A Note from the So-Called Author: This was originally a lot shorter, but mutant plot bunnies are evil, evil things. Please review if you are so inclined. And lastly, thank you to Demoness Drakon for general helpful awesomeness.

--

Aline had always thought of herself as a bookish person. The truth of this statement (or lack thereof) could be seen through how she articulated her image of herself—"A reader, a writer, a wordsmith, a connoisseur of…uh…letters?"

You could say that she read a lot, of course—she was a self-professed bibliophile to anybody who was stupid enough to ask. She had the vocabulary to show for it, so none of her peers (or, as she called them, "boorish, lumbering, over-evolved Cro-Magnons") ever doubted her. In fact, they gave her a wide berth, which suited Aline just fine.

So, of course with her combination of anti-sociality and alleged bookishness, Aline was bound to discover one of the internet's biggest centers of Writer's Heaven and Hell combined.

Fanfiction dot net, of course.

At first, she was delighted. Nothing was impossible any more, she had fanfiction now, and that meant finishing a book never meant finishing a story. But, sadly, this was destined to end.

The beginning of the end was when Aline glanced at some online writing articles, dubbed herself an author, and eagerly began klak-klak-klakking away, sure that she could produce something great. This was probably a mistake, seeing as Aline's knowledge of the writing world could be summed up in about two sentences, maybe three if you don't use compounds.

The result, predictably, was not great. It wasn't even decent. Not that she noticed. She was bubbling over with excitement while she went through the publishing steps (which took her about an hour to figure out), imagining all the reviews she would get telling her how great she was. She gave an uncharacteristic giggle, paused for dramatic effect, and clicked the 'Publish' button.

Which turned out to be a bit of a mistake.

Immediately, Aline's world exploded, in every sense but the most literal one.

It was like existing in subconsciousness—she was aware that she was unaware. As opposed to the traditional stifling dark that came with closed eyelids (were they closed?), all she could register was white. She would have been terrified if she hadn't been unconscious—but how could you be unconscious when you were lucid enough to acknowledge that fact?

Time passed—it might have been centuries or it might have been less than seconds. In her current state of consciousness, which she would later attempt and fail to describe, it didn't matter. The next thing she knew was that the unyielding expanse of white was fading, defining itself into a bright, featureless room. It disturbed her only slightly that she couldn't tell how big the room was—infinity contained in the finite, a phrase which would cross her mind several years later.

There was a woman standing in front of her. She might have been twenty or forty or anywhere in between. Her clothes were as blank as the scenery, her hair pin-straight and straw colored. She clutched a clipboard to her chest and wore a smile so wide and fixed it couldn't possibly be real.

"Ah, Aline," she said crisply, briefly glancing at her clipboard. "Here you are."

Blindingly eloquent as always, Aline said, "Huh?"

"You may call me Marie," the woman continued. "I'm sure you have many questions, which will be answered shortly. Follow me, please." Marie turned on her heel and walked briskly in the opposite direction.

"Uh, okay…" Aline said slowly, falling into step behind her. "Just what is this place, anyway?"

"Fanfiction," the woman answered shortly.

"What?"

Marie sighed a sigh of one who often had to explain simple concepts to stupid people. "This room, place, situation or what-have-you is the literal anthropomorphic manifestation of fanfiction," she explained, gesturing around vaguely.

Aline considered this. On one hand, it could be real, which meant a good deal of her perceptions of reality were about to be blown of their axes. On the other hand, she could have gone completely insane and was hallucinating, in which case she was probably in an insane asylum somewhere while her mind ran amok.

Either way, she might as well roll with it.

"Cool," she said demurely.

Marie stopped suddenly, causing Aline to almost bump into her. She realized that what she had taken for an empty room was actually packed (How did that work, exactly? she wondered). A cacophony of noises surrounded her, ranging from laughter to wails to rude words in several different languages. But they couldn't have walked more than a few yards…

"We're here," Marie chirped. "Alright, this is how it works."

"But—"

Again, the woman made no indication of having heard her. "Over there are the writers," she said, pointing to a small group of adults and older teens hanging around a kitchen table and chatting. "And over there are the people who think that they're writers." On the other 'side' of the 'room' was a huge mass of people of all ages—mostly young girls—who were causing most of the noise. The only languages Aline could pick out were English…and for some reason Japanese. Not that she heard a great variety of words. There was a good amount of high-pitched squealing, too.

