0th - The Fake Perspective

“And so the story continues! How was it? What did you think?”

“- ------- ---- -- --- -------”

“Okay, obviously I was talking to the reader when I said that… you are recording this, right?”

“---------”

Finally victoria chimed in, “Hold on, what are we supposed to be doing right now? I don't really get it”

Pax sighed and put his head into his hand, “Tori, we've been over this before but I'll explain it one more time. Now that book one is over I just wanted to talk about some stuff and go over what we learned. Plus I can do some unsubtle foreshadowing this way.”

“Right, but why are you using this method? Wouldn't it be easier to just write what you want to say instead of having [-------] record us talk about it?”

“No, you don't get it, I did a similar thing at the beginning of the book so it would feel wrong if I didn't do it again here. This has to be like a semi-regular thing. Also, it would feel kind of forced if I just wrote down every important thing I wanted to say.”

“Right… but if we're on the topic of continuing things that happened at the beginning of book 1, the we should talk about your original father first? I mean you just brought up that one moment where he finds your corpse and then you left it as a cliffhanger for over 30 chapters. Like what the hell is up with that?”

“Uhhhhhh… because I didn’t feel like it… I mean I thought that I would have him pop back in like a jumpscare when he returns to the story. The book is called Pax; Unliving, not Pax’s dad; Unliving.

“You're stupid, you know that?”

“Nuh uh, You're stupid “

“Tell the readers the real reason”

“... there's this plot twist I was gonna add that I foreshadowed back in book 1–”

“I know which plot twist you're talking about and, let's be honest, it's not that crazy. I'm pretty sure that if you tried you could even still have it while talking about what he was up to.”

“...okay… it's cuz he was up to way better things than I was and he would become the protagonist if I wrote down everything he did, okay?”

“Huh… really?”

“Yeah, I checked, and if I did it justice, it would be at least as long as book one. So what am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, is that so… in that case, uh, just talk about perspective like you always do.”

“Well now I don't feel like it…”

“Oh come on Paxy-pu tell us about perspective! We love perspective!”

“...Oh fine, if you insist…”

Pax proceeded to talk about “perspective” for the better part of an hour. I’ll summarize the main points below:

The astute reader may have noticed that at the very end of book 1, the perspective changes from first person point of view to third person point of view. This not only symbolizes a fundamental change in Pax’s character but also a change in how we’ll be handling different perspectives from now on. There will be no more “Perspective #”, instead we will simply switch perspectives like how literally any other book does it. Well, there will be one more exception to that…

The reason we wrote other perspectives in that way was because Pax or I literally had to go out into the void and find that specific soul’s Echo, which honestly was a pain in the ass. But recently, Pax figured out a way to find the Echoes much easier so from now on we will have many more perspectives (It’s still a pain in the ass for me but he’s the boss so we’re doing it anyways).

Pax thinks perspective is important when you want to find the real truth. —Okay, I definitely said it in a more nuanced way than that. You can’t just boil that down to one line!

“Well, now that it’s over, [-------] what was your thoughts about how we handled book 1?”

“--- ----- ---- -- ------- ------”

“Well that’s too bad because from now on the writing will be almost entirely from third person point of view.”

“-- ---- --------”

“Well fuck you too… Ugh,okay. I understand that it’s more work for you but you gotta understand that from this point onwards my thoughts just aren't as interesting as they were in book 1. It’s just Raya, intrusive suicidal thoughts, murderous impulses, and all sorts of other emo thoughts.

I know that this is like an edgy story, but it gets boring if you repeat the same thing over and over again”

“---- ------ ----- -------------”

“It’s hard to argue against that point…”

Opening book 1, Victoria chimed in, “I’ve thought about it since the first chapter, but what is up with the strange formatting of this book?”

“What strange formatting?”

“Like how it’s kind of like a theater play’s script with how you wrote who was speaking then wrote what they said instead of just using quotation marks”

Pax: You mean something like this?

“Yeah… that”

“Well, since we’ve already lost all subtlety just by having this chapter, I guess I may as well explain it. I just thought it would be a good way to illustrate my mental state during cycle 2. I think I sort of viewed everything like it was fiction to distance myself from reality. Plus, this method allowed me to show when I was flipping between Adam and Pax. I won’t say any more than that.”

“Eh, I think it’s kind of cool–”

“Or maybe I just did it cuz I thought it would be cool but then later just started getting sick of it”

“Ah… so how long until I show up in this story?”

“-- ----- -------- -----”

“Seriously? That’s bullshit. 0/10 story.”

“Hey, I’m sorry Tori, it’s just that a lot of things happened before I met you. If you want I can add a scene of what you were doing during that time. What was it that you were up to in the year 1470 of the Markovian calendar?”

Pax smiled as he stared at the silent Victoria.

“Actually, I think I will include that scene–”
“No-No-No! I take it back! I don’t want to be in your book! Only put me in when I start acting cool!”

“Too late, you asked for it! [-------] stick it in right here!”

- - - - - - - -

“It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?”

No response came from the sock puppet in Victoria’s hand, not that she expected any differently from Socky.

“You got it Victoria! I think it’s a great day to do some gardening!”

Victoria made the sock in her hand open and close it’s mouth as she spoke.

Was it the crushing weight of loneliness that had pushed this poor girl to such extremes, or perhaps she had simply been born this way?

Sat in her shabby tower in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, Victoria continued her daily routine of speaking to her sock puppet as if it were human–

- - - - - - - -

“NOOOOOOOO”

Victoria tackled Pax and the two fell out of their chairs.

“I’LL KILL YOU”

“I’m sorry! I just love every part of you Tori!”

Victoria loosened her stranglehold a little when he said that, but then he continued, “Even your fondness for sock puppets.”

Victoria resumed shaking Pax while screaming embarrassing things about him as revenge. Sadly, he will proofread this chapter so there’s no point in adding exactly what Victoria said in that moment.

Based on this sight, it would be impossible to guess that outside of these walls spanned a void that almost stretched out to infinity.

But the pair of lovebirds seemed content to pass the time until the next Syzygy, when this cycle ends and the next begins anew.

Hopefully things might play out differently then

“Is there any point to this?”