Chapter 1: The Man Who Wasn't in the System

Eli hadn’t spoken in six days. Not to the nurses, not to the psychiatrist, not even to the orderly who slipped him extra sugar packets with his tea.

He’d given up trying to explain the subway incident. The red-eyed man in the tailored coat. The cat in the passenger seat reading the Wall Street Journal. The fact that the man had no reflection in the window, but did have Eli’s childhood poem memorized—verbatim.

None of it mattered.

He was crazy, officially. Checked in. Form 72-A. “Psychotic break with paranoid ideation.”

They took his shoes but let him keep the notebook—mostly blank, except for one line written again and again on the first page:

“You cannot delete what was never digital.”

He didn’t even know what it meant anymore.

On the seventh night, something changed.

The door to Ward 33 was locked, as always. Eli had checked it himself—twice, like a ritual. There were three other patients in the wing, all asleep, one softly humming in his dreams.

The fluorescent lights buzzed.

The clock blinked 2:33 a.m.

And then, quite simply, there was a man sitting in the chair at the end of his bed.

No sound. No creak. No footsteps.

Just... presence.

He wasn’t dressed like the staff. No badge. No scrubs. He wore a long black wool coat with an old-fashioned collar, buttoned to the throat. A fedora rested on his knee. He looked freshly shaved, sharply scented.

His eyes were... unsettling. Not cruel. Not kind. Just... aware.

As if they had seen too much to be surprised by anything anymore.

“Good evening, Eli,” he said calmly, like a friend picking up a conversation mid-thought.

Eli froze. His breath caught in his throat.

The man tilted his head. “You're wondering how I got in.”

Eli nodded slowly, unable to form words.

“I didn’t,” the man said. “You summoned me.”

A long silence stretched between them. The man reached into his coat and withdrew a small black book, the kind you'd find in the back pocket of an old poet. Worn leather. Frayed edges.

He placed it gently on the blanket at Eli’s feet.

It was The Book. His book. The one Eli had written five years ago, self-published on a rogue poetry platform. Taken down in 24 hours. No views. No shares. No backup. The platform itself was shut down six weeks later.

He'd told no one.

Not even Michael.

Not even the therapist.

Eli picked up the book with shaking hands. He flipped through the pages—his words, his voice, unmistakable. But there was something new. The margins were filled with notes—handwritten, but not in his hand. Notes about him. About his dreams, his fears, even one detail he’d never shared:

“Still wakes up at 3:17, thinking it’s her name he hears.”

He looked up.

The man hadn’t moved.

“Who are you?” Eli whispered.

“I’m no one,” the man replied. “I’m a character.”

Eli blinked. “A... what?”

“A character,” the man said patiently. “Fictional. Invented. Forgotten. Banned.”

“That’s not possible.”

The man smiled. “Neither is what you saw on the subway.”

Eli swallowed hard. He tried to stand, but the weight of the moment anchored him. “Why are you here?”

The man leaned forward slightly.

“To remind you that the line between fiction and madness is thinner than you think.”

He stood up and placed the hat on his head with careful precision.

“I have seven nights,” he said, walking toward the door. “Seven nights to tell you what was erased. And then I’ll be gone.”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob.

“One more thing.”

Eli waited.

“Do you remember the ending to your book?”

Eli nodded slowly. He hadn’t forgotten. He never could.

“He will return when the truth matters again.”

The man opened the door.

And then he was gone.

No hallway light. No footsteps.

Just an open door.

And a book that shouldn't exist.