Noon.
The old library on Nowy Świat was a beautiful, crumbling building. The rooftop access was a maintenance door left unofficially unlocked.
I climbed the last flight of concrete stairs and pushed out into the weak winter sun.
The rooftop was gravel and pigeon droppings. The view of Warsaw's spires was indeed stunning.
Kasia was already there, leaning against the low parapet. She wore a severe black coat, her breath forming small clouds in the air. She looked pale, tired.
She didn't smile when she saw me. Her eyes held a frantic, trapped energy.
"Alex. You're here. Thank God." Her voice was a tight whisper.
"Your access?" I asked, getting straight to it.
"Gone. My corporate credentials were revoked this morning. 'Security review.' My personal devices are… silent. Like yours. I only saw your comment because I was obsessively checking your page from a public terminal at the central library." She wrapped her arms around herself. "He's everywhere. In the systems."
"It's a test," I said, more to convince myself. "He's testing what I can do without my tools. Without you."
"And what can you do?" she asked, a desperate edge in her voice. The compulsion made her need to serve, and being cut off was torturing her.
"I have cash. We have this." I looked at her. "And I have my story. That's the core. That's what he can't touch."
"But he can touch everything around it!" she hissed. "Volkov called me. An hour ago. To my private line, which shouldn't be working."
My blood went cold. "What did he say?"
"He knows you're isolated. He offered a deal again. A merger. He said if you refuse, he will use this blackout to launch a new story. One with… with full support. He implied his 'partner' has switched sides." She met my eyes. "He means D, doesn't he?"
So that was "-D"s next move. If I didn't play ball with his chosen proxy (Volkov), he'd give Volkov the boost. He was creating a new, better-funded rival instantly. The ultimate "narrative consequence" for refusing to share the throne.
The hourglass sketch. 3:33 PM.
That was my deadline.
"Where?" I asked.
"He didn't say. He said you'd know."
I did. The sketch. The time. But not the place.
I thought of the hourglass. Sand running out. A symbol of time. A… chronometer.
Chronos.
My story. My username.
He was making it personal.
"I have to go," I said.
"Where? What will you do?" Kasia reached out, grabbing my arm. Her grip was fierce. "Let me help. Please. I can't just… wait."
Her compulsion was turning her desperation into physical pain.
I pried her hand off gently. "You are helping. By being ready. When this blackout ends, I'll need you more than ever. Be ready to move. Have plans to dismantle Volkov's entire operation. Legal, financial, personal. Assume we have twenty-four hours once the lights come back on."
The command focused her. Her eyes sharpened. "Yes. I will. I'll use the public archives. I'll find his weaknesses."
"Good." I turned to leave.
"Alex," she called. I looked back. "Win."
I didn't reply. I just nodded.
I left her on the rooftop, a sentinel overlooking a city she couldn't influence.
3:33 PM. The hourglass.
I had less than four hours to find the location.
I walked, my mind racing. It wasn't a literal hourglass. It was a meeting point. Something tied to time, to my story.
I passed a newsstand. A magazine had a feature on the old town clock. The Zygmunt's Column? Too obvious.
My feet carried me without conscious direction. The Financial Intuition, my only working "skill," wasn't for this. It hummed uselessly.
I found myself outside a modern art gallery. In the window was an installation: a giant, digital hourglass, its pixels falling slowly.
Beneath it, the title: "Chronos Devours His Children."
My breath caught.
It was a sign. A blatant, mocking sign.
I walked in. The gallery was mostly empty. The hourglass installation dominated the main room. The sand (pixels) in the top bulb was nearly gone.
The time on the wall clock: 3:15 PM.
I stood before the hourglass, waiting.
At 3:33 PM exactly, the last pixel of sand fell.
The digital display at the base of the hourglass flickered. Not with art. With text.
"The feed was cut. The network is silent. The pen is all you have left. Write the next chapter here. Now. -D"
A keyboard and a small monitor slid out from a concealed slot in the installation's pedestal.
He wanted me to write. Not on my laptop. Not for my story.
Here. In public. For him.
A performance. An audition.
The ultimate test of the "author" stripped of everything.
I looked at the blank screen. At the blinking cursor.
The cold fire in my chest, starved of fuel for days, roared to life.
He wanted a chapter?
I'd give him a damn masterpiece.
I sat down. My fingers touched the keys.
And I began to write.
//-\\\\
To my fellow authors in the trenches:
They told us we weren't good enough. They sent the cold, automated emails. "Not a fit for our current line-up." "Lacks marketability."
Every time you see Alex Thorn crush an editor in this story, remember: this isn't just fiction.
This is the scream of every writer who stayed up until 3:00 AM pouring their soul into a document that the world ignored. It is for everyone who has ever struggled with low reads, low reviews, low comments, and those painful, stagnant low collections that make you want to quit.
The gatekeepers are human. They are flawed. And in the digital age, they are becoming obsolete.
They sit in their comfortable chairs judging worlds they could never even imagine, let alone build. They look at spreadsheets while we look at the stars.
We don't write for the approval of a corporate board in a glass office. We write for the person scrolling on their phone at a bus stop, looking for a world better than their own.
We write for the ones who need an escape from a life that feels like a dead end.
If you have a manuscript sitting in a folder named "Draft 1" that you're too afraid to post—post it right now.
Stop waiting for permission to exist. If you've been rejected ten times, go for the eleventh. Use their "No" as fuel for your fire.
Alex Thorn had to die to get his second chance. You don't. You just have to keep typing until your fingers bleed and your vision blurs. The industry thinks they hold the keys. They forgot that we are the ones who build the doors in the first place.
Let them call us "cringe." Let them call us "amateurs." While they talk, we build. While they judge, we evolve into something they can't control.
Current Motivation Level: 23%
Next Level: +1%
If this chapter resonated with you, drop a comment. Tell me about the time a gatekeeper told you "No."
ALL HELL FROM WEBNOVEL STARTS FROM YOU!
— A.T.