Chapter 1
Lina Cruz hated the comment section—but she couldn’t stop reading it.
She sat cross-legged on her thin mattress, her laptop warming her thighs like a faulty heater. Rain tapped softly on the cracked window pane beside her, but inside, everything was still — except for the blinking cursor on the screen and the ache in her chest.
“Another overused metaphor. How original.” — GrimWolf
She sighed and leaned back, letting the sarcasm punch her in the gut the way only GrimWolf could.
It was the third time this week. The man was consistent. Cruel, sharp, surgical. His comments weren’t the mindless insults of a casual troll — no, GrimWolf read. Closely. Thoroughly. And then picked her work apart piece by piece like it offended him personally.
And the worst part?
Sometimes, he was right.
Still, she wished he’d just go away.
By day, Lina worked in a dusty logistics office where the highlight of her shift was the ten-minute break she took staring blankly at a vending machine she couldn’t afford. At twenty-four, her dreams of becoming a novelist were now quietly competing with unpaid bills, hollow friendships, and a mother who called every Sunday to ask why she still wasn’t “making real money.”
But at night — at least here — she was Lyra Skye.
An anonymous voice on InkBlaze, a fiction platform that gave nobodies like her a shot at being heard.
Her story, The Ashbourne Diaries, was slow to gain traction. A fantasy-romance set in a war-torn kingdom, where rivals became lovers and monsters wore familiar faces. She loved it — deeply, painfully. It was the one place she felt alive.
But not even there was she safe from doubt.
Especially not from GrimWolf.
She closed the comment window, heart sinking. The cursor on her open draft blinked, almost mocking her. Chapter 17 sat half-written, sentences half-believed.
What was the point?
A crack of thunder outside snapped her from her spiral. The lights flickered. Her laptop battery showed 9%.
"Of course," she muttered. Her power bank was dead. Just like her energy. Just like her faith.
She saved the draft and shut the laptop, letting it drop beside her. The rain picked up, drumming harder against the glass. She wrapped herself in the blanket that barely reached her toes and stared up at the ceiling.
She wanted to believe she was good. That this wasn’t all a waste. That someone out there was rooting for her.
But tonight, the silence felt heavier than usual.
She whispered to no one in particular, “Maybe GrimWolf is right.”
Then, after a long pause, quieter:
“…Maybe I should stop.”
But she didn’t.
Because ten minutes later, she was typing again — not because she believed in the words, but because if she stopped, she’d have nothing left.
And somewhere deep in the story, in a scene where her heroine stood trembling before an enemy king, Lina wrote a single line that felt more like a confession than dialogue:
“Your blade can’t hurt me more than my silence ever did.”
She stared at it for a long time.
Then saved the chapter.
She didn't share it yet. Not tonight.
Tomorrow, GrimWolf would be waiting.
The office smelled like burnt coffee and crushed ambition.
Lina Cruz clocked in at 8:58 a.m., two minutes ahead of being late and two minutes short of looking like she cared. Her damp ponytail dripped down the back of her blouse, and the paper napkin in her hand was no match for the egg sandwich it had failed to contain.
Mr. Beltran, her supervisor, raised an eyebrow so sharp it could’ve cut through her paycheck.
“Morning,” she said, with the exact energy of someone who regretted waking up.
He didn’t answer — just looked at his watch in the same way a man might look at a gold medal he didn’t earn.
Lina slid into her cubicle and stared at her old desktop as it whirred to life like it was coming back from the dead. The keyboard was sticky. The mousepad was missing. Her chair squeaked every time she breathed.
Her job title was Data Entry Assistant Level I, which sounded mildly important until you realized it mostly involved copying figures from one screen to another and pretending the company wasn’t slowly erasing her soul.
At 9:23 a.m., she received her first email of the day:
Subject: URGENT
Message: “Please rename this file to the correct format.”
Attachment: A document already named correctly.
She renamed it anyway.
To: PleaseStopBreathing_FINAL_V7.xlsx
“Hey Lina,” came a too-chipper voice.
Paula from HR leaned over her cubicle wall, sipping iced coffee that probably cost more than Lina’s entire lunch budget.
“Just a heads up, we’re no longer allowed to wear character slippers in the office. Someone from Accounting came in with SpongeBob Crocs.”
Lina looked down at her feet.
She was wearing SpongeBob Crocs.
She nodded solemnly. “May he rest in peace.”
At 10:47 a.m., the microwave in the break room exploded.
No one was hurt, but Emil from Accounting dropped his chicken noodle cup and screamed loud enough for someone in Facilities to mutter, “Again?”
Lina watched as smoke curled into the hallway. She turned back to her screen. Her spreadsheet had frozen. Again.
“Perfect,” she said to absolutely no one, then stabbed the ESC key like it owed her money.
Lunch break came and went. Lina sat on the fire exit stairs with a tuna sandwich that looked like regret between two slices of white bread. Her water bottle leaked. Her phone buzzed, but it was just a promotional text from a pizza place she couldn’t afford.
She checked her story app — no new comments. No new donations. Just one unread message from last night:
“Filler chapter. Weak dialogue. Try harder.”— GrimWolf
She locked her phone. Her fingers trembled slightly.
Back at her desk, she overheard two coworkers whispering near the water dispenser:
“Is she still living in that old studio?”
“Yeah, I heard she writes fantasy stories online. Like dragons and stuff. She’s still chasing that dream.”
“How old is she again?”
“Old enough to stop pretending.”
Lina didn’t move. She didn’t blink.
If invisibility were a superpower, she would’ve been a god.
At 5:00 p.m. sharp, she shut down her system, gathered her things, and left the building with the determination of a soldier returning from war. The sky outside was dark and heavy, threatening rain.
By the time she reached the street corner, it poured.
She had no umbrella.
So she walked. In soaked socks and SpongeBob Crocs, mascara bleeding slightly under her eyes. She didn’t run. She didn’t curse. She just… kept walking.
TO BE CONTINUE
Hope you guys comment what do you think about my story. 🥰🥰 A
