Storytime: "Generations of Paper"

[Lurkily]

I wrote this in response to the prompt: "Write a story in which the reader is actively involved in the story."  I do enjoy writing a story that's appropriate to the prompt, but still unexpected.  This is written from the book's point of view.

Generations of Paper

I waited. So long, it seems, that I waited. Then, light fell upon my pages once more. It must have been years. The child who once looked at my illustrations in wonder had grown.

It seems like you were ready to learn the truth behind the pretty pictures. You were more than you were. You had focus and commitment, and instead of touching the surface of the worlds within me you delved deeply. You immersed yourself in paper and ink and I regaled you with wonders. I told you about heroes and villains, of good men corrupted, bad men redeemed. I taught you about triumph and victory, failure and defeat, how to heal men and how to break them. I taught you the difference between fighting and battle, about friendship and about comrades and romance and betrayal and good and evil. I raised you within multitudes of worlds.

Then the darkness came again.

I waited. So long, it seems, that I waited. Then, light fell upon my pages once more. It must have been years. The teenager that I had raised among so many worlds was old, now. But the child in the bed was not. This child looked on in wonder, as you once did.

“Once upon a time . . . ”