The sensation of falling into the Sea of Blank Pages was not like hitting water. It was like falling into a cloud of liquid silk. There was no splash, only a soft, suffocating hush. The world was blindingly white—a white so absolute it erased the horizon, the sky, and the sense of up and down.
Aryan gasped, flailing his arms. The substance he was swimming in tasted like vanilla and chalk. It was Liquid Paper.
"Swim!" Aryan shouted, but his voice didn't echo. It was absorbed by the whiteness.
"I can't!" Rhea cried out. "The First Son... he's too heavy!"
Aryan looked down. The Siege-Engine, the massive wooden giant that was his brother, was sinking like a stone. The Ironwood was dense, and in a world without buoyancy physics, his belief that he was "heavy" was dragging him down.
"He thinks he's an anchor, so he is an anchor!" Aryan realized. The Creation Ink he had absorbed into his mahogany arm pulsed with a chaotic, violet energy. "Brother! You are not heavy! You are... you are cork! You are a leaf!"
The First Son's amber eyes flickered. He looked at his massive hands. I... am... a... leaf?
The thought took hold. Suddenly, the multi-ton giant popped to the surface with a ridiculous bloop sound, bobbing lightly on the white waves.
"This place," Mira gasped, wiping the white liquid from her face. Her hazel eyes were the only splash of color in the void. "It reacts to the mind. Aryan, we need a raft. Think of a raft!"
"Right. A raft," Aryan squeezed his eyes shut. "Wood. Logs. Ropes."
But Aryan's mind was a storm of anxiety. He didn't just think of a raft; he thought of the dangers of the raft. He worried about splinters. He worried about leaks.
As a result, the raft that materialized under them was a disaster. It was made of rotting, splintered wood, full of holes, and—for some reason—it was on fire in one corner.
"Aryan!" Sarah yelled, patting out the flames. "Stop worrying! You're manifesting your anxiety!"
"I can't help it!" Aryan panted, his mind racing. "I destroyed the Pen! We have no script! Anything can happen!"
"Allow me!" Barnaby the fish bubbled. "I have a very refined imagination. I shall visualize a vessel of elegance!"
Barnaby closed his eyes.
POOF.
The rotting raft vanished. In its place appeared a giant, floating Victorian Tea Cup. It was pink, painted with delicate flowers, and had a gold rim.
"A tea cup?" Rhea asked, climbing over the rim.
"It is sophisticated and buoyant!" Barnaby defended himself, swimming in a puddle of tea at the bottom of the cup. "Now, nobody think of anything scary. No sharks. No storms. And definitely no... giant, wiggly monsters made of lime gelatin."
The Intrusion of the Jelly
The moment Barnaby said the words, the white sea began to vibrate.
"Barnaby..." Aryan groaned, looking over the edge of the tea cup. "Why did you be specific?"
"It popped into my head! It's an intrusive thought!" Barnaby cried. "Don't look!"
Too late. The white liquid churned, turning a sickly, translucent green. From the depths rose a nightmare of absurdity.
It was a Kraken. But it wasn't made of flesh or ink. It was made of Lime Jello. It was four stories tall, wobbling menacingly. Its eyes were giant marshmallows, and its tentacles were wiggly, sticky, and smelled artificially of citrus.
GLORP.
The Jelly Kraken roared—a sound like a wet boot stuck in mud.
"It's... it's huge," Mira whispered, staring at the wobbly beast.
"And it's sticky!" Sarah yelled as a green tentacle slapped the side of the tea cup, rocking them violently.
"First Son! Attack!" Aryan commanded.
The Siege-Engine charged. He leaped from the tea cup, his fist glowing with the power of a battering ram. He punched the Kraken.
SPLAT.
His fist didn't break the monster; it got stuck. The jelly absorbed the impact and trapped the giant's arm. The First Son pulled, but the green goo just stretched, creating a suction cup effect.
"Physical attacks don't work!" Aryan realized. "It's a thought-form! You can't punch a thought! You have to Out-Think it!"
The Kraken raised a massive, gelatinous tentacle to crush the tea cup.
"Think of a spoon!" Barnaby screamed. "A giant spoon!"
"No!" Aryan shouted. "That's too literal! We need to change the genre of the monster!"
Aryan looked at the wobbling green beast. He felt the "Void-Black" ink in his mahogany arm. He had the power to edit reality, but he had to be precise. He had to turn this Horror into something manageable.
He looked at Mira. "Mira, what happens to jelly on a hot day?"
Mira smiled, understanding immediately. "It melts."
"Sarah, Rhea!" Aryan commanded. "Don't sing a battle song. Sing a Summer Song. Sing about the hottest day in July!"
