It was not a gate in the traditional sense—no wrought iron or carved oak. It was made of tropes. A portcullis of Last Lines. An arch of Acknowledgments, and beneath it, a threshold paved with final paragraphs too afraid to say goodbye.
Time stuttered around it. Fonts changed mid-second. Dialogues from parallel drafts bled into one another. Someone off-screen was sobbing in Courier New.
Above the gate floated the Warning:
> "ALL WHO PASS MUST CHOOSE A GENRE."
Hira stepped forward, but the sapling in her hand resisted.
It had grown heavy now, its branches tangled with plotlines too stubborn to end. One fruit wept exposition. Another screamed in metaphors. She cradled it anyway, as one would a newborn or a plot twist with abandonment issues.
Behind her, the Others approached.
A woman with a horror backstory now wearing comedy like armor.
A detective who solved nothing but asked all the right questions.
