Chương 326: Book Six, Chapter 88: Bobby III

One year later… The words appeared on the script so plainly, and yet they represented such an accomplishment. Bobby Gill stared at them while his eyes glazed over. How had Riley been so confident that Carousel would accept such a bargain? One time skip, and suddenly the players and the enemies were back in sync. It was an impressive move, and while things like that had once inspired envy for the pettiest of reasons, now they inspired envy for another.

If Riley were searching for Janet, would he have found her already, assuming he didn't already know where she was? Would he have figured out a way? He had saved his friends, after all, though he had help. Was Bobby's failure to make meaningful progress in finding Janet due to how difficult the challenge was, or how inept he was at doing it? He pushed away the thought. One year later… It was strange to think about. What had his character been up to? Sulking around the apartment?

Falling more and more behind on his bills? Searching fruitlessly for Janet in hopes that he didn't actually have to play along with this insane cultish ritual? Who knew. Bobby awoke in darkness with the smell of earth all around him, but not just the earth. There was also the smell of something else. Janet's perfume. He focused his eyes and searched his surroundings. He was alone in the dark, but not for long.

"Bobby," a voice called out to him, echoing through his ribs like a deep bass. He turned to his right and saw only darkness at first, more inky blackness that revealed nothing.

"Bobby, it's okay. We can talk," the voice called out—Janet's voice. It was unmistakable. His head went light, and his heart fluttered. What a wonderful thing to feel again. Being in love with Janet was like having a crush on a pretty teacher. It was an impossible love and so out of Bobby's depth that he never dreamed anything would come of those feelings. Janet had been an administrator at the company where Bobby worked in IT. She felt like his boss; she felt like everyone's boss, including their actual boss.

That was something she could do: walk into a room and take charge. At first, he had grumbled sourly to meet someone like that, but then the feelings came like a hot flash, like falling off the side of a building every time she emailed him. She had smiled at him, and it had woken him up. And somehow, she had liked him back. Who could have ever predicted that? Not Bobby, that's for sure.

"Janet," he called out into the darkness. His voice echoed no matter how quiet he tried to make it, and the way it bounced off the walls, he could tell he was in a large, cavernous room, right up against something solid. He reached his hand out and felt cool glass, and the moment he touched it, the glass lit up red, like a firefly on Valentine's Day. In the place where the lights shone through, he could see Janet's favorite blouse, the white one with the yellow polka dots.

He began pawing at the glass wall, and as he touched it, more and more of it lit up, and he could see more and more of what appeared on the other side. It was Janet, smiling. How long had it been since he had seen her smiling? The car ride to Carousel? That felt like a lifetime ago.

"I thought you stood me up again," she said.

"I never stood you up," Bobby said with a crack in his voice.

"I just got lost. I told you that. I forgot the name of the restaurant and—""And then you went into the wrong restaurant and sat at a table waiting for me while I was at the right restaurant waiting for you," Janet said, "and we both thought the worst of each other." A tear rolled down Bobby's cheek.

"I could have sworn you said the Mediterranean place," he said. Janet shrugged.

"I said one thing, you heard another. We hadn't learned to speak each other's languages yet. No harm done." Bobby laughed and put his forehead against the glass like he was talking to her through a window and just wanted to be closer.

"What is this place?" he asked. He mostly knew the answer, but he just wanted to hear her voice.

"You know," she said.

"This is our secret spot, and one day soon I am going to walk right through it and we will be together forever, just like we planned." Bobby smiled, but a pain grew inside him, and he clutched his chest.

"This isn't real," he said. He jolted for a moment as he checked to see whether he was On-Screen or Off-Screen. It turned out the cameras were rolling. He needed to be in character. He wished more than anything he didn't have to be.

"It can be real," Janet said.

"You know how."

"I know," Bobby said, "but I can't." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"You promised," Janet said.

"You said you didn't care anymore. You promised you would do whatever it took to get me back." She didn't sound angry or sad. She sounded disappointed.

"But not like this," he said.

"Exactly like this," Janet said.

"Exactly like we planned night after night through this terrible glass." Bobby paused to breathe as he realized that she was talking about his character, who had apparently devoted a lot of time to coming here during the time skip.

"Sweetheart, I just want to know what happened to you. Where did you go?" he asked, and he meant it both for his character and himself.

"The answers you're looking for are answers in a cold, dark world that I have never been to," she said.

"Don't you understand? In this world, nothing happened to me, nothing that you couldn't fix. Here, you saved me. You found me. You didn't stop until you had me in your arms. You waited by my hospital bed day and night. Don't you remember? Isn't that what you want? A world where you managed to save me? Where the pain was all worth it?" Of course, she wouldn't know what happened to her character or what happened to the real Janet, because she wasn't the real Janet, and she wasn't his character's wife.

She was a doppelganger from another world with the voice and the face of the woman he loved. A small woman, but powerful, and he had gotten her killed by bringing her here. She always seemed so untouchable, so smart, and it turned out that her biggest mistake was him.

"I don't care if I save you," Bobby said.

"I just want you back." He started to cry. Carousel took mercy on him and ended the scene. Off-Screen. He looked up at Janet. She didn't disappear when the cameras left. He was thankful for that.

"I wish I could have been here with you," he said.

