Chapter 30: "Friends"

"Hey," I tapped U on the shoulder. "Are those real?"
He attempted a half-shrug when a sudden creaking noise from the book caught our attention. The pages started turning by themselves, each containing a next frame of the illustration. I watched in a mixture of amazement and fearfulness as it formed an animation of them three breaking free of the shackles, and reaching towards us!
Horrors! The never-ending pages continued flipping, and somehow the illustrations of Moby, Telly and Melly were in fact stepping out of the book! How could this in any earthly way be possible? Standing before me were three moving life-size drawings of them. And they didn't look quite friendly.
It was difficult to tell whether the Melly staggering like a zombie was real or not. How could a picture move like that? But on the other hand, how could a person get stuck on a page?
There wasn't time for me to ponder on that, for they were moving surprisingly fast considering the fact that they seemed pretty two-dimensional.
"They're evil. Fight them."
The red words appeared and disappeared in a flash, distracting me from the suddenly-enormous Moby's grip. He lifted me in the air and let loose a primal roar.
"Moby!" I yelled in terror. "Stop it! You don't want to hurt me! He's making you do it!"
My words bore no effect on the glass-eyed Moby. He proceeded to raise me above his head, and drop me fifteen feet to the ground!
"AHHHH!" A familiar pair of arms caught me just as I was about to land. Phew! Thank God for Toby and his Tab.
"U!" Toby shouted at him. "Run! What are you doing standing there?"
He didn't move, but I noticed some effort to do so on his face. "He's caught in a Freeze Frame!"
"Melly!" hollered Toby. "Release your Freeze Frame at once! Fight us no more!"
It was useless too. To make things even worse, Telly was already Copying herself.
"Destroy them all!" I gave orders. "They're mere illusions! He's trying to mess with our minds again!"
"Oh, you think so, don't you? What if I told you that they indeed are the real Moby, Telly and Melly, re-written as evil as I want them to be?"
I wasn't so sure what to do. If they were real, then they were innocent and I couldn't bring myself to fight them. But it was hard to tell how true His words were.
"Kill them. Kill your friends. Only then shall you face Me."