Free Once Upon the End (Half Upon a Time) by James Riley Page B

May recognized the voice.
    It was Phillip’s.
    No. NO! The dream was in her head, and she didn’t know who the prince was, so she was just giving him Phillip’s voice. It couldn’t be, he was from “Sleeping Beauty,” and she was from “Cinderella.” It didn’t make sense; he couldn’t be the prince, he was in the completely wrong story . . . wasn’t he?
    This was the worst nightmare yet!
    She furiously dug her hands into her pockets, her dress morphing back into her regular jeans and T-shirt as she did, and pulled out a handful of sand. “I will make my own story, Sandman!” she yelled. “And no one else gets to write it for me!” Then she threw the sand in an arc in front of her, spraying it throughout the ballroom.
    The dance disappeared, and May looked up from a movie camera, surveying the scene. “No, no,” she said, gesturing for the boy wearing the name tag sandman to move left. “You’re too close. Back it up a little, I want to pull out a bit.”
    The boy moved to the left. “Here?” he asked.
    May looked back into the video camera. “Yeah, that works.” She looked back out. “You.” She pointed at the girl wearing the name tag fairest . “Get away from him. Actually, come over here.” She waved for Fairest to come back behind the camera. “Now, Sandman. I want to see you angry. You’ve just lost your prisoner to the amazing and wonderful heroine.” May pointed at the girl with a blue streak in her blond hair, wearing a name tag that said heroine .
    “And can we get her some more weapons? I wouldn’t mind if she had, like, two swords, one for each hand.”
    A man with a white circle on his chest popped out and handed Heroine two swords. Heroine took one in each hand, then aimed them both at Sandman. “Everyone ready?” May asked, looking back behind the camera. “Heroine, this is the scene where you defeat Sandman. And . . . ACTION!”
    “You cannot win that way,” the glass man told her, and the actors disappeared as the Sandman advanced on her. “I will not allow you to use my world against me anymore.”
    May threw sand again, and bottle after bottle of caffeine-filled soda rained down on them, threatening to keep the Sandman (and sleep) away forever, only to disappear immediately as the glass man waved a hand. “I will lock you in nightmares that you’ll never wake from,” he told her, taking another step closer.
    More sand, and this time a thousand armed marines appeared between them and disappeared just as quickly. “I will hold you prisoner until your body withers away,” the glass man said, his voice rising in anger. “Your mind will be trapped here until the end of time. I will—”
    “Hold up,” May said, noticing something for the first time. She hadn’t been close enough to see before, or hadn’t looked, but there it was. The man had sand everywhere in his body . . . everywhere except his eyes.
    May’s mouth dropped. “Oh, gross .”
    “What—” the man of glass said, but May concentrated, throwing the last of her sand, and suddenly the scene shifted so that she was behind him. She concentrated, and Heroine’s swords appeared in her hands.
    Then she drove one of the sword’s hilt into the back of the Sandman’s head on the right side and heard a strange popping noise. She quickly dove forward, catching the Sandman’s right glass eye, then rolled out of his way as he began to scream.
    “The Fairest is in the eye of the beholder?!” May shouted at him, showing him his own eye. “Are you kidding me?” That phrase didn’t sound exactly right, but she figured it was close enough. She held the eye up to hers, where she could clearly see . . . something inside. Maybe even something moving.
    Again, gross .
    “You will give that back or—”
    “Nah,” May said, a swirling feeling pulling her away from here. She smiled at the glass man. “Looks like my ride’s here. I’m going to go wake up, but you have yourself some sweet dreams!”
    And with