Ryan is the protagonist and the narrator of the print portion of the novel. He is a 15-year-old creative writer who grew up in Skeleton Creek. Ryan describes himself as “the sort of person who overanalyzes, worries, frets” (5); this characterization sets the tone for the novel, as Ryan’s journal entries consist of dreams, memories, and rumination on his and Sarah’s situation. Ryan also relies heavily on foreshadowing, reinforcing the reflective tone while enhancing narrative suspense and tension.

The epistolary form of the novel provides insight into major aspects of Ryan’s character, such as his obsessive need to write. He identifies his role models as writers such as John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway who “put writing up there in the same category as air and water” (5). Ryan uses his journal to take back a measure of control as the events that he records progress and the danger intensifies, noting that “things are safer when [he] thinks of them as fiction” (7). His decision to record the events and his feelings about them in a journal also reveals his deeply emotional nature.