The soft yellow sand scrunched up between my toes as I walked, slowly, across the shoreline. The gentle lapping of the grey-blue waves met my ears as they splashed onto the sandy bank, and receded in ripples of froth.

I kept my gaze downwards, only glancing back over my shoulder every now and then to watch the water dissolve the footprints I left behind. I glanced across the vast expanse of ocean, towards the huddle of islands cresting the horizon, and sighed.

What would it feel like to be real?

Welcome to the fictional town of Precipitous.

My name is Hayley Schultz and as for as long as I can remember, this place, this town, is where I've always lived. I was born and raised as a sheepherder's daughter ... until I turned 15. My parents were killed in a savage accident involving a runaway horse. I never felt the same after they left me, even more so after I was sent to live with my prestigious Aunt Stephanie and my socially awkward cousin, Teyla.

But I had no time to really mourn my parents' loss, to get over the fact that they're truly gone. Instead, my life turned from being completely normal to being completely chaotic.

But I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here ... Let me explain the history of Precipitous.

All it took was several gold coins in exchange for a leather-bound notebook and a fancy ink pen. This exchange was made many years ago when an elderly man fancied himself to be a writer. He lived in an old cottage on the outskirts of the forest. Whenever he wasn't busy whittling wooden toys for the children of the neighbourhood, he was writing a story, OUR story.

We called him the Author.

The Author was kind and gentle. Whenever his ink pen scribbled across the parchment, he made his characters come alive. They were happy and ambitious, living in peace and dwelling in safety.

Alas, it was not to last.

One fateful day, the Author suffered a stroke. He never arose from his bed again, but died and was buried in a simple coffin with a simple tombstone. No one had really appreciated him, except for us, his characters.

A few weeks after his sad departure, some men raided his house. They packed many things, including our story, in boxes and transported them, by wagon, to a far-off warehouse. There they lay, untouched, for many months, until the new owner of the warehouse came around to inspect his new property. By chance, he happened upon the box that held our story. He nearly threw us away, but when he opened the cover, he was astonished and delighted by the results. He could see into OUR fictional world.

However, this man was NOT kind or gentle like our previous Author. Instead, he used our book to gain money. He pretended he could foretell the future through the course of our story. Many people believed him and gave him whatever he required of them. He became wealthy, but with that wealth, came a cruel, vain persona.

Whenever he opened our book and placed the special ink pen against the paper, we all involuntarily shuddered and wished we could run for our lives, for he has destroyed us. He has forced us to do whatever he writes and we cannot overcome him, for it is impossible to escape. He has trampled down what we have built up, he has killed the previous protagonists, who were both valiant and brave, he has created cruel, heartless enemies that constantly bombard us and our town. He calls them his minions. We call them the invaders.

Our new Author has given every one of us a number, taking away our names, our lives and our hope. There are 99 characters in our story. The first number was the old granny that lived down the road. She choked to death. Number 2 was my uncle's dog, who was mercilessly shot down by an invader. Then, numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6, an entire family, burned to death inside their home. On and on, the death and destruction has spread like wildfire. The Author will not stop, until he has killed us all.

And the worst part? I'm number 99. I am the last one destined to die. I am the one who has to watch her family and friends get killed every day. I am the main character of our story. I am the protagonist.

           "Hayley Marie Schultz! Get downstairs RIGHT NOW!"

    At the sound of Auntie Steph's irritated voice, I buried myself deeper underneath my warm covers. I rolled my eyes as I stuffed my face into my pillow. I let out an exaggerated groan as I yelled, "Just five more minutes!"

    "Hayley!" Auntie Steph screeched from the foot of the steps leading to my room. "You've been saying 'five more minutes' for the past half an hour! Enough is enough! Come downstairs NOW!"

    "Urgh, fine!" I kicked off my blankets and instantly recoiled as the chilly morning air hit me with a blast. I quickly hopped out of bed and chucked on a warm jacket and a pair of black pants, before making my way down to the dining room.

