Laying it all bare

I took a deep breath before deciding to tell Momo all. "You remember our first meeting, right? In real life, that was when I was diagnosed with an incurable disease that the doctors believed would kill me in a year's time. Everyone thought the world was ending because if I died, who would write my flagship story? I myself, felt just like you did. Ignoring the doom and gloom, brushing it all off, I sought to just live as I always had. But one day, I collapsed, and was unable to write or draw for a week. Upset about me missing a week on short notice, Oakley ordered Silas to try writing a chapter."

"The one with the car explosion?"

"Yes. He hadn't finished it proper, but at the time, I decided to just use what he had written as a base in order to get the next chapter out. This was when my hands stopped being able to draw as they used to. I did try my best to draw main characters like you and Ivy properly, but the others, I relegated to being bald."

"Um, why?"

"Simple. It's easier to draw a bald character than one with hair. The suggestion originated from Oakley though, who much like his gorilla counterpart you interacted with, has a bald fetish."

Momo's eyes narrowed in skepticism.

"I'm not making this up! Though, I will admit I exaggerating things a bit to make him look like more of a buffoon."

"Which is why you turned him into a literal monkey?"

"I mean, it's not too far off from the truth."

"So in the manga, did he go bald and splat, just like he did in your imagination?"

"Yes. Your misadventures with my co-workers did mirror reality to an extent. After it became apparent my illness would effect my work, Oakley sought to have me replaced so the series could continue."

"And that's why your weirdo friends showed up?"

"Precisely. And from that point on, they began soliciting me in hopes of getting my official blessing to take over as author of Cherry World."

"The monkey was willing to write it?"

"No, he was the exception. But I was still upset at him for even suggesting such a thing, thus I humiliated him in the world of literature along with his bitch of secretary, Briana."

"That's why you made that stereotypical strict hot office lady a bald psycho?"

For that, I shot Momo a "Isn't that obvious?" glare. Oakley and Briana were both infuriated when the chapters went public, but considering the fans enjoyed it, the capitalist within Oakley was forced to let it stand without edits. But that didn't mean his grudge vanished just like that, which led to him getting more emboldened with his push to replace me.

"After that incident, I once again found myself bedridden and unable to write. This time, it was for an indefinite period of time. I was able to still protest enough to keep Silas from taking over, which led to Josie getting a shot at things. But as you experienced..."

"Fucking bitch turned me into her shoujo slut."

"Exactly! She was given the chance to fill in for me, and what she did was not only change everything, but insert her own characters into the mix. She had co-opted my creation against my will!"

"Yeah, she deserved to be dropped into hell."

"Silas does too, but he'd probably revel in it."

Momo hung her head low and somberly nodded.

"Silas had been given chances earlier to write chapters, but after he ruined the game between Ivy and Akane, nearly killing off Machi and Miércoles outright, I formally began protesting that he never be involved in the production of a chapter ever again. That didn't happen, and we got the arcade chapter."

"Which was a good experience for me."

"Not if you know the context behind it. You see, after cleaning up Josie's mess, I went to the arcade to blow off some steam, and ended up wasting about... 500 dollars to walk away with nothing. It was a veiled mockery of me. I wasn't even sick for the week, but he wrote the chapter anyway as an "act of goodwill", but the moment I saw Briana being portrayed in a positive light, I knew he had ulterior motives, and I was right! Shortly after the chapter was published, I fell into a near comatose state for 4 weeks. And in those 4 weeks, Silas was given approval to write in my steed, without any consent from me. What happened, was just as you just experienced; Ivy was rewritten to be an irredeemable monster, and then given a trial and sentenced to death. When I reawakened and read what that vile bastard had written... My life shortened further due to the rage I felt. He had won... He had won and corrupted my characters and world, and there was nothing I could do to fix it."

"Uh, retcon? Edit? Say the shit was a dumb fan-fic?"

"If only. The problem was that it was written in the official release, and with how sick I was, I couldn't properly respond. Silas also had nasty counter measures in play, namely social media. There, he posted that the stuff with Ivy was all in "my official manuscript" and that he was "faithfully following my notes out of the highest respect for me and the source material". A blatant lie, but the masses were unable to tell, thus when I tried to bring back Ivy and disregard all that had happened with her as just a bad dream, I stepped on the landmine Silas had carefully planted. And after that, I fell into depression and the world suffered because of it."

"So your depression was the reason shit turned to outline town." 

"Yes, but it wasn't entirely due to the incident with Ivy. My illness really was worsening to the point where I couldn't even draw a basic outline properly. But I couldn't bring myself to half-ass you, thus I pushed myself to draw you proper, but even then, I couldn't draw you to the quality I used to. I'm sorry..."

Momo went silent, but didn't quip back, thus I continued on.

"Then as you saw, I was approached by Sharla who did offer to try and help me, but I shooed her away. I'll admit, she did appear to genuinely want to repair the damage Silas had done to my world and characters, but at the cost of you? That was nonnegotiable. I don't care how much Sharla hates you, I refuse to cast you aside as while Ivy is my favorite character, you were the first one I created for Cherry World, as well as it's main protagonist."

"Why the fuck did you base me off of your ex then?"

A fair question, but also easy to answer.

"You were a personification of all the good times and memories I had with her."

"Creepy."

Should have seen that one coming.

"After that fallout, I was reinvigorated to try to write out an official ending so that at the very least, the world could end on my terms. Thus, rather than spend what little time I had left trying to cleanup the Chernobyl of a mess Silas left behind, I tried my best to finish things, so that another situation like that wouldn't occur, but then my own body denied me that and now I'm stuck as you see, unable to wake up. And if I stay like this until I die, not only will I fail to write out an official ending, but it will most certainly be passed on to another author and be corrupted by whatever vision said author decides to impose on it."

Momo went silent as she began to digest all that had been fed to her. She remained like that for a good minute or two before speaking once more.

"So what I, as in the me in your conscience, experienced, was basically manga shit mixed with your real-life trauma. And all this happened after you became Sleeping Beauty, right?"

I affirmed that was the case.

"Then wake the fuck up and finish the story!"

I shook my head and gazed out towards my slumbering body. "I want to wake up, but obviously I'm not."

"Then what the hell was the point in all this? I have enough knowledge to know that when people have these kinds of dreams it's to wake them the fuck up from their comatose states, not to be some "I'm about to die, so let's relive my life" bullshit moments. So send your consciousness over there! I don't want my guts to end up mixed into the asphalt of your ex's next-gen solar system isekai shit show!"

Momo's words were rooted in kindness. I just had to hope they were enough to wake me up. I smiled and closed my eyes.

"Here goes nothing."