Book Six, Chapter 49: The Body

We went Off-Screen, and Daphne jumped right into action, looting the corpse of the drowned giant. Her fingers were nimble as she moved through Ed’s pockets. She was efficient and quick. In only a few seconds, she retrieved a wad of bills similar to those we had found on the fake receptionist.

“This must have been one of the blackmailers who killed Antoine,” she said, as if it wasn’t obvious; she was still playing a character Off-Screen.

She quickly slipped the money inside her handbag.

“Did you bring the poison with you?” I asked.

“I found it,” she said, “during exploration early in the storyline while I was trying to find out who was blackmailing me. Speaking of, let’s not forget that I have to tell you about that On-Screen.”

“Right,” I said. A chill radiated through my bones.

There was something I was trying to think of, but I was unable. Had I missed something? Forgotten an important clue? I couldn’t tell.

But I knew that whatever it was, it had to do with Daphne. Something was really wrong here, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Had this happened before?

Yes. Only once.

The Straggler Forest. These blackmailer enemies must have had a trope similar to the Stragglers, but what was it? Or was it something else?

“Come on,” she whispered, as she moved back in the direction that Ed had come from before we trapped and killed him.

I stared at his body. With a character like that, you half expect them to jump back to life at the last moment, but Ed didn’t.

I was fine with her leading me where we were going. Whatever was going on with her, I needed to keep an eye on her. They say keep your friends close and your girlfriends closer.

Wait. That wasn’t it. Oh well, I’d think of it later.

I followed her, and it was easy to trace Ed’s path of destruction.

My eyes had adjusted again, so when we passed through several rows of slot machines and I saw two crumpled figures lying on the ground, leaning up against one of the machines with their heads barely out of the water, I immediately recognized them even without a glance at the red wallpaper.

It was Bobby and Jules.

On-Screen.

“Mr. Gill,” I said, running up to him. I wasn’t particularly familiar with their characters, so the first name seemed inappropriate. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually know Jules’ last name.

“What happened to him?” I said, leaning down beside them.

Jules was lying on the ground, supporting his body and helping to keep his head above the floodwaters.

I could tell from the way his face leaned back too far that his neck had been broken.

“The damn fool jumped in the way,” she said. “I can’t feel a pulse.”

She was playing a part. We both knew he was dead. The red wallpaper revealed as much. He must have sacrificed himself so that Andrew and Kimberly could get away. If only Daphne and I had been able to enact our plan a few moments sooner.

“We have to go,” I said as I examined Jules. She was still severely injured, but I didn’t know if things were worse than when I last saw her.

“Leave me, you idiot,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if she was saying that in character or out of character.

“She’ll just slow us down,” Daphne agreed. “We need to go get help, and we can send them back here.”

“Bull,” Jules said. “There’s no getting help. Listen to your bride here. She knows I’m a goner.”

It was true. But I was facing quite the dilemma, because we had just lost a player at the precipice of Second Blood, and yet Second Blood had not triggered. I couldn’t let Jules die over here, lying on the ground with Bobby.

I might need her to do it On-Screen in the next scene. That was the kind of decision you had to make in the game at Carousel.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing onto her and helping lift her to her feet.

“This is suicide,” Daphne said.

“Better than murder,” I said with more venom than I intended..

She pursed her lips.

What was the thing I couldn’t think of? Was there a subplot I was missing? Sometimes, on nights when I didn’t use my Out Like a Light trope, I would have these terrible nightmares that I was back at college and had somehow forgotten one of my courses. That I had simply not shown up, and finals were coming up, and it was too late to drop the class.

It was a recurring dream that was scarier in the moment than some killers had been.

This felt a lot like that. Like I had somehow forgotten something so brutally important, and I was running out of time.

“Which way did the others go?” I asked Jules.

“They went to the elevators,” she said.

I got the feeling that she understood why I was taking her with me.

Maybe she was a sort of meat shield, although I hated to think of it like that. She stared daggers at Daphne, maybe for how easily Daphne had accepted leaving her behind. But then I realized she had always been short with her, so it must have just been a character thing.

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

It was going to bug me for the rest of the storyline if I couldn’t think of the thing I was forgetting. Suddenly, I envied Camden’s Red Thread Theory, which would keep track of all of his lines of thought and investigation.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Rachel, you run up ahead and alert us at the first sign of trouble.”

Daphne nodded, but when she moved forward, she only walked. Like she was taking a stroll in the park. Far too slow.

The image of her walking through the knee-high water in her wedding dress, so casually, without a fear in the world, was deeply troubling. It was almost frightening. She looked absolutely badass, but not in the way that a Final Girl might.

I could see her fiddling with her handbag, twirling its clasp between the fingers of the hand she was holding it with, as if she were twirling a pin.

“I don’t hear the big guy,” Jules said.

“He’s not a problem anymore,” I said, as I stared up ahead at the love of my life.

“How did you manage that?” she asked.

I took a moment of silence as I stared ahead in awe. What else was Daphne capable of?

“I didn’t,” I said, as I looked at Jules.

She looked back at me knowingly.

We moved onward. I wanted to stay On-Screen, but there was nothing I could do to control it. If we went Off-Screen, Daphne was liable to run off again. I couldn’t think of why she would do it, now that I knew her secret. But the fear rose up inside of me and pleaded with me to keep my eyes on her.

Daphne, what have you gotten yourself into? I thought to myself.

We went Off-Screen at the very moment I was pleading with Carousel not to.

Daphne didn’t leave; she plodded forward just as slowly as ever, quietly, even when walking through the water

We were only Off-Screen for a minute and a half or so, because when we arrived at the elevators, we joined a scene that Kimberly and Andrew were already in.

“Watch out,” Kimberly said, calling out to Daphne.