I somehow slept through the announcement that we had arrived at the city, and didn’t wake until Esme pushed me off the plane and I hurled toward the ground. Which is when I realized it must be a dream, because I hadn’t physically seen Esme since we finalized our divorce.
My head snapped up, and I gasped, glancing around at the other passengers as I straightened my glasses. I was stuck between a man reading a book and an older woman who, much to my horror, I realized my head was resting on her shoulder while I slept.
“I… I’m so… sorry. This is… I rarely do this.” I rubbed my face to reorient myself back into reality, knowing Esme wouldn’t actually push me from a physical plane, even if she did in a metaphysical one.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. You looked like you needed it.” She sounded in earnest, which was kind, but it didn’t help that I had become that guy in those plane horror stories. The man crammed in the middle of a plane seat who had fallen asleep on a stranger. I dropped my hand long enough to make sure I didn’t drool on the poor woman’s shoulder. She would have woken me up if I did. Right?
“Are you visiting family?” I tried to get a conversation going so the three of us didn’t sit in awkward silence.
“Yes, my daughter is graduating from university with her doctorate in chemistry in a few days.” Her face was beaming.
“Oh, wow!” I refused to feel intimidated. “That’s an awesome accomplishment!”
“It is. She is ready to be done with school.”
“I bet.”
“You? Are you visiting family?” she asked.
“Um, no. Actually, I’m… I’m here to visit the narration headquarters.”
It was always a loaded statement saying that. Activists who openly apposed the narration device weren’t a lot, but they were loud. And sometimes got violent, but the smile on the older woman’s face helped me relax. “Sometimes I forget the narration headquarters are in the city.”
“What story are you going to narrate?” the man asked, finally joining the conversation.
“Epic fantasy.”
The man’s neutral expression fell. “Oh.” He returned to his legal thriller.
“Well, I wish you luck on your first book,” the woman said.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t bother to correct her. Most people assumed narrators journeying to headquarters were working on their first book. Narration devices were powerful. Even after obtaining a four-year narration degree, junior narrators were required to use the device in the apartment complexes near headquarters in case something bad happened.
I finished my first book a few years ago. It was a success, meaning I got enough money from it to scrape by. My second wasn’t too bad either. This one, however, I had high hopes for. This is the story I’d been worldbuilding for nine years now.
When the story got approved and the device was on my doorstep, it never turned on. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but the Guardians feared any situation with a faulty narration device could turn sour. They asked me to narrate this story in one of their apartments by the headquarters to be safe. I said it was fine. It wasn’t like I had much of a life to leave.
Once the plane landed, I waited for other passengers to leave before I stood up and grabbed my carry on. I filed out with the others, waiting for my suitcase. Honestly, I could’ve gotten by with a carry on, but Mom insisted I pack more. Speaking of Mom, I pulled out my phone and texted her, letting her know I landed safely. They would both worry otherwise.
I saw my suitcase on the conveyor belt and walked over to grab it, relieved it didn’t get lost. With my luck streak, I was happy I didn’t have to deal with lost luggage. I grabbed my suitcase and pulled. The handle broke off with my jerk. I stared at it a good long second before hurrying to catch up to my luggage and pulling it off the belt. At least my carry on had wheels.
I carried my large suitcase in one hand and pulled my carryon; the wheels squeaked as I walked outside, heading for the line of taxis.
“Narration Headquarters, please.”
The driver nodded, grabbing my two suitcases and placed them in the trunk as I climbed in. There were only a few more things I needed to do before I could become a hermit inside the Guardian’s apartment and start narrating. Honestly, this is what I needed. After the chaos and the drama from the divorce, I needed to move on and do something I was good at. Pretty good at. Okay-ish at.
Go back to the thing that would help me make a living.
The drive wasn’t too long as the driver hummed along to music I’d never heard before. He pulled into the headquarters, and I paid the taxi driver before climbing out. I grabbed my now broken suitcase and my carry on as I stared at the steps before me to the headquarters made of marble.
Right. Stairs.
I took a deep breath and headed up the stairs, both suitcases hitting every single one as I struggled up them. I got to the door and slipped in. A few of the secretaries were there chatting before they stopped to watch me stumble inside. There was a point, while holding the door open for myself, that I lost my grip on my suitcase and it toppled to the floor.
