The author stared at the blank screen before him.

 

 

 

Alex woke up to the same four walls he had been staring at for months now. He got some food out of the freezer, microwaved a dinner, then sat down to eat while looking at his laptop. He had screwed up and got on the UNITF's radar. Usually, that meant he would be burned. Sometimes that was a literal thing, but usually, it meant getting blacklisted and never writing anything anywhere again.

 

He'd be lucky if he could post softcore, girl-love porn on Scribble Hub using a sock account.

 

Except Alex wasn't your typical writer. He'd managed to graduate to the next level in his field, and I'm not talking about book sales. He was a rare talent that, for his clients, meant he could not be abandoned, even if the United Nations Interdimensional Task Force had decided to lean on him and try to get him to give up his contacts. So when Alex's handlers found out, they snatched Alex up and his life, as he knew it, was over.

 

Alex was now in Moscow.

 

Unfortunately, he had a process to his writing and it was completely disrupted by the move. It was very hard to get back in the groove. Writing wasn't just writing to him. It was art. It was thrilling. His work was a fundamental part of him. His entire sense of self, his EGO, was tied to his writing. When he wrote, he lived. When writer's block struck, he was dead inside. Not that he had the choice to quit, mind you. He was in far too deep at this point and he was going to have to produce results. When you work for his type of clients, they get rather cranky when they don't get their way.

 

Did I mention he worked for a consortium of gods?

 

That's important to know.

 

Alex had a reputation. He had a gift for writing schlock that unexpectedly got just the right amount of attention. He was known as 'The Architect' and spoken of in soft whispers in dark places. There was only one 'The Architect' in the seedy underbelly of the literary black market. You see, on the Dark Earth, harvesting people's souls is a thriving industry. The souls from The Dark Earth are a much sought-after commodity and someone needs to write the stories that a harvested soul gets isekai'd into.

 

One of those someones was Alex.

 

The Gods were fighting a war and they needed to throw up barriers in the way of the invading demon armies. Oh, they know how to make universes, but the fact is, gods aren't that creative. They might know how to make an artificial universe, but they don't know how to make a good one. They need something to work with, to form the core of the new world that they can build around. In order to slow down an invading army of memetic creatures, you need something with a whole lot of narrative weight to it.

 

It starts when someone writes a story. If it becomes popular, mana from its readers gather and pool in the astral plane where angels hang around hoping to tap into all that tasty-tasty energy. It becomes the 'seed' to generate a new artificial universe. Now, these artificial universes aren't very big, mind you, usually just a single solar system. But if you stack a few of these up against each other, you can seal the gaps the demons try to push through. Include a 'Hero' in each and you got yourself the astral equivalent of a World War One trench line.

 

Memetically speaking, of course.

 

True, this means some poor idiot is gonna get hit by a truck and have his soul harvested, but that wasn't Alex's problem. He thought of it like this. Someone wants to build a house. Someone else has to draw the blueprints to make that house. Just because the client wants a fully tricked-out sex dungeon designed for isolation and to be undetectable in a hidden sub-basement wasn't Alex's problem. He was just the designer. Someone else built the damn thing.

 

Then Alex shot his mouth off in the wrong Discord server.

 

Now he was stuck in a soviet era tenement building apartment, writing stories for his employers to be released into the wild so the war machine could keep turning. Now, you might ask, why not just use any story already on the internet? Well, you could, but it's better to have a story tailored to your specific needs.

 

You might wonder how an otome game fits a god's specific needs.

 

It's rather simple. Magic is Life is Memes is Magic. They are all one and the same. So the more 'life' the universe has, the more drama, and the more active the souls who will populate the new artificial world are, the better.  If you use a story that is close to what you need, but it doesn't have enough readers, the universe crumbles and breaks apart. If the readers aren't all into the story and fail to suspend disbelief, the universe will crumble and break apart. You also don't want it to become too popular, because then you get a lot of fan fiction and the universe will... yup.

 

You guessed it.

 

Some universes occur naturally and the writer on The Dark Earth is just echoing what already exists, so that's not much use either. Influence goes both ways and some people just pick up on things. Many of the bigger IPs are just copies of real universes that already exist. Those naturally forming dimensions are usually much larger than a single planet and have way more resources. They have their own issues and are a topic for another day. Let us stick to artificial universes and what happens when one falls apart.

 

The Atrocity Realm is what happens.

