Episode 3: The Third Hand
1605 Words
Lam’s last message came at 2:17 a.m.
Just one line.
“I didn’t think you’d choose this.”
No anger.
No accusation.
Just cold.
Like frostbite.
I read it seventeen times.
The night after I reported her plagiarism, I didn’t sleep. The lamp stayed on. My eyes stayed open. That single line stared back at me like it knew exactly where to dig.
School stayed silent. But social media didn’t.
In a private group of 12th graders, a new anonymous post surfaced:
“Some people will step on others just to shine.
But fake morality is just another mask.”
It exploded.
Hundreds of likes, comments, screenshots, twisted captions, even quotes taken out of context.
Lam didn’t say anything.
But everyone spoke for her.
“Nguyễn An’s lost his mind.”
“He’s just jealous Lam’s better.”
“Maybe she was inspired by his writing. That’s not theft.”
And the one that hit hardest:
“Sensitive kids who write too much tend to imagine too much.”
I didn’t go to school for three days.
I told my parents I was sick.
They didn’t ask questions.
I shut off my phone. Disabled Wi-Fi. Killed the lights in my room.
And wrote.
Wrote like someone drowning. Like words were my last breath. I wrote through the day, through the night, until the lines blurred into fog.
And then — the third hand appeared.
A new message. Not from the previous ‘Unknown’.
[The Third Hand]: “I read the final scene of your story. You didn’t kill the character. But you made them hurt enough to finish it themselves.”
I froze.
No one had access to that new draft.
[The Third Hand]: “You’ve lost her, the club, your voice.
I can help you get it back.”
I started digging. And I got scared.
“The Third Hand” was a phrase whispered among anonymous writer circles — ghostwriters who fed words to public figures in exchange for money, leverage, or silence.
But in high school? No way.
Yet the messages kept coming — excerpts from my drafts, sentences I typed on Notepad and deleted. Even a line I muttered out loud once.
[The Third Hand]: “You’re writing to survive.
But if others are going to read it,
You have to write so it hurts them, too.”
An offer. And a hidden truth.
[The Third Hand]: “I have a project. A character. A real story. Will you write it?”
Me: “Who are you?”
[The Third Hand]: “The person whose name was removed from an article you don’t even remember reading.”
That shook me.
It wasn’t a metaphor.
Last year, I’d read an emotional article about a student winning a national writing award. But no author was credited. Just a vague “story collected by…”
I remembered the language.
It had something familiar.
Now I knew why.
The first meeting.
A gray café near Long Biên station.
Drizzling. Sky dull.
I arrived early. Heart thudding. In the back corner sat a girl in a cap and mask.
She smiled faintly as I approached.
“Don’t worry. I’m not a teacher. Not a hacker. Just like you.
Someone who stopped writing for themselves.”
Her name was Linh.
Not a student from my school. A second-year university student. But she’d once studied with Lam. And she knew the system behind the awards, the contests, the pre-written glory.
“You want your voice back?”
“Yes.”
“Then write. But this time, not to prove anything.
Write to destroy.”
We wrote. But not with pens.
We made a secret account.
Posted daily — short fiction about a girl like Lam, a boy like me, and a third hand… like Linh.
No one knew the truth.
It spread like wildfire.
Comments flooded in. People tagged each other. Speculated.
“What school is this author from? The writing’s unreal.”
“So raw it feels too real.”
“Is this based on someone?”
And then — Lam commented:
“Some stories shouldn’t be told.
Especially when the ending’s not yours.”
My fingers went numb.
The cost of not staying silent.
Three days later, I got summoned to the principal’s office.
The headmaster stared at me, asking only one question:
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I said nothing.
Not out of fear.
But because I knew: if I spoke, they’d bury the story.
That night — the story resurfaced.
A major literature fanpage reposted it. No one knew who sent it.
But at the end of the post, in bold:
“Written by Nguyễn An — Class 12A4”
I didn’t sign it.
