As I raced to undo what might have been the biggest mistake of my life (or death), all I could think about was a simple question.

What do you do when you are missing information?

Over the past months, both in and outside of storylines, I had been asking myself that question constantly.

The tutorial, if that was even the real name for the obstacle course that we had been run through, had felt like walking through mud blindfolded with only faint whispers that we were making progress. I latched on to whatever details I could that made me feel like I was actually accomplishing something.

What was the plot of the tutorial?

Looking back at it, it was a fractured timeline resulting in a time loop. How many times had I seen that in a movie or television show? It was a classic setup that allowed storytellers to do absurd things without ever having to stick to any sort of grounded rule set.

Time was broken and so were the rules. Have fun.

It was a simple enough plot, though, as Isaac had said; it was weird the Paragons didn’t just tell us that was what was going on. They were “unscripted” right?

As we explored the Centennial, the true sequence of events was laid out for us. That was a key element of a fractured timeline story. The character always has to know what a fixed timeline looks like.

The Geist family all died in 1984 in a Manor fire caused by the Die Cast, a spirit of vengeance. They all died horrific deaths that night, except of course, for Lillian Geist and her uncle Jedediah. Jedediah, seeing Lillian’s injuries from the fire, had enlisted the help of a mad scientist by the name of Halle. That scientist transformed her into a monster. Eight years later, in 1992, Lillian Geist escaped the mad scientist, returned to her uncle, and murdered him with a fire poker as a thank-you for her transformation.

We summoned his spirit once for a chat.

She returned to the mad scientist and his sedatives. She lived that way until 1995 when she once again broke free from the mad scientist and killed him before following him into the afterlife in the jaws of a giant killer frog.

I knew that to be the truth. I had seen it with my own eyes in the second storyline. I even had a hand it helping it happen.

But there were conflicting reports on the death of Lillian Geist. This was another staple of broken timeline stories—a paradox.

When we met Ramona, the first thing she told us about was how this woman, a woman that we knew to be Lillian Geist, had been killed in 1992 at the original Centennial. We knew that was an impossibility.

But, I was overcome with relief because I finally knew there was a paradox: Lillian Geist had two canon deaths. That simply was not possible.

I knew, that this paradox was the reason for the time loop. It had to be.

We knew how the time loop was accomplished behind the scenes. Ramona Mercer had been initiating a storyline that took place the day before the Centennial. She had done this every day on repeat for an unfathomable amount of time, granting her a very long life, to say the least, and plunging Carousel into a time loop where the days moved forward but the events stayed the same.

Carousel never got to see its Centennial again, and as time passed, the ridiculousness of this scenario began to cause problems.

Somehow, her not being a player allowed her to fill this role without getting killed. It was like she was placed there for us to find.

Was she another paradox?

I had no idea. I wouldn’t for a long time.

Ramona was one of a dozen things I could not reconcile about this Tutorial.

The arbitrariness of what happened between storylines, the unhelpful answers from the Paragons, and their constant positive reinforcement, all ate at me. Every time I expressed my doubts, they patted us on the back and told us what a good job we were doing.

At what? The storylines were a pain and a half, but most of our efforts were like jogging in a train—it didn’t matter how fast we ran, we weren't really the ones driving.

But of course, I ignored my doubts because what other options did we have?

A time capsule buried during the original Centennial was dug up every single day, and no one knew how it got there. This was classic broken timeline shenanigans. It was an artifact from the true version of events.

Fixing the paradox of Lillian Geist's two deaths was something I could really sink my teeth into, so I embraced it with all my heart.

The paradox was the problem, and I knew the solution. Make sure the timeline went according to plan. Lillian Geist was supposed to die by a frog bite in 1995, not be beheaded by a rusted piece of metal in 1992.

Saving her from the Die Cast was the solution. I fixated on it, and I focused on it, and I devoted every single piece of myself toward it.

It wasn't until I died and suddenly the Paragons’ veil of influence lifted away from my mind like chewing gum being scraped from the inside of my skull that I started to question if “forward” really was the only direction we could go.

Moonlight Morrow gave us some vague comments to chew on, but ultimately, the realization that our free will had been manipulated was a chilling dagger to my spinal cord. Choice was a common theme of Carousel. The illusion of choice was all around, but magical manipulation felt different.

