The Author’s Game 1. Madness

Madness.

Not the wild, shrieking kind.

The quiet kind. The kind that burrows behind your eyes and wears your skin like it still belongs to you. The kind that settles in your chest, heavy and patient, waiting for silence so it can whisper. It doesn’t scream—it convinces. Slowly. Softly. Until one day, you wake up and realize it’s the only voice left that makes sense.

It starts the mont you understand how the world really works.

A boy’s head split open like overripe fruit, his shard still glowing beside his skull as beetles crawled into his mouth. A girl in crimson robes crawling toward her mother’s corpse—both halves of it twitching, steaming. n laughing as they bled out, too far gone to notice they were holding their own guts like treasure.

This is war.

Not glory. Not legacy. Not triumph.

Just the raw, red machinery of death. Endless. Grinding. Impersonal.

War is a god. And it eats its children slowly.

And the worst part? It makes you thank it.

The battlefield before the castle had once been a forest. I think. It was hard to tell anymore—charred stumps clawed from the earth like broken hands reaching for help that never ca. Trees now stood as blackened spears. The ground was mud and blood, churned into a thick stew that sucked at your boots like it wanted to keep you here.

I walked through it—what was left of , anyway. My body ached. Every step felt like dragging iron through my veins. My hands trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of it all. Blood—not all of it mine—crusted my fingers. My left arm had gone numb sowhere near the third line. I couldn’t rember when. My shard floated beside my head, cold and flickering. Its light barely enough to cast a shadow. Still, it lingered. Watching like I was the last piece of kindling in a dying fire.

All around , the corpses of n and monsters sprawled together in grotesque intimacy. So clutched each other. So had been fused by fire. One soldier’s face was half-lted into a demon’s chest. I didn’t know if they died killing each other or screaming for soone else.

Shards hovered over the dead. So dim. So cracked. Others still pulsing faintly, as if waiting. As if their bearers might rise again. They wouldn’t.

Shards don’t leave.

They don’t grieve.

They wait.

I rember the first ti mine found . Not in a temple. Not in a trial. Not surrounded by chants and incense and priests.

But as I clawed through the ashes of my ho, my sister’s charred bones crumbling in my grip.

The sky was still burning. I was laughing. I don’t know why.

Maybe because the alternative was screaming.

Maybe because so part of thought, if I laughed hard enough, I could break reality before it broke .

That’s when the shard ca. It slithered through the smoke and ash and settled beside , its glow faint, cold, almost... shy. Like it wasn’t sure I deserved it. Like it had waited a long ti and was disappointed by what it found.

The priests called it a sign.

Madness, they whispered.

They weren’t wrong.

The Empire sees shardbearers as sacred. Chosen. Vessels of divine will. But no one tells you how rare they are. No one tells you how little the shard cares who you were before it chose you. Farr. Orphan. Coward. You don’t earn a shard. It just... happens.

And once it does, they send you to war.

Because the Empire is always at war.

They say we fight demons. Heretics. The Corrupted. But the truth is ssier. Not all our enemies co from below. So are just people—forgotten provinces, fractured kingdoms, old allies who refused another conscription order.

And then there were the children.

Sotis, a shard chooses one too young to lift a sword. I’ve seen them pulled from villages—barefoot, wide-eyed, clutching at their mothers as armored hands drag them away. The priests say it's prophecy. That the crystal whispered their nas in the old tongue.

They say they’re chosen. Blessed. Holy.

But they’re not.

They’re weapons.

No—worse.

They’re offerings.

We all are.

The thought hadn't finished echoing in my skull when the world snapped back into motion.

A shriek tore through the smoke beside .

From the carcass of a collapsed beast, sothing heaved itself upright—gray flesh streaked with black veins, its eyes glowing like molten coin. A priest, once. What was left of him now moved like a puppet without strings, jerking toward with a twisted sermon bubbling from a rotted throat.

I didn’t flinch.

I didn’t feel.

I turned and swung my blade through his neck in a single, practiced arc. My shard pulsed—just once—like a dying heartbeat. Then silence. The priest’s head hit the mud with a soft, sick thud.

I kept walking.