A secretary partially stood up. “Do you need help?”
“Nope, no.” Maybe it was stupid, but I couldn’t get their help. I needed to prove I could be a functioning human. “I’ve got it.” In the end, I scooted my suitcase across the marble floor with my foot closer to the desk and plopped my carryon on top of it. “Hi.”
The second secretary stared at me. “Do you have your ID?”
“Yep. It’s, um….” I glanced down at my suitcases. “Just a sec.” I knelt down and unzipped my carryon, clawing my memories for where I put my narration ID badge they sent me. I knew I packed it, so it had to be somewhere.
There was no way I would’ve packed it in my main suitcase. I distinctly remember thinking about putting it in my carryon so I would have it when I reached the headquarters. In fact, Dad handed it to me as I finished packing, and I remember putting it around my neck to…
My fingers brushed my neck, and I felt the lanyard. Since being behind the desk covered their view of me, I tugged it off my neck. Maybe they assumed I found it in my carryon as I zipped it back up.
“Here it is.” I placed the badge on the desk.
“Thank you.” The first secretary scanned it in. “Ah, it’s you. We were afraid you’d be a no-show.”
“Yeah.” I folded my arms. “The plane had an unexpected layover for… four hours.”
The secretary typed into her computer. “Ouch, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” was all I got out. “Do I… is this…” I had the horrible thought I’d have to be sent to a hotel room until tomorrow morning. I didn’t want to go to a hotel, I wanted the apartment.
“We know there are some things we can’t control. I’m just glad you got here before we closed. A Guardian should be free to take you to your apartment now.” The secretary finished typing, reading what was on her screen. “It looks like this is your third book you’re narrating?”
“Yes. They, um…” I didn’t need to tell them everything, but I couldn’t help myself. “The Guardians sent me a device a month ago, but it never turned on. I requested another one, but they wanted me to narrate here, just in case.”
The secretary nodded. “They always err on the side of caution with the devices. If you take a seat, I’ll go see if one of them is available now.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed my suitcase without thinking. In my search, I started unzipping my main suitcase without thinking about it. Some of my clothes spilled out as I pulled it toward me. I hastily stuffed it back in before making sure I zipped it all the way. The secretaries did the nice thing and pretended it didn’t happen. I found a chair to wait for the Guardian. One secretary walked up the stairs to the Guardian’s offices as I sat there, going through the list of things I needed to do once I had a working device in my hands.
Despite my bad luck with the layover, the secretary returned soon after with another man who was holding a briefcase.
“You’re the narrator, right?” the man asked.
I stood up. “Yes, hello.”
“Jim Solomon.” He shook my hand before grabbing my carryon.
“Hello, Jim. Is there a Guardian ready to see me?”
“I am a Guardian.”
The pause wasn’t too long, yet long enough. Maybe it was the expectation that my bad luck would continue and I’d be waiting on a chair for the next hour, but I didn’t expect them to get back with me so soon. Not only that, this Jim guy could not be that much older than me. Sure, he was wearing a three-piece suit, but I just thought he was here to help me with my luggage down the stairs.
“Oh,” I said, because someone needed to keep the conversation going.
He grabbed my carryon, then started searching for the handle of my suitcase, which made me panic as I walked over to pick it up. “I’ve got this one.”
“Alright, thank you. I just called a taxi, so it shouldn’t take long,” Jim said.
“Right. Thanks.”
We walked outside again and down the stairs. It wasn’t nearly as difficult to carry my suitcase now that Jim had my other one, but it was still awkward to hold. I placed the suitcase down at the bottom of the stairs and there was a beat of silence.
“So, have you been a Guardian long?”
Jim smiled as though he got this question a lot. “Not too long, no.”
The taxi came, and we put my luggage in the back before driving the short distance to the apartments.
Jim pulled out his phone. “It looks like it’s been a few years since you’ve been here, but things are always changing, so I’ll give you another tour and make sure you’re all settled.”
“Alright.”
“I’m pulling up the notes now.” Jim tapped some things on his phone. “Devin told me your old device simply didn’t turn on? Is that right?”
“Correct.”
“And to be certain, you didn’t add any codes in there at all. It simply never turned on?”