It scared the daylights out of me.

So I returned to the questions I had been asking: What do you do when you are missing information?

The tutorial was odd, but if there was some horrible consequence to fixing the paradox and obtaining the “true ending” I didn’t know what it was.

Faced with a choice of continuing down the path we had been tricked into or just destroying it all, the choice was easy. There was a chance that the heavy-handedness by the Paragons was perfectly normal, and we were blowing up our best chance at beating the throughline and leaving Carousel.

It was possible, but the one thing we knew about the tutorial was that you could repeat it and try again.

Heck, I didn’t even know how obtaining the true ending could be a bad thing, except for the fact that we were manipulated into doing it.

I knew in my soul that if we were going to beat Carousel, we weren't going to do it blindfolded, so the decision was simple.

We would ensure that we did not achieve the true ending. We would not fix the paradox. We would not march blindly toward whatever end we were approaching.

How we were going to accomplish that, after having worked so hard to keep Lillian Geist alive, I had no idea.

It didn’t matter. We had to try and I was thrilled because whatever resulted from ruining the true ending, it would be a choice we made.

And that had to matter.

~-~

Kimberly and the monstrous Lillian were back Off-Screen for a moment.

Before I could even yell with Flashback Revelation, Kimberly pointed to the Die Cast and said something.

Why did she have to have such a high Moxie?

On-Screen.

Lillian looked confused at first. She saw the buildings and booths around the Centennial burning, and the fire reflected in her crazed eyes.

Suddenly, she understood.

“You!” she screamed. “It’s you.”

My Deathwatch screen on the red wallpaper flashed back. There was some fancy editing between shots of Lillian lying on the floor of the burning Mansion staring up and the Die Cast in that same mansion. It gave the impression that she had seen him on the day the manor burned, even though she didn’t really.

The Lillian Scorned Contingency was working.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Lillian Geist was no longer the gasping young woman who had been burned in the Manor Blaze. It had been eight years for her. Eight years of mutation and experimentation. What remained of her was a true force to be reckoned with. She was almost as high of Plot Armor as the Die Cast. With her tropes, she was even stronger, at least physically.

Of course, there was a catch. She was only strong against enemies who had harmed her in the past. Her fragile psyche prevented her from being a real threat to the average passerby.

But the Die Cast was not a passerby. The Die Cast had burned her.

“You killed my family,” she screamed. “You did this to me!”

The wriggling worms that had been grafted onto her face writhed and rattled to punctuate her scream. She was no longer human, and she meant to prove it.

She attacked.

Her A Woman Scorned trope must have activated because her Plot Armor jumped up seven points.

“You’re the reason they did this to me!” she screamed as she tackled the Die Cast to the ground. “I’m a monster because of you!”

The Die Cast tried to throw her, but she grabbed his arm and, with screaming effort, snapped it backward.

The roided-up monster Lillian might have been a real contender.

Everything was doomed. We were too late.

The Die Cast eventually managed to throw Lillian back into Dina.

Dina had been trying to help her ghostly husband regain control of his old body. They had been making real strides.

Dina landed on the ground. She seemed fine, but one of the long, smoky tendrils of the spirit controlling the Die Cast reached up to a large hit-the-ball game. Suddenly I heard a bolt snap.

The entire tower with the bell at the top fell to the ground.

With a loud, dinging sound, Dina’s head was flattened.

She was dead.

That wasn’t good. We wanted Lillian dead and the Die Cast defeated. It looked like we would have the opposite.

Gale screamed out at the sight of Dina’s death, losing whatever control he had over his old body. Without Dina’s sweet nothings, he was ejected off his body and the spirit reigned once again.

Lillian was all that stood against him.

She and the Die Cast squared off.

I hoped the Die Cast could kill her with some combination of brute force and bad luck, but I had forgotten that Lillian had the trope called Animals are Psychic, which gave her preternatural instincts.

She could dodge any bad luck that came her way.

A propane tank zoomed through the air like a missile. She dodged it. She ran on all fours and jumped twenty feet in the air.

An electric go-cart from the go-cart track zoomed by with no driver and sparks flying out of its motor. It had no chance of hitting her.

Luckily, the Die Cast was not without his own physical prowess. He managed to catch her in the side of the head with his lead pipe when she was dodging a live wire that danced around on the ground.

