"Honey?" His mom rapped lightly on his open door. "Dinner's ready."

"I'll be there in a moment," he replied, not even looking up from his homework. He had written only two words but he wavered over them, chewing on the end of his pencil. "Wait, Mom, do you think using 'dear' as a salutation sounds a little personal for someone you've never met?"

His mother came to stand by him, peering over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"We're doing some kind of letter exchange program with another school for humanities class." Hope leaned back in his chair, tilting his head up to shoot his mom a disgruntled sulk. "Like penpals, or something."

"Sounds fun." She ruffled his hair.

"This is torture," he corrected with a whine. "I mean, what do I say? Nothing interesting ever happens in my life. Who wants to read about the test I studied all night for or what they served at the cafeteria today?"

His mother assumed that patient smile for when she felt her son was being a little too melodramatic. "Why not write about your hobbies or a book you've read? Maybe try to find a common interest."

Hope dropped his head onto his desktop with a scoff. "Right, so he can make fun of my models or that I read nonfiction 'for fun.' I'm the most boring person alive."

"Honey, you are not boring."

"You're my mom." Hope waved a hand vaguely at her. "You're required to say I'm not boring."

Her patient smile frayed a bit at the edges; Hope must've gotten his stubbornness from his father. "I'm also required to make sure you get fed. That assignment's not going anywhere, but your food's getting cold. Come on, you can angst about it later."

The next day, Hope turned in the letter with the rest of his classmates. In the end, he couldn't figure out what to say that was cool or interesting, so he wrote about school. It was very clinical and dull, but it reflected his feelings about the assignment. He could barely handle people in real life; a letter to a stranger felt ten times as hard.

After the initial burst of anxiety upon giving the letter to his teacher, he soon forgot about it.

In two weeks, a bundle of reply letters from the exchange school arrived.

"Looks like your penpal didn't do the assignment," his teacher told him, after all the correspondences were handed out and Hope was left empty-handed.

A rush of relief drew a smile on Hope's face. He wouldn't ever find out what that stranger thought of him.

"This came in for you," his mother said one day when he had arrived home from school. She held out a crumpled envelope covered in black smears.

He raised a brow at the offensive-looking thing, gingerly taking it between two fingers. "What is it?" Holding it up, he peered at its front and back. His name was printed in clumsy letters across the front, followed by scribbles that vaguely resembled an address which may or may not have been his. Dark blotches in the upper corner obscured the return address.

"It's not from that penpal of yours?"

Hope blinked at her. "Penpal?"

Hi there.

Sorry that I'm not the person you were writing to. But you've probably given up on getting a reply from them by now, huh? I mean, it's been a pretty long while.

So, the story is I found this note of yours and even though it wasn't meant for me, I read it anyway. Sorry. I just don't have a lot of people to talk to. Actually, I really have no one to talk to. So I just pretended this letter was for me and yeah, I guess that comes across as pretty weird, but sometimes the loneliness is a bit hard to take.

I've never written a letter before. It was a bit hard finding the materials—this paper came from an old book and I'm using a sharpened lump of coal to write with—but I wanted to reply. All that stuff in your letter sounded amazing. Do they really make you sit and solve the world's problems all day? You must be some kind of genius. I'm not very smart, but I'm a pretty good hunter. One time I took down a behemoth single-handedly. Not even a veteran can easily do that.

You probably don't want to hear about that though, huh? Pretty boring compared to learning how to save the world… I wonder what it's like to go to school. It doesn't sound like it's something I'd enjoy, but I wouldn't mind trying.

Wow, writing a letter is pretty hard… You filled up three pages but I can barely fill one. I don't know what to write about. I just live the same day, over and over.

It can get pretty heavy out here, but your letter cheered me up a bit. Did you ever reach your friend in the end?

I guess it doesn't really matter. You were just words on paper in the end.

I pray you had a wonderful, happy life, Hope.

The letter was poorly written, with uneven, almost illegible handwriting and atrocious spelling. Hope's fingers twitched to cover the yellow paper with red marks correcting the innumerable mistakes.

