Somewhere beyond the edge of memory, there is a modern city with high rises. Once, thousands of readers walked there.
Readers picture rain slick alleys and hidden staircases. Some imagine music drifting from open windows. Others imagined silence.
Every reader leaves something behind. That is how the realms of the Word Guardians survive. Not through ink. Not through paper. But through imagination.
Now the city is quiet. It’s stagnated. There are no readers floating ethereally along the streets. The realm is waiting for someone to read it again, or… in the quiet, other ancient forces make changes and start to control the story.
Stories were never meant to be passive
Most people think stories exist only on the page. The Word Guardians know better.
A story does not truly come alive until someone imagines it. Readers build the world beyond it every time they turn a page.
No two readers imagine a story the same way. One reader imagines a castle towering above storm clouds. Another imagines ancient stone worn smooth by time. One sees warmth in a character’s smile. Another sees sadness hiding underneath it.
A neglected realm turns inwards. It seeks something to fill the void left behind by readers. It can become unbalanced, dangerous even. The realm tries to keep its own story going, without fresh imagination. This is how the Otherworld in book 4, The Word Guardians and the Lost Beginnings formed. As readers forgot the realm, ancient mythological stories forged a new identity and closed it off from the outer world.
Forgotten realms never truly die
The Word Guardians believe that as long as even one person reads a story, some part of it survives. A single reader can reopen pathways thought lost forever. A forgotten character can awaken again simply because someone imagined them clearly enough. That is why old stories matter, no matter how ancient.
The ancient stories have a power of their own. An archetype that is the foundation of many, its characters are forces that can reawaken. Depending on the character they may try to restore balance, seeking an input of fresh imagination from readers, or they may take control, as happened in the Otherworld. They become the enemies of the Word Guardians, The Controllers.
This is why stories passed down through generations matter. Re-reading them, sharing them, keeps them re-imagined, fresh and the realms in balance.
Worlds that no one imagines any more never truly disappear. They wait for a while to see if someone remembers them again, and then to preserve their own existence, they take matters into their own hands.
To learn more about the Otherworld of the Word Guardians series, buy book 4, using the link below. But, to learn more about the characters before they enter the Otherworld, start with book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers. Keep the stories and realms alive.
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