“What the cotton candy?” Nate was laying on the grass beside an empty soccer field. He put a hand to his head and felt his short hair. He couldn’t remember what colour it was. For that matter, he couldn’t remember anything.

Nate tried to remember his name. Of course, it was Nate, but why was that the only thing he remembered.

He felt around for a lump to explain the pounding in his head, but couldn’t find anything that felt out of place. Nate realized that he remembered the feel of his head. He could even remember the colour, it was brown, or black. That’s right, naturally brown but he was allowed to dye it black on his thirteenth birthday. It had remained black in the three odd years since then.

“What’s going on?” Nate mumbled to himself as he stood up. Or tried to stand up, his first attempt was a complete failure. He brought himself up to his knees, then finally stood up.

As he looked around more memories came back to him. He recognized the field. It was beside a school and just a few blocks from his house. He even remembered how to get home, but not what it looked like.

“This is too weird,” It felt like the memories had been written into his mind by some unseen hand.

“Hey, are you ok?” A strange teen girl was running up to him.

Nate’s mind flashed and more memories were added. The girl running to him was Jess, his best friend. Nate’s thoughts started racing.

Why am I just remembering her now? Am I just a character in a tv show? Am I even real?

“I was wondering where you ran off to,” Jess had reached Nate and was bent over catching her breath.

“I, uh… decided to lie down,” Nate decided against telling her about his memory loss, and his theory that he was in a tv show. He brushed the grass off his pants.

“You had me worried.”

“I believe you have mail, sir,” the voice came from Nate’s pocket.

Nate took out his phone and unlocked it on muscle memory alone, seconds before he remembered his pin number.

There was more than one message waiting for him. Texts, emails, social media. His phone must have been going off nonstop.

How long was I out for? Nate wondered as he scrolled through the lists.

The first few emails were ads from various companies. Most of them had been a one-and-done purchase from years ago that he hadn’t bothered unsubscribing from. The next was an acceptance letter to the Hagwarts school of Lizardry. Nate marked that one as spam. He opened the next one and stopped breathing.

It was another acceptance letter, but this one was legit. The Community of Stories, Inspected by Clark & Kent, or Csick. They were the largest publishing company in the world, run by twins Clark and Kent. They operated a huge cruise ship just for writers.

It was a school of sorts, but also a contest. While there you could get school credits, from grade school through college. If you failed a class, you were dropped from the contest. Anybody could apply, any age and only the children and teens had mandatory classes.

Every writer dreamed of getting on board the yacht. The popular opinion was that even if you lost, you still came home with a pretty handsome consolation prize. At the very least, they published all your stories into a book for you. A step in the door of publishing that many writers would die for. The flip side of the coin is that everyone would know you failed. While the contest was exclusive, there were rumours that there were thousands on board the cruise ship. Losing at that level was a disgrace and you had to work twice as hard to prove yourself. Despite this, it was still wildly popular, and whenever they had a contest for new openings on the ship they got a massive response. It was nearly impossible to get in. But the impossible had come true. Nate was looking at a letter from Csick, he had been accepted.

Winners have 48 hours to respond. Was written at the bottom of the letter, in large red letters. Followed by a box that said Confirm and buttons labelled yes and no.

Nate’s finger hovered over the buttons. He should talk to his parents first.

Nate started to turn blue, and he finally remembered to breathe. He gulped at the air until his lungs were full, then screamed out loud in joy. It was supposed to be a Yee-Haw or a Yeah but ended up being a dozen things all meshed together. The resulting cacophony made several cats near a dumpster take notice.

“Are you ok Nate?” A voice floated up from around the corner. Even when yelling, it was soft and flowing. His little sister.

“I’m perfect!” Nate shouted back as memories came flooding back. His little sister, Susan. And don’t you dare call her Sue or Suzy.

“I’ll explain when we get home,” Nate grabbed Jess’s arm and took off running. He grabbed Susan’s hand with his spare hand and sped home to tell everyone the news.

Suddenly the scene changed. It was a large room, like a warehouse. The wall was pure white. A tiny wooden sign hung at the top of the wall. Theme Song Room was engraved in bold letters.

Music started playing, a bouncy pop tune. Pictures of Nate came into view, as though projected against the wall. They showed him writing during his entire childhood, into his teens.

Nate wandered into the warehouse and came into the reader's view.

“What’s going on? Is this a theme song?”

The picture on the wall changed to somebody else. A teenage boy with shocking golden hair. His face was rather plain until you got to his pure gold eyes. They had a swirling pattern that drew you in, making it difficult to look away.

