Lord of Perverted Ladies

The ashes disappeared before they touched the floor.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

The classroom remained exactly as it had been.

Desks.

Blackboard.

Windows.

The empty teacher’s chair.

Nothing strange.

Nothing supernatural.

And yet...

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the room had become much larger.

Not physically.

It was as if something had been removed from reality, leaving behind an empty space that shouldn’t have existed.

No System.

No notifications.

No strange pressure inside my head.

No invisible presence watching every decision I made.

For the first time since arriving at the academy...

I was alone inside my own mind.

It should have felt good.

Instead, I felt exposed.

The First Reader was the first to speak.

"We need to leave."

I looked at him.

"Why?"

"Because this room is no longer safe."

Lucien immediately shook his head.

"Nowhere is safe."

"That’s not helpful."

"It’s true."

The Editor walked toward the window.

She looked down at the courtyard.

"Nothing is happening."

Noah joined her.

"That’s good."

"No."

She pointed outside.

"Look carefully."

I walked over.

At first, everything looked normal.

Students were leaving the academy.

Some were talking.

Some were laughing.

A teacher was locking one of the side buildings.

Then I noticed it.

Nobody was entering the academy gates.

Nobody was leaving through them either.

People reached the gates...

And turned around.

They didn’t seem confused.

They simply behaved as though the gates didn’t exist.

"What happened?"

The First Reader answered.

"The Story has no beginning anymore."

"So?"

"So it doesn’t know where anything is supposed to go."

I frowned.

"You said the Story became independent."

"It did."

"Then why isn’t it working?"

"Because independence isn’t the same as stability."

The Editor turned toward me.

"You removed the foundation."

"Then we need to give it another one."

The First Reader shook his head.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because that would make you the Author again."

I understood.

The entire point of erasing the first sentence had been to remove ownership.

If I wrote another beginning...

I’d simply recreate the same problem.

"Then what do we do?"

Nobody answered.

Lucien walked toward the blackboard.

He stared at the blank surface.

Then picked up a piece of chalk.

He wrote a single word.

Before.

I looked at him.

"What does that mean?"

He turned.

"The message."

"The one saying the hospital wasn’t the beginning."

He tapped the chalk against his palm.

"If the hospital wasn’t the beginning..."

"Then we have to find what came before it."

The First Reader’s expression darkened.

"I don’t think you understand what you’re suggesting."

"I understand perfectly."

"No."

"You don’t."

Lucien stepped closer.

"The first story wasn’t the beginning."

"The hospital wasn’t the beginning."

"The Black Door wasn’t the beginning."

"Then what was?"

The First Reader remained silent.

I looked at him.

"You know."

His jaw tightened.

"Yes."

"Tell me."

He didn’t.

"Tell me."

He finally sighed.

"There was a world before the Story."

I frowned.

"Of course there was."

"No."

He shook his head.

"Not a world."

"A state."

"Before stories."

"Before observers."

"Before writers."

"Before characters."

The classroom became colder.

"What was there?"

The First Reader looked toward the blackboard.

"Nothing that can be described."

"That’s convenient."

"It’s not an excuse."

He slowly sat in one of the desks.

"Language itself came later."

"Meaning came later."

"Memory came later."

"The first thing that existed..."

He paused.

"...was observation."

I remembered the Author’s words.

Stories are created by observers.

"So someone observed nothing."

"Yes."

"And that created the first distinction."

"Yes."

"Between what?"

"Existence and nonexistence."

I stared at him.

"And that became the first story?"

"No."

He looked at me.

"The first question."

The room went silent.

"What question?"

The First Reader smiled sadly.

"What is this?"

Those four words felt strangely important.

"Someone asked what existed."

"And because there was no answer..."

He looked at the blank blackboard.

"...the question became the first story."

The Editor slowly understood.

"The Story wasn’t created to tell something."

"It was created to find something."

"Yes."

"And the Observer..."

"Was the first person who kept asking."

I looked toward the window.

"Then why is the Observer looking for me?"

The First Reader’s expression changed.

"Because you found the answer."

"What answer?"

He looked directly at me.

"The first question."

My skin prickled.

"What is this?"

The same words.

The first question.

The thing that apparently started everything.

"And what was the answer?"

The First Reader didn’t speak.

Lucien did.

"You."

I stared at him.

"Me?"

"You."

"That’s impossible."

"You’ve already seen the evidence."

"The hospital."

"The Black Door."

"The first draft."

"Every time you reached the beginning..."

Lucien stepped closer.

"...you were there."

I shook my head.

"That doesn’t mean anything."

"It does."

The woman finally spoke.

"You’re not the answer because you’re special."

