Final Draft

You were fine a second ago, reading through the writing forums on the dark side of the web, researching the best ways to elevate your writing, best ways to win a writing contest, best ways to trap the reader in your story; you were desperate; you just wanted to win this competition. You needed a perfect ending fit for your self-proclaimed best work.

​

Didn't realize how desperate you were; shouldn't have entered your info. Now- well, now you've got exactly what you wished for. You're trapped. Actively spellbound to the story you didn't have the confidence to write on your own.

​

Your breath is far too shallow to be panting like you are. I get it, you're in shock; go ahead, clutch your chest. It's still there, your heart, your whole body. Your anatomy is unchanged. Well, at least for now.

​

Once you stop breathing like a fish out of water, I'll clue you in to this nightmare you've created. It's ok, I'll wait. We've got time.

​

Good, you gathered some semblance, all be it that of a wavering child locked in a closet. Best it'll get for you I suppose.

​

Anyway, be careful what you wish for, as they say. But sincerely, what were you thinking? You really entered your blood type, time of birth, and YOU actually recited the words on screen. Didn't they sound a little funny, to you, almost a little Latin?

Well, I feel time is wasting. Your quizzical pondering disturbs me, so I'll cut to the chase. You're in your own stories. All you need now is an ending; create your perfect ending for any of them, and you're free to go.

​

However, if you don't finish in time for the competition deadline. Or you descend into madness— I'm betting on the latter.— You're here eternally, and your soul is mine. I'll throw you a bone, my desperate one.  I'll start you off in your already-finished Pieces.

​

Well, good luck, dear friend. Now go ahead and write.

​

Your impending shock never waned, but the present setting called for action. You'd have to breathe through it and figure it out as you go.

​

This was the best place to start. Fantasy was your favorite after all.

​

A patient pulse of flame came to light after you willed it to flourish; after a stagnant beat, the fire steadied. An unwavering, white-hot glow clung to the walls of the tight tunnel—a set series of inlaid brick, a crude assembly of crumbling stone. You extended yourself, touching either side lightly with your full wingspan; breathe, you told yourself. Claustrophobia setting in. You've been here before. Your first attempt at a romantasy. For the fantasy-with-a-twist challenge.

​

This was where your main character—escaped prosecution for their profound and forbidden love. Just think, remember, you got this. The intricate tunnel was a one-way shoot, nothing too fancy. You had written it that way; it was more of a vessel, a vehicle for the story, no need to muck up the main point with useless navigation.

​

You sauntered on, thankful for your lack of description of the castle's catacombs.  Eventually you'd find the opening. A minute arched hole in a monstrous castle that hovered dangerously above a flowing river where (if you remember correctly) you'd have to leap to safety.

​

Safety from what? The question itself seemed to produce the answer in that instant. “Oh god,” you bellowed. Like a time clock set to coincidence, the walls began to rumble, flaking dust from the ancient stone, teased by the vibration.

​

You had to write in a plot twist, a formidable obstacle for the main character. You had to make the story “interesting.” You had to include a mythical beast; every great fantasy story had one.

​

The growls panged through the chambers, a resonant bass that quivered your legs.  The slumbering wyrm of West Helm was captured and imprisoned in the fortress's depths for the rest of its eternal life. Narrowly slithering through slender tunnels. With fangs longer than swords. Was how you wrote it anyway,

​

A meager amount of curiosity almost made you look back to see what you created. But common sense and a grain of rationality won out, and you began to sprint.  The flame from your torch flared in your wider strides, creating a strobe effect with each resounding woosh. The roars grew guttural, expending its might through their long, hallowed body. Your breath hitched, lungs ablaze as you tried to take in as much withered air as possible. The heat expanded as the ancient one's breath filled the closing gap.

​

The smell was what brought your attention back. Its decrepit scent of uncouth rotting meat. The visceral aroma made your stomach turn, your chest tightening as the fleeting fresh air was swallowed by abhorrent pungency. Why did you have to add a smell? A different underutilized sense, you thought. It'll enhance your writing; all it did now was enhance your likelihood of retching.

​

That was when you saw it. A beastly reptile head barely clearing the encampment of arched stone. Beady, glowing eyes, amber like fireflies. Its massive head, damp with the blackness of the fading light. Just enough to brush some glow off its sword-length fangs. The staredown seemed to last forever, broken by your surging adrenaline. It came like a match to gas. The final race was on.

