Paper Hero

     Katie sat in her bedroom, crying. Writing was a passion of hers, but she was in what seemed to be a forever block.

     Her bed was surrounded by literally hundreds of crumpled paper balls. Katie's notebook only had one empty page left.

     She just sat there for a while, trying to search her brain for an idea...any idea. She just wanted something to get her started, but nothing came.

     Gingerly placing her pen on her notebook, she began to sketch a cheesy superhero. Katie wasn't much of an artist, so her drawing was little more than a stick figure. When she was finished, a new batch of tears fell down her cheeks.

     The silly boy she had drawn was not the protagonist of a best-selling book. That was for sure. He was just a little, pitiful sketch.

     One of Katie's tears made its way down to her notebook. As soon as it dripped down onto the paper, she ripped the page out and threw it to the ground, not even bothering to crumple it. Then, she left the room.

~~~~
     His eyes opened to see a great light, shining above him, nearly blinding him. The unnamed boy, blinking and squinting, looked around at his surroundings.

     The carpet was thick, a field of sorts. High above to his left, a bed fit for a giant rose up like a cliff. All around him, white, blue-striped misshapen rocks littered the place.

     "Hello?" the boy called out for someone to hear him, but the rocks did not respond, and neither did anyone else. He was all alone.

     The boy tried to get up and walk, but found it to be rather hard without proper feet. Looking down at himself, he was surprised to find that he was rather two-dimensional.

     As he began to sort of wobble towards a group of rocks, the world began to change. The boulders near him began to tremble and...unfold.

     That's when something odd happened. The boy suddenly knew where he was, even though he was sure he'd never been there before.

     The Exposition was a rather low place, and easy to navigate through. As the boy walked by the rocks around him, he saw them all begin to flatten out, and stand up as well, forming into other people...and buildings, trees, clouds...backdrops? It was a mystery to the boy what some of the rocks had become, but there they all were, standing in front of him, so familiar, as if they'd always been there.

     The boy found himself casually walking through, recognizing his surroundings, saying "hello" to the people he somehow knew. All was simple, normal. He was happy, content, and then...

~~~~

     A paper lightning bolt hit the ground from out of nowhere. As if it had been electrified with dark magic, the whole town instantly fell down, crinkling back into a field of crumpled paper. Only the boy...and Her...were left.

    Her. The boy had somehow managed to not meet her yet. So, how did he know her name? It was scribbled on her shirt in the same ink that outlined his basic features.

     She made him smile for some reason.

    The boy asked why she had been named Her, of all things. Her simply said that she had probably been intended to be called Hero, but whoever had named her had changed his or her mind last minute.

     He nodded, and, together, they looked at their surroundings. The Exposition had been completely returned to its original field-like state. Now, the two of them could only go forward.

~~~~

     The boy and Her had not realized it, but, during their conversation, a great hill had risen up behind them. As they finally turned around, they gasped at the sight of a billboard sign.