Welcome, Murderer.

I am the jury, juror and executioner - or at least I’m pretty sure that’s how the saying goes - and I welcome you to the trial.

Now, I am immensely grateful that you chose to attend the trial of your own volition - a whole lot of readers will simply not read this chapter and bail.

Perhaps by the wracking guilt, or due to the poor quality of the pages.

Now let us see the bioanalysis results of the corpse by our very own department of forensic sciences.

Hm…

I see…

Welp, it seems that we got something terribly wrong.

Joseph did not die in The Third Chapter.

He died in the first actually. Hm.

But then again, why did you choose to read this novel in the first place?

And why did you read The Third Chapter?

Unless you are one of the few who skipped The Third Chapter and entered the court out of curiosity, you surely believed that you were going to kill Joseph.

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

Was it morbid curiosity? Did you think I was lying?

Of course, I wouldn’t. Everyone lies except me, you should’ve known that by now.

This revelation raises another question… If Joseph died in the first chapter, did you not unintentionally kill him by reading the first chapter?

Accidental Manslaughter or something?

I mean, as I said before, events in fiction don’t happen until you read them due to the interpretative nature of art.

It only matters what you think because you own this novel.

Wait a minute… You don’t own this novel, I do!

But then again, who am I to question your perspective? The truth?

Think of it this way:

When you read a book, you start a film. You can pause the movie, skip forward or rewind.

When you pause, all the characters in the movie stop moving as well and even if character A dies at the end, at the beginning they are alive.

When someone asks you “Is character A dead?”, the answer will depend on at which point you are.

Wait a minute…

If character A is dead, why are they alive to some?

If they are alive, why aren’t they in the end? The final note that rings out to eternity?

Perhaps all events in fiction are true and exist concurrently...

In a novel, you do not have to wait to get from events A to B.

Therefore, event A and B exists at the same time.

Hm.

If events in fiction are true regardless of the reader, then Joseph was dead even before you read the book, because the first chapter already existed before you read it.

Then who killed Joseph?

Did I kill Joseph?