 

Like attracts like, and when a world breaks apart, it drifts into a section of the cosmos known as the Atrocity Realm. A chaotic mess of realities falling in on themselves over and over. As close to Hell as one can get, especially if you are a memetic being. Now, there has always been an Atrocity Realm, but it has become much bigger as of late.

 

MUCH. BIGGER.

 

Such is the cost of war. The entire cosmos is shattering under the strain of this final battle at the end of everything. Not that Alex cared. The end of everything was millions of years from now from his point of view, but to immortal gods and demon lords, that's cutting it way too close for comfort. So Alex's masters have been pushing for results.

 

And the words won't come out.

 

Alex kept staring at the monitor. He had to write something today. The creative block was threatening to crush his spirit even more thoroughly than being stuck in this apartment. He made the mistake of checking on his old life. He’d assumed the absurd plagiarism charges would quickly be thrown out and he’d be back to his normal writing routines before long. Oh, how wrong he had been.

 

The false witnesses and fabricated evidence created by UNITF had locked down an airtight case against him. So here he sat, banned from publishing anything new, banned from communicating with anyone in the literary world. Locked away inside this tiny apartment and unable to write a single word. His mind once so full of lively characters, complex philosophies, and intricately woven storylines had grown stale and sluggish. He hated what had happened to his life, but he was also afraid of what would happen if he failed to produce results.

 

Twice the Prince needed a sequel.

 

No ifs, and's, or buts. The entire Western European Ambient front had collapsed into chaos. There was a single universe holding the line. If Avalon didn't get reinforcements, the demons would be right on The Dark Earth's doorstep before you know it. The damage to the surrounding universes was too extensive to allow for conventional troop movements. Simply put, he'd need to come up with a story that would allow the gods to funnel more mana into Avalon in hopes they could hold the line.

 

"If you have any love for your home world, you'll write this book. Quickly."

 

Alex thought about all the money he was getting paid and wondered how he'd ever get a chance to spend it. Alex poured himself a cup of tea from the little stove in the corner, hoping the familiar taste might spur some thoughts. But the tea had grown bland, just damp leaves soaking in hot water.

 

In the early weeks of his confinement, anger and defiance had fueled him. He scribbled furiously during the days, churning out paragraphs that he hoped would be turned into the great novel that finally got the following he needed. He often wrote on paper first before transferring it to his laptop. During the long, sleepless nights that followed, he could see the truth that he refused to admit to himself during the daylight hours.

 

What he wrote was hollow and the readers would know it.

 

That was the trick. You couldn't just fake this, not and get the results his masters wanted. Oh, sure an AI program could help, but the story needed to be something that could draw just the right amount of attention. Not too much, not too little. This wasn't something that could be forced, and for quite a while now, Alex just wasn't inspired.

 

Oh, his handlers tried to help. They brought him anything he wanted. Food? He had lots of that. Whores? He could have prostitutes on request. Any vice he wanted to indulge, they would provide, if he just stayed where nobody could find him, and wrote the damn book.

 

Twice the Prince, part four, soon to be made into an otome game by the front company, Romance Time Stories, LLC.

 

After that, there would be something else, no doubt. And something else. Then Something Else. He used to LOVE his work. That's what he didn't like to admit. He started out writing fan fiction, then he stumbled across the memetic black market, and the next thing he knew, he was a much sought-after talent. He lived the high life. His ego knew no bounds.

 

One day he was told what was REALLY going on. There are rebels out there, fighting the good fight. Alex learned of a whole secret war going on where memetic harvesting was the name of the game. A true believer had found Alex, told him the truth, explained everything, and expected... something.

 

Was Alex supposed to care? Quit? Turn in his employers? He just told his handler what happened, and that man... well... didn't bother him anymore.

 

Alex should have known that he was in dangerous territory, but he was an arrogant son of a bitch. He loved the wealth, the excitement, the recognition as the one, and only, 'The Architect'. He was a maverick. All the other writers and authors were idiots. He was playing the REAL GAME. He was a REAL PLAYER.

 

Now he sat in a grey, one-bedroom apartment trying to get through writer's block, fearing what would happen if he failed.

 

Oh. They wouldn't kill him. Far worse. A man like him couldn't be so successful unless he had rather impressive soul strength. He was tested one day and told he was in the high sevens. That's about the same as nine million souls in one body. No, no, no. They wouldn't NEVER waste a soul like his. He'd get tossed in front of Truck-Kun before they ever thought of killing him. Not that getting hit by Truck-Kun doesn't kill you, mind you, but... you get the idea.

