Prolouge

The cars pass by, racing down the street filled with smokey air and soot.

Trash of various kinds flutter in the wind, and is caught in gutters, blown against sign posts, and littered on the street.

The only people out are the ones who can barely be called people.

The only cars driving by are the ones that can barely be called cars.

And the only ones living there are those that can barely be called living.

In all of this, there is an alleyway.

A dark, cold, soggy and mold filled alleyway that somehow has even more trash in it then the streets do.

And surrounded by the darkness and disgust of that trash, the darkness and disgust of that alleyway, the darkness and disgust of that street, the darkness and disgust of that city, the darkness and disgust of that country, the darkness and disgust of the world, and the darkness and disgust of the people in that world,

Lay a man.

A sickly, starving, decrepit man that seemed to have aged at least five times faster in his life time than anyone else at 25.

Yet, the only thing he can think about is how Jesse betrayed Jamison in the last chapter of 'the betrayer and betrayed: dying for you till I lose my heart' that he read 8 years ago.

It was a shitty story, to put it blatantly.

The idea wasn't so bad, a reincarnator being betrayed over and over again by the people he loves, trying desperately to make them feel the same way he does about them.

In fact, if done well it could have lead to an explosion in the world of webnovels and comics.

The only problem was that the author, JJNani, was an irrexperienced writer, hated criticism, and thought he was the best writer of his time.

He really could have been, if only he didn't try to reuse the same interesting trope he created a thousand times over.

He sat there thinking about the characters, how it was unfair to them that they had an author who didn't treat them with respect.

He had always felt that a writer has a bigger responsibility to his characters than to anyone else.

Most people he had once talked to had thought it was a cool, philosophical thing about improving a person's writing skills.

Others saw it as an over reaction from being invested in the writings of trash authors, and some thought he was weird and childish for trying to treat fake 'characters' as people.

Others saw it as a funny joke. He hated those people the most, but also felt sorry for them, that they were so stupid and unaware of the infinite universe that is contained in stories, and are the stories themselves.

But no matter what, no one ever understood him. No one could ever understand him, and it made him frustrated, till he somehow ended up here and stopped caring about those things.

He had loved stories for as long as he could remember, and felt the way people treated them was wrong. They weren't meant to be toys, objects, ragdolls for manchildren and mentally stunted wannabe dictionary writers.

They were only for those people who were deserving to read them.

Those who took the time and effort to appreciate and understand what a story is.

Not f*ckers whose brain matter amounts to that of a 1930's farmer.

Farm, get angry at something, drink booze, get more angry at something, pass out, wake up, farm, eat, farm, shit, farm, get angry at something, drink whiskey, get more angry at something, pass out.

Again and again, over and over without change, and getting frustrated at the tools of farming when they evolve past their primative level.

Just like idiots get upset at the tools of literature when they can't figure out how to read.

So many people don't know, don't care, don't want to know and don't want to care.

He can't understand it.

They can't understand him.

This situation is only the natural result.

So, he accepts it. He makes due with what he has, and lives his life treating those poor, unfortunate characters that are so amazing, but given such terrible authors how they should have been treated. Writing stories for them endlessly in this place, at least within his own heart and soul.

So that they can be happy, and he can feel satisfied knowing that they are.

The first story he ever read was a children's book about ducklings, and to this day he remembers it.

He remembers every story he's ever read, because the good ones deserve to be remembered, and needs to keep the bad ones to fix them.

It's been that way for as long as he can remember.

He was never burning passionate about stories. Not until covid when they became the thing that saved him.

From then on he sweared he would devote his entire life to stories.

At many points, his teachers and those he shared his stories with said he should publish them and become a writer.

But he couldn't. He would never allow the very same people who mistreat and destroy stories to be given knowledge of his stories, for knowledge was power, and power given irresponsibly creates tyrants, and tyrants hurt and maim those that they have power over.

He could never allow such a fate for his stories.

In fits of paranoia and terror, he would take his writings and sketches and burn them, shred them in a blender, eat them, do whatever he could so that no one could hurt them, so that they would be safe with him, forever.

Other than this, he was a completley normal person.

Many even considered him well above average in many respects.

But a bad leg given to him at birth prevented him from greatness in sports, and an undying passion and love of stories prevented him from using his mind for any other task.

He didn't blame anyone.

This was his decision, and he was satisfied with it.

His life was incredibley difficult, but he was still satisfied none the less.

Afterall, this is what he wanted, the only thing he wanted. What more could he ask?

So he lay there, thinking of how Jesse would respond to Jamison's pleas. How much she hated him, how much he loved her, and how much she didn't belive a person could change, and how much Jamison wanted to change her, just the way she had changed him into someone better, even if she didn't know, even if he could just have had her killed and no one would care, in his heart he had a debt.

A debt that would be repayed, no matter how much suffering he had to endure, or how long he had to suffer, for that was the only way he could live with himself, the only way he could live with her...

He probably would have cried from the interaction, had it not been the 78th character interaction he had to fix relating to this story, and the difficulty of trying to make it unique enough to consider beautiful and worthy of the two characters was both incredibly infuriating and mentally taxing to the point where he had no energy to waste on such emotional responses anymore.

Opening his eyes and breathing a relaxing sigh, he concluded this session of story making and decided to find something to eat.

He scrumaged around the best he could and found some moldy food, mold, and mushrooms. All part of a balanced diet, yum.

After, he drank some murky sludge that was probably water and laid back down.

He stared up, resting and doing breathing exercises, preparing for his next session.

Each time he rewrote a story, it was incredibly taxing on the brain and body as he didn't just stop at general ideas, but the fine details as well.

The foliage, the dirt, the air, the minute differences in shape and color of different plants and animals based on their age and the current season.

These are only a few of the things he would have to create.

Afterall, just because he was limited to his immediate imagination doesn't mean he could slack off.

He wouldn't allow himself to do that.

But as ge got done with the breathing exercise and was about to start, suddenly something broke his concentration.

________________________________________| |

| WELCOME! |

|_______________________________________|

________________________________________

| |

| TO THE TOWER! |

|_______________________________________|

...

...

'The actual fuck is this?'