Chapter 151: The Empty Page

For three weeks, the new document on Freya's laptop remained almost completely empty. She had written a title, deleted it, written another, and deleted that too. The problem was not a lack of ideas. It was the opposite. For once, she had too many directions and no desperate need to choose one immediately.

Awake Stories was doing well enough that she did not have to chase every trend. Her existing novels continued bringing in royalties, the adaptation payment had strengthened the company's reserves, and Beyond the Algorithm had opened an entirely new nonfiction market.

That freedom made writing strangely difficult.

In her previous life, Freya had always written with a practical purpose. Rent. Savings. Independence. After waking in this world, the purpose became even clearer: survive, earn money, and eventually help the supposedly bankrupt Louis rebuild.

Now she had money.

She had a company.

She had Louis.

"What exactly am I supposed to write toward?" she muttered.

Her assistant, Mia, looked up from the opposite desk. "A deadline?"

"I don't have one."

"That sounds like the problem."

Freya glared at her.

Mia had worked at Awake Stories long enough to stop being intimidated by her. "You could take a break."

"I am taking a break. I'm sitting here doing nothing."

"That's not a break. That's staring angrily at Microsoft Word."

Freya closed the laptop.

That evening, Louis found her reorganizing the kitchen cabinets for no obvious reason.

"You have writer's block again."

"I am improving storage efficiency."

"You moved the tea three times."

Freya put the tea back.

Louis leaned against the counter. "Why do you need the next story right now?"

She opened her mouth, then stopped.

The question irritated her because she had no answer.

Perhaps some part of her still believed that if she stopped producing, everything could disappear. In her first life, income had always depended on continuing to work. In this one, she had awakened inside someone else's ruined ending and immediately begun creating plans.

Standing still had never felt safe.

Louis understood more than she said.

"Awake Stories won't collapse because you don't publish another book this month."

"I know."

"Do you?"

Freya frowned.

The next morning, she did something almost revolutionary.

She took the day off.

No writing. No contracts. No Northwind files. No legal updates.

She visited an art-supply store.

The original Freya's interior-design sketches had stayed in her thoughts since she discovered them. On impulse, she bought pencils, markers, drafting paper, and a sketchbook.

At home, she sat beside the courtyard window and began drawing.

Her first attempt was terrible.

The second was worse.

By the fourth, muscle memory that did not entirely belong to her seemed to awaken in her hand.

Freya stared at the lines.

A small apartment appeared on the page, designed around sunlight, storage, and inexpensive materials.

She smiled.

Maybe she did not need to know what her next novel was yet.

Seven hundred forty chapters could not be lived by staring only at the ending.

Some pages were allowed to remain empty until life gave her something worth putting on them.

The next morning, Freya put the sketchbook into her work bag instead of hiding it at home. She still did not know whether design would become business, hobby, or merely a bridge to the woman whose memories she carried. For once, she decided a category could wait.

Freya made a note of the development and returned to the practical work in front of her. She had learned that a complicated life became manageable only when she separated what she knew, what she suspected, and what she could actually do next. Louis respected that habit, even when his instinct was to solve everything immediately. For now, they chose the next useful step and left the unanswered part where it belonged.