Another figure stumbled into view—wrapped in bloodstained robes, skin peeled raw where magic had backfired. A scout. Her lips moved around a curse, a broken spell crackling in her hand.

I drove my knife into her throat before she could speak.

As she fell, her shard floated free—still intact, still glowing with that cursed, innocent light.

I caught it in my off-hand.

And with no hesitation, I jamd it into her skull.

The mont it pierced bone, the shard shattered—its light flaring one last ti before erupting in a muffled blast, tearing through the remnants of her body. I didn’t stop to watch. Didn’t let myself look at her face.

I didn’t want to know if she was younger than . Didn't want to know if I looked like that now.

The field stretched on. Wounded Woken crawled through muck, begging for a hand, a miracle. So still clung to broken blades. One sat beside his own severed arm, whispering lullabies to it. Another was cradling a corpse that wasn’t even human.

And ?

I walked among them like a ghost still pretending to breathe. My shard followed like a silent star, a flickering candle held over a grave.

They say madness is losing yourself.

But I think it’s the opposite.

Madness is finding yourself—realizing who you really are underneath all the lies, the training, the faith. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing the war etched into your face, carved into the lines around your eyes, dried into the blood under your nails.

Madness is knowing the world is broken, and still putting one foot in front of the other.

Madness is being the last sane man on a battlefield of gods and monsters and knowing it doesn’t matter.

Because sanity won’t save you.

And madness is the only thing that lets you survive it.

“…You sll that?” soone muttered behind .

“Yeah,” another said. “Slls like burnt teeth.”

No one corrected him. We all slled it. And worse.

The path to the inner sanctum wasn’t a hallway. It was a wound. Torn open by sothing old, sothing angry, and never stitched shut. The walls pulsed. The floor cracked underfoot like it hated being touched.

The dead were everywhere. Piled in grotesque shapes. Twisted together—human, demon, sothing else—locked in death like dancers who’d forgotten the steps. Shards floated above them, flickering, humming softly like they were mourning.

Or mocking.

“I thought they said this place was sealed,” one of them whispered.

“How the hell did anyone get through?”

“They didn’t,” soone else muttered. “They just didn’t co back out.”

The silence that followed felt like a weight. Not an absence of sound—just a waiting kind. Like the castle itself was listening.

“Hope you all wrote your last words,” said the tall one who never took off his scarf, even when it soaked through with blood. I think he used to be a baker. Maybe. I only rembered because he slled like bread once, back in the southern trenches.

“My last words are gonna be ‘fuck this,’” said the woman limping beside , her shoulder wrapped in sothing that used to be a banner. She smiled like soone who’d been dead a while but hadn’t had ti to fall over yet.

“That’s not even two words,” soone grunted. He kept flipping a rusted coin in his palm, like it might decide his fate for him. Or give him a way out.

None of them were shardbearers. Just n and won holding blades dull from too many swings, wearing armor patched with bone and hope.

“You ever think we’re the ones being led in?” soone whispered.

We didn’t answer. We didn’t need to.

Ahead, the Hero stopped. Turned to face us. His shard pulsed behind his head like a second sun, shedding no warmth.

“You don’t have to follow,” he said. His voice was tired. Not angry. Just… tired. “But if you do—know this isn’t just another battle. You’ve seen what’s behind us. What’s dying out there. What’s already dead. This is what’s left.”

He looked at us like we were already ghosts.

“I’m not asking for bravery. Just choice.”

No one moved. Not because we were brave. Because we were already here. Already past the point of decision.

The woman with the banner-turned-bandage laughed softly. “What, and miss the ending?”

The coin-flipper snorted. “I ca this far. Might as well see which god dies.”

The scarfed one didn’t speak. Just adjusted his grip on the axe he’d carved himself.

And ?

I didn’t believe in gods. Not anymore. Not in demons either.

Only in the knife in my hand and the cold thing floating beside .

The Hero turned back around. The doors opened like they were sighing.

We followed him inside.

The throne room was still. The air here wasn’t air—it was pressure. Like standing inside a scream held just behind your eyes. It was cold, not from temperature, but from the absence of anything human. Like the world forgot warmth existed.

And there he was. The Demon Lord.

He didn’t rise. He didn’t snarl. He just looked.

