“No,” the shadow said softly, an emotion he didn’t recognize burning in his stomach. “No! I refuse to believe it!”

         He dug madly at the ground with his bare hands where the Ideas Desk had once stood, kicking up dust and dry packed dirt everywhere. He didn’t care that he was getting dirty, that he wasn’t getting anywhere. He couldn’t care less about that. He had to find Explanations and the others!

       “There’s no use digging there, you know,” said a tired voice.

        The shadow whirled around to see a single, solitary figure in front of him, smiling with something that looked like pity. “It’s gone. All of it’s gone. Inspiration, Originality, Dreams… Without ideas, no one has anywhere to go.” The figure laughed humorlessly. “Since you look lost, I’ll tell you plainly that there’s no point in staying here any longer. Everyone else has already left. Come on, the last train to Reality is leaving soon.” The person reached out a hand (more out of sympathy than anything else), but the shadow hesitated.

       “Are Originality and the other employees there? Where are they? Did they get out safely? Tell me!” The shadow tugged at the person’s shirt desperately, accidentally ripping her sleeve in the process.

       “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” the shadow stuttered, mortified.

        The girl looked like she had just seen all her family members die in front of her, but she shook her head. “I’m not upset about that. It’s just-“ She turned around, her shoulders shaking. “It was so silly of me to think that this was going to be easy…”

      “Well, what is it?” asked the shadow. “Did they get out safe? Are they alive and well?”

      “They’re dead,” said the girl, with a disheartened expression. “Originality and all the others were part of the Ideas Desk. Now that the Ideas Desk is gone, so are they.” She put her head down and began trudging away. “I’m sorry.”

       The shadow looked at her incredulously. “That’s it?”

      “What?” The girl turned around and gave the shadow a bemused expression. “I just told you-“

      “No,” the shadow said with conviction. “No. You’re telling me that all this has happened, and everyone’s just giving up? There has to be something that can be done. There always is.”

       The shadow expected her to glare, or look scornful, or begin laughing at him, but instead, she looked thoughtful.

       “I knew I chose a good protagonist.”

      “What?”

       “Ah, nothing,” the girl began fidgeting with her hair, flustered. “It’s nothing. But I do think I have something for you.”

        She handed him a fountain pen, an antique one that looked like it belonged in a museum. While the shadow had no idea what it was for, he could feel a certain feeling of considerable weight, a feeling of importance, responsibility from it.

      “What is this for?”

       “It’s a pen. You write with it,” said the girl, matter of factly.

       “I know that,” said the shadow in exasperation. “But how can this possibly help me?”

       “Well,” the girl said, “This may look like a simple tool, but it’s actually something quite powerful. It’s something that can create people, places, whole worlds.”

        She pressed it firmly into the shadow’s palm, looking at him with eyes that somehow felt familiar; eyes that made him feel like he had known her his entire life. “Now it’s yours to use as you choose.”

       The girl began walking away again but the shadow ran up to her, panting. “So you’re asking me to create?”

       She nodded solemnly.

      “But why a pen, of all things? And why me?”

      “It’s a little cliché, but I’ve always been partial to the saying ‘The pen is mightier than the sword,’” said the girl, flushing a bit. “And I know you can do great things with that pen. I know you can.”

       The girl checked her watch and sighed. “I’m already running short on time. I’ll have to get going now.”

       She turned around, once again, to walk away, but the shadow called out, “Wait! I don’t even know your name!”

       She turned her head and shouted, “You can just call me The Writer!” She turned and ran, but as a last thought, she cried out, “Goodbye Curiosity! It was great knowing you while it lasted!”

      The newly dubbed Curiosity could only watch as even the figure of The Writer disappeared, leaving only clouds of dust and a faint memory of important things said and even more important things left unsaid, left for him to figure out.

      Curiosity gripped the pen and turned back to where the Ideas Desk once stood, suddenly noticing bare walls that he hadn’t seen before.

      He looked at the blank walls for a while before beginning to write: “A shadow walked along the crumbling ruins of the empty city, not really sure where it was headed…”