The pipe hit her with a loud, satisfying thwack.

The Die Cast was on her. His hands were around her throat. She had broken his arm, but he was undead and the tendrils of the spirit of vengeance made him practically invincible.

She wasn’t down, but things were looking hopeful.

And then, I heard the snarling.

A large dog, a great beast, jumped from nowhere and clamped down on The Die Cast’s arm.

The dog was dragging on him with force and power. The Die Cast had to let go of Lillian.

He couldn’t shake the dog. That wasn’t surprising.

The dog, after all, was undead.

Bobby jogged into view moments later.

On-Screen.

He stood next to me and said, “A few years ago, a home invader shot one of my dogs. Thought I would pay him a visit.”

And then it hit me.

Bobby’s license.

It gave him the right to use the Coles’ dogs from the Permanent Vacancy storyline. It never said it only applied to the living ones. One of them had been ghost-zombified when Bradley Spiers killed it.

If there was any storyline where a ghost dog could get some play, it was this one.

The dog held the Die Cast’s attention absolutely.

Bobby and I went Off-Screen.

He smiled at me, obviously proud of his impressive improvisation.

What a terrible moment for Bobby to save the day. For a moment, I almost scolded him for bringing in a ghost dog he hadn’t setup in the story previously, but I realized quickly that our final score was irrelevant.

Dina reappeared, this time as a ghost, hand in hand with Gale, her movie husband’s spirit.

Together, they worked to free Gale’s body from the spirit that bound it. In a bit of luck, Dina was almost more useful as a ghost.

She and her love interest made tear-filled goo-goo eyes and held each other as they attempted to fight off the tendrils of the Die Cast.

Lillian clawed at the body. The dog was nearly ripping his arm off.

We were winning. That was good.

Lillian was going to survive. That was bad.

On the red wallpaper, I saw, to my horror, Antoine and Cassie (who was having trouble breathing from some old smoke damage she had gotten somewhere).

Roderick Gray was turning tail and running.

They had the flask.

The fresh cement being used to erect the Bartholomew Geist statue next to the now-buried time capsule was still liquid—liquid enough to pour into a flask.

My teammates were about to seal the deal. We were actually doing really well.

Isaac was cackling.

I had to act.

What could I do? I had no lines for Flashback Revelation to describe what needed to happen.

I had one option.

“Bobby!” I screamed.

He looked at me startled by the fact that I wasn’t smiling at our winning efforts.

“Lillian has to die,” I said. “This was all a trick.”

He looked at me like I had three heads.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “She’s supposed to live. To die in the second storyline. That was what this was all about.”

How was I supposed to give him the same revelation Isaac and I had?

I tried my best.

“Remember the Stranger?” I said.

He nodded, still unsure of what I was wanting.

“He told us this was a trap, but we didn’t believe him, not the right way. We thought we knew what he was talking about. He was using that weird trope, you know the one?”

Bobby thought back. I saw confusion spread on his face. He must have been realizing something too. He was a ghost, after all. He fell to his knees.

“Why are you… What does it mean?” he asked. “What is happening with my head?”

“You’re realizing you were under the effect of a trope,” I said. “The true ending to the story is a trap somehow. I don’t know how, but you have to believe me.”

He sat back, dazed, possibly thinking through all of the things that mind-altering trope had caused. How many things had we overlooked because we were forced to doubt this could all be a trap?

The whole Tutorial took on a new light.

“Bobby,” I said. “We don’t have time for this.”

As I spoke, I heard a loud sound accompanied by a blinding light.

The spirit of vengeance, the creator of the Die Cast, had been split from Gale Zaragoza’s body.

Dina and zombie-Gale-possessed-by-Gale were having a weird romantic moment.

We had won. I saw Antoine filling the flask with wet cement to rid us of it for good.

And in doing so, we were going to fail.

“Bobby!” I screamed. “Have your dog kill Lillian before the movie ends. Do it now!”

Bobby shook his head. “I need time to think! I don’t understand.”

“Bobby, you have to trust me!”

Isaac stepped in. “Bobby, if we are wrong, there are no consequences. We know that the Tutorial can be replayed until you get the true ending, but if we are right, we have no idea what might happen to us.”

It was always the strongest argument in the “fail on purpose” plan.

Bobby seemed to think so too.

