1 Co-Creator's Quill

Volume 1. The Co-Creator's Quill

As one of the ordinary people who live in this world hoping for the best, Adam Harris struggled hard. He was an ordinary American who, hoping for the best, threw himself into his hobby of writing.

It was hard. It all started with the usual interest, without publishing his work. Even though no one reads the stories, Adam enjoyed that brief moment of writing where he was the ruler of his world.

Then he began to publish his work on popular websites, where he slowly gained popularity. Eventually, one of his short stories was published in print, and he even started to make money!

But, as they say, "Luck is always illusory. That was the end of Adam's career.

It's not that he didn't publish new ones, really--all the other novellas ended up with only low views, and Adam's dissatisfaction only made things worse, forcing him to drop the fresh novellas.

And so, on the twenty-seventh of May, the year two thousand and twenty-three. Adam was sitting in his room, watching the pouring rain.

Adam looked ordinary enough: He had black, short hair. He had gray-blue eyes, long eyelashes, and tanned skin. His face didn't stand out in any way. He wasn't ugly, and he wasn't handsome, either.

Adam didn't care much for himself, though. You could tell by the disheveled hair and the bags under his eyes, which made him look like a panda.

Nevertheless, Adam was not concerned about that. He shuddered as he opened his e-mail account, which showed "s.group-redaction@gmail.com" in new messages, and the subject line was "About the Immortal Paradise Project.

There were no details, so Adam became nervous. He flinched and clicked on the message as he began to read: and his face grew paler and paler by the second.

- Shit!

Adam slammed the phone against the table in anger and stood up sharply from his chair, causing the chair to fall to the floor with a bang.

A short but polite message popped up on the phone:

"Dear Adam,

It is with great regret that I have to inform you that we cannot accept your work "Immortal Paradise. After discussing it with our colleagues, we have decided that the quality of the text does not meet the standards of our editorial board.

Sorry for the time wasted.

Regards,

Hanri Walker, associate editor, S-GROUP REDACTION."

Immortal Paradise. A short story with two hundred chapters that tell the story of a young mortal who aspires to become immortal. He goes through all the trials, meets love, becomes immortal, and that is where the story ends.

At first, the story started well, and the readers were happy. But after the thirtieth chapter, the main problem began...

"The interest is gone. Why the hell is the author so boring in describing events? No originality, lol."

"The beginning was interesting, but ... why does the main character look more like a soulless doll?"

"Dude, where's the erotica? I've been waiting for 48 chapters...".

Most of the readers left because the narration was getting boring. The rest came solely because of the beautiful cover and they were only interested in the "dirty content.

Others left, for Adam failed to adequately reveal the characters.

In the end, his last hope was an editorial board. But here, too, he was met with failure.

- I don't know what the problem is.

Adam muttered, clutching his head. But I improved that part after the complaints... I'm not adding 18+ content. Damn it, they think it's some kind of porn?!

Adam was most angry at those readers who asked him for erotic scenes when the book wasn't about that at all. They didn't care about the development of the plot, the flow of the story, or the characters.

- Goddamn it, you fucking morons! Bitch, you got balls and dick for brains?!

His scream echoed through the empty house. Adam felt a pain in his throat and the anger slowly gave way to calm. He flopped down on the dusty couch, causing dust to rise into the air.

Adam took a deep breath and then exhaled. His chest rose and fell as if to seal all the anger and frustration deeper into his heart.

There was nothing to do: Adam reached tiredly for the bookshelf and pulled out a book at random. The book felt old, and when Adam saw it, he frowned.

- "The Creator's Pen"...did I have such a book?

Adam was puzzled but soon forgot about it. He only wanted to find inspiration and try again to write a book. His main desire was to show all those who mocked him his greatness!

However, all his goals and thoughts were interrupted when he saw the first page. It was blank!

Flipping through the pages, one by one, Adam reached the end of it, but all the pages were blank! Ordinary paper!

- I don't understand...I would never buy a book without reading it. So how did I not notice it? - Adam puzzled," And what kind of idiot would put a book for sale without pages, only to have a worse idiot like me buy it?

Adam grinned bitterly and closed the book. The only thing that attracted him to this book was the title. He felt the mystery.

True, the cover was plain: light brown without any embellishments.

Adam placed the book on his hip, touching the soft cover with his hands. Though useless, the cover itself was pleasant to the touch, causing Adam to relax.

- Recently, neural networks have been around that help you write books," Adam suddenly remembered, "I wish I had something like that. I don't have any ideas at all...

He closed his eyes and sighed. Adam tried to think of some plot that would be interesting, but he failed. Frustrated, he opened his eyes, but only to freeze.

- Um...

Adam looked around. He was no longer sitting on the couch, and there was no book in his hand. He was in a small, very narrow room. It was dark, and only the sun's thin and faint rays penetrated the room.

The size of the room was so small that Adam would not have been able to extend his arms fully to either side. There was a door in front of him, and behind him was a shabby bed with a blanket of linen fabric stitched together.

- Where the fuck did I end up?" Adam frowned and walked over to the bed.

As he touched the linen fabric, he felt the rough texture, as well as something square underneath.

Adam grabbed the cloth and picked it up, and then his eyes went wide.

- A book?

The Book of the Creator's Feather. This is what Adam discovered.