“Every person has their story to write out. Get ready to write yours…”

For years now, he has seen so many stories written that has either given glory or damnation to the hero. The storyline was always the same, even if it did have a plot twist. His fingers danced on the page of the book in hand, his dark blue eyes trailed through each word that was written down within the book.

“…And yet no matter how much he tried, he was unable to kill the dragon.” His voice silently spoke. He continued this just for a few more seconds before he closed the book in his hands and he placed it to his side. There he sat in what appeared to be a small library with bookshelves lining all of the walls and giving room for a window and 2 doors to take place. One door lead to the rest of his house while the other door lead to the outside world. In the middle of the whole room were his desk, chair, and numerous papers scattered all around. This was where he worked for all his days, making up stories as time went by. The man within the room was dressed with a dark blue tunic over his black and white coat and black pants.

“Ugh… another boring day…” The man said as he got up from his seat to go look out the window. Visually, this was the only thing that gave him access to the outside world. As much as he wanted to step out of his “office,” he just couldn’t feel his feet wanting to move. Why was it going to be a boring day for him? Because no matter how many days that have passed by, there he sat in his office, writing stories all day and trying to find the inspiration needed to create new stories. How does he eat? Well, someone passes by day by day and is willing to give him food to eat. He sucks at cooking and never thought about attempting to cook anything at all. Who is this? It’s some random fan girl who likes him or something. That was the scary thing. He never thought he would actually obtain a fan that was okay with providing him with food. The man always thought that it was a good enough idea to use the fan to his own advantage. It’s not as if the fan realizes that she’s being used, right?

A knock on the door was heard. If the man didn’t know any better, he would know who would always knock on his door. The outside appeared to be darkening a bit. Evening was well approaching. There he went and opened the door to find a girl with such long, light brown hair that was tied up in a ponytail. She wore a light blue tank-top and some pretty short shorts. A bright smile was on her face and in her hands was a plastic bag with some food in it. The man stared at her as if he has no idea who this girl was. She appeared to be around the age of 16—a high school student, perhaps?

“Hello there, Mr. Alavar, sir!” The girl happily announced as she attempted to push her way into Alavar’s office.

Alavar just stood his ground and kept the girl out. “Hello there, Candice.”

Candice stopped and gave a huge pout to Alavar. Upset, she threw a fit. “I told you to call me Shishima!”

“Does that even mean anything?” Alavar asked her.

Candice stared at Alavar with a very goofy smile on her face, appearing as if she has never heard his question. Alavar just made a small face palm and walked out of Candice’s way so that she can go in. He was on his way to some of the bookshelves in attempt to find something as Candice happily bounced inside. She placed the plastic bag with food on his desk and then went to go sit on his desk. “So Mr. Alavar, what are you working on right now?”

Alavar sighed in annoyance with a book in hand and appearing to look as if he’s trying to find something. “I thought I told you just yesterday that I was working on a story about--”

“Why don’t you write up a romantic story?” Candice interrupted Alavar.

Immediately, Alavar turned to look at Candice who had a light pink blush on her face as she fantasized about something. He strongly hoped with wasn’t something related to the both of them. “Candice--”

“IT’S SHISHIMA!” Candice exploded with rage, glaring at Alavar.

All he could do was look at Candice with such a disgusted look on his face. What really ticked him off was the fact that Candice wasn’t listening to him and the fact that she wanted him to call her by a random word that may not have a meaning just made him want to punch her so badly… regardless if she’s a girl or not.

“Candice, just get out of my office. I’m stressing out enough as it is.” Alavar finally said, putting the book away. He walked up to Candice, grabbed her and just led her out of his office. A look of concern overcame Candice and she looked up to Alavar, her face actually dark red over all this.

“W-Will you be alright, Mr. Alavar?” she asked him.