​

A prick of light flashed ahead, small but guiding, you aimed to reach it and burst through its brilliance. Leap into the light; you knew you'd be safe; the river was below. Your main character did it, and so can you.

​

The beast was close enough that you felt the mist of its billowing nostrils. Not long now, just a few more leaps. You hear the booming crack of an unhinged jaw; the wyrm's snout was a gaping maw ready to wrap its prey into its shredding jaws.

​

The light ahead was widening. You took that as a sign you were just a bound away from your coveted exit. With faith in your own words, you jumped. You burst from the carved hole in the side of the great stronghold. The limbless dragon shot directly after, snapping its mandible like a gunshot, narrowly missing your flightless body.

​

You hung in the air long enough to slender yourself. Your eyes hadn't adjusted yet, but you knew it was time to brace for the plunge.

​

You flailed in the misty air, instinctively trying to slow yourself. The shock was abrupt; in only a moment your muscles seized tight to the bone. Lungs shriveled and retreated. Your whole existence shattered. The impact stung like a cold bite into your very soul. You fought, stirring up the dark blue sea as waters churned around your thrashing arms.

​

You burst through the surface with a hearty gasp, ready to fill your lungs with every ounce of breath you could take in one gulp. Panting, you smacked the available surface. The sting burned your hand with a frigid might. You slapped and kicked, skirting out of the hole you found yourself in. The whole opening was surrounded by thick ice as far as the eye could see. You rammed your nails into the slate, stressing your cuticles to the point of nearly ripping. You heaved with your fading breath and last thrust of your legs before your body lost all feeling and slid onto the tundra. You took in as much freezing air as you could, eyes blurring with each rasping sip of oxygen.

​

Vision restored, you tried to get your bearings. You looked out at the deep landscape of your new horizon. Nothing but fog, low-hanging clouds that hugged the ground. 

​

With full consciousness restored, you began to recognize this place, your first venture into sci-fi. You always hated it, but you wanted to expand and build a verbose portfolio. But a full planet made completely of ice— that was pushing it.

​

This story didn't have a happy ending. Trying to find a habitable planet for humanity, the crew found only a frozen hellscape that was about to get worse. Any minute now, leviathan-like beasts would erupt from the surface, and the life-threatening chase to the ship would begin.

​

Almost as if his conscience willed it, a rumbling began. It shook the ground and rippled the water in the hole you had just emerged from. The sound was like the timber of cracking redwoods. Blades of ice fissured, jagged, toppling away in large pieces.

​

No huge tentacles or giant snouts emerged from the newly made cavities, but a hand— skin green and peeling, white bone protruding through the knuckle. You wrapped yourself tightly in a fleeting effort at a warming hug. You watched, struck with disbelief as more of these humanoid creatures emerged from the icy depths.

​

A full-figured man with torn, dripping, wet flannel. Skin sagging from his skeleton like slow-cooked meat, eyes a faint crimson glow like fading Christmas bulbs. Four, five more followed suit until a small horde of groaning undead formed.

​

Horror was your second favorite thing to write. But did you really have to go with zombies, such an easy and overused trope?

​

Regardless of your deprivation, you knew you had to run; you took small solace in knowing the sleek surface would be a major hindrance to the slow-moving zombies.

​

It was time to move. You notice the first ice-birthed walker raised his hands like a worship leader, ready to bring his congregation to their feet. With a low, humming growl, his feet lifted from the surface, hanging dead over frozen water. He was floating; the fucking thing was floating. Superhero zombies, that's right, you had to be different; it wasn't the same trope. But fuck, it was dumb. Dumb enough to be your undoing.

​

Your plant foot skidded on the slick glaze as you ran in place for a moment before gaining traction; you sprinted as best you could, given the situation. You weren't as lucky as your self-bestowed super zombies.

​

That's when it struck: all of this was your creation; you made this. Your words, your descriptions. Your writing come to life. What's stopping you now? You want to change the ending; start by changing the story.

​

You felt lighter all of a sudden, like your insides turned into helium; the lift was gradual, almost pleasant. You swung your limbs wildly, getting used to the new sensation, angling yourself away from the man-eating speedsters. You took off like a falling falcon. You cut yourself like an arrow, feeling the arctic wind pass by your narrow body.

​

Still, the newly found flash of speed wasn't enough. The wailing sounded only a few lengths away and was closing in.

​

An explosion of ice. Hail rained from its broken pieces. An array of whipping tentacles reached for the sky like they were trying to grab the stars. The wall of monstrous alien squid stopped the soaring ghouls in their tracks. They got tangled up in the tickling appendages, dragged to the depths by the offworld sea creatures.

