Lera ran with her gun clenched in her hand, and looked over her shoulder. Her eyes filled with fear at the giant robot chasing her. She pushed forward, trying to run faster. The faster she tried to run, the slower she felt she was going. She ran for a full mile, when she hit a dead end. Just a giant wall, too smooth to scale fast enough. She looked helplessly at her gun and fired a few shots into the robot’s head. The bullets simply bounced off on contact. She had no other resources. Everything else had been lost in the river. Now the giant robot from Runskin was running toward her, with its arms stretched out. Razor blades popped out of the hands. All Lera could do was brace for the worst. The giant arm headed swiftly down towards her. Despite her bravery, she closed her eyes, bracing for the pain.

There was a loud clunk! and Lera forced herself to open her eyes. Something- or someone had somehow stopped the metal arm. It was frozen right above Lera’s head, and the blades slowed down, until they were just barely turning. The robot’s glowing yellow eyes shut down, and it began to slowly fall backward. Lera looked on in awe as it clanged to the ground in front of her, leaving her completely unharmed.

From behind the dust and smoke, stirred up by the fall, two figures emerged. Lera couldn't make them out until they were only 10 feet away from her. Her jaw dropped. Luna and Riley? But they were dead! She blinked hard, trying to believe what stood in front of her. They grinned and Luna teased, “Well? Do we get a thanks or anything?”

Lera laughed and replied-
***


The document was suddenly closed out, and a little circle in the floor opened, sending me sprawling down the chute. I collapsed in a heap in the middle of the lounge. Everyone was staring at me as I got up and brushed myself off. My heart was pounding. I knew she would never get rid of them for good! Behind me, I heard clanging as my friends flew down the tube I had emerged from. I backed up, leaving room for them. They came flying down, landing perfectly on their feet. Luna bowed.

“Show off,” I teased.

She didn’t bother to argue. Immediately, they both sprinted towards me and embraced me in a wonderful group hug. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I sobbed, “You’re back! Oh, I knew you couldn't be gone forever! What was it like?!”

Riley and Luna were both teary eyed. Riley answered, “Well, um, we never really died. We supposedly drowned in the river, but we were only mostly dead.”

Luna grinned and chuckled, “That’s kinda fun to say, that we were mostly dead!”

“How did you survive?! What happened?! Why weren’t you in the lounge if you were still alive?” I demanded, still utterly confused.

“Well, Krutz managed to fish us out, and we eventually came to and coughed up the water. He notified us that Runskin had sent that robot against you and you were in deep trouble, but he couldn’t go because he broke his leg. So we left him there, and managed to steal a helicopter. Then we found you, got out of the helicopter, found our way inside the robot while he was distracted with you, and shut the power off. That’s the short version, anyway,” Riley explained.

Luna added, “And during that whole time, we always came back to the lounge, but nobody but Krutz could see or hear us. It was kinda weird, actually.”

“Woah, you guys were busy. I don’t suppose you know everything on my end?” I asked.

“All we know is you left the river because you thought we drowned and couldn’t find our bodies, and got chased by a robot, then we saved you- again,” Luna said.

I laughed, “That’s pretty much it.”

The clock struck 6:00, and the lounge changed to evening mode. It was a weeknight, so it was the usual restaurant. All the chairs were dark wood, and there were matching tables with silky embroidered yellow tablecloths. In the center of each table, there was a vase full of white roses, and a white candle. Some nights the candle and roses were red, but usually they were white. The only time they turned red was when we hadn’t been written for a week, that way we had a tiny bit of variation.

The lights were dimmed, and there was constant classical music, which I enjoyed, but many of the others found irritating. I never understood why the lounge was how it was, but I assumed that all of them were the same. Sometimes the lounge got rather boring, because it was the same thing, week after week. Although there were variations depending on the time of day and whether it was a weekend or not, the variations were the same every week.

Luna, Riley, and I sat down at a table together. We had a lot to talk about.

“So, I hear there might be a new character soon,” Riley said.

“I know! I wish I could talk to the writer and tell her to make a really nice, funny, super hot guy who just happened to like me,” I laughed.

“Yeah, no kidding!” Luna agreed.

The last few characters Leah, our writer, had written up weren’t very well described and therefore were pretty boring. And they often changed appearance suddenly, because she added something to their description that hadn’t been there before. Luckily, she had a clear picture of the rest of us in her mind, so my friends and I never changed appearance.

Riley had really light blue eyes, that sometimes played tricks on me and looked slightly green. Her skin wasn’t super fair like mine, but it wasn’t really tan either. She liked to wear her hair in a tight ponytail that hung to the bottom of her neck. I always envied her hair color, because it was the perfect color. It wasn’t a dark red, so it was still light, which I prefer because I’m used to light colored hair, and it was more orange than red, which went great with her eyes.

Luna was completely opposite, but just as gorgeous. She had chocolate brown eyes, and dark brown hair that hung to her mid-back and had medium length side bangs. It always annoyed me how she could leave it wet, and when it dried, it had perfect slightly waved hair that looked gorgeous with a simple run through with the brush. Another annoying perfection- absolutely no acne. Riley and I both had to suffer through it, but I never saw Luna with even one little pimple. It was completely unfair, but I guess I couldn’t hold that against her. She was freakishly tall. Not in a bad way, it was just really unusual. She had the perfect model build- super tall and skinny. In other words, perfect face, perfect hair, and perfect figure. Luckily she wasn’t like those preppy girls who think they’re better than you because they’re pretty. She probably didn’t even realize that she looked like a model.

When the writer started our story, she made us best friends since we were born basically. Although she placed us in different towns, we talked for hours every day. It didn’t seem like we were so far apart because we were so close at heart. Of course, when we weren’t in the screen, we all three lived in the character lounge, where all the characters from all the stories, books, and parts of books our writer had ever written lived. It was a thrill, being able to live together when we weren’t being written about.
You see, our writer created every aspect of us. How we looked, how we acted, where we lived, who we liked- those were all up to her. Other than where we lived, all of these things stayed the same whether we were in the screen, or in the lounge. The only thing that changed was our actions. Things happened to us in the screen, and it was really hard to control it. The only way to have any say in how you react to situations is to have a really good connection with the writer. Then you could manipulate the story through her hands to make things work. Most writers wouldn’t let that connection happen. They had their mind made up about what was going to happen well in advance and didn’t allow flexibility. Our writer, however, had a basic plan, but basically just threw situations at us and let us figure it out through her fingers on the keys. She didn't know that was what she was doing, and she didn't know that we could control anything, but that’s how it was.