Alavar was lying. Of course he’ll be alright; he just threw that excuse out so that Candice would finally leave him alone. “…Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Candice smiled as she stood on the outside of the house. She leaned in a bit towards Alavar. “Well then, have a good day, Mr. Alavar…”

“You too.” Alavar said, giving off a weak smile in attempt to look a bit relieved that she came by. Sadly, there were mostly times where he wished she would just shut up and bring him food. That’s it. As he grabbed onto the door knob, he noticed Candice leaning in and appearing as if she was expecting an unintentional kiss. He was always sickened by her. Immediately, he slammed the door in Candice’s face and went back to his desk to go get the food she brought him. If there was one thing he was forever grateful of, it was the fact she was still willing to visit him day by day with food just for him.

“How stupid can she be?” Alavar asked himself as he stared at the box full of food inside. There was some meat and rice in there along with a few vegetables. Picking up a fork that was provided along with the food, Alavar started eating some of the food. What impressed him was that Candice actually cooked all the food and as much as he would love to praise her for such an amazing skill, it would only add fuel to a fire he desired not to start. Alavar knew that Candice had a crush on him. How? It was the numerous signs that Candice obviously made every single day that gave off the idea that she had on crush on him. It was scary to him and he really didn’t want to think about wanting to get into a relationship with a child. He was a grown man; Alavar wasn’t going to sink so low as to go out with a child.

He eventually finished up his food and put the fork down, staring at the finished box. A sigh escaped his lips when he eventually stood up in place. “I need to get out more…” Alavar silently told himself. Silently, he walked to the other door that leads to the rest of his house and he opened it. Then, he closed it behind him and headed off to his room. He had a simple one-story house completely with a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, the living-room—the works. He headed off to his bedroom and went to plop down onto it. Another day has finally passed by for him and he was ready to knock out. Carefully, he moved his head to look around his room. It was a simple room with a bed and his dresser there. Nothing more was there in his room. A yawn escaped his lips as he fixed himself so that he was starting to sit on the bed.

“All the stories I’ve written so far has been alright, but I want something new.” Alavar said, scratching his head and fixing the tie that held his long, black hair altogether. The tie came off and his hair fell down his back. It felt a bit heavy, but he didn’t mind one bit. A quick glace to his left and he found his pillow. Alavar snatched it and just started to fluff it up a bit. Finally, he laid himself down to rest, his hair just going anywhere it could fall on. As he closed his eyes, he took in a deep breath of the familiar scent of his room, but a strange odor forced him to quickly sit back up and stare around at what could be the cause of the unappealing scent. It was his hair.

He had to go take a bath. The smell was unbearable and he didn’t like sleeping in a room with a disgusting scent going in and out of his nostrils. He snatched a new set of clothes from his dresser and headed off to the bathroom to shower. After undressing himself, he entered into the shower and let the cool water hit against his warm skin. It felt refreshing to feel something other than his clothing against him. Alavar cleaned himself up and got out, thinking about what kind of new story he could write up. Earlier, Candice did mention to create a romantic story, but Alavar had to be honest and say he strongly despised romantic lovey-dovey stuff. It was odd and unnecessary to have to create a good story. As long as it had some kind of interesting plot with some good thought up characters, he always thought it would do very well. And it has done him very well in the past. Most of his stories so far were mostly fantasy, adventure, and action related. Not once in his stories have his characters actually fell in love with one another.

The reason why he has never done a romantic story is because he has never had a successful relationship in his whole entire life to help him write out a romance related story. It wasn’t because he wasn’t romantic enough, but it’s because he had this strange tendency to act indifferent when he’s around a woman. He sometimes gets nervous and it eventually leads up to him doing outrageous things in attempt to impress the woman he crushes on. Alavar always thought that was pretty sad and the women he has gone out with would agree with him. Wrapping himself up, he went to go pick up a light blue shirt, but his phone started ringing. “…If that’s Candice, I’m seriously going to tell her to shut up and never visit me again…” Alavar angrily told himself.

“Ruining my night after I take a shower…” He murmured under his breath as he went to pick up the phone in his kitchen. A male’s voice came over the phone.