"That'll be the fangirls," Marie explained as a particularly ear-piercing screech rent the air. "I wouldn't approach them without earplugs, if I were you."

Aline didn't like the matter-of-factly tone she used.

"If you need to know anything, please don't hesitate to ask…Nikki!" And with that, she strode away, scribbling on her clipboard diligently. The girl soon lost sight of her among the crowd. Apparently, time and space had no meaning in this place.

"Hi there!" Aline spun around and found herself face to face with a teenage girl with uncomfortably bright clothes and a hairstyle she was sure wasn't physically possible. Her smile was every bit as real as Marie's.

"I'm Nikki!" said Nikki. "Is there anything you would like to know?"

"Uh…"

"Like, excuse me?" a new voice interjected. Aline turned to find another bizarre-looking girl. This one was dressed rather blatantly as a Japanese school girl and was smacking some bright pink gum.

"Like, hi," she said, somehow able to fit two words into half a second. "My name is, like, xXxharryanddraco4eva69xXx, and I, like, run a community, and we, like, have over a thousand archived, and we have, like, two subscribers, and like, I was wondering if you would like to join, and, like, have your story read by, like, almost two people? 'Cause, like, I totally want to have a great community of all the, like, best stories, and, like, I totally want to have yours in it, and I wanted to, like, ask you first, and—" xXxharryanddraco4eva69xXx continued for several more minutes. Not that any of it was at all understandable—she spoke at an average speed of ten words per second. Nikki continued to smile pleasantly while not saying a word.

Aline had a curious sensation of having her head spin around at considerable speed. "Um…"

"So do you, like, want to join?!" xXxharryanddraco4eva69xXx concluded excitedly.

"Well, uh…"

Apparently, this was far too long for the manager, as she rolled her eyes at a sickening speed and sighed loudly. "Oh, like, whatever, you loser!" she scoffed, blowing a bubble the size of her head, which then popped. "You, like, suck!" With that sentiment, she walked off, latching onto the nearest other person and repeating the speech.

A prevailing silence. After a moment, Aline spoke, "Well. Alright then."

Nikki nodded. "Yes, that's a common response. Any other wonders of the fanfiction world that you would like to see?"

Regaining some of her composure, she tore her eyes away from the discordant harmony of colors that was Nikki and scanned around, trying to process her surroundings as best one on sensory overload could.

"Hey, who's that?" she asked finally, pointing to a corner where a girl sat surrounded by computers and coffee bags.

"Oh," said Nikki, her smile shrinking by a few molars. "Her. That's the Honest Reviewer. You probably don't want to talk to her…" But her warning was lost on Aline, who was already wandering over to the girl.

"Hey," she said. The girl didn't even look up. Her dark hair hung like curtains over sallow skin. Her clothes were loose and black, and there were shadows under her eyes that couldn't have been natural.

"Can't talk," she said curtly. "Busy." She paused in her furious typing to take a swig of coffee that looked strong enough to melt through steel.

"What are you—?"

"I'm reviewing, of course," the girl snapped. Aline noticed that her eyes were bloodshot and one was twitching slightly. "Nobody else bothers doing it right, so I'm the one who has to."

Aline blinked. "Isn't that called OCPD?"

"Yeah. So?"

She decided not to enquire further into the girl's mental state. "Who are you, anyway?" she hazarded.

"Call me D," said the girl.

D continued wearing the letters off her keyboard for a few more minutes. Aline watched her, fascinated, considering and dismissing a cyborg theory in short order.

Eventually D sighed and stopped typing. "Okay, break time." She grabbed one of the multiple coffee bags lying around and a spoon, and started munching on the un-ground beans. "I've got three minutes. Whaddya want?"

Aline opened her mouth and closed it again in quick succession several times. "Advice?" she squeaked after a bit.

D looked thoughtfully into the distance for a few moments. "Okay, I've got some advice for you. One, don't trust any reviews that talk in chatspeak. Two, no matter what you do, don't turn on All Ratings, especially in the Anime section, until you're sure your mental resistance is as good as it can possibly be. Three—"

"Uh, what?"

"Just trust me on that one," said D, looking slightly green. "Where was I? Right, three. Three, grammar is important, and lack of it is an express ticket to hell. Four, quality is a requisite, not a perk. And five—don't bug me when I'm not on break, which, by the way, is now over." D set the bag of coffee aside. "You may leave," she said pointedly.

"But—"

"Goodbye."

She stood there, miffed, but D was dead to the world now.

