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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MrSharks202 on 2025-10-15 14:53:21+00:00.

"Words have power,"

My father's words boomed in my mind. They stood beside me as my pen dragged across the white piece of paper. With each dark stroke, as the ink bled from my familiar, sharp device, entire worlds unfolded.

My hand glided from side to side, and mountains formed. I pulled and I pushed, I yearned to foster something real, and before my own eyes I saw empires rise and fall. Lives were born and died, romances engulfed generations and ignited into revolutions, agonies twisted themselves into terrors and depressions that marred eons of history. All... With the simply flick of my pen.

I was a creator; I was a shaper.

My mama called. "Someone is at the door for you." She peaked into my room, her thin glasses barley holding onto her hawkish, elder nose. Everday she seemed to decrease in mass.

"Who is it?" I laid my pen down and rubbed my fingers together anxiously, eyes dry from focus.

She slid all the way in and pushed her back against the wall. She was a woman of little words, unlike dad and me. She shrugged, "Some men in suits."

I squinted and turned in my chair. "Suits?" Did one of my job applications finally make it somewhere real? I almost dreaded the thought.

"Ansly." Her voice was small. "You're a smart woman. You get that from your father, but you're not getting involved in anything dangerous, are you?"

"Oh mama." I stood up and walked over to embrace her. I'd moved in after dad's death. It took us all by surprise, but it obviously affected her more than anyone else. The world became a scary place to her once it'd proven that is could take away love so easily, "No mama, I don't know who it is."

She nodded. "Alright." She rubbed her thin arm. "Well, don't keep them waiting."

Men in suits? Did one of my little anti-government stories create some sort of movement or something? I suppose I could only wish as much, maybe then a publisher might finally take me seriously.

"Miss Amber?" I heard the brutish voice before I could even fully open the door.

Three broad men in large black suits stood outside of our quant little NYC apartment. Their statures only outweighed by their terribly stoic demeanors.

I froze, "...Um."

The man in front spoke, "May we come in?"

"I'm not so--"

They brushed past me with little effort and marched towards my bedroom. They had the same presence as a falling boulder or rushing river, an unstoppable, natural force. I had no hope of keeping that door closed.

"Hey!" I yelled as I walked behind them, jumping with energy. "Hey! What do you all think you're doing!? I'm going to call the police! You can't just march in my own fucking home!"

Mama turned a corner with wide, watery eyes. She retreated behind their shadows and shrieked with a weak voice, "Anne what's happening!?"

I didn't know. I couldn't answer her without some sort of explanation. All I could do was keep yelling as I followed them into my room. "This is highly illegal! Where's the warrant, huh? Where's the fucking warrant you pigs!"

They stopped as soon as they entered my room, the three of them towering over my scattered, disorganized space. I followed their silent eyes. They were staring at my desk.

Without thinking I moved in front of them and slammed my foot down, surprised at my own confidence. "What is going on here!? Why are you all in my room? Where's the fucking warrant?"

The front man, cold and stiller than a dead tree, raised a massive finger. "Is that your desk?"

I looked back, wild-eyed and confused. "... Yeah!... Obviously!"

He grunted. "Read a story."

"W... What?"

They all put their hands in front of themselves. I had a feeling that was their version of getting comfortable.

"You want me... You want me to read you all a story? One of my stories?"

The slightest nod I'd ever seen.

"Um..," I rubbed my palms against my pant legs, searching the floor as if it held answers for me. This was all absurd, stupidly absurd, but what was I going to do? Move them? No damn way. "O-o... Okay. Okay yeah I guess... Will that make you all leave?"

"A story miss Amber. Please."

From the corner of my eyes, I saw mama peering in with feral shock and terror. "Alright." I kept my jaw tight, setting down at my desk and sorting through various stacks of paper. "Anything?"

No answer.

"Anything it is."

My hands moved with grace as I began to glance at the various stories before me. Delicately my fingers danced over each page, my mind returning to the stories like a refugee returning home. Flashes of warmth covered me, visions of distant planets, far off realms, histories so storied and fantastic that they challenged my own mind.

"This one." My hands decided for me. The contents were unimportant, so I learned, but I asked for no permissions and began to read with vigor. I placed myself in that realm of my own creation. The three men before me, my own mother, the room around me, all faded away like a dying shadow as my lips moved with blissful confidence. It was like walking home after work. I knew the story like I knew my own hometown, and I read with pleasure.

A silence captured the room once I was done. For a moment I was out of breath, eyes and soul returning to the realm of the real.

His voice sounded different now, calmer, almost like he was talking to a child, "What if I told you that you could help save mankind?"

The question came so quickly and with such brutal consequence that I couldn't properly understand. "I uhh... I mean... That does-- That really isn't a uh..."

"There's an enemy." He cut me off, voice like a sword. "And it exists in there."

He pointed to my desk. "I'm not a scientist, but that's what they tell me. That the aliens are beyond the physical."

I coughed on my own spit, "Aliens!?"

"Miss Amber, I apologize for the inconvenience, but you're coming with us."

At this point my mama finally burst in, all ranges of confidence flooding back into her at the slightest sign of my danger. "You are taking my daughter nowhere!"

The other two blocked her entrance as the first continued his conversation with me. "Miss Amber, you have to understand, this is all very new to everyone, but I can say this with good confidence. There's something out there that's very different. Very... Abstract, and that's dangerous."

"But," He put up a large finger. "We're coming to learn something as we study these things. Something very powerful."

I had a feeling I knew where he was going. My eyes drifted to my desk, "What's that?"

"Humans are different too. That's why we're a target."

"Are... Are my stories real?" I couldn't understand my own emotions anymore. I just knew that that was the right question to ask.

He leaned down, getting eye level to me. "I think it's more complicated than that."

I nodded, that was a good answer. "Why me?"

A smirk emerged on his face. "You're good at what you do. Let's just say they saw you before we did?"

"They?"

"Miss Amber, this will be much easier if you just come with us. We have scientists that can explain this much better than I can."

I looked at my mama. She was stunned into silence now, looking at me with an uncontrolled face of fear. Quite frankly I was surprised I was handling everything as well as I was. "What am I going to be doing?"

"Fighting." He leaned back up. "Though it won't be with a sword. Something mightier this time."

I smirked, and that seemed to make him happy. "My father always said words have power."

"Smart man."

"Yeah," I nodded, almost excited at this revolution of information. "My dad had one more saying as well... Do you want to hear it?"

A brow knit across his stony face. He nodded slightly, "Go ahead."

"'The only way to kill a story is to stop telling it.'" I looked up at him, my eyes on fire. "Let's make sure ours doesn't end."