He couldn’t see it anywhere for 10 miles in all cardinal directions. And _that_ was probably the scariest thing he could have written.

He was almost proud to think of what the publishers would say.

But he didn’t have the time — not with his heart racing like this. Not with his body chilled to the bone with _fear_.

Suddenly, in a single moment of clarity and weird teleportation into his own made up world, he was in the shoes of a God turned victim. Frankenstein, facing the creation of his monster.

The pallid landscape twisted and turned in the silhouette of dark dead trees. A howl over the hill brought him to his senses, telling him to keep climbing. Height would give him bearings. If he could find the cottage, he’d have chance at gaining cover. It’s what Caleb would do.

Caleb, so much stronger than our good author. A true survivor. Witty, resourceful, and with a great sense of humor. What joke would he make in this odd predicament?

Our author had no idea. Sure, he had written the monster clever enough to turn invisible. Unfortunately, he had never written Caleb defeating it. Caleb’s story went roughly two hundred pages unwritten.

So many hours in a café building up a good cast of characters, pouring over dialogue and detail, fixating on all the elements that make up a good plot. He had scrapped the storyline in a bin over a year ago. He thought it would have finally given him some peace, never touching it again.

So why the hell had he been transported back?!

_Focus, man, focus_. You need to escape —not mull over the demise of your boring, unsuccessful writing career.

_Creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaeeeeeekkk_

The horrible screech of the invisible creature’s war cry lurked behind him. Good God, there it was. His incoming death. But his legs kept moving.

Kept _running_.

Out of breath and out of options, our dear author made it to the top of the high hill. A broad landscape between him and a distant glow of the orange hearth light beyond. There! The cottage. Chimney smoke billowed its signal of sanctuary. A windmill, to the right, creaked in solidarity.

A _windmill_? Really?

Cliché landscape stuff. But at least Caleb would have found a useful way to make the windmill a monster repellent.

He kept moving.