Book Five, Chapters 86 and 87

~Antoine~

The forest shifted again, the shapes of the trees melting into something both unfamiliar and known.

The air was full of energy, heavy with memories that weren’t mine—or weren’t fully mine. I stopped running, my massive chest heaving, and the wolf growled low in confusion. The world around me wasn’t the woods anymore. It was... something else.

I dug my claws into the dirt and put all my attention into what was before me.

A payphone stood just ahead, glowing faintly in the moonlight like a beacon. Beside it stood me. Or the slightly younger man I used to be, years older than the one hiding on the stairs. My younger self clutched the receiver tightly, his breath misting in the cold air as he spoke into the phone.

Strange. I almost remembered this as if it really happened, but this was all a fiction.

“Christian?” Younger Me said, his voice hesitant, hopeful. “It’s me.”

The voice on the other end was warm, welcoming, too perfect to be real. “It’s good to hear from you, Antoine. I wasn’t sure you’d call.”

Younger Me shuffled nervously, glancing over his shoulder like he expected someone to be watching. “I didn’t know if... you’d want me to after all these years.”

Christian laughed softly, the sound smooth as silk. “Of course I do. You’re my brother. I’ve missed you. Come out to the cabin on the lake I told you about. We can talk in person.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Carousel was recreating how I was lured to Carousel to find my brother. The parallels were eerie.

The wolf inside me growled, restless and wary, but I couldn’t move. I could only watch as my younger self nodded, his hand tightening around the receiver.

“Okay,” Younger Me said. “I’ll be there.”

The scene blurred, the edges of the memory twisting and warping until I was standing outside a cabin deep in the woods. The younger version of me emerged from the shadows, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His movements were careful, deliberate.

He didn’t trust the place, and neither did the wolf.

The cabin was old and weathered, its wooden planks dark with moss. The windows were shattered, the glass glinting in the faint moonlight. The air smelled wrong—metallic and sharp, with the faintest undercurrent of decay. Younger Me paused at the door, his hand hovering over the handle.

This was the restricted cabin from Camp Dyer. Carousel was having fun with this.

“I’m here,” the younger me called, his voice steady despite the tension in his posture. “Christian?”

The silence was deafening. Then, a low growl rumbled through the night. Younger Me turned just in time to see the first wolf emerge from the shadows. Its yellow eyes glinted, and its teeth gleamed like daggers.

Younger Me was ready.

He dropped the duffel and unzipped it in one swift motion, pulling out a long, gleaming knife. When the wolf lunged, he was already moving. His blade flashed, slicing through fur and flesh. The wolf yelped and fell, blood staining the dirt.

The blade stayed in the wolf. There were more where it came from.

More wolves came, too.

They emerged from the shadows like specters, their growls filling the air. Younger Me fought with precision and fury, his movements sharp and calculated. He was prepared for this.

This was my character. He had been raised as a monster hunter. He was ready.

I watched, my claws digging into the earth as I fought the urge to intervene. The wolf inside me wanted to leap into the fray, to tear into the attackers, but I couldn’t. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t now.

It was a memory—a memory that had been fabricated for the storyline. I was On-Screen.

One by one, the wolves fell. Younger Me stood panting in the center of the clearing, blood dripping from his seventh blade, smoke rising from the barrel of his gun.

And then, from the shadows, came the last wolf. It was larger than the others, its fur darker, its eyes brighter. It didn’t attack right away. It circled, slow and deliberate, its gaze locked on my younger self.

The wolf lunged, and Younger Me moved on instinct. The knife plunged into its chest, and the wolf let out a pained howl before collapsing to the ground. Younger Me staggered back, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He dropped the knife, staring at the wolf’s lifeless body.

Hours later.

The sun rose.

The fur receded, and there he was—Christian. His eyes were open, empty, his face slack with death.

This wasn't my real brother. They copied me but not him. Strange.

“No,” Younger Me said, his voice breaking. “No, no, no!”

The air around me thickened, the memory collapsing in on itself like smoke pulled into a void.

The wolf in my mind laughed, its voice sharp and cruel.

“You killed your own brother,” it said, the words echoing in my skull.

“No, I didn’t!” I tried to yell, but all that came out were roars.

That was the parallel. My character killed his brother. I killed mine.

It was an accident. It was Project Rewind.

But I did it.