    As my chair scraped across the tiled floor, Auntie Steph entered the room, carrying a platter heaped with fried eggs and bacon.

    "Mmm," I eyed the breakfast greedily as she set it down on the table.

    Auntie Steph just huffed in annoyance and threw a napkin at me. "Take that if you don't wanna get bacon fat all over yourself. Teyla!! Where are you, sweetie?"

    "So ... you reserve the nice talk for her now, do you?" I smirked, as I began spearing the eggs with my fork and plopping them onto my plate. "She's worse than me in the mornings."

    Auntie Steph chose to ignore me as she helped herself to some bacon strips, coated with maple syrup and dripping with melted butter.

    "I - I'm here!" Teyla announced breathlessly, bursting into the room amidst the fluster of trying to pull on her jumper.

    "Finally," I mumbled under my breath.

    Auntie Steph shot me a knowing look just as the doorbell rang. "Whose that?" she inquired.

    "Oh that'd be Wesley," I shrugged, quickly standing up and stuffing the rest of my egg into my mouth. "He's got something to show me and Teyla ... apparently."

    "Geez, why is he here this early? I haven't even had time to eat yet!" Teyla wailed.

    "Well, grab something then and eat it on the way!" Auntie Steph ordered briskly. "Go on then."

    I, on the other hand, was already on my way to the door. Shoving aside the safety lock, I swung it wide open and grinned widely.

    "Hey Wesley, what's up?" I asked, giving him a quick side-hug.

    "Nothing much," he shrugged, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses to sit more comfortably on his nose. "C'mon Teyla! Where are ya?"

    Teyla bounded into view. "Right here. Let's go. See ya, Mum!"

    "Bye, sweetie!" Auntie Steph hollered after her. "Don't wander off too far, okay?"

    "Pfff, us? Never!" I answered dramatically, waving for Teyla to go through the door first. As she and Wesley started down the driveway, I turned back to make sure the door had closed behind me. As I did so, I caught sight of the dreaded, black mark smeared on the inside of my wrist. I froze. Slowly, I turned my arm over and examined the tattoo.

    99.

    That was my number.

    For just a moment, I'd let myself feel free, feel real. But I should've known better than that.

    I could never be real, because I didn't exist. I was fake. I was just a work of fiction.

    And I hated it.

    Everyone had their number. Auntie Steph was 86, Wesley 92, Teyla, 95, and my gorgeous boyfriend, Daniel, was 97. They were lucky to be in the last twenty numbers. It'd been over four years since our story had fallen into the hands of our current Author and so far everyone, numbered 1 - 67, was dead.

    I should've felt glad that my closest friends and family were so far down the line they wouldn't be killed for a good long while yet ... but I wasn't. I knew that one day in the future, I'd have to stand by helplessly and watch them die. It wasn't something I was prepared to face, none the less, think about.

    Whenever I saw my tattoo, out of the corner of my eye, I would always think of Mum. She was number 36. Both she and my father had been killed in a horrific accident. No one had figured out the exact cause of it, they'd just made assumptions, but the bodies of both of them were never found. I'd made myself believe they were well and alive ... somewhere, but as time dragged on and on, I was forced to face reality. Of course they were dead. How could they have survived? The Author had killed them. And now he was going to kill each and every one of us. He was merciless. He'd never stop ... until everyone, including me, was gone.

    However, contrary to the majority of views, Mum had a differing opinion about the Author. She believed there was a way to escape this prison, a way to get rid of him before he got rid of us. Of course, everyone called her stupid and laughed in her face whenever she tried to reason with them, but as a young girl, I was enthralled by the tales she told me. I earnestly believed, in my childlike innocence, that we COULD escape.

    I remember, in particular, on one wintry evening, once the Author had closed our book and gone to bed, that I couldn't sleep. I had just witnessed the horrific murdering of a woman and her baby girl by a group of invaders and I was terrified. Mum scooped me up and snuggled me in her rocking chair, listening as I asked for her to tell me one of "her stories".

