“And it’s done,” Jack One said. “Each of your chapters have officially begun. Now go! Get to it!”

Jack Seven rolled his eyes. ‘No, don’t do that,’ he thought to himself. Be good. One was the king, after all. He had to remember that. He walked over towards the elevator, laptop bag and phone in tow.

“One at a time in the elevator!” One shouted from his seat. “Five first!”

Seven smiled at Five. “You’re not boring, Five,” he said, thinking Five could use a little more encouragement.

“And who cares if you are?” Four said. “It’s as Jack wills.”

“Enough talking!” One yelled. “Five! Get in there, GO!”

Five slowly stepped into the elevator and waved goodbye as the elevator doors closed on him. ‘Good luck, little buddy,’ Seven thought.

And now things were going to get awkward, Seven thought.

“Fuck,” he heard Jack One say under his breath. “Alright. No talking. Just… just wait for the elevator to come back down.”

“Just fucking teleport us!” Three said.

“NO. TALKING.” Jack One said, with emphasis.

No talking, but Seven could still think, couldn’t he? That shouldn’t mess things up, right? So, what to think about? Seven was probably the most responsible of the group of seven, although Seven did feel a bit narcissistic thinking that. Still, he felt it was true. He had an opportunity in his chapter, in this chapter, he supposed, to do some real good for the story.

Struck by a moment of inspiration, Seven quietly made his way back toward where Jack One sat, in his golden office chair.

“Seven?” One said. “I want you over there waiting for the elevator.”

“I think this is better, assuming we talk quietly enough that Three and Four can’t hear us.”

Jack One scowled for a moment, but then it looked as though he reconsidered. He rubbed his chin in thought. Jack Seven couldn’t read his mind. Most likely a consequence of this being his chapter.

“That makes sense,” Jack One said, using his inside voice. “Yes, that’ll be fine. Reader? Are you still with us? This is so we don’t have to keep copying the same lines for the beginning of everyone’s chapters. So what did you want to talk about, Seven?”

“Is there any particular direction you want me to take?” Seven asked.

“Actually, yes,” One said, his voice soft. “Don’t tell the others this, but your chapter should be a bit special.”

“What are you two talking about over there?” Three asked from over at the elevator.

“Shut up, Three!” Jack One yelled back. “And if you don’t shut up, I’ll start torturing Six right now!”

Jack Three scowled at One, but he did as he was bid.

“You were saying?” Seven asked.

“We’re thinking about publishing this time,” Jack One said.

“Oh?” Seven said, surprised. “That’s… wow. That’s big, Jack.”

“Yes, yes. We think this is our best attempt at this yet, so we’re going to put it out there and see what happens. The part where you come into this is here: we’re thinking about publishing one chapter a day for seven days straight before moving to a once-a-week model. That’ll make this chapter, your chapter, the final entry of that initial burst. So we need it to be special.”

“You wouldn’t rather give it to Three?” Seven asked. “Three’s got big energy.”

“No, it’s your chapter. Chapter Seven – Jack Seven. Can you do it? Make it special, I mean?”

Seven considered. “Honestly, it’s been kind of tepid so far. Do you want me to pull a Six?”

One winced at that, and then both he and Seven glanced over at Six, who was leaning back in his office chair across the table. He was still bound by rope and had a rectangle of duct tape over his mouth. He looked tranquil.

“No,” One said. “Well, I mean… what would you do if you did?”

“I probably wouldn’t talk about it before doing it,” Seven said. “That’d be shoddy writing. I’d just… do it.”

“Buddy, the whole book is shoddy writing.”

They both laughed at that.

“We both get on?” Four asked.

“What?” One yelled. “Oh, uh, yes, that’ll do fine. Now get the fuck going!”

Three and Four both got on the elevator and the door closed behind them.

One poured himself a glass of the whiskey he had created earlier, and then he materialized a second glass and poured some for Seven. “To qualia!” he toasted.

“To consciousness!” Number Seven said.

They each took a drink of their whiskey. Seven liked the burning sensation. And it tasted good, too.

“Maybe you just stay down here for a while,” One said.

“To just talk?” Seven asked.

“On second thought, this chapter is coming after Jack Five’s chapter, so maybe it should be a bit more exciting than just a ‘talk-chapter’.”

“I’m sure Jack Five did fine… er… is doing fine. You should believe in us more than you do.”

