In the real world, Miriam’s pen stopped. She rubbed her tired eyes, the silence of her apartment feeling unusually heavy. She hadn’t finished the chapter, but the characters felt like they were writing themselves now—and they were angry.

Suddenly, the air turned metallic. A thick, crimson fog bled out from the corners of the ceiling, swirling into a violent vortex. When the red smoke dissipated, the room was no longer empty.

Rumplestiltskin stood by her bed.

He didn’t look like a fairy tale. His skin looked like stretched parchment over shifting gears, and his eyes were two oily pits of malice. He watched her sleep for a moment, his head tilted at an unnatural, broken angle.

“Hello, dearie.”

Miriam’s eyes snapped open. The transition from dreams to the waking nightmare was seamless. She gasped, clutching her duvet to her chest. “Who… who are you?”

He glided closer, his movements jerky, like a marionette controlled by a hater. He leaned down until she could smell the scent of burnt paper and old blood.

“The question isn’t who I am, dearie,” he hissed, his lips peeling back into a grin that showed too many teeth. “But rather what I’m doing here.”

“Wh-wh-what?” Miriam stuttered, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

He reached out, his fingernails yellow and sharp, and tapped her shoulder with a sickening lightness. “Boop!“

He giggled—a high, discordant sound that set her nerves on fire. “I’m here because one of your characters has requested to see you. They’ve made a deal with me. A very expensive deal. So that means you are coming with me. And if you resist…” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a sandpaper whisper. “I will make the journey much, much harder for you.”

Miriam’s mind raced, searching for logic in the madness. “I haven’t even finished the book! I haven’t written this! You’re… you’re a madman!”

Rumplestiltskin’s giggle turned into a wheezing laugh. “No, but you will, dearie. You see, the ink hasn’t even dried, yet the kingdom you’re dreaming up already exists. It’s hungry. The characters are very much alive, and they have so many questions for their Creator.”

Miriam lunged for her phone on the nightstand, her only lifeline to the sane world.

The monster simply flicked his wrist. The phone vanished from the desk and reappeared in his clawed palm.

“You shouldn’t doubt people so quickly, dearie,” he said, his tone dripping with mock disappointment. He closed his fist. The sound of glass shattering and plastic snapping filled the room as he crushed the phone into fine, grey dust. “I promise you, it will be fun. And when the ‘story’ is over, I’ll bring you back. You won’t remember a thing. So… what do you say?”

“Get out! Help! Get out!” Miriam screamed, scrambling toward the edge of the bed.

“Oh, no, dearie. The plot must go on.”

He waved his hand one last time. The red smoke exploded from the floorboards, choking her screams. As the world dissolved into a bloody haze, the last thing Miriam heard was his maniacal, rhythmic giggling echoing in the void where her bedroom used to be.