So you decided to read this story. Well, clearly, I either unintentionally did my job and got you interested, or you want to lose all traces of what you knew to be normal. Anyway, I guess I’ll have to tell you, or who knows what’s gonna happen. It all started when I was younger, and much wiser. 

I’m what is known as a Storyteller. We’re pretty much the coolest beings ever to exist. I live in the stars, far out in the multiverse where there’s nothing but pinpricks of light and the rest just darkness. (I don’t know who told you stars were big balls of flaming gas, they’re probably a stupid mortal) 

Our government is the Guild of Storytellers. They’re in charge of everything out here. Storytellers are the narrators you hear about in English class, a feeble human attempt to understand written language. 

I’m a young Storyteller, only about four hundred and fourteen years old. I didn’t do well in Storyteller school, the teachers didn’t exactly like my sarcastic comments about everything we learned. But the Guild let me graduate because they liked my final essay’s ideas. 

I live in a house made of stars with my roommate, another Storyteller. We don’t have names here, names would make us characters, and characters have no control over what happens to them. If we remain nameless narrators, we still hold power. Cool, right?

Floating among the stars is strange, but beautiful. I can think up here. Well, at least I think so. I’ve never been anywhere else. 

So, I was just minding my own business and floating around randomly when I got a message from another Storyteller. They handed an envelope to me with their immaterial nonexistent hand, and I realized what it was. 

I had received my first assignment. Now what are these assignments, you ask? Well, it might surprise you to know that we Storytellers tell stories. What? Who could’ve guessed?

The Guild of Storytellers gives out assignments when a story needs to be written. They send the Storyteller they chose to a realm, Earth, or otherwise. (Earth is the most popular, all those stuck-up humans want to hear about is themselves) The Storyteller takes notes about the place, and the things they see, and once they get inspiration, they come back here to write their novels. Those novels then get printed and put on Earth, under a pen name. I don’t have a pen name yet, but they’ll give me one. It helps humans pretend that they wrote these stories themselves, and they have a purpose. 

Getting an assignment is pretty shocking, for me. Usually storytellers don’t get assignments until the age of five hundred, and I only graduated the academy a few years ago. My excitement levels high, I open the assignment envelope to reveal a contract with all the guidelines, and an assignment directly from the Guild of Storytellers. My excitement levels hit rock bottom as I saw the metaphysical paper. 

I am heading to the Otherside, an alternate dimension of Earth, this one a dark dimension. Crap. I think, crumpling the paper and throwing it against my invisible wall. 

The stories out of that place are insane. People barely know anything about the Otherside, because barely any Storytellers live to tell the tale. And we’re supposed to be immortal. The ferocious, venomous wombats there are usually the main cause of death, because they can see us when the humans can’t, and they enjoy hunting us for sport. 

I wish I didn’t have to do this, but when the Guild says something, I have to listen. My assignment starts in two days, so I have some time to absorb all the happiness here before I head into the Otherside. Why me? I think, sharpening all the pencils I’ll need, and packing them into a satchel with my notepad. 

After packing, I float around, wondering why they chose me to narrate a story from the Otherside. Every single other Storyteller I’ve met told me that the toughest storytellers were barely able to make it a month, let alone enough time to write a book. The last time someone survived that place long enough to write one, I wasn’t even born. 

The two days pass too quickly for anyone’s comfort. Before I know it, I am transporting to the Otherside. Transporting is easy, but I guess not for mortals, who think they’re the smartest race.

Basically, to transport, you kick off of a hard surface, such as a moon, a wall, or someone you don’t like, and float at very high speeds in a random direction. Then you sort of go into a spin, like a human delicacy known as a torpedo, and as you pick up speed in a vortex, you just go wherever you intend to. Humans, I guess, are limited by gravity, like they have mass or something. 

I enter the Otherside halfway through the day, just as the last narrator (who is actually being dragged out in a coffin right now) leaves. I didn’t know our kind could die until I learned about this place. 

Interdimensional beings like Storytellers are supposed to live forever. What sort of horrible place is this, where the immortal die? That question rattles around my mind for a few hours as I sit, unseen by the mortals, looking for some story worth telling about. They are idiots, but they know how to make comfortable seats. I think, reclining on top of a light post with a smile. The cool metal feels nice as the afternoon sun sinks in the East. (On Earth, it sinks in the West. Back home, it doesn’t sink at all, because we Storytellers are better than mortals) 

People rush back and forth between stalls, spending the money they cherish so much, but really means nothing, since they could die tomorrow. In fact, they could just die right now. Actually, that man just got stabbed and mugged. Silly mortals. 