I staggered backward, the forest returning around me. The cabin was gone, the payphone was gone, and the blood was gone. But the pain lingered, sharp and unforgiving. I turned and ran, tearing through the trees blindly, as if I could outrun the memory, the wolf, and the weight of what I’d done.

I had killed my brother. How could I live with that?

Something pulled at me, tugging me forward like a thread sewn into my chest. The wolf didn’t fight it, and neither did I. I ran because it was the only thing I could do.

~-~

The forest thinned, the trees growing sparse and scattered, their shadows no longer deep enough to hide in. The pull in my chest was stronger now, dragging me forward, relentless and undeniable. The wolf inside me stirred, no longer fighting.

It wanted this as much as I did, though neither of us could name what this was.

The air shifted. The scent of pine and soil faded, replaced by something else—something sharp and layered. The acrid tang of asphalt, the faint musk of oil, and the unmistakable scent of wolves. My steps slowed as I reached the edge of the forest and saw it.

The motel. The diner. The main street of Southeastern Carousel.

The motel sat squat and unassuming on the side of the road, not too far from the river I had crossed moments earlier, its neon sign flickering weakly.

It was familiar. Too familiar. I knew this place. We had been here before, before the dinner, before the infection.

The wolf in me growled softly, its nose twitching. I could feel them now. The wolves.

They were everywhere. Their scents clung to the motel like a second skin, seeping into the cracks and shadows. But it wasn’t just the motel. The scent carried on the wind, leading to the hills beyond, to the houses tucked into the woods, to the town itself.

This was why we couldn’t figure out where the wolves were hiding out.

They weren’t hiding in caves, abandoned buildings, or dens. They were here, living among the humans, blending in. Hiding in plain sight.

No… there were so many of them.

I took a step forward, my paws crunching softly against the gravel. The wolf strained against me, its instincts surging. It wanted something—someone.

Then I heard the voice.

“Easy now, child.”

It was soft at first, just a whisper carried by the wind. I froze, my ears twitching, my muscles tensing.

“Everything is okay now.”

The voice grew clearer, stronger. It wasn’t in my head. It was real. I turned, my eyes locking onto a figure emerging from the shadows.

A woman.

She moved with the grace of a predator, her bare feet light and deliberate. Her dark hair framed her face, her expression calm but commanding. I knew her. I knew her.

Sarah.

On the red wallpaper, it said Serena, but this was Sarah, the same woman from Kimberly’s photographs.

I’d seen her smile, seen her arm slung casually over Kimberly’s shoulder, like an older sister or a trusted friend. But as she stepped closer, I felt it.

She wasn’t just Sarah. She was something more.

The wolf in me surged forward, desperate to close the distance. My body moved without thought, my claws digging into the ground as I bounded toward her. There was no fight this time. I didn’t hold it back. I couldn’t.

She was the reason I had run, the reason I was here.

She didn’t flinch as I stopped in front of her, panting and trembling. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I felt it like a tidal wave crashing over me. She could make the pain go away. Her presence was the wind. It was the moonlight. It was peace. It was freedom.

She was overwhelming, her power radiating from her like heat from the sun.

My legs buckled beneath me, and I collapsed, the exhaustion hitting me all at once. My paw throbbed, the pain sharp and searing. I looked down and saw it—the silver caltrop. It was still embedded in my flesh, burning, smoking, if only in my mind. I hadn’t even remembered it was there.

“You’ve run far enough,” Sarah said, her voice calm and soothing. She knelt beside me, her hands steady as they reached for my paw. “You can rest now.”

The other wolves emerged from the shadows; their forms were human, but their eyes gleamed with the same golden light. I could see it now with my wolf eyes. They surrounded me, silent and watchful, their presence both comforting and suffocating.

There were so many. The players were doomed.

Sarah’s fingers brushed against my paw, and I winced, a low whine escaping my throat. She worked quickly, her movements precise and deliberate. The caltrop slid free, and I let out a ragged breath as the burning pain faded.

“There,” she said softly. “It’s done. You’re safe.”

I wanted to say something, to ask her why, how, what this all meant—but the words wouldn’t come. My vision blurred, the exhaustion pulling at me like a weight I couldn’t fight anymore.

“It’s okay,” Sarah said, her voice the last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me. “Sleep.”

And I did.

~-~

~Hawk Kippling: Monster Hunter~

Back home, monsters were simple.

Ancient witches, sorcerers, and priests defeated beasts of unfathomable power using magic they didn’t understand. The magic was mostly lost to time, but the monsters were not, not really.

