A Background Poorly Written

"What was that?" the woman asked.

"What was what?" someone replied. I think that was me.

"That sound. Didn't you hear it?" she asked.

"No," I said, before a scratching that sounded like it was on the outside of the wall caught my attention. Wait--I don't see any wall. The wall of what...?

"There it is again--what is it?" Debbie asked.

"Wait a minute, who's Debbie?"

"That's me, silly. Did you hear it that time?" she--Debbie--asked.

"Well yes, now that I've been told that it caught my attention and what the sound was, sure, now I've heard it," I said.

"Is that you saying that? It's like you're reading someone else's lines," Debbie asked.

Debbie always asks too many questions.

"You ask too many questions," I said.

"Who says so?" she asked.

"I do, and--somebody else," I said. Confused about who else.

There isn't anyone else.

"Somebody else who?" she asked.

If she doesn't stop asking questions, I'm going to have to start over, and you won't like that.

"Why wouldn't I like that?" I asked.

"Like what?" she asked.

Don't talk to me. You better ask her something.

"Debbie, where are we?" I asked.

"Why are you asking me?" she asked.

"Because... someone out there...."

No one is supposed to be aware of me. It will distract from the story.

"There's nothing else to be aware of. We don't even know where we are," someone says--maybe Debbie, I don't know; it could have been me.

This isn't working at all.

The scratching becomes more persistent outside the walls of--wherever Debbie and--whoever I am are, and then the walls buckle, as though being crushed and crumpled, and that's when I think I see Debbie for the first time, a scream forming on her lips just before the emptiness dissolves into--even more emptiness.

"Why do they refuse to cooperate? Do they think they can write themselves?"