“Yes. I entered none of my codes in the old one,” I said.
“That’s honestly great to hear.” Jim glanced up from his phone to see where we were. “Transferring code isn’t super complicated, but if we can give you a new one without the transfer, it makes my job easier. Thanks for being willing to come to the city for this.”
“Yeah, well, luckily, my schedule cleared up.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jim asked as the taxi pulled into the three large apartment buildings that belonged to the Guardians.
I didn’t want to explain why my schedule cleared up, as I wasn’t interested in telling a divorce sob story to a Guardian, so I smiled and got out of the taxi, waiting to grab my big, awkward suitcase.
I followed Jim up the stairs and to the apartment. We waited as he unlocked the door before walking inside. I followed, finally dropping my suitcase near the door and rubbing my arms.
“Alright, so this is the living room, and the kitchen over there.” Jim started pointing at the rooms as he walked through. “There’s a nice supermarket a couple blocks down to get yourself food, though we got you a night’s worth of supplies in case you want to rest tonight.”
“That’s very kind of you all, thanks.” I noticed the bread and coffeemaker on the counter. I opened the fridge to see milk, eggs, and cheese. Looks like grilled cheese for tonight.
“In here is your bedroom.” Jim was down the hall and placing the carry on beside that door before moving to the room across the hall. “And here’s the office. We’ve already got a desktop computer. You mentioned you were bringing a laptop?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Yep. It’s in my suitcase.” I pointed to the one by the door.
Jim sat down in the office chair with his briefcase. “Perfect. Now, to be certain, I’ll set this up now to make sure everything is working.”
I nodded, leaning against the doorframe. Jim opened the briefcase and tenderly took out the narration device.
“I’ll go get my laptop,” I said.
“Great. I’ll get this set up.”
I walked into the furnished living room and grabbed my suitcase. I pulled it into my room and heaved it onto my bed. After I unzipped it, I sorted through my clothes before pulling out my laptop case and walked back out to the office. I placed it on the desk before easing my laptop out and signing in. Jim finished plugging in the device to the desktop computer, the screen turning white.
After that, it was another few plugs and a quick tap from Jim, and my laptop was on and running.
I pointed to the file on my laptop. “I’ve got my worldbuilding code there, if you want to load it in.”
“Nice.” Jim tapped on the laptop and uploaded the file onto the device. “Epic fantasy, right?”
“Yeah. It’s got a lot of coding for worldbuilding.”
“It’s super impressive. Look at that, three hours to upload. Did it take you months? I’ve heard epic fantasy takes months.”
“Yeah, well, I had plenty of time to work on it in my parent’s basement waiting for the device to work and my divorce to finalize,” I said before I realized it left my mouth.
The pause was not long and yet lasted an eternity. “Um, sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I didn’t know what else to say. I tried desperately to change the subject when Jim’s cellphone rang.
“So sorry, again.” He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at the name, and smiled as he turned it off. “I’ll call her back.”
“Sister?” I asked.
“Girlfriend.”
“Of course she is,” I mumbled.
He pocketed his phone, glancing at me. “Huh?”
“Nothing.” I tried smiling. “It’s nothing. Thank you for setting this up for me.” This guy had probably never lived in his parents’ basement. He was the youngest Guardian I’d ever seen and had a girlfriend who made him smile when she called. His put together life would not intimidate me, but it absolutely did.
“Do you have a projected time of when you’ll start narrating your story?” Jim asked.
I clung to this new subject. “With worldbuilding already done, it’s a matter of making sure my characters get fleshed out. Shouldn’t take longer than a month or two.”
“Perfect. Devin was supposed to meet you, but he’s got a lot of other projects he’s working on with the Guardians. He’ll come check in another week to make sure things are moving along and check the device is still working smoothly.”
I nodded. “Yeah, alright.”
Jim handed me the keys to the apartment that was now mine. “Good luck on your book.”
“Thanks.”
He left, and I sat there, staring at the keys. This really was so much better than my parent’s basement, but I wasn’t about to tell Jim that.
***
After a phone call with my parents, I ate my grilled cheese sandwich as I finished watching my worldbuilding code load onto the device. The loading bar kept going up as I made sure the device wasn’t sparking or anything.
