The Chapters

Prologue

Hello?
Is someone there?
Hey... Hey! I can...
Well, I can't see you. I know you're there.
Who are you?

"I - " A voice comes from somewhere. I look around, realizing for the first time that I'm suspended in midair, in the middle of blank space. "Where am I?"

Oh. That voice is mine.

"Hey, can you hear me?" I shout up to you. "You're right above me, I can tell. You're like this huge... Presence, I guess. Who are you? Do you know where I am?"

You say something. It sounds like a loud rumble, and the only word I can make out is 'boring'.

The emptiness starts compressing. It gets darker near where you are, and I'm suddenly finding it hard to breath. All of a sudden the space that has seemed so vast is claustrophobic, squeezing and pressing together from both the left and right like moving walls.

"Hey, wait! What are you doing?" I wedge my arms between the two nothings closing in from either side. "Are you trying to kill me?"

The sides fall away and you're looking down curiously again. You ask something, and I catch the word 'kill' as a question. I assume you were asking 'how am I trying to kill you?' and not 'why wouldn't I want to kill you?'.

"I don't know what you did, but whatever you were doing nearly crushed me," I inform you, a bit peeved. The first person I've met, ever, tries to kill me. How nice.

You say something, but I have a hard time hearing. It just sounds like a giant mumbling something, very far away.

"I can't hear you very well," I tell you, since you can hear me just fine. "I can't see you either, do you think you could - "

A huge black spear comes plunging into the ground, carving words into the space before retracting a bit, still hanging in the air.

What's your name?

My name? Is my name important? I guess it is, since I should know it myself.

"I don't know," I tell you. "I don't know who, what, or where I am."

The spear comes back, in a different place this time.

You're in a book.

"A book? As in a story book?"

Yes, a book. You're the main character of a novel.

Main character. Is that what I am? I look up at the shadow of you. "So that's how you were crushing me?"

The spear lifts, then let's down somewhere else. I was closing the book. Sorry. I didn't know it would kill you.

"Neither did I. My name is Mica Carcia." My eyes widen at my own words. I did have a name.

There's a soft sound from you. So can I call you MC?

"No, Mica."

You say something that sounds like an okay, then move your spear to form the word.

"Wait!" I stop you. "I heard that word. Just don't use the spear for everything."

Spear? The spear carves. I notice the huge brown flakes of wood peeling from the black part, revealing more black. You mean pencil?

"Sure."

Okay, Mica. Since you're so responsive of a character, tell me what this story's going to be about. Isn't that what the prologue is for?

"I don't know. What's a prologue?"

Didn't you read books as a kid?

"I was never a kid. These have been my first few minutes of existence ever."

You pause for a minute, and then there's a rustling. My vision flashes for a second and I fall onto my knees, crying out.

What happened?

I groan and clutch my head. My eyesight is still spotty, and my head and knees are weak. I resist the urge to throw up. Curse you, weak stomach.

Mica? Are you okay?

"You tell me, you're the one who did something!" I shake my head and scowl up at you. I hadn't done anything. "You paused for a second there. What did you do?"

I turned the page?

"Don't do that again!"

But then how will the story go on?

"I- " I stop and I slump. "If that can't be avoided, I guess I'll just have to get used to it. But do it a bit slower next time, okay?"

You pause again, and then your pencil stabs the ground. What type of story is this? You didn't even know your name, you talk directly to the reader, you have absolutely no idea what's going on. I know some of those happen in stories, but here I know barely anything at all! For starters, where are you?

"Why don't you ask the author?" I asked a bit more bitterly than intended.

I would, but the author's not responding to any messages about the book. Something about it 'reducing from the experience of it all'. I'm pretty sure they used a pseudonym, too.

"Convenient," I muse.

I guess I can't ever close the book then.

"Please don't. The first time was bad enough. I can't imagine what the cover would feel like. "

There's another flash, and I'm suddenly not on my knees anymore, but sitting down against the foot of a bed, facing a door with my feet in front of me. The space around me is no longer empty whiteness, either, with a blank everywhere. Instead I'm in a run-down room, with simple furniture and a few clothes thrown around the floor. There's no window and the walls, ceiling and floor are all made out of concrete. There's a small rug placed on the floor, accompanied by a pair of worn-looking shoes that are not on my feet.

I stand up and your pencil scratches the floor, leaving gray marks instead of carvings. Surprisingly, it doesn't damage anything in the room, including the ceiling, floating a few inches above the surface of the ground. Where are you now?

I look up, expecting to see your shadow, but I just see the wooden ceiling with the dim light bulb hanging from a thread. I look back to the door. It's waiting for me to open it, find out what this world is about, tell the story for myself. Tell you what this book is about.

"Well, why don't we find out?"