These creatures had their own ironic form of immortality. As the beasts were scavenged and broken down, their genetic code worked its way through the food cycle.

The insects got their meal, then the birds, that sort of thing.

Every living thing feeds off something, passing this invasive genetic material along. It would eventually make its way into humans or other animals, occasionally latching on and binding itself to human DNA—creating a ticking time bomb.

This was eons ago.

That’s the theory, at least.

Vampires, werewolves, heck, even those putrid ghouls called zombies could all be explained by this phenomenon. There was a good chance that I myself was walking around with some combination of ancient genetic code that might one day result in a mutation in my descendants—growing fangs or claws, being able to see in the dark, breathing underwater, or even lusting for blood.

It was all in our DNA. My people were an interesting bunch.

As time went on, the emergence of these phenomena slowed, and my world forgot about them.

They became legends.

Vampires? Those are just scary stories.

Werewolves? It must have just been a bear.

If you tried to discuss any of this in your thesis at university, your advisor would threaten to drop you.

I would know.

But if you were one of the unfortunate souls who discovered these weren’t legends, that these monsters still crawled on the dirt, I was the type of person you wanted to know.

I’ve killed them all—hunted them down. Vampires, werewolves, hags, all sorts of undead. I’ve tracked and studied pretty much everything there is to study.

In fact, there’s only one thing I’ve hunted that I didn’t manage to kill. I tracked it all the way to Carousel.

Once I’ve killed my ultimate prey, then I can die for real.

The werewolves of Stray Dawn were a popular breed in Carousel stories. They were smart enough, theoretically, to take part in even complex plots.

Most of the time, the werewolf virus in my world resulted in degenerative mental function. They were good at killing, but after a while, they stopped being good at anything else.

Carousel didn’t like that so they were rarely used.

But these wolves? They were practically humans with superpowers. After a bit of practice, they could shift back and forth—even without the full moon. They could think, they could plan—assuming they had a pack leader who ordered them to.

Fascinating creatures.

Their mutation wasn’t really a mutation at all; it was a curse. The magic of my homeworld worked differently and could never produce something like this. Unfortunately, I’d never been in a position to study this type of magic. I always got cast as a monster hunter, not a magic scholar.

At least I could appreciate the exercise I get in this role.

It was daytime. Antoine had shifted and run off into the woods, and I had a trope just for this situation, a perfect way of tracking him down—by following his blood trail.

It was all I was permitted to do. I wasn’t allowed to lead the players to victory, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help out.

The other Paragons and I had devoted our eternal lives to helping the players win the game, even if that meant playing demeaning roles or joining the likes of Silas Dyrkon or the Proprietor just to keep an eye on them.

Because the players were the key, it had to be them to beat Carousel.

I leaned against one of the stone walls in the fort, watching as hundreds of gallons of nitric acid were hauled into the courtyard in plastic jugs. Nitric acid, distilled water, copper scrap, and all the silver from every pawn shop within a hundred-mile radius, it seemed.

Other players had discovered rolling silver before, but none had gone the next step. None had realized it was the purification of silver that hurt the wolves.

Here I was, thinking Andrew Hughes must be the smartest player to ever run Stray Dawn. He certainly figured out the science part of it pretty quickly, but it turned out it was all the Film Buff’s idea.

Riley Lawrence.

He wasn’t much to look at.

And yet, he was our best shot to beat the game—if we even had a shot. He may not have been the man for the job, but he was the man with the job.

What qualified him for this honor? Hell, if I knew.

With fewer than a dozen players left, they had to pick someone to hang their hopes on.

As I saw him excitedly help sort supplies and bring in a load of empty glass bottles from a nearby soda factory, wearing that dumb smile on his face, I had to wonder how much he even knew.

The kid was still wearing the suit from when he arrived at the dinner party. He had proper clothing to change into, but he liked his Luggage Tag so much that he would rather look like a fool.

Why did that bother me so much?

They were making bombs—or something similar—that could purify silver chemically. I knew how powerful rolling silver was against these cursed werewolves.

Carousel was going to love it.

The werewolf curse wasn’t a vague hand-wavy magic concept. Instead, it was literally in the air like radio waves, connecting them to the pack, to their pack leader, and maybe even further than that.

I had no idea—no one had ever gotten that far.

