Sarah-15, a young writer who’s working on a novel. She wears a black T-shirt that says THE POWER OF THE PEN across the front and a small jean skirt.
Brayden-15, a character in Sarah’s book. He wears baggy, faded jeans with a few rips in it, a dirt-stained T-shirt, and a knife and a sheath on his belt.
Kalypso-15, another character in Sarah’s book. She has an enormous black backpack and wears hiking boots, ripped jeans, and a T-shirt with one sleeve torn off.
Tobias-15, another character in Sarah’s book. He wears a private school uniform that obviously once was clean and pressed but is now all ripped and dirty.
Nikolai-15, another character in Sarah’s book. He’s cleaner than the other characters. He wears a headset and a black designer T-shirt with blue jeans.
Mom- Sarah’s mom.
[Lights rise. The setting is a light purple room, with a blue rocking chair and a small foldable table with a laptop on it sitting on a rug. There is a small closet door on stage right, and another door on stage left. Sarah is sitting in the chair, typing on her laptop.]
[Voice-over plays]
Sarah: Brayden. He’s a trained assassin that works for the CIA. His family was captured by the Nazis and they tell him to kill Kalypso Summers, a girl who used to work for them. Once he does that, they promise that they’ll set them free. He attempts to get closer to her, and when he tries killing her he accidentally slips up and kills a bunch of other people…
[Sarah frowns, then stands up, pushes the table out of the way, and begins to pace]
Sarah: Auuuugh, but if he was a trained assassin then he wouldn’t make that many mistakes! [sighs] Brayden, why must you make everything so difficult?
[Brayden walks in through the door stealthily from stage right, and taps Sarah on the shoulder. She jumps and lets out a yelp, then turns around to see that it’s him]
Brayden: [smirking] Maybe if you’d change your mind about KILLING me, I’d make it a little less difficult.
Sarah: Sorry Brayden. I love you, but it’s essential to the plot.
Brayden: [sniffs] You’re so heartless.
[Kalypso walks in stage right, fuming]
Kalypso: Shut up Brayden, you’re so annoying!
Brayden: You and I both know you don’t really think that. And besides, Sarah never considered killing you, so how do you know how it feels?
Kalypso: ….I do really think that! You’re annoying and immature! And she was never going to kill me, but she sure came close! She freaking sent Nazis after me when I betrayed them and I got blown up in a nuclear explosion!!
Brayden: No you don’t. You think I’m hot.
Kalypso: I do not think you’re hot!!
Sarah: [sitting back down on the rocking chair, head in hands] Guys…
[Tobias enters from stage right]
Tobias: What’s going on?
Brayden: Kalypso thinks I’m hot.
Kalypso: NO, NO, I DON’T! It’s all something you made up in your head!!!
Tobias: Do you love him? Really?
Kalypso: N…no!! I don’t!!! Brayden’s annoying and immature!!
Brayden: Yes you do.
Tobias: Sarah…does Kalypso love me?
Kalypso: You trust her over me?!
Tobias: Well...you lie to me an awful lot…
Sarah: [bursting out] YES, Kalypso loves you! Now PLEASE just SHUT UP and let me finish Brayden’s story!!!!
[Nikolai enters from stage right, chewing something]
Nikolai: God, what’s with the racket? I’m trying to focus on eating here.
Sarah: You mean in my head? How the heck am I supposed to focus on writing your story when you keep arguing in my head like this?!
Kalypso: [sarcastically] Oh, I’m sorry, my grand creator.
Sarah: I’m serious! You’re never going to get published and introduced to the outside world beyond my little circle of friends if you keep bickering!
Tobias: If you ask me, I like my privacy.
Sarah: Who asked you?!
Nikolai: Nobody did, really.
Sarah: Okay. Guys. This is starting to become a huge problem. I. Can’t. Focus.
Brayden: Well, if I don’t die then I wouldn’t mind not being published.
Sarah: [sighs] Brayden, you know you’ll still be alive to me. You’ll live on in my brain. Where you’ll be with Kalypso for as long as I live.
Brayden: Yeah, Kalypso, and Tobias too! And you’re planning on making them get married?! [gestures back to Kalypso and Tobias]
Kalypso: [looking at Tobias, then taking a couple steps away] ….Um, why didn’t I hear about this?
Tobias: I thought you wanted to be with me, so I gave Sarah the idea…
Kalypso: Well, I do, but…married…?
Sarah: [pushing the table away from her and standing up] OKAY! Guys! Listen! You’re…not…real. All you are is extremely developed characters who are bent on torturing me. You don’t exist outside of my head. And on a bazillion word documents on my computer and thumb drive.
Nikolai: Would you rather we haunt your computer and write our story for you instead of listening to us bicker? Ya know, I’m really good at the computer stuff and all.
