On Monday, she got the call that they were being shut down. Wendy sat back in her seat and rubbed her eyes. She was the main mechanic for the company, Theo’s Story Machines, the company that makes special machines that can help people travel in the story worlds. But now, the company will be closing down because story machines had a problem.

She sat curled up in the chair like a turtle hiding in the shell, hugging her knees to her chest with her back hunched over. Piles of papers and unfinished working text notes surrounded her. Her hair was very messy, and she had dark circles under her eyes from working all day and night. She rubbed her eyes slowly, trying to wake herself up after another long night without enough sleep.

Suddenly,
“Beep——! Beep——! Beep——!”
An annoying and harsh sound rang out.

Wendy froze for a second. She slowly lifted her head and stared at the monitor. A big and red warning flashed on the screen:

WARNING : ANASTASIA HAS ESCAPED INTO THE REAL WORLD.

Anastasia is an adventurous and curious ten year old hunter who loves eating junk food. She is the main character from a story Wendy wrote when she was in high school. Back then, Wendy spent hours at her desk everyday filling page after page of her notebooks with stories, characters and drawings . She stayed up late in order to finish chapters, sometimes even forgetting to eat or sleep because she was too excited to write what would happen next. Her backpack was always stuffed with notebooks covered in colorful sketches and beautiful handwriting. Wendy used to believe that she would become a famous writer and create worlds of her own one day. However, now, those storybooks had been replaced by repair manuals, machine reports, and endless work documents.

Wendy ran towards the company like wind. When she got in company, sunlight reflected brightly off the tall glass building which made it so hard to see that she could barely find her way. The building had larger windows and a mental sign with the company’s name. She quickly went into the company and picked up the company’s locator to find Anastasia. The machine led her directly to a McDonald’s near her home. Inside, Anastasia sat in a place surrounded by empty chicken buckets and french fries, and she was happily eating chicken nuggets.

“You should go back right now, Anastasia!” Wendy said and rubbed her head. “ ALL THE MACHINES ARE SHUTTING DOWN!!! Do you know what big problems you will cause? I need to send you home now.”

“I’ll go back to Story World, but only if you take off work this week and spend time with me at Disneyland!”

“No way, I can’t just leave my job,” Wendy shook her head.

Anastasia looked at Wendy’s tired face and smiled. “Then I am staying here forever. Wendy, you look like a zombie. You don’t look like you did in high school anymore. ” the little hunter said.

For that moment, she remembered the girl she used to be, the crazy girl who stayed up late just for writing stories, the backpack filled notebooks with characters, and dreamed of creating worlds of her own.

“Yeah, maybe Anastasia was right,” Wendy thought.

Maybe Wendy had spent so much time fixing machines that she had forgotten how to fix her own life.

“Deal. One week! ” Wendy’s mouth was gently raised.

She turned off her work phone, left the office, and went to Disneyland with Anastasia. They spent one week together at Disneyland. They screamed as the giant roller coasters rushed down to the bottom. Pink cotton candy stuck to their fingers so they chased each other. Inside the haunted house, Wendy grabbed Anastasia’s cloth and hid herself behind Anastasia’s when something suddenly jumped out at them. Wendy was too scared to open her eyes. Later, they stood in front of a prize booth and cheered as Anastasia finally won a giant Mickey Mouse. For seven days, Wendy forgot about her stressful job. The dark circles under her eyes disappeared, and she laughed a lot.

On Sunday night, they went back to the quiet building for the last time. The machine had just enough power for one final trip.

“It’s time to go back,” Wendy said softly with tears in her eyes.

Anastasia stepped onto the machine platform. Right before the blue light flashed, she threw a leather notebook to Wendy.

“Don’t forget how to have fun! Eating and Sleeping on time.” Anastasia shouted with a bright smile.

Then, the light flared, and Anastasia went back to her story world.

Wendy picked up the notebook. It was Anastasia’s adventurous journal, filled with drawings, maps and memories from their week at Disneyland. On the last page, there was a small note in crayon:

To my creator– your story is not over yet.

Wendy held the journal close to her heart and smiled, ready for her next chapter.