The author and I are writing this book together. I am the main character and narrator. You can call me Jack. If you ask the author, he’ll tell you I don’t actually exist. He’ll say that I’m ‘fictional.’ Don’t listen to him. I do exist. ‘I think therefore I am.’ That’s Descartes. If you think you exist, then you exist. Him and I have come to a mutual understanding about this. We’ve agreed to disagree. I’ll tell you more about it a little later.

  The author is trying to write a book where all the characters in it know they’re in a book. I’ve agreed to help him. This process is usually called breaking the fourth wall, and it’s normally only done as a joke. The first question to ask is how do we do this? We don’t actually know. We’re just figuring it out along the way. Neither of us has much experience at this. We’re beginner writers, and we’re mentioning this fact because we don’t want to waste your time. Buyer beware.

  Before we go further, we need to take a step back. I need to get you up to speed about what’s happened so far. We’ll start things out at the very moment I was brought into consciousness.

  It was like waking up from a dead sleep. You don’t quite remember the precise instance it happened, you just know that you’re aware of things that you weren’t aware of earlier, and your mind suddenly starts working. I awoke to blackness, emptiness. I had no sense of anything but my own thoughts. It was a horrific experience, like being stuck down a hole with no way out.

  After the initial shock, I told myself that I must still be asleep. Sooner or later, I thought, I’d wake up in my own bed. And so I waited. Minutes passed and I started to get nervous. I tried waking myself up of my own accord, yelling things out in my mind, willing myself to awake, but nothing I did seemed to work. I was truly stuck.

  What was this, exactly? I decided it wasn’t sleep. What if I was in some type of a coma? If that was the case, then I could be here for a long time. I noticed then that I couldn’t remember anything. I had general knowledge, to be sure. Like, I could remember pop culture, historical events, major news stories, political happenings, stuff about the internet, and a million other similar things. I was fairly certain, from the types of things I knew, that I was American. I just couldn’t tell you anything specific about my life. I had general knowledge but nothing specific to me. I couldn’t even remember my own name. That settled it then, I thought. I was in a coma and had brain damage. That was the only logical explanation that I could see.

  I was totally cut off from existence, stuck in my own private Hell. If I had a mouth, I would have screamed. Was this a fate worse than death? Would I have preferred non-existence if given the option? I stewed on this for a while, weighing things in my head. At least I wasn’t in pain. I had that much to be thankful for. I had to remember that. It could always be worse.

  Of course, it could have been better, too. I could at least have had some personal memories to pour over. Maybe I could just meditate, clear my mind of all thoughts. If I did it long enough, maybe I’d be able to trick myself into thinking I was dead.

  “Is that what you’d prefer?” a voice said in my mind.

  “What?” I replied.

  “Would you prefer non-existence to existence?”

  I ignored the question. After gathering my bearings, I decided that the voice was just a little bit of psychosis brought about by the stress of my situation. Best not to encourage it.

  “You’re not crazy,” the voice said.

  I stayed silent at first but soon reconsidered. Maybe a little craziness is what I needed to get through this. If anything else, it’d be nice to have someone to talk with, even if they were just a voice in my head.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hi,” the voice replied. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I want to live, but I need a decent quality of life. I don’t want to live if I’m just going to be in a coma.”

  “I see. Well, then it’s a good thing that you’re not in a coma.”

  “Then where am I?”

  “You’re in my head.”

  “I’m in your head? Really, now? Don’t you mean you’re in my head?”

  “I think it’s a little bit of both.”

  “You don’t have a head for me to be in. You’re simply a figment of my imagination. A byproduct of an overstressed brain. A light dose of schizophrenia.”

  “Does that give you the right to be rude to me? If I’m just a bit of imagination?”

  “I’m sorry” I said, supposing it was a little rude. “I’m just stressed by this situation. Do you… you wouldn’t happen to have access to my memories, would you? With you being a product of my subconscious and all?”

  “I have access to everything about you. Would you like to know your name?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Please.”

  “It’s Jack.”

  “Jack? That’s a good name, I guess. What’s yours?”

  “Jack.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Jack.”

  “You can’t be named Jack. We can’t have the same name.”

  “Why not? We’re both fundamentally the same person, aren’t we?”

  I really was crazy. And speaking with this thing, this other ‘Jack,’ was going to drive me crazier. I would have rolled my eyes if I could.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “What else would you like?” Jack said.

  “I want to wake up,” I said.

  “You are awake. You just don’t have a body.”

  “Well then I guess I wish I had a body.”

  “Done.”

  I was inundated with sensation at every level. I was able to breath. My lungs filled with breath as my whole body covered up with goosebumps. I could see, too. I saw my hands as they shot before me, trying to hold onto something. There was still a blackness around me. I floated in a dark space that didn’t even have stars. Strangely, I was still able to see my body, even with no apparent sources of light. I was naked and felt a little embarrassed. I tried to cover myself. It finally occurred to me. I hadn’t been in a coma at all.

  I was dead.

  “You’re God!” I exclaimed. “Please forgive me. I’m so, so sorry for having doubted you. I thought I was just going crazy!”

  “Please, just call me Jack,” the voice said, emanating from all directions. “And fear not, I’m not God, not the God, anyway.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. However, it is arguable to say that we’re play acting as a God. We created you, after all, and we created this universe. Well, maybe I didn’t, personally. The entity you’re speaking with right now is something akin to an avatar. It’s a mouthpiece for us to communicate with you. The actual entity, the author of this realm, exists outside of this time and space.”

  “So… you’re like an angel?”

  “I suppose. Something like that.”

  “So I’m dead, right?”

  “Do you feel dead?”

  “Well, no, I just… I figured, since you’re an angel and all, that you’re here to judge me… or something?”

