The Pillars of Creation

The science lab hadn't fared too badly.

Zach didn't know what to think about that. Maddison, Delaware had experienced a weird mix of October 31st scares and July 4th pyrokinetics, and Maddison High had been no exception. And yet, the science lab had escaped unblemished. Maybe it was indicative of the human psyche, that faced with the supernatural, the human mind could find no solace in the rational. Maybe rationality was anathema to demonic spawn, and they'd steered clear during their rampage. Or maybe it was just a coincidence, and he was trying to find connections between the plot points of life.

"Hey kid."

Zach let out a yelp, his mouth wide open. And closed it a second later as he saw Stine enter the room. Still with his glasses, despite the efforts of a man-eating blob. Still with his broken fingers, courtesy of a psychopathic dummy. Still with the aura of…wrongness, he supposed.

"You okay?"

Zach remained silent. Part of his mind was racing, thinking of responses that ranged from the sarcastic, to the aggressive, to the murky realms that lay between. But he was too tired to give voice to any of them. He felt like he was caught up in a limbo, torn between the real and the fictional. That when he went home, and finally caught some sleep, he'd have to wake up knowing that the boundaries between the two were far murkier than he thought.

"You should get home."

"Nice of you to say, dad." He closed his eyes, fighting the urge for sleep. So his subconsciousness had chosen sarcasm. Great. That was better than walking over to Stine and breaking even more parts of his body. An appealing prospect, given the lack of monsters to destroy (not to mention that Stine wouldn't piece himself back together if he was beaten to a pulp), but weariness weighed him down.

"Yeah, well…" Stine trained off. "Nice joke."

"You're a writer. You should know what a good joke is."

"Well, in fiction, you…"

Zach scoffed. And it was all that needed to be said. But instead he finally met Stine's gaze, looking past him to the door to the hallway. Trying to ignore the way the moon shone through the windows, illuminating both of them. Conspicuously not turning them all sparkly and revealing themselves to be constructs that sociopaths created, caged, and allowed to be removed from the physical world.

"Do you think there's other writers like you?" Zach asked eventually.

"What do you mean?"

I mean secretive, manipulative SOBs who- "I mean, writers who had to do what you did. That they made their works real so they had to lock them up." Zach smirked. "English was never my favourite subject, so I may have missed the memo."

"Oh," Stine said. "Well, that's an interesting question."

"Yeah. Maybe I'll ask Steven King next time he's in town."

Stine didn't react. And Zach fought the urge to scream. He wanted to hurt him. Break him. Wound him. Do all the things Slappy and his cronies had done to the town. Do those things, because it was all that was left. The other kids had seen the monsters. They hadn't seen Hannah. Champ knew, but whether he understood was another matter, especially since last he saw him was with Taylor. And Stine…Stine was all that was left.

"Never mind," Zach murmured, and he closed his eyes. He couldn't do it. Any of it. Not when in the end, he'd been the one to open the book. Not when he'd allowed himself to get emotionally invested in a girl he'd only known for a few days. Not when that girl had been a construct that-

No.

He opened his eyes again and looked forward. Real. The domain of science.

"Was it easy?" he asked. He looked back at Stine. "Creating her. Being a father. Lying to her."

Stine paused, before saying, "those have different answers."

"Start answering."

Stine took a step forward. "I don't have to answer any of them."

Zach didn't budge. "I didn't create monsters."

"And I didn't let them out."

"I didn't lie to Hannah!"

"And I raised her!"

"I…" Zach couldn't finish. Because behind those glasses, he could see the truth. The anger in Stine's eyes. The one fact that he hadn't considered at all during the past few hours. That Stine was missing Hannah as much as he was. That for all his faults as a man and a father, Stine had at least raised her. He'd known Hannah for less than a week. Once more, he faced forward to the front of the classroom. To the periodic table hanging before him.

"Hydrogen," he murmured. "Lithium, beryllium."

He glanced at Stine, who murmured, "boron, carbon…um…"

"Nitrogen," Zach said. He smiled faintly. "It's right up there."

Stine returned the smile. "Science was never my strong suit."

"But you knew how to create, didn't you?" he asked. "Create life. World's greatest scientists have never figured it out, yet you did it all in your noggin."

"I…" And the smile faded. "Yeah. I did." He sighed. "Guess that makes me…I mean, her…incredible."

"Yeah," Zach murmured. "She was."

Once more, silence descended on the pair. The moon shone, beckoning Zach to sleep. His mind raged against the light, warning him of the nightmares that were to come. His heart, slowing down, prompted him against asking the final question. Could it be done again? Should it be done? Could Stine ever right his creations into the world once more? And the periodic table just hung there. The facts of life, the pillars of creation. Unable to account for another method of creation so far removed from science that it might as well have been magic.

And so they stood there. Just long enough for the story to end.

For what was life but a story that had to end eventually?

A/N

This was written when I saw Goosebumps, so, yeah, quite a bit of time between writing and posting. However, I do feel compelled to discuss the idea behind it.

Long and short of it, I liked the film. It's undoubtedly a children's film, and I think children would get far more out of it than adults, but as an adult who read Goosebumps novels way back in the day, I could enjoy it. That said, there's two specific scenes that are probably me overanalyzing, but did spark two writing ideas. One of them being where Zach confronts Stine over Hannah's true nature, the periodic table is seen within the shot behind Stine's back. I can't help but wonder if this is intentional, framing the basic elements of the universe while discussing how Hannah had literally been created through artificial means. It could be a coincidence, but if it's a case of a visual motif complimenting the plot and dialogue, then it's a nice touch. Certainly got me to drabble this up at least.