I was writing about Jaron's fall into the shadow realm when my own walls started leaking darkness. At first, I thought it was eye strain – you try writing eighty thousand words about reality manipulation without getting a little weird. But then the shadows started forming shapes. Making suggestions for plot points. Offering critiques on character development.

The government calls my ability "narrative causality manipulation." My therapist calls it a psychotic break. I call it an occupational hazard when you're the person writing the stories that document the Parallax Event.

Here's the thing about being a writer in a world where 80,000 people have powers – someone has to record what's happening. Someone has to make sense of it all, turn it into a narrative people can understand. I just didn't expect my stories to start becoming real. Or maybe reality is becoming more like my stories. It's getting hard to tell the difference.

It started small. I wrote about a character who could talk to machines, and my laptop started giving me writing advice. Described someone who could manipulate memories, and suddenly I had recollections of events I hadn't written yet. But the real trouble began when I started the Jaron stories.

You try chronicling a person who can bend reality while maintaining your own grip on it. Every time I write about his fragmented consciousness, I feel pieces of myself scatter across possibilities. When I describe the shadow realm, it seeps into my apartment. And don't get me started on what happened when I wrote about power synthesis – I still can't get the burn marks off my ceiling.

"The stories are reaching critical mass," my editor says, calling from what sounds like underwater. Or maybe another dimension. It's hard to tell through my phone these days. "We need the next installment, but be careful. The last manuscript started glowing and tried to eat an intern."

I look at my hands, watching reality ripple around my fingers as I type. "I'm starting to think these aren't just stories anymore. I think they're becoming... documentation."

"Of what?"

"Changes. The shadow energy Jaron keeps seeing? I think it's leaking through my words. Using them as conduits. Every story creates new cracks in reality."

There's a long pause. "Maybe you should take a break."

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But I can't. Because here's the real problem – I'm not creating these stories anymore. They're creating themselves, using me as a conduit. The characters show up in my dreams, demanding their stories be told. Plot points appear in my coffee grounds. Character arcs write themselves in condensation on my windows.

Last week, I found Raylyn Weaver's resistance team described in detail on a receipt I don't remember getting. Yesterday, the true nature of the shadow realm was spelled out in my alphabet soup. And this morning, I woke up to find an entire novella about the Parallax births written in dust on my bookshelves.

The stories want to be told. Need to be told. Because they're not just stories – they're warnings. Premonitions. The multiverse trying to prepare us for what's coming.

I report to the government facility twice a week now. They monitor my writing, trying to understand how my words affect reality. They've got sensors hooked up to my laptop, measuring narrative resonance patterns or something. The readings spike every time I write about shadows.

"Your stories are creating new Parallaxers," the researcher tells me, showing me data I pretend to understand. "Every time you describe a new power manifestation, someone somewhere develops it. You're not documenting reality – you're shaping it."

But that's not quite right. I'm not shaping anything. I'm just the messenger. The stories already exist in some quantum state of possibility. I just help them collapse into certainty. Like Schrödinger's cat, but with plot points.

The shadows in my apartment are getting darker. They form words sometimes, suggesting revisions. Plot twists. Sometimes I see shapes moving in them – the same shapes I wrote about in Jaron's story. The ones that live between possibilities.

My therapist says I'm losing touch with reality. But maybe reality is losing touch with itself. Maybe that's what the stories are trying to tell us.

Last night, I found myself writing a scene I didn't remember starting. It described a writer discovering that their stories about reality manipulation were actually causing reality to be manipulated. The writer in the story realized they were being written about by another writer, who was being written about by another writer, recursing infinitely through layers of narrative reality.

I deleted the scene. Too meta, even for me. But this morning I found it had rewritten itself while I slept. And added a new paragraph:

"The author realizes, finally, that they're not writing stories about the Parallax Event. They're writing the Event itself, retroactively creating its own history, its own mythology. The stories aren't documenting reality – they're bootstrapping it into existence. Creating a framework for whatever's coming next."

I should probably be worried about that. But I've got a deadline to meet, and the shadows are suggesting a really interesting plot twist about the true nature of narrative causality.

Besides, what's the worst that could happen? It's not like words can really reshape reality.

Right?

Hold on – the shadows want me to add one more thing...