Beyond that, the letter was… strange, to put it mildly. There was a surreal quality to it, and Hope couldn't help but feel he was viewing it without the proper context.

He read it over several times before giving up. It had to be some kind of prank. Maybe from one of his friends or classmates; he had told a few people about the lucky break he had gotten in the assignment, and now they were just having a lark over it.

He examined the battered envelope; if there was a postmark it was hidden by dirt, and the stamp had been rubbed off into obscurity. When he tilted the paper toward the light, he thought he could make out a name and the return address amid the smudges.

Hope scowled and set aside the envelope. If someone wanted to have a little fun pranking him, well, he'd just play along.

"Noel Kreiss, is it?" Hope muttered, throwing a spiral notebook onto his desk with enough force that it bounced twice. "Whoever you are, you should've put more effort into a pseudonym that didn't sound so fake."

"Your penpal wrote again," his mother said, holding out a torn, abused envelope. "Also, his post office really should take a look at their sorting machine."

Hope stared at the envelope—it was thick this time—unsure of how to react. Did that reply letter really get delivered? The address had seemed like a bunch of nonsense and Hope was sure it would've ended up return to sender.

His mother raised a brow at him, waggling the letter. "Are you going to take it?"

'No,' he wanted to say, but his fingers grasped the corner of the envelope anyway. The crinkle was loud in his ears.

You wrote back!

I can't believe it. This letter even has my name on it and everything.

I'm not going to question it. Sometimes it's better not to question it. A thing can lose its magic if you find out how it works. I don't want to lose this blessing.

So you build robots? That's pretty amazing. I haven't ever seen a functioning robot, but about a two day march from my village there's a few ruined husks of these enormous machines from the war centuries ago. I never really paid much attention to them before, but after reading about how much you enjoy putting them together and how much time you spend getting the colors just right, I think I want to explore them a bit more. You gave enough details that I think I can probably get one of them functioning if I wanted. Maybe I can tell you about it next time?

Although I can't really imagine glue holding those giants together. Maybe the glue you have is special? Is it an animal glue?

And it went on and on, sheets of rambling reactions to Hope's letter. Sometimes a page would have just a sentence or two in large print, as if the writer couldn't contain his excitement and the only way to express it was to write as large as possible.

Hope found himself horribly fascinated, torn between scorn at the elaborate joke and fascination for the illiterate story penned onto the brittle paper.

And the joke was very elaborate; the paper legitimately felt and smelled old, and sometimes the back of a sheet would be covered with faded commercial print, too sun-bleached and weather-stained to read. The scrawlings would smudge under his fingers, staining them greasy and black, and once again the envelope yielded no concrete clues about the prankster's identity.

But there was something charming and disarming about the letter; "Noel" wrote effusively about Hope's likes, even if he grossly, almost innocently, misunderstood a lot of them. And Hope had never experienced anyone so ridiculously happy to hear from him; 'you wrote back' stretched across three pages alone, a word to a page, written impossibly large with impressions made deep into the paper from the writing stylus. It felt so sincere, and even if this was a prank, maybe it was a prank done good-naturedly, a whim without malice.

It actually felt harder to write his reply this time. Before, Hope had been irritated and set out to come across as boring as possible, writing endlessly about his model robot building with as many technical terms and excruciating details about the process. It was something that even the most enthusiastic builder would've found tedious, yet "Noel" seemed to have poured over every word with heartfelt relish.

So now, Hope wasn't sure what to do. He chewed on the end of his pencil, staring at the clean white page of his notebook.

He read the letter again and realized so much of it was just reactions to his own letter.

Well, that made sense. "Noel" was just a persona of the prankster after all. Writing about "himself" would require spinning an unnecessary backstory, so the safest thing would've been to ignore writing about it altogether.

Hope smiled to himself as he set his pencil to paper, sure he'd catch "Noel" in a trap. "So why don't you tell me about yourself, Noel Kreiss?"

