It was 5:00 A.M…

Almost a full day. Evan had not slept.

In a world of candy and saccharine sweet promises, his uncertainty and skepticism ran wild, never letting his mind rest. This was not a real place. He lay awake, in a state of doubt, in a land where disbelief never slept.

Evan couldn’t believe he forgot his friends. He couldn’t believe he forgot his lover. He couldn’t believe he forgot his life.

He laid awake, pondering over the girl in blue’s letter. You need to wake up. You’re asleep.

Evan didn’t even know he had been asleep. This reality felt so very real, so tangible, that he was sure this was the life he had always been living in. Of course, a few things gave it away. The blurriness of the other students. His forgetfulness. His missing parents.

Everything was strange.

Evan glanced over to his bookshelf, looking at the book he was reading early yesterday at this same time.

See, in a story, plot hinges on some points being facts. A writer needs a plot device, something that gives shock to both the reader and the characters. A mystical power that a character never knew they had or, a secret weapon to defeat the enemy or...

His brain stopped. His story hinges on him forgetting who he is.

He’d been lost in his mind for a while now. Talking to himself. Thinking and pondering all alone. Organizing and counting the hours of the day. Obsessing over tiny details and habits.

All of this and he has lost himself entirely. And his friends have been trying their best to pull him out. Matt, Jade, Blue Girl.

Blind, Deaf, Mute.

On some level, he didn’t want to be pulled out. He wanted to be stuck here. Sure, the counting and organizing wasted hours of his time. But it made him... feel good. It was his sedative for life and the one thing that felt comfortable in a world of chaos.

On another level, he wanted to escape his brain entirely. If he could be born someone else, someone without these obsessions, he would be happier. But his writer, his god, would not allow it. He was prisoner here in this hell. In the end, he had only one power: the power of choice.

And so he woke up.