by James Riley
“What are you doing?” the Outliner shouted as it just now seemed to catch on to Kara’s plan. “You would erase us both? I have no plan for this!”
“That’s the problem with plans,” Kara said, giving Owen one last look. “They never quite go the way you hope.”
And with that, she grabbed the Outliner with both arms and yanked him backward. He toppled into her, and the two fell into the nothingness, disappearing completely.
As they did, the wall of possibility seemed to glow brighter and surged forward several yards. It stopped just a few feet away from them, then resumed its normal, creeping speed, enveloping the entire world as it went.
CHAPTER 40
Kiel and Charm released their hold on Owen, and he dropped to his knees, his mouth hanging open. Kara had . . . she didn’t . . . this couldn’t be happening.
“She saved us,” Kiel said quietly to him. “She was every bit the hero we needed.”
“She was my friend,” Owen whispered bitterly. “I needed that more than I needed a hero.”
Kiel went silent, while Charm crouched down beside him. “We shouldn’t let her sacrifice be in vain,” she said. “Hold on to that feeling, her being taken from you. Use that against your enemy. Sometimes . . . that’s all you have left.”
Owen turned to look at her, ready to yell at her, to scream, anything . . . but Charm just stared at him with sorrowful eyes, and he realized she knew exactly what he was feeling.
He clenched his fists, then pushed himself to his feet. “You’re right,” he said, turning to face the city walls. “I’m done with this.” He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could. “Nobody! Come out and face us! We’re done with your games!”
There was no reaction, not even an echo. Instead, the wall of nothingness seemed to absorb his voice, leaving nothing but silence behind.
“Are you a coward?” Owen screamed. “Kara was fictional, and you just destroyed her. She was one of your people!”
Still no response.
“We’ll win our way through to him,” Kiel said, laying a hand on Owen’s shoulder. Owen shook it off, though, not wanting to hear anything positive right now. Kara was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it!
“I’m not waiting,” he said. “There’s something I wrote into this horrible place, another stupid book reference. It was something I tried, back when the Magister stuck me outside of your story, and it didn’t work then. But I’m going to make it work now.”
Charm and Kiel both looked at him with confusion, but it didn’t matter. Nobody was going to face them, right now, even if Owen had to jump forward in time to make it happen.
One by one, you’ll lose your friends along the way, until finally it’s just you against Nobody.
That was not going to happen. He wasn’t going to lose another friend, no matter how much the story or Nobody tried to force him to.
“I’m coming for you, Nobody,” Owen said, his heart racing with anger. He held his hands aloft, and just like his characters had done in his story, he clapped loudly and declared, “CHAPTER!”
CHAPTER 41
Instantly, everything changed. Instead of the road toward Grammar City, now Owen, Kiel, and Charm were surrounded by a dirty dungeon cell, their feet bound to the wall by long metal chains.
“Whoa,” Kiel said. “Um, can I ask what just happened?”
“Who locked me up?” Charm shouted, pulling as hard as she could at her chains. Unfortunately, they seemed to be reinforced against her robotic strength. Even her sword arm just set off sparks as it bit into the chains, unable to slice through them. “Owen, what did you do?”
“This place works just like books do,” Owen said, his anger losing a bit of its edge as he realized he may have made a mistake. “You know how books have chapters? Well, I jumped us ahead to the next one, figuring we’d have reached Nobody. But it looks like things didn’t go so well between then and now.”
“Didn’t go well?” Charm shouted. “We’re in a dungeon!”
“That’s okay, I’ll just try again,” Owen said, pulling his hands together for a second try.
“No, wait—” Kiel shouted, but it was too late. Owen clapped his hands again.
“CHAPTER!”
CHAPTER 42
Order!” a judge shouted, slamming his gavel down on a large desk in front of the three of them. “I will have order in Nobody’s court!”
Owen looked around, not liking this much better than the dungeon. Now they were apparently being tried and sentenced for crimes, it looked like? Someone wearing a uniform with GRAMMAR POLICE printed across the chest sat in the witness stand, and a host of odd-looking citizens were screaming for their heads in the audience section.
