Sketchbook of Life

Ever wished you could bring drawings and paintings into real life?

I run up to the door, and bang loudly on it, my breaths ragged and rushed. A few footsteps, a couple of locks unbolted, an open door and a rushed welcome later, I’m sitting on one of her couches, opposite the one that looks like she just woke up on. She waits for me to speak first, but when I don’t, she starts.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“This is kind of ironic...” I say, stalling.

“What is?”

“At first, it was her coming to me for help, now it’s me coming to you for help.”

“Help with what?”

I take a deep breath, taking my sketchbook out of my pocket and flipping it open to the most recent sketch. “This.”

She gasps at what she sees, dark brown ringlets falling in her face. “We should call her. Anyway, she’d be interested, given what she can do, and all.” I nod and dial her number.

Several minutes later, we’re all three sitting in the kitchen, sitting around my sketchbook, staring at it. My blonde friend, the one who could almost be my cousin by looks, speaks first.

“So... when did this first happen?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I dunno, I mean, I just now noticed it, probably because of you coming here and everything. But it could’ve begun earlier, maybe I just didn’t notice it, because sometimes I have the weirdest daydreams that stuff like this happening, I just thought that it was just me being crazy, but I guess not...”

“Could you do it again?” my curly-haired brunette friends asks.

“Uh... I could try,” I say, taking out my pencil and sketching out two of my characters. A few moments after I finish, the characters blink their eyes sleepily, then look at each other and smile. The guy, with a suit of armor and spiky dark hair with ice crystals in it, scoots a little bit closer to the girl, who’s wearing a black mini-dress, with cat ears sticking out of the top of her head. She goes over to him, and they hug, then peel themselves off of the page and walk off the sketchbook and onto the table. They walk, hand in hand, until they reach the edge of the table, then turn and keep walking, looking for a way out. When they discover that they can’t, they turn to me and call in tiny squeaky voices:

“Hey, do you know the way out of here?” the guy calls at me. My friends are too busy gaping at them to answer. I just stare at him, not quite used to this either.

“Hey, you! Four-eyes!” his girlfriend yells at me, with none of his politeness.

I give her an incredulous look. “You talking to me?”

“Who else, giant-head?” she responds.

“Dude. I could squish with my hand if I wanted to right now,” I tell her, not quite believing the amount of disrespect I’m getting from such a small being.

“I’d like to see you try,” she snarls and takes out her bow, nocking an arrow, and shooting it at me, all in one fluid motion. The arrow hits me in the nose and sticks.

“Ow!” I say, more in surprise than pain. I pull the arrow out and break it in half. She shoots more, which I somehow manage to block with my hand. When her quiver is exhausted, I look at my hand, which more resembles a porcupine victim than a normal hand. My friends crack up laughing as I pull each arrow out and snap then, ensuring that no more will be shot. When I’m finished, I pick her up and place her in my hand. I hear a tiny shout from the icy guy, who, predictably, shoots ice out of his hand and covers my hand in ice. My friends are practically rolling on the floor laughing by now. I take her out of my hand and slam it onto the table, sending ice shards everywhere. The icy guy ducks behind my sketchbook to avoid being hit by them. A deep chuckle in my ear makes me jump, and I almost drop the cat lady.

I turn around to see the masked man grinning that the antics of the tiny people. Behind my blonde friend is the spiky-haired guy and the badvent blonde girl, also smiling.

“Oh, you guys shut up,” I tell them, then turn back to the tiny people, setting the cat lady next to the ice guy. They immediately embrace, and I roll my eyes.

“She’s feisty,” my brunette friend laughs.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I don’t remember writing that much sass into her.”

“I’ll show you sass,” she squeaks up at me. I’m tempted to squish her like a bug but decide against it.

“Anyway, I had drawn another one of my characters, and she got up and immediately started trying to eat my ham that I was snacking on, then got full, lied down in my glasses case, and went to sleep,” I produce the glasses case and open it revealing a young adult girl with pale skin and white hair. At the light intruding into her place of respite, she sits up and groggily rubs her eyes. The boyfriend and girlfriend look over at her, both curious and wary.

“Wow,” my blonde friend says.

My brunette friend peers at them curiously. “If you drew them bigger, would they become bigger? Like, if they were life-sized, would your characters be kind of like hers?” she points at our blonde friend.

“Uh,” I reply, thinking. “Maybe. But that would take forever, to draw the whole character and all of the details. And to add color? It would take forever, if it even worked!”

“Oh,” she says, shoulders slumping.

I frown. “Why?”

“Oh, I dunno.”

“I mean, even if I did, they’d probably just run around being destructive, like her characters.” I direct a pointed glare at the masked man.

“Oh, come on! We weren’t that bad.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Ok, so maybe we were, but still...”

I look over at my brunette friend, who looks a bit disappointed.

“What’s up?” I ask her. “You discover anything new?”

She flinches and looks up at me, her response clear in her eyes.

I lean forward. “Do tell.”

“I, uh, well... When I dream, it’s like I’m in their world, like, I’m there, interacting with them, and doing stuff that actually happens. And, uh, it's been happening for a while, I just didn't want to tell you...”

“I read a book like that once!” I say. “Sorry. What all have you done?”

“Uh, I dunno. Normal stuff, I guess?”

The masked man snorts. “Yeah, right. Anything you’d be doing with them would not be at all normal. I would know.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, how are we going to get these characters back? And are the characters that you’re drawing coming out of that world, or are they just copies?” my blonde friend butts in.

“Uh, let me check.”

I do another quick sketch, of the icy guy. It comes to life, and the two identical guys start to argue in tinny voices that I can barely hear. It has something to do with their girlfriend.

“Guess that answers that question,” my blonde friend says. I yawn. “How late were you up last night?” she asks.

“Uh...” I count on my fingers. “Like, until four or five this morning.” Everyone stares at me incredulously, except for the two ice guys, who look like they’re about to face off. I quickly sketch three jail cells/ solitary rooms, with some activities for them. The rooms come to life, and I place each of them in one. They start complaining, so I draw a roof and place it on top of the rooms, shutting off their voices.

“Wow, that’s late,” my brunette friend says.

“How did you know that that would work?” a glowing eagle-boy asks. I look at him in surprise. He hadn’t spoken yet.

“Uh, I didn’t, I guess. I just hoped that it would work,” I explain, and he nods as if this is a good explanation. We look around at each other.

“What next?”

Author's Note

Set after Dreamworld by Peregrinator7a