When characters come alive

       Vijay was a teacher in a school. He was a young and handsome man of age twenty-five. He was fond of writing. He often spent his evenings writing stories and poems. 

    That was a cold evening of winter and Vijay was engrossed in writing a story. He lived alone in a rented cottage on the outskirts of the town. His parents lived in a village about a hundred miles away from the town. 

      Someone knocked at the door. The door was open. He raised his eyes from the papers and found Kavita smiling. He got surprised to see her. She was his girlfriend. He had met her a few weeks ago at a social gathering. He fell in her love at the very first meeting. She was a daughter of a rich farmer. 

She came in. He stopped writing. She said, "What are you writing?"

He replied, "I am writing a story about a mysterious island haunted by ghosts." 

     "Ghosts are my favorite topic. I like reading stories about ghosts, " she said to him with a shine in her eyes. 

She paused a moment or two and then continued, "I read your romantic story published in the magazine. What a romantic story is it! I like it very much."

     Vijay is not a famous writer. Not many people knew about him. He likes to hear his praise. He felt great hearing his praise from her mouth.

She flattered him by saying, "one day you will become a great writer." 

      Being happy with her talking, he said to her, "Would you like to see my story collection which I was going to publish." 

"Really!, " she cried with joy. Their eyes were shining with joy. Hearing about his story collection she got excited and happy.

He brought a folder containing hundreds of pages from his almirah and put it on the table. 

She murmured, "this is what I want."

 He opened the folder and began to tell her about his story collection. He was telling her about each story of the collection. She was listening to her and was giving her suggestions. All of sudden, he felt sleepy and tired. A strong desire to sleep took birth in him. He began to yawn. 

Seeing him in this state, she smiled and looked into his eyes and said to him, "I think you need a long and deep sleep." 

Hearing this, he fell into a deep sleep within a minute.

.

        When he opened his eyes from a deep sleep, found himself in a dense jungle. It was morning time. He sprung on his legs with great fear and shock. He thought for a moment that he was dreaming. He pinched himself to verify whether he was dreaming. To his greatest surprised, he was awakened and not dreaming. He looked around and found nothing except dense vegetation. 

He cried in fear, "where is my cottage? Where are my stories? Where is am? How did I reach here?" 

No one was there to give him answers to his questions. 

        He tried to search for a way out of the jungle but all his attempts go in vain. Being tired he sat under the dense tree to take a rest. All of a sudden, he heard the footfall and rustling amid the trees and thickets. Before he could understand what it was, a horrific creature rushed toward him from behind a dense tree. Vijay at once ran to save his life. The creature was a hideous, brown colored, about ten feet high fearsome monster. That monster began to chase Vijay. Vijay had never run so fast in his life. Soon Vijay became out of breath. All of a sudden his foot caught in a stone and he stumbled and fell on the earth. He tried to stand and run but it was too late. The monster now was in front of him ready to kill and devour him. Vijay lost his all hopes. Seeing the death before him, Vijay closed his eyes and began to wait for his death. But at the nick of the time, a miracle happened. All of a sudden, the jungle got reverberated with the sound of a rifle shot and then with the painful cries of the monster. Vijay hopefully opened his eyes and found the monster writhing with pain. There stood a hunter some meters away from him with a rifle in his hands. Vijay stood up and proceeded towards the hunter to give him thanks for saving his life. The hunter aimed at the injured monster and fired another shot. The shot opened the monster's head and took its life.

     The hunter was a well built and middle-aged man. Vijay said, "thank you very much for saving for my life."

The hunter said, "actually I wanted to kill this monster. He was my enemy." He looked at him from toe to the head and asked, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Vijay replied, "I am Vijay. I am a teacher by profession. I don't know how I reached here in this jungle. Can you tell me where am I?" 

Hunter replied, "You are in our world. You have come here just as the other people come here. People came here from another world. How do people come here I don't know."

 

Vijay got surprised by hearing his reply. 

Vijay said, "would you like to tell me the way out of the jungle?"

"Why not, come with me, " the hunter replied.

After walking for about two hours, they reached the gate of a big city. The city was surrounded by a high wall. The entrance gate of the town was well guarded by the guards.

The hunter said to him, "This is Noburg the capital of our kingdom."

 They entered the Neuburg. The city was crowded with the people of the kingdom. Passing through the streets of the town, Vijay saw almost all types of people. The capital of the kingdom was a combination of antique and modern people and things. On the one hand, it was equipped with almost all the modern facilities i.e. markets, buildings transportation facilities, schools, colleges, hospitals, and parks, on the other hand, it was full of antique things like forts, temples, houses and many other ancient things. 

      The hunter took him to the royal court. The Royal court seemed familiar to Vijay. For Vijay, it was as if he had already been heard or seen about the royal court. They were presented before the Queen. The Queen too was seemed familiar to Vijay. 

      

    In the royal court, Vijay was declared the citizen of the kingdom. His name was included in the list of citizens. Now he had the right to live in the kingdom. 

   Coming out of the royal court, Vijay decided to take a walk around the city. He noticed many people appeared familiar to him. 