“This doesn’t seem like an improvement,” Kiel whispered to him.
“I don’t get it,” he whispered back. “I know we make it to Nobody. My older self told me we do. How did we get captured?”
“Well, when would we have escaped if we keep jumping forward?” Kiel asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The story continues on, but we skip ahead,” Owen said. “It’s just like how chapters in a book will—”
“Could you please stop saying that?” Charm demanded, not looking at him as she instead stared down the judge.
“You stand accused of breaking grammatical rules,” the judge said, reading from a long list of crimes, “fighting a legion of Grammar Police, breaking out of jail using plot holes, destroying the globes of several world builders, and attacking our head grammarian with a story sword stolen from a wordsmith.”
“What?” Kiel shouted. “We did all of that, and I missed it?” He gave Owen an annoyed look. “Don’t keep jumping us forward like that. That story sword stuff sounded exciting!”
“Not to mention forging unlawful vocabulary at the wordsmith,” the judge continued, and Kiel groaned loudly.
“Just once more,” Owen said, shaking his head. “I can’t deal with any of this ridiculousness. We need to face Nobody now.”
Charm slapped her forehead as Owen shouted, “CHAPTER!”
CHAPTER 43
I’ve never seen such blatant disregard for words in my life!” the judge shouted, his wig askew on his head. The entire courtroom looked like it’d been destroyed, with chairs broken and Grammar Police unconscious everywhere.
“We missed the exciting stuff again!” Kiel said, pushing the remnants of a desk off of himself.
Why wasn’t this working? Eventually things had to stop getting worse, didn’t they?
“CHAPTER!” Owen shouted again.
CHAPTER 44
A cold wind hit Owen in his face, and he shivered violently as he found himself hanging from a deflating hot air balloon as it sank back toward Grammar City in a zigzag path with the words WHETHER BALLOON written on the side.
Right. It couldn’t decide whether to go right or left. Ugh.
Below, Grammar Police shot word arrows up at them from the streets.
“Owen, this isn’t helping!” Charm shouted from below, where his friends were now hanging from his feet.
“CHAPTER!” he shouted.
CHAPTER 45
I finally found you!” Dr. Verity shouted, reaching out toward him before Owen even knew where he was. “I think I have a way to defeat Nobody—”
Owen leaped back, startled by the scientist’s sudden appearance. “CHAPTER!”
CHAPTER 46
Owen looked up to find Kiel tied to a large wooden beam, hanging over an enormous pot of boiling alphabet soup. “Are you kidding me?” Kiel shouted.
“Don’t worry, I’ll jump us forward again!” Owen shouted back.
“NO!” Charm and Kiel yelled at the same time.
Meanwhile, Dr. Verity was nowhere to be found, if that really had been him in the last chapter. Had he really had a plan for taking down Nobody? Owen groaned, wanting to pull out all of his hair. Why did he have to keep making mistakes? Couldn’t he just for once do the right thi
ng?
“Let me get out of this myself!” Kiel said. “Are you two free?”
Wait, were they? Owen glanced around, and just then realized he and Charm were alone on a rooftop above the crowds cheering for Kiel’s . . . cooking. Not only that, but they were at the edge of Grammar City, right by the Storybook Castle, a large, imposing structure made entirely of giant hardcover picture books. “Um, I actually think we are?” he shouted back to Kiel.
“Get away, then!” the former magician shouted, quickly untying himself, then swinging his body around to grab ahold of the top of the beam. Below, the crowd started screaming in anger at his escape, but Kiel just winked at them. “I’ve got this. I’ll distract them while you two go find Bethany. Tell her I said hello, okay?”
No! Not another friend! This was going just like his older self had said, no matter what Owen did. Now he was losing Kiel, too, not just Kara?
For a moment, he considered jumping one more chapter ahead. After all, they were bound to save Kiel at some point . . . right?
