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Nine years later…

Dorothy groaned loudly as she walked into the house. She dumped her backpack on the floor and leaned against the doorframe, closing her eyes tiredly. She was exhausted, down to her very sore feet.

‘Maybe you should take a nap.’

Dorothy shook her head to clear it. She knew that a nap would feel extremely good, but she didn’t want to take a nap and waste more precious hours in the day. she sighed and walked into the computer office instead, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of her mind.

‘Why don’t you just take the nap? A nap would do you good. You’re tired. Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time?’

‘I’ll go to bed after I write a bit, okay? Just shut up!’

The girl sighed and pressed her left hand against her forehead. A nap probably would help her. Not only was she talking to herself, she was arguing and bargaining with herself on top of that. She rested her free hand on the mouse and clicked on the icon for her email.

She felt herself grin when she saw an unread message pop up. Just a few days ago Dorothy had sent her friend Melissa a copy of her story to read, and she had been waiting to see what Melissa had thought of the story. Part of the reason she was so nervous was because Melissa wasn’t a close friend of hers, but she had started talking to Melissa about writing, and Melissa had helped Dorothy come up with one of the main characters, Matthew Elliot. Dorothy wanted to be sure she had portrayed Matt correctly.

‘You did fine. Stop worrying and read the email.’

Dorothy shook her head and blinked a few times. She knew she wasn’t insane, and yet it she felt like she kept hearing a voice completely different from her own. Nevertheless, she clicked on the email and began reading.

From: wandering-soul
To: happyGOluckyTIME
Subject: The Kids Next Door

Wow...what can I say? Heh...It's a very rare thing for me to read a story of this nature that's any good. VERY rare, heh. It was quite compelling, and I had to read it until I got all the way through...now unfortunately, I've read all there is that you've written, lol. Now I have to wait for more. Sigh...now I'm gonna go and mope until you write more, lol.

Though I must say, the way you write about Matt...*shakes head* I don't get it. It's kind of freaky, since I know all about Matthew Elliot.

Dorothy paused and looked over the sentence again. Melissa had just said her story was good, so why was she then saying the way she wrote about Matt was freaky? Dorothy read over the sentence twice more before giving up and moving on to the rest of the email.

Though I must say, the way you write about Matt...*shakes head* I don't get it. It's kind of freaky, since I know all about Matthew Elliot. It sounds like you're channeling him, lol. I'm serious, I know a lot of writers who channel their characters, and you seriously sound like you're channeling Matt...Certain comments, like the one about how he’s really dyslexic and he’s hidden it from people around him, or his favorite color being turquoise (though I would have said light blue. That's the color of his aura, which is the reason he likes that color so much) could only be known that way, lol. That's why I find it so freaky, lol. I already knew a bunch of things you said in this story that you made it sound like you were just randomly writing them in, but they coincided with things I already knew, heh. At the risk of sounding more insane than I probably already sound, do you talk to characters? It's just too uncanny. And the epilogue sounded EXACTLY like the way Matt writes, lol. He writes great prose, believe it or not.

Anyway, if you haven't decided to avoid me like the plague for blurting all that out (I was so curious about it after reading your story that I just had to take the risk of asking you, lol), feel free to write me and share your thoughts on the matter. I'd be very interested in hearing from you.

In any case, take care, and have a nice day!

Melissa

Dorothy stared at her screen in amazement, wondering why she had never heard the same sort of thoughts from Melissa at school before. She had never heard Melissa mention talking to characters or… channeling, whatever that was. Dorothy had never heard of the channeling Melissa had written about in the email.

Dorothy winced as she felt a sudden wave of frustration wash over her. It felt like it had come from seemingly nowhere, and yet she knew it had to be connected with the fact that she didn’t know what channeling was.

‘You’ve got all the clues in front of you, you just need to open your eyes and look.’

Dorothy sighed and rubbed her hand against her forehead. She knew the clues were in front of her, but she didn’t know what they were pointing towards. She tried to connect them for another minute or two, but nothing came, so instead she opened up one of her documents and started writing.

