The Sea Dodecagon of Love - Episode Six (Sam's Version)

 EPISODE SIX
 WE'RE NOT REAL?

"Vanessa, quit it. You're going to hurt yourself." Skandar shook her head.

"No! Something is supposed to be happening!" Vanessa snapped angrily. "Why isn't it working!?"

Skandar screamed. Vanessa looked up. "Where in the world are we, Vanessa?"

"That," Vanessa started, "is an excellent question."

"Newbies!" Sam shouted below deck. "Two girls!"

"GIRLS??" Peter was suddenly alert. "Well," he cleared his throat,"I guess I should go greet them." And he started up the ladder. Susan held him back, "No, no. Lucy will go with you."

"Fine."A disgruntled Peter started back down the stairs to find his little sister. "Lucy! Get up here!"

"I'm right here, Peter. You don't have to be so loud." Lucy started up the steps. "Let's go."

"Why, hello there."  Caine slid over to the new girls. "I'm Caine. Caine Soren. And I would-"

"Wait." Skandar stopped him,"Caine SOREN? Like, from GONE?"

Caine was confused. "Gone? Who's gone?"

"No one's gone. GONE is a book. Don't you have like, insane telekinesis or something?"

"Well, yes, but...how did you know that?"

"I read it in your book."

"I haven't written a book."

Skandar sighed. "It's not written BY you, it's written ABOUT you. And Sam. That is Sam, isn't it?" Skandar pointed to the sandy haired boy.

"Well, yes, but...wait, what?" Caine was trying (but not succeeding) to wrap his head around this. "Explain it to me again."

"Why don't I get to go meet the new girls?" Edmund asked while skinning the aquatic being in his hands. "It's been forever since anyone appeared on the ship!"

"Well, SOMEONE has to cook the fish," Susan replied matter-of-factly. "And it's only been a couple of weeks."

"It feels like forever with this group."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. It's would just be nice with some new faces and such."

"You never had any problem with our faces in Narnia."

"That's because in Narnia I wasn't saddled with kitchen duty. I could leave and do whatever I wanted! Ever since we got here I've been given the girl jobs. Why don't you cook?"

"I will once the fish have been cleaned and cut and unboned."

"It's deboned, not unboned. Idiot."

"Excuse me?"

Ed sighed. "Never mind. What's wrong with fish anyway?"

"Nothing. I just don't want to touch them."

"Oh, you mean like this?" Ed raised the fish lips and kissed his sister's cheek with them.

"EDMUND!" Susan screamed and wiped the gunk off her face. "Oh, that's nasty!"

"Really? I thought it was funny."

Susan was fuming. "I'm going to go meet the newbies."

"No fair!"

She laughed, "This is what you get for learning how to cook over the summer."

"Well, excuse me for trying to be well-rounded!"

"You're excused," Susan was enjoying this way too much.

Ed was so frustrated he couldn't even speak, until, "Can't I come?"

"JUST DEBONE THE FISH ALREADY!"

Captain Jack Sparrow felt a presence behind him. A short, female presence. That, and he could see her shadow. He took a step to the left, and the girl took a step to the left. Left, left. Right, right. Forward, forward. Backward-

"OW!"

"What?" He swirled around to face her.

"Your hat. It poked me," she pointed at it.

"It did nothing of the sort."

"You also stepped on my toe," she gestured to her sneaker-clad foot.

"I did not!"

"Did to!"

"Did not!"

"Did to!"

"Did not!" Jack was furious by now, "What's your name?"

"Vanessa. Talydon." Vanessa began bouncing up and down with excitement. "Vanessa Talydon. Hi Jack!" He almost corrected her, but- "Oh, oops. CAPTAIN Jack."-she corrected herself.

Jack was impressed, and then confused, "Do I know you? I haven't threatened you before, have I?"

"No. Not at all. Complete strangers."

"Uh huh..."

"Alright. Are we all here?" Caspian raised his voice above the crowd.

"Everyone except for Ed."

"Why isn't Ed here?"

"Well, someone has to unbone the fish."

"It's debone the fish, Susan." Ed made his way up the ladder. "And I'm done."

"Ok! Now are we all here?"

"Yep."

"Let's fill them in, shall we?"

There was an awkward silence as everyone turned their eyes to Skandar and Vanessa.

"Um...well...I'm Vanessa. And this is Skandar. And...we're not from here."

"That's fine. None of us are," Peter commented.

"Hey! Do either of you have powers?" Sam asked.

"Well..." Vanessa hesitated.

"Do you?" Caine was now interested.

"Sorta."

"What do you mean, 'sorta'?"

"Well, it used to be that I could snap and weird stuff would happen. Like, teleporting. Y'know? But it doesn' work anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I tried to go into a couple books, but it didn't work."

There was another awkward pause. Vanessa was confused.

"Which books?" Skandar asked.

"Well, first Narnia, then GONE, then Narnia again, then I tried to go into a Pirates of the Caribbean movie."

Skandar thought for a moment, then turned to the crowd. "So you guys just...appeared on the ship?"

"Yeah."

"Pretty much."

"At the same time?"

"No, first it was us." Sam gestured to himself and Caine. "Then it was the freaky lion people."

"Seriously? I thought we were over that," Lucy scoffed.

