The humming began to shape dreams.
At first it was harmless—a soft thrum under sleep, like a loom working somewhere far below the new grass. Children woke saying they’d dreamed of letters swimming like minnows. Tor laughed that his snoring had picked up a rhythm. Even Mireya, who trusted nothing that repeated, only squinted at the horizon and said, “Names don’t like to be still this long.”
By the third not-quite-morning, the hum learned a trick.
Sal fell asleep with the ERRATA on his chest and woke with graphite on his fingers that wasn’t his own. Three lines had written themselves across the open page in a small, careful hand:
I dreamed I was a margin.
I dreamed I held everyone in place.
I woke and could not move.
“Reader?” Lena asked, though the style wasn’t theirs. The seam above