‘No, you were so close… so close…’ Dorothy sighed and tuned out the voice as she wrote out the ideas that had come to her during the school day. She felt like she was going insane at times with the way she heard things, but she knew it had to just be her crazy imagination, as usual. Ever since she was young, she’d had a vivid imagination.

After writing about half a page, Dorothy stopped and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. She didn’t want to sleep away more precious time, but she had stayed up late the night before, furiously typing because inspiration had struck. She sighed and started reading back over her work.

“I wish I could have a real adventure like this,” she mumbled, feeling an aching in the pit of her stomach. “With an epic quest and saving lives and that sort of thing. Not just normal everyday life. I’m sick of reading and writing about other people doing that sort of thing. I want to do it myself.”

‘Don’t worry, you’ll have your own adventure someday,’ the voice assured her softly.

“Yeah, like what?” Dorothy scoffed, feeling slightly stupid for talking to no one, but not caring anyway. “I’ll go off to college, get a job, eventually meet some guy, get married, have kids, blah, blah, blah. It’s just not the same as what you read about in books.”

‘Well, if you keep up that attitude, you’re certainly not going to have an adventure any time soon.’ Dorothy scowled and stuck out her tongue.

“Yeah, yeah, adventure is everywhere if you just look close enough,” Dorothy sighed, knowing she had told herself the same thing many times before.

‘Now, what about that nap?’

‘I know, I know,’ Dorothy sighed, saving the changes she had made to the chapter and exiting out of the document. ‘I’m just going to respond to Melissa and then I’m going to take a quick nap before dinner, okay?’

‘That’s better.’ Dorothy rolled her eyes and went back to her email. If she was going to hear voices in her head, then why couldn’t they be a little less bossy? She then paused, twirling a pen between her fingers as she tried to think of what she could say to Melissa in response. For starters, what was channeling? She bit her lip, and then slowly started typing.

From: happyGOluckyTIME
To: wandering-soul
Subject: RE: The Kids Next Door

Well, thank you for saying that, I’m glad I actually did the story decently and got Matt’s character down. I was worried that he didn’t sound like himself at some parts. It was nice to get such a long response from someone on this, you certainly set the record for longest reply, so thanks for that.

As for channeling, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I know that I certainly don’t talk to characters like you suggested. Most of the stuff that you thought was important, like the mint chip ice cream thing, was just me making guesses along the lines of what I like. Mint chip ice cream is actually one of my favorite flavors, so I made it Matt’s favorite flavor too. No big deal, really.

Mostly what I do is just look around and base characters off everyday things I see around me. I take some names from my friends, and sometimes when I notice that someone is acting in a way very similar to how I believe Matt acts, then I jot it down.

Well, anyway, I hope you can clear some of this up soon, I’m rather curious as to what you mean, but I have no clue at all as to what channeling is. Either way, I’m still pretty sure I don’t do that. Thank you very much for reading my story though.

~Dorothy

Dorothy sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking over the words once and correcting a few spelling errors before clicking on the send button. She then turned off the computer, grabbed her backpack off the floor and slowly climbed up the stairs to her room.

She sighed in blissful delight as she fell onto her bed with a thump. Her day had been so stressful, as usual. She was tired of going to school and doing such normal, mundane things. Just writing about extraordinary things was so much more exciting.

She then slowly stretched out her hands across the bed, searching for a blanket to pull around her. Instead she felt her fingers brush against a familiar patch of worn fur. Dorothy grinned to herself and opened her eyes, pulling the stuffed animal close to her.

“Hey, Simba,” she whispered softly, running her fingers through his messy mane. The poor old toy had gotten worn over the years, but Dorothy couldn’t bring herself to part with it. Something about the doll had always been special, which made her continue to talk to it, even though she was sixteen and plenty past the age of talking to toys.

“I’m so tired right now,” Dorothy continued, wondering slightly to herself why it was okay to talk to a toy and not the voice in her head. “I know I shouldn’t have stayed up so late, but I got a lot written because of it. I’m almost finished with the next chapter.”