"Whatever." Sam rolled his eyes. "Then it was the drunk guy."

"For the last bloody time, my name is Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"We came too!" Will and Elizabeth chimed in.

"Oh. Yeah. Them too."

Skandar turned back to Vanessa, "That's the order that you tried you little...snappy...thing, right?"

"Yeah...but what came the first time I tried to go into Narnia? I tried to go twice, remember?"

"If it matters, we left in stages," Lucy piped up.

"What?"

"The ship. It disappeared first. Then me and Caspian. Then Susan, Ed, and Peter."

Skandar smiled. "There ya go."

Vanessa was a bit slow for a moment, "Wait...so, this is all MY fault?"

"It makes sense."

"Yeah..."

"If this is all your doing," Will interrupted. "Then where are we?"

"Istalya." Vanessa wasn't looking at them. Skandar was shocked. "What did you say?"

"I said something?"

"Yeah. You said they were in Istalya."

"Yeah."

"A little bit of explanation would very nice about now."

"Well, I was thinking. Remember that place that I made up at school one day? You helped me with it. We called it Istalya, remember? Well I did a couple of snaps before I tried to go into books. I figured that's how it happened. I made Istalya real. Then I poofed in the ship. Then the people started coming."

"We have names."

"Fine. Then Sam, Caine, Lucy, Caspian, Susan, Peter, Edmund, CAPTAIN Jack, Will, and Elizabeth, came." Vanessa looked at all of them, "Happy now?"
Skandar rolled her eyes at her friend, "Vanessa, Istalya isn't real"
"Well neither are they!", Vanessa motioned to the works of fiction surrounding them.
"Wait, what?" There were shocked faces everywhere.
"You're characters"

"So we're all in books?"

"Yep. Except for Jack, Will, and Elizabeth. You guys are from a movie."

"So...what book are you two from?"

"We're not," Skandar replied.

"I'm confused."

Skandar sighed. "You guys are works of fiction. You're not real. We are. We're from the real world." She pointed at the pirate triple. "Jerry Bruckheimer, your producer, lives in our world," and at the Narnia gang, "C.S. Lewis died, but he wrote you. He lived in our world," and at Sam and Caine, "Michael Grant created you, and he lives in our world."

There were pauses and moments of thought and realization all around.

"I'm not real?" Caspian closely inspected his hands, as if the knowledge would make them disappear.

"Afraid not. None of you are," Skandar answered.

"What about Narnia? Is Narnia real?"

"Um...no. Nothing about your story is real. Except for England. England is real."

"Well, I guess that's okay."

"Wait!" Elizabeth had a sudden thought, "So, everything that happened to us, the pirates, the ship, Mr. Cotton, it was supposed to happen?"

"Well...yes."

"Why?"

"It makes for a good story."

"So that's all we are? Good stories?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes your stories aren't very good."

"It's not our fault."

"Never said it was."

There was another pause. No one knew what to say. No one was real, except for the two young girls who just told them so.

Sam felt odd. He felt...tingly. What the heck? Sam thought. He'd already gone through puberty, so what was this?
Caine felt sick. His stomach was churning inside and outside and sideways and upside down. He'd never been this sick before. What was happening to him? He leaned over the railing, vomit threatening exit his body, when he saw it. It started out as a blob. Then a blob with...sails? Yes, they were sails. It was another ship. And...there was a girl. A girl on the ship. She had dark black hair and purple eyes. Caine lost his sick feeling. He felt as if he didn't know her, but should have. She was staring at him with her piercing eyes. She looked as if...she was lost. Like she had never seen anything before, but she knew she was important, somehow, someway.
Sam looked over at his brother to make sure he didn't fall overboard(again), and noticed the ship, and the girl, too. Once he saw her, he didn't feel tingly anymore. He felt, normal. Sort of. He and Caine exchanged a look, as if to ask if either of them knew her. Sam felt like he should know her, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't remember.

They were staring at her. She could feel it. She could see it, too. What? Did she have something on her face? Where was she? A ship, obviously, but where did it come from? Where did she come from? She tried to think back to where she was five minutes ago, but all she was getting was brainfog.

What? Vanessa was confused. I didn't snap. Even though Vanessa hadn't snapped, something certainly was happening. Something purple. She looked off into the water, and saw a ship with a girl with purple eyes, and she knew. This was the product of...well, not a snap. It couldn't have been a snap. She hadn't snapped.
"Who's that over there?", Lucy asked, causing everyone to turn their head and look.
"Sarah", Vanessa said, this time knowing exactly what she was saying. "Sarah Pittner"
"Do we know her?" Sam asked. "Caine and I are really confused"
"Look at her eyes, they're purple", Skandar pointed out.
"I made her. In my head.", Vanessa was talking to herself more than she was to them. "I think I did."
"So...she's not real either?", Caspian asked.
"Nope."
"Well should we bring her onboard?"
"Why? She's already got a ship", Ed replied.
"You can't man a ship alone, Ed", Susan rolled her eyes.
"I agree. It's extremely difficult." Jack chipped in.
"What do you know about manning a ship by yourself?", Will asked.
"There are somethings that should never leave the Locker, mate." Jack was suddenly withdrawn. "That's one of 'em"