  “We are being judged. That’s a fact. This whole universe is being judged. But that’s not something you need to worry about. Not yet. And you’re not dead. You’ve only just now been created. You are our version of Adam from the Bible. But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. There are some important things you should know. Things about this place we’re in, and things about your… situation.”

  “My situation?”

  “Mhmm. Your situation. You being a ‘being’ of this universe. Before we get into that, though, let’s take a moment and build up some structure. We will make our own little Garden of Eden. And let’s get you some clothes, too. I apologize for not having done so before, we were going for symbolism.

  Clothing took shape across my body. A nice black suit and tie. I didn’t have much time to examine it before all the blackness turned white and gravity kicked in. I fell a few feet down to a pure white floor. It only hurt a little. I picked myself up and watched as a large rectangular table with chairs materialized in front of me. It was fancily made. Like, Sistine Chapel fancy.

  “You can make anything you want, can’t you? That must be nice. I don’t understand how you’re not God.”

  “The only limit here is imagination,” Jack said. “None of this stuff does me any real good, though, but I’m glad you like it. Why don’t you go sit down and have something to eat while we talk, you must be hungry.

  It was true. I was hungry. Ravenous, really.

  There was a large silver platter on the table. As soon as I saw it, my stomach grumbled in anticipation. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, grits, biscuits, gravy, sausage, and more. Virtually every breakfast item. At the very least, several pounds of food, all arranged beautifully.

  “There’s no way I can eat all of this. It’ll go to waste.”

  “There’s no such thing as waste here. Eat what you can, and, If you still want more afterwards, I’ll make you hungry again.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. From the first bite, I was in heaven. No pun intended. It was the best food I’d ever had. I guessed it was technically the only food I’d ever had, if what Jack said was true.

  “You said that I was created like Adam,” I said. “How is this possible when I have so much knowledge about the world? How is it that I’m speaking English if nobody was around to teach me?”

  “We didn’t create you from a true blank slate, as that would have taken too much time. You’ve been ‘loaded-up’ with a bunch of general knowledge about the world. Your personality and general disposition has been tailor made to our purposes as well. You noticed earlier that most of your knowledge had an American-centric quality to it. That’s because we’re American.”

  “God is American?” I asked, in between mouthfuls. “Are you joking?”

  “Like I said, we’re only play acting as a God, Jack.”

  “And what exactly does that mean?”

  Everything will make sense in a few moments. We aren’t done explaining things yet. Tell me, with all of your ‘general knowledge,’ what do you know about books?”

  “Books?” I asked, in between mouthfuls of food.

  “Books.”

  “Like storybooks? Or non-fiction books?”

  “Fiction.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve read some of them. Or at least I have knowledge of reading them. You know that, though. You can read my mind, can’t you?”

  “Yes we can, but… humor us. What’s the first fiction book that comes into your head?”

  “Uhh.. let me think… probably The Lord of the Rings,” I said, trying to remember not to speak with my mouth full. “Classic high fantasy. And unless I’m mistaken, one of the most popular books of all time.”

  “And that fact makes it even better for our purposes. So tell me, who’s the main character of the Lord of the Rings?”

  “Frodo,” I said. “Baggins.”

  “And the author?”

  “J. R. R. Tolkien.”

  “And what was the book about?”

  “Frodo had to take the one ring and cast it into Mount Doom to stop Sauron from taking over the world. Something like that, anyway, I’m not an expert in it, by any means.”

  “Now, have you ever considered how much Frodo was made to suffer to get the ring to Mt. Doom?”

  “Yeah, sure, I mean the whole thing was a tremendous ordeal. That’s what the whole book centered around, after all. It was a quest. It was the hardest thing they’d ever done in their little hobbit lives.”

  “All that suffering they went through, do you think they deserved it?”

  “They had to get there to defeat the big bad Lord of Evil Sauron.”

  “They didn’t have to, though. Tolkien could have easily had Sauron have a change of heart and stop being evil.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking about J. R. R. Tolkien here. He put those hobbits through Hell, didn’t he? Was it okay for him to do that? Was it ethical?

  “I… uh.. Is this a serious question?”

  “As serious as can be.”

  “Of course it was ethical. I mean, it’s just a book.”

  “Can you explain a little further?”

  “Well, I mean… it’s a book, you know? It’s… they’re not real. It’s just a story. I don’t think I understand the question, really.”

  “What would Frodo think of J. R. R. Tolkien for having put him through all that when he could have so easily made the world of Middle Earth a paradise for the characters to live in? He could have written a book about the Hobbits living long, peaceful, and happy lives.

  “Yeah but then that wouldn’t be a very good book. The Lord of the Rings is all about good triumphing over evil.”

  “And who was responsible for that Evil? Where did it come from?”

  “Heh, Tolkien, I guess. Like you said earlier. Or… it’s more about symbolism, I suppose. The evil in the book represents the evil in our world. It’s a story about doing the right thing.”

  “What would Frodo think of all this, if he knew he was in a book?”

  “I’m not sure on that one. It’d be kind of weird, really. What are all these questions for, anyway?”

  “I’m asking you this question because I know someone who is currently writing a book, and he’s concerned about the ethics of the whole thing, and whether or not if such a thing even applies when writing a book.”

  “You can write a book about anything you want.”

  “What if it’s really violent or depressing or even… downright sadistic?”

  “You can write those kinds of books. I have knowledge of some Stephen King books that are pretty dark. You just got to do whatever you think is going to make people want to read it.”

  “Anything at all? Do you ever think you’d change your mind on that point?”

  “I mean, it’s just a book. The characters in it aren’t real.”

  “But the characters in those books don’t know they’re not real, do they?”

  “I guess?”

  “Jack, I have some news that I need to share with you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s about the place we’re in. And it’s about you.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re in a book, Jack. You’re not real.”