"See what I mean?" Nikki, who was blessed with the rare ability to keep her mouth shut when it should be, said weakly.

There was an indignant sound from behind the computer screen, but no other acknowledgment.

"Anything else you need to know about?" she asked brightly, flipping between moods faster than a light switch. "Oh, by the way," she went on before Aline had a chance to open her mouth. "I read your fanfic! It was really good."

Aline stared, then grinned, swelling with irrational pride and forgetting to ask how Nikki had managed to read anything with the only computers in sight belonging to D (what Aline forgets, of course, is that in the literal anthropomorphic manifestation of fanfiction, everybody has read everything due to the convenient lack of physical and logical laws).

However, she was interrupted in her ensuing thanks by the aforementioned neurotic teenager.

"No, it wasn't," D said flatly. "It was dreadful. The plot was stupid and cliché, the prose was stinted and the dialogue sounded like the blog entry of a hyperactive preteen girl." She sighed, her eyes never leaving the screen and the soft clicking of the keyboard unwavering. "Nikki's lying, by the way. I can always tell. Everybody else is probably just an idiot and should not be listened to."

Aline's jaw fell open with a soft pop. "You—" she began shrilly, but didn't get any further due to Nikki trapping her arm in a surprisingly strong vice grip and dragging her away.

"I told you not to talk to her," she said simply after a few seconds.

After being pulled at least thirty yards away, Aline simmered. Well, what did D know, anyway? She was probably just jealous.

"Yeah, well..." she muttered sullenly to nobody in particular.

Nikki tried very, very hard not to roll her eyes and failed. "As I said. She's the Honest Reviewer. It's her nature to mortally offend everybody she comes in contact with."

"Well, it's still—okay, just what the hell is that?!"

Blinking in confusion, Nikki glanced around, surveying their immediate surroundings. Large gaggle of teenage girls giggling about the latest hawt anime character…group of morbidly obese girls dressed in clothes from Hot Topic reading their poetry to each other…a few of the astonishingly rare talented authors sharing notes on style…Marie tiredly wandering around with her clipboard, welcoming new members…

Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary. "What's what?"

"That!" shrieked Aline, pointing at something on the ground and backing up, eyes abnormally wide.

Nikki glanced downward. "Ah. I see."

The creature resembled something that might once have been a rabbit of some kind, although now it was barely recognizable. Its form was skeletal, with bits of bone actually visible through the mangy fur and taut skin. Its teeth were nightmarishly long and broken, and its ears bent at awkward angles. Large patches of greenish-grey fur had fallen from its skin, and it was growling in a way any biologist would tell you was not natural.

She picked it up and patted on the head affectionately, a gesture which was rewarded with a savage bite to her hand.

She blinked innocently at Aline's horrified look. "What? It's just a mutant plot bunny."

"N-Nikki…what's a mutant plot bunny?"

She snorted softly in quiet derision. "Obviously, it's a plot bunny that's been hit by a blast of radiation. Molecular corruption occurs very slowly in rodents, you know."

"No," Aline admitted. "I didn't. Thank you for that fascinating information. Now please put it down before it kills us all."

Nikki shook her head pityingly, sighing. "Oh, very well." She set the plot bunny down. It hopped around in a circle for a while, pausing only to gnaw on her shoe laces, and then left, leaving to terrorize some other poor souls.

Aline breathed deeply for a few moments, calming down. "Hey, shouldn't you get that bite looked at?" she asked after a few seconds.

"Nah," the other girl replied. "So long as I write something utterly bizarre and senseless within the next twenty four hours, I'll be…" She trailed off, suddenly paling. Combined with her technicolor hair and clothes, this had an interesting effect of making her look like a rather garish modern painting. "Oh…"

But the expletive that inevitably would have followed was lost forever as a glass-shattering squeal pierced the air. "Run!" she squeaked, and did so. Aline stood stock still for a few moments, glanced over her shoulder in puzzlement. For a moment, she examined the horde contemplatively, considering the meaning of life and its futility. Then her brain began working again, and she followed the other girl as fast as humanly possible.

Nikki skidded to the stop behind a wide, ornate pillar, panting. Aline nearly crashed into her, but at the last second crashed into the pillar instead, which was more painful, but less awkward. Apparently, it was wide enough to block them both from sight.

"What…the hell…was that?" she gasped out between breaths.

"Shippers," Nikki explained, fumbling with a mechanism in the wall. A small hatch slid open, revealing a number pad. "We can hide in here."

