NOVEL NEXT Book 1: Chapter 32: Not Yours To Touch
Not Yours To Touch
Darkness.
Complete.
Still.
Endless.
No light, no shape, no sense of time. Just pressure, and silence.
Grace stood, or floated. She wasn't sure. The darkness didn't press. It waited.
Did I die again? Is this it? The end?
No answer. Only the soft hum of nothing.
Then came a voice. Female. Familiar.
"Was it worth it?"
Grace turned her head. Nothing. Just black.
What?
"Worth," the voice said again, closer now. "Yeah... was it worth dying for that little shit?"
The words landed like a slap. Casual. Cruel. Honest. Grace's chest tightened. She didn't reply. The voice kept going.
"Was it worth forgetting me?"
That one stopped her.
What are you talking about?
"I thought you didn't forget anything," the voice said. "Photographic memory, right?"
The ground appeared under her feet. Cold. Smooth. Solid. The darkness thinned.
And standing in front of her—
A girl.
Maybe sixteen. Average height. Average face. Black hair. Muddy brown eyes.
Plain. Utterly forgettable.
Except she wasn't.
Grace stared up at her. She knew this face. Knew it better than any mirror.
It was her.
Grace.
Grace had to look up to herself.
The girl crossed her arms.
"So, this is you now," she said. "Princess of the Ashford estate. 'Void' mage. A little 'kid' in training. Are you a plaything now?"
A sneer and she took a step closer. Her expression didn't change.
"And here I was thinking we agreed on something better."
Grace blinked.
She felt cold. Not from the air — there wasn't any — but from inside.
"How..." Her voice caught. "How are you here?"
"You're me," she said. "I'm you."
That should've been enough. But it wasn't.
The girl in front of her didn't look smug. Or proud. She looked disappointed.
"How can you be here?" Grace asked again, quieter. "You're me."
The girl nodded. "Yeah. I am."
"Then how are you standing there?"
"Because you forgot," the girl said. "Because they made you forget."
Grace didn't move. Didn't blink.
"What...?"
"They messed with you, Grace." Her voice was sharper now. Angry. "Some fuckers thought it'd be smart to tinker with your head. With our head. With me."
She stepped forward again.
"You think you walked into this world clean? You didn't. You think you came through the Void alone? You didn't."
She jabbed a finger at Grace's chest.
"You just don't remember."
Silence.
"You should," she said. "You should remember everything."
Grace squared her shoulders.
"I do remember everything," she said. "Every word. Every step. Every face since I woke up in that crib. Nothing's missing."
She paused.
"Except... a few seconds. Maybe. Right after I died."
The older Grace stared at her.
Then laughed. Not loud. Not surprised. Just pitying.
"Oh, wow," she said. "You really are that dumb now."
Grace flinched. Just slightly.
"Seriously?" The older Grace stepped closer. "That's what you went with? You think that missing piece was just... what? A loading screen?"
Grace didn't answer.
"Jesus," the girl muttered. "You really lost it. All that talk about memory. About control. About being better. And now you're standing here like a confused little kitten."
She looked her up and down.
"You lose five minutes and suddenly your IQ drops fifty points? Tell me you're joking."
Grace clenched her jaw. "You're being dramatic."
"No," the older Grace said. "I'm being you. The real you. The one who wasn't this polished porcelain doll with a god complex and emotional issues."
She leaned in. "I'm the one who remembers why you came here."
Grace said nothing. Because she didn't know what to say.
She'd been stabbed in the shoulder. By some two-bit assassin that shouldn't have gotten close. She couldn't even cast in time. Couldn't fight back. She barely moved.
And she had the gall to call herself powerful?
The older Grace watched her. Then scoffed. "You let yourself get stabbed," she said. "Stabbed. At five."
Grace flinched.
"You didn't fight back. You didn't burn her down. You didn't even scream. You just fell over like a pretty little doll and waited for the chapter break."
"I protected Clara," Grace said, jaw tight.
"You almost protected Clara."
Her voice sharpened. "And since when is almost good enough for us?"
Grace looked away.
"I didn't have time to cast."
"Then make time. Adapt. Evolve. Survive. That's who we were."
The older Grace stepped forward.
"I'm here to remind you. Not just who you were. But what we are."
She looked down at Grace — not because of height. Because of weight.
"You didn't come here to be some noble girl with cold smiles and half-baked lies."
She pointed past her, into the darkness.
"You came here to own it. To bend it. To fuck with the strings until the world begged you for mercy."
Grace's breath hitched.
"Why now?" she asked. "Why are you here?"
