"The Ghostwriter"

Chapter 1: The Manuscript

The package arrived at midnight.

Elliot Thorne wasn’t expecting anything—certainly not a battered manuscript box tied with twine, left on his doorstep without a note or return address. He carried it inside, the weight unsettling in his hands. Too light to be a full novel, too heavy to be empty.

He cut the twine.

Inside was a single stack of paper, the title page typed in stark black letters:

"THE LAST CHAPTER"

By Elliot Thorne

Elliot frowned. He hadn’t written this.

He flipped to the first page.

"Elliot Thorne woke to the sound of something scratching at his door. It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t an animal. It was the sound of fingernails on wood—slow, deliberate, like someone testing the lock."

Elliot’s breath caught.

That was his name. His apartment. Even the description of his threadbare bathrobe was exact.

He kept reading.

The story unfolded in real time—Elliot reading the manuscript, Elliot checking his door (it was locked), Elliot pouring a drink to steady his hands.

Then, halfway down page three:

"Elliot didn’t notice the shadow under his couch at first. Not until it moved."

Elliot’s eyes snapped to the floor.

Nothing there.

He laughed, nerves frayed. Coincidence. A prank.

But when he turned to page four, fresh ink was spreading across the paper—words forming right in front of him.

"Elliot told himself it was a joke. He was wrong."

Chapter 2: The Protagonist

By dawn, Elliot had read the entire thing.

It was his life. Every detail perfect—his childhood fear of mirrors, his ex-wife’s perfume, the scar on his knee from a biking accident at twelve.

And it was getting darker.

The manuscript described things Elliot hadn’t done yet.

"Elliot called his editor at 3 AM. ‘Did you send this?’ he whispered. Static crackled in reply. The line went dead."

Elliot’s fingers hovered over his phone.

He dialed.

His editor picked up on the second ring. "Elliot? Do you know what time it—"

The line filled with a deafening screech. Elliot yanked the phone away—just as the manuscript’s next line appeared:

"The scream wasn’t coming from the phone."

Behind him, the bedroom door creaked open.

Chapter 3: The Plot Twist

Elliot fled to a hotel.

He tore the manuscript apart, burned pages in the sink—but the next morning, it was back on his nightstand, intact. New passages had appeared.

"Elliot thought distance would save him. He was wrong. The story always finds its protagonist."

He tried to outsmart it. If this was some cursed autobiography, he’d change the narrative. He drove to a bar, drank until the room spun—anything to deviate from the text.

But when he checked the manuscript:

"Elliot ordered his fourth whiskey. The bartender watched him with pity. She didn’t realize she was in the story too—her death was already written."

Elliot vomited.

The bartender frowned. "You okay?"

He didn’t answer. He was too busy reading the fresh ink unfurling beneath his fingers:

"Her throat was slit at 2:17 AM. Elliot would find the body."

Chapter 4: The Final Draft

By the third day, Elliot stopped fighting.

The manuscript now had 200 pages. He skimmed ahead, heart pounding—and froze at the last chapter.

"THE END"

It described his death in meticulous detail.

"Elliot’s final breath left his lungs at midnight. His last thought? That the shadow holding the knife looked exactly like him."

The clock read 11:58 PM.

Elliot grabbed a pen. He scratched out the ending, wrote a new one—"Elliot lived happily ever after"—but the ink slithered off the page like oil.

11:59.

The lights flickered.

Something stepped out of the bedroom mirror.

Elliot’s own face smiled back at him.

The clock struck twelve.

The manuscript’s final line inked itself:

"The End."