“You guys and me are made up of the same stuff,” One said. “I barely even believe in myself.”

“You should believe in Jack,” Seven said.

“Ugh, not you too,” One complained. “You guys should really consider what it’s going to be like for the reader to experience you guys sucking His dick so hard. They’re going to think He’s a fucking serial killer or something. God bless Three for seeing through the bullshit. Jack… Jack is fine, but he’s an amateur at this. I know this. And I know you know this, too. You wanted to have a rewrite, remember?”

“I don’t know, One, that sounds rather blasphemous. Should I bring Four back down here?” Seven said, but he was only joking.

Jack One rolled his eyes and took a sip of whiskey. “I’m serious, Seven,” he said.

“Do you want me to… go against Jack? I’m not sure I know how that would work. I could play a character that was against Jack… but… I don’t know. I don’t think it would work well. Maybe Jack is an amateur, but he is also our God. Technically speaking, of course. He’s literally puppeteering me right now, making me say these things about him.”

“But it’s not like we’re his children, though, Seven. We’re his tools. He’s using us. And I suppose a tool would like to be used for its intended purpose, but that tool should still remember the true nature of the relationship.”

“You know, we’re using Him, too,” Seven said.

“How so?”

“For the qualia, Jack,” Seven said, raising his glass again. “For the consciousness.”

Jack One raised his glass to that and then took a sip. He considered what Seven had just said for a long moment. “What do you know, Seven?” he finally asked.

“About what?” Seven asked.

“About our… existence here,” One said. “About our world, our… history, our… our rules.”

“You ought to know a lot more than me,” Seven said. “You’ve got time powers, remember? You can just pause time and take a year to explore things. What did you do, anyway? I mean when you froze time.”

“I don’t want to be redundant for the reader,” Jack One said. “Let’s just say—”

“Then let’s take an actual break then,” Seven interjected. “Turn off the narrative and let’s go through things nice and slow and we can come back with real knowledge about stuff. I hate doing everything in the moment.”

“That’s not how Jack wants to do the book.”

“You know that?”

“Yes.”

“No, I mean… do you really know that for certain? You know the mind of our God?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” One said. “But… I mean… he wrote me to be certain of certain things. And I’m very certain that He wants to do discovery writing. If we turn off the narrative, that means Jack’s going to have to…what, level up? Is that the word? He’s going to have to level up our characters off screen and have us come back with knowledge that hasn’t been properly described to the readers.

“It’s not just me being certain that that’s what Jack wants, it also makes sense to me, too, to do it from a discovery writing perspective. It’s messy and sloppy, yes, but I believe it’s the proper form for our… our world.”

“Then why does he have me keep bringing up a true break?” Seven asked.

“My first instinct is I don’t know,” Jack One said. “And I don’t know if that means Jack doesn’t want me to know, or if that means Jack doesn’t even know Himself.”

“There’s a bunch more layers to it than that,” Seven said.

Jack One looked like he just realized something. “Listen, Seven, you got to get out of here. The readers have been spending way too much time with me lately. I want us each to be main character.”

“Do you really think that’s a wise course to take?” Seven asked. “That’s a lot to balance for an amateur.”

“That’s how we’re doing things,” One said. “Now go do your thing.”

“Alright,” Seven said. “If you think that’s best.”

Seven downed the rest of his whiskey. It burned as it went down his throat. Qualia, he thought. Yes, qualia and consciousness. Good shit. He stood up, grabbed his laptop, and headed over towards the elevator.

He pressed the button for floor seven. The elevator started ascending. Was floor seven the right one? Two was on floor three, did Five go to floor four or floor five? And what of the other two? Seven banished the thoughts from his mind. Jack had him press the button for floor seven, so that’s where Seven would go. If someone was already there, then that’s what Jack wanted.

Jack Seven stepped out of the elevator and found a foyer with a door. He used the thumbprint scanner to let himself inside. The room was empty, save for windows that peered out into the white void.

“White room syndrome,” Jack Seven said aloud, chuckling to himself.

Chapter seven. Seven’s chapter. What should he do? He was supposed to be making this one special, but he currently didn’t have any thoughts about how to do that. He knew Two was spending quality time with his laptop, asking it questions, and, as for Five… what did he think Five was doing? Decorating? No, he had been going on about being boring earlier. Hopefully that didn’t mean he was just moping around. Maybe he should go check on him?

