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Edwin Chong. Once a celebrated novelist, now a near-silent shadow. He had retreated into his reclusive world of darkness and words. His once-strong body denied him daily now, each breath he took heavier than the last.
A dilapidated house on the outskirts of town kept him within its dark walls. Once a beautiful rosewood writer’s den, it was filled with ageing manuscripts, the bated breath of horror novels, and the cloying scent of nostalgia.
The crime writer simply couldn’t put pen to paper; inspiration wouldn’t flow, and neither would his words. He penned fewer and fewer novels; orders for them eventually disappeared. He became lost in the cobwebs of his mind, his thoughts becoming tangled with a dark notion- to write his death- was a way of rewriting his life.
The opportunity for him to recreate himself–his life–came one day in the form of a letter. Untitled, anonymous. The words crept beneath his skin- details of the symptoms of the sickness he was experiencing, down to a T. Symptoms no one knew anything about. In it was the ominous refrain:
“Recraft your ending to know what ails you.”
There was nothing to do but follow the cryptic directive. Struggling with his mental health, Edwin began to pen a novel–one where the protagonist died in mysterious circumstances.
As the novel took shape, the events followed. What he put on paper…
Manifested.
The first of the stories he wrote after receiving the letter was about a shadowy stalker who lurked outside his home. Soon after publication, a mysterious figure appeared outside his window.
The protagonist became consumed by a fatal illness. Edwin himself experienced symptoms similar to those he wrote about.
In one more, his protagonist came across an obituary of himself in the newspaper. He nearly gagged on his coffee when he saw one of his own in the Nation Times.
Things came to a head when he received a voluminous manuscript – over 50 pages that he had no recollection of–foretelling his death in bone-chilling detail.
Margaret, his long-absent sister, dropped in for an unexpected visit.
“Edwin, you know we love your writing. But writing your own death seems—unnecessary. Morbid.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Edwin turned away, dismissing her words. Uneasy, she turned to an old family friend and detective, Rowan Lee.
He watched Edwin’s home discreetly — confrontation would only hinder. The stalker, obituary and manuscript—were eerie, but trivial enough to be mere coincidences.
As the novelist’s health continued its accelerating decline, the disease became a part of the story he was penning. Struggling with a myriad of thoughts in his head, he became convinced that his illness was part of his story–the line between fiction and death had become blurred.
The manuscript lay before him, the ink glistening as though freshly spilled. Except that he had not raised his pen in hours.
Driven by desperation, he penned his own death scene, as though the words themselves could free him from his fate. As his heart palpitated, the storm outside mirrored its rhythm. His reality had an uncanny echo.
Lightning flashed outside his window, illuminating his reflection–he was a gaunt ghost of his former self. The walls caved in, and the air became dense with the scent of old paper and something else. Something that signaled the end.
His heart hammered wildly, each throbbing beat a toll of the inevitable.
A whisper sounded from the unseen: “You wrote this.”
The clock struck midnight, and with it, Edwin Chong drew his last breath. He passed, exactly as he himself described, in circumstances that would turn one’s skin into a field of goosebumps.
Including Detective Rowan Lee. As he reviewed, he blinked.
His scepticism came apart as he put together the details of Edwin’s death. Each moment of his investigation advanced the horror story.
He had no choice but to leave the case open. He wondered–did Edwin lead himself into an early grave, or had fate intervened in the cruellest way possible?
As Edwin’s sister, Margaret, read her brother’s final words, she wondered: Had her brother created his own fate, or had it created him?
A few days later, another letter arrived, as if in answer:
“Edwin’s story is but a short chapter in a tale yet to be told.”
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Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui Lin
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