And in that mont, I realized—

This isn’t a battle.

This isn’t a fight.

This is a story finishing itself.

I watched the Hero walk forward into that impossible power. Into that void wearing skin. The two of them didn’t speak right away. They just stared. Not like enemies.

Like old scars recognizing each other. This is madness. Not fear. Not chaos. Just the quiet, soul-deep understanding that this was never a war. It was a reunion. And a sacrifice.

And we were the offering.

The throne room wasn’t quiet.

It was holding its breath.

Dust floated in the air like ash from a fire long burned out. The shattered stained glass overhead painted dying light across the corpses scattered near the columns. Their blood was dry. Old. Like they had died in another lifeti—but the fear on their faces hadn’t faded.

I was there. Just a soldier. Not even supposed to be this close to the front.

But we were all too close now.

The Hero stepped forward, boots echoing against the stone. His voice rose, strong and clear—but beneath it, I could hear the strain.

“We’ve co through fire and ruin. Watched cities fall. Watched each other fall. But it ends now.”

He drew his blade, light curling along the tal.

“No more delays. No more death. In the na of the gods, in the na of—”

A finger lifted.

Not mine. Not the Hero’s.

His.

The Demon Lord.

He didn’t sit on the throne.

He stood before it.

This content has been misappropriated from ; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As if it didn’t deserve him.

He wasn’t armored. He wore no crown. His form flickered—too tall, too thin, like a stretched shadow that refused to stay still. His skin looked like sothing left out in the dark too long—cracked, scorched, leaking sothing black and slow.

His eyes weren’t glowing.

They swallowed light.

“You’re doing the monologue again,” he said.

And then he snapped his fingers.

BOOM.

The world ruptured.

One mont, I was there. The next—there was fire. There was screaming. A pressure wave slamd into so hard I didn’t fall—I flew. My back hit stone. Or tal. Or soone else.

I couldn’t hear.

My vision blurred—shaking, shaking—

When I blinked, half our squad was gone.

Just gone.

A crater carved through the earth like so god had dragged a blade across the room. Bits of armor, hair, blood. A hand—still twitching—landed near .

My mouth opened, but no sound ca out.

All I could do was shake.

The stench of cooked flesh and burnt iron punched through my skull.

And then… he spoke.

“…How’s that feel?”

I looked up. My ears rang. My teeth were chattering.

The Demon Lord wasn’t talking to the Hero.

He was looking at the sky.

“That should’ve made them happy, no? A little improv. Sothing unexpected. A twist to spice things up. Different than our last run.”

He smiled—but his mouth was wrong. Too wide. Too many teeth, or not enough. My eyes couldn’t make sense of it.

He tilted his head. A slow, lazy motion like a predator playing with its food.

“They cheer for surprises, you know,” he murmured. “Not for you. Not for him. But for that.”

He gestured lazily to the ruin, the blood.

“Don’t you get it?”

I didn’t.

I couldn’t even stand. My legs wouldn’t move. My hands were sticky—wet with soone’s blood. Maybe mine. Maybe not.

The Hero stood there, frozen. His sword was still raised—but shaking.

“You…” he started, voice hoarse. “You interrupted the—”

The Demon Lord laughed.

Low. Deep. And wrong.

“I just took a few liberties,” he said lightly. “A little rewrite. You understand. Pacing. Stakes. Catharsis.”

He tasted the word.

“Catharsis.” He rolled it across his tongue like at between his teeth. “Such a lovely lie. Makes the slaughter feel... aningful. Artistic. Forgivable.”

His gaze shifted.

It landed on .

And the distance between us ceased to matter.

He was still a dozen feet away. I knew that. But his face was suddenly right in front of mine—too close, too vivid. I saw every crevice in his skin, every fleck of darkness writhing just beneath it. I could sll him. Charcoal and rot and sothing sweet and sickly, like syrup poured over bones.

I couldn’t move.

The shard pulsed against my chest like it was alive, frantic, as if it wanted to crawl out of and flee. But it had no legs.

And I had no courage left.

The Demon Lord crouched.

Inches from .

His limbs folded wrong. Not in the way a body should bend, but in the way a shadow might if it thought it was flesh.