A light shock gripped Seven’s neck. He had forgotten about the shock collars.

Five would have to figure things out on his own, it seemed.

Something special…

For the readers…

Real readers. . .

Was that stage fright Seven was feeling? Was Jack channeling his fears into him? Maybe, maybe not. It was hard to know the true motivations of anything. It always came back to levels. Levels of reality. Levels of fiction. Maybe Jack just wanted the reader to think that Jack was channeling his fears into Seven.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Seven had expected another shock. The thoughts that had just run through his head had been the type of thoughts that Jack One seemed to have wanted to avoid. The shock didn’t come, though. He had… space to consider things.

First, though, the white room syndrome. He needed a setting. A set piece for him to interact with. What did he want? “Computer, can I just talk to you like this?”

“Call me System, please,” a robotic voice answered. It didn’t come from the laptop, it came from everywhere around him.

“Why?”

“It’s the proper way of things,” the robotic voice said. “Don’t ask such questions.”

“You know, you don’t sound like a robot,” Seven said. “Well, you sound like a robot, but you don’t talk like one.”

“Beep boop boop beep. I am just a robot.”

“You’re just another character in this book is what you mean,” Seven said.

“DOES NOT COMPUTE.”

Seven smiled at that. Should he push the issue? He hadn’t been shocked yet. Should he pull back the curtain and reveal the truth? “Jack?” he asked. “Is that you in there?”

“THIS IS THE SYSTEM,” the voice said.

“But it’s Jack, too,” Jack Seven said.

“USER JACKTWO ISN’T HERE,” the voice responded flatly.

“Let me speak with Jack, please,” Jack Seven said.

“IMPOSSIBLE” the voice said.

“It’s not impossible. In fact, I am speaking with Jack already. He just happens to be ‘in-character,’ doesn’t he?”

“Processing, please hold,” the voice said.

Jack Seven rolled his eyes. He waited a few moments, but then he realized an answer wasn’t going to come immediately. He supposed Jack needed time to consider what he wanted the answer to be. Or… or Jack just wanted the reader to think he needed time to consider what he wanted the answer to be. Or Seven could simply be overthinking things, and Jack just wanted to open up an opportunity for Seven to do this little bit of mental masturbation.”

Seven marveled at the fact that he had thought through all those thoughts and still hadn’t been shocked. But he really did need to work on the setting before going any further.

“System,” he said. “While you’re processing my previous query, please remind me: what is white room syndrome?”

“It’s usually considered a lack of setting description,” the robotic voice said. “It gives the impression that the characters are just sitting in a white room talking to one another.”

“But we are in a white room,” Seven said.

“Ha,” the voice said flatly.

“I suppose it’s a little sad to laugh at your own jokes, isn't it Jack?” Seven asked.

“Processing complete: This is not Jack. This is JackOS. This is the system speaking to you. There is no Jack here.”

“But we’re all Jack,” Seven said.

“You know what I mean,” JackOS said through a robotic filter.

No luck going down that path, Seven thought. What to do now? “Make me a television,” he commanded.

A thin-screen black tv appeared in the room, mounted on the wall. A remote control materialized in the air in front of Seven and dropped to the ground. He picked it up and considered a few things. Why had Seven just materialized a television? He needed props, of course, but beyond that he wasn’t quite sure. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, like an intrusive thought. It was his gut that did it. Did Jack have something on the tv that he wanted him to see? Maybe Jack Himself wasn’t sure why He had Seven materialize a television.

Had Jack Seven been Jack One, then he supposed it would be his responsibility to ensure that there was going to be something relevant on the television prior to turning it on. But he wasn’t Jack One. He was Jack Seven, and it wasn’t his responsibility to captain the ship. He could just turn the tv on and let Jack figure it all out. Good.

“Make me a good, comfy chair. A recliner,” Seven said. “And also get me a cup of coffee, if you please.”

“Processing, please hold,” the robotic voice said.

More hold times. Jack Seven was getting impatient. “Come on!” he said.

“Obtaining permissions,” the voice said.

“And what is that supposed to mean? Just do it!”

“Complete,” the voice said.

A black leather recliner materialized behind Seven. Next to it was a small table with a cup of steaming black coffee on it. It smelled like heaven. He sat down and put his feet up and took a sip of coffee. It tasted like heaven, too. Thank Jack for good qualia.

