Walter shook his head. “This is insane.” He stepped forward. “I can’t make people pay attention. I can’t make anyone listen!” He threw up his hands. “I never have.”
“That’s not true,” Bing insisted. “You’ve written a comic book, an anime series, and live-action TV. You tell stories.” He took a deep breath. “You created Red Wolf.” He rocked back on his heels a moment while he and Walter wrapped their heads around that.
“I didn’t create you,” he said slowly. “I just….” Thought about Bing the whole time he was writing Red Wolf. Dreamed about Bing, invested fantasies and his passion in the character. If ever he alone could bring a character to life, it would be Bing’s character. It would be Red Wolf. Because every word he wrote, every panel he drew of Red Wolf, was invested with his love for Bing.
“But you’re a person,” he said. He couldn’t possibly havecreatedBing. He created Red Wolf, and that was something entirely different.
Bing shrugged. “I am a person, but I’m also Red Wolf in a very real way.” He threw up his hands. “Look, I don’t understand how it happened. But I guarantee none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been a special storyteller at the very beginning.”
“You are the beginning,” Auntie Sand said with a proud nod.
Walter pressed his hands to his forehead. This whole thing made no sense to him. “Okay, say I believe you. Auntie Sand is a legendary character brought to life through that awful necklace. And you, Bing, are somehow both yourself and Red Wolf.” He lifted his head and looked around. “Why make me Monkey? Why this whole ruse to fight some demon?”
“Because that’s how she was created,” Bing answered. “What does Sand do in the stories? She fights demons with the Monkey King. So she gets you to bring Monkey back to life and then creates a demon to fight. It’s what she’s programed to do.”
Walter shook his head. “And you?”
Bing shrugged. “I’m both, I guess. I’m still me, but I’m also Red Wolf.” He blew out a breath. “I haven’t fully reconciled the two.”
“And me?” Walter asked. “I’m both me and Monkey.” He felt the truth of it inside him. The energy of Monkey was quiet now, but still available to leap forward if he got into a fight. But the whole thing felt wrong to him, where it hadn’t before.
He couldn’t be both the creator and the created. Somehow it was easier to believe that he was possessed by an alien energy from a mystical something-or-other than that he was a story come to life.
“No,” he said firmly. “No, this cannot be true.” It wasn’t that he didn’t believe. Hell, he had Monkey inside him telling him it was true. He just couldn’t believe he had that much power. Anybody—everybody—had the ability to tell a story. The idea that he had some mystical ability to create stories so powerful that they actually manifested… well, that was just crazy.
Unless it was true.
He looked at Auntie Sand, and she arched her brow back at him. It was a simple dare. Did he believe or not? Would he live as Monkey, tell Monkey’s tale, and let them exist on earth again as real people? What would he do with his talent?
He looked to Bing, who stood there, solid and warm. The truth was that he had built Red Wolf out of Bing, not the other way around. He’d loved Bing first and then built the character from that love.
That was the moment the kangaroo grunted in her sleep. It was a real animal sound, sort of like a grunt and a purr mixed together, as the creature turned slightly. She was resting, and like any animal who slept, she looked a little bit adorable.
He stared at her, and he thought of all those phantom kangaroos. “The illusions were built from the real thing, right?” he asked no one.
Auntie Sand answered anyway. “Yes.”
He looked at Bing. “I built Red Wolf from the real thing. From you. You are Red Wolf because I built him from you.”
Bing frowned at that, but in the end, he nodded.
“But I’m not Monkey,” Walter continued.
Sand huffed her disgust. “You are Monkey,” she said. “You’re loyal, impulsive, powerful.”
He shook his head. “I am not Monkey!” But he feared he could be. He could release himself into Monkey and let that energy take over. It would be so easy to stop being him and become an impulsive demigod with amazing superpowers. After all, it was something he’d wanted all his life. Who wanted to be a short asthmatic kid who drew comics all day long? Much better to be a Buddhist demigod.
Which meant one thing. He had to do it. Bing had been telling him this whole time, and he’d fought it. But now it was time. So he caught Bing’s gaze and felt support flow back like a river of strength. And that was what helped him lift his chin and speak loudly.
“Monkey, I order you out of my body. I am a sovereign being, and you need to leave me right now.”
In the background, he heard his aunt scream. “No!” She lunged toward him, but it was too late.
Everything inside him twisted and churned, every cell squeezed tight as if to expel something. His gut clenched, his breath cut off, and he knew he was about to vomit.
It was a good thing he passed out first.
