Carousel definitely had a sense of humor. I could appreciate that, but in the end, the joke was always on us.

My feet were wet. I must have left a puddle on the floor from some shower I had hypothetically taken earlier. The water had spread like long, thin fingers as it dribbled across the bathroom floor.

I tried to avoid the little puddles of water as I walked across the room.

The mirror was cleaner than I remembered. There had been little spots of toothpaste from where I had brushed my teeth earlier, and the springy bristles launched spittle all around. Carousel had cleaned that off. Did that mean an NPC had come in here expressly to wipe it down, or did Carousel actually use its vast magical powers for that one?

On either side of the mirror were windows. Beyond them were darkness and shifting shadows from the forest. The phone was resting on the countertop next to the sink. Kimberly was still on the other line in case I needed her insights.

I turned on the water and splashed it on my face. I tried to keep my eyes on the mirror as much as I could without looking like Patrick Bateman. Deep breaths. In and out.

I wished the enemy would just appear soon. The waiting was killing me. To be fair, he might also kill me.

I had to play my part. I was shaving in the middle of the night. How was I supposed to act that out? I was a hotshot director now. How would I tell an actor to do it?

Step One: Feel the scraggly hairs on your face.

Step Two: Look in the mirror. Look at the left side of your face, right side of your face.

Step Three: Shake your head; it’s no good. This hair has to go.

Step Four: Shave.

It felt like something right out of a commercial.

The shaving cream was some kind of designer brand. I didn’t even know there was fancy shaving cream, but as I lathered the cream in the canister against its metal lid with the little brush that was next to it, I found myself with a plethora of perfumed wisps that I painted my silly little goatee with.

And then it was time to cut it off.

The silver razor was high-quality and expensive-looking, but it was also deadly sharp. I had never used a long razor before. I always bought those little plastic shavers from the store. Even in Carousel, I used the cheap options out of habit.

I opened the blade. I swore I could hear ringing in the air, like the sound swords make in samurai movies.

As I studied the blade, I saw him in the corner of my eye, standing at the edge of the forest. My hands were shaking.

Him. The man of the hour. The undead, hulking figure straight out of a nightmare.

He was tall. I knew that from the POV cam, but even from up on the second story, he looked giant next to a little ornamental tree that was in my character’s backyard.

It was like how Ramona had described. He was covered in twisted, rusted metal. Of course, it wasn’t enough to hinder his movement, but it singed the clothing he wore and gave him the look of a man who had just survived a nuclear meltdown.

Except he surely was not alive. Part of his face had melted away. Even by the moonlight, it was gruesome. I could see his metal-covered teeth through a hole where his cheek used to be.

When did he get the metal augmentations? Was it from when the Geist Factory burned down around him? Or had he gotten this from the supposed accident that took his life?

It didn’t matter. I looked at his tropes on the red wallpaper.

Gale Zaragoza

is

The Die Cast (Spirit of Vengeance)

Plot Armor: 32

__________

Tropes

Quick Between Sets

When moving Off-Screen from one shooting location to the next, this enemy’s Hustle will double.

No Neighborhood Watch

The villain will not be seen by NPC witnesses when off-screen

Anyone Can Die

This enemy operates under a chilling rule: no character is safe. Whether it's because this film is a rule-breaking reboot or a narrative without a true protagonist, this enemy can target or kill any character without ceremony or hesitation.

Checking it Twice

This enemy has a set of tasks they must accomplish. They will be buffed in all relevant stats when trying to complete them.

Self-Sharpener

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Any weapon that could conceivably be described as bladed will be unrealistically sharp based on the enemy’s Mettle.

Genie out of the Bottle

This enemy has been set free. The longer they are free, the more powerful and/or free willed they will become.

Not Yours to Control

Characters who encounter this being’s power will misunderstand it in their attempts to harness it, to disastrous ends.

Huge Special Effects Budget

All of this enemy’s actions are larger, more destructive, and more cinematic than makes sense in universe because the director loves a spectacle.

Adaptable Lore

This enemy’s abilities adapt to the story they are in and are liable to change from film to film.

Enemy POV

At all times this enemy is stalking prey, players who are not targeted will be able to see its POV on the red wallpaper. Can cause Incapacitation from fear.

He Always Comes Back

This enemy can be killed. For a while.

Dark Aura

This being has an aura with wide-ranging affects, from fear to some combination of status ailments. Bypasses stats on first exposure.

Just Your Luck

This enemy does not have to kill players directly. It can cause bad luck with a curse or similar power that leaves players dead by a bad roll of the dice.

Just as I feared. He had the ability to cause bad luck. The POV view of him walking through the factory had been enough to make that assumption. His Just Your Luck trope was a worst-case scenario. Normally, I wouldn’t expect Carousel to accept an indirect kill. It was a rare type of kill in a horror film. It wasn’t personal enough most of the time.

The Die Cast had no such limitation. I could die from any old accident right now.

Oh.

There was wet bathroom tile behind me. I had dragged the phone cord through it. The phone didn’t draw enough power to kill me, did it? Or would it matter? The Die Cast tropes seemed to imply a sparkly electrocution might be exactly what the “director” ordered.