"Fair enough," said Aline. She'd been on forums before. Once was quite enough. "Now, why are we running from them?"

Nikki grimaced as she entered a long numeric code. "Because you're new."

"Hey—what? You're blaming me?!"

"I mean," the older girl said tiredly, "that we're being shipped. They do it to everyone, but since you just got here, they have a new subject to ship. Anything in the immediate vicinity will do, really. Oh, and probably D, too."

A beat. "But we're all girls."

Nikki pressed enter on the keypad and a section of the wall slid open to reveal an entrance. "You have read fanfiction before, haven't you?"

It took a full minute after Nikki disappeared into the doorway for Aline to regain her basic motor skills.

"Coming?" an echoing voice asked from the gloom. She shuddered slightly and followed.

Inside the entrance was a large, cave-like chamber. Stalactites adorned the ceiling and there were torches along the walls, which she thought was terribly cliché, but then, this was a world of fanfiction. She grabbed a torch from its holder (that's what they did in movies, right?) and descended a long, stone-hewn staircase, glancing around curiously.

While the room she'd just left had been barely-contained pandemonium, this one was slightly less chaotic and twice as bizarre. To her right, a dull-eyed teenage boy was attempting (and failing spectacularly) to charm a beautiful elven woman, while a dark-haired young man leaned against a dragon, watching amusedly and eating popcorn. Close by, an extremely harassed-looking blonde elf hugged his knees and took deep breaths. He appeared to be muttering something under his breath.

Elsewhere, two men, one clinging to a towel and the other sipping a cup of tea, were staring stoically in opposite directions. This was the case with many men, actually, including an angel (clutching a book and rather red in the face), a demon (drowning his sorrows in large amounts of red wine), and a rather shocking amount of Japanese teenagers.

There was even a good-sized underground pond, where a green-eyed boy in an orange T-shirt and a tanned girl in a blue dress seemed to be having a quite literal water war. In a far corner, an extremely pale, good-looking boy lay in a fetal position, shaking occasionally and sobbing. He looked even worse off than the elf. There were even some people with wings flitting around the ceiling.

"The characters," Aline breathed, awed. Fortunately, before she could go on a destructive rampage of glomping (not that Aline would refer to it as glomping, of course, because only fangirls glomped and she was definitely not a fangirl. At all. Whatsoever. Really), her attention was diverted in the form of a blonde, grey-eyed boy in robes.

She blinked. The boy glared.

Oh my god, it's Draco Malfoy!! she thought.

"Oh my god, it's Draco Malfoy!!" she screamed.

"Yeah, that's what she said," he snorted, then narrowed his eyes. "You're not a fangirl, are you?" he asked suspiciously, reaching for his wand. "Because if you are," he continued. "I'll have to kill you horribly."

This sobered her up marginally.

"No," she squeaked. "No, I'm not, I swear!"

Draco continued to glare at her. "OC, then? We don't like your kind here, either."

"No!"

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Nikki," he growled. The girl in question, who appeared to have some sort of semblance of control over the situation, looked up from her conversation with an irritated-looking boy in a suit ("Look, I don't care if he's your bodyguard, he's not over-shipped, he's not a fangirl target and he isn't in any danger of being mauled by rabids. This place is crowded enough and you're perfectly safe here."

"But those girls! Did you see what they tried to do to me? I would have been worse than dead without Butler."

"Really, Artemis, aren't you being just a tad overdramatic?"

"I have faced off against an army of bloodthirsty demons on their own turf, and those girls were scarier than them. I do not exaggerate, madam."

"Alright, point conceded, but the answer is still no.").

"No, Draco, we haven't gotten the delivery of hair gel yet, and asking every five minutes isn't making it come any faster," she said, walking over, ignoring the sounds of righteous indignity coming from the boy.

"Not that," he snapped. "This girl—" he grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward (Oh my god, I'm being touched by Draco Malfoy!!)— "Who is she, what is she doing here, and when is that delivery coming, anyway?"

"Oh, um." Nikki fidgeted. "I, ah, kind of let her in. She was going to be shipped."

"Everybody is shipped!" he snarled, exasperated.

"Alright, she was going to be shipped with me. And I don't like being shipped."

"That's cheating."

"I'm not as nice as my hair color implies, sweetie."

They proceeded to glare at each other for several more minutes.

"You might want to let go of her before she explodes," Nikki said mildly.

Draco glanced down and realized he was still holding the girl's wrist. "Oh," he mumbled and abruptly dropped the wrist. "Right."

