"Some stories begin with a bang.
Some with silence.
Mine began with both—depending on who you ask."
The rain hadn't stopped in three days. Not that it mattered to him. He hadn't stepped outside in four.
In a cramped room on the sixth floor of a peeling apartment block, lit only by the hum of a desk lamp and a secondhand monitor, sat the man known to millions only as All for One.
No one knew his real name. Not his readers. Not his fans. Barely even his editor.
To the world, he was a legend.
To himself, he was tired.
The cursor blinked at the end of a sentence:
"And so, as the last flame flickered out in the ruins of Astraea, the gods turned away—not in anger, but in shame."
Chapter 168 of The End.
A world without chosen ones. A war not to win, but to outlive.
It was never a power fantasy. It was grief, dressed in steel and ash.
And now... it was a meme.
His phone buzzed.
[Kaya — 10:02 PM]
Call when you're done. I need to talk to you. It's urgent.
He dialed, not expecting much.
Kaya (sounding exhausted):
"You saw episode four?"
AFO (quiet):
"Yeah."
Kaya:
"I told them not to air the rough cut. They didn't listen."
AFO:
"The hell was that… fight choreography?"
Kaya:
"It was outsourced to a sub-team in Korea—barely got the script, let alone your notes. I had to beg them just to keep Serah's monologue in. Even that got chopped."
He paused, rubbing his eyes.
AFO:
"The Skyfall scene. They butchered it."
The Skyfall Massacre was a turning point in the story—one of its most brutal and emotional moments. In the novel, it had been described over three chapters. No music. Just sound effects and raw, bloody pacing.
In the anime? It was sped up, rushed through in two and a half minutes.
Characters skipped.
Dialogues erased.
The blood muted to a dull orange.
And over it all... an upbeat insert song that didn't belong.
AFO:
"They turned trauma into a transition scene."
Kaya (angry, but trying to stay professional):
"The producer wanted to match 'current seasonal pacing trends.' Said audiences don't have attention spans anymore. I argued. I lost."
AFO:
"Serah's face wasn't even on model. Half her expressions didn't register."
Kaya:
"You think that's bad? The animation director quit mid-episode three. No one told the studio head. By the time they realized, episode four was already in the final render."
He felt sick.
He shouldn't have opened social media.
But he did.
Trending Topic #4: #TheEndimation
Trending Topic #7: #LetVarinSmileChallenge
Trending Topic #11: "Serah's Neck"
He clicked. Regret was immediate.
❝Serah went from 'battle-scarred queen' to 'gacha waifu in distress'. I want reparations.❞
— @DeadInsideAndReading
❝I waited four years for this? Y'all ever microwave lasagna and eat only the cold middle? That's what this felt like.❞
— @PixelBard
❝Varin's voice actor sounded like he was ordering a coffee. No emotion. No weight. Just: "I watched them die." Bro said it like he was missing a bus.❞
— @OtakuSaltyAF
❝The End? More like The Bend... because they BENT this whole story backwards to fit a 12-episode budget.❞
— @ScriptSlayer
He scrolled further.
There was a clip of the Skyfall Massacre, with clown music edited over it.
Then another one—Serah's monologue turned into a TokTik dance voiceover.
A GIF loop of Varin smiling with "when she texts back 😭😭🔥🔥" in big letters.
Even the diehard fans—those who had written essays on the political metaphors in Astraea—had started turning bitter.
❝Can't believe I defended this series in arguments. I was out here quoting lines like scripture and they animated it like a bad slideshow.❞
— @FaithInAsh
And beneath all of it, in the deepest parts of the forums where his most loyal readers once theorized about gods and ruins and bloodlines...
Silence.
Or worse—apology posts.
"I swear the novel was better."
"I recommended this to my friends. I feel shame."
"Please read the book, it's not the same. I promise."
It didn't matter.
The damage had been done.
Somewhere, a marketing intern had posted "Watch The End—Now Streaming!"
The replies were brutal.
"I'd rather read Terms & Conditions."
"I did. Now I have depression and motion sickness."
"You made me care, and then you made me regret it."
Kaya (after a long pause):
"They're talking about cancelling after season one. Sponsors don't want to be associated anymore."
AFO:
"…Good."
Kaya (quietly):
"It wasn't supposed to be like this. We had plans. Merch. Hardcover edition. Maybe even a game pitch."
AFO:
"That wasn't my plan."
Kaya:
"I know."
He stared at his screen again.
Chapter 169 sat in draft. Unfinished.
"The end of the end," he'd written in the header.
But now, it felt more like:
The end of everything.
He didn't feel anger. Or heartbreak. Just… stillness. Like the world had paused mid-sentence and forgotten how to breathe.
He clicked one last thing—
A reaction video titled: "I waited 7 years for THIS?!"
Thumbnail: Varin mid-scream, warped from bad animation.
He closed it before it even played.
Then the browser.
Then the manuscript.
Then the light.
Rain tapped at the window like a lullaby.
And in that silence, one final thought echoed back at him—
If a story dies… not with silence, but laughter… is there any coming back from that?