The Ending

Ruby red dripped down the sword as she pulled it out of his chest. He gasped; coughed, like a pathetic child who couldn’t swim; and slid down to the ground. Ky'sy'ana watched as he struggled for breath, and as the last bit of it left his lips.

His head thudded down, eyes wide open and hollow. It had been that easy. Tyrant, friend, lover, corpse.

Ky'sy'ana set the sword on the ground next to him. She wiped the blood on her hands off with her skirt. Finally, she sat down crosslegged on the ground. Her allies would secure the palace; they would make sure the new order was put in place. At the moment, she was incapable of moving from this spot or leaving his corpse alone. She couldn’t feel happy, nor sad. She was hollow as him, hollow eyes bleeding out on the ground.

I pushed my chair back from my desk. “Blegh.” Those were the last words of my novel, the one I’d been working on for almost a year. I hit File and made a copy for backup, then shut my computer. God, I needed to get outside. I’d been sitting so long I felt like I’d explode.

Finishing, though—that was something good! I’d get myself a treat if I wasn’t broke. But it didn’t feel like I was completely done—it felt like there was something missing. There was nothing left in my outline, though. I didn’t really want to torture myself by writing beyond what I had. I’d see what my editor had to say. Then I could get started on another project; my incorrigible writer’s brain was always coming up with new ideas, and had birthed about twenty during my work on this 90-thousand-word project.

“Take a break,” I told myself.

My hand moved towards my phone, thinking of texting abandoned group chats. Finished a novel! But I hadn’t talked to my friends much since last year; the words to say to them no longer came naturally. I decided to leave it alone for now and go get some fresh air.

The early morning sun was coloring the sky peach and light blue. I angled my head up and saw deep purple, the night sky not completely disappeared. Small stars still showed, even, stubborn little pinpricks. I hadn’t gone outside for a week or so, and my sleep schedule had gotten way off from the norm. So I’d stayed up all night, huh?

I felt sleepy, and sat down on my front stairs. Scraggly grass tangled across the few feet from where I was sitting to my gate, an old rusted thing. My yard dropped off almost instantly after that to a curb and a big four-lane street, deserted at this time of day. The convenience store sign shone neon across the way, beckoning me to go buy myself some candy or ice cream with my paltry savings.

Birds chirped their morning calls, and I considered for a moment the normalization of birds singing mating calls all the time. Imagine if humans were constantly yelling “HEY! Want to make a baby with me?” It’d be insufferable, and they’d get arrested for public nuisance or sexual harassment.

Those were the sort of thoughts I got ever since I’d made a habit of spending ten minutes writing down my random thoughts before a writing session. That habit hadn’t done much for my productivity, but it had made my random thoughts stranger and better articulated.

I felt around in my pocket and found a five-dollar-bill. …Sure, I’ll go buy some candy. Maybe I’ll get a nice lucrative book contract off of this one.

My gate opened with a dying squeak. I wandered out into the empty street, thinking about which of my next ideas I should make into my new project.

I didn’t see the car coming.

Slam!

Last year, after him, I’d thought a lot about dying. Had he died fast, or had he died slow? Had he been afraid, regretted it? Had he been thinking about me?

It wasn’t instant, for me. A ten-ton weight slammed into me and threw me against the asphalt. There were screeching brakes. I gagged and choked on blood like he had in my novel.

“Someone get help!”

“Oh my god!”

“You think you’re gonna go to jail?!”

I closed my eyes and let the world around me disappear.

“I think she’s waking up!”

Where was I? A hospital? I didn’t recognize that voice.

The air was hot and sticky, and thick with dust. I put an arm over my eyes. If this was a hospital, it was a dirty, gross one.

The fabric below me had a soft give and a warm lining. I was on a cot, but not the usual kind you could get at a camp store.

“Everything about her is strange.” I heard a rustling and then the vwuuup-vwuuuup sound of someone opening and closing a zipper. “What is this thing, do you think?”

“It’s like buttons. We could use that!”

“We don’t need that, though. We have buttons.”

The first person giggled.

“It’s probably a new Ry’keth invention,” the suspicious person decided. “Their military engineers are always creating something new.”

…Ry’keth?

Hey, that was the name of that evil empire I’d made up!

Not that they were inherently evil, there were complex geopolitics involved.

Wait, why would he have said Ry’keth? Maybe I’d misheard. My entire life had been that novel for about eleven months, after all.

I cracked open one eye, braving the dust.

I was in a large canvas tent, supported by a large pole in the middle and pinned down on the edges by carved wood pegs. The canvas was well-worn but lovingly painted with different designs and shapes. The ground was sandy and dry, probably the source of the dust, as people were moving around in what seemed like a hurry…

Looking down at me were two familiar-seeming people, a girl and a man. Dark curls, almond-shaped black eyes… long furred ears near the top of their head and a thin layer of tawny fur on their skin. They were the fantasy species I’d created for my story, the Asan. What the hell were they doing in my real life?