Author: Silence

Post a story?

For whom?

For me?

Thinking about it, the idea wasn't strange at all. Photographs were creative work. Paintings were, too. So were songs. There was no reason a novel wouldn't count.

Why hadn't something that simple occurred to me until now? Not because I didn't know. Because I had forgotten. More precisely, because I had been pretending to forget.

Three years ago. The publish button I never managed to press. The laptop that slid off the desk. The manuscript I buried inside my head, never read by anyone.

And the ability I had.

Immersion.

It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠useless for killing or destroying anything. Zombies didn't read. Mutants didn't either. But sitting in front of me now were beings who did — readers who had endured decades, centuries alone, who had already consumed every piece of literature their worlds had to offer and were starving for a story.

My sunken heart began to beat again.

Gurgle.

My stomach chimed in. Pure creative hunger and a craving for ramen woke up at the exact same moment.

"Why didn't I think of that?"

"That you're a writer, oppa?"

"Yeah."

"After two days of nothing but shitposts?"

"Literature and shitposts use different muscles."

I opened my profile. Two nicknames surfaced side by side.

I couldn't post a novel as CannedFood. Technically I could, but I didn't want to. In two days I had left twenty-seven posts. The one with the most upvotes was Can I water Miyoki?, and the one that sparked the fiercest argument was If you've got four arms, do you have four armpits?

The thought of that kind of author history sitting right under a finished work made my vision go dark.

Fortunately, I had one clean account left. A person of few words. Silence. An account that had not left a single post or comment.

"That's why I needed an alt."

"To hide the shitposts?"

"To protect the author's mystique."

"That's just fraud."

"It's brand separation."

Harin stared at me. Those eyes, curved like crescent moons, narrowed to slits.

"Huuung, oppa. Is that really all?"

"What else would there be?"

"You actually liked the name Silence when you saw it."

"I did not."

"The corner of your mouth went up."

"You're imagining things."

Harin was, after all, an imaginary friend with every preference I'd ever had built into her. Just looking at her was a weapon. I held out for a moment, then looked away.

"...The genius-concept, naturally gifted author."

"Huh?"

"The lofty, once-in-a-generation rookie who just drops a work and never says a word. I always wanted to try that at least once."

Harin scrunched her brow at that, then finally let out a small laugh.

"That is the least you thing I have ever heard."

"That's why I'm doing it on an alt."

Readers clinging to a single sentence of mine, staying up all night unpacking what it meant. Why the protagonist turned his head at that moment. Why he chose that particular word. What the author was thinking when he wrote that ending. Dozens of questions would pile up, and Silence would say nothing. Then, just when everyone was about to give up waiting — without warning, the next chapter. Dropped. Just one.

"Heh heh."

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

"Your face looks weird."

"Geniuses are supposed to be a little hard to understand."

"You don't even have readers yet."

"I will soon."

"You haven't even written anything."

"I'm about to."

Harin shook her head. I didn't care. A writer is someone who speaks through their work. What they say outside of it doesn't matter. So as long as I didn't get caught.

I selected Silence and opened the novel category.

My finger stopped over slice of life.

It was the story I had been preparing since three years ago. An ordinary college student going back and forth between his studio and campus. A protagonist who, after finishing a night shift at a convenience store, meets the same girl on the same morning bus, who gets through each day listening to the guitar leaking through the wall from next door.

No grand incidents. Just exams and part-time jobs and rent. Small misunderstandings and reconciliations, and days that weren't anything special, leading into the next.

I even had a title. A synopsis. The prologue was already finished. I transferred the manuscript from memory into the writing window.

The sentence glowed faintly.

The ability hadn't gone anywhere. The character had desire. Conflict and choice. A clear emotional through-line connecting beginning to end. As a prologue, it wasn't bad. No — honestly, and not just because I wrote it, it was good.

Three years ago, I had believed this piece would make me. That belief hadn't entirely disappeared.

And yet my fingers wouldn't move.

"Why aren't you writing?"

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"The people who'll read this."