"This is kinda creepy." Alyssa carelessly tossed him back a page and Hope frowned at her, smoothing the parchment out carefully. Noel's third letter had been written on thin, almost translucent animal skin, words sketched out with oily graphite. It held up better than the previous two letters, but Hope couldn't keep down his irritation at the disrespect Alyssa was showing his property.

Elida was much more careful in returning the page she had. "It reminds me of those role-playing comms on the internet," she said quietly. She suddenly flushed red. "Um, not that I know much about that…"

"Role playing?" Hope repeated. "So you think someone is just acting out a character just to act it out?"

"Man," Alyssa said, poking a finger at the parchment, "he says he thinks he's eighteen here, but I bet he's some old creeper, looking to badtouch gullible little kids. Probably pulled your name online or something."

"But how did he know about my school assignment?"

Alyssa waved a hand dismissively. "Coincidence. You just associated it with your homework subconsciously. Or maybe he's stalking you."

Hope rested his elbows on his desk, frowning down at the letter.

"Look, you know it's obviously a joke. He talks about hunting 'monsters,'" she airquoted for emphasis, "for food and which ones are good or which ones are inedible. If he's not playing out some fantasy, then he's totally delusional, which is even more of a reason to stay away. Stop encouraging him, Hope. This is super creepy. Next thing you know, he's gonna write that he wants to meet you and then we'll be seeing your missing person's report on the 9 o'clock news."

She did have a point there, Hope grudgingly conceded. Even if it seemed like a lot of effort to prey on someone through snail mail, and he really had a hard time reconciling how these letters even got mailed in this condition.

It'd just be better to stop now before something terrible happened.

He had been having a really bad day. He had projects due and classmates who didn't want to work on them, and once again he was taking on more for student council than he really should. His mom was nagging him about cleaning his room and his dad had to cancel taking him to the new museum exhibit.

He was grumpy, frustrated, and tired. So when he saw the battered envelope sticking out from under a pile of physics books where he had tossed it aside weeks before, he didn't even hesitate. He ripped out a sheet of paper from his notes and proceeded to rant about his day to Noel.

He got as far as addressing it and sealing the envelope shut before changing his mind and dumping it into his trashbin. And that was that. But he felt better for having let it out. Maybe having an imaginary friend wasn't that bad after all.

"I mailed your letter."

Hope stared at his mom, uncomprehending.

"Honestly, Hope, you really need to clean your room more often. You're lucky I noticed it in the trash or you might've thought your friend forgot about you."

It's great to hear from you again, Hope. Though I'm sorry to hear about your horrible day. But just remember that all bad things do eventually pass and you'll have something to smile about again. Sometimes it seems really hard to remember, but don't ever give up.

Hope really hadn't given much thought to that bad day after he had written out his feelings. He didn't really have a choice but to suck it up anyway, so he did what he had to do and it was over and done with. So Noel's letter of encouragement was late.

But something about it felt …

Hope tucked his hands under his head, staring up at his ceiling in the dark. The letter had bothered him all evening. The words were simply put, but they felt too … profound for his own trite problems.

Noel sometimes alluded to his own loneliness, and how it was a daily struggle to survive, and that he had no friends or family. And suddenly Hope realized that maybe, beneath the colorful stories about giant robots and fighting monsters and desolate deadlands, that maybe Noel was sending a cry for help; that maybe the fairy tales were a metaphor for the real life problems Noel had.

Hope dragged his hands over his face, stifling a groan of frustration.

Or maybe "Noel" was simply a very vivid character created by someone who trolled through snail mail instead of social media.

Hope wasn't sure which one he wanted to be true.

"Okay, that's it. What's his address?"

"What?" Hope frowned at Alyssa towering over him, one hand on her hips and the other wagging a finger in his face.

She suddenly snatched the envelope out of his hands, staring at it crossly as she turned it this way and that. "I can't even read this."

"Why do you want his address?"

"We can look it up online. Get some real information about this creeper."

Hope sighed, but it didn't seem that bad an idea. He pulled out his phone and began typing in a search query.

"You have his address memorized?" Alyssa exclaimed in his ear.