Purifying silver drew the curse out of the air and temporarily disconnected the wolf from the magic source that allowed it to exist. Without the magic of the curse, the werewolf’s anatomy was not compatible with life—or at least, a comfortable life.

Yep. If they could use that weapon well, they might just win.

But they wouldn’t. They were outgunned.

I’d seen so many player wipes that I could almost call it before First Blood.

Unfortunately, despite being a fine planner, Riley Lawrence had one major flaw: he was a sacrificial character. He must have already known this, but I could see it plain as day on the red wallpaper. He was next on the list. He would die for Second Blood.

That was his lot. That was his role.

Damn shame.

It didn’t matter how good of a weapon he and Andrew were building. If he was next on the list, he was going to die, and no matter what he hid behind, the wolves would get through it—because the script said they must.

From what I’d seen, he already knew this. He was likely prepared to sacrifice himself to ensure the survival of the group.

We just had to hope they could get through the finale without him.

~-~

They finally finished unloading the supplies and were meeting up for a group talk.

The surviving players were Kimberly, a fine actress; Michael, a great fighter who was unwilling to take initiative; Andrew, a brilliant mind but a poor healer and not exactly one to endear himself to the audience; and Riley, the only one of them who seemed excited about what was going to happen—even if he tried to hide it.

I walked closer. I had to stay in character, but maybe I could find some way of nudging them in the right direction nonetheless.

“There’s going to be a big fight,” Riley said. “I don’t know how many werewolves there are, but I expect Second Blood is going to save Kirst a lot of money on mercenaries…. Unless he paid upfront. We just have to find a way to control it—to make sure that we don’t lose our strongest pieces on the board.”

They quieted their voices so the nearby NPCs couldn’t hear. How cute.

“When you say strongest pieces, are you referring to yourself?” Andrew asked, not angry but amused.

“No,” Riley said. “Right now, we have Kimberly because her plot is gaining a lot of momentum. And we also have rolling silver, and we’ve devoted so much time to that, it’s got to have a big impact. I’d hate to waste it on Second Blood.”

I couldn’t help but flash a grin.

He was right. You only got one shot with a weapon like that. If you repeated yourself, you’d find that it just wouldn’t work as well. It would be boring to the audience. You had to build up steam with something like this, and as soon as you let it out, it was gone.

For maximum impact, this trap had to be saved for the finale.

As a monster hunter, finding the secret weapon was literally sixty percent of what I did, and you had to be careful when you unveiled it.

“So, what are your suggestions?” Andrew asked.

Riley started to speak, but then he looked up at me—as if questioning whether he should talk about this in front of me.

Fuck it, I thought.

I winked at him. Made his day.

He continued to speak, now a little more confidently. “We need to set up a sacrifice,” he said. “We need to lose this round so that we can win the final battle, and we need to do it without using rolling silver—or whatever we’re calling this chemical concoction… splashing silver… dissolving silver… maybe.”

Andrew looked around at the supplies they had gathered.

“How are we supposed to decide?” Andrew asked. “Aren’t we just going to get attacked no matter what? Speaking of that, what is the narrative explanation for why the werewolves would attack us directly instead of just running away?”

Important questions to ask.

“Her,” Riley said, nodding toward Kimberly. “Without her, we would have to go find them. But I’m pretty sure the pack leader wants Kimberly, so we can trust that they will attack us eventually. For Second Blood, though, we need to keep the fight away from the fort.”

“That still leaves the question of how,” Andrew said.

“Well, look at my plot armor,” Riley said. “We know where they’re striking next.”

“I see,” Andrew said.

“That’s the plan,” Riley said. “That means you have to stick around, execute both the rolling silver plan, and ensure that Kimberly’s whole subplot comes to fruition.”

So, he did understand his role.

“I’ll go with you,” Michael said. “I fucked everything up so far. I missed my subplot, and I didn’t manage to catch the wolf. Wherever you’re going for Second Blood, I’ll go too.”

Riley shook his head. “We don’t need to lose two players,” he said. “That would defeat the whole purpose of my sacrifice.”

“Then I’ll go instead of you,” Michael said. “Logan said it was possible.”

“That was a special circumstance,” Andrew said. “He has low plot armor. He’s going to be targeted next.”

“Well, not necessarily,” Riley said.

Wait a second. Had he figured it out?

“Technically, Michael could set off Second Blood by himself,” Riley said.

“How?” Andrew asked.

“He could do something really, really stupid,” Riley answered, barely suppressing a grin. “He could fall for a trap.”

