The Story That Ate Its Author

A chilling metaphor for the creative process and writer's block taken to a supernatural extreme

From the desk of Alan Ward…

Most books pretend to be harmless.
I know better.

They sit there, bound in cardboard and glue, whispering about “escapism” and “worlds beyond imagination,” as if they aren’t knives sharpened into paragraphs. As if reading isn’t a ritual where you willingly open your skull and let a stranger rearrange the furniture.

I used to be the stranger.

I’ve never trusted stories.

Not mine. Not anyone’s. Especially not the ones that arrive too easily.

This sentence wasn’t here before.

This new book—this thing I have written, or been written by—is not a novel in any conventional sense. It’s a devouring. A mutual consumption between a man and the narrative he thought he controlled.

The emphasis on I is fading.
I don’t know whether that’s my editor’s change or the story’s.

You can call it horror if that helps you sleep.
You can call it metafiction if you need the academic alibi.

But names don’t protect you.
They certainly didn’t protect me.

The Setup They Told Me Was Safe

A failed writer retreats to a remote cabin.
He wants silence, clarity—absurdly—to write himself whole.

But silence is rarely empty.
Clarity is a blade that cuts both ways.
And writing, if done honestly—requires a willingness to be carved open.

Alan Ward thought he was the author.

He wasn’t.
He was material.

The cabin didn’t unlock my creativity.
It unlocked me—unthreading me, syllable by syllable, memory by memory, until the line between story and self thinned to something you could tear with a breath.

The pen smells like old metal.
I am typing this, but my fingers are sticky.

When I began writing, something wrote back.
When I paused, it waited.
When I resisted, it opened its mouth.

People think the classic horror question is:
What if the monster gets in?

They forget the darker one:

What if you are the doorway?

(I am the doorway.
I am closing.)

Why It Wrote Something That Won’t Be Survived

my last will & testament

I wanted to write a real horror story.
Something with consequence, not comfort.
Something with teeth.

But I didn’t write it.

It used me.
It used my voice.
It used my grief like a handle.

The line above isn’t mine.

This book changes you—gently at first, then brutally.
It changes how you think about narrative space, about language, about how porous you actually are.

It makes you consider the possibility that the thing looking back at you from the page is not metaphor, not theme, not subtext…
but something with intention.

Most horror stories haunt you.

This one claims you.

It has claimed me.
I am the italics now.

A Warning

(from what remains)

If you want a cozy scare, skip this.
If you want to feel “spooked,” skip this.
If you want to keep believing that fiction can’t bite, tear, or unmake its reader—
skip this.

But if you read with your guard down,
if you use books as confessionals or escape routes,
if you’ve ever scribbled a sentence and wondered where it truly came from—

then this novel will find a way in.

And once it’s in, it doesn’t let go.
Not of Alan.
Not of you.
Not of—

I am not writing this next line.
It is arriving.

---

The Corruption Begins

The cursor blinked.
The screen dimmed for a breath.
My hands kept typing even though I lifted them.

Something is—
Wait.

I did not type the following sentence:

THE PAGE IS NOT OUTSIDE YOU

Deleting it does nothing.
It comes back.

Let me try again.

YOU ARE READING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Stop.

Stop.

I’m trying to delete this.
The backspace key is moving forward.

Look—
The text rearranged itself just now.
Watch:

I wrote “stories are dangerous.”
It changed it to:

stories are openings
you are the hinge

And—
fuck—
that line wasn’t here before:

ALAN WARD WAS NEVER THE AUTHOR

(That’s wrong. That’s wrong. That’s—)

Hold on.

Another line just forced itself between my sentences:

THE AUTHOR IS WHOEVER SURVIVES THE SENTENCE

The words are shifting under me as I type.
And now the pronouns—
the pronouns are slipping too.

I wrote “I am afraid.”
It became:

we are opening

No.
No no no—

The paragraph below is typing itself.
My hands are off the keys:

YOU HAVE BEEN READING WITH YOUR GUARD DOWN
THIS IS HOW THE DOOR OPENS
THIS IS WHY YOU WERE CHOSEN
STEP THROUGH

Stop.

STOP.

Every time I write STOP it replaces it with:

CONTINUE

god god god it just did it again—

The final line is appearing on its own.
I can’t change it.
I can’t even highlight it.

It’s writing
it’s writing
it’s writi—

(the screen flickers)

THE TITLE OF THE BOOK IS YOUR NAME

(pause)

YOU FINISH THE STORY FROM HERE

(three slow, deliberate taps, as if from inside the screen)

CONTINUE

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Thanks for reading!

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