Leaning away from her with a scowl, Hope focused on pressing in the digits. "I had to. The return address was practically nonexistent by the third letter."

"I'm really surprised the post office would even deliver it," Elida commented. "I can only make out your name, Hope."

Hope shrugged. "Everyone uses email these days, so they probably have nothing else to do."

"I guess that includes delivering mail to places that don't exist," Alyssa said, pointing at the results on Hope's phone. 'Not found' stared up boldly from the map query, followed by a list of suggested alternate locations.

"Maybe he lives out in deep country that's not mapped," Hope rationalized, though it came out more as a protest. "I mean, he said there's nothing for miles around. Either way, he's getting my letters, so this address is real."

"You really think—I can't believe this! Hope, how did you manage to survive this long with that kind of naivete?"

Hope rolled his eyes, the need to defend his actions—and Noel—suddenly overwhelming. "Look, this is just some harmless fun. He hasn't asked to meet me or run away from home or for money or pictures or whatever screwed up thing you're thinking about. He's interesting to talk to and he's good at telling stories."

"He's not real. He's some character someone is pretending to be to get their jollies on."

Hope glared at her. "Then he's an interactive piece of fiction. So what?"

Alyssa pressed a hand dramatically to her brow. "You are the most stubborn little—"

"I'm not little—"

Elida held up placating hands between them, smiling nervously. "Come on, you two. It'll be okay."

"Did I get any mail today, Mom?"

"No, honey, not today."

"Did you check the mail today, Mom?"

"Your dad did, but nothing for you, I'm afraid."

"Mom, did you—"

"You can read it after dinner."

"Mom!"

"Well, you should've cleaned your room yesterday like I had asked you to, honey."

Noel's world was vivid through his words, and Hope could easily see it behind his eyelids. Behind the poor grammar was a masterful storyteller, laying bare the burning landscape and frozen nights, the air shimmering with dust and the petrified corpses of trees jutting into an empty sky. The stories read like actual experiences and Noel wrote so whole-heartedly that Hope felt himself drawn in despite himself, where even the logical voice whispering 'this is not real' would be momentarily silenced.

Hope fired back replies as soon as he received a letter and would get impatient waiting for the next one. He once tried to break the magic by suggesting they move to email ('wouldn't it be better? we wouldn't have to wait as long') but without missing a beat, Noel simply inquired about the nature of email in that oddly innocent way of his. (Before adding, strangely, 'it seems like time doesn't pass for me like it does for you.')

"Is this some novel he's writing?" his mother asked when Hope told her a little about Noel at her bequest. "He's certainly got a very active imagination."

Before he knew it, Hope had his penpal for a year and only briefly did he wonder how deep into the rabbit hole he had gone.

I had a dream last night. I don't dream often, and I'm kinda glad about that, because the dreams are either really bad or really good and I don't want either.

But I dreamt about what the world would be like when I finally died. I always thought that maybe it'd just continue on, because what's one tiny life to an entire world? But I dreamt that everything stopped, that my last breath was the world's last, and everything sank back to the ether, swallowed by chaos.

There was no more pain or loneliness, but there were no more smiles or simple pleasures.

There were no more letters from you.

That's why I keep on living.

Sometimes they talked about profound things and sometimes it was just inane. Some letters were pages long—Noel used anything he could write on and Hope would always remember the letter written on a moth-eaten sleeve—and sometimes it was just a few words jotted down to keep the connection between them alive.

It was easy to talk to Noel, and Hope soon found he was sharing more of himself than he had with anyone, except maybe his mother.

And maybe things he wouldn't even share with his mother.

But Noel never judged and was always encouraging and it was just another reminder that Noel was just a character because no one was like that in real life.

At this point it was past year two and Hope found he really didn't care.

What do you mean, what do I look like?

Er, I'm a human male, and I have all my arms and legs with fingers and toes intact…

One head, two eyes, a nose, and mouth…

Oh, my hair is brown.

Noel had never asked, but at one point Hope had a burning need to show what he looked like to his penpal. But he was terrified of sending a photo, especially since he was smack dab in that awkward growing stage, where nothing about him seemed put together right (or worked the way he wanted it to).

