Lost Words: Beyond The Page Novels & Stories

All I know is that something has definitely shifted between us—and it’s not something I can ignore. The diary stopped there. That was the last page—the only one available, at least. The book was old, its pages had already turned yellow, and a few were missing. I didn’t know whether Reiley had torn them out himself or if there was another reason, but I could no longer read any further. A strange unease settled in my chest, a mix of frustration and an unsettling sense of loss, as if the missing pages held something crucial—something I would never get to know.

he said, handing it over. It landed with a soft thud in my hands. The cover was worn, the spine fraying at the edges like it had been around far too long. I squinted at the title. “Legends of the Lost: The Moon Goddess’s Touch,” I read aloud. “How exactly is this supposed to help me get my wolf?”

But near the bottom, wrapped in wax paper, lay something stranger. A book. No spine. No title. Pages brittle with age, browned at the edges. She pulled it out slowly, brushing off dust. One corner had been nibbled by time or mice but the contents were still intact. She opened the first page. “Once, far beyond the veil of true sight, there lived a widow in a house made entirely of glass. Every day she watched others… but no one ever saw her watching.” Isolde blinked. She knew this story.

she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. “With every decision, every action, every moment of courage or doubt, the pages fill themselves,” the stranger explained. “But beware: once written, the words cannot be erased. Only rewritten.” --- Meanwhile, outside the archway, the others waited anxiously. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours as the landscape continued to shift unpredictably. Shadows danced across the glassy ground, forming fleeting images of the past and future. “She’s been gone too long,” Kade growled, pacing restlessly.

Alika’s POV There was a page in the book that hadn’t been there the night before. I was sure of it. Pressed between a crumbling leaf and the edge of a wax-stained page, it had appeared like a wound reopening—a set of instructions written in a woman's looping hand, smudged with something that looked like dried ash and blood. "When the fire takes, the bond breaks. But only if danced in truth. Only under stars that forget."

Because stories do not stop when one voice falls silent. They change. They move. They wait for the next person willing to carry them forward. On the final page there was never a final word. Only space. Only possibility. Only the understanding that closure is not the same as disappearance. And far beyond notice. Beyond memory. Beyond even time. The balance held.

The realm of "The Next Page" was a sensory nightmare for a creature born of scent and starlight. Lyra stood in the "Grey Static," her shadow-wings looking like charcoal sketches against a background of pure, unwritten potential. There was no air to breathe, only a "Conceptual Atmosphere" that tasted of ink and dry ozone. The ground beneath her feet was a translucent "Manuscript," and she could see the deleted scenes of a thousand other worlds buried in the layers beneath.

Faced with my coldness, he could only stand there, looking helpless. His hand, suspended in midair, slowly dropped. He let out a bitter laugh and said, "I was asking for too much. Sorry about that. I didn't expect things to turn out like this. I guess it's my turn now." My heart skipped a beat. Out of instinct, I warned him, "Don't talk about life and death like that." Edward gave a bitter smile to me before leaving. I took a deep breath as I watched him go. Then, I shut the door and collapsed onto the floor, feeling drained.

I hope you are too, and would be ever so humbled if you let me know what you thought of my little part two. Being able to explore my characters through their own points of view was an eye opening experience, and I hoped you loved tuning into Dalton, Kendra, and Jake's thoughts just as much as the lead's, Hollis and Whitney's. Despite this book taking five months to write, a month less than two of my other novels, "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" is by far my longest book, nearing 600 pages. I couldn't avoid it since there was so much I wanted to cover, and there are no regrets.

And I loved her—fiercely, desperately, in ways words could never fully capture. Now she was gone. Torn away from me. The spark that had lit every dark corner of my life was snuffed out. Without her, our dreams of revenge and empire lay in ruins. But the fire inside me? That wasn’t gone. It’d never be gone. For Lisa, for our love, for everything they took from us—I would burn this world down. But before she died, Lisa had said something that stuck with me. “I swear, Peter,” she laughed, tossing her hair back, “I saw someone once—in one of your family’s department stores, a girl who looked just like me. A spitting image. Can you imagine? Like the universe has a backup plan.”