How the Author Rebelled (sequel of How the Characters Rebelled)

Please read the first part first and take into notice that this is from the author's perspective :)

“Mom! I’m soooo bored. I don’t know what to do,” I called from my bedroom. 

“Well, how about you write about something, Trinity?”

“I’m tired of writing, mom. Writers need a break too, you know.”

“Gotcha, gotcha. How about you draw something?”

“Like what?”

“How about characters from your past stories?” 

“Ooh, that’s a great idea, thanks mom!”

“No problem. I’ll be in the guest room if you need me.”

“Mhm,” I said automatically. By this point, I was scrambling about my room looking for my drawing pad. I finally found it under my bed, I wonder how it got there?

I cleared off my desk and yeeted all my papers and chrome-book on the bed. I pulled out my favorite pencil and went to work. As my pencil touched the paper, I stopped. 

I don’t know who to draw, I thought. I frowned and reached for my computer on the bed. I pulled up my Reedsy page and skimmed over my previous stories. 

Max and Alicia are a great couple, perhaps I’ll do them. But if you do them, you kinda also gotta draw Jax, not to leave him out. Inspired by this new idea, I got out a piece of lined paper and jotted their names down. I continued to scroll down. 

Shadows and Stars...I’ve never drawn ghosts before, this could be interesting, my conscience said. 

I added Tika and Luke to the list.

Joy was quite an interesting character, I’m sure she was great in The Lost Soul Choir.

This went on for a while, and eventually, I had a list of different animals, ghosts, and even shadows that I wanted to draw. It read as follows:

-Max

-Alicia

-Jax

-Tika

-Luke

-Joy

-Tony

-Jay

-Humphrey

-Azariah

-Adalie

-Enzo

-Mia

-Winter

-Fallon

-Stella

-Susie, Philip, Kelly

-The wolf from Believer

-Believer

As I looked back over the list, three things came to mind: 1. I have an obsession with dead characters 2. I didn’t name the wolf from Believer (how dare I) and 3. I did a lot of animals, 13 to be exact. Better for me anyway, I can never do humans anyway.

But something felt like it was missing. How did any of these characters connect? I mean, I suppose they didn’t have to, I guess my writer brain is getting the best of me. I felt like they needed a setting, their own story. Maybe like some kind of party? That way, they could all come together in one place. Okay, we’ve got the setting and characters, but what’s the plot? What’s gonna happen?

As I pondered this, I started to doodle. A few wolves appeared on the page. I labeled them Max, Alicia, Winter...I stopped on the fourth one. 

You need a name, wolf from Believer. I thought about good names for this wolf. Alec? Erik? James? Silverfur? Furryboy? What kind of name was that? I decided on Alec. So I labeled him Alec. I started to draw a pit-bull next to Alec that would become Believer. I drew some trees behind them, to gain perspective. Alec had a growing grin on his wolfish face, and Believer was in a protective stance, as I imagine he was in when he ‘died’.

I continued to draw the characters and labeled them as I went. Soon, the page was full of wolves, moose, a deer, a bird, a lizard, a worm, ghosts, and a few humans. All that was left were the shadows. I pulled out my colored pencils and began to draw them. I drew them as shadows, like of the trees and other animals, but then I gave them eyes to show that they were their own being too. It was quite an interesting spectacle.

I decided to take a small break, I would finish coloring after a snack. 

****

When I came back, the paper seemed...different, almost magical. The characters seemed to be...moving. I looked closer, and I heard voices, as if they were in the room with me.

“This is all your fault, Fawn!”

“How is this my fault?! I didn’t know I had that much brain power, but your new form looks nice Mia.”

“Oh look, I have a new name. Alec. It suits me.”

“Oh yeah? Does it really suit a murderer like yourself?”

“Hey chill Believer, chill.”

“HEY! Stop stepping on me Tony! I’m not your shadow, I’m Enzo! GET OFF!”

“Where even are we anyway?”

“I don’t know Susie, but we’ve got to stick together. For all we know, there could be bears in this forest too you know.”

“Oh Philip, you are so overprotective. Just like dad.”

