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The characters knew the end was coming. The pages were getting thinner. The margins were getting wider.
"We have three pages left," the Hero said, sheathing his sword. "And the villain is already dead."
"What happens now?" the Princess asked.
"The Epilogue," the Wizard said solemnly. "It is a time of summary. Of happy ever afters."
They sat around the campfire. The sky above them was white paper.
"I don't want to end," the Sidekick said. "I never got my own spin-off."
"Stories don't end," the Wizard explained. "They just stop being written. We live on in the reader's mind."
"What if the reader forgets us?"
"Then we wait," the Hero said. "We wait for someone new to open the cover. And then, we begin again. I will fight the dragon again. You will be captured again."
"That sounds exhausting," the Princess sighed.
"It is immortality," the Wizard said.
The world began to fade. The text "THE END" appeared in the sky in massive, bold letters.
"Here it comes," the Hero said. He stood tall.
They held hands. The ink dried. The book closed.
And in the darkness of the closed book, they slept, ready to wake the moment a new pair of eyes looked their way.