Chapter 96 THE MISSING HAND

Chapter 96 THE MISSING HAND
The crowd roared. My hand lay in the dirt, a sad puddle of blue ink. I didn't feel pain. I didn't feel anything. My arm was just a stump, dripping ink onto the arena floor.

The monster laughed. It was a deep, grating sound. It raised its giant pen-weapon again, ready to end it. I looked at Sarah. She was screaming, her face pale. She was tugging at the ropes, trying to break free, but they were made of the same thick, black text.

"That's all you've got?" I yelled at the monster. I didn't have a weapon, and I was missing a hand, but I wasn't scared anymore. Being a character meant I could do things people couldn't. I concentrated. If I was made of ink, I could change.

I focused on my arm. Instead of crying over the missing hand, I imagined it back. Not as flesh and bone, but as a blade. I pushed my will into the ink of my stump.

It bubbled. It stretched. In a heartbeat, my arm turned into a long, sharp blade of hardened blue light. It hummed, ready for a fight.

The monster swung. I didn't dodge. I lunged forward, moving faster than I ever had before. I jammed my ink-blade into the monster's armor. It didn't hit metal. It hit the words written on the chest.

Destroy.

I slashed through the 'D'. Then the 'e'. The armor started to crack. The monster stumbled back, confused. It looked at its own chest as the words fell off like peeling paint.

"My turn," I said.

I didn't stop. I attacked the creature's legs. I sliced through the word Sturdy and the word Strong. The monster tipped over, hitting the ground with a thud that shook the whole arena. I stood over it, my ink-blade glowing.

The crowd went silent. They weren't cheering anymore. They were watching.

I looked up at the VIP box. The man in the suit was standing up. His face wasn't bored anymore. He looked mad. He started tapping his remote like a maniac.

Spawn, he typed. Reinforcements.

A dozen more creatures poured into the arena. They were all armored, all covered in words, all holding giant pens.

"You think this is a game?" I shouted at the man in the box. "You’re just playing with words. I’m playing for real!"

I didn't wait for them to reach me. I ran toward the post where Sarah was tied. If I could cut her free, we could find a way out. I sliced through the text-ropes in one clean motion. Sarah fell, and I caught her.

"Logan!" she gasped. She grabbed my arm, the one that was a blade. "What happened to you?"

"Don't worry about it," I said, looking around. The creatures were closing in. They circled us, their pens pointed at our heads.

"They’re waiting for the order," Sarah said. She sounded strong, not like a prisoner. She looked at the VIP box. "He needs a story to win. If we don't give him one, he loses control."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't fight," she said. "If you fight, he has a script. He has moves. He has an ending. Just... stop."

I looked at the creatures. They were ready to jump. They had their pens raised. I looked at the man in the box. He was waiting for me to panic. He was waiting for me to run or fight or cry.

"You're right," I said.

I dropped my arm. The ink-blade turned back into a normal, messy stump of ink. I let my guard down. I stood still.

The man in the box paused. He hit a button on his remote.

Fight, the screen flashed.

Nothing happened.

I just stood there, holding Sarah’s hand. I didn't look at the monsters. I looked at the sky above the arena. It was just a black screen.

"Fight!" the man yelled through the speakers.

I smiled. "No."

The monsters were confused. They looked at each other. They looked at their pens. They didn't know what to do without a script. They were just empty armor.

The man in the box was slamming his remote against the glass. He was typing faster than I’d ever seen. Attack! Kill him! Run! Jump! Cry!

He was trying to force a story, but I wasn't playing along.

"You want a fight?" I shouted. "Come down here and do it yourself!"

The man stopped typing. He looked at me, his eyes wide. He knew he was losing. If a character refused to act, the story died. And if the story died, he had no power.

He started to shrink. His suit became too big for him. The VIP box started to melt. He was losing his status as the "writer." He was becoming just a guy in a room.

The monsters turned to dust, their armor falling off in big, hollow chunks. The arena walls began to fade, showing the white screen behind it.

"You can't do this!" the man screamed, his voice turning into a high-pitched squeak. "I own this account! I own your data!"

"You don't own me," I said.

I walked toward the edge of the arena, dragging Sarah with me. We stepped off the dirt and onto the white screen.

"What now?" Sarah asked.

"We find the real world," I said.

We walked into the white. It was quiet. So quiet. Then, a voice came out of the air. It wasn't the man in the suit. It was a new voice. A girl's voice, cold and sharp.

"You broke the contract," she said.

I stopped. In front of us, the white space ripped open, and a woman stepped out. She wore a black uniform, and she had a red pen tucked behind her ear. She didn't look like a character. She looked like an owner.

"You're not supposed to be here," she said, looking at her clipboard. "And you're certainly not supposed to have that."

She pointed at my ink-hand.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm the person who edits the people who think they can edit," she said. She pulled the red pen from her ear and clicked it. "And you're about to be deleted."

She stepped forward, and the ground under us turned into a cliff. We were standing on the very edge of the page, and the ink was starting to run.

"Wait," Sarah said, pointing at the woman’s clipboard. "Look at the list."

The woman looked down. Her eyes went wide. She turned the clipboard around.

My name was at the top. And under it, in big, red, flashing letters, it said: AUTHOR.

The woman dropped her pen. "You're not the draft," she whispered. "You're the person who wrote the system."