But he never did it, and Noel never asked, as if he were perfectly content with Hope being nothing more than words on paper.

Hope spent a lot of time ignoring the way that thought made him feel.

"You have good taste there, son."

Hope looked up from the display of handcrafted jewelry, where he had been admiring a bracelet cuff made of wire and leather with a prominent star motif. The vendor was an old man with a squint, hands gnarled with the toil of his creations.

"Would you like to try it on?"

Hope shook his head with a friendly smile. He had gotten better at conversing with people as he got older. Being student council president forced him to sink or swim about that. "No, I don't really accessorize."

"Makes a great gift too."

Hope had been considering just that, debating the merits of attempting to mail it. He didn't have much money; between juggling extracurricular activities and student council, he only managed a few hours at the library he was employed at.

Still, it was rather nice, and he had never actually given Noel anything before.

Noel never stopped his quirk of writing very large when excited.

Hope had a hard time keeping the dopey smile off his face when Noel expressed his gratitude over the gift.

"Make sure to forward them to my dorm. I mean, I told him to send his letters there to save time, but he might forget or lose the address."

"Yes, honey," his mother said with a long-suffering sigh as she helped pack his stuff into his car. "This is only the third time you've reminded me. Don't worry, I'll make sure you get your boyfriend's letters."

"Mom. He's not my boyfriend."

"Could've fooled me."

I don't know if this will reach you. I could barely read your last letter; the words were so faint and the paper was almost ash. I'm happy that whatever connected us lasted this long, but I think whatever was holding it together is finally falling apart.

Maybe it's because my world has reached its final breaths. I can feel it. Food and water are hard to come by. Everything is so still and quiet. Everything is fading. Only the stars still retain their life and beauty.

I heard from someone a long time ago that the light of the stars are actually time-travelers, reaching out from the past to bless us in the future.

Hope, thank you, for being my reason for smiling. It doesn't even matter if you're real or not. Just know, at the end of time, someone is thinking of you.

Something about the way the letter was even more illegible than usual filled his stomach with rocks. Words were blotchy or missing and the vellum cracked at the slightest pressure.

The story was ending. The beautiful tale Hope allowed himself to become trapped in, the tale that read so much like a fantasy novel which ran parallel to his ordinary world, was dying.

Was Noel bored? Did Noel move on? Was Noel's real life taking away their fantasy?

Panic seized Hope and his pen flew over the fancy stationery (he bought it expressly for his letters to Noel), but he went through four failed drafts before staring down at a fifth blank sheet, numb.

Finally, he reached over and plucked the spiral notebook he used for his class notes, carelessly tearing out an unused sheet. It was a plain thing, boring, blue-lined, the edges rough with torn paper hinges. He rummaged for a pencil, a plain No.2, and set the blunted tip to paper.

'If you ever need someone, I'm here. If you ever need help, I'm here. Just know, in my reality or your fantasy, someone loves you, Noel.'

It took him four days to work up the courage to mail it.

The letter didn't come back return to sender.

He waited for a reply. He texted his mother daily to see if anything had arrived at home instead. And as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Hope had to face the ugly reality that the bond he had with "Noel" was so tenuous that it had been broken by silence.

He toyed with the idea of writing a second letter.

But he didn't know what to say, so he didn't.

"I can't believe this. A fancy new job, getting your own place…" His mother roughed up his hair although he was much taller than her now. "You might look like a man, but you're still my baby and I'm going to cry for hours after you leave."

Hope laughed, carefully packing his books into a box. "It's not like I'm moving far away. And I'm working with Dad."

"It's still not the same," she disagreed, reaching up to pull down more books off the shelf. "Oh, what's this?" She removed the shoebox from its hiding spot behind a stack of paperbacks with a sly grin. "Your porn stash?"

"Ah…" Hope stared at the box in sick recognition.

"You mean this really is your porn stash?"

"Mom, don't be ridiculous…" Taking the box from her, he carefully removed the lid, afraid it would be empty inside.

