The killer's blade hovered inches from Alex's throat, its edges pixelated and buzzing like a corrupted file. The girl's hollow voice echoed in the static-charged air: "She's not real. None of us are."
Alex's mind raced. Final Girl Rule #1: Survive the moral choice. Sacrifice the NPC, gain the power. Save her, earn the martyr's burden. But this wasn't a game—it was a story, and stories hurt.
They lunged.
Not toward the girl, but at the glitching knife in the killer's hand. Their fingers closed around the hilt—cold, electric, wrong—and yanked. The blade came free with a screech of tearing code. The killer recoiled, its form stuttering like a buffering stream.
"You're overwritten," Alex hissed, channeling every rant they'd ever posted about lazy antagonists. They drove the knife into the killer's chest, where a heart should've been.
The world exploded into static.
***
Achievement Unlocked: [Trope Breaker]
Reward: "The Fourth Wall" (Tier 1)
—Glitches now manifest as controllable distortions (5 sec duration).
***
The forest dissolved. Trees bled into watercolor smudges, the sky rewinding like a VHS tape. Alex collapsed onto… marble floors? The coppery stench of blood swapped for vanilla-scented candles. A chandelier glittered overhead, its light catching on the gold-leafed title card materializing in the air:
CHAPTER 2: THE LOVE INTEREST IS A WAR CRIMINAL
GENRE: ROMANCE // TROPE COMPLETION GOAL: SECURE A TRUE LOVE'S KISS
"Oh, come on," Alex groaned.
Their horror-movie grime had vanished. They now wore a tailored suit that cost more than their entire IKEA catalog, and his hair was swept into a rom-com-perfect swoop. A mirror on the wall reflected his face—same olive skin, same dark eyes, but more androgynous, slimmer, safer. Marketable.
"Ah. There you are."
The voice was velvet wrapped in a threat. At the room's grand piano sat a man straight off a booktok thirst edit: sharp jawline, disarmingly soft smile, and a military dress uniform adorned with medals that probably required war crimes to earn.
Nameplate Floating Above His Head:
General Lucien Voss
Trope: Toxic CEO (Military Variant)
Threat Level: [Heart-Eater]
Alex's writer-brain auto-critiqued: Ah. The "I Can Fix Him" arc. Gross.
"You're late for our engagement dinner," Lucien said, rising with panther-like grace. His gaze lingered on Alex's neck—no, on the faint scar now etched there, a leftover from the slasher's blade. "Though it seems you've been… busy."
Alex's pocket vibrated. They slid a hand discreetly into their jacket and pulled out a phone—no, a leather-bound diary. Words scrawled across its pages in blood-red ink:
Rule 1: Play your role until the Trope Goal is met.
Rule 2: Skills carry over but adapt. (Your knife is now a letter opener. Congrats.)
Rule 3: The Storyweaver is watching.
"Darling." Lucien's hand closed around theirs, cold as a tomb. "You're trembling. Guilty conscience?"
Alex's horror-genre adrenaline had morphed into something new—a flicker of heat, a traitorous pulse. No. The curse is rewriting me. Again.
They smiled, sharp and writer-cruel. "Just thinking about third-act breakups, General. I hear they're… messy."