    Mum, being the beautiful, caring angel that she was, had complied. She started her story with "Once upon a fairytale, a long, long time ago ..." She went on to tell me about a wealthy merchant who was also trapped in a prison, similar to ours. He had been cursed by a ruler of black magic, who'd caused him to be able to see into other realms. He hated the fact that he could see the supernatural, knowing that one day, his nightmares would finally envelop him in death. Now, this merchant had a little daughter, whose name was Hayley and very conveniently, looked exactly like me. The merchant wanted his little girl to know the truth, so he wrote a message to her on a scroll of parchment and hid it in a secured trunk in his basement, with the hopes that one day, she would find it and read it.

    That's as much as I heard before I drifted off to sleep, but it was enough to keep me on edge for the next story and the next one and the one after that.

    As I got older, I grew out of the "story-telling" phase. I never appreciated the fact that I could just sit down and listen to a story ... until I couldn't.

    I shook myself out of my deep reverie and scurried after Wesley and Teyla, who were yelling at me to hurry up. As I sprinted down the gravel driveway and hauled myself over our fence, I looked up towards the 'sky' which was the inside of the closed leather cover of our story.

    I didn't want to feel trapped anymore ... but I didn't know how to shake the feeling, especially when I knew, all too well, what was coming next.

  I was sitting down on the cool, hard surface of a rock overlooking a large drop-off into a forested valley below. My feet were dangling effortlessly over the edge of the cliff. My fingers were drumming against the side of the rock. My mind was swirling with thoughts.

I wanted to gaze at it again. I wanted to ponder it's existence again. I wanted to find out how I was put in this horrid place and why... for about the fifty billionth time in my life. But I didn't. I kept my arm twisted the other way so I wouldn't catch sight of the inky-black tattoo that haunted me day in and day out.

Peals of laughter sounded from behind me. I turned and watched in amusement as Teyla, her red hair flying about her dirtied face, and Wesley, cameo bag in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, scrambled around in the dirt after a runaway lizard. Obviously Wesley wanted to add the fleet-footed reptile to his collection of gadgets so he could study it.

Typical Wesley. I shook my head, a smile tugging at my lips.

A soft breezy wind played with the golden strands of my hair, causing it to tickle my face and ears.

Reluctantly, I heaved myself off of the rock and brushed off my pants. "C'mon Teyla, we'd better get back or Auntie Steph will start worrying about us. We've been gone all morning."

Teyla opened her mouth to protest but was suddenly cut off a loud screeching sound that rumbled throughout the air and shook the ground upon which we were standing.

"Oh no!" I whispered.

It was the Author ... and he was opening up our story, ready to began his writing for the day.

"We gotta go, NOW!" I grabbed Teyla's hand and broke into a run, heading for home. It had never seemed so far away.

"Hold up!" Wesley howled from behind us, tripping over himself in his anxiousness to catch up.

I skidded to a halt, an undiscerning Teyla slamming straight into me.

"Watch it!" she cried, a hand flying to her forehead.

"Wesley!" I yelled. "Get your butt over here, right now! C'mon!"

In a blind panic, Wesley, his arms full of the numerous bits and pieces that were continually falling out of his bag, tried to untangle himself and get to his feet.

The screeching sound became louder and louder. An unnaturally bright light began pouring in from the outside world as the leather cover of our story was slowly lifted up. Several stones loosened from the rocky wall where I had previously been sitting and bounced noisily down the canyon.

It wouldn't be long now.

A bunch of large sturdy oak trees lining the edge of the nearby forest began to shake, the ground beneath them cracking and giving way to the roots that was rapidly rising up towards the surface of the earth.

CREAK. One of the trees began to careen dangerously to the side, it's shadow falling over a still-flailing Wesley.

"WESLEY!!" Teyla screamed, her voice piercing my ears.