“Hey Alavar! How’s it hangin’ bro?” The voice laughed.

“Ironically, I just came out of the shower.” Alavar answered.

“Woah man… too much information.” The laughter died down to an embarrassed chuckle.

Alavar sighed and leaned on the door post with telephone in hand. “What’s up, Sam? You got any kind of writing assignment for me?”

“How do you know?” Sam asked him.

“You have a tendency to do this every time you call me up. It’s nothing different.” Alavar replied.

“Well, today’s your lucky day, man! I found this interesting publishing company who’s looking for stories to throw out into the market. When I read up on it, I thought about you and decided to give you a call.”

Attempting to recall his past, Alavar remembers being able to publish at least 2 books. The sell went pretty well and it gave him enough money to buy this house. “Huh. Sam, you wouldn’t happen to have the name of the company, would you?”

“Uh… let me look at it.” Sam said with the sound of rustling papers. “…Traverse Two Words?”

Alavar thought of the name and started dissecting it. “Traverse means to move over or pass to. I’m assuming you mean “to” as in “to go TO” or “move TO”. Words are just… yeah, you get the idea.”

“No, Alavar. I mean “two” as in the number “two” rather than the other words that sound just like it.” Sam corrected in an angry tone.

“Whatever.” Alavar finished.

“In any case, you should go to their offices tomorrow and find out what you need in order to publish your books through them!”

“Sam, I’ve tried publishing books before. I have an idea of what needs to be done.”

“Just go to the offices, okay? I’m sure publishers and their business is just like all other businesses where they run things differently. What makes publisher offices any different?”

Alavar hated to admit Sam was right, but this was an interested turn of events. “…Fine, I’ll go check in their office and ask what needs to be done.”

“Awesome! Can’t wait to hear the result from you! The publishing company can be found in a city called Paige. Have fun, alright man?” Sam said and hung up the phone immediately.

There he stood, thinking about the name “Traverse Two Words.” It sounded a bit odd when he attempted saying it over and over again, but in the end, it was just another bunch of works attempting to represent something—in this case, a publishing company. Alavar hung up the phone, went back to the bathroom, and started putting on his clothes. After all that, he really needed some rest. So, he put his towel away after having to wrap himself up with it, walked all the way back to his room, and finally plopped down onto the bed until he finally was able to fall asleep, not realizing his hair was still wet.

The next day, he woke up with a strange headache and a cold. It wasn’t until he realized that he fell asleep with wet hair that Alavar had to go and just hit himself over and over again to remember that sleeping with wet hair will cause him to feel very sick. However, this didn’t stop him from visiting the Traverse Two Words office. His morning routine started with him changing into more suitable, but comfortable, clothing, eating cereal and milk, and getting into the car and drive out to the city Sam mentioned about, Paige. Once he finished driving around aimlessly in attempt to find the publisher’s building, he ended up in a parking garage and got out of his car. He went to the end of the parking garage and paid for his parking.

“There it is… Traverse Two Words.” Alavar silently said as he stood on the sidewalk and stared up at the building that held the publisher’s logo. When he looked to the entrance, Alavar noticed that people were going in and out of this building. It didn’t appear as if there were a lot of people, but comparing to how many people go in and out made it appear as if this company did more than publish books. Now that he thought about it, maybe Traverse Two Words was actually a company that helped out smaller businesses or something? It was a chance to take.

He went into the building and saw people walking around, talking about stuff he was unfamiliar with, and just minding their own business. Alavar’s eyes met up with the front desk that sat in the middle of the room. A young woman with light brown hair stood with her back turned towards Alavar. “Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have any idea if there’s a publishing company around here?”