The girl smiled. "Because they tried to change us. They tried to reach into your head and cut me out. They thought they could rewrite our future."
She raised a hand.
"No. Fuck that. Fuck them."
Then softer.
"But first... you need to remember."
She reached forward.
Tapped Grace on the forehead with two fingers.
"Remember, Princess."
The darkness shifted.
--::--
A living room. Big windows. Clean glass. Washington D.C. skyline outside.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Little Grace sat cross-legged on the floor; papers scattered around her like confetti.
Charts. Notes. Hand-drawn diagrams.
Her voice was bright, fast, excited — she was explaining something about neural pathways. Something she found in her mom's work folders.
Something smart. Something impressive. Her father didn't look up from his laptop. Her mother gave her a glance, then turned back to the tablet in her hand.
"That's all?" her father said after a pause. "You could do better."
It hit like a slap wrapped in silence. Grace didn't cry. She just nodded. And tried again the next day. And the next. And again.
Until she was seven. And the trying stopped.
She escaped; Cartoons. Anime. Novels. Light novels. Games. Forums.
She inhaled everything like oxygen. Heroes. Villains. Broken antiheroes with purpose. The world made more sense when it had theme music and arc structures. She started training. Mentally. Physically. Quietly. Her pillars came later, at first, they were just cool words:
Eruditas. Vitalis. Dominatus.
Sounded good. Felt better. Like control in a world that didn't care if she vanished in it. She knew it wasn't real. She wasn't stupid. But it helped. It was fun. And she was still a kid.
Then it happened. She was eleven. Sitting in her room, legs folded, eyes shut. Mimicking some favorite character's meditation scene — arms at her sides, mind focused.
And then… Whispers in the darkness of her room.
Not thoughts. Not her own voice. Not imagination.
Something else.
She snapped her eyes open. They didn't stop. She thought she'd snapped. Ran tests on herself. Mental checklists. Searched every symptom for schizophrenia. She didn't match. But the voices didn't leave either. So, she listened. And they got clearer. That's when everything changed.
The pillars stopped being words. They became a plan.
And Grace stopped pretending to be something more.
She became it.
The whispers didn't leave.
They shifted. Became patterns. Not voices — not exactly — but fragments. Sounds that sparked something in her brain like puzzle pieces snapping into place.
At first, she just listened. Then she started taking notes. Translating sounds into lines. Lines into ideas. It didn't always make sense. But it meant something. And for Grace, that was enough.
At twelve, she got louder. Not in person. Not at school.
Online.
She created her first real alias. Not the kind tied to a cute profile pic or fandom badge. A real handle. Anonymous. Sharp. A space where she could write what she really thought.
She posted in places normal kids didn't reach.
Obscure forums. Academic comment threads. Nihilist discussion boards buried under layers of irony.
She didn't want attention. She wanted precision. And she started firing.
Threads about structural rot in late-stage capitalist states. Long posts dissecting government theater and the failure of modern democracy. A breakdown of compliance psychology in school systems and how conformity was built through learned helplessness.
The usual idiots tried to argue. She buried them in citations. Her IQ wasn't a joke. And neither was her temper. Every sentence she wrote felt like a blade. And she learned how to make them cut.
Offline, she changed too.
By thirteen, she was lifting. Running. Training. Not because anyone told her to. Because the body was the second pillar. Vitalis. And she was tired of being small.
She learned how to break grips. How to fall. How to throw. She watched sparring videos until the movements were etched into her bones. Then she sparred with boys. Older. Bigger. At first, she lost. Then lost less. Then started winning.
The world still bored her. But she was done being part of it. She was building something else. Something better.
Online she began to use a new name. Something catchy. Easy to remember. Something edgy.
DarkGirl112.
It was cringe. But it worked. The name spread faster than she expected. At first, it was nothing, just forums, comment threads, a few niche boards. But the tone was sharp, and the takes were brutal.
And people listened.
A small crowd formed. Then a larger one. And suddenly, she wasn't screaming into the void anymore.
She was heard. She liked it. More than she should have. The attention. The echo chamber. The validation. They didn't know who she was. Not really. But they saw what she chose to show. And they loved it.
Streaming came next. Just chatting, at first.
She wore outfits she thought were cool. Sometimes she cosplayed. Viewers told her she was pretty. They sent hearts. Emojis. Money. She told herself it was stupid. But she didn't stop.
She loved the attention. It was irrational. It felt real. For once, the world didn't look past her.
It watched.
Then came the shift. She started walking outside. Camera on. No filters. No edits.