Suddenly everything seemed to freeze in slow motion. The screeching stopped, a deafening stillness filled the air. The loud rumbles beneath the ground immediately came to a jolting halt, causing the floor to be still and level once again. Everything stopped shaking around like dead, weightless leaves. Not even the tinkle of a pebble being displaced could be heard. Only silence.

I gaped around me, confused and astonished. What the actual hell is going on? My feet felt glued to the ground. I was frozen in place. Every limb and fibre of my being felt stiff and unusable.

This NEVER happened.

When the Author opened our book, he would always began writing straight away. A steaming mug of coffee would be sitting by his elbow, sending it's aroma throughout the pages. The scratch-scratch of his ink pen would sound clearly throughout the air as the tip of the pen's point flowed across the clear, transparent pages.

Whatever he wrote was what we had to do, even if it meant killing someone we loved. Once that book was opened and his pen was moving across the paper, we, as the characters, had no choice but to do his bidding. We couldn't control ourselves or our emotions. They were all controlled by him. And that was the worst part of it all ...

I shuddered, sudden tears stinging the inside of my eyelids. I screwed my eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the images, the screams that flooded my mind. But I couldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried not to think on it, no matter how many times I tried to resist the Author ... it didn't work. He just put me through more suffering.

I won't even began to tell you how many times I've looked into a victim's eyes and begged, internally, for their forgiveness ... right before I would kill them. I could barely live with myself. In fact, if it weren't for Teyla, Wesley, Daniel and dear Auntie Steph, I would've undergone the same fate as the previous protagonist. I would've thrown myself off of that cliff a long time ago.

"Hayley!"

I was abruptly snapped from my reverie by the sound of Teyla's worried voice. She jerked a thumb up towards the sky, which was now open and clearly showing the evil, twisted face of our Author.

"We need to hide before he sees us! C'mon!"

I still couldn't get my legs to respond, though, so Wesley and Teyla literally had to drag me towards a large rock nearby, behind which we found refuge.

As I slumped to the ground and tried to clear my mind, I shook my head, trying to figure out what on earth was going on. The Author never hesitated in his story-telling. He always knew EXACTLY what he was gonna do ... which is why this was such a surprising occurance.

"Hey, take a look at this!" Wesley hissed, his eyes fastened to his binoculars.

"What is it?" I demanded, raising my eyebrows at him.

"This is so unusual," Wesley mused, shaking his head and completely ignoring me.

"Aw, c'mon, give me those!" Teyla ripped the binoculars from his grasp and peered intently through them. "Oh my God!"

"What!" I whisper-yelled, getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated. "Here, just gimme the damn thing."

Teyla, her eyes and mouth wide o's, slowly extended the binoculars towards me.

I plucked them from her hand and lifted them to my eyes. What I saw made me reel in absolute shock.

The Author wasn't writing our story. Instead, he'd laid the pen to one side and had cupped his chin in one hand, seemingly deep in thought. He shook his head and sighed deeply, the fingers of his other hand tapping impatiently against his leg.

Just then, the door to his office flew wide open, admitting one of the Author's manservants.

"Sire!" the servant exclaimed breathlessly. "You won't believe who's just come through the gates!"

The Author rolled his eyes, looking extremely disinterested. "Who?"

"It's Lord Mattingham, sire," the servant told him. "He's demanding to speak to you AT ONCE!"

The Author quickly swivelled around in his chair, a look of horror on his face. "Wait, what? In here? He can't come in here!"

"It's already too late, sire, he's coming towards this room as we speak!"

"Why didn't you tell him to wait in the sitting room like everyone else?"

"I tried too, sire, but he wouldn't listen."

The Author heaved a deep breath. "Very well. You may leave now."

The servant bowed and hurriedly backed out of the room.

Loud footsteps sounded down the corridor and no less than a few seconds later, a man, whom I presumed to be Lord Mattingham, burst into the room.

