My phone continued to vibrate against my nightstand, pulling me awake. Nora’s name was flashing on the screen. I accepted the call because I knew the consequences would be dire if I didn’t.

“Are you grounded?” Nora asked breathlessly. Was she running and talking on the phone again? Or just excited?

“No.” I put her on speaker, sat up, and rubbed my face sleepily.

“Are you just waking up?”

“Yeah... why? What time is it?” I rubbed my arm, realizing my skin felt clammy and I was covered in cold sweat.

“Half past noon.”

“That’s not late for a Saturday,” I said with a yawn as I stretched, noticing I was still in my blue track jacket from yesterday.

“Don’t be late, okay?”

“Yeah​, I just need to shower.” I really, really needed it.

“Then you read the–”

“Yes, and I had the strangest–” I cringed. Oh no, there was no way I was telling her about the dream. “I mean, I’m prepared for our discussion.”

“Three o’clock.”

“I’ll be there with the snacks.”

“Over and out.” Nora ended the call without another word.

After a rejuvenating hot shower, I stocked some bags with the requested snacks and headed to Nora’s house. It was a short walk, and a pleasant breeze tempered the summer heat. Before entering Nora’s inner sanctum, I had to navigate the kitchen, overseen by the formidable Mama Perez. I stepped inside the open screen door and was blocked by the chef herself.

“Taste!” It was more a command than an offer. Held out from her hand was a forkful of cheesecake.

I cleaned the fork as she watched me expectantly. “It’s delicious! Cotton-style cheesecake?”

Mama shouted up the stairs. “She got it! One try!” It seemed this was a test, which I had just passed with flying colors. She handed me two plates, each topped with a slice of cheesecake and a generous serving of fruit. “Dinner at six, save room!”

“Thank you,” I said as I carefully balanced the plates and bags and went upstairs. I flopped down on my favorite bean bag chair upon entering Nora's room.

“Cheesecake?” I offered her a plate.

“Nah.” Nora waved her hand. Mama would be heartbroken if she knew! I had no choice but to make the ultimate sacrifice and finish both slices before dinner. To pay for her silence, I tossed her half a dozen boxes of chocolate-covered pretzel sticks in assorted flavors.

“It’s really good,” I told Nora after finishing the first slice. “A little tart but also sweet, and it melted in your mouth. Might want to recommend whipping the egg whites for just a little longer next time, though.”

“Got it,” she said distractedly. Nora had a one-track mind when she was focused on something. She grabbed a pile of papers and sat across from me in the other bean bag chair. “I hereby call this meeting to discuss The Last Rae of Hope to order. We’ll begin with a discussion of the latest chapter. Rae, you may now present your thoughts.”

“It’s absolute garbage,” I declared, folding my arms across my chest. I usually just gave the author compliments, but not this time.

“Go on.” Nora’s eyebrows raised in mild surprise.

“Why did they write it like that? Relias does practically nothing, Raelynn gives up, and Oliver…” I scrunched my face tight.

“Yeah?”

“Well, he said what he was doing, but it doesn’t make any sense! I mean, I get it, but I don’t like it.” Let’s leave it at that. No need to say I was so mad I dreamt him up to accuse him of murder.

Nora proffered a hand. “We’re not supposed to get it.”

“Huh?”

“We’re not supposed to understand because the author doesn’t understand!” She abruptly jumped up from her chair. Clearly, she had been eagerly awaiting the chance to deliver this speech. “The author focuses on Rae, right? What she’s doing, what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. Sure, she pulls in some insight about the others here and there, but it’s obvious Rae is her favorite. That’s why the chapter is so jarring! Rae is practically dying, so she’s not thinking or feeling much except weariness and pain. Then poof, she’s gone! For real, gone. The author is stunned! Completely blindsided!”

“Uh, doesn’t the author control their characters?”

Nora shrugged. “Characters can take on a life of their own. Happens all the time in my fanfics.”

“Nora… I’m being serious.”

“Okay, okay.” She waved her arms. “Think, though! It’s obvious the author is having trouble. You’re right about Relias, too. He doesn’t seem like he knows what to expect.”

“No one’s ever defeated the demon king before, so I kind of get that.” I was already pulling back on my own criticisms, getting ready to end everything on a more serene note.

“But how can a great sage not know just to heal up their wounded party member? That’s basically their only job as a resident squishy.”

I frowned and scratched my right wrist. Suddenly, I remembered something. “Oh, I owe you twenty bucks. You know, about Oliver.” I pulled out some cash.

“Nope. I can’t accept it.” Nora waved off the money.

“Why not?”

“I said he was a demon in disguise who was supposed to stop the party from reaching the demon king's castle, but I had the timing and motivation wrong. Happens even to the best of us.” She paused, opened a box of white chocolate pretzel sticks, and selected a single stick to admire before devouring it. “Back to the author, though.”

“What about the author?”

“It’s obvious she’s written herself into a thorny corner, so that’s where we come in.”

“I beg your pardon?” What crazy scheme was she concocting this time?

“Look, if we don’t do anything, we’re looking at more than just a hiatus. We need to save Rae, Rae!”

“Nora…” She did that on purpose as if I could be a hero like her!