​

After safety returned, you continued flying a little. Despite the most dire of circumstances, —the literal relocation of your soul— You enjoyed the new wondrous sensation, one that would never have been granted had you not been magically imprisoned.

​

The dense haze of white began to clear like ripping cotton. Through the parting clouds, you saw it: the escape shuttle. Finally, a way out, a way home; this may be your perfect ending. Hopefully.  

​

You've done it. You've earned this. A small bit of respite on a lightning-fast spacecraft. Traveling through the greater parts of your most memorable and not-so-memorable stories. Locked behind a small window, you saw the flashing instances of your greatest design. Dragons and wizards. Ghosts, ghouls, superheroes. Sprawling cities of white marble. The underbelly of a deprived city, birthing its origins in a dark alley, you saw it all. And you marveled for a moment at all you've created, hoping you'd land back home.

​

The shuttle came down with a stabilizing whoosh; you hit solid ground with grace.

The steps unfolded, and you took each one with weary muscles.

​

This place was familiar. You recognized it immediately; a formidable calm overtook you when you realized you'd been here before.

​

A small inlet beach off a busy side road. A quick descent off a stone wall into the soft sand, cascading waves of red seaweed carving the shores back with each pull. The brackish sea rolling far back into the horizon where the sunset lasts the longest. Like it was meant to be admired only here.

​

Yeah, you knew this place.  A writer's greatest strength is lived experience. And how beautifully, meta, that you wrote of the spot she would take you to talk about your writing, where it all began.   A story so real you actually felt home,

​

You knew at that moment you were still trapped. It was all too perfect, just like you remembered it, just like you left it.

​

“I give up,” you told the water. “I give up!” Stronger this time.

​

“I remember this story. I remember what happened. She comes and talks to me; she's here, she's alive.” You pause; your words thin as the realization settles.

​

“Take my soul, I don't care,” you hollered to the clearing sky. “It's done, I'm done, it's over.”

​

In a plume of swirling smoke and agitated sand. A muscular, square-chinned man in a thin, mostly open button-down shirt appears in a snap. He marks his strides with a confident swagger, digging his bare feet ankle-deep into the sand with each step. Smiling with an incomparable mischievous leer.

​

“That easy, huh? You're just gonna give up.” The man's voice was oddly soothing, like an encouraging draw from death.  

​

Still staring at the never-ending ocean, the retreating sand on the shore tickling your feet.

​

“I don’t have your perfect ending. I can't. If being stuck here means I get to live in this moment, if it means…” 

pause.

​

“I get to see her again, I'll stay, take what you need, and leave me be.”

​

The mysterious hunk chuckled gleefully. “You do realize it won't always be this pleasant. This world is intertwined with stories and characters, nefarious beings that only wish to see you in pain. An inconsistent path of tribulation only follows once the choice is made; you of all should know.” 

His hands outstretched, spread to the scene before him. “This is your making.”

​

You pondered the dire epiphany, if only for a moment. “If it means I can be here now and again, then it's worth it. My soul is yours.”

​

The entity let out a dejected sigh and snapped his fingers.

​

In an instant, you were both transported to the small bend on top of the stone wall that overlooks the clearing. The same spot where you'd share your ideas with your favorite person.

​

The powerful being's chalky white cover-up flayed in the wind, exposing his opulent body and bustling six-pack.

​

“Great, isn't it? I chose this look because I thought it would be fitting, all things considered,” he smirked, answering a question you didn't intend to ask.

​

“You're free to go. You did a great job.” He said with a sarcastic infliction.

​

Shocked, you had nothing to say. The deity seemed to find the words you can not.

​

“You're boring me, and quite frankly it's sad.”

​

“But what about my perfect ending?”

​

“There is no such thing. I was going to keep you here forever as entertainment for myself. What can I say? I'm a conflicted sadist, but you gave up and ended up giving me an ending just as good, but not nearly perfect. So I'll let you go, but before I go, remember this, my dear friend.

​

 Beauty isn't the perfect ending; beauty is trying to find it. Along the way, you'll realize who you're meant to be. In a world filled with uncertainty, we need to find some semblance in the most unlikely of ways, buried in your words, buried in the words of all who create. It’s there that we find ourselves. Now isn't that perfect? So you're free to go, but take for it granted that, of what I speak, I may see you yet again.

​

Now go ahead, writer, write.”