“Kelly, I told you not to talk about him again.”

“Hey, that tree looks like a great nesting spot.”

“Jay, you are so gullible.”

“You’re the gullible one Jax. Isn’t that how you died in the dungeon, from your gullibleness?”

“Hey, I’ve already told you, it’s my fault he died, get over it.”

“Oh Max, you’re still handsome when you’re fending off bullies.”

“Yeah, Alicia’s right. I miss my husband so much.”

“I miss my brethren as well. I should never have been separated from them in the first place.”

“Talk about segregation, I’m the only worm here and my owner killed me by suffocation.” 

In the already chaotic paper, words appeared on it:

Humphrey, I said I was sorry. I died that day you know!

“Yeah, literally died, Azariah, literally.”

“Hey, Adalie, I just wanted to say…”

“Now is not the time Luke, not the time.”

I was so flabbergasted. My characters were alive and interacting with one another. I mused over it.

The room seemed stuffy, even though the door was wide open. It seemed as if it was thick with magic.

All of a sudden, The characters started popping out of the paper and into my room. I ran into the hallway as they grew to be life-sized drawings walking about my room. They appeared in the order that I drew them, Max, Alicia, Winter and so and and so forth. The shadows were very last. I stared in shock as my room filled up with animals and ghosts and shadows. Stella and her 3 babies took up the most room, being moose and all. The 4 wolves also took up room, same with the 5 ghosts and 3 shadows. Jax, and Jay took up the least amount of space, and Tony was a full grown buck. I held onto the door frame, the only thing keeping me from collapsing. I sprinted to the living room, as they started to come out of my room.

The animals started to cause havoc, being the animals that they were. The 3 little baby moose ran out of my room sniffing everything and checking out the other rooms in the house.

“Philip! Have you seen this chair? It’s very cool looking,”Kelly said.

“It smells like...toasted nuts in the winter, so of course it’s cool,” Susie agreed.

The strangest thing yet happened. I felt a weird pain in my stomach. I bent down to try to ease the pain. I looked up to see that Azariah, Tika, Joy, and Mia were all clutching their stomachs too. I heard a crash from one of the bed rooms. Jax was scrambling about, trying to stop Alec and Believer from fighting. Azariah looked around for something to write with. She picked up a journal from my desk along with a pencil.

It’s weird that we all feel the same pain, she wrote. 

“Yeah, very strange,” Tika said.

“But, what I don’t understand is how did you guys get here? I mean, I’m real and well, you aren’t,” I said.

“Uh we’re very real, thank you very much,” Joy said. 

“So it’s you. You’re one of them, killing off characters, making us suffer,” someone else said. I looked at who just spoke. 

“Hey, I didn’t draw you. How’d you get here?” I sat down on the couch to still my queasiness. 

“Yeah, how did you get here, Fawn,” Mia said with a look of disgust.

“I’m not exactly sure, but it looked like you guys were getting summoned or something, so I grabbed on your arm, Mia, when you floated into the sky.”

“Weird. I don’t remember…”

A different crash sounded in the kitchen. The wolves were sniffing everything and they somehow found a way to get in the fridge. 

We all looked at each other. How was this even possible?

I looked over at this Fawn character, standing at an even 5’2”. Something came to the front of my mind...didn’t my friend make this character?

“Hey, what stories have you been in before, Fawn?”

She glared at me like that was a touchy subject.

“What exactly do you mean by that? And what is your name anyway?”

“Well, you are all characters from stories, you know that right?”

“Uh, no? I’m not ‘made’ by anyone. I’m Fawn, no one made me, I just am.”

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself. 

“Sure, sure. Mmh. And I bet this is made up too, right?”

“I-I’m not exactly sure,” Fawn responded. 

A realization came over me.

“I think I know why we all feel pain when we get pain.”

“Why’s that?” Mia asked. 

“Because every time I make a new character, I put a little bit of myself into that character, mostly the girls.”

“That would make more sense,” Tika added. 

Here I was sitting in my living room with made up characters in real life. How exciting. I should go write this experience down, I thought.