Sarah: NO, I don’t trust you guys to write the story properly.
Brayden: Well, we could write it the way we want it.
Sarah: No offense, but if you write the story the way you want it, it’s going to be all screwed up because you’ll be bickering about how to write it. Like Brayden and Tobias, you two are going to be bickering about who gets Kalypso.
Kalypso: Yeah, I can make my own decisions, thank you very much. [She glares at Tobias and Brayden]
Sarah: Right. So, it would be much better for me to write it and for you to shut up.
Brayden: How about you edit it after we write it?
Sarah: I’d be rewriting the whole thing….besides, you shouldn’t be able to physically write it anyway! You’re just figments of my imagination! Nothing more!
Brayden: Are we? If we really were just figments of your imagination, you’d think you would have more control over us, right?
[Pause]
[Sarah reaches out to poke Brayden to see if he’s actually real, but he ducks out of the way, laughing]
Brayden: [tauntingly] How do you know I’m not real, Sarah? How can you make sure all I am is a figment of your imagination?
Sarah: Stop it! This has gone too far! I thought that it was kinda cool when I started hearing your voices in my head but this is too much!!
[Kalypso, Tobias, and Nikolai begin to exit/disappear, as if they aren’t as real as Brayden is as Sarah goes after Brayden, chasing him in circles around the room]
Brayden: Catch me if you can!
[Sarah makes a jump and tackles Brayden to the ground. Shocked at first, she starts to pull away]
Sarah: Oh my God, oh my God….
Brayden: Ouch…Damn it Sarah, that hurt!
Sarah: Oh my God, you are real aren’t you?
Brayden: What does being able to tackle me to the ground have anything to do with whether I’m real or not?...
Sarah: [Ignoring Brayden’s comment]I felt you…[grabs Brayden’s hand and presses it against her cheek] You’re warm…alive…
[Steps are heard coming up the stairs. Sarah begins to panic and pulls Brayden to his feet]
Sarah: If you’re actually real then Mom will see you and she’ll freak out!
Brayden: Well, so what? I- [he is unable to finish before she pushes him through the closet door on stage right and locks it]
[The door on stage left opens, and Mom pokes her head out]
Mom: Hey Sarah, who were you talking to?
Sarah: Umm…just chatting on my phone with my friend, you know? [laughs nervously as she pulls her cell phone out of her pocket]
Brayden: [From the closet] Yeah, sure.
Mom:…Well, alright then. You’ve been doing that an awful lot lately. You’d better not go over your minutes, okay dear?
Sarah : [Realizing that Mom didn’t hear Brayden] Uh…uh…okay…
[Mom walks back out through stage left. Sarah, in a trance, sits down on her rocking chair and starts rubbing her eyes]
Sarah: This isn’t happening….this isn’t happening….
Brayden: [still from the closet] Hey!! Let me out of here, will you? Come on, open up! [bangs on the closet door]
Sarah: Shhhhh!! [runs to the closet] So I was able to feel you, tackle you to the ground, but Mom didn’t hear you....I’m not letting you out of this closet until you answer a question. Are you real or are you not real?!
Brayden: That’s debatable.
Sarah: Give me a straight answer!!!
Brayden: I’ll give you a straight answer if you let me out of this closet.
Sarah: I don’t trust you not to run away if I let you out now. Answer first. Then I’m opening the door.
Brayden: Did it occur to you that your mom might not have heard me because I was in this thing?
Sarah: Nu-uh. If I could hear you, she should have been able to hear you. If you were real.
Brayden: So now your conclusion would be that I’m not real, right?
Sarah: Well, no, because I can touch you! If you weren’t real then I shouldn’t be able to push you around!
Brayden: So what if I was half-real?
Sarah: H…half-real? What’s that supposed to mean?
Brayden: What if, somehow, you were able to start bringing me out of your mind and into reality? What if you were…special?
Sarah: …Special? If I was able to somehow bring my characters to life?! Don’t mess with my head Brayden, that’s impossible!
Brayden: Is it?
[Pause as Sarah turns this over in her mind. She puts a hand against the closet to steady herself.]
Brayden: [knocks on the door again] Am I allowed to come out now?
[As if in a trance, Sarah lowers her hand to the door, and unlocks it. As she steps away, Brayden opens the door and comes back onstage]
Sarah: You don’t know if you’re real either, do you?
Brayden [shrugging]: The first thing I remember was a voice, and darkness. Your voice, telling me who I was, my story, and what my purpose was. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, is this really what I am? My suspicions were confirmed when your voice said different things. First I was an innocent boy whose family was captured by Nazis, then I was a trained assassin, then I was both!