‘Yeah, I know,’ Dorothy heard Simba respond, and instead of sighing at her vivid imagination like before, she instead grinned to herself. ‘You and your writing. You’re always writing.’

“I don’t think I can help myself anymore,” Dorothy laughed. “There’s always something new to write, some new idea to explore.” She then blinked a few times, feeling her eyelids getting heavier and trying to resist it. She wanted to stay up and ‘talk’ with Simba, even it was just her tired mind playing tricks on her.

‘You’re tired,’ Simba stated simply, as if the toy could notice her attempts to stave off sleep. ‘You should go to sleep now.’

“No, I’m fine, really,” Dorothy said, though she knew it wasn’t true. She looked seriously at the toy, which seemed to be grinning back at her in response.

‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk later,’ Simba seemingly reassured her, though Dorothy guessed it was her tired mind trying to get her to sleep. ‘You should just go to sleep now. You look ready to collapse.’

“Okay,” Dorothy mumbled, leaning forward and burying her head in Simba’s fur. Somehow, just the comfort of an old toy from her childhood exaggerated her exhaustion, and soon she was slipping into a peaceful slumber.

Once she was completely asleep, a blond ghost managed to wriggle out from the doll clutched in her arms. He then sighed as he looked her over and sat on the end of the bed. A smaller ghost with matching blond hair sat down beside him on the bed, eyeing the sleeping girl curiously.

‘So, what happened?’ the smaller one asked, noticing how tense the other ghost seemed to be. The older one sighed and clenched his fists together.

‘She was so close,’ the older one muttered. ‘This girl Melissa actually wrote to her about channeling and talking to characters. But Door just brushed it off, as usual. If only she still had the mind of a seven year old.’

‘Just give her time,’ the younger ghost said with a reassuring smile. ‘I’m sure she’ll get it someday. You just have to understand that her whole life she’s been raised to believe that fantasy and reality are two completely different things.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the younger ghost said, looking over his shoulder at the form of the sleeping girl. ‘Someday she’ll know the truth, and everything will be better, Matt. You’ll see.’

:) (Smile) — Description
Nine years later…

Dorothy groaned loudly as she walked into the house. She dumped her backpack on the floor and leaned against the doorframe, closing her eyes tiredly. She was exhausted, down to her very sore feet.

‘Maybe you should take a nap.’

Dorothy shook her head to clear it. She knew that a nap would feel extremely good, but she didn’t want to take a nap and waste more precious hours in the day. she sighed and walked into the computer office instead, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of her mind.

‘Why don’t you just take the nap? A nap would do you good. You’re tired. Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time?’

‘I’ll go to bed after I write a bit, okay? Just shut up!’

The girl sighed and pressed her left hand against her forehead. A nap probably would help her. Not only was she talking to herself, she was arguing and bargaining with herself on top of that. She rested her free hand on the mouse and clicked on the icon for her email.

She felt herself grin when she saw an unread message pop up. Just a few days ago Dorothy had sent her friend Melissa a copy of her story to read, and she had been waiting to see what Melissa had thought of the story. Part of the reason she was so nervous was because Melissa wasn’t a close friend of hers, but she had started talking to Melissa about writing, and Melissa had helped Dorothy come up with one of the main characters, Matthew Elliot. Dorothy wanted to be sure she had portrayed Matt correctly.

‘You did fine. Stop worrying and read the email.’

Dorothy shook her head and blinked a few times. She knew she wasn’t insane, and yet it she felt like she kept hearing a voice completely different from her own. Nevertheless, she clicked on the email and began reading.

From: wandering-soul
To: happyGOluckyTIME
Subject: The Kids Next Door

Wow...what can I say? Heh...It's a very rare thing for me to read a story of this nature that's any good. VERY rare, heh. It was quite compelling, and I had to read it until I got all the way through...now unfortunately, I've read all there is that you've written, lol. Now I have to wait for more. Sigh...now I'm gonna go and mope until you write more, lol.

Though I must say, the way you write about Matt...*shakes head* I don't get it. It's kind of freaky, since I know all about Matthew Elliot.

