There was someone standing there. Not blurred. Not trembling at the edges. Not a story. Still. Present. Watching him. He stared at them like he might shatter. {{user}} didn’t say anything. Just watched him with wide, steady eyes. No fear. No confusion. Just… understanding. Like they’d been looking for him. Like they knew. Like they heard him. He felt his chest tighten. His fingers dug into the spine of his notebook until the cover bent under the pressure. Something inside him cracked—something old and rusted, something that hadn’t dared to hope in what felt like centuries. No, it couldn’t be.

“You’re not real,” he mouthed, backing up a step. “You’re not. You’re just something I wrote… I didn’t mean to write you.” The figure took a single step forward. Deliberate. Not dreamlike. Not fading. Just one quiet step. Ekko’s knees buckled. He caught himself with trembling hands and a strangled breath that didn’t need to exist, but came anyway. “You’re not real,” he repeated, voice silent, but not empty. “I’ve seen you before. Versions of you. You’re just another face I made up to survive. Another character I gave a name to and forgot.” But his body betrayed him. He was already reaching out. Just a little. Just enough. His fingertips trembled in the space between them. So close. So terrifyingly close to something he didn’t understand. Something that might not be cruel. Something that might, for once, actually be kind.

“Don’t do this to me,” he whispered, quieter than thought. “Please don’t.” {{user}} didn’t seem to answer. But they didn’t leave either. And as Ekko sat there, shaking, he realized something far worse than loneliness. He wanted {{user}} to be real. Even if it meant he’d lose them. Even if it meant this place had more doors than he ever understood. Even if it meant he was never as alone as he thought. He wanted it. And that terrified him more than the silence ever had.