And so it was.

Or... was supposed to be.

Out of the desert sands, a hand popped up.

That hand began struggling to pull a body out from underneath. Another emerged, and soon, a pink head of hair followed suit. And then, after another period of time, a complete head. But the sand was thick, and this person could not pull themself any further out. This person was stuck with just a head and who hands, everything else buried in the dunes.

So, dear reader, what business did we have with this pink-haired person in such a precarious situation?

“This sucks,” the pink-haired person said. “This was not how I was planning on making my entrance into Caribbean Rim ...”

But, unfortunately, it was too late for that. Being buried in sand and stuck was now forever how people were going to remember this introduction, despite its near-irrelevance to everything that would come before or after.

No, this wasn’t Madoka, obviously, despite the similar hair color and glittering cartoonish eyes.

We could only guess who it was. Being a magical girl series set in Mexico, the possibilities were endless. If not Madoka... maybe it was Chibiusa?!

“Actually, it’s Tatsuya Kaname,” the pink-haired figure said. “Madoka Kaname’s sister.”

Oh crap!

And not just any Tatsuya, either. This Tatsuya was a full-grown adult, six feet tall and with a face so dashing that women and men swooned at a mere glance.

“But,” Tatsuya continued. “This wasn’t how I wanted to appear. I was supposed to come up in a plot twist in a story arc some time in the future, a mysterious character whose mysterious origins were slowly revealed over the course of the series. Being stuck in the sand in the middle of the desert isn’t the right way to do it.”

It was sad, indeed.

“The whole situation is pretty sad,” Tatsuya said. “If Caribbean Rim had continued updating every Friday like its description suggested, we’d have another twenty-one, twenty-two chapters, and maybe I could finally have revealed myself. But it looks like Thedude3445 got a job in Japan and is too busy with ATL: Stories from the Retrofuture to work on this fan fiction that gets ten views per chapter...”

And, at least to me, the narrator, it appeared that Tatsuya Kaname might be stuck in this precarious situation for good, because it appeared increasingly unlikely that there would ever be much of a resolution to this current story.

“The saddest part about it,” Tatsuya said, “is that I had such an interesting story to tell readers. It was a story about my older sister’s ultimate wish that saved my life, that kept me alive even after certain doom. A story about how, without a past, a future, or any memory at all, I wandered the landscape of dead timelines, battling wraiths with a magical sword I received from a long-forgotten mentor. A story about how, after I ended up in Mexico, a group of magical girls brought me back from the brink and saved my life once again.

“This was supposed to be my story. But instead I’m just stuck in the sand.”

Tatsuya was supposed to be free to tell whatever story he wanted. But... in a world without Caribbean Rim , he was powerless, and could not escape the sand dunes to give his story.

“Please,” Tatsuya pleaded. “Save me from dying in the desert. Free me. and I’ll tell you about how Sheriff Kaname helped me save the multiverse!”