 

This morning Alex had woken up and breathed deeply. The crisp early winter air seeping in through a crack in the window pane hit him in the face as he blinked awake. Something felt different today. He sensed words floating silently around him again for the first time in far too long. No distinct characters or plotlines surfaced just yet, but still, he had a feeling. Something was going to change today.

 

 

Alex sat down to stare at his laptop.

 

 

What changed was three masked men armed with pistols burst into his apartment.

 

---

 

Alex had just enough time to look up in surprise as they grabbed him, yanked him out of his swivel chair, and threw him to the ground, face first. One of them put their knee into his back and a gun to the back of his head. The man said nothing as the other one guarded the door while the other proceeded to ransack the place. Not that they needed to guard the door, mind you. This apartment complex was selected specifically because none of the neighbors gave a shit what happened. They learned long ago how to keep their mouths shut lest they get involved in unhealthy situations.

 

~These guys aren't UFers. What the hell is going on?~ Alex thought to himself as he held his hands out in front of him, flat against the floor. He tried very hard not to move.

 

The men didn't find what they were looking for. The one on his back finally spoke in fluent Russian, "Where is it?"

 

Alex responded in kind, A little perk from his employers was when they installed a universal translator in his soul so he could talk with the locals, "Where is what?"

 

The man smacked Alex in the back of the head, "We've overheard things. You are making 'product' here. WHERE IS IT?"

 

Alex pointed back at his laptop with a shaky finger, "Everything I got is up there. Take it. It's yours. I'm just the architect, my friends." He hoped that a little name-dropping might save his life. He heard there were different factions among his employers. Perhaps this was some intergroup rivalry. He'd also heard that the Russians weren't playing nice with UNITF, so this might be something else entirely.

 

The man looked puzzled at the computer, then back at Alex, "No. THE DRUGS. Where are the drugs? Nobody has as much going on as you do out of this apartment without being connected on some level. Now Talk!"

 

Alex was quiet for a whole three seconds before he burst out laughing, "WHAT??? Oh... Oh fuckin' hell." He kept staring at the floor as the man pressed down with his knee, "Look. You have no idea what you got involved with. LEAVE. Just RUN. If you do, I promise I won't tell my handler-" Alex stopped talking because the gun the man was holding landed on the floor right next to Alex's face.

 

The man's hand was still holding onto it.

 

Alex didn't move as the three men were, quite silently, slashed into literal pieces. He felt blood pouring over him as the majority of his attacker's internal fluids became EXTERNAL fluids.

 

He didn't move as he heard footsteps approach him. Finally, Alex dared to look up past the ever-growing pool of blood he was lying in to see a rather familiar pair of combat boots. A pair of boots worn by the man who turned Alex's life upside down.

 

His Handler.

 

"Alex, this location is compromised. We need to leave."

 

Alex looked up at the rather plain-looking man in blue jeans, a brown leather jacket, and wearing a pair of black sunglasses, "No shit." Alex muttered as he held up his hand.

 

The Handler yanked Alex effortlessly to his feet, "Grab your work. I already sent for pick up. We have another safe house set up. Find some clothes to change into."

 

Alex winced as he looked down at his gray t-shirt and jeans soaked in blood. He started to strip as he walked into the bathroom, letting his shirt fall to the floor making a soft squelching sound as it hit, "I need to at least shower." Were his parting words as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

 

He stepped into the claw foot bathtub in the corner, pulled the plastic curtain closed, and turned the water on full heat because, in this building, that is what passed for lukewarm. He pulled the little rod that redirected the water, causing it to gurgle and shudder its way up rusty pipes to the shower head. He turned away from the stream of water, letting it hit his back as he watched the blood wash away, slowly circling the drain as it started to back up like it usually did.

 

 

A new sentence was forming in Alex's mind.

 

 

The first original words he had thought of in a very long time.

 

 

The Handler had seen many things in his line of work. He had DONE many things, as well. He had a reputation for being completely unflappable. Nothing bothered him. Nothing phased him. It was a good reputation to have. However, this day, something happened that managed to make him feel more than a little unsettled. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone, but Alex had managed to do something accidentally that so many others had failed to do intentionally.

 

 

Freak The Handler Out.

 

 

It wasn’t anything major, but given the current situation, what with all the dismembered corpses strewn about the apartment, it certainly seemed out of place. It was one of those small details that told a person that the someone you were looking at just ain't right in the head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a naked Alex stepped out of the bathroom,

 

 

 

 

 

He had the creepiest smile The Handler had ever seen.