The bell above the bakery door chimed softly as I stepped inside, taking a break from my novel after my hand started cramping and carpal tunnel kicked in. The warm scent of honey and cinnamon wrapped around me like a memory. I ordered my usual - a coffee with extra cream, extra sugar and a small box of chocolate chip cookies, while trying to ignore the quiet ache that came with the routine. But when I pushed the door open to leave, the air was different. Cold. Silent. My coffee was ice cold and the cookies molded. The street outside was gone, replaced by a sky veiled in white flurries and small droplets of black that bled into each other as they hit the ground, a barren expanse of blackened snow and ice stretching to the horizon.

I knew this place - not from memory, but from ink and paper. It was Calveeset, the frozen-over wasteland I had written in Beneath The Hollow Moon.

And there, in the distance, a lone figure stood against the shimmering mirage - tall, sharp, and dressed in a tattered coat. I froze, my breath catching in my throat. It was impossible, but I knew that face. The face I wrote and sketched endlessly in detail. It was really them.. staring back at me, as if they had been waiting.

They moved first, cutting across the wasteland with a predator's grace, each step leaving a frostbitten mark in the glossy white surface. I wanted to run - to turn back and slam the bakery door shut - but there was no door anymore. Only the endless, hollow expanse. "You shouldn't be here," they said when close enough, their voice low and sharp, exactly as I had imagined it, but weighted now with something older. Something real.

"I..." I tried to speak, but my mouth felt dry, my tongue clumsy. "This isn't possible. You're - You're not-""Not what?" They tilted their head, the faintest trace of a smile curling their lips, though there was no warmth in it.

"Not real..." I paused, my next question barely above a whisper. "How am I here..?"