"You’re the answer because you were the first person to ask the question without accepting someone else’s answer."

I looked at her.

"When?"

"Before the hospital."

"Before my previous life."

"Before the first Story."

My mind went completely blank.

"Then where?"

She pointed toward the classroom.

"Here."

I stared.

"This classroom?"

"No."

She looked around.

"This place."

"The place where questions are asked."

"The place where someone can sit and wonder whether the world they’re seeing is real."

The First Reader stood.

"That’s why the classroom keeps appearing."

"It isn’t a memory."

"It’s a symbol."

Lucien nodded.

"Every time you approach the truth..."

"You return here."

The Editor looked at the empty teacher’s desk.

"Then the teacher..."

"Was never a person."

I looked at the chair.

"What was it?"

The First Reader answered.

"The question."

The room suddenly changed.

Not violently.

The walls simply faded.

The desks disappeared.

The windows vanished.

Everything became white.

No floor.

No ceiling.

No walls.

Just white.

I stood alone.

No one else was there.

Then I heard a voice.

My voice.

But younger.

Much younger.

"What is this?"

The first question.

A small figure appeared in the distance.

A child.

I knew him immediately.

Me.

But this time...

He wasn’t sitting in the classroom.

He was standing in an endless white space.

He looked around.

Confused.

Afraid.

Curious.

Then he asked again.

"What is this?"

Something answered.

Not with words.

With a shape.

A black dot appeared in the white space.

The child stared at it.

"What is that?"

The dot became a line.

The line became a door.

The door became a room.

The room became a world.

The world became a story.

I watched everything happen.

The first world.

The first observer.

The first character.

The first writer.

The first reader.

All of them emerged from a single question.

The child looked at the world he’d created.

Then he asked another question.

"Who made it?"

Everything stopped.

A second figure appeared.

Standing behind him.

I couldn’t see the face.

The child turned around.

"Are you the one who made this?"

The figure answered.

"No."

"Then who did?"

The figure pointed at the child.

The child looked confused.

"Me?"

The figure nodded.

"You asked."

The world around them began expanding.

The child stepped backward.

"I didn’t make anything."

"You asked a question."

"That’s different."

"Is it?"

The memory shattered.

I opened my eyes.

I was back in the classroom.

Everyone was staring at me.

Noah was holding my shoulder.

"Adrian?"

I blinked.

"How long was I gone?"

"Seconds."

"Maybe five."

The First Reader looked terrified.

"What did you see?"

I told him.

His expression slowly changed.

"You saw the beginning."

"The real beginning."

I nodded.

"But there was something else."

"What?"

I looked toward the empty teacher’s chair.

"The child asked who made the world."

Lucien’s face became pale.

"And someone answered."

"Yes."

"Who?"

I shook my head.

"I couldn’t see their face."

The First Reader whispered,

"Then it’s still hidden."

"What is?"

"The second observer."

I frowned.

"You said there was one."

"I was wrong."

He looked at the others.

"There were two."

The classroom went silent.

"The first observer asked the question."

"The second..."

He looked toward the empty chair.

"...answered it."

The Editor slowly understood.

"And if the first observer created the Story..."

"Then the second one created the answer."

Lucien looked at me.

"And the answer became the Author."

I felt a chill.

"The Author wasn’t the first."

"No."

"He was the second."

"Yes."

"Then who was the first observer?"

Nobody answered.

I already knew.

The person from the hospital.

The one I had loved.

The one who told me to forget.

The one who had waited beyond the Black Door.

They weren’t the answer.

They were the question.

I looked toward the window.

For a moment, I saw their reflection in the glass.

They were standing behind me.

Smiling.

Then the reflection disappeared.

A voice whispered inside my head.

"You finally understand."

I froze.

The First Reader noticed.

"What?"

I looked at him.

"The Observer isn’t asking me to come home."

"What are they asking?"

I stared at the empty classroom.

"They want me to remember the question."

The lights went out.

A single line appeared on the blackboard.

Not written by me.

Not written by the Author.

Not written by the System.

WHAT IS THIS?

Then another line appeared beneath it.

AND WHO ANSWERS?

The First Reader stepped backward.

Lucien reached for his weapon.

The Editor whispered,

"Nobody move."

The classroom door slowly opened.

Beyond it wasn’t the academy corridor.

It was the white space from my memory.

And standing in the doorway...

Was the child.

My younger self looked at me.

Then smiled.

"You took long enough."

He stepped aside.

Behind him was a path made entirely of words.

At the end of it...

Someone was waiting.

I didn’t need to see their face.

I already knew.

The Observer.

And this time...

They weren’t watching from a distance.

They were waiting for me to walk toward them.

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