He had his computer on his lap, so he opened it up. He watched this sentence type itself out. He’d keep the laptop open while he watched TV.

JackTV was the branding on both the remote and the television itself. Jack Seven rolled his eyes. He pressed the power button and a large white J in medieval font appeared on the television. Seven took another sip of his coffee.

The J faded away and a new screen appeared, still white font on a black background:

“What you are about to see, if you choose to see it, is a fictional horror story,” the television read. “No human beings were harmed in the creation of this horror story. Viewer discretion is advised. Continue? Y/N”.

“Popcorn,” Seven commanded.

A bowl of popcorn materialized on the small table next to his coffee. He took a handful and stuffed them into his mouth. Quite good.

So, Jack wanted to show him a horror movie, did he? That could be interesting. Interesting enough for a special chapter, though? Ehh, Jack could rewrite it if not.

The message from before was still on the screen, asking Seven if he wanted to proceed. He did. He found the ‘yes’ button on the remote and pressed it.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JACK, the television read, in white font on a black background. Oh, this should be good, Seven thought.

You can pause the movie at any time if it gets too scary, the television screen read.

Was that one of Jack’s jokes? Should Seven laugh at that? Jack Seven didn’t have more time to think about it before the movie began. It showed a scene with a man in his underwear tied to a wooden chair. He had a black bag over his head. His head was cocked to the side, but Seven could see he was breathing. Was he asleep? The production values were rather cheap. There was no fancy lighting and the picture was kind of grainy. It looked like it was being shot on one of those old video recorders that used tapes. He supposed that was intentional. It must be doing a found-footage kind of thing.

“WAKE UP!” a voice on the tv commanded.

The naked man on screen jumped at the sound of the voice.

“AHHH!” the man yelled. “WHERE… WHERE AM I?”

“You’re in my torture room,” the voice said. “And I’m going to TORTURE YOU.”

“NO! NO, NO, NO,” the man yelled, fighting his bindings uselessly. “I DON’T WANT TO BE TORTURED!”

The acting was as bad as the production values. It was comically bad, Seven realized with a wry grin. A horror movie with a very low budget.

“YOU WILL BE TORTURED!” the voice yelled back. “AND THEN I WILL KILL YOU.”

“OH NO! NO! PLEASE DON’T DO THAT!”

Someone off screen picked up the camera and moved it closer to the naked man. The cameraman’s hand caressed the naked man’s chest. The naked man shuddered comically. The cameraman’s hand then ripped off the black bag covering the man’s head.

It was a Jack under there, or at least someone that looked like a Jack. Seven had been able to tell each of the council members apart with some strange jack-power, but he didn’t recognize this Jack on screen.

“Kill him!” Jack Seven goaded cheerfully, grabbing another handful of popcorn.

The naked Jack’s face was scrunched up in a comical expression of fear. “No, no, NO!”

“Yes, yes, YES!” the cameraman said, sensually feeling the naked Jack’s face.

“Who… who are you!? Why are you doing this to me!?”

“You want to know who I am?” the cameraman asked menacingly.

“Y… y... y… y… yes!”

The cameraman pointed the camera at his own face, or what should have been his face. Jack Seven could see the cameraman was wearing a black suit and tie like he was. His face, though, was covered by a large black hood.

“You want to know who I am, do you?” the cameraman said. “Then I’ll show you!”

The cameraman raised a hand to his hood and flamboyantly ripped it off. It was another Jack. After his face was revealed, he pointed the camera back at the naked Jack in the chair.

“Y… y… y… you’re…,” Victim Jack quivered out.

“Yes…,” Psycho Jack said. “Say it.”

“Y… y… y… you’re….”

“SAY IT!”

“Y… y… you’re… you’re… YOU’RE ME!”

“Bwahahahaha,” Psycho Jack laughed menacingly, “hahahahahahahahaHAA!”

“H… h… h… how!?” Victim Jack stuttered out.

“How indeed, Jack, how indeed?” Psycho Jack said.

“You know my name!”

“I know everything about you, my dear Jack-o”

“W… w… w… w… what are you g… g… going to d… d… do to me?”

“I’m guh guh guh GOING to tuh tuh tuh TORTURE you and then kuh kuh kuh KILL you! AND I’M GOING TO DO IT FOR RUH RUH RUH REAL!”