Dorothy paused and looked over the sentence again. Melissa had just said her story was good, so why was she then saying the way she wrote about Matt was freaky? Dorothy read over the sentence twice more before giving up and moving on to the rest of the email.

Though I must say, the way you write about Matt...*shakes head* I don't get it. It's kind of freaky, since I know all about Matthew Elliot. It sounds like you're channeling him, lol. I'm serious, I know a lot of writers who channel their characters, and you seriously sound like you're channeling Matt...Certain comments, like the one about how he’s really dyslexic and he’s hidden it from people around him, or his favorite color being turquoise (though I would have said light blue. That's the color of his aura, which is the reason he likes that color so much) could only be known that way, lol. That's why I find it so freaky, lol. I already knew a bunch of things you said in this story that you made it sound like you were just randomly writing them in, but they coincided with things I already knew, heh. At the risk of sounding more insane than I probably already sound, do you talk to characters? It's just too uncanny. And the epilogue sounded EXACTLY like the way Matt writes, lol. He writes great prose, believe it or not.

Anyway, if you haven't decided to avoid me like the plague for blurting all that out (I was so curious about it after reading your story that I just had to take the risk of asking you, lol), feel free to write me and share your thoughts on the matter. I'd be very interested in hearing from you.

In any case, take care, and have a nice day!

Melissa

Dorothy stared at her screen in amazement, wondering why she had never heard the same sort of thoughts from Melissa at school before. She had never heard Melissa mention talking to characters or… channeling, whatever that was. Dorothy had never heard of the channeling Melissa had written about in the email.

Dorothy winced as she felt a sudden wave of frustration wash over her. It felt like it had come from seemingly nowhere, and yet she knew it had to be connected with the fact that she didn’t know what channeling was.

‘You’ve got all the clues in front of you, you just need to open your eyes and look.’

Dorothy sighed and rubbed her hand against her forehead. She knew the clues were in front of her, but she didn’t know what they were pointing towards. She tried to connect them for another minute or two, but nothing came, so instead she opened up one of her documents and started writing.

‘No, you were so close… so close…’ Dorothy sighed and tuned out the voice as she wrote out the ideas that had come to her during the school day. She felt like she was going insane at times with the way she heard things, but she knew it had to just be her crazy imagination, as usual. Ever since she was young, she’d had a vivid imagination.

After writing about half a page, Dorothy stopped and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. She didn’t want to sleep away more precious time, but she had stayed up late the night before, furiously typing because inspiration had struck. She sighed and started reading back over her work.

“I wish I could have a real adventure like this,” she mumbled, feeling an aching in the pit of her stomach. “With an epic quest and saving lives and that sort of thing. Not just normal everyday life. I’m sick of reading and writing about other people doing that sort of thing. I want to do it myself.”

‘Don’t worry, you’ll have your own adventure someday,’ the voice assured her softly.

“Yeah, like what?” Dorothy scoffed, feeling slightly stupid for talking to no one, but not caring anyway. “I’ll go off to college, get a job, eventually meet some guy, get married, have kids, blah, blah, blah. It’s just not the same as what you read about in books.”

‘Well, if you keep up that attitude, you’re certainly not going to have an adventure any time soon.’ Dorothy scowled and stuck out her tongue.

“Yeah, yeah, adventure is everywhere if you just look close enough,” Dorothy sighed, knowing she had told herself the same thing many times before.

‘Now, what about that nap?’

‘I know, I know,’ Dorothy sighed, saving the changes she had made to the chapter and exiting out of the document. ‘I’m just going to respond to Melissa and then I’m going to take a quick nap before dinner, okay?’

‘That’s better.’ Dorothy rolled her eyes and went back to her email. If she was going to hear voices in her head, then why couldn’t they be a little less bossy? She then paused, twirling a pen between her fingers as she tried to think of what she could say to Melissa in response. For starters, what was channeling? She bit her lip, and then slowly started typing.

