I got dressed for my last day as a director. Because this would surely be my last day. First Blood was upon us. It was so close I could feel it in my skin like static electricity. With this enemy, death could come from anywhere.

All I could think about was the person who I knew was going to die today—Carlyle Geist.

I felt so ashamed of my role in his death. I was also embarrassed by how much dread I had. I needed to be stronger than this. Carlyle was as much a victim as me or anyone else. He might have been even more victimized in a way. At least I stood a fighting chance. I wasn’t kept in the dark (not completely, at least).

Carlyle’s death was a plot device, not even a proper plot beat, despite him likely serving as First Blood or something close to it.

As I picked out the best clothes I could from my character’s closet, I was left with a question I hated to ask: Did Carlyle have to die?

I wanted to be able to swallow my concerns and just move forward. My head told me we couldn’t save him. If Carlyle didn’t die, then there would be no party held in his honor at the Geist Manor. No party meant no fire.

If the Manor Blaze was necessary, then so was Carlyle’s death.

And yet, I felt some part of myself mourning the man. It wasn’t out of raw loneliness in the way I mourned Anna and Camden. It was a soft, tender pain. I liked Carlyle as a friend, and he seemed to like me. He reminded me of my grandfather. We shared a passion for filmmaking. I didn’t even register I had a passion in filmmaking. I thought it was a hobby or an interest, but as I directed my first feature film, I realized it was more than that.

I felt guilt, knowing that if his death were necessary, I would allow it. More than that, I would make sure it happened.

I could put my emotions in my back pocket better than anyone. If he had to die, he would.

----------------------------------------

“Are you sure about this?” Ramona asked as she rode in my passenger seat on the way to the film lot.

“Yes,” I said.

“I just don’t know if I can willingly stand there while that thing kills people,” she said.

I had thought about this for weeks. I didn’t know what Ramona was. I had nothing but educated guesses that all led to different answers.

Calling her an NPC would be accurate in one way but felt wrong in another. Assuming she really did have free will, the fact that she was born in Carousel meant nothing. She was clearly something more. Even Silas Dyrkon treated her differently.

She almost seemed like a player. She talked like a normal person caught in a terrible situation, almost like the Geists, but unlike the Geists, she appeared to have a player poster frame on the red wallpaper. Even without an archetype, she might still have been a player as far as Carousel was concerned.

To me, that explained how she was being treated in this story.

I knew that roles in storylines were assigned based on archetypes more than anything else. The fact that Carousel had not stuck her in a role might simply be caused by her not having one. The way she described just walking out of the storyline if she strayed too far from it might have simply been because, without a role, she was not bound by our rules.

All the same, I knew that First Blood posed a risk to her.

“I understand your reservations,” I said. “But we have to deliver you to the Centennial. If I die at First Blood, and you are still crashing at my character’s place, you might get Written Off because the story will no longer return to that house. You have to come with me.”

“I understand that. What I don’t understand is how you can be so nonchalant about dying,” she said.

“Death is a bummer; I’d rather not do it,” I said. “Is that better?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “That’s a very realistic emotional response to your impending doom.”

“Thanks, I’ve been working on it.”

I drove slowly that morning. I was not in any hurry to get to work.

“Are you sure you’re not an NPC?” she asked. “Maybe the twist is that you aren’t real.”

I laughed.

“Not much of a twist,” I said. “I didn’t do much back in my real life anyway. Might as well be a fake backstory.”

We drove in silence for a few blocks. Then she picked the conversation back up again.

“What’s it like?”

I glanced at her. I could see dread on her face.

“What’s what like? My life before Carousel?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Death.”

Not as bad as nearly dying, I wanted to say. Worse than just getting injured. I thought better of it.

“The pain goes away, and I wake up in a theater watching my friends,” I said. “Really, it kind of depends how I die.”

She chuckled.

“Can I put black eyeliner on you?” she asked. “The casual talk about dying is something only guys in eyeliner did when I was growing up.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I could pull it off. I can’t even play guitar.”

----------------------------------------

“Bobby!” I screamed from across the lot. I had tried just talking loudly, but he was so concerned with his pack of dogs he didn’t hear me.

He had them all on leashes.

The Carousel Atlas discussed how strong Background tropes were for Wallflowers. These tropes were more than casual details; they changed everything about how the Wallflower was cast. In a way, this was limiting because Bobby could only be a veterinarian because of his background.

The bright side was that he really did like those dogs. It was dog tongue therapy and he responded to it well. Those dogs sure seemed to love him, too, the way they looked at him and followed his commands so eagerly.

“There you are,” he said. “I knew you were director, but you haven’t been here all week while we were setting things up.”

“Everyone is spread to the wind,” I said. “I haven’t seen Antoine, Cassie, or Isaac in a month. Kimberly has been with me off and on. I have no idea where Dina is. I haven’t seen a trace of her.”

“This one is so exciting,” he said. “Making a movie. I wonder if you’ll actually get to direct someth—”

He stopped talking as he glanced over at Ramona.

He darted his eyes at Ramona and then back at me as if saying, do you see the person behind you?

“This is Ramona Mercer,” I said. “Ramona, this is Bobby Gill. Resident Wallflower and veterinarian.”

Bobby stuck out one of his hands to shake hers. It would have been more normal if he didn’t have a handful of leashes. Ramona played along and shook his hand.

“Mercer,” he said. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

Bobby wasn’t around when we met some of the Mercers.

I quickly gave him a backstory. Just the cliff’s notes.

“Wow,” he said. “She’s not on the red wallpaper except for that gold frame. She’s not even on the script that I can see. That’s spooky.”