His eyes—if that’s what they were—glead with sothing ancient, like they rembered stars that died screaming. Like they fed on endings.

He smiled again, and it felt like a door opened behind my eyes.

“Tell , little soldier,” he said, voice thick and quiet, “what do you think this is?”

I couldn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

He answered himself.

“A story?” he mocked. “A noble war? A stage for heroism and sacrifice?”

He leaned closer, and the air shivered around him, like glass near a fla—but colder. So cold it burned.

His voice dropped into sothing lower than a whisper. A vibration in the marrow.

“It’s theater.”

Behind him, the Hero moved. Barely. A tremble. A breath. His shard burned brighter—too bright—desperate.

The Demon Lord didn’t flinch.

“They’ve already written your parts,” he said, waving toward the Hero like dismissing a stagehand. “He gets to be brave. You—” he turned to with that sa awful smile “—you get to survive. Just enough to witness.”

He straightened slowly. Bone cracked. Flesh sloughed and reknit itself in wrong ways.

“And I get to die. Gloriously. Tragically. A monster in the shape of a man. Over and over. And over.”

He looked past us, to the shattered stained glass. The sky beyond. Pale and still. Unwatching.

Then, he mimicked a voice that wasn’t his own:

“‘Today will be the end of your chaos!’”

The Hero let out a hoarse scream. Whether rage or terror, it didn’t matter anymore. He charged.

“Ah. There it is,” the Demon Lord sighed. “Act Three.”

Steel t shadow.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a collapse—of space, of aning, of everything that ca before. The shockwave fractured the floor, split columns, shattered air. Bodies were tossed like scraps. The scarfed man hit stone and didn’t rise. The banner-woman’s shard exploded mid-spell, slicing her scream in half.

And still—

I watched.

Because there was nothing else left in . Not courage. Not fear. Just... inertia.

The Hero fought like a ghost that hadn’t been told he was dead. His blade burned, each arc of light throwing impossible shadows. His shard pulsed like a dying heart, and every swing dragged what little was left of him closer to the edge.

The Demon Lord?

He didn’t block.

He knew.

Every strike missed by inches. Not because he was faster. But because the Hero was predictable. Because he’d read this script before. Because this was the part where the villain gives the hero hope—just enough to make the ending sting.

And then—

He stopped resisting.

The Hero raised his sword.

And the Demon Lord knelt.

Cracked. Bleeding. No longer a god—just a broken shadow, pulsing with the last embers of his cursed power. Black ichor leaked from his wounds, sizzling against the stone. His body sagged, half-lted. Yet even like this... he smiled.

Not afraid.

Not pleading.

Just watching us.

Like even now, he knew sothing we didn’t.

The Hero stood above him. Barely.

His blade trembled in both hands. The Light Shard behind him flickered, sputtering like a candle drowning in its own wax. His armor hung in tatters. His eyes were hollow. But his will—that still stood.

Every eye left in that ruined hall watched him. We needed this. We needed it to end. We needed it to an sothing.

And I—

I should’ve stayed still.

Should’ve let it happen.

But sothing inside shifted.

A breath. A heartbeat. A mory of sothing long dead waking up.

My legs moved before I realized.

I rose.

Pain tore through like lightning down a dry tree. My body scread in protest. My vision blurred. Blood stread down my face. My left arm was useless, dangling by threads of flesh and will.

But I stood.

Because soone had to.

The Hero’s blade hovered—just inches from the killing arc. His lips parted. A word—maybe a prayer, maybe a curse—clung to his tongue.

And in that second—

I saw it.

He couldn’t do it.

Not because he didn’t want to.

Because his body had nothing left to give.

His arms were shaking. His knees folding. His sword wavered like a dying fla in a freezing wind.

And the Demon Lord?

He saw it too.

His smile twitched wider. Not joy. Not victory. Sothing else.

A mont longer, and he’d rise again.

A mont longer, and it would all begin again.

The war. The ritual. The chaos wrapped up in a shape they called “balance.”

The script… or whatever they called it.

The one they talked about.

He talked about.

No.

I didn’t think.

I moved.

But I rembered his words as I did.

“You get to survive. Just enough to witness.”

I wish I hadn’t.