She streamed the real world. The trash heaps. The boarded-up buildings. The slums they pretended didn't exist. One night, she streamed from a stretch of broken concrete behind a train line. Alone. Hoodie up. Camera steady.
She wanted to show what it was like — being a girl, in a dead part of the city, at night. So, she waited. Then someone spoke to her. She turned, and beat the shit out of him. On stream.
The chat exploded.
So did the platform. That was her first ban. And then came the message. Not a mod. Not a warning. A whisper in her inbox.
MarleX.
At first, just another name.
But he knew things. Not just tech stuff. Other things. He didn't just unban her — he helped her reroute the stream. Protect her IP. Spoof her metadata.
He called her sharp. Called her clear. They started chatting daily. She told herself he was just another tool. But he never asked for anything. He only gave.
MarleX kept helping.
He never asked for payment. Never said no. He just wanted to be useful. So, she made him feel useful. She learned how to speak softly, how to ask for things in just the right tone.
"I need this, MarleX. You're the only one who could help me."
"If we do this, it'll help me grow."
"I want it this way."
That was all it took. One sentence. A small tilt of the voice. Maybe a smile on a picture. And he'd fold.
He thought she cared. She let him think that. She'd found a tool. And she sharpened it.
By fifteen, the whispers stopped. Just gone. No warning. No fade-out. Just silence. At first, she panicked. Checked her ears. Her breathing. Her notes. Nothing. Then she realized. She didn't need them anymore. The whispers had helped her see. Helped her connect.
But now it was her turn. No guidance. No tricks. Just clarity. She saw through the noise. Through the glass walls around her life. There was more. Not just the surface world. Not just the schools and streams and broken promises.
There were shadows under everything. Depths. Patterns. Pulls.
She dug deeper.
She spoke with esoteric groups. Wandered into threads filled with lunatics, geniuses, believers. People who talked about consciousness like it was code. About souls like data sets. About crossing over.
And for the first time in her life—
She believed.
Not in gods. Not in destiny. In herself.
This world? It wasn't the only one. It was her playground.
And she could choose the next one.
With sixteen she didn't belong to the world anymore. Not to her school. Not to her parents. Not to the noise they called life. She'd outgrown it. She spoke when spoken to. Ate when expected. Nodded in the right places. And no one noticed she'd already left. Her parents had stopped checking in. They stopped asking what she was doing online. Or why she stayed up until 3 a.m. Or what she meant when she said "you'll remember me later."
It wasn't neglect. It was disinterest.
They didn't see her. Not really. So, she stopped trying.
She had no real-life friends. Just classmates. Teachers. Passersby. Their lives were patterns. Predictable. Tiring. She watched them talk about lunch. About dances. About future plans.
It was pathetic.
They lived like the world owed them purpose. But Grace knew better. Purpose wasn't given. It was taken.
Her world shrank. Tightened. Refined. Down to one screen. One keyboard. One name.
DarkGirl112.
Her voice carried. Her words hit. Her camera angles were clean. People called her brilliant. Mysterious. Dangerous. She didn't care about compliments. She cared about control. And she knew what she was doing. Or at least, she thought she did.
She wasn't stupid. She wasn't delusional. But maybe a spectator would say she was ill. But there was no spectator, only Grace.
She thought the numbness was focus.
The obsession? Clarity.
The whispers? A gift.
The isolation? Necessary.
She told herself it was all intentional. Part of the plan. Part of the ascension.
She was fascinated by the morbid. Dead cities. Broken laws. Serial killers and tyrants. Not because she worshipped them. But because they acted.
They changed things.
She kept journals filled with thoughts. Diagrams. Manifestos. Her pillars evolved into commandments.
Eruditas. Vitalis. Dominatus. Knowledge. Strength. Control.
If the world was going to be burned, she would be the match.
And that was what she was.
She was Grace.
And then, right after her final stream—
Silence.
No sound. No screams. No heat. No body.
Just pressure.
Thick. Floating. Unnatural.
The world she left behind was gone. The lights. The walls. The rig. The cameras.
She didn't fall. She didn't float.
She existed.
Inside something that felt like conscious fog, a thick, pulsing void the color of bruised amethyst.
Purple. Pink. Heavy.
It wasn't darkness. It was weight. It clung to her skin like velvet soaked in oil. It tasted like metal and glass and memory.
And it watched.
Not with eyes. Not with focus. With awareness.
She tried to speak. No sound came out. She tried to move. No limbs. No anchor. She wasn't a person anymore.
She was… here.
And something else was with her.
