Dan opened his eyes. He lay on the cold floor of a white room, the walls stretching endlessly in every direction. A figure stood before him—pale, translucent, with eyes like frost.
"Where am I?" Dan whispered.
"The cutting room floor," the ghost said flatly. "Didn't I warn you? Your story was ending."
Dan's stomach dropped. "This isn't real. I have a wife. A son and daughter—"
"You had a word count," the ghost corrected, checking an invisible watch. "And I've got better characters waiting. You were just a placeholder." The ghost replied.
Dan pushed himself up, voice shaking. "Why kill me off? I could've lived. It was just a seizure. All I needed was insulin…"
The ghost shook its head. "I don't do rewrites. Honestly, I didn't put much thought into you."
Dan's face flushed. "Then why write me at all? Just to kill me?"
"I needed a way to introduce Felix, your son. His arc matters. Felix's tragedy is going to drive a lot more traffic than your survival ever could."
"Don't touch Felix," Dan snapped, stepping forward, his fists clenching. "Leave him alone. Don't ruin his life too."
"Stories need suffering. No one gives a damn about characters who live quiet, happy lives—they're forgettable."
Dan stepped forward, voice sharp. "Come on now! I bet you don't even know where this story is going!"
"I do, and I don't," the ghost replied, indifferent. "Ideas keep popping into my head. I want to finish the story quickly and make money. My phone's ringing. Real life calls."
The ghost had vanished, leaving behind nothing but silence and the sterile hum of the white room. No doors. No windows. No escape.
He wandered the space, searching for cracks, for seams, for anything that might suggest this was a dream. But the walls were perfect. Immaculate. Eternal.
Time didn't pass here. It simply hovered.
Dan sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and stared into the void. He thought of Felix—his son, his legacy. Would the ghost twist Felix's life into something unrecognizable, just for the sake of drama?
Dan clenched his fists, but there was no one left to fight.
"I don't want to be forgotten," he whispered.
But the room was already forgetting.
Dan began to dissolve—quiet, inevitable, painless. Just ink fading from a page that had moved on.
The white room waited, blank and hungry, ready for the next disposable soul.