Aline snapped out of it ('It' in this context being Canon Proximity Syndrome (CPS), which has symptoms of light-headedness, empty-headedness, squealing and an urge to glomp), blinking groggily. "Huh?" she mumbled, then noticed Draco again. "Oh my god, it's—!"

"Yes, we've been through that already, now move along," he snapped. "Touch anybody and I'll return to the 'killing horribly' option. Absolutely no exceptions after what happened to that Cullen guy. And Nikki, if she traumatizes any of the canons, it'll be on your head as well as hers."

And with that, he stalked away muttering angrily about 'weak-willed females', leaving the two girls to stand around awkwardly.

A pause. "Oh my god, that was Draco Malfoy!!"

A longer pause. "You're not very bright, are you?"

Nikki sighed.

She left shortly, mumbling about needing a strong drink, and Aline took this as permission to unleash herself upon the characters. After all, Draco had said not to touch anybody. That didn't mean she couldn't do anything else.

This was, in all likelihood, a bad idea.

***

"So you're a dragon rider?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Who're you?"

"I'm an, uh…a newspaper reporter. Yeah, a newspaper reporter. So you have to answer my questions."

"Well, I would, but I'm kind of trying to score here."

"Eragon, for the last time, I'm not going out with you and the restraining order comes into effect tomorrow."

"Aww, come on, Arya, baby!" Sigh. "…On second thought, go ahead."

"Yay! Can I ride your dragon?"

"What sort of question is th—wait. Was that innuendo? Because if it was, I totally—"

"I'm fourteen, you freak!" Slap.

"Hey, wait, come back! I didn't mean it!"

***

"Hi! Aren't you Legolas, from—?"

"Labo vi Orodruin!"

"…I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh. I do apologize, miss. I thought you were one of them. It's been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction with young girls ever since that blasted movie came out."

"It's fine. Hmm, you know, you do uncannily resemble Orlando Bloom."

"Yes! I know! That's why I'm hiding in here and not outside, slowly picking them off."

"Can't say I blame you, really."

"Right…"

"…hey. Hang on. 'Orodruin' means 'Mount Doom', doesn't it? Just a sec, I have this Elvish-English dictionary here…"

"I, uh, have to go now, so very nice to meet you, goodbye!"

"But—"

"Goodbye!"

***

"Woah, so you're the Edward Cullen?"

"…"

"All the girls back home totally love you."

"…"

"I don't see why, personally."

"…"

"I prefer manly men."

"…"

"The sparkling doesn't really do it for me, you know?"

"…"

"Huh. I always thought the 'marble statue' thing was just a metaphor."

"…"

"Say, is Jacob around here?"

"…"

"Yes…?"

"…"

"No…?

"…"

"I'll just leave you to your thoughts, then."

"…"

***

"Oh my god, you are so cuuuuuute!"

"Pika?"

"LEMME HUG YOU!"

"Pika…PIKA!"

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

"ARGHH!"

Crackle.

Crackle.

"Ow, ow, ow…okay, okay, no hugging…owowow…"

"Pika."

***

"Hey, wow! You're that water-bending girl from Avatar—!"

SPLASH.

Cough, cough, hack, hacking cough, cough.

"But I just wanted to—"

BIGGER SPLASH.

Cough, cough, hack, hacking cough again.

"Can I please—?"

EVEN BIGGER SPLASH.

Even more cough, cough, hack.

"I'll just be going then…"

***

"Eeeeee, you're Edward Elric!"

"Eh? Oh. Yeah."

"…!"

"Did you want something…?"

"…!"

"Okay then. You just keep doing that. I'm going to…go over there now."

"Wait!"

"What?"

"I always imagined you'd be, you know, slightly taller?"

"Oh my god, what is it with the censored-ing short jokes?!"

"No! I mean, well, you are kind of small—"

"IS EDWARD GONNA HAVE TO SLAP A BITCH?"

***

"Hi! My name is Aline, and—"

"Excuse me, do you know what this is?"

"Oh, that's easy! It's a black notebook."

"And do you see what is written on it?"

"It says, 'Death Note'."

"Very good. Now, what do you think you should do?"

"I think I should go stand in a corner and pretend I don't exist."

"That's right."

"I'll go do that now."

"Thank you."

***

It didn't take long for Nikki to regret bringing Aline into the Canon Retreat Chamber.

It took only slightly longer for her to regret not getting that flood insurance.

