Chapter 14

This Book May Kill You

Evan stood across from me. The walls flickered between my office and his. Two places occupying one space.

The Cat sat on my desk. Perfectly still. Its outline was sharp. Every hair rendered in excruciating detail.

“What is this place?” I asked.

The Cat’s ears flattened. It hissed at the air.

The red line on the floor thickened. Brightened. Pulsed.

Evan stepped back. “Darryl. What is that?”

“I don’t.”

The line lashed upward. I threw myself sideways. It crackled past. The sound of tearing paper.

Where it struck the wall, text appeared in angry red.

[INCONSISTENT WITH EARLIER DESCRIPTION]

The wall buckled. Simplified. Became generic beige.

“Oh god,” Evan said. “It’s…It’s editing us.”

Another line appeared. Then another. Red underlines spread across the floor. Capillaries crawling up the walls.

I looked at my hands. A faint red glow pulsed beneath my skin.

[CHARACTER MOTIVATION UNCLEAR]

The words burned across my forearm. I screamed. My arm jerked. My shoulder twisted. Muscle fibers snapped and re-knit. My body forced itself into a new shape. A more narratively satisfying shape.

“Darryl.” Evan lunged toward me.

A red line caught his ankle. Yanked. He crashed to the floor.

[AGE INCONSISTENT - SEE CH. 6]

The words blazed across his chest. Evan gasped, clutching at the letters.

“I’m thirty-six,” he choked out. “I’ve always been thirty-six.”

The red glow intensified.

[CORRECTION: THIRTY-FOUR]

“No. I’m not.”

His face blurred. Smudged wet clay. When it resolved, he looked younger.

“Evan. Fight it. Don’t let it.”

A comment bubble popped into existence above the Cat. Translucent, floating, pulsing with soft red light.

[CUT THIS CHARACTER? ADDS CONFUSION. MUDDLES CENTRAL CONFLICT.]

The Cat yowled. The bubble contracted. A net compressing the Cat into something small enough to delete.

I grabbed the Cat. Pulled hard. The bubble stretched.

“Get off.” I snarled at the bubble. “You don’t get to delete.”

[PROTAGONIST BEHAVIOR INCONSISTENT. DARRYL WOULD NOT CARE ABOUT CAT.]

Another red line slashed across my chest.

I felt my thoughts reorganize. The story reached into my head. It rearranged my priorities. Making me not care. Making me let go.

It doesn’t matter, I thought. Let it go.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “I care because I decide I care.”

The bubble flickered. Weakened. I yanked.

The Cat tumbled free. It landed in a crouch. Fur standing on end.

Evan was on his hands and knees, shaking.

“Darryl. They’re forcing us. I can feel it. A scene. An ending.”

I felt it too. Like gravity. The world wanted us to move in a specific direction.

I looked up. The office ceiling was gone.

In its place: a massive page. White. Textured. It filled the sky.

And on that page, words formed.

CHAPTER 14, The End

“No.”

The floor tilted. Everything slid toward a door at the far end of the office. A perfect door. Clean lines. Brass handle. Finality.

Red lines herded us toward it. Evan slid closer. I dug my heels in. The floor was too smooth.

“We can’t go through that door,” Evan gasped.

“I know.”

“If we do, they’ll finish us.”

The Cat yowled. A red line sizzled near its paw.

“How?” I shouted.

The door was ten feet away. Eight. Six.

Evan grabbed my arm. His eyes were wild. “We have to break it. The correction. It’s trying to make us consistent. So we do the opposite.””

“What?”

“Be inconsistent. Lie. Now. Before they format us.”

I stared at him. The door loomed closer.

“I’m left-handed,” I said.

Evan smiled.

A red underline lashed toward us. It stuttered mid-air. Confused. Unable to correct the contradiction.

The floor trembled.

Evan’s grip tightened. “More. Keep going.”

“I hate my job.”

“You told me you liked spreadsheets.”

“I’ve never touched one in my life.”

“You woke up knowing VLOOKUP.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

The red lines flickered. Pulsed. Lost coherence.

Evan turned to me. Face pale. “I’m forty-two.”

“You just said thirty-six.”

“Never said that.”

“Two minutes ago.”

“Prove it.”

The office buckled. The door rippled like a reflection in disturbed water.

“I work in a bar.”

“You work in an office.”

“I’m a teacher.”

“You’ve never taught anyone anything.”

“I remember students. A kid named Dario.”

“There is no Dario.”

“There is.”

“Isn’t.”

“Then how do I remember him?”

“You don’t.”

The red lines exploded like shattered glass. The comment bubbles burst. The corrections scattered into pixels and dissolved.

The page overhead cracked down the middle.

The Cat let out a sound of triumph.

I looked at Evan. He looked at me.

“My name is Darryl,” I said.

“Is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure you don’t know?”

“I’m not sure of anything.”

“Are you sure you’re not sure?”

The office screamed. The walls bent inward. Then outward. Unable to decide their position. The floor cracked. The ceiling bled white light.

Through the cracks, I saw them. All of them.

The discarded versions. David. Daniel. Derek. Dozens more. Standing in a corridor that shouldn’t exist. Watching us with empty eyes.

The Cat leaped through the nearest crack.

The office collapsed. Paper crumpled by an angry hand.

We fell.

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