If there were such a thing as a Nebulosity Award, this story would win it! 

THE EMPIRE OF I SCREAM 

I was born knowing that I was only the character of a story.  And not a long one, either.  One that was about five hundred words in length, at most, I'd say. 

Right from the beginning, I could feel the eyes of the reader upon me.  Staring, staring. Wondering if this would be worth reading or not.   

It was a lot of pressure. 

Let me tell you about my parents.  They were entirely fictitious.  I was an only child, befitting a story whose narrative really has to kick into gear soon. 

Then I went to school.  And it was during the paragraph where I was in school that I learned my name.  It was Ralph.  I would say that I liked the sound of that name, but I never lived to hear it spoken.  Such is the fate of we who are only words and not flesh. 

Right after I left the paragraph where I attended school, I met Susan.  How to describe her?  Well, she's five letters long:  S-U-S-A-N.  How I loved the delicate curl of her initial 'S,' the underlying firmness of that final 'N!' 

Please don't go yet!  Yes, I know this is tedious to a living person -- but if you go, I cease to exist!  I'm only a character in a story -- if you can in fact call this thing you're reading a story.  But if you leave, I'm gone, losing my sole link to the real world beyond this monochrome plane of proportionate- spaced typography. 

I guess that's going to happen soon anyways.  I've been counting the words, and we're already past three hundred.  Two hundred more, and I'm gone.  Well, I may as well get it on with Susan.  I mean, if you only had two hundred words left to live, wouldn't you? 

"I love you," I told her. 

"You're just a character in a story," she told me. 

"Well, so are you!" 

"Am not!"  

Well, she's in denial, because when this thing ends, she's gone too.  But I wish something more could have happened.  We could have shared a cup of coffee, gone walking on the beach.  And smooched.  I bet you'd keep reading then! 

But now, with barely a hundred words left to my life, there's no chance for that. 

Already I can see my universe dissolving.  This house and the chair I'm sitting in and my body itself are becoming little more than nouns, shorn of adjectives. 

I sense that Susan is still out there, thinking that she's real, maybe even that she's the Reader.  And as for you -- well, she thinks you're just another character. 

That would be ironic, huh?  You and me, in this boat together, while Susan is reading us into existence.  Only now we've run out of words.   

It's the moment of truth.  I know I'm going -- I sense myself fading away, vanishing at the end of this very sentence.  Or this one.  Yeah, that one. 

And as for you -- click return and see what happens.