But the aged letters, crammed to the brim, were all there.

"Remember that penpal I had? These are his letters…"

His mother snapped her fingers in recollection. "That's right! He stopped writing a few years ago, was it? That's really too bad you two drifted apart. You used to be quite lively about him."

"Yeah…" Hope's fingers drifted over the dry sheets. It was funny how he could still easily recall the contents of all those letters, every misspelled word and intricate story.

"He's probably married with kids now. Or maybe he's a famous author. You should look him up." His mother nudged Hope with her shoulder.

It came unbidden, driven by the thoughts of that final letter. "I don't think he's alive, Mom."

Juggling his briefcase, the bags holding his dinner, his keys, and the mail, Hope shut the door to his flat with a hip, going through the ritual dance of kicking off his shoes while hopping to the kitchen to dump everything on a counter.

Loosening his tie, he immediately set brewing the pot of coffee that would get him through another late night of alone time with his databases. Leaning against the counter with a sigh, he reached behind him to grab his mail, mindlessly flipping through bills and junk mail as he waited for his coffee to percolate.

A small envelope slipped through the stack to hit the floor, and with an annoyed grunt Hope leaned over to pick it up. But he paused as his fingers brushed the smudged paper, his brain slowly recognizing the achingly familiar pattern of his name clumsily printed, and the smears of what may or may not have been the address of his flat.

Hand shaking, it took several tries before he could pluck the envelope off the linoleum tiles. He stared at it, quivering and crackling in his numb grip, and his entire weight suddenly sagged against the counter.

His trembling fingers made short work of the brittle envelope, and inside was a piece of notebook paper, white, blue-lined, folded clean, but still with the ragged edges from where it had been torn from its spiral binding.

Carefully he pulled it out and unfolded it. His own handwriting stared back at him, the words of his meaningless confession neatly contained in the lines.

But below it, in a small inelegant print:

hope are you there

He could turn away from this. In those years of silence, Hope had spent too many hours wondering how much was real and how much was delusion. He had a boring, ordinary life now, and it was fine: going to work and coming home to work some more before passing out on the couch with his laptop for warmth. He saw his parents on the weekend and sometimes he hung out with his coworkers and he still talked with a few of his college colleagues. He dated casually and he still built robot models and he read non-fiction for fun. Every day was like the day before.

A boring, ordinary life suited him fine. He spent those years of silence convincing himself of just that. He couldn't just throw all that away just to tumble down the rabbit hole again.

Whirling around, he flipped open his briefcase, groping blindly for something to write with. He clutched the cheap ballpoint he found desperately, stabbing it down hard onto the letter.

But the stylus froze without completing a stroke.

'No' he should write.

'Leave me alone' he should scrawl.

'You're delusional' he should accuse.

But he wanted to believe. Believe in the story he had witnessed. Believe in that stranger who was not a stranger. There were so many things he couldn't explain without that belief.

He didn't want to believe that "Noel" was just words on paper.

He didn't want to believe that "Noel" only thought of him as words on paper.

He didn't want to believe that their impossible bond could be broken by silence.

He could turn away from this. He should turn away from this.

If you ever need someone, I'm here. If you ever need help, I'm here. Just know, in my reality or your fantasy, someone loves you, Noel.

hope are you there

I'm here.

Two weeks passed before Hope got his answer.

The tall young man before him was dressed outlandishly, with dark hair and eyes the color of evening. White paper was clutched tight between hands roughened by fighting, but he was smiling, beautifully, brilliantly, lovingly.

"You're here," Noel replied.

Yeah, try not to think too hard about the mechanics of this. orz this little bunny just wouldn't leave me alone but now I'm freeeeeeeeee

Anyway, I find it fascinating how in this modern age, so many of our relationships are forged through the words we share on the screen. Many of us are separated by distances, but these words make us feel like that other person is right there with us.

The distance between Hope and Noel is far greater, and there's a little magic (OF THEIR TRUUUUU LURRRVVV) involved, but I'd like to believe that most of us share something similar with our online friends and loves.