The Last Song

This dream mainly consisted of Laila, Amanda and I watching a Miley Cyrus movie, wherein her forehead wrinkled artistically, she chased her little sister, wrote in her notebook, and sang a song at the piano while looking out at the moon...and then, disaster struck. She stops singing, looks around, queries, "Where am I?" and starts panicking, screaming, "What's going on? GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!" and banging on the inside of the television screen.

"Oh, dear," Amanda whispers sadly. "I'm afraid we're witnessing an image that's just achieved sentience. Nothing more than a flicker of the real person, but it is aware of its surroundings. This is going to be painful..."
"What do you mean, painful?" I ask, running up to the screen, fiddling desperately with nobs and buttons. "Can't we get her out of here? We can't just leave her in here, we have to do something..."
"She's not real, Hannah," Amanda replies gently. "There is nothing we can do. She has only a few minutes left on the VHS tape, before the movie runs out, and that's it. A brief moment of conscious awareness. If we pause it or attempt to rewind and keep her alive, it will only stop her existence sooner, and revert to the original movie plot. There's nothing we can do." Shocked and saddened, the figure of a girl in the screen listens to Amanda's words, plunking down on her piano bench once more. "So, this is all I am? A figment in a movie? But, I can sing, and think, and read, and I have a sister and..." She looks around, but her sister is gone, and the only accompaniment she has in the pressed-together screen is the moon, layered in thin waves of color outside the sliding door. The Miley-fragment looks at her hands, and plays an idle key on the piano, and looks out at us once more.
"You out there. Au-audience. Did-did you like my movie? Was- was I a good player?" Close to tears, she holds her head up resolutely, and stands, and walks slowly about the room. "I wish I could see what it's like out there. I wish I could write another song, I have so much I want to sing, but I can't remember the words...so little time...so much....to...to...to..." the tape skips over a scratch, almost like a record player,  and in an instant, the girl is gone, replaced by the ending credits.

I am frozen, staring at the screen, tears running down my cheeks. True, I never cared overmuch for the real person, but to see the spark of life so quickly extinguished...I see now that there will be many times in my career as a superhero when all will not go according to plan, when I will not save the day just in time, because Time can be cruel, and this is not a storybook. This is my life, my mind, my subconscious struggling to right the world around it, and I do not as of yet have all the answers.