But that was to be expected—living in the literal realm between fiction and reality was filled with regrets. It was filled with many other things, too, but she didn't like to think about those, especially after the Jelly Doughnut Incident of 2003.

Encountering as many oddities, irregularities, abnormalities and Stuff That Just Plain Didn't Make Any Sense as she did, she was not unduly surprised when the little ditz that she was responsible for decided to go sit in a corner. She was, however, surprised when she decided to actually stay there. Hyperactive teenage girls were not generally known for their willingness to sit quietly in corners and not bother anyone. Intrigued, Nikki wandered over, nursing a newly acquired styrofoam cup of coffee.

Aline didn't notice her approach. She was staring intently at a spot on the opposite wall. Apparently, stalactite No. 392 was a matter of great interest to her.

"Sooo…"

She glanced up. "Oh, hi!" she said brightly.

Another pause.

"Mind telling me why exactly you're sitting there?"

Aline wordlessly pointed. Nikki blinked, then glanced over to where she was pointing. Her gaze shifted from the subject being pointed at, then to the 'Warning: Psychotic holder of a Death Note beyond this point. Do not approach under any circumstances' sign nearby, then back. She abruptly remembered who she was talking to, and it all became abundantly clear.

"Ah," she said. "I see."

Aline chewed on her lip thoughtfully. "You know," she began. "I've been thinking."

"Have you now," the older girl replied skeptically, sitting down next to her.

"Yeah. And you know what I think?"

Nikki considered this. "That it doesn't matter whether ninjas or pirates are cooler because zombies trump them both?"

"Well, yes, but that's not what I meant. It just occurred to me that it's kind of weird."

She gave her a long, hard look. "I exist on a transdimensional plane between fiction and reality. You're going to have to be a bit more specific than that."

A sigh. "Between the time I clicked that little 'Publish' button and now, I have been pushed, shoved, jostled, dragged, forced to run ungodly distances away from a horde of madwomen, shipped with girls, insulted, ignored, interrupted, hit on, threatened with death at least twice, nearly drowned three times, electrocuted, slapped by a guy with a metal arm, and according to this Elvish-English dictionary, been told to go jump in Mount Doom."

Nikki nodded. This was all true. She just referred to it as the morning ritual.

"And?" she prompted.

"You wouldn't happen to have a little button that makes everything go back to normal, would you?"

"Oh!" said Nikki, brightening. "You mean this?" She dug in pocket for several seconds, producing a small metallic cuboid. There was a large, bright red button on it, emblazoned with bold white text reading 'Dues ex Machina'.

Aline stared at it. "You know, I was being sarcastic." She took it doubtfully, examining it from various angles. "Isn't this kind of, you know, convenient?"

"Er, it's a Dues ex Machina. Its very nature is convenient."

"I know, but it just seems kind of anticlimactic, you know? It's like some vague, omnipotent force is controlling all of us and the world around us…an author, if you will, and couldn't think of a proper ending. Like a bad fanfic or something. Silly, really."

"Eheh, yeah, silly," Nikki said, laughing shakily. "Bad fanfic. Very silly." She glanced around shiftily. "Look, are you going to press the button or not? There's this Mary Sue I have to deal with in Sector 7 and I can't go until I'm sure you're done terrorizing—I mean talking to the characters."

Aline glared at her.

And then she pressed the button.

***

When Aline woke up, there was a crick in her neck, her head was aching, and there was a puddle of something that was probably drool pooling on her desk.

"Nurrrgghh," she articulated, sitting up woozily and clutching her head. The first question that occurred to her was: what happened?

Realizing that this was a void point, she proceeded to the second question, which was: why is that they nail down the lid of a coffin?

Ruminating on this, she turned her attention to her still-lit monitor.

The Word document containing the fanfic she'd written was still open.

Okay. That made sense.

She checked online.

It was unpublished.

Okay. That didn't make sense, but she'd come to understand that most things in the world didn't make sense and that the best course of action was generally to accept it and move on.

She considered this new information. She thought about the chronically honest reviewers. And she remembered with a shuddering heart of the fangirls and the shippers. And she considered the likelihood of receiving more death threats, and furthermore the likelihood of having them carried out. And then she made a decision.

Click.

Click.

'Are you sure you want to send 'fanfic1' to the Recycle Bin?'

Click.

Right click.

Click.

'Are you sure you want to empty the Recycle Bin?'

…

Click.

Perhaps it was time to venture outdoors after all.

***

And the moral of the story is to never publish bad fanfiction without first receiving military training.