Cockleburr’s AEs rushed in, breathing hard.

“Sorry, sorry, so sorry-“

“It’s fiiiine. Just go sit down.” 

Cloud’s mind connected things too much, she thought. Two of the CBers had been going to NaNo, which was a bit unexpected as it wasn’t one of the hyped NaNo times. But their CBer had been at a SI. As for Icy, well, it was a little confusing whether it was the real-life costume store or a CB store, but definitely not NaNo. Well, let everyone say their thing, and we’ll figure this out.

*bursts in* Is it too late to join? If it is, just ignore this sheet.

Name: Annabelle

AE, CAPTCHA, or CAPTCHAE’  AE

Percived Age: 13-14

Personality: Knows a lot of trivia, and has a lot of fandoms, which she quotes frequently. Sometimes, people get them. Most of the time, they don't. People consider her weird and a know-it-all sometimes, but she has some close friends.

Appearance: Has long red hair that she wears in a braid. Usually smirking, and likes to wear T-shirts and short shorts. She also has bright, somewhat hopeful green eyes.

Powers Knowledge!!!111!!!11!!!!

"Ooooooh, i think i remember where Catsclaw was." Said Reganam.

"Okay, where was he?" Asked Lydia,

"I am to drowned in my grief to answer." He began to sob.

She looked imploringly to the heavens. "oh god, MARVIN!"

He continued sobbing.

"Eh, i think he said something about getting his hair cut." Said Blazestar, finally.

"Again!?! Second time this month!" Lydia asked in shock, "he usually only goes once a month!"

"Methinks he also spoke of going to the book repositorium."

"I am surrounded by buffoons and fools." She replied, facepalming.

Reganam continued sobbing.

"Last I saw Rogue, she was drawing a pretty good anime girl that she kept erasing for no good reason. Once she finally got it right, she pretended to carelessly toss the sketchbook over her shoulder, but she actually laid it carefully on a little tale behind her..." I wave my hands as through flapping at chickens to make them go away. "That's not them point! Ugh. After that she stalked off to go check Inkwell. Then I heard her do her war cry, as for some odd reason she is-" I put a hand to my forehead. "-Physically incapable of fear. She just attacks it... ANYWAY. IN THE END. She was going to Inkwell when she dissapeared. Although, after she have her war cry there was a malicious sounding hiss and-" I look at my hands. They had begun to tingle. To my horror, whisps of white vapor, dappled with letters and words of various posts, was rising from my fingertips. The process had begun.

Ocean Song was talking. Cloud tried to look solemmon as she scribbled in her notebook, which was filled with shorthand- Sec. drawing butterfly, Q. NaNo, RW fighting- and also nervous doodles of flowers. What Ocean was saying did sound important, but right now a lotus was beginning to take bloom on her paper, and so she was only half-listening. Until Ocean Song screamed.

Cloud bolted to her feet. "What? What?" 

Ocean incoherantly waved her hands around. At first Cloud thought Ocean was having a Fangirl Moment, but then she looked closer at her hands. Oh no. 

Other AEs had come to the same conclusion. Pzun started swearing, not proper swears but a stream of fricks and flips and hecks that a ten-year-old would probably find the worst things they could say. Reg was screaming, and Cloud clapped her hands over her ears. Hand. Hannah was holding her disappearing hand with the other, trying to push all the tendrils back in, to their proper shape, because hands "were not supposed to look like that!!" Aki was the only one not freaking out. She was just staring at the ground as if the power of her glare would get all the CBers where they were supposed to be.

Cloud's eyes swiveled wildly. "We have to go."

"Where?" Denim asked.  

"Where the biggest amount of CBers were, and where no AE has gone before," Narrator 33 said, realizing. 

"Where?" Denim said, insisting.

"NaNoWriMo," Annabelle said. "Onward!"

It takes two days for an AE to disappear. 

Time: 48:52:39 

"THIS IS BORING," Dev whispered in Cú's ear. "CAN WE SNEAK OFF AND PLAY TENNIS?"

"Your idea of tennis is to get the ball to bounce as many times as possible before it gets to the other person," Cú hissed back, "so no. And this is important. Pay attention."

"Quit whispering!" Feather shoved her head in between theirs. "I'm trying to take notes here!"

Cú rolled her eyes and settled back in her chair. She couldn't get herself to listen, though - instead, she let herself look around the room. She lingered briefly near Eris, but eventually settled for staring at Cloud, who, like Feather, was taking notes.

Then there was a scream. Feather gasped, and her pen skidded over the tiny notebook she'd been writing in. "Who was that?!"

"Ocean Song - look - " was all Cú could manage. Ocean was staring at her hands in a panic. Hands? No, hand. One was drifting away in a collection of words. "What do we do?!"

"I SAW ST IN THE LIBER - LABER - LABRI - LIBRARY! AND THEN SHE WAS GONNA GO BUY MUSIC OR SOMETHING. MUSIC? BOOKS? MAYBE IT WAS FOOD. SHE LEFT TO DO SOMETHING," Dev said into the silence. Cú elbowed him, hard, in the ribs. "OW! CÚ, THAT - "

"Not the time!"

Cloud was speaking again, and Cú tackled Dev and held his mouth shut so she could hear what Blue Moon's AE was trying to say.

"Go to NaNoWriMo?" she gasped. "That's - that's insane! And I am here for it! Ooh, yes, let's go! Feather, do you have the survival pack?"

"I always have the survival pack," Feather grumbled. "Along with what is basically an entire house. In this bag. You really don't have to ask."