From: happyGOluckyTIME
To: wandering-soul
Subject: RE: The Kids Next Door

Well, thank you for saying that, I’m glad I actually did the story decently and got Matt’s character down. I was worried that he didn’t sound like himself at some parts. It was nice to get such a long response from someone on this, you certainly set the record for longest reply, so thanks for that.

As for channeling, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I know that I certainly don’t talk to characters like you suggested. Most of the stuff that you thought was important, like the mint chip ice cream thing, was just me making guesses along the lines of what I like. Mint chip ice cream is actually one of my favorite flavors, so I made it Matt’s favorite flavor too. No big deal, really.

Mostly what I do is just look around and base characters off everyday things I see around me. I take some names from my friends, and sometimes when I notice that someone is acting in a way very similar to how I believe Matt acts, then I jot it down.

Well, anyway, I hope you can clear some of this up soon, I’m rather curious as to what you mean, but I have no clue at all as to what channeling is. Either way, I’m still pretty sure I don’t do that. Thank you very much for reading my story though.

~Dorothy

Dorothy sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking over the words once and correcting a few spelling errors before clicking on the send button. She then turned off the computer, grabbed her backpack off the floor and slowly climbed up the stairs to her room.

She sighed in blissful delight as she fell onto her bed with a thump. Her day had been so stressful, as usual. She was tired of going to school and doing such normal, mundane things. Just writing about extraordinary things was so much more exciting.

She then slowly stretched out her hands across the bed, searching for a blanket to pull around her. Instead she felt her fingers brush against a familiar patch of worn fur. Dorothy grinned to herself and opened her eyes, pulling the stuffed animal close to her.

“Hey, Simba,” she whispered softly, running her fingers through his messy mane. The poor old toy had gotten worn over the years, but Dorothy couldn’t bring herself to part with it. Something about the doll had always been special, which made her continue to talk to it, even though she was sixteen and plenty past the age of talking to toys.

“I’m so tired right now,” Dorothy continued, wondering slightly to herself why it was okay to talk to a toy and not the voice in her head. “I know I shouldn’t have stayed up so late, but I got a lot written because of it. I’m almost finished with the next chapter.”

‘Yeah, I know,’ Dorothy heard Simba respond, and instead of sighing at her vivid imagination like before, she instead grinned to herself. ‘You and your writing. You’re always writing.’

“I don’t think I can help myself anymore,” Dorothy laughed. “There’s always something new to write, some new idea to explore.” She then blinked a few times, feeling her eyelids getting heavier and trying to resist it. She wanted to stay up and ‘talk’ with Simba, even it was just her tired mind playing tricks on her.

‘You’re tired,’ Simba stated simply, as if the toy could notice her attempts to stave off sleep. ‘You should go to sleep now.’

“No, I’m fine, really,” Dorothy said, though she knew it wasn’t true. She looked seriously at the toy, which seemed to be grinning back at her in response.

‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk later,’ Simba seemingly reassured her, though Dorothy guessed it was her tired mind trying to get her to sleep. ‘You should just go to sleep now. You look ready to collapse.’

“Okay,” Dorothy mumbled, leaning forward and burying her head in Simba’s fur. Somehow, just the comfort of an old toy from her childhood exaggerated her exhaustion, and soon she was slipping into a peaceful slumber.

Once she was completely asleep, a blond ghost managed to wriggle out from the doll clutched in her arms. He then sighed as he looked her over and sat on the end of the bed. A smaller ghost with matching blond hair sat down beside him on the bed, eyeing the sleeping girl curiously.

‘So, what happened?’ the smaller one asked, noticing how tense the other ghost seemed to be. The older one sighed and clenched his fists together.

‘She was so close,’ the older one muttered. ‘This girl Melissa actually wrote to her about channeling and talking to characters. But Door just brushed it off, as usual. If only she still had the mind of a seven year old.’

‘Just give her time,’ the younger ghost said with a reassuring smile. ‘I’m sure she’ll get it someday. You just have to understand that her whole life she’s been raised to believe that fantasy and reality are two completely different things.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the younger ghost said, looking over his shoulder at the form of the sleeping girl. ‘Someday she’ll know the truth, and everything will be better, Matt. You’ll see.’