Last Curtain Call

Chapter 4: Last Curtain Call

".. av... can you hear... e?... ake up.."

The sound of a familiar voice echoed inside Mav's head as he slowly wakes up. The scenes played inside his head instantly disappeared like a bygone dream, and yet it felt surreal.

The first thing he sees after waking up was Rumble, the love of his life. On his right was Calburn, which he never met before. On his left was Moldy, the memories of him being the Captain's Cook slowly surfaced on his mind.

But his main focus is Rumble.

He immediately snapped awake in shock.

"Rumble?! What are you doing here?" Mav exclaims. "I thought you're in the university teaching the students back in Niria!"

"And I thought you're on a mission in Astra's dimension!" Rumble exclaims.

"So uh," Calburn cuts them off. "You two know each other?"

"Well uh-"

"Well, yeah. A little too much in fact." Mav cuts Rumble off before he could even say a word.

"C-Capt.. uh.. how to say this... we have a situation..?" Moldy tries to get the conversation back on track.

"Hm? What's up?" Mav asks.

Rumble points towards a large figure.

"You might wanna check this out..." He starts.

Mav leans over to see what is the commotion.

In front of him was an agitated person scribbling up ideas in a blur. Mav tries to look at the room at what might seem be an office. A few others are just chatting with one another, aware of the situation they're into. He caught wind of one of the papers and realizes that these are story ideas that he's writing about. The one he's looking at is the short story about a haunted park named "Jak'sho National Park". Memories of that time started to surface on his head again, including the biker gang he got involved with.

The person and the room they’re in looks enormous, everyone else looks as tiny as a mouse.

"So all of this was real after all.." Mav sighs.

The person muttered “I must write! I need ideas!” over and over. His hands are in a blur that Mav couldn’t figure out what he’s working on.

“Is that the reason why all of us got pulled into this dimension?” He asks.

“I dunno, you know this more than I do.” Rumble shrugs.

“I’d say.” Simon walks up to the confused Maverick. “It might be possible he’s the one who pulled us all in here.”

Maverick tries to get a good reading, but something blocks him from using its full potential. He can only assume he can glitch for a short distance.

“So the only way to resolve this is to give him a good story idea.. but how?”

“Well, you’re the one who says it, so you’re the one who’s giving ideas.” Mackenzie walked towards the group. “Or do you want me to strangle your head just to get your mind going?”

“I-”

“Heheh, I only jest, of course.”

Mav’s thoughts started racing on his mind. None of the stories he got involved into are perfect. There’s always room for improvement on certain character interactions and the length of the plot (oh boy, I love breaking the 4th wall), but what could be the perfect story to end it all?

Suddenly, the computer the author is using to write stories suddenly burned out. They started having a fit of rage, turning into a void, shrieking, “MY WORK! MY PRECIOUS WORK!!” At the same time, a strong gust of wind started to blow, tossing everyone around like a tornado picking up cars on a busy street.

“Mav! What should we do??” Rumble asks in terror.

Mav can see the computer at a distance. He wants to take a risk of fixing the internals all by himself to save everyone from this predicament. Without hesitation, he glitches himself right inside the computer hardware.

“MAV!!”

…

Inside the computer are wires connected in an orderly fashion. Although one of the wires seems loose, Mav goes near the wire and tries to connect them together.

A shock makes Mav let out a scream, but did it quietly so as not to alert the others. It was a simple wiring task, and with him being as small as a mouse, he can work in cramped spots like these.

Slowly, he connects the loose wires together, and the whole computer restarts. He then glitches outside the computer, now seeing Arthur with a sad look on his face when he looks at the screen.

“All my work, gone…”

Mav feels sorry for the writer losing all his hard work.

And then the writer notices him staring right at them.

“Are you the one who fixed my computer?” The writer asks.

“Um, yeah.” Maverick replies. “I’m sorry that you lost your work in the process.”

“It’s fine..” the writer sighs. “There’s nothing I can do anyway.”

But then Maverick had a brilliant idea. He calls everyone out to his spot and says:

“What if we all created a story together?” Mav suggests. “It can involve everyone’s experiences on these ‘dimensions’ you created.”

The writer beams up and down with joy.

“A great suggestion!” He says gleefully.

With everyone’s help, everyone shares their experiences on each of their own adventures. Be it good or bad, everyone works together to achieve a happy ending to their journey.

And then it was time for everyone to part ways.

Fin.

Epilogue: Back to Niria

It was a day like every other day. While Rumble is preparing breakfast, Maverick is in the living room reading the latest copy of the newspaper in one of the nearby towns. Most of their students went out for school or to do an important errand back in their hometowns.

“So.” Maverick starts. “How did you end up on that same dimension as I did from the start?”

“Well, it appeared right inside our room,” Rumble replies. “Leon and Zayn had to keep on guard in the cabin for days until one of us returns back here.”

“Oh? We should thank them at least. After all, they deserve this break, no?” Maverick chuckles.

“Yeah, heheh.”

“You know,” Mav says while deep in thought. “This reminds me of our past adventures together. It’s been a while since we had an adventure together. So why not travel together in other dimensions?”

“You’re asking me to tag along on one of our adventures? Why not?” Rumble replies with a smile on his face. Maverick smiles back as they laugh over their shared experiences together on alternative universes they went into.

And they will always remember this experience forever.