The pre-narration work was always so hard. It was necessary, but I enjoyed narrating the book more. Most of it was code work, where I filtered in what I could and made sure it worked. I was just happy to have so much time to work on worldbuilding, so I wouldn’t have to individually code that in. Jim was right. For an epic fantasy of this size, it would’ve taken me months. And it did. I just did it from the comfort of my parent’s basement as I ignored how the rest of my life was falling apart. The divorce was done, which meant I could finally let go of that failure and work on this story.
The code finished downloading, and I grabbed the headset next to the desktop, placing it over my ears. I situated the microphone near my mouth. “Check code.”
My world came up, and I scrolled through it, saw the map appear as the codes popped up on my laptop. All the filler characters were coded in, which was great. Really, when it came down to it, I needed to create a few more prominent characters and my main character, Paldric.
I really had so much time on my hands while I was in my parents’ basement. And a life I didn’t want to face while I worked on this code.
“Save code,” I said into the microphone.
Another loading bar popped up, which thankfully was not a three hour long one, and I waited patiently for it to finish. Once it was done, I walked over to my bedroom and started unpacking. I was finally feeling like myself. My divorce was done, my old life was fading away. I was out of my parents’ basement before my thirtieth birthday in a few more months. I was sort of in an apartment of my own, and doing something I was passionate about. Few could say that a month after a divorce.
I partially unpacked before walking to the supermarket to get some food for my apartment. I stocked up on frozen pizzas and frozen burritos, as well as party snacks to celebrate. Eating out all the time wasn’t possible, though I couldn’t wait to go back to that sandwich shop I always went to when I was first narrating a story here.
Once I had my bags of food, I walked back to the apartment, unlocked the door, and unloaded the bags into the fridge. Tonight, I was going to celebrate this huge step forward, and it wouldn’t end in me having a hangover again.
***
My eyes struggled to open, since they didn’t want to. Stupid hangover. I woke up, totally prepared to be amazed at my ability to handle that much alcohol, but as the morning turned into mid-morning, I had to admit to myself I drank way too much last night.
I collapsed on my couch, everything hurting, as I covered my eyes with my hands. Why do I always do this to myself? Every time I assume I can handle alcohol, I, in fact, don’t. At least the apartment was silent. Mostly. The buzzing of the fridge got annoying fast. But at least Mom wasn’t vacuuming upstairs.
I didn’t realize I had taken a blissful nap until someone was knocking on the door. I partially sat up, feeling my head pounding with the knocking. It wasn’t as bad, but it wasn’t pleasant, either.
As I got up to answer the door, I realized I was still in my clothes from the night before. The door opened, and I blinked in the blinding mid-morning sun.
“Hey, it’s our new narrator!” the man asked.
“Uh…,” I said, keeping my eyes closed.
“I’m Devin. I wanted to check in on you.”
“Oh, right.” I stepped aside, hoping I could close the door and keep out the horrible sunlight. Devin got the hint and came in quickly and inspected the mess of my drunken celebratory night.
“I’m glad you’re getting comfortable,” Devin said.
I rubbed my head, trying to smile. “Yeah. Um…” I dropped my hand. “I think Jim said you wouldn’t be coming for another week or so.”
“This is a quick visit to make sure everything got set up well. The device is loading everything alright?”
“Yes. I got a lot of worldbuilding done while I waited,” I said.
“Well, great.” Devin pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “I wanted to give you my secretary’s number. As you might remember from your first time narrating, please let me know if anything strange happens. Like if the code isn’t working, strange things popping up, whatever it is, I want to know about it.” I took it, not trusting myself to speak or make too sudden movements. “Since you’re here in a peculiar case, I want to know anything unusual. Even if you think everything is going well, but you still feel like something is off. You let me know.”
“I will, thanks,” I said.
“Good man. I’ll let you get back to it.”
I waited for the door to finish clicking into place before I headed straight for the kitchen, opened two frozen pizzas, and drained an entire cup of water. I’d get back to narrating soon, but I needed to work off this hangover first.
***
The supporting character developments turned out well. I searched through my notes and my checklist. I could tell I was building up to Paldric, as the characters I built and placed into the story were taking longer and longer to interview. Granted, Pavaldri the dragon was a tough character to interview, but I knew I was done with her once I looked at her and felt terrified. She fell into a coma to await the beginning of the story.
