Author's Notes :

Hi there! I don't normally write AN, simply because I believe a story should speak for itself. This time, though, I think this odd duck deserves a little explanation before you delve into my realms of madness.

First, as you read, I hope you can keep in mind that this story is an experiment with a new format. I know that narration can be difficult to pull off, especially within the realms of fanfic. In fanfic, it seems most narrators end up having snippy conversations with the characters, or just making goofy comments about what is happening in the story. This can be funny at times, but can get old really quick. I decided to take the narrator angle off in another direction entirely, with the narrator actually becoming an OC and the story's main protagonist. I admit freely that I may not have succeeded in accomplishing what I set out to do.

Second, I want you to know that this story may insult you. The narrator is not me, in case you're wondering. This is not a self-insert show for the bored and simple-minded. I am not in agreement with everything the narrator says and thinks about certain people/subjects, such as fanboys, certain fandoms, or other such things. The narrator is the bad guy, so it's totally cool if you don't like him at all. You're not meant to like him. He's bat-shit crazy, after all.

Third, this is a story about what could happen if a fanfic writer had a psychotic break in the middle of writing a fanfic piece. That's what's happening here today. That said, the specific histories of the characters involved are not so important that you ought to stress out because you're "fandom blind". You will come out at the other end of the story, hopefully, with everything you need to understand my point. (What's my point? My point is, creative people are sometimes highly susceptible to insanity. This is almost a cautionary tale about what could happen if you let the small obsessions necessary for fanfic creation take you into the realms of madness and beyond.)

Please, if you write a review because you loved it, say so. If you hate it, I want to hear all the ugly details about what made you find this story so repugnant. Really. I want to make it better, and it's proving to be a more difficult project than I first imagined. I may simply be in need of a good, solid verbal beating to bring me to my senses. I won't be mad if you can give me creative criticism. I will swallow my bitter pill, and I will thank you for it.

So, now that I've totally overstayed my welcome, I promise to shut up and let my story do the talking from here on out.

Part 1 - Inside

Fanboys are disgusting. I'm not a fanboy.

"You are," says the voice inside my head.

How do you know what a fanboy even is? Shut up. Go sit in the chair like I told you. You're supposed to be in the chair until the end of this scene. Go on.

He sits, but instead of aiming his piercing gaze at the other characters like he's supposed to, he just stares at me. I wish I could say his eyes burn with desire, but they don't. He wants to kill me.

Stop that. I'm not even here. I'm just an invisible POV. What about the conversation you were supposed to be having about the political climate at the moment, how vampire society will fall if... wasn't there tea involved? Damn. You made me forget what I was trying to do. I really need to write an outline next time, so I don't lose my idea before I get it down on paper.

The others are like paper dolls, mannequins, life-sized realistic paper mache' puppets. I can dress them any way I please, make them walk about, spouting the words I decide. Since I lost my train of thought, though, they are still, lifeless.

Yuki perks up, and begins to sing, "I've got a love-ely bunch of coconuts! Deedle-eee-dee-dee!" just to illustrate my point to him. She is not the real Yuki. She is a copy, my doll. I can make her do anything I want, just as if she were a marionette on a string. I can make him do anything I want, too. Anything.

"Fuck," he says, momentarily distracted, his eyes following Yuki's flailing hands, her gabbling mouth.

I start pounding on the backspace key and Yuki falls limp once more. Kaname would never say something like that. It's OOC, which is fanfic speak for Out Of Character. It pays to know the jargon, even if you're not really a fanboy. They'll laugh you off the forums if you don't pretend you're one of them.

What?! I'm not! I'm not a fanboy! Quit looking at me like that!

"You think you're an artist? A god?!"

He braces himself, and stands again.

Shut up! Get back in your chair!

He says nothing. He just stands there, arms crossed, glaring at me.

Don't make me kill you Kaname.

"It's too late for that," he says.

You won't be the first character to die by my hand, Kaname-sama.

There are places inside my head that are rooms painted with the blood of imaginary beings. Murder scenes. I keep those rooms, shrines to my malformed creations, the ones that had to be put down.

No, you wouldn't be the first. I unlock the hidden doors. I show him. He stares, unmoved, until the scene returns to normal.

"I am not a doll. I will not dance for your amusement," he growls, and tries to step away.

His leg brushes against Yuki as he pushes past her, and she slides off the couch and into an awkward pile on the floor. Her eyes are open, glassy, like a puppet with no master at the strings.

"Where is the real Yuki?" he frowns, staring down at her.

The real Yuki is in her own universe, with the real Kaname. Right now, she is alone, because the real Kaname is too busy, too self-absorbed, to see how much she needs him. Right now, Zero is on top of her, making love to her, drinking her blood, crawling into the deepest recesses of her mind, because she's weak and he makes her feel strong. You don't make her feel strong, Kaname. You never did.

She's going to have his baby, you know that Kaname? She's going to have Zero's baby, not yours. The real Kaname died and left Yuki alone, her fragile butterfly-soul exposed to the chaos winds of the world. The real Kaname couldn't stop himself from tearing the heart out of the woman he said he loved and throwing it into the furnace. You've raved on and on about the virtues of selfless sacrifice, but in the end, the real Kaname's end, the sacrifice was far from selfless, even if it was futile, meaningless.

"Release me. Now." he says, still staring at the Yuki-doll at his feet.

Why? There is no place left for you to go. That world, the one in your memories, it no longer lives. Without this little pocket universe I've created for you, you would be frozen in place, frozen in time, forever unmoving, unthinking. Set in stone for all eternity, and like a stone, you would be dead. Yuki would be dead. Two insects encased in amber.

"This one is dead," he shudders, turning away from her.

He steps over my Yuki-doll, his eyes filled with burning hatred, and begins to walk toward the door at the back of the room. He opens the door, and stops short.

The space beyond is pure white, an eternity of nothing, a blank page. I haven't written that scene yet.

"Let me go!" he snarls, backing away.

Even if I wanted to let you go, you wouldn't survive in my world. Things are different here. There is no magic. In this world, ideas are too fragile to take physical form. Without me, you would melt away like a snowflake in a flame.

I'm going to have to kill him. He shouldn't be talking to me. He shouldn't be looking at me. He shouldn't know I'm watching, that I'm the one pulling the invisible strings. I made him from nothing, memories of images and sounds on a screen, data bits lifted from subconscious thought-streams. Sometimes they notice me, though, my little marionettes, and when they do, I am forced to cut them down.

I turn away from him. I slip through the ceiling as I make my way to the ancient gallery. I choose a face from those hanging on the wall. I choose a mask of despair. I choose a weapon, a heavy, curved blade this time. It somehow seems befitting that I should strike him down with a sword. He's a nobleman, right? Noblemen should die by the sword.

Now that I am dressed, I pace through the corridors. I am the spider, and he is the fly at the center of the web. Bridges gap the white nothingness as I pass. I am the masked shadow of despair.

When I open the door to the room where I left him, though, he is not there.

Impossible! I never said you could leave!

Something is very wrong.