Arc II, Chapter 64: Dreary Street

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.”

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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.”