Once I finished developing all the characters, I looked at my list again. Alwin and Paldric. Those were the characters I had left. Many people started with their main characters first and then developed side characters, but I enjoyed doing it this way. My two characters were already being built from the reaction of the side and filler characters.
“Narration code 0807, addition of character.” Both my laptop and the desktop turned white. I opted to type in the physical characteristics, since I’d been talking into the microphone for a while. My fingers flew over the keyboard, typing as many characteristics as I could while the character came to life in front of me on the desktop computer screen. I gave Paldric a good once over, making sure he looked exactly how I pictured him. He was perfect.
I settled into my chair, closing my eyes as I brought the microphone down. “Place Paldric in the interview room.”
My consciousness entered the room, even though I knew I was relaxed in my chair in the office. This was the weirdest thing about the device, but I loved it. All narrators loved it. It was the closest we could legally be to our own creations, and it was thrilling. We could actually meet our creations, even if for only a few days.
I waited in a chair, smiling as Paldric’s brown eyes focused on the situation at hand. He glanced around, confused.
“Name?” I asked.
“Paldric.”
I smiled. “Hi, Paldric.”
“Who are you?” He reached up to feel his hair. “Who am I?”
“Let’s find that out, shall we?”
We had a conversation. With all the building I had done to this point, Paldric was already talking in complete sentences, which was great. I talked with him, learning about him and his character, about his hopes and dreams, about his sorrows. I understood his thoughts as he was thinking them, which helped me guide the conversation as we both discovered more about him. So much about Paldric’s characteristics shined through that made me happy.
“This is such an odd little place.” Paldric glanced around the room that had no real defining features to it.
“Don’t worry, you won’t stay here long.”
“Where will I go?”
“Where you were meant to go.” I needed to avoid all conversations where he might realize he was a character in a story. Paldric was alright with this. He was trusting, but far more trusting when it came from me. Deep down, he sensed I was his creator. It was something I was in awe of, and also terrified of. With how things I’ve created usually fail, I was nervous, but assured myself nothing could go wrong here.
It was dinner by the time I left the interview room with Paldric. There would be many more days with him, because I needed to make sure he was perfect.
***
For the next few days, I hopped between developing Alwin and developing Paldric. I toyed with the idea of placing them both in the interview room to have them build off each other, but I stopped myself from doing that. They technically wouldn’t meet until the beginning of the book, so I wouldn’t have them meet even in the interview room. Sure, they would’ve forgotten each other before the start of the book, like they would forget me, but I didn’t want to mess anything up.
“So, do you understand about the world you’re about to enter?” I asked.
“Yes.” Paldric nodded, smiling. “A dying world the elves have left for reasons yet unknown, but we do what we can with what we have. And there is still residual magic left over, for as long as we have it. I feel quite protective of the world, and love my countrymen.”
I gave him a thumbs up. “You’re a good man, Paldric.”
He glanced at my thumbs, confused, but kept going. “Thank you. So are you…” Paldric realized he didn’t know my name, and I didn’t volunteer the information.
“I… think we’re done.” It felt weird to say. Honestly, I was excited to start, but now that it was here, a sense of anxiety came from it. As with all things with narration, this was a marathon, and I needed to mentally prepare for it.
“Alright, well, thank you. This has been a conversation I doubt I will ever forget,” Paldric said, even though I knew otherwise. Well, at least my involvement in the conversation would be forgotten. Everything else was already entered his character codes that were vital, making him who he was.
I opened my eyes and found myself back in my office. Alwin and Paldric both were now finished. Everything was done. It was still the afternoon, which meant I had time to watch the code download.
I moved the file into the narration device, watching it load. My chair squeaked as I leaned back, giving a sigh of relief. I’ll be narrating by tomorrow morning. Right now, it was the boring part, watching all my files load onto my computer. I had to make sure nothing went wrong.
As I assumed, I just needed a new device. I wasn’t complaining, though. Getting all the worldbuilding done while I waited would probably give me a world record. I doubted there were any other epic fantasies who narrated after one month of getting the device.
Once it was finished loading, I pressed the big button to get it all on the device. I smiled for about half a second when an error code came up, which made the smile disappear again. Something wasn’t done yet.
