The Wrong Hands
706 Words
Chapter 7
Lena disappeared three days later.
At first, Ethan thought she was ignoring his calls.
Then her messages stopped.
Her social media accounts went silent.
By the second day, panic had replaced concern.
By the third, he knew something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He stood outside her apartment building, pounding on the door.
No answer.
The landlord eventually unlocked it.
The moment the door swung open, a terrible silence greeted them.
The apartment was empty.
Lena's phone sat on the kitchen counter.
Her wallet was still inside.
Her car remained parked outside.
She hadn't left.
She had vanished.
Just like the readers.
Ethan's heart sank.
He knew who was responsible.
Or rather, what.
The story.
The Pen.
The Smiling Man.
Something had taken her.
And he feared she wasn't coming back.
That night, Ethan returned home broken.
The apartment felt colder than ever.
The notebook was waiting on his desk.
Open.
As always.
He stared at it from across the room.
Part of him wanted to burn it.
Part of him wanted to destroy it.
But deep down, he knew neither would work.
The Pen had chosen him.
For now.
As he approached the desk, he noticed something different.
A page had appeared in the notebook.
One he had never seen before.
The paper was old.
Yellowed with age.
A symbol was drawn across the top.
Beneath it were three words.
Children of Ink.
Ethan frowned.
He turned the page.
More writing.
More names.
Dates.
Newspaper clippings.
Photographs.
Every page told the same story.
Missing people.
Unexplained deaths.
Entire families disappearing overnight.
All connected to the Pen.
All connected to a secret group.
The Children of Ink.
A sudden noise echoed from the hallway outside his apartment.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Ethan froze.
The footsteps stopped outside his door.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
His stomach tightened.
No one should have been visiting this late.
The knocks came again.
Three slow taps.
Exactly the same.
Then a voice.
Soft.
Calm.
Almost friendly.
"Ethan Graves."
His blood ran cold.
The stranger knew his name.
"Open the door."
Ethan didn't move.
The voice continued.
"We're here to help you."
Silence followed.
Then another voice joined the first.
Then another.
Then another.
Dozens of voices speaking together from the hallway.
All repeating the same sentence.
"We're here to help you."
The sound was wrong.
Not human.
Not natural.
Like a crowd trying to imitate a single person.
Ethan backed away from the door.
The voices suddenly stopped.
The silence that followed felt worse.
Much worse.
The next morning, he found a letter pushed beneath the door.
No stamp.
No address.
Only his name written in black ink.
Inside was a single photograph.
His hands trembled as he turned it over.
Lena stared back at him.
The photo had clearly been taken recently.
She stood inside a dark room.
Her face looked pale.
Terrified.
And behind her stood dozens of figures dressed in black robes.
Watching.
Waiting.
On the back of the photograph were handwritten words.
We have your friend.
Bring the Pen.
Come alone.
For a long time, Ethan simply sat there.
The photograph shaking in his hands.
Fear mixed with guilt.
Lena was involved because of him.
The missing readers were gone because of him.
Every terrible thing seemed to begin with a sentence he had written.
For the first time since finding the Pen, he understood something horrifying.
The Pen wasn't the only thing hunting him.
Others wanted it.
People who knew exactly what it could do.
People who believed its power belonged to them.
People willing to sacrifice anyone to obtain it.
The wrong hands.
The very thing the Keepers of Ink had feared.
As night fell, Ethan packed a small bag.
The photograph lay on the table beside him.
The address written on the back pointed toward an abandoned church outside the city.
A meeting place.
A trap.
He knew it.
Yet he had no choice.
Lena was counting on him.
Gripping the Magic Pen tightly, Ethan stepped into the darkness.
Far above the city, storm clouds gathered.
And somewhere beyond the reach of the streetlights, the Smiling Man watched him leave.
Still smiling.
Still waiting.
Because the worst part of the story had only just begun.
- Writer