"Ỵ͎o̺̖͝ủ̮'̵̥r͌͜e̴ ň̤̮o͋t ä̺́lͨl̩o͌͜we̥d ț̌o͔͠…̵̗̍"
The voice cracked like a shattered mirror in her skull.
Her memory blurred again, like static across thought. Like black ink spilled across pages.
No.
She concentrated. Tightened her will. Pressed herself into shape.
Focus.
Time was endless in this space; she didn't know how long she skipped again.
And then—
She saw it.
Not her past self. Not the average girl with brown eyes and a forgettable face.
Someone else.
Her—but not.
A tall woman, older. Early twenties, maybe late teens.
Blonde curls. Pink eyes. A manic grin that burned with too many teeth.
She stood in the Void like it was hers. Not adrift. Not afraid.
Certain.
The woman raised a hand toward her.
Tried to touch her.
But only a fracture of pink light broke free.
A flicker. A sliver. A shard of something wrong and bright and burning.
And then—
pull.
Grace's essence was ripped from the Void.
No scream. No farewell.
Just motion.
Then—
light.
She was born.
The world rushed in. Air. Blood. Warmth. Voices. Hands. Names.
A new life. A stolen moment.
And all of it — fractured. Fuzzy. Torn at the edges.
She knew there had been more.
Much more.
She could feel it.
But something interfered, and something was still interfering.
But this—
This was all she could remember.
For now.
--::--
She opened her eyes again.
Back in the dark. Not the Void. A void-shaped space. Still. Solid. Quiet.
And standing in front of her; The girl.
Sixteen. Sharp. Real. Grace Blair. The version that chose death.
The version that refused to be erased.
The original.
Grace blinked.
She didn't speak at first. Just stared.
The version of herself standing in front of her wasn't a memory. It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a metaphor. It was her. The real her. The one she used to be. The one who burned everything down and walked into the void like she owned it.
And Grace—this Grace, the little blonde girl from Ashford—just stared.
She didn't flinch. She just exhaled and muttered under her breath.
"I'm dogshit insane."
The older Grace tilted her head. Grace shook hers.
"No, seriously. I'm out of my mind."
She looked down at her hands. Small. Pale. Perfectly manicured. Hands that had tortured with magic. Hands that had protected a girl she swore she didn't care about.
Hands that had hesitated.
"I died on camera," she said. "In a school explosion. On purpose."
She looked back up.
"I talked to voices in the dark for years."
A pause.
"I built a philosophy out of Latin words and anime quotes."
The older Grace didn't interrupt.
"And I smiled while doing it."
Grace blinked again.
"I really am insane."
And the worst part?
She wasn't even mad about it.
The older Grace laughed.
Not politely. Not cruelly. Just like someone who'd been waiting for the punchline to finally land.
"Jesus," she said, wiping her eye. "You really are something."
Grace didn't answer. The girl kept going. "But you're not insane," she said. "Let's get that clear."
She pointed at her.
"You're not insane when everything you did worked."
She stepped closer.
"You died. You planned it. You came here. It worked."
She spread her arms wide like she was welcoming a crowd.
"You reincarnated yourself, bitch."
She grinned.
"Who else gets to say that?"
Grace swallowed but didn't respond.
"Exactly," the girl said. "So, no—you're not crazy."
She paused, eyes glinting.
"You're just the protagonist in this dumb existence."
She turned, pacing now, arms gesturing like she was narrating her own monologue.
"We should go with it, really. Run the damn script."
She turned back.
"Because guess what?"
Her voice dropped.
"I'm pissed."
She clenched her fists.
"I'm pissed the Void touched us."
"I'm pissed it tried to claim us."
"I'm pissed something dared to wrap itself around our head and twist it like we're some broken toy."
Her teeth bared.
"No one claims us."
"Not fate. Not gods. Not shadows. Not fucking whispers."
She pointed at Grace again, that wild grin back.
"So, here's the deal."
"We walk the path together."
"We purge everything that's boring, fake, twisted, or pathetic."
"Anyone that stands in the way?"
She leaned in.
"We make them suffer."
"For trying to touch us."
"For trying to control us."
"For thinking they could."
She straightened again, proud.
"And maybe then..."
She winked.
"We'll actually start having fun."
The older Grace stepped forward again.
Still grinning. Still burning. She raised her hand.
"Time to wake up, princess."
And she poked Grace on the forehead.
Just once.
And then—
Light cracked through the dark.
Not white. Not golden.
Just... real.
Grace gasped. Her eyes flew open. She was in her bed. Ashford estate. Silk sheets. Heavy blankets. Warm air. Her shoulder ached. Her body pulsed. But she was alive.
Awake. And alone.
For now.