“I’m what’s spooky?” she asked.

Kinda, yeah. There was still a fifty-fifty shot that she was a Carousel infiltrator or something.

“I can’t wait for our scene,” Bobby said. “We’ve been going over it for so long. I got my little stars all trained. They're naturals, you’ll see.”

The fact that the dogs were controlled at least partially by the script mitigated how impressed I was, but still, they were adorable dogs.

“Bobby, we need to talk,” I said.

“Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of the dogs,” he said with a laugh.

He must have been having a good week to be joking around.

“I need to talk about Carlyle Geist,” I said.

“Oh,” Bobby said. “I hear he’s a real scrooge.”

I shook my head. “No, he’s not. The NPCs make stuff up. It’s not true. He’s a nice man.”

“I gotcha,” he said. “He dies today, right?”

“Yep,” I said. “If he has to. I need you to keep an eye on the script. If he doesn’t have to die for the true ending, tell me.”

Bobby seemed to be contemplating what I was saying.

“Well, we know he dies today,” Bobby said. “How can the manor party happen if—”

“I know all that,” I said. “I’m asking you to keep an eye on it. If there is any chance he doesn’t have to die, you tell me. I don’t care if you have to break character a little bit. Tell me.”

“Ok, Riley,” he said. “It’s just my trope doesn’t give me good access to the script. Sometimes, choices fly by, and I miss things. The last time I was able to stare at that part of the script for hours before I had to make a choice, I don’t know if I will be able to see it in time today.”

Bobby could see the script, but only a few lines at a time. Wallflowers had better tropes for script reading; he just had a beginner one. Still, I needed him to try.

“Keep an eye on it,” I said. “Please.”

“I will,” he answered.

I nodded.

He nodded.

We both knew I was hoping for too much. We were not heroes. This was not the kind of story with happy endings.

----------------------------------------

“Kimberly,” I said. “You ready for this?

“Born ready,” she said.

We were talking about the finale of our movie, but also about First Blood of the storyline. It was that close.

“Run through the beats,” I said.

Behind me, Carlyle Geist sat watching from his golf cart. We were in a part of the production lot called “Dreary Street” by the crew. It was a partial replica of a neighborhood built for the sole purpose of filming scenes like the one we were in. It was large, larger than any real-world production company would ever make. The houses were mostly hollow, and yards were purposefully littered with children’s bicycles, lawn gnomes, water sprinklers, and every other bit of suburban decoration I could hope for to dress my movie.

I got the odd urge to find some paintball guns when I looked around it. It would make a great place for that sort of thing.

Carlyle needed his golf cart. Vacation had worn him out. Lots of hiking and swimming.

I had to believe that was intentional. Carousel had sent him to get worn out. He couldn’t be controlled; he could only be positioned in the right spot to die on cue.

“I run through the alley,” she said. “Then he tackles me, trips me up, stabs me in the leg. I reach up and open the gate so the dogs can get out and maul him while I limp away.”

“You got it,” I said. “Now, let’s take it from the top in slow motion. I want to see it in the viewfinder before we start—”

I was interrupted by a loud crash behind me. I turned to see that one of the prop master’s assistants had dropped a large tackle box or tool box or something. All manner of prop knife fell out with a clatter on the floor.

“Sorry,” she said as the quickly picked up all of the knives.

The accidents were starting.

The Die Cast was coming.

My character didn’t know that, though.

Kimberly and the stuntman playing the masked attacker went through their paces. I watched on the monitor and gave notes.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to move forward.

“Action!” I yelled.

Kimberly ran through a narrow alley between tall fences. She was scared and determined. As soon as she got to the end of the alley, she got in view of Bobby’s dogs, who barked and snarled from behind a chain-link fence.

She realized the dogs must have been barking at something. Just in time, she strafed to the right. The killer jumped out from an adjoining alley and missed his big tackle but tripped her. She kicked him in the face and looked up at the large dogs. She got an idea. If she could only reach the gate, she could be safe. She reached for it, but the killer lifted up a knife.

Wait a second!

“Cut!” I scream as urgently and loudly as I can.

The action stopped. Everyone was looking at me.

“What’s the matter,” Carlyle said. “That was perfect. Absolutely perfect!”

I got up from my director’s chair and walked onto the set. Kimberly and the stuntman were still laying on the ground.

I reached down to the knife the man was holding. I felt the cold metal, stuck my finger against the blade, and pressed.

“It’s real!” I screamed, “Someone accidentally mixed up the prop knife with the real one.”

The crowd gasped.

“Are you serious?” Carlyle screamed. He got up from his golf cart and made his way to where I was. I met him halfway. “Quiet the dogs.”

Bobby commanded, “Hush,” and they hushed.

Carlyle took the knife and examined it. He put a hand on my arm to steady himself. “Barny!” he yelled.

The prop master appeared as quickly as he could.

“How on the gods’ green earth did this happen?” he asked more calmly than his face suggested he wanted to.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I sent my assistant over with the knives. They were all in labeled sections.”

“She dropped them earlier,” I said. “She must have gotten them mixed up. I just had this gut instinct.”

“Thank goodness you did,” Carlyle said. “Maybe your grandmother isn’t the only one with the gift.”

I had shared my background with him.

The fact was, real knives did have a place on film sets, especially back in our era. Close-ups of knives would reveal a fake. Rubber knives wobble when moved. Retractable knives have a visible seam where the blade retracts. You needed real ones for some scenes. You just needed a protocol to keep them separated.

Otherwise, you might just have an accident if you got unlucky.

And I knew we were about to be very unlucky.