"So what's the twist?" the reader asked.

"What do you mean?" the writer asked.

"The twist," the reader said. "It's the end, she's already killed all the Fears. There has to be a twist."

"Does there?"

"I bet it's all just a hallucination. I bet she's trying to commit suicide and she's trying to get ready, making herself hard and empty."

"No," the writer said. "It's not a hallucination."

"Then I bet the Man in Gray is setting her up. I bet he's trying to make her into something like himself. A Woman in Gray."

"No," the writer said. "Sorry, that's not it."

"Really? Crap. It can't be a dream. I mean, that's too cliche."

"Does there really need to be a twist?"

"Of course. I mean, she's killed the Fears. She's killed the goddamn Slender Man. And now what? Now what's going to happen? I mean, something must happen."

"Of course something's going to happen. But why does there have to be a twist?"

"Because it makes the ending a surprise. A good twist means we can look back and see everything that led up to it. A good twist changes the meaning of the entire thing."

"And a bad twist?"

"Well, that changes the meaning, too, but, you know, in a bad way. But seriously, what's the twist?"

"There is no twist."

"Really?"

"Truly."

"But what's going to happen then? I mean, what's going to happen to Elizabeth?"

"What do you think? She's killed the monsters. She's emptied herself out. What else can she do except go back to her life. Back to the life she had before."

"But...without emotions? Without feelings?"

"It's not really the life she had before. It's more of a half-life, doing the same actions, but without the same feeling. She isn't afraid, she isn't sad, and she isn't happy. She sleeps without dreaming. She can't even remember her past and she knows that she has no future. She does what she does because she has nothing else to do."

"And then?"

"And then what?"

"There has to be an 'and then.' And then the Man in Gray appeared. And then something happened. And then she died. I mean, this is a story, it has to have a proper ending."

"It does have a proper ending. This is it. This is the end of her story. She killed her monsters and, in the process, killed herself. She's not alive, not really. She's a shell. And because she doesn't care, she'll go on being a shell until the world fades away around her. She is the Endmaker and this is the ending she has made."

"That's not a good ending."

"I never said it was. But it's her ending."

"Well, it's fucking depressing. Can't you give her a better ending? You can even make the whole thing a dream if you want, I don't fucking care."

"You want a happy ending?"

"It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be something that isn't depressing as fuck."

"Fine."