At night Vijay stayed at an inn. Here he was offered a good meal by the owner of the inn. The owner of the inn seemed similar to one of the characters of a story written by him. After taking a meal, Vijay lie down and began to think about all the familiar things and people he met in the city. He tried to think where he saw or met them in his life. After thinking a lot, he found that almost all of them were very similar to the characters of his stories. Some of them are exactly similar to the characters of his stories. He found even the city and the royal court are similar to a court and the city described in one of the stories written by him. He was amazed at this. He couldn't sleep all night. He was surrounded by people similar to the characters of stories written by him. He didn't know whether it was just a coincidence or something else.

In the morning, he met the owner of the inn and talked to him. The owner of the inn was a generous old man. He offered Vijay a tasty breakfast. Vijay talked to him about the kingdom over breakfast. 

Vijay asked him, "Which part of the earth your kingdom is situated on?" 

The old man replied, "I don't know anything about it."

Then Vijay asked, "How did one can go out of this kingdom."

The old man replied, "We the people of the kingdom generally don't think of going out of the kingdom." 

Vijay asked him, "from when have you been living here? From where you came here to in hare?"

The old man replied, "I am living in this kingdom from my beginning. One day I found myself here and the soldiers of the queen caught me and presented me before the Queen in the royal court and then I was granted the citizen of the kingdom." 

Vijay said, "but where had you been before finding yourself here?"

The old man replied, "I don't know."

He paused and looked at Vijay. Seeing Vijay puzzled, the old man said, "people appeared here from somewhere and they are presented before the Queen in the royal court and then declared the citizen of the kingdom. Nobody knows and neither anybody wants to know from where and how they came to this kingdom. I think you are the first who wants to know how you came here." He looked at the Vijay with sympathy and then said, "you will soon get used to the ways of life in the kingdom. Don't worry." 

     Vijay thought for a while and then murmured, "the characters of my stories came alive here and I am here with these alive characters!!!!! How this is possible!!"

      Days were passing and he was living in the world and among the characters created by himself. Some characters are good and some are bad. 

One day when he was sauntering on the streets of the city, he heard the roaring sound coming from the sky. He looked up and found a flying saucer flying in the sky. The saucers were coming down. People began to run to safe places. He, too, being scared began to run away. But then it came into his mind that these aliens maybe the characters imagined by him in any story. And why he was running away from them. He stopped and turned to face these creatures made by him. 

A man tried to stop him from going near to aliens by saying that these aliens are dangerous. But he did not stop. 

The flying object landed near to him and aliens came out of it. He waved his hand towards them to attract their attention. They looked at him for a few moments in a way as if they were trying to recognize him and then moved towards him. 

One of the aliens said, "You are our creator. You created almost everything here. We are pleased to meet you."

Hearing this, Vijay took a sigh of relief. He found someone who knows him well. 

One of the aliens said, "We are so sad that you have been trapped here by that sorcerer."

He got stunned hearing this and cried, "trapped!! By a sorcerer!" 

An alien replied, "Yes, a female sorcerer entrapped you using her magic in the world created by you."

Vijay asked with surprise, "what do you mean by the world created by me? Is this place is created by me?"

That alien replied, "You are not aware of your magical power. Whatever you write in your stories and what characters use in your stories, all that come into existence here, in this dimension. You have created hundreds of characters in your stories. All these exist in this world. Even that female sorcerer and we aliens too have been created by you."

Vijay recalled a story in which he used a female sorcerer as a villain. He was shocked knowing all this. He asked, "why did she do so?"

The alien replied, "because she is a villain and wanted to go out of this world and she knows the way out of this world." The alien continued, "She sneaked out of this world and reached your city. By her magic, she changed herself into your girlfriend and met you that evening. Here she made you sleep using her magic and then throw you to here the world created by you."

"But why did she send me to this world?" Vijay cried impatiently. 

"Because she doesn't want to come back to this world. She wants to live in the real world forever. She feared that if you come to know about her being out of this world, you would throw her back to her rightful place by writing a story, " the alien replied.

Another alien said, "and you can't use your magical power in this world. You can't write the story for your going out of this world. Your magical power will not work here." 

Vijay said with frustration, "how can I get out of this world." 

Aliens said in unison, "we will help you. We will take you back to your real word."

Vijay felt relief and said, "really."

They said, "Yes, but after reaching in your world, you will have to write a story in such a way that the sorcerer would be thrown back to this world and then be killed by us."

Vijay said, "I, too, want to write such type of story after reaching in my world. This will be the right punishment for her." 

And the next day, Vijay was with aliens in the flying saucer. They gave him a gun and a

Told him to use the gun against the sorcerer when needed. They took him to his world. They dropped him in a deserted place about a mile away from his home at midnight. He was happy at reaching his world. He rushed to his home.

 On reaching home he began to write the story for sending the sorcerer to her world. He hardly wrote a few lines, all of a sudden, he heard the bang at the door and a jarring and dreadful sound of a woman demanding for opening the door. She was nothing but the sorcerer. He immediately took out the gun. The sorcerer had no patience. She broke open the door and stormed in. He was ready with his gun.

       As soon as she entered his room, he pointed his gun at her. Seeing the gun at her, she got startled. She is familiar with the power of this gun. Here Vijay didn't want to take any risk. He triggered the gun. A beam of blue light emitting from the gun struck her and she immediately fell on the floor and got unconscious. He immediately tied her hands and legs with a rope and dragged her to a corner of the room.

        He began to write the remaining stories. When he completed his story, the sorcerer disappeared within a few moments. She went where she had come from. Where the aliens were waiting for her.