He stood and called to his dog without speaking.

The ghostly hound stood at attention and looked at his master.

Without hesitation, it jumped at Lillian Geist’s throat.

As it tore her flesh, I really hoped we weren’t wrong about this one.

Lillian was so strong because of her A Woman Scorned trope. That applied to the Die Cast, but not to Bobby’s dog. Her stats dropped when fighting against it.

She screamed in anguish.

Dina and Gale turned and yelled at Bobby.

But it didn’t matter.

Just as the needle on the Plot Cycle clicked over to The End, Lillian fell dead.

~-~

There was a flash of light.

“What did you do, Bobby?” Dina screamed. She was alive again. We had beaten the storyline.

I looked at my hands. Fleshing and alive.

We were out of the storyline. I was back in my hoodie. Oh, how I had missed its soft embrace.

“Don’t yell at him,” I said. “I asked him to.”

From the distance, Antione arrived, confused to see the dead Lillian Geist.

“We failed?” he said. “I thought we were doing well?”

He cursed.

I couldn’t explain it to them all at once. There was one thing I thought that might shine light on things.

“Dina,” I said. “Do you still have that tape you stole from the carriage that picked us up?”

She reached into her purse that she used her luggage tag on.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Have you listened to it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I was tempted a few times, but I could never find a tape player.”

I grabbed the tape from her hands. It was unassuming. Made from white plastic.

Everyone was there with me. They gathered close.

“We were told by Carousel to listen to this tape,” I said. “It was on your stealing trope, remember? It said ‘have fun listening’ or something, right?”

Dina nodded.

“Then, we were told by Constance, the librarian—”

“The Paragon,” Isaac interrupted.

“—that we should not listen to it because Carousel would be angry. We would steal Carousel’s thunder, yada yada. We obeyed because we thought she was smart. Because we trusted her. I think she used some kind of trope to control us. I remember thinking that. Better listen to the smart lady.”

The silence as they considered what I had said was deafening.

“Here,” I said, retrieving my off-brand Walkman. I took out the headphones so that the audio would play out loud. “I think we should listen to it.”

I put the tape in, rewound it all of the way to the beginning, and pressed play.

The tape came to life with a familiar voice. We all listened intently.

~-~

"Greetings. I am Silas Dyrkon, your Narrator through three separate tales of horror that may not be so separate after all.

In the stories I have before you this evening, the people of the town of Carousel are anxiously awaiting its Centennial Celebration. However, time has twisted into a nightmarish loop where all known things become unknown, forcing its residents into a bizarre reality where every day is the day before its anniversary.

As dawn's first light creeps over the horizon, the cursed history of Carousel unravels. A death that was never meant to be has shattered the threads of fate in this humble little town. Now, horrifying lab experiments are lurking beneath the streets, and ghostly apparitions are whispering secrets of the past to the players of a vintage board game. The curse, more than just disembodied magics, is harnessing fate itself and seeks blind revenge, trapping the townspeople in an unending cycle of terror.

At the heart of this mystery lies the enigmatic Geist family, whose darkest day holds the key to breaking the loop. Will Carousel break free from this endless eve or remain forever on the cusp of a celebration that will never come?

Step into the twilight of Carousel, where destiny stands still, horrors lurk beneath the streets, and the eve is eternal.

Welcome to 'The Eternal Eve.'"

Silas’ voice cut out and a polite, well-spoken woman started to speak.

"The Eternal Eve Throughline begins with three bespoke Centennial storylines centered on the Geist Family. With these three stories completed to satisfaction, you will be signed on in the employ of one of Carousel’s most beloved Narrators, Silas Dyrkon. Mr. Dyrkon will send his players on an unguided quest to locate the fabled Missing Geist Storylines.

To join 'The Eternal Eve,' please keep listening after the chime as you make your way to the Carousel Downtown. As always, be sure to keep your eyes peeled as you go because the town you see might not be the one you know.

Now, onto the Featured Throughline!"

A chime rang out.

Then, it started playing the recording we had heard before.

"Ah, good evening, my esteemed guests," boomed Carlyle's voice. It had been so long since I had heard it.

I stopped the tape.

Antoine cursed.

Isaac clapped. “I don’t know what it means, but I am excited.”

In the distance, a robotic voice told us we had won a ticket, but we were not so concerned.