Chapter One: The quill
The bookshop smelled of old paper and dust, the kind of smell that clung to the air. It was the sort of place where time felt slower, where the hum of the city outside faded into a distant murmur.
"Hmmmm, its old"
Caelum ran a careful hand along the spines of some old books, their covers cracked up with their titles faded.
He hadn't meant to come here today, and his body hadn't been feeling its best lately, even the slow the walk had left his breath thin and his ribs aching.
But to caelum, there was something comforting about old things, about the way they stood still even as the world moved on.
His fingers hesitated over a stack of parchment and loose sketches, tucked away on a low wooden shelf. Some were smudged with charcoal, others water-stained, those works seemed to be left behind by someone who had once cared for them.
Caelum picked up a few of them, flipping through them absently, And that's when he saw something that got his interest.
A leather case, wedged between the pages of a discarded notebook. It was simple with worn at the edges, held shut by a thin golden clasp shaped like an eye.
Caelum glanced around, as if expecting someone to claim it, but the shop was empty save for the old man at the front, leafing through a newspaper. He carefully unlatched the case and pulled it open.
"Ho?" A soft voice escaped his lips.
Inside the case, resting against faded velvet lining, was a quill.
It was long and sleek, the feather dark blue with bits of shifting undertones, it almost iridescent when turned in the light. The metal nib was sharp, seemingly untouched by rust or time.
'It looks way too pristine.'
Something about it unsettled him. In the same way certain things do, when they seem too perfect that they looked out of place.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Caelum startled slightly at the quite voice, the shopkeeper had appeared at his side without a sound.
He was an older man, wiry and ink-stained, a person who looked like he had spent his life among books and parchment.
Caelum glanced down at the quill again. "Yeah," he admitted. "How much?"
The shopkeeper's lips quirked into an odd smile. "For you? No charge."
That made him feel quite odd. "Why?"
"A quill should belong to someone who knows how to use it."
Something in the man's voice sent a chilling cold down his spine, but he couldn't pinpoint it out exactly.
Caelum wasn't in the habit of turning down free things, especially not something as well-crafted as the quill.
He nodded his thanks, tucked the case into his bag, and left.
---
The quill sat untouched on his desk for three days.
Not for any real reason, Caelum had simply been too tired to do much with it. His body had been acting up again, his limbs felt sluggish, his thoughts clouded by the familiar ache.
After all he wasn't in his best condition.
After finishing up his dinner and washing up the dishes caelum went to his desk, he had nothing in particular to do. So on the third night, he found himself staring at the well-crafted quill.
The apartment he lived in was small and quiet. The only sounds he could hear from his room were the distant hum of the city, and the slow ticking of the clock on the wall.
The quill caught the lamplight just so, its dark blue feather gleaming. Carefully, he picked it up.
"It's is lighter than i expected." The quill perfectly balanced in his fingers, as He instinctively reached for a sketchbook.
For as long as he could remember, drawing had been a quiet escape for him, one of the few things that made him feel like he had control over.
When his body failed him, when his lungs wouldn't cooperate, the act of putting lines and drawing whatever he wanted to paper was a escape for him.
He dipped the quill into an ink bottle on instinct, only to realize something shocking.
The moment the nib touched the paper, smooth and rich ink flowed from it without any external source.
"Ha?" That gave him quite shock.
He frowned slightly, but pushed the thought aside. 'Wow, is it some kind of hidden reservoir built into the handle?'
Caelum thought of it as Some modern trick disguised as an antique.
Still, there was something oddly fluid about it. The ink bled onto the page with an ease he'd never felt before.
He started drawing something simple.
A leaf.
The quill moved effortlessly, the lines crisp, the shading was so precise that normally, it should've taken more effort. Even the ink never smudged or dried unevenly.
It wasn't unsettling, but It was way to strange.
After making a simple leaf art, He set the quill down and studied his work.
"Is there a new technology to improve even ones skills?" Caelum wondered out loud.
The leaf was very detailed, more than he had intended. Every vein, every serrated edge was there, as if he had spent hours refining it instead of few minutes.
Caelum exhaled, 'Maybe i am just imagining things.'
Stretching his arms, he sighed. "hah. I should probably sleep now."
He leaned back in his chair, body ached dully because of exhaustion creeping in at the edges, but to him, there was a quiet satisfaction in finishing even a small drawing.
Just Then. Jusy as he reached for the glass of water on the side of the table, He felt a unfamiliar sensation.
It was like a warm gust of wind passed by him. Barely Giving the feeling that something changed around him, his eyesinstinctively flicked back to the page.
Caelum's eyes widened at site of the ink shimmering rapidl. The lines darkened and deepened until the drawing was no longer just a drawing.
Caelum almost chocked on his breath with his expression forzen.
The drawing of the leaf, the detailed art peeled itself off the page.
It hovered above the page, caught between existence and something else. Then, slowly and weightlessly, it drifted down onto his desk.
Caelum's breath was caught thight at the sight of The leaf, his drawing poping out as if it was real. He could see it's tangible edges.
His fingers hovered over it hesitantly, when he finally picked it up, it felt exactly like a tree leaf. Thin, delicate, with tiny veins running through it.
The sudden shock slowly settled over him like a slow-moving tide, as his pulse thudded in his ears. "How is this even possible?"
It wasn't a magic trick, at least it didn't look like one. He had drawn a leaf, and now it existed outside the page.
The dark feathered quill lay on the desk beside him, Caelum swallowed hard but even his throat felt dry.
'what just happened?' He had no idea what was going on at this point.
"This..is it because im too tired?". He looked at the leaf and then at the quill again.
'Im just soo tired that im hallucinating'
Thinking it was a trick of his tired mind, caelum rolled over to the bed and drifted to sleep.