Rhea and Sarah grabbed hands. They closed their eyes and began to harmonize. They didn't sing of war. They sang of crickets chirping, of asphalt shimmering in the heat, of the sun beating down on a tin roof.
The air in the Sea of Blank Pages began to shimmer. An imaginary sun—blazing and yellow—materialized in the white sky.
The Jelly Kraken groaned. Gloooorp?
It began to sweat. The lime green tentacles started to lose their shape. The marshmallow eyes melted into sticky white puddles.
"It's working!" Aryan shouted. He pointed his mahogany arm at the beast. "You are not a monster. You are a Dessert!"
He fired a beam of golden sap. It hit the melting Kraken.
The monster dissolved completely, turning into a harmless, floating puddle of green liquid sugar. The First Son fell out of the goo, sticky but unharmed, shaking the lime off his wooden hands.
"Well," Barnaby said, dipping a fin into the green puddle. "It's a bit tart, but not bad. Anyone for a snack?"
The Quiet of the Blank Page
After the battle, the imaginary sun lingered, casting a warm, golden light over the white sea. The tea cup drifted aimlessly.
Aryan sat at the edge of the cup, staring at his reflection in the white liquid. He looked tired. The "Sleeplessness" he had accepted at the Tower of Babel was taking its toll. His eyes were bruised with exhaustion.
Mira sat beside him. She saw the tension in his shoulders—the burden of being the only one who could "Edit" the dangers away.
"You're thinking too loud, Aryan," Mira whispered.
"If I stop thinking, something else will come," Aryan said, rubbing his mahogany arm. "A storm. A dragon. The Architect's ghost. This world... it has no walls. It's terrifying."
"That's why you need an anchor," Mira said.
She didn't create a weapon. She closed her eyes and focused on a single, simple thought.
A blanket.
A soft, heavy wool blanket materialized around Aryan's shoulders. It smelled of the Shimla cottage—cedar and rosemary.
"And this," Mira added.
She thought of Night.
Slowly, the blinding white sky began to dim. It didn't turn black (which might hide monsters); it turned a deep, comforting indigo. Soft, harmless fireflies began to dance around the tea cup.
"You can rest for a moment," Mira said, pulling the blanket tighter around him. "I will do the thinking. I will think of... calm water. And a steady breeze."
Aryan looked at her. In the indigo light, the Heart of Flesh in her chest glowed softly, a rhythmic red beacon. He leaned his head on her shoulder. For the first time since entering the elevator, his mind quieted. He didn't sleep (he couldn't), but he rested.
The Bottle from the Beyond
They drifted for hours in Mira's imagined peace. But the Sea of Blank Pages was not empty.
Clink.
Something hit the side of the tea cup.
The First Son reached down and plucked it from the water. It was a Glass Bottle. But it wasn't a normal bottle. It was made of Pixels. It glitched slightly as the giant held it.
Inside was a rolled-up piece of paper.
"A message?" Sarah asked. "From who? The Architect is gone."
Aryan sat up, the blanket falling from his shoulders. He took the bottle. "It's not from the Architect."
He uncorked it. The paper inside wasn't parchment. It was a strip of Receipt Paper, printed with dot-matrix text.
Aryan unrolled it. The message was short, cryptic, and terrified.
"TO THE CHARACTERS OF DRAFT 1001:
THE ARCHITECT WAS HOLDING THE DOOR SHUT.
NOW THAT HE IS GONE, THE 'GENRE-EATERS' ARE COMING.
THEY DO NOT WANT TO READ YOU. THEY WANT TO CONSUME THE CONCEPT OF YOU.
FIND THE 'LAST BOOKSTORE' AT THE EDGE OF THE UNWRITTEN.
- SIGNED, THE LIBRARIAN."
"Genre-Eaters?" Barnaby gulped. "That sounds significantly worse than a Jelly Kraken. Do they eat Comedy? Because if they do, I'm an appetizer."
Aryan looked at the horizon. The indigo sky Mira had created was starting to crack. Through the cracks, he could see something that wasn't white, or black, or ink. It was Static. The grey, buzzing static of a dead channel.
"The Architect was a tyrant," Aryan said, standing up in the tea cup, his coat flapping in the sudden wind. "But he was also a wall. We broke the wall. Now the things outside the story are trying to get in."
He gripped the pixelated bottle.
"First Son, paddle!" Aryan commanded. "Use your hands! Mira, think of a sail! A big one! We have to get to the Last Bookstore before the Static catches us!"
The tea cup surged forward, powered by panic and imagination, racing toward the edge of the known world.