As the sun disappears below the horizon, I watch the busy streets, a thousand ideas for a tale bouncing around in my highly superior brain. I pull out a pen and pad from my satchel and write down some ideas. 

• 
  

  An old lady going out to fetch the mail from her doorstep and seeing it’s been stolen?

  
  


• 
  

  A merchant tricking his customers with overpriced items?

  
  


• 
  

  A wombat attacking innocent civilians and drinking their blood?

  
  

Seriously? Nobody would read that! All of that is normal for them, and not interesting! I look for any sort of action, or a tiny beam of light in this horrific land. Ugh, I want to leave so bad, but I could be stuck here for centuries until I get a decent plot line. A small flicker of blue light catches my eye. I turn to the source of it, and immediately open a new page in my notebook. 

A small battalion of police surround a boy, whose tanned skin glows blue, lighting up the shadows of the marketplace. That doesn’t look normal, even the civilians around are starting to care about things other than their own purchases. I swoop down over them, listening to the noise as I levitate above their heads as I write things down about the boy for his character profile. 

He has messy brown hair, and golden eyes. Tall, but not abnormally. Firm build, tanned skin. Working class, based on his clothes, and obvious disdain for the rich people who pass him on the street. He carries a pocketknife with him everywhere, in the pocket of his worn jeans, along with a little folded photo of a family, most likely gone now. Two grinning parents, himself, and a girl just younger, probably his sister. He cherishes that photo. 

I look up from my notepad to get more information, personality-wise, and such. The glowing boy levitates up and over the battalion, almost escaping. Ah, finally a human who understands that gravity is optional! I look down at my paper, finally ready to lose writer's block, and hear screams all around. I drop the writing supplies into my satchel and look towards the commotion.

The boy is lying on the ground, unable to move because of a net with electricity surging through its woven fibers. The blue glow fades and disappears as he loses consciousness with a pained sigh. The people in the marketplace back away from the unmoving body, and the police pick it up and put it in the back of a truck. I think back to my training before this assignment.

They’re called Phantoms. They have a rare genetic mutation that gives them special abilities. According to the Lords of the Otherside, they’re criminals who need to be kept in check or they will destroy everyone. Hmm. There might be a good story here. 

I pull out my pen and start writing everything down, what it must be like from their side, the threat they pose to society, and everything in between. I have at least four pages worth now, and decide to take a break. 

I float over to the Lords’ building, which is almost a palace, with high vaulted ceilings, and pillars of shiny dark stone, and sit on the roof, staring at the stars which I used to call my home. I miss them, I miss my roommate, I miss even the random roaring from when a rip is teared in the galaxy by some mortal’s bad decisions. I miss it all, and I want to go back. 

It’s times like this I wish It was possible for me to sleep.

When the sky lights up again, I hover over the city, listening to the conversations of townspeople, and taking lots of notes. This will make for a good story. I think, after my fifteenth page full of notes. Hah, humans get hand cramps while writing. Such weaklings. 

All of these people have heard of the horrors of Phantoms, and their stories all sound super interesting. I turn to a fresh page, and a question pops up in my head. What is going on inside the minds of Phantoms? I float around, looking for anyone out of the ordinary, and see nobody. Just plain old regular mortals and their plain old regular lives that have no purpose other than to be characters in a novel for other characters to read.

I sit in an alleyway, and watch the streets, then hear a twinkling noise behind me. I turn around, but nobody is in the alleyway. Then someone appears out of thin air. The air shimmers for a bit, then someone appears.

I jump backwards in surprise, and look closer at the person. It is a girl, with strawberry blond hair tied back from her face. Her eyes are black, but the darkness eventually fades into a deep green. A Phantom, probably. Now I just have to find out how to see inside her mind. I pull out a folded piece of paper from my coat pocket. My contract as a Storyteller. If I had parents, they’d frame it and hang it up in their house, proud of their little interdimensional being they had raised. But Storytellers don’t have families. We just… appear. I scan through my contract quickly, looking for one passage in particular. Ah. there it is.

• 
  

  Storytellers must not leave the realm in which they are storytelling. 

  
  

As long as I don’t leave the Otherside, I can go anywhere. I reason, folding the contract. I hope this works. I button my jacket, and look around. The Phantom girl is nowhere in sight. Dang it. 

I float out onto the street, searching for her. She walks onto an empty road, full of derelict buildings. She continues down it, looking behind her several times to check if she is alone. Hah, foolish mortal. 

She slides between houses and comes to the broken window of a condemned building, and starts to climb up to it. I close my eyes and will myself to enter her thoughts.