Akitsu Shouga slowly opened the book.

  The paper barely made a sound, as if even the pages were reluctant to disturb the air around them. The first page lay open—perfectly, unnervingly blank. No title. No markings. Not even the faint yellowing of age.

  “…Are you sure this is the book we’re looking for?” Akitsu asked, narrowing his eyes as he tilted the page toward the lantern light.

  “Yes, it is,” Seraphine Orion replied without hesitation, floating closer. Her voice held an odd confidence. “The first page is always blank. Turn to the next page.”

  Akitsu hesitated for only a heartbeat before doing as she said.

  The second page was written in ink so faded it barely existed—like a memory pressed into the paper rather than words written upon it. At first glance, it looked unreadable. But as Akitsu leaned closer, the letters began to sharpen, darkening slowly, as if reacting to his presence.

  Not appearing.

  Awakening.

  Legends of the First Age

  A chill crawled up his spine.

  Seraphine drifted nearer, hovering over his shoulder, her eyes narrowing. “What are those? I’ve never seen a book like this before.”

  “You’re the one who said this is the right book,” Akitsu shot back quietly.

  He turned the page.

  The Hero Who Bore the Dawn

  Aurelian Caelus

  The name at the top of the page was written in ink darker than the rest—bold, unyielding, as if it refused to fade no matter how much time passed.

  Akitsu read aloud.

  Aurelian Caelus was the first hero born after the world nearly ended.

  When the sky cracked and the land burned, humanity scattered—weak and leaderless.

  Aurelian was not the strongest, nor the wisest—but he was the first to stand when others knelt.

  The words weighed heavily on his chest. They didn’t feel like fiction. They felt remembered.

  The legend spoke of a blade forged not from steel, but from condensed light—Solbrand, a sword that burned without heat and cut without blood. With it, Aurelian challenged the Behemoth Kings—titanic beings that ruled the shattered lands like living disasters.

  He did not defeat them.

  He endured them.

  For seven days and seven nights, Aurelian fought—not to win, but to prove that mankind would not vanish quietly. And when he finally fell, broken and bloodied beneath a fractured sky, the Behemoth Kings retreated.

  Not in fear.

  But shaken by something they could not understand.

  Defiance.

  Akitsu stopped reading.

  Seraphine’s ears drooped slightly. “He died,” she said softly. It wasn’t a question.

  “He didn’t fail,” Akitsu replied, his voice low.

  “No,” she agreed after a moment. “He changed the rules.”

  At the bottom of the page, the ink shimmered faintly—just once—before fading away completely, as if the book itself acknowledged the truth.

  Akitsu turned the page.

  The Queen Beneath the Still Sea

  The script here was different—elegant, flowing, slanted with a quiet sorrow.

  It told of Thalassa Nyx, a queen who ruled a kingdom swallowed by the ocean after the world’s collapse. While the surface descended into chaos, her people fled beneath the waves, carving cities of coral and glass into the ocean’s silent depths.

  To protect them, Thalassa made a pact with an ancient sea spirit.

  She traded her heartbeat for eternity.

  Ageless. Unmoving. Eternal.

  She became the silent guardian of her submerged realm, watching centuries pass above her as generations lived and died below. The legend claimed that on nights when the sea was perfectly calm, her reflection could be seen upon the water’s surface—eyes open, unblinking.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Waiting.

  “For what?” Akitsu asked quietly.

  Seraphine’s tails stilled. “…For someone to remember her name?”

  Akitsu closed his eyes briefly before turning the page.

  The Wanderer of Broken Time

  This page was wrong.

  The ink was sharp.

  Dark.

  Recent.

  Too recent.

  It spoke of Kairo Venn, a nameless wanderer cursed—or blessed—to walk fractured timelines. Every time he died, the world shifted, and he awakened in another version of reality, carrying only fragments of his former lives.

  Some histories painted him as a villain—destroyer of cities, breaker of fate.

  Others remembered him as a savior—one who died a thousand deaths to protect futures that would never know him.

  The final line pressed hard against Akitsu’s chest.

  He is still walking.

  The lamp flickered violently.

  Seraphine recoiled, fur bristling. “That legend isn’t finished.”

  Akitsu closed the book slowly.

  The room felt heavier now, as though unseen eyes lingered in the corners, as if the walls themselves were listening.

  “These aren’t just stories,” Akitsu said quietly.

  “No,” Seraphine replied, floating closer, her voice low and certain. “They’re shadows left behind. And if this book is here… it means the age of legends isn’t over yet.”

  Akitsu rested his hand atop the coverless pages. A faint warmth pulsed beneath his palm.

  “This isn’t the book we’re looking for,” he said. “…But it’s pretty interesting.”

  The book—silent, ancient, patient—waited.

  “Yeah,” Seraphine admitted. “I guess my intuition was wrong. Should we keep searching?”

  “No,” Akitsu said after a moment. “Another time.”

  “Akitsu-kun, what are you doing here this late at night?”

  Akitsu nearly fell out of his chair.

  He spun around to see Liora standing behind him, hands folded neatly, her presence far too sudden.

  “Huh?! Oh—” He froze, then recovered quickly. “I’m just looking for a storybook. Reading helps me relax.”

  The lie slipped out effortlessly.

  Liora’s gaze drifted to the old book on the table. “What book is that, Akitsu-kun?”

  “Oh, this?” He stood up quickly. “Just some old stories. Anyway—I’ll see you later. Good night, Liora-san!”

  Before she could ask anything else, he grabbed the book and hurried out of the library.

  The mansion halls were dark as he headed upstairs.

  “That was a close call,” Akitsu muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me she was there?”

  “How would I know?” Seraphine replied, floating beside his head. “And since when do you lie so casually?”

  “I don’t know,” Akitsu admitted. “I don’t remember my past. Maybe I lied a lot back then. Maybe I learned how to hide it.”

  “…Alright,” Seraphine said slowly. “We’re heading out tonight, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Akitsu replied. “There’s something off about that dark alleyway. I could tell at a glance.”

  “Your survival instincts are really sharp, you know that?”

  “That’s rare,” Akitsu said dryly. “You complimenting me is disturbing.”

  “What?! Just be happy!”

  “Says the one who almost killed me this morning.”

  “Oh. Right,” she laughed. “I forgot about that already.”

  Akitsu entered his room and changed. As he tightened his sleeve, his gaze fell on the pink charm bracelet Kaoru had given him.

  He clenched his fist once.

  Then, without hesitation, he climbed onto the windowsill—

  —and jumped into the night.