Unless things just kept getting worse, and Charm would disappear next.
“We’ll find her, Kiel,” he said quietly. “We’ll rescue her, then come back for you. Stay safe, okay?”
Kiel saluted them, then ran down the beam, leaped off it, and tackled a group of Grammar Police. “This is for making me miss all of the fun!” he shouted, grabbing what looked like a nightstick made of dangling participles and knocking it against another Grammar Policeman’s head.
And then the crowd blocked Owen’s view, and one more friend was left behind.
CHAPTER 47
Enough time had passed while they were skipping chapters for the wall of nothingness to reach the edge of Grammar City. Owen nervously watched it inch forward, knowing they didn’t have much time left. They’d have to figure out a way to restore everything it had already absorbed before it took over this world too.
That was assuming they could beat Nobody to begin with, which, in spite of Owen’s plan, still seemed pretty far-fetched.
“Look at these shoddily made walls,” Charm said, pointing at the city walls between them and the castle with distaste.
Owen glanced over and made a face. The walls looked like someone had just sketched them in with a pencil. “That was probably my fault for not describing them enough,” he said. “But at least it should make getting past them easier.”
Charm nodded. “Much easier.” She leaped down off the roof and sliced her sword arm right through the city wall like it was paper. Her cut seemed to reverberate through the rest of the wall, and soon the entire thing was wobbling. She pushed her nonrobotic hand against it, and the wall came tumbling down.
Beyond the now-destroyed wall, Storybook Castle rose majestically, its storybook ramparts shining in the setting sun. The castle gate lay straight ahead, beyond which lay the most dangerous of the challenges on the way to Nobody: the two bookwyrms.
A drawbridge led across a moat filled with alligator-like creatures that Owen remembered as allegories, another dumb pun he’d made. They wouldn’t be a danger from a distance, given that their only power was to declare whatever hidden meaning something had as they ate it.
Next to the drawbridge, a sign read ABRIDGED/UNABRIDGED, and the first word was circled. As Charm noticed it, she immediately pulled out her ray guns and blew it to splinters. She threw Owen a half-apologetic look, then shrugged and led him across the drawbridge.
Before she reached the other side, Owen grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “There are two bookwyrms in the courtyard,” he whispered, pointing ahead of them. “Like I said earlier, they’re dragons, just made out of books. These two have read every single novel ever written, so to get by them, we have to answer three questions. Miss even one, and they eat us.”
Charm gave him a confused look. “So why don’t we just fight them instead of wasting time with riddles?”
Owen blinked. “Because they’re dragons? You know, huge monsters with teeth and claws who breathe fire? Well, these ones breathe pages on fire, but same thing.”
She snorted. “I’ve been killing dragons with Kiel for years. I’ll handle them.”
Owen shook his head. “Let’s just try it my way first, okay? The last thing we need is you . . . I mean, for either of us to get hurt here and not be able to go on.”
She glared at him, then gestured for him to lead the way. He did, not entirely thrilled to be going first, and found himself in a courtyard tiled with smiling fairy-tale book covers. In the middle of the courtyard, two enormous dragons with books for scales lay waiting, their eyes on Owen the moment he entered.
“Look, Gutenberg,” one of the dragons said to the other. “Another human infestation. I hate these things. Shall I destroy them with fire?”
“Please do, Alexandria,” the other said, waving a clawed paw lazily. “Can’t stand the little monsters. Fire away.”
The bookwyrm named Alexandria rose up on her haunches, her long neck reaching up into the sky as she opened her mouth, revealing a glowing orange light.
“See?” Charm said, readying her sword arm. “Let’s take them!”
“No, wait!” Owen shouted, rushing into the courtyard with his hands up in surrender. “We’re here to accept your challenge!”
Alexandria paused, her mouth snapping shut in confusion as smoke began to rise from her nostrils. “Gutenberg, it appears these insects can speak. How interesting.”
“It claims it’s here for a challenge,” Gutenberg responded. “Are you aware of any such thing?”