"What is this I hear?" he boomed authoritatively. He was dressed in a garment of plush purple material, a broad hat sporting a feather placed upon his head.

"I - I'm sorry, Lord Mattingham?" the Author repeated, pretending to sound completely confused. "What would you be referring too?"

"You know what I'm referring too, you snivelling little bastard!" Lord Mattingham sneered, spit flying out of his mouth as he took a menacing step towards the Author. "That you're presently abandoning the story?"

I couldn't help the gasp that erupted from my lips as I heard this statement.

"Chamberlain wants your book finished before the Notting-Gem's Newspaper reveals who was behind their most recently publicised story," Lord Mattingham continued sharply. "We're already losing money to our competitors and we can't afford anymore losses, do you hear me?"

"I hear you," the Author responded blatantly.

"Good. Then do something about it! Chamberlain's on a holiday to the South Isles for a week. When he gets back, that bloody story better be done so it can be published before the deadline!" Lord Mattingham waved a finger in the Author's face as he went on, "And remember, I don't want a single person finding out the power that's REALLY inside this book, do you hear me? I don't care what it takes, just make sure that NONE of those characters survive."

The Author nodded. "I won't let you down."

"You better not," Lord Mattingham tossed his head as he spun around on his heel and walked towards the doorway. "Remember, you have ONE WEEK!!!" He slammed the door behind him to prove his point before striding briskly down the hall.

The Author hesitated, staring at the closed door for a moment. Suddenly he whipped around, his gaze riveting to the still-open book.

"Damn!" he muttered under his breath as he leaped forward and slammed the cover shut with a massive THUMP that echoed throughout the air.

I lowered the binoculars from my eyes, shaking my head in disbelief.

"What in the world?" Wesley muttered under his breath, his eyes wide with shock.

"Do - do you think everyone saw this, Hayley?" Teyla stuttered out.

I straightened up from my crouched position, a determined look replacing my previous one of fear and confusion.

"Yep," I responded shortly, sidestepping the large rocks in my path as I headed for the bush trail that wound it's way back to the village.

"So ... er .... what now?" Wesley piped up, shouldering his bag and stumbling down the embankment after me.

"We need to find Daniel," I shot back over my shoulder, lengthening my strides.

"B-But why?" Teyla wailed.

I shook my head, annoyed at the persisting ignorance that still shrouded my friends' minds. I stopped and whirled around to face them. "Don't you understand?" I snapped irritably. "This could be the end of us! If we don't do something to stop the Author, we're all gonna be dead by the end of the week. Don't you see how serious this is?"

Wesley skidded to an ungraceful halt, Teyla coming to a stop beside him. They looked as miserable and forlorn as two little puppies with their tails between their legs.

A sigh escaped my lips and my shoulders sagged. I gazed at them apologetically. Whatever I was feeling, whatever I was thinking ... I couldn't let it affect how I treated Wesley and Teyla, two of the few real friends I actually had.

Heaving a deep breath, I went on in a more level and calm tone, "Let's get back home and see how Auntie Steph is first. Then, we can call Daniel over and thoroughly discuss this situation, okay? We good?"

Teyla and Wesley nodded, both still looking very down-hearted.

"Aw, c'mon," I tried to lighten the mood by stepping forwards and swinging my arms across their shoulders. "It - it'll be fun! It'll be like trying to uncover a murder mystery or something ... only, it'll be a mass murder mystery, of the whole town ..." I trailed off, realising how stupid I sounded.

"Yeah, very funny, Hayley," Teyla snorted, pushing my arm away. "Let's just joke about everyone dying, that's how we deal with things around here."

I opened my mouth to reply but before I could so, Teyla had already turned her back on me.

"C'mon, Wes," she called out as she started down the trail. "We haven't got any more time to waste."

I huffed and rolled my eyes as I quickly trotted after them. As much as I hated to admit it, Teyla was right.

We didn't have much time left.