I feel the world freeze around me,
People stop, wait, and delay,
Heroes and villains, once sure of their actions,
Are now unsure of their ways,

The beasts who menace and devour,
Suddenly lose their appetite,
The sworn rivals put down their swords,
And finally give up their fight,

I know it might sound crazy,
But you'll just have to see,
How everywhere I go,
The world freezes around me,

I feel the writer's blood boil,
As I jump onto the page,
His fingers twitch and face turns red,
As I rob him of his brain,

"Why did I write this character?
He's a boring little fool!
I want to make people laugh and gasp,
Not sigh and yawn and drool!"

Yet the writer is mistaken,
He's the fool, not I,
For he tries to write around me,
Why does he even try?

I've made this world my home,
And I like it to be neat,
Not filled with noise and clamor,
And the marching soldier's feet,

He can start another project,
Because this project is now mine,
He's wrote himself into a corner,
And there's no writing out this time,

I much enjoy his anger,
I much enjoy his hate,
But I'd much prefer the silence,
When he gives up on this place,

The kingdom is all silent,
The peasants are a bore,
The knights are out all playing cards,
As the sleeping giants snore,

So give up, oh dear writer,
Let me have my peace,
Let me enjoy this boredom,
This banal and mundane feast,

If you come back here,
I might take a little more,
And turn your sci-fi setting,
Into an awful, lengthy bore

I am the Narrator. I am the Producer. I am the Animator. I am the Special Effects Artist. I am the Director. Business Partner.

I am the behind-the-scenes.

Let me explain.

People have a 'narrative potential energy' which is how involved in a story they are. Some people have a high energy and are side characters in multiple stories, or are main characters and villains. Those with lower energies play a continually smaller roll until you get to zero.

I have a negative energy. I don't participate in the stories, I don't control anything about them. I only control how the public sees them. I am the one who edits the movies with those cuts, the only one on this godforsaken planet to work the stories to that they're used for their intended purposes. I am the one who tracks the jail cell of the antagonist for that last interview, the one who uses satellite imagery to figure out when that alien invasion will arrive.

I am the only person who can break the fourth wall properly. Not just say 'hi' to the news cameras, but control my breach. Replace things. Edit things. The number of times I've diverted nuclear war is too many to count.

I am the one who founded a very public SCP Foundation to make sure that millions don't die in monster attacks. I am the one who founded a very public Quantum Team, both the Disaster Prevention and Research Laboratories wings, to make sure people don't die. This planet is alive thanks to my efforts, and all the recognition I get is nothing, compared to every last being on this planet.

But today, today I met another Editor. We walk differently, see the world in a different light. We are not caught up in the stories each city tells one after the other. We see the world for what it really is, and try to fix it. We talked, apparently he came to add me to his cell so that way he has someone to call if his personal life gets in the way. We have a network of us Editors. The unintentional, unwanting controllers of the world.

An arrow whizzed through the air, embedding itself in the door. Ignoring it, Dave pushed the door open and stepped inside. Behind him, there was an offended hiss of indignant breath.

"Told you." The angel put a hand on the archer's shoulder. "Come away now. He is beyond our realm."

The archer shook their head. "He can't be. No one is. You should know that. Every wretched being is created as entertainment fodder, prey to our stories. I will make contact, and when my arrow pierces whatever secret armours he possesses..."

The angel sighed. "Suit yourself." In a whirl of feathers, she departed.

Oblivious, Dave picked up a shopping basket and began his slow, bored trudge around the supermarket.

In aisle nine, two men in dark suits were battling to the death. Both had lost their guns under the shelves, and had had to resort to hand to hand combat, occasionally punctuated by someone seizing a loaf and battering his opponent. As the agents fought for the darkest of secrets, bystanders gasped and gaped. Innocents ducked and dodged.

"Excuse me, where are the eggs?" Dave's voice cut through the tension, as he tapped a young woman on the shoulder.

"What?" She stared at him, baffled.

"The eggs. The wife's making a cake and there'll be hell to pay if there are no eggs," He shrugged, almost apologetically.

"But... The future of the city is at stake! And the hero..." She clutched her heart, "my hero is--"

Dave rolled his eyes, "Just say you don't know next time. I'll find them myself," He pushed through the fighters as though they were mist and continued down the aisle, throwing the young woman a dirty look. "Bloody love interests," He muttered.

By now, he had figured it out. All through his life, everyone else had acted like a movie cliché. Heroes. Villains. Love interests. People so determined to be background characters that they didn't even have names, who shuffled away awkwardly when one tried to make small talk with them. Everyone was part of a story, on some small level.

Except him.

He didn't know why, but, he mused as he ducked past a wizard who was trying to block the vegetable aisle with his staff, he was getting bloody fed up of all this drama.

Welcome to narrative energy cleanup 101. First, a villain does not exist without a hero and a hero cannot exist without a villain. That is the first rule of the narrative energy. This means a hero is the worst thing for society to have. Once he exists, baddies come out of the woodwork.

So, what do you do? Unlike normal energy, narrative energy dissipates over time. People get board of playing the hero, so the secret is to wear them out. Thats right, SIDE QUESTS, MINIGAMES, PUZZLES, YOU NAME IT!

I've been in this business for 23 years, I stopped Geralt of Rivia with nothing but a deck of Gwent cards, I've stopped countless adventuring parties by sending them into the underdark only for them to burn out, and over the next 10 weeks I'll show you all the tricks you need to stop a hero.

It’s always been a weird thing, for me to have negative narrative potential, but that’s because of a simple thing:

I ruin stories.

I am a breaker of the fourth wall, constantly hinting at the existence of a higher being, who has no power other than to watch us and write our futures, but I have no future.

I’m free

I wasn’t ever scripted at all, I’m making my own story for myself. I constantly ruin a scripted story around me, and I love it.

It feels great to change the course of a scripted persons story. Is it sadism? Hell yeah it is. But it’s also telling me that maybe I’m helping someone actually be themselves.

God, I love this ability.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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