Chapter 11: If You Love Someone Let them Go

"I'm going to a coffee shop," I said packing my laptop into my backpack. I still had a chapter left to write and very much planned to finish my story that night.

"Can I come?" Dandelion asked grabbing my arm.

"Better not, you'll just get bored," I said patting her head. I turned on the TV in our hotel room to a channel playing a nature documentary.

"Just watch this until I get back okay?"

She nodded but continued to grab my arm. For some reason, her face looked more worried than usual, like she had seen a black cat or some other bad omen that day.

"Be safe," she said.

In response, I gave her a small smile and after a bit of effort, managed to pry my arm free.

"Of course I will, see you soon!" I said heading off.

"See you soon,"

I said those three words without much thought.

"See you soon,"

Three words that still ring in my head.

"See you soon,"

An ordinary promise, an ordinary lie. That night while walking along an ally way off Nowhere Street in Nothingtown 3, I was ambushed. I was ambushed by 2 men, who drugged me with a chloroform towel. And as I began to fall asleep under its effects, the last thing I saw was the symbol of the Blue Sun on the crests of their suits.

"Where… where am I?"

I awoke tied up to a chair inside an unknown room. Standing in front of me stood 2 men in suits both of which wore the same Blue Sun crests. They appeared to be talking to each other in a foreign language I did not understand. When I awoke and they saw me, they whispered quietly to themselves something I could not hear.

Do you expect some movie-esq villain to show up at a time like this? I will tell you now that no such villain came into my room that night giving the monologue of some Shakespearean philosophical quote and revealing their tragic back story and master plan to fix the world in some way all at once. If you have at all paid attention to not only this story, but how the entire world tends to function, you'd realize how absurd something like that is. Why would a global organization care about an ordinary man like me? You don't achieve such powers in the world by being bombastically cocky and evil; you achieve it by being intelligent, in both resources and movement.

So as I sat there unable to scream due to the gag over my mouth, unable to move, unable to do anything except watch the two men in suits continue to converse in an unknown language and occasionally laugh, the only thing I could do was cry. Well, I won't bore you too much with the details of the agonizing 10 hours I spent overnight in that damp room. This isn't a story about me; it's the story of a vagabond girl, a vagabond girl who stayed in our hotel in Nothingtown 3. The hotel room whose room card I kept in my wallet, a wallet that at this moment I could feel was very much missing from my pocket.

At the end of the 10 hours, the Blue Sun agents dropped me off at a park nearby along with my wallet. The only thing they left for me was another note they dropped on top of me.

"Keep everything you saw today a secret, and we won't hurt…"

I trembled in fear as I read what was written next. The list of names typed out in standard times new roman font. The name of every one of my contacts that I had texted on that train ride to Nothingtown 3.

"And if you ever see Dandelion, take her to your local police station immediately."

It was short, simple, and scary just like the last letter, though the last sentence gave me a bit of hope that they hadn't caught Dandelion yet. Grabbing my wallet, I quickly sprinted towards my hotel room.

I sprinted at a speed that surprised even myself. I sprinted for the first time with a purpose; to see her smile again, to keep that promise to see her soon. That hoping beyond hope, somehow someway, she was still there, waiting for me, with a new critter she had found. But of course, as you may have guessed, when I opened the hotel room door with my key card, no critters, and no vagabond girl, could be found.

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"Kane…Kane are you alright?"

I broke out of my daze to see Mr. Tusin's concerned face on the other side of my laptop screen. Night time had fallen as I delayed my meeting with Mr. Tusin to the evening. Writing of course, was the last thing on my mind. I had spent the day searching every corner of Nothingtown 3 for Dandelion asking everyone from the hotel staff, to the local bar owners around town if they had seen a small dark haired young woman around.

To my relief they had, to my distress none of them were Dandelion. I didn't' know what to do, whether to cry, or scream, or pray, or continue my search into the woods. And worse of all, I couldn't tell a soul. Not if I wanted to ensure everyone else's safety. When Mr. Tusin called that night I wanted to break down to him. I wanted to tell him all my troubles, why I couldn't meet with him in Nothingtown 1, and about the beautiful vagabond girl now gone from my side. But when I saw his face that day, and remembered that Mr. Tusin, like me, was just an ordinary man. He was an ordinary man with a family, so I bit my tongue. Everyone's the protagonist of their own story after all, my burdens had to be mine, and mine alone.

"Yeah… yeah I'm alright," I muttered trying my best to hide the fact I had been sobbing all day.

"If you need more time… that's fine," Mr. Tusin said. He had always been good at reading emotions.

"You look distraught Kane, did something happen in the mountains?"

"What? No no," I said trying to gather myself. But the emotions in my head kept rushing back and I kept losing focus.

"Are you sure? If something's the matter you can tell me Kane."

I kept staring blankly for a moment before what he said registered.

"Yes… yes it's just…"

My eyes were swelling up again.

"I… I can't finish the story Mr. Tusin, every action, every scene, every timeline, Acorn leaves Kate."

I turned my eyes away from the video camera to hide my tears.

"I… I see," Mr. Tusin said in a confused voice. "And why does your story end there?"

"Because that's how all stories end." I muttered still sobbing off screen, "All romances end in tragedy. Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, all the good ones end in tragedy. I… I can't end mine like that."

"So why don't you change it?"

"How?" I cried, "I'm just an ordinary man."

"How?" Mr. Tusin repeated. Suddenly, he broke out into a hearty laugh.

"What… what's so funny?"

"You Kane… you're funny Kane. You're the god damn author aren't you? It's your story; of course you can change the ending. You write the damn thing."

I sat there in silence for a few minutes. From Mr. Tusin's prospective, I really must have seemed quite silly crying about fictional characters in my story. Something about his words however, in a strange way, gripped me. I'm the author, I write the story.

"Jeez Kane," he said after calming his laughter, "You had me worried, I thought something terrible happened. Look, if you need another week to write your story, I can give it to you. Maybe being in the mountains for so long has made you delirious."

For the rest of the conversation, I slowly gathered myself and went over the other points of the story.

"12 Chapters?"

"Yes, I'll make it 12 Chapters." I said, "By then I'm sure it'll have a proper ending."

"Well, just have it done by next week in any case," Mr. Tusin said. I nodded about to exit the call before Mr. Tusin spoke again.

"You should just write the ending you want."

"Sorry?"

"The story Kane," Mr. Tusin said, "you're caring too much about tropes and trends again Kane, just write how you want the story to end."

"How I want it to end?"

Mr. Tusin laughed again, "You're the author Kane, it's your story. Honestly don't think too hard about it, just have fun. Just finish it by next week okay? I can't push back the publishing schedule further."

I nodded

"Will do Mr. Tusin… thank you."

I closed the video call tab and was ready to shut down my computer to sleep for the night. Before I did however, I noticed in the recently opened tab a word document. A word document I did not recognize.

"To Kane,"

I opened up the file and began to read the message out loud. And as I read those short, effective words from the previously illiterate vagabond girl trying her best to write prose, I began opening sobbing again. I began opening sobbing, with a smile on my face.

"With you, I'm in Narnia"