The Author Who Can't Write {Part 2} {with Katie W.}

{This is a collaboration with Katie W. Be sure to check her out!

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/56269a/

She's awesome and it was such a lot of making making up the whole universe with her.}

“Melantha! Why are you doing this to me? You taught me how to fight and now you’re fighting me?”

“Just strategy, Sis. If I taught you how to fight, I would know your weaknesses and strengths, as well as how to counter them.” Melantha smirked.

“Well, you forgot one thing. If you train me, you train WITH me. I know your strengths and weaknesses now. Didn’t see that one coming, did’ya?” Minerva shot a fire-ice fall at an unsuspecting Melantha.

Melantha heard the telltale whistle of Minerva’s magic just in time to dodge the attack. A streak of her hair was singed at the end, and Melantha sent a jet of water to put the fire out. “Really, Minerva? For all you know, I wasn’t showing you my true strengths or weaknesses. You would never truly know.” Melantha knew if she kept her doppelganger talking, it shouldn’t be too hard to make the lake behind Minerva trap her in the water. “Do you know how I got here?” Melantha asked.

“No, but I really don’t want to know that, Melly-Belly.” Minerva smirked. She had thought of this nickname before, just to antagonize Melantha.

“Ah, but Minnie, it might be important for you to know,” Melantha pouted. The water from the lake sneaks even closer as they speak. Keep her talking, Melantha thought to herself. “And do you know what else? It’s like we both know exactly how to annoy each other with these awful nicknames, Minnie.”

In her head, Minnie, or Minerva was thinking, Ugh! She had to call me that. On the outside, she gave a smile and dodged out the water at the last millisecond. 

“I thought you could do better than that, Millie-Willie.” 

Melantha rolled her eyes to hide her displeasure at her trap failing. She wouldn’t bite the carrot Minerva was dangling in front of her, no matter how tempting it was to get into a nickname fight with her twin. “I came from an alternate universe,” Melantha announced bluntly.

