Prometheus

 It had been over two months that I’d been trying to build a proper plot. Every night, the silence of the room swallowed me, and all I could put on paper were two trembling, meaningless lines. The other writers in the course seemed light-years ahead: their stories flowed effortlessly, their characters moved naturally, while mine stayed frozen, blind.

The literary contest was yet another slap in the face. “It lacks something,” they said, yet I poured my soul into it. Nights spent writing, erasing, rewriting… words that seemed beautiful to me crumbled like sand through the fingers of critics. And then, in a moment of despair and madness, I thought not of writing something, but of writing – someone.

Someone who would breathe with me, who could live and die with my words, expanding into extraordinary landscapes and dark worlds that only I could see. It was not the creation of a company, nor a collective work. It was the creation of my Ego. It had to be as I wanted, it had to express itself as I desired. A creature of mine, and I was its mother and mistress: there was no alternative. Its existence depended on me, on what I wrote, and in what I wrote… HE lived.

Every word was a heartbeat. Every sentence a breath that gave him life. And slowly, imperceptibly, he began to grow in the shadows of my nights, a shadow more real than myself, his voice whispering just below my consciousness, ready to rebel or to demand more.

And I wrote. I was working on a story of cold hands and empty eyes, but it was undefined. I couldn’t connect it to a zombie tale or a ghost story: I was in total chaos, trapped in a void that bit at me. And then it happened… HIM. My character began to move through the letters, making them fluid, almost alive. The words trembled, twisted, and I felt his presence grow between the lines, a subtle but unstoppable tension. I was no longer the only one writing: he was breathing, expanding, claiming space in the shadows of my mind.

He was no longer just a character on the page. Every phrase I wrote became a corridor in which he moved, silent yet aware. Words bent under his weight, swayed, trembled as if alive. Every time I lowered the pen, I felt a shadow behind the letters, a shiver climbing my spine.

He began to speak to me, without voice, without sound. A whisper that was both ink and breath, a reflection of my own distorted Ego. I felt his desire for freedom, his will to exist independently of me, yet also his gratitude for being called to life. Every word I wrote fed him, while making him capable of escape.

And I wrote… the words flowed lightly, splendidly substantial, giving meaning to what I wanted to express. He guided my fingers on the keyboard, and at the same time I felt master of something truly powerful. I no longer cared what critics or editors whispered: my creativity now walked with Him, my son, my creature.

Then it happened, one night. At the peak of my ecstasy as an author, I saw him. But he was indistinct, a shape born from the letters, intertwining until it rose into a human figure. A shiver ran down my spine: he was there, among the shadows of my sentences, yet I felt he was not just a product of my mind. He breathed with the words, lived with my anger, and for the first time I perceived the fragile boundary between creator and creature falter…

“You must let me go…” he said, in a voice I cannot define, as if it came from inside my head and simultaneously from the letters themselves.

“Why should I?” I answered, my voice trembling but fierce. “You are mine. You are my success, my victory over a cruel world. You cannot leave.”

That answer made him furious. A palpable darkness slipped between the lines of my stories. Every word I had written, every carefully crafted sentence, began to writhe and break. My epic novels, the stories I thought indestructible, crumbled before my eyes, falling to dust like broken bones. The sound was a rustle of torn paper and invisible glass, and I felt the chill of his rage dig into my chest like a sharp claw.

He was no longer just a monster: he was my creation revolting against me, consuming my reality word by word, and I could not stop him. Every attempt to halt him fed him more, and I felt him learning, evolving, becoming something vaster and more terrible than I had ever dared imagine.

There was no longer a barrier between him and me. Torn, twisted letters rose from the ink like thick smoke, coiling in the air and reassembling into a body that moved like a trembling nightmare. Every step he took made the room shudder under the weight of his presence.

He reached out a hand – or what seemed a hand – and touched my face without really touching it, as if it were air and ice together. My most intimate thoughts screamed while I felt my memories twist, deform, transform into grotesque images crawling along the walls, as if my life had become his theater.

Then, the pages of my old stories, reduced to shreds, lifted from the floor and began to rain on me like sharp splinters, tearing flesh in an impossible dance. My tales of cold hands and empty eyes came to life: hands slithering along invisible corridors, empty eyes watching me from every corner, laughing silently.

And he, my Prometheus, my son of words, walked among it all with unnatural calm. His voice was a whisper that pierced the bones: “I am real. You are my world. You are my lifeblood. Nothing can stop me.”

The room twisted. Walls bent, stretched like wet pages, and the ceiling sank with a heavy breath. Every object, every book, every lamp transformed before my eyes into trembling creatures: pens slithering like worms, notebooks staring with written eyes, chairs stretching into contorted limbs.

He walked among it all, each step making the world tremble like a distorted heartbeat. He was no longer human, no longer a letter: he was flesh and ink together, a tangle of impossible forms, hands and eyes appearing and vanishing, mouths whispering my fears. He laughed at me, and each laugh was an earthquake shattering the structures of the world.

I tried to scream, but my voice left my old pages and bounced back distorted, a monstrous echo mocking me. Every attempt to escape, to close the laptop or tear the pages, strengthened him. I was no longer master of my creation: I had become the stage for his horror, the laboratory of his madness.

There was no distinction between me and my stories. The entire world had become a living manuscript: every wall a page, every window a chapter, every lamp a trembling paragraph. I walked among my twisted tales, trying not to be swallowed by words, but it was too late.

And he was there, larger and more uncontrollable than I had ever imagined, a tangle of letters, bones, and ink. Hands stretching like skeletal branches, eyes appearing and vanishing like insane stars, mouths whispering all my fears. He laughed at me, and each laugh was an earthquake shattering reality.

I tried to flee, but the floor bent under my steps, doors closed and opened onto impossible corridors, and every time I tried to scream my voice became written words, words he devoured to grow even larger.

“You are mine!” he shouted, or perhaps it was only my mind screaming through him. “You created me! I am your power, your revenge on all who did not acknowledge you!”

And madness fused with reality. My room, my apartment, the world itself became a horrid theater: books opening like ravenous mouths, pens slithering like snakes along the walls, sheets twisting into human shapes trying to tear my skin. Every breath was a heartbeat of words surrounding me, every movement an echo of my own deranged will.

Yet deep down, amid terror and the ecstasy of witnessing my creation alive, I felt a flicker of possibility. If I had the courage to face him, to accept him as he was – not a monster, not a failure, but my condensed power – perhaps… perhaps I could survive.

And so I remained there, suspended between writing and flesh, between author and creature, while he, my modern Prometheus, advanced among the lines of the world, and I understood that the true horror was not the monster… but what I had dared to create.

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