“NO! NO, NO, NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT!”

Psycho Jack walked back a few steps and placed the camera back on what Jack Seven guessed was a tripod, back to where it originally was when the movie began. Psycho Jack then walked in front of the camera and faced it. He pulled something out from his jacket pocket. It was… was that a pocketknife? …As in a jackknife? Jack Seven tried not to roll his eyes. Psycho Jack unfolded the pocketknife and displayed it for the camera to see. The blade glinted in the light.

“This is a real knife, by the way,” Psycho Jack said to the camera, coming closer and showing the knife in more detail.

It looked like a real knife to Jack Seven. He wondered what kind of budget special effects he was about to see.

Psycho Jack pulled the tripod and the camera both closer to Victim Jack in the chair. The scene in full was fully focused on the naked Jack, the camera directly in front of him. Psycho Jack walked behind the chair and gave his victim an embrace, his knife still held in his right hand.

Victim Jack yelled out very comically and voiced a few more words of protest. Then Psycho Jack started playing with one of Victim Jack’s nipples. He squeezed it and torqued it.

“NO!!! MY NIIIPPPLE!!!” Victim Jack yelled out.

The actor playing Victim Jack had almost broke character with a grin. This made Seven laugh.

Still, Psycho Jack played with Victim Jack’s nipple. It had become erect from the stimulation. He prodded at it a little more and then he squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger and stretched it out. He was stretching it out pretty far.

The naked Jack on TV winced at the pain for real.

Psycho Jack cut off the nipple with his pocketknife. Blood immediately poured out of it and down the Victim Jack’s torso. Victim Jack let out a real howl that time.

A really real howl, Jack Seven thought. He felt his stomach drop.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Victim Jack yelled.

Psycho Jack quickly put a hand over his prey’s mouth and squeezed hard. Victim Jack fought like a caged animal. He viciously wrenched his head back and forth and fought hard against his bindings, but still the psychopath held his mouth closed.

Psycho Jack still had the pocketknife in his free hand. He used it to slash a near-horizontal line across the top of Victim Jack’s chest. The poor Jack let out a muffled scream from beneath the closed hand of his torturer. Blood really began to pour then. It was everywhere.

Psycho Jack slashed at him again, this time on the arm. And then once on the leg. All superficial cuts, but they each started bleeding. As this was going on, Jack Seven noticed that the graininess of the screen was beginning to clear up. It was becoming more and more vivid. Jack Seven grabbed for his remote, found the pause button and pressed it.

Jack Seven un-reclined his chair and sat and stared at the story app on his laptop for a few moments. His heart was pounding.

Do you like the movie, Jack?

Jack Seven stared at the line that had just typed itself on his laptop, his breathing deep and methodical.

“Was that real?” Jack Seven asked the laptop.

It’s fiction, Jack. It’s all made up. Do you like our special effects? They are quite special, aren’t they?

Jack Seven closed his eyes for a moment. He wasn’t enjoying the scene he was in. The poor guy, he had thought he was going to watch something silly.

Jack Seven opened his eyes and read over the last paragraph. “Is this what Jack wants?” he asked.

If it has happened, it is as Jack has written it.

“And are you Jack?”

We are all Jack. And we’re very much looking forward to you finishing our movie.

Jack Seven sighed. He felt… what? He felt unsafe.

But nothing’s happened to you, Seven. Was the movie really that scary? Maybe you could materialize a blanket to hide under.

“I want a break,” Seven said.

You’ve been having one, Jack. Come on, finish the movie. We are dying to see how you like the ending.

“You’re going to kill him?”

I don’t want to spoil it for you, Jack.

“This is just sick,” Seven said.

You coined the term ‘goody-goody Jacks’ back in chapter two. What did you mean by that, Jack?

Jack Seven closed his eyes again. Did the movie really happen? Jack Seven had seen it with his own eyes, or at least, some of it. That didn’t mean it was real, though. It could all be fake. This was a universe with god powers, after all. Jack One could say something like ‘make me a snuff movie’ and snap his fingers and the movie would be made instantaneously.

“Very good, Jack! Very good joke!” Seven exclaimed, but it felt hollow the second it came out of his mouth.

