They called him al-Khattat.
No first name.
No last.
Just a title spoken with reverence, fear… and a touch of superstition.
He lived alone.
In a forgotten quarter of the old city.
Among paper that whispered when the wind blew,
and brushes that twitched before they touched the page.
They said his hands never shook.
That his lines were so perfect,
they made people cry without knowing why.
But lately…
his writing had begun to move after he finished it.
It started with a commission.
A client requested a verse — something ancient.
No source, no attribution.
Just a line written in strange syntax:
"What was spoken before speech… must be sealed again."
The moment he dipped his brush,
the ink shivered.
Not from cold.
From recognition.
He ignored it.
Wrote the line.
But as he finished the last word,
his hand kept moving.
Unwillingly.
Automatically.
Violently.
He blacked out.
When he woke,
an entire wall of his studio was covered in symbols he didn't know —
and one sentence in red:
"You wrote me once before.
In another life.
With a tongue you don't remember."
From that day, the ink chose what to write.
He tried switching brands.
Tried charcoal.
Blood.
Nothing worked.
Even without tools, his fingers traced letters into dust.
Into fog.
Onto breath.
People began visiting him at night.
Not clients.
Not friends.
Strangers who spoke in mirrored phrases.
They brought him parchments he'd never seen,
but that smelled familiar.
Like old regret.
Like forgotten prayers.
They bowed when he finished.
But their eyes were blank.
He tried to stop.
Burned his brushes.
Smashed the inkstones.
Sealed his hands in wax.
But the whispers came anyway.
Not through ears.
Through veins.
The ink wasn't outside him anymore.
It had moved in.
Now, he writes with his pulse.
Every heartbeat a letter.
Every breath a page.
And the story he's writing?
He doesn't know how it ends.
Only that when he finishes the last line…
he will disappear.
Just like the first time.