----------
----
"Ugh."
The leaf was still there in the morning.
Caelum had expected to wake up and find it gone, that somehow sleep would reset his brain to normal. he was sure he had imagined it, or that it had been some strange dream induced by exhaustion.
But it was still there. It rested exactly where he had left it, on the worn wooden surface of his desk.
He reached out hesitantly and picked it up again, turning it between his fingers. It felt no different from any other leaf he might have plucked from a tree outside.
Paper-thin, delicate, and so fragile that it made him nervous to press too hard. The only thing unnatural about it was that it shouldn't exist at all.
"Phew."
Caelum let out a slow breath and set it down again, staring at it like it might get up and walk away.
His mind had become a tangled mess of thoughts to think it relationally.
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face with both hands, trying to will his thoughts into order.
"This isn't some kind of magic trick, i know that. And I am not some child to believe in one." Caelum wasn't someone who believed in the impossible. He believed in facts, in the tangible facts, in things that could be explained properly.
"But this, this has no explanation at all!"
His voice was so loud that it left like he was shouting, his gaze drifted to the quill, still resting beside his sketchbook.
Is it a pure coincidence? Had it always been like this? Had someone before him discovered its secret, or had it simply been waiting for the right person? Those were few of his thoughts amidst many.
He exhaled sharply, his hands were trembling slightly. Though he wasn't sure if it was fear, excitement, or something in between.
"I need to test it again to find out.."
Carefully, he opened his sketchbook to a blank page. His fingers hovered over the quill for a moment before he picked it up.
The weight of it was a bit familiar now, balanced perfectly in his grip. The feather caught the light with that same deep blue shimmer, as if ink itself had been woven into its fibers.
He pressed the nib to the page and began to draw. This time, he took his time.
The quill moved effortlessly, it was akin to guiding his hand rather than the other way around. Every line was crisp, every stroke was smooth, it was like the ink had anticipated where it needed to go before he even thought of it.
He drew a simple feather, nothing too complicated. He needed to know if the first time had been a fluke.
When he was done, he set the quill down on the desk and leaned back, watching the unnaturally detailed art of the feather.
At first, nothing happened at all.
His heart thudded in his chest as few seconds passed by, he was half hoping but half dreading.
"yea, i was right about it been a trick of exhaustion the night before."
Just as he was about to laugh it off, the ink shimmered.
He again felt aslow and subtle change in the air, like heat rippling off pavement in the summer.
The feather darkened, with it's edges sharpening rapidly. The paper beneath it almost seemed to breathe in and out. Then, just as before, it peeled itself off the page.
Caelum's breath hitched at the same time.
The feather landed beside the leaf, as light as air.
He swallowed hard staring at it, his mind cycling through a dozen emotions at once.
'This was real? I wasn't dreaming!' a shiver ran through his spine, the fact that all of it was real terrified him to his core.
---
He didn't touch the quill again and a few day went by.
Not because he didn't want to, his hands itched to pick it up again, to see what else it could do, but because the realisation of what it meant settled too heavily on his shoulders.
The world had logical rules, and he had spent his entire life abiding by them, finding comfort in their certainty. The sun rose and set, people lived and died, and ink coming to life was definitely not one of those rules.
But now, suddenly there was an exception. Something that had rewritten the rules in front of his eyes.
'And if one those rules could be broken… how many others could?'
That thought didn't go away, gnawed at him as he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling.
But soon, he gave in on his urges. If the world had changed, then he needed to understand exactly how.
---
This time, he planned carefully. He chose his subject with precision, like before it wasn't something complicated.
A key.
He sketched slowly, testing the limits of the quill's ink. The details were easy to bring out through the quill, the notches, the tiny ridges along the handle, the faint imperfections that made it look used rather than new.
When he was finished drawing, he sat back and waited. Slowly the ink shimmered like before, and the key lifted off the page.
Caelum exhaled through his nose, picking it up with deliberate slowness.
It was cool and solid, its weight was similar to a real. And It was in every way, real.
The key wasn't a copy of a key he owned. It had no purpose.
But that didn't matter, what mattered was that it was real. Something he had brought into existence with nothing but ink and paper.
Something probably no one else in the world had.
As if he forgot everything else, his thoughts thoughts started running wild, 'If i can create a key, Can i create a door?'
'Can i create things bigger?' his wild thoughts took over mind as he stared at the quill for more than half an hour, thinking what he could do.
---
That night as he lay in bed, he thought about the bigger questions he had ignored.
Why had he found the quill? What was he supposed to do with it?
If it had come to him years ago, before the doctors, before the scans, before the quiet conversations that never carried any good news.
Then maybe he wouldn't have thought so much about it. Maybe he would have taken it for granted, and played with it like a toy.
But now…the time was different for him.
He had spent years making peace with the fact that his life had an fixed end date.
Not everyone has the privilege of growing old. Some people were given thirty, some forty or fifty years, some barely got ten.
He had quickly learned not to be bitter about it. Still, there were days when it was harder to accept than others.
And there were nights, where he stared at the ceiling and wondered if he'd be here next year. Or the year after that.
A year or two at most, that was what they had told him.
It wasn't fair, but fairness had never been part of the world he lived in.
"Now, though…" caelum thought out loud as his gaze flickered toward the desk, where the quill sat in the dim light, as if waiting for him.
What did time mean when you could create something outside of it?
For the first time, something like a desire stirred in his chest.
It was a quiet and unfamiliar feeling of Excitement. It wasn't for his own survival, not for some miracle cure, it was for something else.
Something he could draw into existence, that would last longer, even if he didn't. His fingers curled slightly against the blanket.
'Tomorrow, i will try again.' as those thoughts echoed, caelum fell asleep.