"Oh, shut up, Grumpy Cat. Does Dev know what's going on yet?"

Feather sighed and rolled her eyes. Dev, freed, was yelling something about he was pretty sure St had been going to buy a new sweatshirt for him, actually. Cú grinned and was at the head of the crowd as they began to walk towards NaNo.

The. Indignity.

Of course Thirty wasn't one of those posh AEs, but to have her hand begin to melt away in a stream of words? How could that not be improper for a Narrator? Thirty had gone to school for narration and had went through several courses of academic studies, and learned over five different methods of narration, but nothing she had learned had prepared her for this. What good narrator did it?

At least she had pulled herself together in order to make a dramatic declaration about NaNoWriMo (where no AE had gone before!). Still, it was all so embarrassing... 

NaNoWriMo. It was such an unknown, mysterious place...who knew what happened to AEs who went there? Thirty, though she was inwardly composing a narration suitable for their epic, tragic, miserable defeat, just hoped that the other AEs knew what they were doing...

Skylar, First-Quarter, and Third-Quarter were at the back of the pack as the group headed off to NaNoWriMo.  Third-Quarter was in a bit of a panic.

"Are you guys not worried about this?" He asked, showing them his hands, slowly disintegrating.  

"This is the reason why we're going to NaNo," First-Quarter said angrily.  "We're only going because THIS," she gestured at her hands, "is happening!"

Skylar, on the other hand, was busy trying to figure out where FountainPen had gone.  She'd gone off to work on her NaNo novel, which was based on songs.  She could have gone to the forums on NaNoWriMo to ask for songs.  Maybe she would be there.  But if they weren't there, they wouldn't be disappearing.

I'll jut ignore those parts where you guys thought I screamed... For now. XP

A lot of stuff was happening, very, very fast. Counter twisted around in his chair as AEs began to dissolve. People were talking about NaNoWriMo, but he wasn't sure why. Were they all going to go there? How? None of this made sense to him, but everyone else seemed to be taking it in stride so he supposed he must have missed something. Eris suddenly grabbed his arm. 

"Counter, come on. We're going to be left behind!" She pulled him out of the chair and then they were running to catch up with a group leaving the meeting place. 

"What's going on?" Her shoulders were tense and her eyes wild; she was upset.

"We're going to check out NaNoWriMo," she said in an undertone, dragging him behind her, "Even though it makes absolutely no sense, 'cause CBers do NaNo all the time! It's never caused them to vanish. Besides, it's not even November! But it's like a mob in here and I don't know what to do!" 

"Ask those questions louder," Counter suggested. Eris made a face.

"It's not like anyone's actually going to hear me. Let's just get to the group." She tugged him into the crowd of people, mist, and words. When Counter looked up, she was gone.

Eris was frustrated, which meant she had a mission. She needed to know exactly what was happening in this mess and, if no one could tell her, she would have to figure it out. She fought her way through the crowd, leaving Counter somewhere behind her. He'd be fine getting swept along by the tide of AEs, and besides, he was slowing her down. She scanned the faces, looking for someone who could help, and there she was. Right at the front, of course. Cu. She automatically forced down the feeling of relief as her head started to throb. There were too many people. Come on, focus. Focus and go. 

"Cu!" she shouted over the din. "Cu Chulainn!" Cu looked around, slowing down enough for Eris to grab her shoulder. Words were starting to float out of her fingertips.

"Eris! You alright?" Cu asked. Her voice was loud enough that she didn't need to yell.

"I don't know what's going on. CBers have used NaNo for years and they've never vanished before! It doesn't make any sense that it would start now. Why are we just launching out into the unknown- a site nobody has ever gone to- without an actual plan? Why are we convinced going there will solve the problem? What is going on?" 

Pzun knew Cloud had logic. He just didn’t know how she had gotten to NaNo. 

“How did you come up with NaNo?” he asked.

”Well, think about it,” Cloud said, beginning to do the ritual that would call down the search bar. (Most of the AEs knew it, but a couple newer ones didn’t. And Blue had added on some bits. Cloud snapped her fingers three times.) “If we’re disappearing, then our Chatterboxers can’t be in the CB.” Cloud stood on her tiptoes and gestured to Nymph to help her up. Nymph looked disgusted, but transformed her tail into a ladder Cloud climbed up. “If they were taking a hiatus, we’d fall asleep.” Pzun suddenly started to feel sleepy, then shook it off almost immediately as he realized it was just because he’d been thinking about it. “If they were really leaving, they’d make a formal leaving post, and we didn’t find any. NaNo’s the only place they could be.”

Pzun nodded, trying to look like he understood. “So... let’s go?”

“Just a second.” Cloud called out “Y-W-P-period- N-A-N-O-W-R-I-M-O-period-O-R-G! ENTER!”

Then, all the AEs fell. A swirl appeared in the sky, growing bigger and bigger. Blue said not to use the search bar unless we absolutely had to. Now, Pzun was beginning to see why. The thing from another world sucked the AEs up and tossed them into the sky.

***

They landed on a giant web, with sticky ropes as big as Pzun’s arm. 

“What sort of animal would make this?”  3Q wondered aloud.

“Whatever it is, let’s not find out,” Silk said, and Pzun gulped.

There was a window in front of him, a little forward. The first search result. Inside, he could see rows upon rows of books, from high above. They all had huge doors in the front. There was a bustling market, too, where CBers meandered around, talking to each other.

Wait. CBers!!

Pzun leaped through the portal without thinking. And then he was falling. Straight for the top of one of the books. Crap. 

That was his last thought before he fell through the hole, and into his third new world that day.