"Like, really been here during the time skip. If that's all I could have gotten, I would take it. I would take anything that brought me closer to you." She looked down at him with pity. She didn't say anything. Bobby knew what that meant. She was an NPC with no lines, no preset responses, nothing but the language spoken by the eyes. She reached her hand up to the glass, and he reached his up to the same spot, and it was like they were holding hands. It was strange.

Bobby felt like he had done it before: reached out to her from across the barrier between worlds. Maybe that's what he had always been doing, ever since she went missing. Maybe it was what he would always do. He would wait for her at the wrong restaurant forever. Bobby didn't have long after the time skip, but what time he had, he spent in the corner of the throne room, right up next to the ruby wall, talking to Janet, promising her to do whatever it took to save her, the real her.

"You have to let it happen," she said.

"The ritual. It's the only way we'll be happy."

"I know that," Bobby said.

"I know. But how many people won't be?"

"They will find love in the new world, and they'll find a deeper, more lasting love because they'll be in a place where people actually care about each other, where love isn't just a survival mechanism." Bobby looked at the ground, and then he stared up at the room where dozens of cultists had gathered to see the ritual through. It was beginning. Tom was already throwing offerings through the wall. Bobby's time was almost up.

Red lightning started to shoot out into the air, and as it did, Bobby kept reading the script. The normal trope that he used to see the script was more limited than his rescue trope, which gave him access to a much more thorough version. He was seeing things written out. He could see where the camera went every time it left the room. He could see what the red bolts of lightning were doing. The new world was breaking through one blast at a time.

He watched as a bolt struck one of the many pictures of departed loved ones on the wall across the room from him, and suddenly the dead, or missing person, would appear out there in the real world.

"The new world is crossing over," he whispered to himself, just loud enough for the cameras to pick up. He looked at Janet, and he saw the woman he loved. She certainly had the mind and memories of the woman he loved. But her words now were the words of a desperate god clinging to the hope of freedom. They weren't her words anymore. That was okay, as long as that god was as powerful as he claimed to be. Maybe he would get to touch her.

Maybe he could grab her in his arms and defy Carousel itself to take her away again. Suddenly, one of the items that Tom threw into the ruby wall reacted poorly and sent a wave of pain through Bobby. He could hear Janet screaming as he was plunged Off-Screen. Riley's plan was taking effect. Before Bobby could even realize what was happening, Dina was explaining that the rituals never ended—that each new world was replaced by the next as the god attempted to free itself, but never managed to. Bobby didn't care.

As long as he could bring back the dead, it didn't matter. He only needed it to work once. What was he even thinking? It would never work. If it did, they would lose and Janet would die anyway. What a terrible situation. The power to have his wife back was before him, but to use it would kill him. Typical Carousel. Tom, with a flick of his left hand, sent Riley flying into the air, strangling him by a shadowy rope. He did the same to Dina, but she succumbed to the attack instantly and was offered to the god.

Bobby looked at Janet through the red wall and then back up at Riley, who hung desperately in the air. Bobby could save him. He had taken many oaths over the time skip and had quite a few powers at his beck and call. Bobby's character had become a full-on bad guy over the time skip. But the moment he helped the others, he would be outed as an enemy and be attacked. Bobby wasn't a fighter, not in that way. He needed to wait until the last moment. Luckily for Riley, the real fighters showed up right on time.

Kimberly and Kelsey arrived, armed with… water guns filled with blood? No. It was too thin to be blood. It was the fruit punch. Bobby hadn't been around for that part of the plan and had only gotten a few whispers of it from Dina. His part in it was simple, and he was doing it. He was contemplating betraying the cult to help the others. Easy stuff.

"Heaven King Gaugh," Kimberly shouted.

"I implore you to exorcise these dark powers from all who imbibed on your oblations!" Riley must have written that line for her. No one talked like that. Suddenly, half of the cultists seized up in pain, many of whom had taken on the cloaks of the Night Stockers. Those dark powers began to evaporate from them, rising up into the air and disappearing. Cultist after cultist doubled over in pain, many puking or passing out.

One cultist, a woman, a single mother searching for her own mother, cried out at the red wall in anguish. She cried for her mother over and over, but she apparently got no answer. Whatever she saw in the ruby wall seemed to terrify her. And she wasn't the only one screaming and running from the room in fear. Riley had booby-trapped the lemonade.

Bobby knew that much because The Insert Shot had been used on the fruit punch mix he poured in it, and every cultist who had drunk from it was now depowered and disconnected from whoever it was they cared about. That trope increased the screen time for selected objects, so they were empowered in the plot—such a useful trope. Tom made battle with Kimberly and Kelsey, but they took on the blessings of some other god and were able to combat him as he attempted to wrap them in shadows the way he had Riley.

The water guns were effective, cleansing all they touched, if only a little. Tom was playing defense, but he would find a way to change things up. Tom was relentless. Bobby watched all of this like a good wallflower, never acting, never helping.

"Sweetheart, you have to finish the ritual," Janet called to him. He couldn't bear the pressure. He knew that none of this was real; it was a storyline, but… it was something, an act in furtherance of his goal. He looked over at Janet the moment he was On-Screen.

"I will pull whatever thread leads to you," he said. Then he ran to the large metal plate where Antoine was tied up and began offering morsel after morsel to the ruby god.

"What are you doing, man?" Antoine asked, panicking. Bobby didn't know what to say. What was there to say? He glanced over at Janet's missing poster on the wall. Always, constantly. He threw handful after handful, as red lightning filled the air.