Someone else did.
Lam came to find me after school.
She stood outside my class.
No makeup. No phone. No friends.
“I thought you were weak.”
“I thought you’d stay quiet forever.”
“You were wrong,” I said.
“No. I was right.
I just forgot…
Sometimes, the weak write truths the strong can’t bear to speak.”
I didn’t respond.
She left.
This time — I didn’t look back.
Uyên sent one last message:
“Thank you for choosing not to stay silent.
Though speaking out can be a different kind of hurt.”
I replied:
“I don’t write to attack anyone.
I write to remind myself that I was here.”
The Third Hand disappeared. But not completely.
Linh’s account vanished.
No new stories. No replies. Gone.
Except one last post, left behind:
“When someone learns to write their own ending…
The storyteller becomes temporary.”
Fame was never the point. But it came anyway.
Three days after the repost, I was stopped in the hallway.
Not by teachers.
By students from other classes — even juniors.
“You’re the guy from that story, right?”
“Are you writing about Lam?”
“Wait… is it really fiction?”
I smiled politely. Said nothing.
It didn’t matter what I said.
When people already have a story in their heads, your truth is just noise.
I got an email I didn’t expect.
From the national literature contest committee.
“Dear Nguyễn An,
Your writing was brought to our attention by an anonymous reader.
We would like to invite you to submit your future work directly to our platform.”
I re-read that line over and over.
They didn’t mention Lam.
Didn’t bring up the scandal.
But the timing was clear:
Someone noticed.
Linh didn’t reply anymore.
Not on chat. Not by email.
I sent one message.
“Was this always your plan? To push me forward, then vanish?”
No response.
But when I logged into the old blog we used — the anonymous one — there was a draft. Untitled. Hidden.
I opened it.
It was a letter.
“Every writer needs a moment when they stop being a ghost.
When their pain becomes theirs again.
I was never here to save you.
I was here to remind you how sharp your words are.
Now use them.
For your own stories.”
I stood in front of the mirror. Again.
This time, not looking for cracks.
I read a paragraph I had written that morning. Out loud.
My voice didn’t shake.
For once, the reflection didn’t look like someone pretending to be a writer.
It looked like someone who’d survived writing.
Someone who knew what it cost.
One month later — I gave a talk.
Not at a contest.
At a nearby school.
An English teacher had reached out after reading the blog posts. She invited me to speak to her students about storytelling.
I almost said no.
Then I remembered the version of me who had written in the dark, who had been erased, who had been told he was “too much.”
I showed up.
“Writing isn’t about being perfect,” I told them.
“It’s about being honest — even when it hurts.”
In the audience, one girl raised her hand.
“If someone copies you, do you fight back? Or let it go?”
I paused.
A few months ago, I would’ve stayed quiet.
Now, I answered:
“You protect your voice. Not to punish them.
But to remind yourself you have one.”
She nodded.
Wrote something in her notebook.
That moment — small as it was — felt bigger than all the likes in the world.
The classroom was quiet when I finished.
No applause. No excitement.
Just silence.
But not the kind that suffocates.
The kind that listens.
Back home, I received one final message.
It was from a username I didn’t recognize.
But the words?
The words were hers.
[Unknown]: “I’m not asking for forgiveness.
I just hope you keep writing.
You were always better at saying the things I couldn’t.”
I stared at the screen for a long time.
Then I typed:
“Thank you.”
And sent it.
That night, I wrote again.
But not about Lam.
Not about Linh.
Not about being stolen from or surviving.
I wrote a story about a boy and his shadow —
A shadow that tried to imitate him, but could never bleed like he did.
And the boy?
He forgave the shadow.
Because he’d outgrown it.
Maybe that’s what writing is.
Not revenge.
Not escape.
But return —
To yourself.
To the wounds that made you.
To the silence that shaped you.
And this time,
To a voice that no longer needs to hide.
To be continued....
- Writer
