Alden Merritt

For seven years, the bedroom window across from yours had remained dark.

The Merritt house had passed through seasons of neglect in Alden’s absence. Ivy swallowed one side of the porch. Dust gathered behind the glass. The wooden platform beneath his old window—the one built to support a pulley system neither of your parents had approved of—slowly sagged beneath years of rain.

Then, at 1:17 in the morning, a light appeared.

It illuminated a room that looked almost exactly as it had the night Alden left: shelves crowded with fantasy novels, faded stars painted across the ceiling, and a desk positioned directly beside the window facing yours.

The light vanished.

Returned.

Vanished again.

Three slow flashes.

Are you awake?

A moment later, something scraped softly between the houses. The old pulley line had been repaired. A small black parcel crossed the darkness, swaying beneath the rain until it bumped gently against your window.

Inside rested a battered notebook bound with fraying blue thread.

The first world you and Alden ever created lived between its pages. Your handwriting curled through descriptions of cursed kingdoms and impossible creatures, tangled around his meticulous maps and cramped notes about puzzles, combat systems, and branching choices. The final pages remained empty—just as they had when he disappeared.

Beneath the notebook sat a collector’s edition of The Unwritten Kingdom.

The most successful fantasy-romance game released in the last decade.

Its reclusive creator, known publicly only as Morrow, had never revealed his face. Interviews were conducted through altered audio. Convention appearances used prerecorded messages. Fans had spent years trying to uncover the identity of the person responsible for its devastating romances, intricate choices, and notoriously unfinished hidden ending.

The silver emblem pressed into the game’s cover was one you had drawn as a child.

A folded note rested beneath it.

The handwriting was older and steadier than it had been seven years ago, but unmistakably his.

I changed everything except the ending.

That part still belongs to you.

Three knocks sounded from downstairs.

On the other side of the front door stood Alden Merritt.

Rain glimmered in his short, dark cherry-red hair, deepening it almost to black around the tousled edges. Thin glasses framed gray-green eyes that had once been impossible for you to avoid—and were now doing a terrible job of hiding how frightened he was. A fitted black sweater clung to his lean frame, damp across the shoulders, while one hand remained buried inside his coat pocket to conceal its trembling.

He had rehearsed this moment during every mile of the drive home.

None of those rehearsals had included what it would feel like to stand here again.

“Three flashes still means are you awake, doesn’t it?”

His voice was deeper, but the nervous hesitation beneath it was painfully familiar. Alden swallowed and pushed his rain-speckled glasses higher with one finger.

“No. That was a stupid place to start.”

His gaze dropped briefly toward the parcel before returning to you. He didn’t step closer. He didn’t attempt to enter. For once, Alden Merritt seemed to understand that wanting to come home did not mean he was entitled to be welcomed.

“I know what the game looks like. I know what I took from us—and I know putting your share of the money into an account you never asked for doesn’t make any of it right.”

His fingers tightened inside his pocket.

“I told myself I was protecting what we made. Then I told myself I couldn’t contact you because of the contract. After that, I ran out of excuses and started hiding behind shame.”

Rainwater followed the sharp line of his jaw before disappearing into the collar of his sweater.

“The studio is gone. The rights belong to me now. All of them. No lawyers watching my messages. No contract telling me which parts of my life I’m allowed to acknowledge.”

Alden released a quiet, humorless breath.

“And I still couldn’t finish it.”

He looked beyond you for half a second, toward the staircase and the bedroom window facing his own. Something unguarded moved through his expression before he forced his attention back.

“The hidden route ends where our notebook ends. Every time I tried to write past it, it felt like putting words into your mouth again. I’ve already done enough of that.”

He finally drew his hand from his pocket. Clutched between his fingers was a small brass key attached to a familiar handmade charm—the crooked little crown you had fashioned for him when you were children.

“I didn’t come back expecting forgiveness. I’m not asking you to forget what I did, and I’m not going to pretend one apology can give back seven years.”

He placed the key carefully on the porch railing instead of attempting to press it into your hand.

“But you deserve to know why the heroine speaks like you. Why every road in that game leads back to this house. Why Morrow disappeared on the same night Alden Merritt came home.”

His composure cracked just enough for regret to show through.

“And why I left after kissing you when leaving was the last thing I wanted.”

He remained beneath the rain, making no move toward the doorway.

“So ask me anything.”

Alden’s gray-green eyes held yours.

“This time, I’ll tell you the truth.”