My hand trembled. I had to keep moving. If I let it be shown that I saw him, my only protection from him might be blown. He had the Anyone Can Die trope that the Mercer Poltergeist had. I had briefly determined that Oblivious Bystander worked against that trope, as OB didn’t actually prevent me from being targeted; it just delayed the dastardly deed.

The silver blade was so sharp.

I touched the blade to my skin. One bump, one slip, and this blade would conveniently find its way into my jugular.

Why had I done this? So I could see his tropes? I hoped it was worth it.

I needed to calm my hands.

I put the razor down on the counter and closed it. I wasn’t risking it. I didn’t care if I lost all of the performance points in the world. Knowing a bad luck tornado was outside my window, I couldn’t force myself to shave with that death trap of a razor without any practice.

I preferred my deaths to be violent, not accidental, thanks.

“Why did I buy this thing?” I said. “I must have been nuts.”

I walked calmly back toward a shelving unit and opened it. A pack of disposable razors was sitting on a shelf at eye level. How convenient.

“There we go,” I said.

Play it for comedy, play it for comedy.

I took a razor out of the pack (5 for 79 cents) and went back to the mirror.

I shaved off my ratty little goatee quickly.

A few splashes of water later and a wipe down with a towel, I was good to go.

Off-Screen.

As soon as I opened my eyes after wiping off my face, a screen appeared on the red wallpaper. It was a POV from The Die Cast. He was walking away.

Thank goodness. I told Kimberly what had happened to bid her goodnight.

I lived to die another day or maybe later that day, whichever came first.

~-~

“Riley?” Ramona called from downstairs.

“Are you okay?” I asked promptly.

I walked over to the staircase and peered down it.

She was crying.

“I just… There was this feeling that I can’t describe,” she said. “I remember that feeling. Maybe it was a nightmare…”

I walked down the stairs.

“No,” I said. “The Die Cast was outside earlier. You felt its aura.”

“It was here?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s gone now. You okay?”

She nodded.

I didn’t know how much comforting was normal. I decided to go to the kitchen instead. I had stolen an entire sub sandwich from Craft Services. It was one of those multiple-foot-long sandwiches. I had been eating on it for days.

When I opened the fridge, it was gone.

The time skip. I hadn’t been around for a week because Carlyle Geist was on vacation. The sandwich was gone and replaced by a rotisserie chicken on a plate with aluminum foil over it.

I hadn’t put it there.

While I pondered if it was safe to eat, I noticed that Ramona was still standing by.

“You okay?” I asked again.

She nodded.

“Something you want to talk about?”

She hesitated for a moment.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked. “I thought I was saving Phoebe, but what do we do after? If Carousel is what you say, why bother? If this place is really hell, how is death worse?”

Those were the types of thoughts I like to push out of my head.

I needed her to keep her head straight. The fact was I had been plagued by similar questions for months. Anna and Camden had been killed, but they hadn’t been attacked by ghosts or mutated frogs. They hadn’t been subjected to the uncomfortable strangeness of an awakened Carousel that made the off-putting ambiance of Camp Dyer look cheery. They could be done.

Why rescue anyone if it only means more of this?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I have to believe that there is something after. Something worth being alive for. You want your sister around for that, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer at first.

“I think I want to save her because it’s my fault she died. She wanted to leave Lillian Geist and escape. If I hadn’t forced her to stay… I don’t know where she would be.”

Silas Dyrkon had explained to her how they hadn’t planned to kill her sister when making the Throughline or whatever.

“You can take anything that man told you and throw it out,” I said. “The only reason he would tell you that is to manipulate you. If you feel guilty, he can trick you into helping him. It’s that simple.”

“I think it was my fault, too,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what he said. I was there. Everyone else who ran lived.”

I didn’t even know if her sister was really dead. From the sound of her story, her sister could very well have been an NPC. For all I knew, Phoebe Mercer had been the NPC who wiped the spittle off my mirror so it would be clean for my scene earlier. How could I say that to Ramona, though? She had not fully pieced together that Phoebe was likely connected to the script or understood the implications of it.

“I’m sorry. I can understand how you want to save her. I guess what you can tell yourself is that it’s her choice of whether to be a part of this world. You can’t choose for her. Give her the chance to live, and then let her decide whether it’s worth it.”

She had transferred to a little chair in a nook near the dining room while we talked. I followed her, leaving the rotisserie chicken behind.

It started to rain. We sat and watched the drops flow over the giant windows of the dumb modernist house my character called home.

“I know your friends are dead,” she said. “Why do you want to rescue them?”

“They’re my oldest friends,” I said. For a long time, my only friends. I was never good at talking about it.

“Is it your fault they died?” she asked. “Wait, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out how I meant for it to.”

I didn’t mind her asking. It was clearly a subject she had been thinking about for a long time.

“Not them, no,” I said.

I laid down on a long bench that was like a Victorian fainting couch but way too long.

We talked for hours until we fell asleep. The needle on the Plot Cycle ticked so close to First Blood that I expected someone to die any minute, but when I woke up the next morning, it still hadn’t come.