Element Five. The Lesson of the Ghost of Punnage Past
This was no fic. This was no fic. This was no fic.
Marcia Laverne Whitaker, a.k.a. the infamous M.L. Writer, was being escorted through the brisk, starry night sky by a specter whose patience for small talk was remarkably limited. Every time Marcia said a word, the Ghost of Punnage Past made a face as though she wished she could cover her ears, but was prevented from doing so by the fact that if she loosened her grip on Marcia by just the slightest tiny bit, Marcia would go plummeting twenty stories down, ending in a nice resounding splat.
The idea was indeed quite tempting to the Ghost of Punnage Past, but she realized that ridding the world of the massive menace would not be accomplished so easily. No, if that were to happen, there was a sizable risk that poor unloved Marcia would be martyred and raised to a new level by the society in which her family orbited around, and that was something no one could chance. So instead education was the plan at hand, and the Ghost of Punnage Past would do anything to see sanity through to Marcia's vapid mind.
She looked back at Marcia. Marcia was trying her best to curl up into a ball around the wrist that bound her to the sky, but she lacked the abdominal muscles necessary to do so and maintain such a position without any type of floor beneath her feet. The Ghost of Punnage Past had no patience, as was well known, but she also wasn't cruel. She closed her eyes and the beam of brilliance that came from her crown surrounded them completely. Marcia might indeed panic now, for there was no going back until this was all over. The event horizon had come and passed, and she was well on her bumbling way to knowing the truth.
When the light faded, Marcia found herself sitting upright against a metal counter, wearing what appeared to be a frilly apron with the ubiquitous Kuronekosama visage adorning the "Anime Diner" logo on the chest. She swallowed, her tongue feeling thick and fuzzy, and as she looked out over a sea of Knives, she began to realize that she had been taken into her own fic. The one she had just been writing, even ...
The Ghost of Punnage Past sat daintily on a counter, gazing at Marcia with a sight that could not be interpreted. "Well," she said. "Go on. You have a few souls waiting to be served." She motioned outwards with her right hand, indicating the dining room filled with blond, blue-eyed ... somewhat cruel and sadistic bishounen. There was no smile on her angelic face.
Marcia gulped. "But I, I don't have a tray ..."
"Nonsense," said the apparition. "It's right behind you. Powers above us wrote it in, since you did the fic a grand discourtesy in mechanics by forgetting it. Play along; you'll see. I don't have to make you go, do I?"
"Nn...no," Marcia stuttered. She turned and took up the weatherbeaten tray, dreading what she knew would be on top of it. Indeed, it was there. That confection. She herself had put it to type, made it real. She had a sudden sense somewhat like intuition, had she any, that this sugary concoction was going to get her painfully killed. Attempting to be as cutesy as she possibly could, she sauntered in the dining room and selected one Knives from the score of silent souls that stared at and right through her.
"Here," she said, placing the white, fluffy cake in front of him, trembling as the ashen, crackled plate clanged raucously against the naked wooden table. "It's not just any cake," she continued, her voice running from hale and hearty into the weakest whisper she could muster. "It's angel food cake."
Knives stared at her. She couldn't help but stare at his arms.
"And, uh," Marcia squeaked, reaching up to her tray once more. "Have a knife to eat it with!" She thrust the worn silverware on the tabletop and then dropped the tray with alacrity as Knives stood, pushing the chair back with a distinct ruffled sound. The twenty other Knives' in the room followed suit, and solitary Marcia began shrieking as shrilly as she could.
"Please no kill!!" she screeched like a harpy. "No no no no!"
It was quite clear that the many Knives' weren't taking her seriously. "Oh, oh, oh!" she breathed, looking about her wildly for some way to escape. "I, I am, uh ..." Her eyes fell upon her apron. What can I say!?
A moment of clarity came to her right then and there. "I am KURONEKOSAMA!" she proclaimed loudly, sticking her hands on her head in order to represent ears. "You don't kill cats! So you can't kill me! I am a cat! Meow meow! Meow meow!" Her eyes were just as green as Kuronekosama's ... what an excellent stroke of luck! She knew this would work. Things like this always worked for her fanfic characters, and they were the epitome of everything she ever wanted to be. She didn't like Knives, and thought he was stupid anyway.
Again, there was a long pause. Shortly thereafter, Marcia was incinerated in a ball of black bizarreness conducted along by several comments on her origins, her mind, and her lack of intelligible point or purpose.
She woke up shortly thereafter, feeling her back again against the metal counter, wondering if this was some sort of bizarre Groundhog's Day treatment that she was receiving, wondering if she had to make the right choice in order to stop the sequence of events from going that far again.
"Well?"
It was her again. The Ghost of Punnage Past sat where she had sat before, pausing after her sentences as she always did, and in general acted like nothing had happened at all. "Go on. You have a few souls waiting to be served ... or ...?"
Marcia shook her head mutely.
"Excellent choice," the ethereal being nodded sagely. "You begin to pick up on why no one ever wants to read what you write. It causes them pain, doesn't it, as it caused you? You see ... they cannot follow where you're going or what you're laughing about, and that alienates them. With that strike against you ... puns as you are so fond of often count as sheer bloody murder. Do you understand?"
Quaking inside, Marcia drew her knees up to her chest and nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. She stared at her striped socks. This wasn't true, couldn't be, never was, never should be ... people read them, people liked her fanfiction, didn't they? Didn't they ...? No one ever said anything bad ... there was no reason for this, no reason no reason ...
"I will take you back," said the Ghost of Punnage Past gently. "But do not try to sleep, for there are two more spirits who shall visit you tonight. I cannot guarantee how gentle their guidance shall be ... but it is nothing that shall ever kill you, only cause you to grow. Change for the better, despite the pain that might well be necessary for you, this ... this, as we shall lead to, is indeed growth."
Quietly Marcia shed tears of confusion, and the Ghost of Punnage Past stepped close to her. Kneeling, she stated her deepest truth she guarded to Marcia in the softest, clearest voice she could. "All writers must grow, must progress, must continually see things anew. Even you, M.L. Writer."