“I KNOW that, Millie! You told me like, the second I had asked, ‘Who are you’...” Minerva was getting tired of this. Within a minute, everything went blank and Minerva was transported to another dimension.

~~~~~~~~~

“Where am I? Why is it pitch dark in here? Where’s Melantha? Am I dead?” Minerva woke up in a dark, quiet and very still place. She could not move any of her body parts, no matter how hard she tried.

It was as if she was those Lego pieces in ‘The Lego Movie’ and was ‘kracklized’ by someone. 

“What should I do now? Melantha, can you hear me? Someone? Anyone?!” 

It was of no use. Minerva was all alone in this weird world, or maybe a dream. She HOPED with all her might that it was a dream.

It stayed the same for a few months. Through sheer willpower alone, Minerva was slowly able to move her body and eventually, she broke free of whatever was ‘sticking’ her to the air. She landed back on the ground.

  Minerva stood slowly, her hands in front of her, since there was no visibility. She began to walk around, trying to feel anything. 

“I can’t believe this. What is happening?” Minerva mumbled. “Where is everyone?” She stumbled in the darkness and fell.

When she stood again, there was a white light in the distance. After several months of pure darkness, the dim light was almost blinding.

Minerva said determinedly, “I have to get to that light.” She began to run towards it.

To Minerva’s surprise, with every step, the light seemed to get farther away. She stopped running, panting with every breath. The light appeared to stop moving as well.

“What in the world?” Minerva wondered.

She took an experimental step backwards, and the light zoomed towards her and stopped about halfway between where it started and where Minerva was standing. 

Minerva smiled, and backpedaled several times. The orb (for Minerva could now tell the source of light was an orb) shot forward again and paused right in front of Minerva.

“Gotcha,” she grinned. She reached out to touch it, and the orb moved to her. Once Minerva made contact with the light, everything went dark, again.

After what felt like hours, Minerva opened her eyes and found herself in a room. A room she both knew and didn’t know. Within a second, she realized that she was in a world different than hers. She took a look around and saw a laptop, with the words, ‘Mystical Minerva’ written as the title with the subtitle, ‘Elemental Explosion’. 

She put two and two together and came to the conclusion that she was a mere character in a story, a puppet of the writer. 

Sure enough, a man, about fifty, came into the room and screamed after seeing her. Minerva screamed too, both in perfect unison.

Then, the man quickly closed the door and said, “Whoa! Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you doing here?!”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean you don’t WANT to write anymore? This is your story! FINISH IT!”

“Um, no.”

“I ORDER YOU TO FINISH IT NOW.”

“As you said, I am the author of this story. I WILL FINISH IT WHEN I WANT AND KEEP IT HANGING THERE IF I WANT TO!”

With these last words, Shawn moved towards the door and indicated Minerva to move out. She said, surprised, “Shawn, this is YOUR world. I am a FICTIONAL character. How am I supposed to survive here? What will I do? Where will I go? What will I eat?”

“I don’t care, Minerva, just get out of here, and don’t come back, ever again.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Minerva stomped out of the room and into the hallway, slamming the door behind her. “I can’t believe he kicked me out! His own character!” she fumed as she stormed down the hallway.

Minerva continued grumbling about unfair authors as she stumbled into the kitchen, where she tripped on a stool by the counter.

“And stupid stools, left out in the open where people can trip over them-”

She paused her rant when a sudden ringing noise echoed through the kitchen.

“Yikes!” Minerva yelped, searching for the source of the noise. She searched under papers, on the table, and in the cabinets, with no result. 

“What is that noise?” she asked herself, puzzled. Finally, Minerva stood still and listened to find from which direction the ringing was coming from, and decided it was coming from a purse left on the stool she had tripped on.

She dug around in the purse and finally detected the source of the noise: a cell phone. The screen was lit up, and the caller ID said, ‘Athena’. Underneath the name, there were two buttons: ‘accept’ and ‘decline’.

Hesitantly, Minerva pressed the green ‘accept’ button and held the phone up to her ear.

“Hello? Dad? Hello, can you hear me?”

Minerva didn’t know what to do, so she disconnected and went out of the house. She recognized the streets, the landmarks and even the shops! It seemed like this town she was in was just a replica of Drayside, her home. 

She went on ahead and found herself at the crossroads she knew very well. A left would lead her to her house. Upon reaching there, she realized that it wasn’t actually her house. It was a wreck! 

Having no other option she spent that night there. Little did she know that she’d have to spend all her nights there, for more than a year.

Her routine was simple in the real world - wake up, dress at a hotel whose manager she’d become friends with and then go to Shawn’s house to persuade him to write more. Sometimes, she’d meet his wife and would run away just after ringing the doorbell, other times, she was angrily dragged out of the house by her creator. Nonetheless, she’d go to the hotel again to work and eat food and finally return back to her ‘new’ old home. 

One day, as she was going towards Shawn’s house, she saw everyone in black mourning clothes. 

“What is happening here?” She spoke up.

“Um, who are you?” Athena was attending to the guests and since she didn’t know Minerva, she was confused. 

“I am Minerva and I have come to meet Mr. Shawn Shaw.”

“I am sorry, you can’t meet him.” Athena broke into a sob.

“Why?”

“You see all the people here? They are here for his funeral.”

“Oh! I am so sorry! Who are you?”

“I am Athena, his daughter.”

“Oh my! I am so sorry for asking all these questions at this time of your loss.”

“No problem. Now, please tell why you’re here?”

“Um, it is a bit difficult to explain. Should I come back tomorrow and tell you with time in hand, I can see that you’re really busy right now.”

“Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~

“Hello!”

“Who are you?” Athena opened the door and asked.

“Um, I came here yesterday and wanted to talk to you regarding the same.”

“Oh yes, Minerva, right?”

“Yes.”

“Please come in.”

“Again, I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“You know about the book Shawn was writing?”

“Yes.”

“I am the main character of his book, Minerva. I can’t explain how, but I came into this ‘real’ world one day to persuade Shawn to keep on writing the book so that I could fight off mu evil twin. He was adamant on not writing the book anymore. So, I came here everyday to meet Shawn to keep on pestering him to write.”

“Oh! Do you know the reason why he didn’t write?”

“Yes, one day I overheard him speaking to himself that he was sad because his daughter had gone to college and he was writing the book for her.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Can I help you in any way?”

“I might have an idea.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Minerva and Melantha are two sides of each of us. My father wanted to teach me that. He was not able to complete this story, but I did it, in my own way. Now, to unveil this masterpiece of my dad, please join your hands together for  Minerva from Mystical Minerva - Elemental Explosion!!!”