“I’m thinking we start with leading comments, you know? Baited hooks to help the author. Stimulating situations. We’ll disguise our intentions in the form of ‘what if’! Like, ‘What if Rae isn’t dead but… trapped between dimensions? In hyper-sleep?’ Except we can’t use that term, or it’s going to go sci-fi.”

“Nora,” I tried again.

“We can gather other fans in on it too. Launch a whole social media campaign!”

“Nora!”

“What?”

“I don’t…” I was getting upset again. My head started throbbing, and tears welled up in my eyes. I pulled off my glasses and applied pressure to both sides of my nose. “I don’t want to do anything like that. I’m just going to let it go.”

Surprisingly, Nora didn’t argue. She said, “Okay,” in a softer tone that contrasted with her impassioned speech.

A long interval of silence passed as I tried to pull myself together.

“I’m sorry,” I sniffled.

“Are you… crying?” She hopped from her bean bag to mine. “You are! Actual tears! You’ve never cried in front of me before! Even when you took that soccer ball to the face!”

“We won’t have anything in common now!” As I curled into a ball, I started bawling, putting my arms over my head. All of my worries spewed out of me at once. “I promised myself after midnight I’d distance myself from this story. But it brought us together! Now you’re gonna abandon me just like the author did this story and just like I’m doing now, and I probably deserve it!”

Nora patted my head. “So that’s what’s been eating you? You big dummy. We’re going to be friends forever.” I was slightly surprised she understood my convoluted thought process on the first try.

“Promise?” I asked hopefully.

“Who else will put up with me?”

“Your insanely rich and ruggedly handsome future husband?” I suggested between sniffles.

“Yeah, but I won’t meet him for at least six years yet, and even then, he’s going to be busy with his interstellar travels, so you know, I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands.”

“You’re not going to go with him?” I knew she was being silly to distract me, but it worked.

“Nuh-uh. I get car sick. Could you imagine cleaning up something like that in zero gravity?” She pulled my arm off my head. “Feeling better now?”

“A little.”

“Oh. About the soccer ball thing. I was aiming for the goal, so…”

“I believe you. Even if you had tried, I don’t think you could have done that on purpose.”

Nora abruptly rose, her movement swift and decisive as she reached for her laptop. “Are you up for a Viking funeral?” she proposed, her eyes glinting with a hint of mischief.

“Raelynn’s not dead! She’s not!” I almost shouted it.

“I don’t mean for Rae. I mean, for the story itself.” She spoke as if the solution were the most natural thing in the world, while completely ignoring my unhinged outburst. I guess that's why we got along, though.

“How do you have a Viking funeral for a web novel? We have nothing to set fire to, let alone a sea to set it adrift in.”

Nora’s eyes sparkled. “Simple, we’ll do the next best thing. Let’s comment-bomb the chapter with an alt account!”

Oh, that really was an evil idea. Yet, I couldn’t help a conspiratorial grin from pulling at the corner of my mouth.

“What would the account name be?”

“NoWayNoRae?”

I blinked, then giggled a little too much at that. “Let’s do it,” I agreed.

Would you believe NoWayNoRae was already taken? But NoRaeNoWay was still available, at least. For the next several hours, wrapped up in our silly teenage thoughts, we crafted a commentary masterpiece of vitriol. We did, however, sprinkle in some suggestions here and there as opportunities for improvement. The only break we took was for dinner because Mama Perez insisted. No one ever got hungry in her house.

It was very late when we had made our final edits. I reread the declaration of criticisms and makeshift action plan we had forged one more time, and then I paused. “I can’t post this.”

“You just click ‘Post Comment.’” Nora pointed. “We’ll break it up if we’re past the character limit.”

“Okay, technically, I can do it, but I won’t.”

“What?”

“It’s too mean, especially in the beginning. I can’t. If this story didn’t exist…”

Nora sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“I still can’t believe you caught me reading it on my phone from that height. You were at least five rows up in the stadium!”

“I have my ways of finding kindred spirits.” She tapped her fingers together in front of her face, trying to look mysterious.

“Perfect eyesight?”

“That would be one of them, yes. The other is the uncanny ability not to pay attention during school assemblies.”

“I think everyone has that one.” I handed her the laptop. “Look, I won’t blame you if you want to post it, but–” Click. Nora posted it, and I suddenly got a chill down my spine.

“How could you do that?!” I was such a liar. I certainly was blaming her.

“It needed to be said.” She shrugged.

“But we were… we were really mean!” Even as I gestured at the laptop, a little heart emoji popped up in response to our post from BitterDarkTroll53. “Look, even the old hag agrees! She never likes anything unless it’s full of spite!” 

Nora smiled impishly. “My goodness, what are you so worried about?”

“Karma!”

“We didn’t use any obscenities or anything. We just said what we found upsetting and offered pointers. Besides, we used an alt account. What could possibly happen?”

“It’s like you’re begging the universe to prove you wrong! You’re not actually supposed to say ‘what could possibly happen’ out loud, either! You know this whole thing is–”

An alarm went off on her phone. “Time’s up!”

“What?”

“It’s Sunday now. You said you were done with this story after midnight, right?”

“I-I did… but…”

“So, let’s start on your essay.”

I opened my mouth to complain, but no words came to me. Besides, Nora could be quite stubborn, especially when she had the luxury of using your own words against you.

“Ugh, fine!”

We didn’t know it then, but it turns out that the universe takes its sweet time to settle karmic debts.