He woke in a place that may have once been sacred.

  The chapel was half-consumed by time—its rafters bent like broken ribs, its stained-glass windows weeping colorless light across cracked stone. The air hung heavy with dust and a scent like old parchment soaked in water too long.

  He did not know his name.

  Not at first. Only the cold. Only the silence. Only the pressure behind his eyes that whispered, You have done this before.

  He lay upon the altar, arms outstretched as if offered. Something sharp pressed against his palm. He turned his hand over.

  A torn piece of parchment lay curled in his hand. The ink was still wet.

  Neno Vaulden.

  The name was written dozens of times in a hand that was not his, but might have been. The letters repeated, overlapping, becoming tangled like veins. And beneath them, one line bled darker than the rest, as though it had been written deeper into the page than the surface allowed.

  Seek the Mouth before it speaks your name.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  His breath caught. The paper felt hot in his hand. Or perhaps it was his skin that had gone cold.

  He sat up slowly. His back cracked like old wood. The chapel around him groaned—not from wind, but from within.

  A sound reached him: the fluttering of paper, but no pages turned.

  Then footsteps.

  He rose. Turned.

  A man—or the shape of one—stood framed by the broken doorway. His robes were colorless, brittle with dust. Ink dripped from his fingertips like blood. His face was streaked in black. His eyes were wide.

  “You read it,” he said. His voice was cracked vellum. “You read your name.”

  Neno took a step back. “What is this place?”

  The man’s lips trembled. “You shouldn’t be awake yet.”

  “What do you mean—”

  But the man lunged forward. His hand seized Neno’s wrist, gripped with terrifying strength.

  “You hear it, don’t you?” he hissed. “It’s already reading you back.”

  Neno tried to pull away. The man’s eyes rolled back. His mouth opened far too wide, and something in his body began to tear.

  Not like flesh. Not like anything living.

  Like parchment.

  His skin split along invisible seams. Ink bled from his mouth, his eyes, his chest. Pages peeled from him—thin, delicate sheets marked with symbols and names Neno could not read.

  The last thing the man said—his voice now echoing from nowhere and everywhere—was:

  "It remembers. Even if you don’t."

  Then the figure dissolved entirely, carried by no wind, scattering in all directions like pages torn from a book flung into fire.

  Silence returned. But it was a knowing silence. The kind that listens.

  Neno looked down at the parchment still in his hand.

  The ink was moving again.

  New words formed.

  Do not run. It already knows where you will go.