[He walks past Sarah upstage as he continues]
I got really confused. Even the voice, the only thing I was aware of, had no idea about what I really was. I was supposed to kill other kids, fall in love with this girl I had to kill in order to save my supposed family, and then die in the end to protect her. When was I supposed to do this? How was I supposed to do this? Why did I have to do this? I had no idea. The voice only got more and more confusing as it went on. Sometimes I could hear other things that had absolutely no connection to me whatsoever. As time went on, I found my own voice, and managed to talk back. Through these conversations, I found out that you were a writer, who wrote novels. I was a character in a book you were writing. I was an important character. Your favorite character. But if I was your favorite, then why would you kill me?
[He turns around sharply to face Sarah, who has walked up to join him]
Because I wasn’t real, you replied. Because I only existed in your mind. But after every time you said that, I felt more real! I existed, and not just in your mind!
[Sarah, surprised at this outburst, takes a few steps back]
I became even more certain of that once I started seeing. It started out with just black and white blurs, but as things got more and more detailed, I thought that I was seeing the world through your eyes. I probably was, back then. I realized the voice that I’d heard from the very beginning were your thoughts. It wasn’t just your thoughts I could hear anymore now, I could hear everything you were hearing. But I started to separate from you. I got my own body…sort of. I could appear and disappear at will. I could pass through solid objects. I was like a spirit. If you tackled me a week ago, you probably would have fallen right through me. I got my own eyes. I saw you for the first time. You didn’t look anything like I’d imagined you...[chuckles]
Sarah:…That’s a weird thing for a character to say to an author…How did you imagine me?
Brayden: Uh, I don’t know...I imagined you to be…older. Not my age.
Sarah: Oh…
Brayden: …Anyway, a couple days ago I noticed that I was becoming solid. I could do this [smacks a fist into his open palm] without having my hands go through each other. I could feel the textures of things, feel the difference between hot and cold. [he pauses, then looks down at his stomach] Yesterday I even started to get this weird feeling in my stomach that-
Sarah: You’re probably hungry! Hang on, I think I have something stashed in here somewhere…[dives underneath the bed to find something]
Brayden: Heh….so I guess I am becoming real, aren’t I?
Sarah: [tosses a bag of potato chips in Brayden’s direction] Here. Eat this.
Brayden: [bends down to pick up the bag and examines it] Um, how do you open this thing again?
Sarah: [sighing as she crawls back out from under the bed] Give me that…[Brayden tosses her the bag back and she pulls it open. She hands the bag back to him and he takes a potato chip. He takes a bite out of it cautiously]
Brayden: Mmmm…so I can taste stuff too. [He takes a handful of chips and stuffs it in his mouth]
Sarah: I’ll take your word for it…[pokes Brayden in the shoulder to make sure he’s still actually there. He pauses in his potato-chip eating, turning to look at her with a questioning look on his face] Sorry…I just can’t believe you’re actually…real…
Brayden: Well technically not yet, if you’re still the only person who can hear me…
Sarah: It’s close enough! [gets up and starts to pace in front of Brayden] I…I mean, I just can’t believe it. One of my characters coming to freaking life! Literally! This is impossible…impossible! There’s no way that this could actually happen! I must be dreaming. I must be schizophrenic!! [She laughs harshly, without humor] That’s got to be it. Schizophrenia. I should have known the moment I started hearing the voices. And now it’s gotten worse! I’m going to be sent to a freaking mental hospital!! I’ll be put in a straightjacket!!! I’ll be-
Brayden: [getting up and grabbing Sarah’s arm] Sarah! Calm down! You’re not schizophrenic! You can’t be schizophrenic. I’m real! I know I am! I can see, hear, feel, taste…[moves a little closer to Sarah, takes a deep breath in through his nose, then lets it out] smell….
Sarah: No, no, stop it!! [wrestles out of Brayden’s grasp] You’ve got to be fake, you’ve got to be…
Brayden: [puts his hands on Sarah’s shoulders and gives her a shake] I’m not fake. How many times do I have to repeat that?
Sarah:…But how can I tell for sure?
Brayden: [sighs] I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t know how I can prove it to you…you’ll just have to trust me on this. Really.
Sarah: [bends down to pick up the potato chip bag, then looks in it] …It’s half-empty…
Brayden: Or half-full, depending on how you look at it. [he grins]
Sarah: But this isn’t proof that you are or aren’t real...
[Brayden is about to say something, but he is interrupted by footsteps are coming up the stairs again]
Sarah: It’s gotta be Mom…
Brayden: So this is it…
Sarah: We’ll find out whether you’re real…
Brayden: Or not.
[Lights go down just as the door opens]
I loved this and really enjoyed it 
You gave me a good laugh and it is also a rally interesting idea! I almost wish it were true for some of the characters I have created! 
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