Arc II, Chapter 22: The Weakness

“The Stranger said this isn’t how this storyline is supposed to go,” I said to Sidney as we walked into the living room. “You seemed surprised with the change.”

“I’ve only played it once when I was brought in through a ticket,” she said as she grabbed one of the remaining chicken tenders from the plate on the counter. “This is the kiddie ride. You watch the ghosts get closer and closer until eventually, you can see the red wallpaper for the first time. No one has to die. No one can leave.” She hungrily devoured the chicken. “Mmm. These aren’t bad.”

“I just followed the instructions on the bag,” Bobby admitted, almost blushing.

“Why is this version different?” Antoine asked. “Why change so many things? Couldn’t the storyline have just scaled to our level? That’s what the Atlas seemed to imply.”

Sidney shrugged her shoulders. “Carousel had a different plan. It couldn’t change the story completely. This storyline is pretty important for the Throughline in an indirect sort of way. It just took the training wheels off because you didn’t need them.”

“Sure,” I said, “Took the training wheels off, slashed the tires, and set the whole thing on fire.”

Sidney nodded in agreement. She was projecting strength, as if all of this didn’t bother her. I didn’t know if I bought it.

“The question remains,” Antoine said, “How are we supposed to beat an enemy who won’t play by the rules?”

“Maybe we don’t,” Sidney answered. She undid her ponytail and redid it, this time tighter. “Maybe Carousel isn’t just playing hardball. Maybe, it actually wants to kill you all.”

She said it so matter-of-factly.

Her statement hit the others like a punch to the gut. I couldn’t afford to think about that possibility.

“Let’s figure out what we know for sure,” I said, “There had to be some way to beat Strander Blake originally before he started going off script. Antoine, what happened with you and Kimberly in the room?”

Antoine thought for a moment. I could see it was painful for him to dredge up the memory. He spent so long pretending not to remember anything that recounting a tragic event was difficult.

“We talked to a spirit who was missing an arm. That spirit left quickly. Didn’t say much. Talked to another spirit. The drowned woman. They kept getting closer and closer until we started hearing laughter. Then an arm stuck out from behind her and threw a flashlight through the window. The next thing I knew there was a struggle and it grabbed Kimberly. I chased after it trying to keep her alive. It went on like that for a while until she… stopped moving and I was all alone.”

Throwing something through the window couldn’t have been in the original storyline, but it might have been in this version.

“That part had to have been scripted,” I said. “Clearly the story was supposed to move outside at First Blood and then back inside at Second Blood. I have no idea how the blue lantern ghost was supposed to fit in.”

“Strander said he wasn’t supposed to grab that one,” Bobby said. “Maybe that guy wasn’t supposed to be part of the story.”

That wasn’t likely. The blue light was mentioned in the rules for the Ten Second Game.

“Not the first time you play, no,” Sidney said. “But eventually he shows up to discourage you from running the storyline too often. Can’t really expand on that, but you’ll understand soon anyway.”

We were supposed to run this storyline multiple times… No doubt to talk to a specific ghost or Geist, rather.

“We don’t have much experience rerunning stories,” Dina said. “Is there something we need to know?”

“The more you rerun the story, the more you learn about it and its different possibilities,” Sidney answered as she plopped down on the couch. “Sometimes there isn’t much to learn, but often there is, even if it’s just a unique version that gets you more experience. Other times, you can find something that’s important, but, again, you’ll figure that out when you get to the next part.”

We asked her more questions about rescues and finding bases and she answered as much as her script allowed her to. While she could talk freely most of the time as a “player” there were clearly some topics Carousel restricted. Namely, questions about Carousel and the script itself.

“Carousel is complicated,” she eventually managed to say. “I wasn’t here for the beginning. Some Paragons take the mantle early in the timeline they might know more. My Dad and I only move to town in 1997 when I become the Scream Queen Paragon. Of course, you weren’t around for that. You all came in 2022, right?”

What a peculiar way to phrase that.

“You’ve been here for twenty-five years?” Isaac asked.

“I didn’t say that,” she answered, looking down at the coffee table contemplatively. “Look, I am not used to being around new players. Maybe you should talk to Constance about the timelines after we win. Right now, we have a big battle coming up and no plans to win. Our muscle is Hobbled and all of our cute, audience-friendly characters died at the end of the first Act. I don’t even have a player trope that will be useful in this part of the story.”

“We know who’s next,” Bobby said.

That was true. Isaac was next in the targeting priority assuming that none of us fell for any traps or did something incredibly stupid. Isaac was very aware of his impending doom and sat wide-eyed. His head was still bleeding, likely from a spike in blood pressure. His Incapacitated status was flickering every so often, but it was nothing to worry about.

“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I do have a plan. We’re going to have to be careful though. Once he’s onto us it’ll be pretty easy for him to stop us. I think I know exactly how we’re supposed to beat this guy. We have to move Cassie’s body.”

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I told them my plan. If I followed the clues properly, then we had a chance.

On-Screen.

As soon as the camera came on, we got into character. Luckily, being in character meant acting scared, confused, and worn out. We didn’t have to dig too deep to play that part.

“I’ll play,” Antoine said after we sat, staring at the plastic bell on the coffee table. It worked the same as the metal one, it just sounded more like a loud rattlesnake rattle than an actual bell. I was happy not to hear the high-pitched “Briiingg” again.

“You’re hurt,” Dina said. “I should do it.”

“We’ll both go,” Antoine said, looking very nervous. He was barely holding it in.

Dina snatched the plastic clapper off the table and walked with Antoine to the room we had decided would be next on our list. Antoine limped behind with his bat as a cane. Bobby’s splint had stayed on pretty well, but it wasn’t going to support any weight. Antoine’s recovery was all Grit, determination, and movie magic.

As soon as they left, we were Off-Screen for a moment.

“You sure the audience knows about your bell, right?” I asked Sidney.

“Oh, I’m sure. I had to play those scenes out.”

Sometimes Carousel made players play through scenes that occurred before the film and sometimes it didn’t. The Stranger hadn’t played through his scenes, but that was likely because the audience wouldn’t see those.

We waited as the silence turned into the sound of ticking. The plastic bell Sidney had brought wasn’t as loud as the metal one, but it still echoed through the house.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Rattle.

The sound of it sent a shiver up my spine.

This went on three more times. They got three yeses and one no by my count. We still didn’t know what questions we were supposed to ask, so we asked about Jedediah Geist, just as Sidney and her friends had originally.

It annoyed me that there might not be any payoff to that plotline. Who was this guy and why was he important? Perhaps that was the reason we were supposed to rerun this storyline. We needed to figure out more about him.

Finally, after ten or so minutes, Antoine and Dina returned.

On-Screen.

We took turns going into the room and playing the game, all except Isaac. It would have been better if he could stay in the living room, but, as I suspected, the storyline wouldn’t move forward that way. He was next in line to be targeted so he had to go into the room and play the Ten Second Game. Otherwise, the Plot Cycle wouldn’t move an inch.

After Sidney and I got back, we all looked at each other. We knew what we had to do.

“So far so good,” I said, acting relieved that the mysterious Strander Blake had not made an appearance.