The night after the reading was cold — unnaturally so for summer. Jalen sat in his apartment, fingers curled around a mug of tea he hadn't sipped in hours. The lights were off. Only the glow from a streetlamp filtered through the blinds, casting ribbed shadows across the floor like the bars of a cell.
The book — his book — still rested on the desk.
He hadn't dared to open it again since last night, when he found that line written in the margin: You were always better with endings than I was.
His handwriting. His phrasing. His wit, twisted with bitterness.
He had burned all his journals before… before the fire. Before his death. Liora would've never seen that line. No one could've written it.
Unless it really was him.
Unless something had come back with him.
---
Later That Week – Strathmoor University
The sun cast a honeyed light through the windows of Strathmoor's archive building, its age-old glass warping the rays into amber stains across the floor. Mira Elwood clicked her pen restlessly between her fingers, seated at a long oak table beside an unreasonably large stack of newspaper clippings.
Her assignment was simple: cover Liora Mireille's new book tour — soft PR piece, fluff, no real bite. But something hadn't let go of her since the reading. That man in the back row — Jalen Thorn.
She had run his name through her usual search methods. Nothing. No publications. No history. No social media. A ghost.
But she'd seen his face when Liora spoke that line — his line. His mouth didn't just twist in confusion. It curled like a wound reopening.
And now she sat here, chasing a hunch. That's what journalists did when their instincts whispered. Even if the voice sounded like madness.
"Find anything?" a voice asked.
She looked up. Her colleague, Ben, stood with a coffee in hand, eyeing her stack of ancient literary magazines.
"I don't even know what I'm looking for yet," Mira admitted. "Maybe just… echoes."
Ben raised an eyebrow.
"I think someone came back from the dead," she said under her breath.
He blinked. "Right. I'll just leave this here." He set the coffee down and retreated.
---
Jalen's Apartment – Midnight
The knock came softly, like a hesitant question.
Jalen froze.
No one visited him. No one should know he was here.
Another knock — two, then three.
He stood slowly, crossing the wooden floor with deliberate steps. His fingers hovered over the doorknob for a moment. Then he opened it.
A small package sat at his feet. No sender. Just his name, scrawled in that same unmistakable ink.
He brought it inside with the same care someone might handle an old letter from a ghost.
Inside: a notebook.
A simple leather-bound journal, like the ones he used to carry. When he opened it, the scent of old paper and ashes spilled out — and writing filled the pages.
Not just any writing.
His own.
He recognized the phrasing, the cadence. An entire short story, one he'd written in solitude, never published. It had vanished when his apartment burned.
And there it was, perfectly preserved, written in his hand — but on new paper.
On the last page was a message.
> You remember the story, don't you, Edric? About the man who left behind pieces of himself in every book he touched. One day, he came back, and the books remembered him too.
Welcome home.
He dropped the journal like it burned him.
---
Meanwhile – Liora's Home
Liora stood in front of her vanity mirror, gazing at her own reflection as if it might answer her.
Since the reading, something felt wrong. Off. Like a current had shifted.
She'd seen someone there. A face that scratched at the edges of memory.
And now, someone had sent her a manuscript.
No note. No name. Just a printed story in a manila envelope.
She flipped through the pages — and froze.
The prose was familiar. Too familiar.
It was written like Edric. Exactly like him. Down to the metaphors he used when his hands trembled and he wrote in the dark.
The story was titled "The One Who Watched the Fire".
She slammed the pages down and stepped back.
Was someone trying to torment her?
Or worse… was he back?
---
Mira's Discovery
The next day, Mira found what she was looking for.
Not in headlines. Not in databases. But in a crumbling copy of The Literary Flame — a niche magazine from nearly a decade ago.
There, tucked in the back, was a column titled Ashes of Fiction.
By: Edric Vale.
She scanned the text. The style. The voice.
Her heart rate jumped.
It was identical to the anonymous pieces going viral online right now — the ones rumored to be "the ghost writer's revenge."
And more than that — Edric had written an essay in this very issue titled The One Who Watched the Fire.
She sat back in her chair, a chill running down her spine.
The story that had just mysteriously landed on Liora Mireille's doorstep… was written by a man who had died five years ago.
---
Jalen Walks the Night
He walked past the Strathmoor bookshop, collar up, breath fogging in the cold.
Inside the display window, Liora's latest book sat front and center.
"The Quieting Hour," by Liora Mireille.
Beneath it, in cursive gold print: A story about forgiveness in the face of past sins.
Jalen stared at it long and hard.
She had taken that phrase from him. She had taken everything.
And now she was making peace with the world, while he was still climbing out of a grave made of stories and ash.
But he wasn't here just to haunt her.
He was here to finish what he never got to write.
He placed one hand against the window, and whispered:
> "You told a lie with your pen, Liora.
I'll tell the truth with mine."
And the glass fogged beneath his hand — as if the window, too, was listening.
---
✒️ End of Chapter 3