“Not finished?” I clicked on the code.
[Error code: Character Tara not entered]
I rubbed my head, groaning. I had completely forgotten about Tara. A hundred emotions hit me at once, which left me feeling overwhelmed as I leaned back. I had never, until that moment, realized I could have deleted Tara from the beginning. If I hadn’t been in such a rush to make sure the outline was done, I could have deleted her.
A groan left me again, and I got out of my chair to head straight for the fridge. I opened a can of beer, not planning on drinking too much, because I had gone quite a few days without a hangover. That made me quite proud, and I wouldn’t mess up my hangover free streak now. I just needed something to calm me down.
I weighed the pros and cons in my mind, knowing I was up against a rock and a hard place. Delete the character, my ex-wife is unhappy, as well as countless other women. Keep the character in, and my ex-wife is unhappy, as well as countless other women.
Tara was too intertwined in my original outline now. It wouldn’t just be deleting her character, it would require me to go through and rewrite some scenes that I simply could not afford now that the entire thing was loaded onto the device. I’d practically have to pick through the scenes and delete what I had and reload a fully re-written one. It would take far longer than my allotted time. Not only that, I’d have to get the story re-approved by the Guardians.
I needed to keep Tara in, and no one would be happy.
***
It’s hard waking up with a hangover. I kept my eyes closed, at least happy that past me was smart enough to keep the curtains closed.
Once I got past the worst part, I tried to shower to make the rest go away. I gave myself a pep talk in the shower, then again in the mirror as I got ready. I could do this. It was just a character. I’d already done this with a lot of other characters. Her being a girl didn’t mean the skills I learned as a narrator disappeared. This wasn’t like middle school. Tara didn’t have cooties, she was just… a character my ex demanded I write, and I had no emotional investment in.
I could never please Esme, that much was clear. Especially now with how my life ended up. The only way to make Esme happy was leaving her.
I sat down in my chair once again, booting up the computers. I opened a bag of chips and tried not to shovel them into my mouth. This was fine. I’d get over this hurdle, and I could start narrating. Shouldn’t be a problem. Things would work out fine. My book can’t be perfect, and this will just have to slide.
“Narration code 0807, creation of new character.” I typed out the characteristics, but once I got far enough, I got another error code.
[Creation of character already exists]
I frowned. “Show Tara character.”
Her file came up on my laptop, as well as what she looked like on the desktop. I winced, then checked the creation date. I already created her yesterday.
How much did I drink last night?
I scrolled through the characteristics. How could I have been so blackout drunk while I created her? Everything seemed in order, though she honestly didn’t have that much characteristics to start with.
“Um, right.” I straightened the microphone, snippets of memories coming back to me. “Stick her in the narration room.”
I closed my eyes, then opened them in the room. It made me jump because she was staring straight at me with an unnaturally large smile on her face.
“Hello again!” Her voice was so chipper.
I stared at her, deeply uncomfortable. “So… we’ve met?”
“We have! Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”
I gave it a moment's thought before I shook my head. “Nope. I’m good.”
I opened my eyes in my office, taking off my headset and groaning. Before I could talk myself out of it, I hit the button to download the entire book onto the device and continued to eat my chips. This would take a while, but a weight lifted off my shoulders. The boring, technical stuff was done. Now it was making sure the transfer happened smoothly. That meant staying within the room, watching once again the progress bar climb. I stuffed my hand into my bag of chips, grumbling as I shoved them in my mouth. This was fine. I’d get through it fine.
I stayed in my office, reading another book, waiting for the progress bar to finish inching forward. I already assumed I would narrate tomorrow morning. This was going to take a while.
***
I was proud of myself for not drinking too much last night. I finally made it through a night where I didn’t have a massive hangover, and I gave myself a high five for that one. It was my first day of narrating, so I made the most of it. I wanted to start with a nice big breakfast to keep myself motivated.
I grabbed my coffee and sat down across from the two computers. The headset slipped over my ears, and I double checked everything was working fine. I took a sip of coffee, clicked on a few things on the laptop, then adjusted the microphone.
“Begin story,” I said.
The narration device sparked, and I glanced at it, wondering if it was part of my imagination.
Then everything went black.