Because that’s when the hate ca.

I hated that line.

I hated that it fit.

I hated how my suffering—every broken bone, every buried friend, every night I didn’t sleep just in case sothing ca back—was supposed to be part of so twisted design.

I hated him—for saying it. I hated them—for writing it. I hated the world—for letting it be true. I hated how the Hero got to break with honor. I hated how the Demon Lord got to die with aning. I hated that even now, I was supposed to watch.

Not. This. Ti.

Through blood.

Through silence thick enough to drown in.

Through that breathless void where even fate hesitated.

I struck.

One swing. No glory. No justice. Just hate.

Steel t flesh. The sound—sharp and wet, like tearing silk soaked in rain.

The Demon Lord’s head snapped sideways—then severed.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t speak.

He just fell.

Like a tree cut at the root.

His body crumpled, twitching once. His head rolled across the cold floor, dragging a trail of darkness, until it stopped.

At my feet.

Still smiling.

And then—

Nothing.

No sound.

No cheer.

No light.

Just .

Standing.

Shaking.

Alone.

I looked down. My sword—slick, red, still in my grip. My hand locked in place, trembling like it no longer knew how to let go.

Across from , the Hero stared.

His sword—still raised.

Forgotten mid-swing.

Frozen in a victory that was no longer his.

His eyes—wide. Empty. Grateful. And sothing else.

Shock.

Because the blow that would end it all—his blow—never landed.

Mine did.

Not the chosen one.

Not the star of prophecy.

Not the na they’d carve into stone.

Just a soldier.

My armor was shattered. My body wrecked. My mind on the verge of breaking. I wasn’t holy. Wasn’t worthy.

But I was here.

And I was enough.

I stared at the Demon Lord’s body—headless, still twitching.

And I felt… nothing at first.

No triumph. No victory. No tears.

Just a quiet, crushing release.

Like sothing inside finally exhaled after holding its breath too long.

The war was over.

Not because a Hero delivered the killing blow.

But because I didn’t wait.

Because when the gods looked away, when the world hesitated—I acted.

And maybe that’s what a real ending is.

Not fate.

Not prophecy.

Just one broken soul too stubborn to die before it was done.

And in that stillness, as the dust began to settle, and the survivors dared to breathe again…

I let the sword fall.

The sound echoed like thunder in a tomb.

And with it—

I fell.

Not in defeat.

But because, for the first ti in years…

I no longer had to stand.

Seconds later I stand up and turned slowly, unsure what I expected—cheers, maybe. Relief. Hope.

But instead, I t only silence. And eyes.

Staring.

Disbelieving.

And none more so than his.

The Hero stood there—our Hero—his sword falling from numb fingers, clanging against the stone. His chest heaved. His eyes—once so full of fire—were hollow. Cracked.

“You…”

His voice was barely a whisper.

“It should’ve been .”

Then ca the rage.

Like a storm with nowhere to go, it surged through him all at once. His face twisted into sothing feral—his breath hitching, chest trembling, like he couldn’t contain it.

And then—he couldn’t.

He exploded.

His fist connected with my jaw in a blur, and I was on the ground before I realized he’d even moved. Pain flared across my face. My ears rang.

I tasted blood.

“The hell—?!” I gasped, staggering up, vision blurred.

But he was already there, grabbing by the collar, slamming against the stone pillar behind . His eyes burned, wild with sothing more than fury.

Desperation.

“You RUINED IT!” he scread. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!”

His fists slamd into again—one, two—until I coughed blood, knees buckling.

“I was supposed to kill him! I was supposed to be the one to end it! That was the ending! That was the story!”

The surviving soldiers backed away, too stunned, too scared to intervene.

“Sir, stop—!”

“Let him go!”

But he didn’t hear them. He didn’t hear anything.

Because in that mont, the Hero wasn’t fighting .

He was fighting the cage he’d just realized he’d never escaped.

[Evaluating narrative integrity…]

The voice bood through the hall, inhuman and omnipresent. The world shivered in its wake.

The Hero froze mid-blow, body trembling. His eyes widened, pupils shaking. He stumbled back like sothing had just ripped into his skull.

[Error Detected.]

“No…” he whispered.