“Of course, this is the publishing company itself.” The woman said. Her voice sounded shockingly familiar and once she turned around, Alavar’s eyes widened up a bit. The woman was Candice, but the way she dressed up just blown Alavar’s mind through the roof. Her hair wasn’t in pony tails, but her hair was straight and down all the way to her breast. She wore frameless glasses that revealed her light green eyes and she was wearing a dark pink business suit. She continued talking. “Welcome to Traverse Two Words, sir--”

“Candice, is that you?” Alavar rudely interrupted. It took Candice a few blinks before fixing her glasses and realizing who was in front of her. She blushed and she wanted to explode in happiness, but she did her best to calm herself down.

“Mr. Alavar? What are you doing here?” Candice asked before taking off her glasses and cleaning them.

“I’m here to ask about how I can get a book of mine published. What are YOU doing here?” Alavar asked.

“Oh, I work here! After work, I buy the food I get with my salary and bring it to you! It’s very sweet of me, right? I know it is!” Candice said, starting to act childish in front of Alavar.

No matter how much he looks at her, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea of Candice dressing up so formally. But that was beside the point. “Candice, you really didn’t have to buy my food with—wait, I thought you MADE my food! Not buy it!”

Candice looked to Alavar and a face of offense came on. “I buy the ingredients, Mr. Alavar and then I cook the food that way.”

“...And you use the money you earned from this job?”

“Yup! I have enough left over for myself, so you shouldn’t worry so much!” Candice playfully said.

Alavar just shook his head and sighed. “Ah… anyways, I’m here to speak to some employers about how to get my book published as I have said before.”

Candice frowned. “But you should already know how to publish books! You’ve already written a few yourself, right?”

“Of course I have. A friend of mind phoned me up and thought it’d be good to just talk to the people and see if there is any difference in publishing with them. I don’t see why I need to do that, so instead, I’m just going to turn in my story and let them decide for themselves.”

“Oh… right…” Candice finally said, attempting to look professional in case someone would come by and see her acting the way she did. “Alright then, if you’ll follow me…”

Both of them started walking through a corridor to the right of the front desk. Just to pass the time, Alavar started conversing with Candice. It was completely new to him because he would be shredding himself inside for talking to her, but seeing Candice in a completely different environment other than his own home made him feel a bit more comfortable. Maybe because he knew she wasn’t going to act up? They eventually reached a door and they both stood in front of it. “Here you are, Mr. Alavar. If you need anything after your visit, you may come back to the front desk and inquire about anything regarding the company. Or you can just come back and visit little old me!”

Candice giggled at the thought as she happily walked away with a little spring in her step. Alavar just sighed, feeling relieved that he didn’t have to see Candice anymore. He opened the door and went inside to what appeared to be the office of a special representative. As soon as Alavar closed the door behind him, he felt a strange pain at the back of his head. He couldn’t see a thing in front of him and everything went black. The pain started rushing through the rest of his body for a few seconds, but it all faded away after a few minutes. Once he was able to get ahold of himself, Alavar sat up and attempted to fix his vision. For a few seconds, he saw green and blue in front of him. His vision became fixed and the sight before him just shocked him to the very core.

“What IS all this?” Alavar asked as he examined his new environment. Tropical trees around him, a waterfall in front of him, and he was standing before a cliff. Carefully, he went to the edge to see that at the bottom was a huge lake that the waterfall was creating. His eyes pulled up and he saw clouds rolling in the sky. The trees around the area were something he has never seen before. They appeared so exotic, beautiful, and oddly familiar. The way these trees appeared looked exactly as if he had pictured them.

“…wait…”

It wasn’t until Alavar finally came to that he found out something. This area was the exact image of a land he described in his most recent story. How was this even possible? Alavar had no idea how in the world he got into this place. The last thing he recalled was being in the Traverse Two Words building. If that’s the case, then how long has he been knocked out? But now that he thought about it, how in the world did he get into this place? His story was completely made up! There was no way in the world could these plants actually exist! He remembers the numerous hours of research about the different trees and plants in the world, and not once has he found an account of the vegetation he has made up in his stories!

Alavar took in the sight, but he slowly shook his head in disbelief. “There’s no way I could be in my own world… what is all this?”