“You can’t just kill me!”

“I can, and I will,” I calmly replied. A tall, pale young man stood over my shoulder impatiently. His hair, black as a raven’s wing and slicked down his front, was just as dramatic as his leather boots and black jacket. He was my antihero poster boy, and was not happy with my plan for the end of the trilogy.

“What’ll the fans say?” he asked. I flinched and he smiled, knowing that he had struck a nerve. “What’ll my fans say?”

“I-I don’t care what they think,” I began, summoning all of my willpower, “But I do know that once this trilogy is over you will be gone for good.”

“Is that it?” he said softly. “You still think that I’m not real?”

“I know that you aren’t real!” I shouted, hoping that no one would see me screaming at my window. “This conversation isn’t real, either. I’m just a sc-”

“No you’re not,” said the image beside me, his eyes glowing with that intense maniac fire that I’d described so many times.

“Then how do you explain yourself to me, John Augustus Black?” I asked him.

“You know I hate being called that, Will!” he exclaimed, “Stick with Jett. Jett Black.”

“Fine,” I conceded, smiling inside at the satisfaction of striking a nerve with him. “Then explain how you’re here. How it’s possible for you to appear to me and only me. And also explain how can you disappear as soon as anyone barges in?”

“Sometimes-” Jett began.

A young, rushed-looking woman around my age in a black dress ran in. “Katie Myers, at your service. I’m the temporary secretary. Oh and what an honor it is to meet-”

“What happened to Jessica?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Then I apologized, “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

Katie held up her hand. “No offense taken. It’s going to be over the news soon- she just disappeared!”

I glanced over at Jett. He winked at me and vanished.

“What is that?” asked my new secretary, looking at my window. Then she blushed. “Oh, sorry. It’s just a raven.”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Myers,” I replied hazily, still thinking about the news of Jessica.

“Please, call me Katie, and it’s Ms. Meyers, not Mrs.” she said. I smiled at her.

“Okay, Katie,” I told her, “Then please get to work.”

“At once, sir!” she declared.

“If you’re Katie, then I’m Will.”

“Okay, Will,” Katie told me, “I’ll get to work.”


I came home a few hours later once I was satisfied with my writing. Katie was managing the calls and mail quite nicely, and had taken it upon herself to stay for a couple more hours. Once home, I jumped onto my couch and scanned the channels until the local news came up. At the crime scene, a reporter was in the middle of interviewing a witness. “So you say that this was a kidnapping?” the reporter asked. The witness nodded, yellow light from the street lamp’s glow casting a shadow on her face.

“I saw it myself,” she proclaimed. “He was tall and pale, just like Jett from this book!”
I flinched as I saw that it was my book, the first one, with Jett Black on the cover.
“Um, thank you,” stated the reporter as the girl continued to babble on, clearly thinking that his girl was some crazy fan of mine. “Until we find Jessica Walker, the police are interviewing key witnesses to try and figure out the scene of the crime.”
I flicked off the TV. It was possible that she just was as crazy fan. One time, when a person saw a manatee with a scar that looked just like Jett Black at San Diego’s SeaWorld, well… the manatee is probably still in rehabilitation.
As I got off the couch, Jett was facing me, an amused smile on his face.

“Did you do this?” I asked, fearful of his reply. He smirked, then disappeared. Feeling weary, I plopped back down onto my couch, worried about my hallucinations as I tried to convince myself that Jett couldn’t materialize. No figment of my imagination could… Katie. Jett, if he existed, would want revenge before I killed him off. If he was the one who took Jessica, Katie would be next. I ran to my car, then backtracked and grabbed a small package in my room. I had to get Katie before he could.

The office was quiet when I parked. Racing in, I dropped my keys and winced at the loud jingle that followed, echoing throughout the walls. Quickly grabbing them, I unlocked my area and raced in to see Jessica tied up. She screamed at me, muted with a rag, motioning somewhere. I pulled her gag off.

“Jessica, what are you-”

“Behind you!” Jessica screamed. Before I could turn around, something hit my head and the ground rushed up.

I opened my eyes to see a torch glowing in the middle of a room, casting flickering shadows on the barren walls. Katie and Jessica were both suspended in wooden cages, tied up but not gagged.

“I’m so sorry, Will,” Jessica sobbed, “but he was too fast.”

“And I’m sorry,” I said, “for the both of you getting trapped like this.” I struggled to my feet to see Jett with a long black sword, placed right between two ropes.

“Well, well, well,” he said, “You have two secretaries. Two ropes. Which one will plummet to their death?”

“This is so cliché, even for you,” I snapped back. Jett smiled.

“So, you need a plot twist to be satisfied. Fine then!” He rushed at me, gleaming sword in hand as I ducked. A struggle between the two of us for the sword continued until I managed to wrench it away and throw it down. The two of us fought with our fists until Jett managed to knock me away. I skidded to a halt, dazed, as Jett fetched his blade. He walked towards me slowly, swinging his sword carelessly. A few steps away, he stopped and stabbed his sword into the ground, leaving it to quiver upright.

“Why?” A single word with more vehemence than you could imagine. “Why kill me? I’m your best character. Your favorite!”

“But now you’ve become something else,” I replied as I stood shakily on my feet. “How could you be real?” Jett stood right in front of me, an evil grin on his face.


“It’s what I was going to tell you before Ms. Myers interrupted,” Jett replied, “Sometimes ideas are powerful enough to become reality.”
A cold chill ran down my spine.

“When you first showed up,” I started, slowly advancing towards him, “I had thought that you were a figment of my imagination. I assumed that I was schizophrenic. But now I know that you’re real.” I took out the small package from my room and unwrapped it. Once he glimpsed the item inside, Jett turned from anger to fear.

“That cannot possibly stop me!” he cried out, but I called his bluff and continued my own.

“You recognize this, don’t you?” I said as I held out a small, old black pen. “This was the very thing that brought you into being.”

“But now I’m stronger than you!” Jett started to advance again.

“I created you, Jett Black,” I cried out as I ran to him, “and I can erase you!” Jett tried to slash at my head, but I ducked and stabbed the pen into his heart.



Black blood oozed out of Jett as he grew brighter and brighter. I turned away as a blast of heat hit my back and blinded me. When my eyes refocused, Jett Black was no more.


The next day, all of the local news stations were talking about the mysterious man who kidnaped me and my secretaries. Authorities concluded that the man was an avid Jett Black fan and dressed up as him to hide his identity. They’re currently searching for him so that they can arrest him. They never will.
I stared at the TV as a reporter stood in the room that the police had rescued the three of us from only hours before. She started to talk about me, “Twenty-eight year old author Will-” I shut the TV off.
A package had arrived in the mail yesterday from the publishing company. Considering what happened in only a day, I was a little apprehensive at seeing its contents. Still, I opened it and looked at the glossy new cover of the last book in my trilogy. There was a note, too; I hope you like the cover of Against the Wall. Great ending!

I flipped to the end of the book and let out a sigh when I saw my creation dead, dispelled by a few words in the black and white pages. Just before I put the book down, my finger slipped and revealed a new page. To my horror, a few more words altered the entire story and unsealed its fate.
“But the wrong person was killed. And so I live on.”