Status Updates From The Bystander: A Horror Mov...

“They had all worked to keep me alive. Not because I deserved it, or because they cared about me living, but because the way the story was set up, me being alive was the only way to get to the end.”
That alone would mess with me because you’d probably get confused on how real your friendships were and take movie plots seriously

I stared ahead for a moment. Was there something about Film Buffs that made us more likely to break the rules? Or was there something else going on? And would I be ready the day I figured out what it was?

“That’s the thing about Film Buffs,” Arthur said. “They … disappear.”

I hadn’t considered until that moment that there might be more than one version of the mystery. That explained why the Ranger Danger ticket hadn’t included Nathan’s name.

Why had he only wounded me but killed Camden? I couldn’t take my eyes off my childhood friend lying on the ground. I didn’t know how many times he’d been stabbed, but it had been more than enough. This wasn’t like one of the NPCs, whose deaths were so easy to accept because they weren’t real.

All stats are directly limited by suspension of disbelief. The higher your stats, the further you could diverge from what was realistic and start to pull off things that could only happen in the movies.

“You could have fought, you could have ran, but you stood by, so, by you’ll stand.”

“She is a non-player character for a storyline called Permanent Vacancy. It’s a medium-level storyline, so we didn’t want you to interact with her, or else you might get stuck in the story. The fact remains: you do have to complete a storyline soon. Carousel is going to keep trying to push you into one. So, we picked one out for you—one that we think we can help you complete without much trouble.”

“You weren’t speaking to Chris,” Arthur said. “Chris has been trapped here with us the whole time. If I’m not mistaken, he came here with Val and Todd, right?” Todd nodded. “You weren’t talking to Chris. You were talking to Carousel. And now that it’s got you here, it’ll never let you leave.”

Across the top of the machine was a sign that read “Carousel’s own Silas the Mechanical Showman.”

Wait a minute, this is kinda awesome