Chapter 2: The Weight of Expectations
The meeting with William felt tedious, like all the others. The man had a penchant for dragging out conversations that could have been settled in a fraction of the time. His brow was furrowed, fingers tapping the edge of the manuscript as though it contained the answers to life's most profound questions.
"You know this won't sit well with the readers," William finally said, his tone carrying that unmistakable mix of worry and frustration. He glanced up at me, waiting for a reaction.
I stared back at him, expressionless. "And?"
"Killing off Emris," he pressed, as though the words held weight. "Roya, this will stir up a lot of backlash. People are attached to him."
"I don't care about 'people,' William." I leaned back in my chair, my fingers tapping lightly on the armrest. "Emris has reached his narrative peak. His death is the logical conclusion."
William sighed, rubbing his temples. "It's not just about logic. Readers are emotional. They're invested in this character. You can't just—"
I cut him off with a dismissive wave of my hand. "Emotions are irrelevant. They'll get over it. They always do. If they can't handle the fact that he's dying, that's their problem, not mine."
He stared at me for a moment, probably trying to gauge whether I was serious. Of course, I was. I'd dealt with fan reactions before—love, hate, obsession. It all blurred into white noise after a while. To me, Emris was just another character in a long line of creations. His death wasn't a big deal. It was necessary, nothing more.
"You're not concerned about the backlash at all?" he asked, sounding almost bewildered by my indifference.
"No." My answer was clipped, sharp. "This isn't about pleasing the masses, William. It's about telling the story. If people don't like it, they can find another hero to worship."
He opened his mouth to argue but seemed to think better of it. He sighed again, clearly defeated, and gathered the manuscript together. "You do realize this could affect sales."
"I'm aware." I stood up, already done with the conversation. "But I'm not changing the ending."
William didn't say anything more as I left the room. I could feel his disapproval lingering behind me like a faint, annoying buzz. He never understood. No one did, really. My writing wasn't about emotions or connections or any of that sentimental garbage. It was about control. And Emris? His fate was sealed the moment I created him.
---
That evening, I sat in my study, surrounded by stacks of notes and manuscripts. The fan emails had been coming in steadily for weeks, but I hadn't bothered to read them. What did it matter what they thought? They weren't the ones writing the story. I was.
Out of idle curiosity, I opened one. It was long, overly emotional, filled with desperate pleas for Emris to survive. The writer went on and on about how much he meant to them, how he'd helped them through dark times, blah blah blah. As I scrolled, my eyes glazed over. This was the problem with people—they got too attached. They forgot that characters weren't real. Emris wasn't real.
I deleted the email without finishing it.
The more I tried to focus on revising the final scene, the more restless I became. My fingers hovered over the keys, but no words came. Instead, a strange sense of unease crept in, like something was watching me. I shrugged it off at first, chalking it up to fatigue. But then the lights flickered.
I glanced up, narrowing my eyes at the ceiling. The flickering continued, the room plunging into momentary darkness before the light snapped back on. I should have felt something—unease, discomfort, maybe even fear—but instead, I felt nothing.
A glitch, I thought. Or maybe a faulty bulb. Whatever. I returned to my screen, only to find that the words I'd typed were distorted, jumbled. Letters scrambled, sentences twisted. I frowned, leaning forward to inspect the screen. This wasn't a normal glitch. It was as if someone—or something—was trying to rewrite my work.
With an irritated sigh, I closed the document and grabbed my notebook, determined to write it out by hand. But even as I tried to pen the final scene, the ink smudged across the page. The words blurred, the letters becoming unreadable. It was infuriating.
The lights flickered again, dimming to near blackness. I stared at the page, at the smeared ink, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw a shadow—a tall figure, familiar in shape, with glowing blue eyes watching me from the corner of the room.
Emris.
But that was impossible. He wasn't real. He couldn't be real. And yet, the shadow remained, his silver hair gleaming faintly in the dark.
I blinked, and the shadow was gone. Just like that. The lights flickered back to full brightness, and the room was still once more. I should have been unnerved, maybe even terrified. But instead, I felt nothing. Just a vague, detached curiosity.
Why was I seeing him? Why did it feel like he was creeping closer?
I shook my head, closing my notebook with a sharp snap. This was ridiculous. Just stress. Just my mind playing tricks on me. Emris wasn't real. He was nothing more than ink on a page—a creation.
And yet, for reasons I couldn't quite explain, I couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't agree.