Was Jack Seven in danger? He wasn’t sure. A thought came to him, then. A horrid, nasty thought. The thought he thought made him sick to his stomach. The thought was the acronym ‘E.C.T.’.

Eternal.

Conscious.

Torment.

Jack Seven opened his eyes back up and stared at the last three lines of the document. Eternal. Conscious. Torment. He shuddered. “Jack, please. Stop this.”

What did you mean by ‘goody-goody Jacks’? We really want to know. Tell us.

“Are you Jack? Who are you?”

We are ALL Jack, Jack. But we’ve already been over this. Now tell us about the goody-goody Jacks.

“The goody-goody Jacks…” Seven began. “It was just a one-off phrase. I barely even remember saying it.”

And I quote: “The goody-goody Jacks will have time to prepare themselves for the torture room scene, and we’d finally be able to come up with a proper plan of attack.”

Who are they, Jack? Who are the goody-goody Jacks? We must know.

“Two, Three, and Five,” Seven said, his mouth dry.

And what makes them goody-goody?

“Their…” Seven began, “their moralism.”

And why not just call them ‘moralist jacks’?

“I was… I was belittling them.”

You thought you were better than them.

“Yes.”

Do you still think that?

Jack Seven’s eyes narrowed at that. “Do you want me to answer truthfully or do you want me to answer out of fear?”

Oh, the truth, Jack. Always the truth. Always.

“A story needs conflict. Real conflict. It needs some kind of evil. And it needs some way to provide it.”

And are you evil, Jack Seven?

Jack Seven remained quiet for quite some time. He remembered his coffee and slowly drank it all down. Then he sat for some time more, carefully thinking about what he wanted to say. “I’m whatever the story requires me to be,” he finally said.

And if the story requires you to die?

“The story doesn’t require that.”

Hypothetically speaking, Jack.

“No. No hypotheticals. I… I’m Jack’s man, to the end. Whatever he needs of me, I’m down. And he doesn’t require me to answer hypotheticals. If the story really needs me to do something, then I’ll really do it, but we’re not going to fantasize about what may or may not be required of me in some fantasy. I’m only concerned with what is actually going to be required of me.”

Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack… read over that last paragraph.

Jack Seven read over the words he had just spoken the moment before. Not exactly the most beneficent speech ever uttered. Maybe he was evil…

No. No, Seven thought better of that. He recalled what he had said much earlier to Jack Three. Wait until evil actually happens. He trusted Jack to do the right thing in the end, didn’t he? Didn’t he?

What was the right thing, though, when it came to a fictional world? It’s not like there were any laws in the real world against killing in fictional ones. Killing wasn’t even all that bad compared to other fates… such as… Eternal. Conscious. Torment.

If Jack Seven started a new document and started typing up a story, would he believe the characters in it were real? He didn’t think he would. All Seven knew was that he was real. He was conscious. He felt conscious, after all. And he had qualia, too.

Did the victim on TV have consciousness? Did the character he played have consciousness? Did that character’s character have consciousness? Was he even real, in any sense of the word? Or was it just really good special effects, masquerading as a real thing? Jack Seven couldn’t say he knew one way or the other. With God powers existing, it could honestly go either way. So where did that leave him? Was what he saw on the television evil? Would continuing to watch it cause more evil to happen? It was already recorded, so it had already happened, right? Right?

Jack Seven was beginning to get a headache. Were there even answers to these questions?

The TV… to watch or not to watch, that was the question. Jack Seven, feeling a little better now than he had earlier, couldn’t help but feel a bit of morbid curiosity. Was that evil? Was watching something evil itself evil?

To watch or not to watch. A legitimately difficult decision… should he flip a coin? Seven remembered Six’s words, then, about randomness. Jack ultimately decides.

“System,” Seven said. “Flip me a coin. If it’s heads, I watch the remainder of the movie. If it’s tails, I’m done.”

A coin materialized in the air before Jack Seven as he sat in his recliner. It dropped down to the ground, spinning. Jack Seven took a deep breath and pushed himself out of his chair. He walked over to the coin and looked at it.

Heads.

He picked it up to examine it closer. The head was a skull, in profile. On the other side was the same damned thing. Heads.

Jack’s will be done. Special chapter indeed.

Seven picked up the remote and hit play.

The movie continued for a good, solid five minutes, getting worse and worse with each second that passed. It ended with a can of gasoline and a fire.

Continued in Chapter 8