"I guess the narrator enjoys it when you try, unsuccessfully, to fight back." Karyn correctly noted. "Don't worry," she whispered in his ear. "You usally enjoy this by the end. I wish..." Tears began streaming from Karyn's eyes. "I-I wish..."
"I can't do this." Karyn let the stone drop to the floor, defeated.
"What do you mean you can't do this? I thought you said the narrator controls everything about you!" Jon felt a glimmer of hope, realized that that's probably just what the narrator wanted, and tried vainly to squash it.
"He does. And yes, this one's a he...I think most of them are actually. But a new one just picked up the story. This one wants me to be sympathetic. Don't you see? I'm only less hollow than you because I'm a stereotype. The spunky tomboy girl-next-door love interest." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "At least I'm not a cheerleader stereotype. Because, y'know, they made me hate cheerleaders."
Jon walked over and oh so tentatively hugged her. "...love interest?"
"Yes you idiot! Why do you think we've been hanging out with each other so long? We secretly love each other." She laughed bitterly. "We were literally made for each other."
Jon had often dreamed up scenarios where Karyn would confess her love for him...but never anything quite like this. Still, he couldn't seem to stop his heart from accelerating past what was surely the speed of sound.
"Karyn?"
"...yeah?"
"Why can I move?"
"Oh...the narrator forgot that you were paralyzed and is too lazy to correct it."
That didn't seem right to Jon. "So...the narrator is stronger than the stone?"
"The stone is only as strong as the narrator says it is. They all seem to have different ideas about how it works." Karyn picked up the stone, got up, and walked towards the door, a look of grim determination on her face. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"To Sarah McMillan's house. See, this author is a sadist too. He just wants me sympathetic because he wants to destroy me as much as you. I think he might have issues with women. I'm going to give the stone to Sarah so she can destroy us."
