The Exam

Running is all I remembered for a long time. It was all I could think about; running was more important that breathing. The thundering vibrations underfoot had long since ceased, but I continued towards the horizon. I’d lost track of how long I had been going – I lost count at 100 steps and the murky clouds froze time in its tracks as I ran. Rocks and sticks grabbed and prodded my bare feet. I really should have worn shoes to bed. The thought slipped into my head in between two strides, and not for the first time that day.



One of the most peculiar feelings one can experience, is the lost, confused, and slightly groggy feeling of waking up and not entirely knowing where you are. Maybe you're a sleepwalker, and on countless occasions you've woken to find yourself draped awkwardly over the back of a couch or sprawled across the kitchen floor. Perhaps you once drifted out of consciousness while taking a break from a particularly grueling hike in some uncharted jungle and came-to hours later, only to find yourself rotating slowly on an over sized spit over a massive bonfire, surrounded by mutant birds taking their revenge for the last several hundred Thanksgivings. But, no matter your previous experiences with this unnerving sensation, I'm sure you have never woken up in a situation quite like the one I found myself in on the morning of my fifteenth birthday.

The first thing I noticed was the ceiling of my bedroom. It was gone. High above me, a small, red sun was glaring angrily through my missing ceiling from the murky, purple sky surrounding it. For a moment, I just stared straight up. Then I closed my eyes.

"Crap." This was the fourth time that week. “C’mon, it’s my birthday,” I whined to the discolored sky. I got no answer, but figured one of the Three was out there somewhere laughing his gaudy purple hat right off his head. I stuck my tongue out at the sun above me and slowly sat up.

This Idea was an exotic one. I’d been asleep in what I figured was some kind of abandoned field, full of dead and dying grass and enclosed by a dilapidated fence. Outside the fence, a lone rodent was picking through the dirt, in search of a nut or berry for its hollow belly. I stood and silently shuffled through the tall grass towards the fence. The rodent was an ugly looking animal, with mismatched eyes and a pair of jagged teeth sticking out of its lips. Its pelt consisted of pink, bruised skin with a few, scant patches of silvery fur. I inched closer and watched as the animal scratched at the dirt.

“Ah,” I gasped. I rock, hidden under a thin film of dust, had caught my bare toe. The animal recoiled and bared its two teeth at me. It hissed. Then it squeaked and toppled over. I raised my eyebrows and, favoring my stubbed toe, limped over to examine it. The feathery tip of a dart protruded from its back.

“Hey.” I glanced up. A boy, no older than eleven, was storming furiously towards me and the dead rodent. “That’s mine. I killed it, I eat it.”

“That seems reasonable,” I replied nodding complacently. I watched as he continued towards me, stuffing his dart gun and extra poisoned darts in his pocket. When he’d gotten within reach, he bent down and snatched the rodent out of the dirt at my feet. Straightening, he squinted curiously at me.

“It’s not reasonable, it’s survival.” I nodded as if I understood, and he relaxed. “I’m James.”

“Hello, James. I’m,” I thought for a moment, struggling to pick a name to suit the location, “Amy.”

“Amy,” James repeated. I nodded.

“James,” a voice called. James started and turned. As he did, I caught a quick glimpse of his Depth. He wasn’t entirely two-dimensional, but he was a very underdeveloped Character. I frowned. It was going to be tough for him to make it outside of this Idea – his Depth was about as wide as my thumbnail – but the Committee was not as particular on the Characters we brought back during Exams. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.

During my contemplation, a girl had arrived. As she approached, I noticed her knee-length blonde hair and narrowed eyes. She looked to be around my age – fourteen or fifteen I guessed. It was obvious that she was the main Character. She looked me up and down as she reached over and clutched James’s shoulders protectively.

“Who’re you?” she growled. I smiled and answered. The girl didn’t return the smile; she just turned James around and began to walk away. “Harmony,” she snapped over her shoulder, “and stay away from my brother.”

I watched for a moment as they left. I had been planning on bringing the main Character back with me, and she was leaving to go to who knows where. I combed through my tangled hair with my fingers and brushed the dry, powdery dirt off the back of my pajamas. Glancing down, I wriggled the bare toes that poked out of the hem of my pants. I cursed myself for not wearing shoes to bed. I had assumed that the Three would cut me some slack since it was my birthday, and in hindsight I knew that was an utterly ridiculous idea. If anything, that was a reason to expect a stunt like this.

I gazed at the rocky path Harmony and James were walking down. I rolled back my shoulders, flexed my toes, and clenched my teeth as I tip-toed after the two Characters. Above me, I could feel a draft of cold rushing in, with black clouds tagging closely behind.

This was certainly not one of the happy little five-year-old Idea’s that I usually visited for exams. Ideas are a lot like…dreams, I suppose. Whenever a person gets an idea – for an imaginary place, invention, story, person, et cetera – the “Imaginer” usually discards it after a while. That’s when we come in. We are usually sent in our sleep, waking up in the middle of an abandoned Idea (which, might I add, is incredibly obnoxious) to salvage what we can. We don’t really have a title – we are just us – and none of us have permanent names. (They are pointless really, since our setting changes every night.) I was too young to handle major Ideas, and anyway, I had to pass my Exams before I was even qualified. That’s where I was as I followed Harmony and James down the incredibly rocky path – in an Exam. The odd thing was, as I picked my way gingerly through the Idea, the dreamy Exam Idea began to look more and like a nightmare.

In front of me, Harmony was starting to look nervous. Her long blonde hair whipped back and forth as she scanned the gloomy horizon. I finally caught up to them and opened my mouth to speak. James looked at me, alarmed, as I deep boom rolled into our ears instead of my question.

“What was that?” I shouted over the clamor. Harmony grabbed James by the hand and ran towards a faint light in the distance. She shouted something at me as she ran, something that sounded a lot like flibbity-gibbet, but I was sure that wasn’t it. I turned around to face the oncoming noise, and saw the Flibbity Gibbet.

It wasn’t really a thing, it was more like a group of things. A huge, dark mass of Gibbets that was surging over the brown expanse of dead prairie towards my side of the valley. This is certainly not a 5-year-old Idea, I thought. I spotted Harmony sprinting across the ground and remembered: this is an Exam. I have to bring back one Character to pass and get back.

I screamed as I took off down the hill after the two Characters. “Harmony!” I screeched, “Harmony, please! I can get you out of here. I need –” The Gibbets roared in unison and quickly lessened the expanse of dirt between them and the Characters. It was only a matter of seconds before the siblings were engulfed in the blackness.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to throw myself on the ground, pull out my hair, and scream at the Three that put me up to this Idea, but I didn’t. Instead, I ran.



​I began to run out of the breath I wasn’t thinking about, and fatigue tripped and dragged me down. My knees buckled and it was all I could do to make it the last few feet that I did before I landed flat on the valley floor. I broke the one rule, I couldn’t help but think, over and over, “never engage with the Idea-villian.” I heard a cackle and one last roar, before I sputtered out of the Idea and into a more comforting darkness. No one really knows where we go when an Idea-villain takes one of us, but I realized that I was about to find out.