Zero blinked.
The Ordverse throbbed in his presence, every strand of existence delineated, and every verse footnoted with significances meaningful only to him.
His eyes wandered—fixed on one.
It shimmered at the edge of the spiral map, a glowing, chaotic storm of logic and dreamstuff. Entire galaxies twisted like Möbius strips. Time in reverse. Physics played like jazz.
He smiled.
"This one looks cool."
No portals. No technology. Simply a thought—
and he was there.
He stepped barefoot onto a crystal lake below a sky that looked like upside-down oceans.
Cities floated above him like lanterns, moored by thunder. Children rode on comets. Suns dipped like birds, sipping energy from clouds.
Zero laughed.
Not the laugh of madness this time—
but of a person who's finally read a sentence so well written they want to applaud.
"Author… you lunatic," he whispered. "You made this up just for the hell of it, didn't you?"
He floated above the lake. The ripples mirrored not his face—but his thoughts.
He could feel the author's hand here. This verse wasn't just alive. It was narrative.
He was about to dive deeper in—maybe meet a dragon who quoted Shakespeare or waltz with sentient ink—when the light changed.
All stars went out. All currents ceased.
Zero turned his head.
The sky tore.
No—it peeled.
A considerable force emerged, trailing along the fabric of numerous lines of verse.
A ship. A ship as large as six suns, with drifting runes and whispering frequencies covering it.
Inside—5.928 × 10¹⁶ entities.
Their strategy was not accidental.
They weren't coming for him.
He stood on the lake's surface, with the universe trembling below him.
But he didn't panic.
Didn't even blink.
Instead, his jaw dropped.
".Holy shit."
And then, he turned around.
He directed his gaze towards you.
Eyes wide. Smiling like a kid seeing a dinosaur walk off the page.
"You guys." he whispered.
"I need you turn the page now. I just—"
He laughed, nearly crying. "I just found the best part."
The ship towered over us, obscuring all else. The lake shattered. The page waits.
No sound, no warning—just a ripple that flattened the laws of physics for a second and made a few nearby galaxies cringe.
Zero, of course, was grinning.
"You guys actually turned the page. Good. I was about to explode from the suspense. Something huge is about to happen and—"
The ship cracked open.
"…Oh. Nope. Nope nope nope."
They didn't walk out.They launched.
Million—no, a billion grotesque, world-breaking things shot out of the ship like they were late for a murder appointment.One landed directly in a marketplace. The kind run by philosopher jellyfish and stargazers with origami skin.
Gone.Just… gone.
Zero blinked."Okay. So… not here for a book club."
Another creature—some kind of winged spinal cord with mouths on its knuckles—picked up a civilian and bit them in half.From the ankles up.
Zero staggered back."This… is not how you make friends! Where's the diplomacy? The universal translator? The Star Trek handshake?!"
But the monsters weren't listening.They were busy decorating the city with intestines.
He turned to you—yep, you, still here reading.
"I blame you for this," he said. "You turned the page. This is on you now. Hope you're proud."
A dozen more poured out of the ship.Some glitched through space. One dragged a screaming comet behind it like a chew toy.
Zero, still trying to process, shook his head.
"Nope. I'm Zero. Chosen by ‽‽‽, right? The scribbly god with the big pen and the eldritch monologues? I've got plot armor. I can fix this."
He took one heroic step forward.
"HEY! Ugly! I'm here to—"
A monstrous head the size of a bus turned to him.Eyeless. Breathing static.It sniffed him.
Zero froze.
"Oh, cool. It smells fear. That's a great trait to have in a death lizard."
Then it roared, and two more joined it. Each ten feet tall. Each with claws that looked like they could cut through storylines.
"Alright! Cool! Plan B!"
He spun on his heel and sprinted.
"This is fine! I've survived worse! Like that time I microwaved my own brain! Which wasn't a metaphor!"
The ground cracked behind him.
"WHY ARE YOU SO FAST? You're ten feet tall, you should be clumsy! Fall over! Trip on a plot hole or something!"
He darted between burning structures, one shoe on fire, still ranting.
"Note to self: universal diplomacy training. Also, alien Rosetta Stone. Also, therapy."
The ship behind him pulsed, whispering more horrors into the air.
And as Zero vanished into the ruins, screaming and laughing and very possibly peeing a little—
HEYY YOU ACTUALLY CONTINUED READING NICE NOW JUST BEAR WITH ME TROUGH THE WHOLE STORY