“Can’t say that I am,” Alexandria replied.
“Yes, you are!” Owen shouted, sweat trickling down his neck. “You know, the challenge where you test us to see if we can correctly identify lines from three books. You offer that challenge because you’ve read every book ever written and want to make sure we’re worthy of entering the Storybook Castle!”
The two bookwyrms looked at each other. “What a ridiculous concept,” Alexandria said.
“Why would we care if humans have read a book?” Gutenberg replied.
“It seems to me that maybe the creature is simply stalling, to prolong its life,” Alexandria said. “And if we let that happen, then we’d clearly be failing at our job to protect the inner keep from visitors.”
“And that would make Nobody upset,” Gutenberg said, shuddering. “I wouldn’t want to see him angry, would you?”
“Not me,” Alexandria said. “Now, little human creatures, I’m afraid it’s time to burn you up. We’d eat you, but, well—”
“You smell disgusting,” Gutenberg said. “And probably taste worse.”
“Exactly,” Alexandria agreed, opening her mouth again.
“Owen, when I say go, you run between them to the castle,” Charm hissed, stepping in front of him. “I’m going to distract them while you get past, then catch up to you.”
As terrified of the bookwyrms as he was, the idea of leaving Charm behind and going on alone almost scared him more. “I’m not leaving you,” he said.
“All that matters is taking Nobody down,” she said. “And if you tried to distract these things, they’d set you on fire in seconds. This is our only choice.” She stepped forward, raising her sword arm toward Alexandria. “Dragons!” she shouted. “I’m Charm Mentum of Quanterium. I think dragons are ridiculous and magic is dumb, so I’m going to stab you until you stop moving. Now come at me!”
The two bookwyrms turned to look at each other, then back at Charm. “Um, no?” Gutenberg said.
Instead of responding, Alexandria unleashed a torrent of fire directly at the half-robotic girl.
As Owen dodged to the side to avoid being burned, Charm leaped straight up, using her superstrong robotic leg to boost her. Flipping in midair, she pulled a ray gun out of her leg holster and began firing toward Alexandria’s mouth.
The beams struck the bookwyrm in the throat, and she yanked her head backward in pain and alarm. “That hurt, you little monster!” she sc
reamed. “Gutenberg, destroy her!”
“Owen, now!” Charm shouted as she landed, then used her robotic leg to launch herself right at Gutenberg, her sword arm locked at the elbow and aimed at the bookwyrm’s eye.
Owen ran straight forward, right between the bookwyrms. To his left, he heard Gutenberg shriek in pain, only to duck beneath one of Alexandria’s claws as she swiped at him. Another beam struck her leg from a distance, and Owen looked up to find Charm climbing around to Gutenberg’s neck, her ray gun still glowing from the shot she’d just taken. Gutenberg, meanwhile, had a gash down the side of his face where she must have sliced him.
Both bookwyrms were now definitely focused on Charm, and the way was clear. On the other side of the courtyard, a double set of heavy wooden doors led farther into the castle, and they were close enough that Owen could reach them now, even if the wyrms turned on him.
“Don’t mess this up, Owen!” Charm shouted. “You have to beat him for all of us!”
He glanced back at her, realizing she knew that she wouldn’t be catching up after all. Distracting the dragons wasn’t going to end well for her, and she knew that. As Owen watched, Gutenberg bit down on Charm’s sword arm and ripped it off at the elbow. The sword clattered to the courtyard floor between the bookwyrms while Alexandria shot another blast of fire toward Charm.
This time, Charm was too slow with the ray gun, and her blast went wide as the searing flame struck her human shoulder. She gasped and fell from the bookwyrm’s back, crashing hard to the ground.
“Go!” she shouted at Owen, crawling with one arm toward her sword. “Get out of here! I’ve got this!”
Gutenberg slowly pushed one of his paws down on top of her back. “Oh, do you now?”
“GO!” she shouted again, then screamed in pain as the bookwyrm’s claws dug into her.