EDIT: Yeah, I really couldn't help myself in the end. Now you guys get to actually have a legitimate prologue instead of that random thing with a double-digit word count. Yays!
(Warning for you new people: expect long author's notes in the chapters ahead. Also I wrote this after I started Chapter 5 (which is actually still in progress as of this writing) and am trying a new method of uploading chapters, so Chapters 1-5 will look a little different.)
Disclaimer: If I owned Phineas and Ferb, it would be depressing as all hell. But it isn't.
10 identities, all in a room.
Each of them is on the brink of death, but frozen in time so that death may not come for them. If for them time continued to flow, and they did not die immediately afterward, they would all be unconscious, for each was unconscious upon being frozen. Many, also, are heavily saturated with the toxin of despair, such that, if they then returned to the waking world and despair was not removed, it would claim them only a short while afterward.
One was abandoned by a loved one who succumbed to another toxin, a physical rather than mental one, due to the absence of an article often thought not so significant philosophically, that nonetheless is often treated with more value by those who reign over many in the world. That person (the beloved) was forced to leave as the toxin brought harm to his mind, nearly bringing him to harm others.
Another lost a loved one in an accident, brought on by a stranger fearing the absence of the same article, who had come to ignore what else could be equally or even more valuable in the long run.
Another is of a broken residence, also the result of the absence of the same article, turning to an oft-disregarded source for comfort and then learning to fight to keep it. Another has realized the root of these, that is, the article that had become absent, and has intended to ensure it would never be absent again so to prevent further problems.
One has all he could ever reasonably ask, but has observed the suffering of others, and attempts blindly to rectify the suffering he has observed. He is assisted by someone very different from himself, and yet very alike, who, much like the first identity, has lost someone, but to a failure of sentient beings rather than any physical toxin.
Their ideas were carried on to someone else, who also attempts to rectify what suffering he observes, only to find that his ability to do so is limited by his own position, that these are too far out of reach to be managed, causing him suffering himself. He has been observed in his attempts by a colleague; she alone is aware of these things.
One more, Player 9, as she called herself at one point, already has had her own suffering resolved, but, being almost always in the presence of those who have not, has borne witness to what may very well be the final nail to the coffin to the rest.
The last has long struggled against despair, caused by a suffering superimposed on him for as long as he can know, left to cycle between states of being saturated by the emotional toxin and being above it. Finally, he is on the border of succumbing.
They have been long trapped in a hidden panorama of space, others significant to them unable to realize their location. Indeed, "Player 9", along with another, had only entered the scene recently. The rest are unable to physically enter, despite having played such a major role in it the moment they realized its existence. Some realized the absences caused by the events that unfolded in this panorama, and through many clues finally managed to discover it, along with a way to intervene, others were allowed to view it through an outside perspective, and have gone so far as to cross a metaphysical barrier to interfere, and still others had the previous two groups expose it to them directly.
But alas, as the 10 trapped appear ready to end at the hands of despair and death, so it might all be for naught anyway.
I will not allow that to happen.
I remain the one observer who has played no part yet, beyond some muted warnings and bringing other observers to play theirs, despite the discontent that tragedy brings me. Until now.
I will ensure this does not end in tragedy.
It's time I finally performed my share.
This will make sense later on, for those of you who don't get it. (Hint: The narrator is not someone you will recognize until the reveal.) So read on, expect me to edit chapters even after uploading them, don't be too discouraged by Schedule Slip, Carpe Diem, and always have hope. Ami is out, PEACE!
