's own hand:
"The Last Witness is dead. Long live the Keeper."
And just below it, ink still fresh:
"Lena Carter. Tonight. Cause of death: becoming what she feared most."
---