He clutched his head, backing away, stumbling across the shattered stones. “Not again… NOT AGAIN—!”

He scread, voice cracking like broken glass, raw with sothing ancient and wounded.

[Plot: The Demon Lord and the Fake Hero.]

The words hit harder than any sword. The room gasped—soldiers recoiling, whispering in confusion.

“Fake…? Did it say fake?”

“What the hell does that an?”

I looked at him—the Hero. The man I had followed. The one who had led us across burning fields and through the mouths of hell.

And now, he stood there—shaking, gasping, pale. The man who once stared down armies now looked like a boy lost in the dark.

“Not again,” he choked. “Not another reset… not another rewrite. I can’t—I CAN’T!”

[Reader engagent: 99.9% approval for plot twist.]

The Hero froze.

Slowly, his head turned. His eyes, bloodshot and twitching, rose to the void above us.

“…They’re watching,” he whispered. “They’re watching us.”

He looked around the room, but he wasn’t seeing us.

“No no no no no—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go! They loved ! They used ! I WAS THE HERO!”

[Author has rejected the narrative.]

The sentence echoed through the chamber like the tolling of a funeral bell.

He dropped to his knees, mouth agape. His breath caught in his throat.

“No… not this again… not again…”

He let out a low, guttural sound—a sob mixed with a scream—and slamd his fists against the floor hard enough to crack it.

“I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT!”

The soldiers around us staggered, stunned. One of them—young, wounded—stared in horror.

“What is this…? What’s happening?!”

Another whispered, shaking: “We’re… we’re not real, are we?”

[The story fails to et required paraters.]

The world shuddered.

The Hero clutched his head again, shaking violently.

“They’re rewriting it,” he said through gritted teeth. “They’re going to do it all over again. Reset everything. Just like before…”

I staggered forward, blood dripping from my mouth. “What are you talking about?”

He turned toward —and his eyes were madness incarnate.

“I’ve died a thousand tis in this story. I’ve lived every ending. I’ve failed. I’ve succeeded. And every ti… every ti they just reset it.”

He looked up again—past the shattered ceiling, past the sky—into sothing beyond.

“And now they’re bored of .”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I was never the hero. I was just the protagonist. A puppet. A mask they wore until they didn’t need anymore.”

[Submitting report to the Departnt of Stories.]

[Awaiting final approval.]

His laugh broke sothing in .

It was hollow. Wrong.

“You broke the script,” he said, pointing at with trembling hands. “You were never ant to kill the Demon Lord. You were just a background extra. A piece. But you did it. And now everything’s wrong.”

He grinned. A horrible, tear-stained grin.

“They loved it. They LOVED IT. Your little surprise ending? The readers adored it.”

[Author has rejected the protagonist. Preparing rewrite.]

“No—NO!” he scread, clawing at the air. “I’m still here! I can fix it—I can—”

His body jerked violently.

Cracks split across his skin like porcelain. Light poured from the seams.

The soldiers around us backed away, faces pale, terrified.

And in the silence that followed, he whispered:

“You did this…”

Then—

He shattered.

No body. No scream.

Just dust and silence.

And then… nothing.

I turned—and saw it.

The void.

And from within it, sothing watched.

Eyes. Ancient. Cold. Endless.

The Entity.

Its gaze pinned like a needle through flesh, and I realized: I was the last one left. The Hero was gone. The world was breaking.

And sohow… I was still here.

[You who have broken the story. Tell us your wish.]

A wish?

After everything?

Freedom? Power? Escape?

No. Not this ti.

They expected to beg for survival. To ask for a happy ending. To play the ga.

But I had seen the truth. I understood now.

I wasn’t going to wish for a way out.

I was going to end the story.

Not just this one.

All of them.

I said nothing.

The wish burned in my chest—silent, defiant.

[Wish acknowledged.]

And then—

Pain. White-hot. Blinding. The void scread. I scread.

They tried to rewrite . Twist . Erase .

But I held on.

To the wish.

To .

To the truth.

They couldn't touch it.

Because this ti… I was the one holding the pen.

And as the pain finally stopped, as silence fell again—

I was still standing.

Breathless. Broken.

But free.

[A new storyline has been created.]