February 15th, 1991
On this day, I dreamt—and from the dream I wrote,
A winding story wrought to pass from keeping,
Lest mystery linger past its due course.
So it is lost.
When it is finished, I will unwrite its ending,
Unmake the final stroke of the epilogue,
And lay myself into the rest thereafter.
Forever.
. . .
"The final sentence left the protagonist and his companions behind, at the threshold of the epilogue. I waited from afar, however, observing them beyond the fourth wall..."
"..."
Hoku closed the final volume he'd endured over the past months and regarded the cover with disdain.
He sighed inwardly. 'This is definitely the most disappointing ending so far.'
Hoku slumped deeper into his wooden chair before grazing a finger along the white crease on the book's spine.
'Still... our situations might've ended up much the same,' he thought.
At present, Jiang Hao was his only remaining guardian.
He had taken Hoku in when he was fifteen, shortly before he turned a year older. It was also after Hoku woke from a two-day coma in the hospital that he first came to see him.
Despite nothing abnormal being found with his head, it was only after he was asked who he was that they realized nothing remained of the sixteen years that had come before.
Thus, the room in which he now stayed was filled with books, their abundance almost garish.
The walls shelved mostly antique books, an inevitable collector's interest when one's life revolves around teaching history.
Some of them were newer, but not too recent.
Further down the stacks were books written by authors that were old, but still alive.
Those were the stories that fascinated him most.
Hoku sighed and stood from his chair, then dragged it across the room to the edge of the shelf, and pushed down on the backrest to balance himself on top of the chair.
There was a gap in the high-middle shelf precisely the same width as the book in his hand.
He pushed the book back into place.
Hoku had never shared an interest in the pieces of history his uncle received as gifts from either his fond female colleagues or the online websites he spent his evenings scrolling through rather than marking his students' papers.
He peered at the top shelf as he stepped down from the chair.
Suddenly, a distinct book with a stark white spine and no dust cover, or branded title, seized his attention.
He stared for a moment at the only white book on a shelf of books with crumbling spines before pulling it from its place on the shelf.
Hoku brushed his thumb over the pages and studied the strange blank cover.
When he opened the book, the pages sprang apart before settling into a loose fan against his thumb.
He turned through a few leaves.
Strangely, there was nothing, no front matter, no preface, not a single print.
Hoku furrowed his brows and slowed down, skimming more carefully. Before long, something subtle caught his eye. He immediately turned back a few pages to find it again.
"The End of Time."
A small cluster of words was printed in the center of the page in plain black print. Beneath it, in smaller type, was a name.
"Dr. Francis Barret."
Hoku wasn't sure what to make of it. He turned the page, only to find another blank sheet. He paused, then flipped back and looked at the name again.
'Likely the "author,"' Hoku quickly guessed.
Seeing a doctor's title on what looked, at first glance, like a storybook seemed rather unusual. But not worth dwelling on.
'If someone put their signature in it, there has to be something to put a name to.'
As he handled the book, he noticed the stitching along the spine was unusually visible, even tugging whenever he opened it wider.
When he reached roughly the twenty-third page, his hand paused.
There, shading the page, was a messy yet detailed illustration, depicting the interior of a cluttered room.
The space was wide, with walls crowded with disorganized bookcases.
A few candlesticks hung along the side walls, their shading heavier than those set along the center.
Observing how precisely the perspective had been drawn, Hoku turned it over.
Surprisingly, there was another that narrowed onto the central wall.
'Is this actually supposed to be like an art piece?' He began to wonder.
As he studied it for a few minutes longer, he finally noticed a rather large painting of a key propped against one of the shelves, the background of the canvas left strangely blank.
Hoku assumed that it was just an unfinished painting.
'It's a damn boring piece, then.'
Hoku eased the book down on the edge of the shelf beside him, intending to set it there only for a moment.
However, the shelf's lip was shallower than it looked.
The cover slid, the weight shifted, and the book fell the instant his fingers let go.
THUD!
The book landed with a resounding noise in front of his feet.
Hoku's mouth twitched. He slowly lowered his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek.
His uncle let him touch nearly everything in the room, but the top shelves were the exception, never to be treated carelessly.
Hoku crouched and snatched the volume up at once, checking the corners first, then the hinge of the spine.
The book had fallen open near the back.
At first, he saw only another blank page. Soon, however, a faint discoloration appeared along the gutter, like a bruised wash of ink.
As he brought it closer to the light, short rows of reversed calligraphy gradually resolved through from the opposite side.
With that, Hoku carefully turned the page.
There was indeed another entry, though this one was clearly handwritten:
'Hymn of the Navigator
. . .
O Navigator, far adrift,
Whose eyes have charted sundered rift,
Whose hands have grasped both beast and clock,
Yet found no gate, yet struck no lock.
Through stolen years and hollow lands,
You walk the maps none understand.
The Abundant bids you sail his wreck,
Yet knows: your course will cross his neck.
In rusted tides and broken time,
In realms that toll the ghostly chime,
The Sequel calls its heir to sea
Not to obey, but to decree.
O Navigator, doomed yet free,
May ruin be your canopy.'
On the facing page was a detached note:
"Do not amend their mistakes. You must remain with the present."
Hoku read it through twice before closing the cover between his thumb and staring absently at the narrow gap on the shelf.
"…Navigator…"
. . .
The First Quota
The creator's original narrative has found you. The initial readers have narrowly altered the narrative's 'existence' by imparting a separate title.
Thus, the original telling has been delegated as 'The Memoir.'
What you've just read is the only fragment I was able to decipher from within the contents of this artifact. The only other mystery that has been solved is that 'The Memoir' belonged to The Abundant Creator.
You may refer to me as the editor until we meet.
Lastly, I ask only this: Do not ignore the entries I've left in this book.
I can promise that they may prove useful.
Sincerely,
The editor.
Prelude to the Memoir
Rule 1
Mysteries lie beyond your reality, Navigator. Have vigilance in your choices to tailor the unraveling of your universe.
Rule 2
Only those who have vanished from his path in the Original universe can traverse beyond their dreams and across the Sequel that unifies the existence of infinite sequences and worlds.
Rule 3
There were once three great conditions of existence, arranged for the living, the dead, and the damned.
Yet here, where death has no conclusion and life possesses no true beginning,
what meaning can such distinctions still pretend to hold?