The focus suddenly changed, It was zoomed in to an elaborate gold pen. The view zoomed out slowly, showing that the pen was being held by the golden-haired boy, who started swiping it through the air. Water rose up, and towered around him before it splashed down. Once the water had drained from view, the picture was of a massive yacht, Csick was proudly written in large rainbow letters on the side.

By this point, Nate was convinced he was living in a tv show. He banged his fists against the image “No spoilers!!”

As if in response, the picture changed to show various scenes from Nate’s time on the yacht. Each one was more ridiculous than the last.

“How is there a theme song? Real-life doesn’t have theme songs.” Nate sank to his knees and covered his eyes.

The song finally came to a close. In the silence, an old book fell to the ground from the sky. It opened to the first page. It had the heading Rules, written in gold and underlined. An elaborate feather quill floated down and started writing.

Rule 1 - Winners have 48 hours to respond.

A small bird flew down, grabbed the book in its claws, then flew off as though the book weighed nothing.

The view faded as the bird flew off, with Nate still kneeling on the floor muttering to himself about theme songs and life.

Later that day.

Nate heard the voice in his head. He looked up from his phone. “What happened? The last thing I remember was going home to talk to my family. Where did the time go? What about lunch, and second lunch? Where did the food go!” He crumpled into a ball holding his stomach.

“That’s weird. I don’t feel hungry.” Nate stood back up and looked around. Just like this morning, the memories snapped into place. He remembered talking to his family and telling all his friends. He realized that he was at the ice cream shop. He was supposed to be buying a frozen cake in celebration. The cashier was looking at him with a bored expression.

“Sorry.” Nate walked over, gave them his bank card and paid. He collected the cake and left. He sat on a bench outside and called Jess.

“Where are you?” Jess sounded worried.

“I’m still getting the cake. I just needed to sit down for a minute. The contest and everything just kind of hit me, you know?”

“I understand,” Jess’s voice softened. “How can I help?”

“I’m just worried about getting kicked off. It will make it a lot harder to get ahead in the writing world. I don’t know if I belong there.”

“Come on, you won the contest. You absolutely belong on that ship!”

“Thanks for the pep talk. I’ll be home soon, I promise.” Nate hung up the phone and looked at the sky. He didn’t feel much better.

He started to think about losing his memories. Something was wrong, but he didn’t have a clue what it was. He had conveniently forgotten about the theme song.

“Crap” the word floated through Nate’s head as memories of the theme song came flooding back.

“I knew it. I’m in some kind of tv show or something.” Nate said it aloud, but also made a point of directing the thought at whoever was in charge.

Nate felt more powerful. Like the sudden insight had given him new strength.

Stop it! The thundering voice came again, but Nate was ready this time and was able to block it out.

Crap again the word floated through Nate’s head, along with a feeling of acceptance.

“So I’m just some character in a tv show? I’m not a real living person, just a figment of fiction?” Nate realized he was yelling and looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

He was alone, and nothing but silence answered him.

Nate stood up against his will, he pointed up at the sky and shouted “Stop doing that”

A burst of spooky laughter reverberated around him.

He took out his phone and looked at the email again. He still hadn’t confirmed. His parents, and the rest of the family, were all on board and excited for him. He loved them and would miss them. Yet a chance to be on his own was a dream come true. Why was he even thinking about this?

He knew that he was scared. Sure, he had won the first contest. But was he good enough to stay? Some people only lasted a couple of days, or so he had heard. Did he actually deserve this spot? People were going to realize that he was a fraud. He had won by some fluke.

Nate tried to blame the writer but deep down he knew the thoughts were genuinely his.

He looked at the various attachments again. There were a lot of them. Tax forms, non-disclosure agreement, rules, the list went on. He got to one that said For your eyes only and he opened it.

Congratulations, winner.

We are proud to have you with us

Below that was Nate’s entry story. There was highlighting everywhere, notes in the margins. Most of it was positive, praising him for a particular line, or things they liked about the characters or plot. It was a glowing and very caring review of his story. He had the feeling that this would be the last time it would be this positive, but he appreciated the gesture. He saved the attachment to his phone, in case he ever needed a boost.

Nate held back a tear and swore. You’re playing with my emotions now. That’s too far. He shouted his thoughts at the person behind this.

Nate had a realization. He wasn’t the character in a show. This was so much worse. A show is a collaboration, but this. This was the work of a single twisted mind. He was a character in a book.