---
[Scene Opens – A Void with No Name]
There was no sky.
No ground.
No air.
Only pages—floating, burning, shivering—scattered like ash in a place without time.
Arav opened his eyes… but saw nothing. Not darkness — just absence. Like the world had never been written.
Then… a voice:
> "Welcome to the Thirteenth Realm — the place where stories are born to die."
Arav turned.
A figure stood tall, cloaked in paper, eyes stitched with ink, hands bleeding gold.
The Scribe.
---
[Scene: The Storyteller of All Things]
Scribe (calm, knowing):
"You've come far. Too far. Most burn before they even glimpse this place."
Arav (voice firm):
"You made the Eyes. You built the cycle. You trapped us in fate."
Scribe (smiles faintly):
"I wrote what was asked. The world wanted heroes. Villains. Sacrifice. Redemption. You were… expected."
Arav:
"I'm done playing parts. I came to end the story."
The Scribe lifts a hand — and a thousand reflections of Arav surround him:
Arav the tyrant
Arav the martyr
Arav the coward
Arav the savior
Each flickers… each vanishes.
> "You were all of these… and none."
---
[Scene: The Library of Lost Ends]
They walk through a twisted hallway — shelves stretching into infinity.
Each book is a life never lived.
The Scribe gestures:
> "Pick one. And become it. Or… burn them all."
Arav (softly):
"I don't want to be written. I want to be real."
Scribe:
"Then you must write yourself."
He hands Arav a blade.
But this time — it's not steel.
It's a quill.
And it drips with Zia's blood.
---
[Scene: Ink and Blood]
Arav stands before a blank tome titled: "The Boy Who Defied Death."
The pages are empty.
His hand trembles.
> "To write here is to become. Every word you write, you lose a part of what you were."
He writes:
"I am not a hero."
"I am not chosen."
"I loved. I failed. I fought. I died. I returned."
With each sentence, pieces of him vanish.
Memories of Zia. Naerys. Elara.
Gone… yet not gone.
They echo in the ink.
Arav (tears streaming):
"Let the story end. Let the boy be free."
---
[Scene: The Fire That Rewrites]
As he closes the book, fire erupts.
The Scribe screams — not in pain, but in relief.
Scribe (fading):
"You did what none could… You ended the telling."
The realm collapses.
But not into nothingness.
Into light.
---
[Scene: The Waking World – Years Later]
Naerys now leads the Order of the Fallen Star. Elara protects the ruins of the Warden's Gate.
Neither speak of Arav — not because they forgot, but because they remember too deeply.
But one night, a child knocks on Elara's door.
A boy. Eyes silver. No name.
He hums.
She knows the tune.
Elara (whispers):
"Arav?"
The boy doesn't answer.
He simply opens a small book — hand-written, pages missing — titled "To Remember a Boy."
---
[Scene: The Final Choice]
In the Temple of the First Flame, the altar lies empty.
But behind it — etched in stone:
> "He chose not to be a god.
He chose not to be a legend.
He chose to be free."
The wind carries a whisper:
> "Stories end. But souls… they walk beyond endings."
---
End of Chapter 40
Next: Chapter 41 – The Unwritten Road
> Arav is no longer a hero, no longer a tale. He walks the world as a man who once died, once loved, and now… simply exists. But the world remembers him — and the world is not done needing him.