As Jack’s eyes finally adjusted to the sudden illumination of florescent light, they soon welled with tears and he still couldn’t see much of anything anyway. The huge viking man stood up from his glass throne and rushed to Jack’s side, the room shaking under each massive plod.

“There there…what’s the waterworks about? Yer in good company!”

“I know, I know…I just can’t believe it’s you! And that.. [sniff]…you know who I am…”

“But of course I do! How could I not know of my lord and creator, my saving grace in human form? As sure as my name’s Stuart the Vast, you sir are who I’ve been waiting for my whole life long.” Stuart pulled Jack gently to his feet and began to walk him toward the throne.

“Wait wait…your what? Lord and creator?”

“The prophecies: they always seemed so Utopian, so unimaginably incredible. Who’da thought that the very inventor of existence itself would actually arrive one day, and crying his bloody eyes out too!”

“I can’t seem to believe it myself either…I have so many questions.”

The massive warrior pulled a wooden stool seemingly out of thin air, and sat it down behind Jack. “Ask away, m’lord.”

The two talked at length about how this all had come to be, and within a few minutes, a number of things became abundantly clear:

1. Stuart the Vast was one of dozens of characters, all from different stories, that Jack had created over the years, and they were all stuck together in this “storyland”.
2. This world was incomplete, including any given character’s history or future, since Jack had only created snippets and scenes of each but never actually completed a story end to end yet in his life.
3. The place was also riddled with additional paths into the rest of his mind, usually manifested as hidden hallways or caverns, to entire settings or worlds of their own, or sometimes just visually as road-signs or cloud formations.
4. The incomplete nature of this place was putting everything in his mind at risk. Characters (including Stuart) lived in loops without end, simply repeating out what he’d been able to write so far and nothing more. Because of this they grew exhausted, and more of Jack’s own stressors and dreams were overtaking the ‘real’ world his narratives were building.

Stuart waved off his steward, who had just brought out a tray with finger sandwiches and coffee. “You’ve got to finish our stories, Jack. You’ve got to give us a chance for some closure!”

“But…any time something’s actually come to its conclusion in my life, it’s been for the worst. I don’t know if I’m ready to take that risk…”

“But you want to be a writer, don’t ye?? How can you be a successful writer if ye never finish what ye write?!?”

“I guess you have a point.”

“Be bold, Jack. Just like you’ve made me. Ye gave me the courage to vanquish Scothe, the dragon of Iron City! But I must know if that was enough to win back the heart of my true love, Agatha. My courage, until then…it will only have been in vain.”

“But I…”

“Your courage. Tha’s what I need, we need.”

Jack stood up and paced. The florescent lights and cathartic realizations were giving him a headache.

“Would you like a place to rest yer head, m’lord?”

Jack was again shocked by someone’s concern for his well-being. “Yes. More than anything…”

“Come with me.”

The giant led ‘little’ Jack to the back of the throne room, where a piece of wall opened vertically like the door which had shut before. Down a damp, stone, spiral staircase they arrived at a foyer with simply wooden double-doors on the opposite wall. They led to an ornate bed-chamber that Jack remembered all-too-well writing.

As Jack lay down to rest, Stuart bowed wordlessly and exited the room. He pulled out a notebook and began to recount the extraordinary details which had just unfolded…