A writer can't just think about the writing. You have to think about the reader, too. My ability pulled a reader's emotions up hard. That didn't mean I was going to throw any old story at them and trust the skill to do the rest.

Immersion doesn't write the sentences for you. It doesn't turn a boring story into a masterpiece. And more than anything, emotion isn't something you invent from nothing. You have to touch something that already exists inside the reader.

I pulled up the gallery window beside me. To pick a genre, I had to know the readers first. What kind of story made them laugh. What kind of line made them stop. What they couldn't bear.

I opened the posts from the top again.

The first time I read it, I laughed at the bunny onesie. Reading it again, a different sentence caught me.

There's nothing left to protect now.

The writer asked if it was okay to take the armor off. Did they really need permission? No. They couldn't bring themselves to say that four hundred years of guarding something had meant nothing — so they were waiting for someone else to tell them it was okay.

I opened the next post.

At first I thought they were a lunatic who kept a dragon like a pet. Reading it again, I saw the last sentence.

Looking for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a new conversation partner.

Had they wanted to talk about the dead dragon? Or had they just wanted someone to answer?

A new comment appeared.

The OP's last reply was short. I stared at that sentence for a long time before moving on.

Every kind of food showed up in the comments. Someone said to roast the sun and eat it. Someone said to cook the planetary core soft-boiled. Someone said to take a slow meal together with a rock.

The OP replied to every single piece of nonsense. If they'd just wanted a menu, the first comment would have been enough. But they kept the conversation going. Right up until the day before the planet exploded.

I went back to the post list.

Different worlds. Different species. The time they had lived, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the power they held, even their common sense — none of it was the same. Could people like that relate to worrying about rent? Would they get butterflies meeting someone on the morning bus? Would they get equally pissed off at a nightmare convenience-store customer?

Maybe. But I couldn't be sure.

To someone whose kingdom was gone, studio rent was a problem too small to see. To a being who had lived through a human lifespan several times over, a single college semester would be the blink of an eye. To someone waiting for their planet's last day, an ordinary tomorrow didn't exist.

My original story had been written for the readers I used to know. Those readers were gone. The people who would read my writing now were the ones who wrote these posts.

So what kind of story would they actually like?

Power? They already had it.

Immortality? You can't sell eternal life to someone who's been alive for over three hundred thousand days.

Slice of life? I might just end up doing a cheap impression of the everyday they'd already lost.

I reread the posts one by one. The knight who couldn't take off his armor. The immortal looking for a conversation partner to replace a dead dragon. The person waiting for comments until the day before their planet vanished. The one who wanted to apologize to a rock.

What they wanted from these posts wasn't an answer.

Permission. Conversation. A reply. Proof that someone was still looking at them.

A common thread seemed to surface, and yet the last piece wouldn't click into place.

"Harin."

"Whaat."

"Why do those people keep writing posts?"

"Same reason as you, probably."

"I have a lot of reasons for writing."

"I mean the shitposts."

She hit a nerve. Harin pointed at the gallery window.

"You started typing whatever the second you got here."

"The four-arms thing was a serious issue."

"And even though every reply was nonsense, you kept commenting."

I couldn't argue with that.

"Why did you?"

Why had I? Because advice to cut my own throat was helpful? Because a comment telling me to confess was reasonable?

No.

Because someone replied. Because someone read what I said. And when I answered, they came back.

Harin pointed at the posts one by one.

"Don't they all just want to go back?"

"Go back where?"

"To before."

Her finger landed on the first post.

"That knight, to before the kingdom fell."

Next, the one who'd lost the dragon.

"That one, to when the dragon was still alive."

Last, the dying planet.

"That one, to when the planet was still fine."

Her finger stopped.

In that instant, the scattered posts connected into one. Loneliness was the result. Loss had come first. They lost a kingdom. Lost a friend. Lost the world they lived in. And so they were alone.

What they really wanted might not be a new conversation partner at all. To get back the one they'd lost. To go back to before everything went wrong. To make a different choice, that time.

In other words.