“Force Carousel’s hand?” Andrew asked.

“I’m not saying he has to do this or that it’s even a smart thing,” Riley said. “But hypothetically, if he did want to take my place, Hawk is about to take some mercenaries out and follow that blood trail with Antoine. But it’s obviously a trap. It’s too early to work.”

This was getting interesting. How much did he know?

“How do you know it’s a trap?” Kimberly asked.

“There’s a big reveal that has to happen. You know how it turned out that Antoine was the werewolf? Well, that doesn’t really make sense because we already established that the little needle of werewolf saliva couldn’t possibly have caused him to shift so soon,” Riley said. “So I think I know what happened.”

Instead of going on, he waited for one of them to ask.

“What happened?” Kimberly asked.

“We misunderstood how the werewolf trope works. We knew that any of us could be the werewolf, and we wouldn’t know until the reveal, but we assumed that meant the werewolf would be a player until they were revealed. But what if it didn’t mean that? What if Antoine counted as infected and therefore counted as an enemy the entire time?

“If he was an enemy, then the normal rules of targeting and priority wouldn’t apply anymore. So, even if Lila had to be First Blood, that didn’t mean Antoine couldn’t get attacked by another werewolf beforehand. Think about it. These werewolves are smart. If that blonde mercenary is a werewolf, as we think he is, I bet what he did was attack Antoine to help speed up the transformation. You know, it ate his heart.

“I think that’s the next big reveal because we still have to reveal that the blonde mercenary is a werewolf. It all fits together.”

It seemed he even stumped Andrew with that one. Maybe he was a pretty clever player.

Riley continued, “Second Blood is a perfect time for that reveal. So if we sent Michael and a bunch of mercenaries out with the blonde mercenary to track down Antoine, I bet it’s a “mistake” that could be avoided. Deliberately falling into a trap is one way to manipulate targeting order since Carousel will punish you for that, and that will change the priority for an attack.”

The others looked at each other and then at me as if I could comment. Michael looked ready to go for it.

“I’ll take out as many as I can,” he said.

“But we don’t have to do that,” Riley said. “It might be useful to have a fighter around for the finale without Antoine here.”

I looked at the shaggy-haired young man before me.

The truth was that this team was under-leveled and outmatched. Unfortunately, that was the way you had to play the game. It was the only way to ever escape.

I looked around at the supplies they had gathered for their secret weapon against the wolves. Riley and Andrew had turned this story into a battle of wits. That was exactly what they needed to do.

A battle of brawn was not going to be won by the players. It never was. These werewolves were fine specimens.

Even if Antoine hadn’t been turned, fighting these wolves in a straight-up deathmatch was folly.

No, what they needed to survive was to keep their planner around a little longer. He might actually know what he was doing.

I couldn’t win this storyline for them, but I could help.

I cleared my throat. “I can track him wherever he went. If we’re going on an expedition, if we’re going on a hunt, I will lead it. And I might need a strong fighting man at my side,” I said, looking at Michael. “We should let you three stay here and work on your plans while the real men go get the job done.”

To be clear, I had three PhDs, but this storyline demanded I be a testosterone-filled mega-man dumb enough to follow a werewolf back to its pack with out scouting things out first.

They looked at me like I might be some sort of demon. They didn’t trust Paragons. I couldn’t blame them.

“So that must be the right decision,” Kimberly said. “If the paragon’s going along with it.”

“Maybe,” Riley said. “We don’t know that,” he added, hesitant.

I wasn’t going to risk saying anymore. I walked forward and clapped Michael on the back. If he was willing to be the Second Blood sacrifice, then it was probably the right call.

Stray Dawn was a werewolf story, and there were dozens of variations that called for a Monster Hunter Paragon. I had played this story hundreds of times.

I had never seen its deep secrets, and I had never seen someone go this far with the rolling silver subplot.

For a long time, players would just try to hook up with Serena—or Sarah, whatever she was calling herself nowadays. I used to get so annoyed.

And here we were, possibly at the end—the real end—and it all came down to this little story on the outskirts of Carousel.

One last hunt.

One last group of players.

And if they didn’t succeed, we were doomed.

I might never survive to hunt again. I might never find the beast I tracked all the way to this godforsaken world.

I had died thousands of times, and this might end up being the only one that mattered. If I could help them win, I would do it.

~

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~

*Note that the Hawk Kippling part might get changed a bit.