Dylan Carmack had built a digital empire from the bedroom of his Brooklyn apartment, a space cluttered with faded books, state-of-the-art cameras and an organized mess that was almost part of the decor. His video channel was called Secret Words, and it had made him a minor celebrity among those looking for more than just charts and bestsellers. He loved forgotten authors, little-known stories and old paperback editions that contained buried stories and secrets.

-”It’s not just about looking for books” - He said in one of his most popular videos -”It’s about finding voices that never had the mass diffusion that we have today with the Internet and social networks. Draco Noir, for example ... why doesn’t anyone talk about him today?”

Draco Noir had become an obsession for Dylan over the past few weeks. The author was a figure shrouded in mystery. His science fiction novels had been published in minimal print runs in the 1970s and 1980s, and had gained a mythical status in certain literary forums. His titles, such as Silicon Towers and The Watcher’s Thread, were impossible to find, but those who had read them spoke of them as if they were prophetic scriptures.

-”It’s like he saw the future,” one collector explained to Dylan on a Zoom call. -”I’m telling you, the guy wrote about artificial intelligence before the term even existed. And not in vague ways, but in chilling detail.”

Dylan couldn’t help but be fascinated. It was just the kind of discovery that could catapult his channel to new heights. But there was something deeper going on, and it was the idea of ​​a writer who had disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving only fragments of his vision behind.

He began to investigate, trawling mainly through university libraries, obscure internet forums and rare book stores. After days of frustration and almost when he had given up, he received an email.

-”I’m Draco Noir and I’m still alive. If you really want to interview me, I’ll be waiting for you.”-

Dylan read those words at least ten times, in total disbelief. The address that accompanied the message took him to an old, forgotten district of the city. He didn’t think about it too much. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

-”This is too good to be true,” he muttered to himself, although he had already made up his mind.

The camera flashed red as he recorded his farewell for the channel.

-”Guys, this may be my greatest adventure yet. I’m about to come face to face with Draco Noir himself. Fingers crossed.”-

He turned off the camera, threw it along with a couple of books and his notebook into his backpack, and headed out for what would be the interview of his life.

Draco Noir was a name that echoed through the dark corners of cult sci-fi. He wasn’t just a writer, he was a legend shrouded in mystery, an author who seemed to have disappeared as quickly as he’d emerged. He’d published a handful of novels between the 1970s and 1980s, titles that never made it to the bestseller lists but found their way into closed circles of collectors and obsessives of the weird. For Dylan, that was enough to be a riddle that demanded to be solved.

Noir’s followers spoke of his books as if they were prophecies. In ‘The Silicon Towers’ he described communication networks governed by invisible algorithms that knew people better than they could themselves.

-”There’s no way he knew that,” a forum user ‘ArchiMind87’ had told him. -”Draco wrote that around 1976. There weren’t even personal computers, for God’s sake.”

But what intrigued Dylan most was the recurring concept of ‘watchers on the sidelines’. These entities, vaguely described in Draco’s texts, seemed to be omnipresent beings who did not directly intervene, but whose surveillance shaped the course of human history.

-”A little disturbing, don’t you think?”- his best friend, Nathan, had commented to him while they were having coffee one afternoon.

-”That’s what makes him so fascinating,” Dylan replied, his eyes shining. -”It’s not just what he wrote, it’s that he seemed to know something that everyone else didn’t. Something that shouldn’t even be possible.”

Draco Noir’s makeshift study was everything Dylan had expected: a calculated chaos of books, maps, and sheets scribbled with incomprehensible diagrams. Draco was a man with grey hair and an intense gaze. He stared at him as he lit an old cigarette that looked like it had been waiting for him since the 80s.

Dylan adjusted the portable camera on the table. “Thank you for agreeing to this interview,” he said, trying to maintain his composure. He had faced erudite professors and eccentric collectors, but Draco Noir’s presence was overwhelming.

Draco exhaled the smoke slowly before answering. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this because I believe everyone deserves to know the truth.”

The writer settled back in his chair, and for a moment the only sound was the hum of the wall clock. Then Draco broke the silence.

“My novels,” he began, “were not born out of a normal creative process. They never were. Ever since I was a child, I have had dreams ... visions, if you prefer to call them that.”

“Visions?” Dylan asked, leaning forward with his notebook ready to take notes.

-”Yes, like Edgar Cayce, who prophesied while hypnotized. Or the Argentinean Benjamín Solari Parravicini, who created psychographies during his trances. Is it so hard to believe?” - He paused. -”In my case, the visions always took me to the same place, the same scenes always appeared. Very tall towers that cut through an artificial sky, streets populated by shadows that were not human, and a constant murmur, like an echo that filtered through my mind.” - Draco looked at Dylan as if he was evaluating how much he could endure. -”At that moment I didn’t understand what they meant, but I knew they weren’t simple dreams.” -

Dylan felt like he was exploring completely new territory - “And you think those dreams could be some kind of ... messages?”

“I know they were,” Draco said gravely. “They weren’t speculations, Dylan. They never were. They were warnings. Every word I wrote in my books came from those visions. I didn’t invent AI-driven social media or observers on the sidelines. They showed me the future.”

The influencer took a breath as he tried to process what he was hearing. -”Who showed them to you? Where did those visions come from?”-

Draco patiently put out his cigarette, pondering her words. “I know they came from another plane. I don’t know if it was another universe, another dimension, or something more complex. All I know is that the things they showed me then are happening now ... and what comes next will be worse.”

The silence that followed spread through the room. Dylan felt his heart beat a little faster. “Why are you telling me now?” he finally asked.

Draco gave a bitter smile. “Because I was warned that I can’t keep quiet anymore, and because you, now, with that camera and your followers, are the person who could make people listen before it’s too late.”

Draco looked at Dylan with an appraising intensity that almost made him look away. His fingers drummed on the table, as if the words he was about to speak weighed more than he could bear.