17

I

I enter. The room is a mess. Victorian decor. There's even a chandelier. I start putting pillows back. After the first few, I come across a gun. This makes me nervous. See, the author has been making Chekhovian references, so I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, I've only been fleshed out by a short introduction showing nothing of my character so far. So let's get a fact straight: am I good shot?

I spot wine glasses and a bottle across the room. I aim for one of the glasses, hit the bottle instead. This isn't looking good. But predictable enough, given the author's lack of strong protagonists. Always the unwilling hero, except there's nothing to be saved. How he writes observant characters without having much of a cast is beyond me

So maybe I'll only have to watch the gun scene go down. The second character to enter will probably be the willful individual with a personal mission with which I play a key part, even though I'll realize their personal mission is bull as time goes on. But they'll be persistent, and most likely of opposite gender. Kidnapping isn't out of the question

Then it strikes: when the willful individual dies, the plot converges rather quickly to a close. What happens to me when the story ends? I die. Unless there's a sequel, but the author has never written a sequel. So there's my hook to help the willful individual

There's something I'm not sure of, since my sentience is a novelty in the author's style: will the other characters also be sentient? I'll venture to say no, since that'll allow me to become alienated from the rest of the cast more easily

I'll mention a cat sitting outside the window

& ask: why am I here? Do I live here? Such an awful scene writer