Salem stared at the clipboard in his hands like it might bite him.
The receptionist—tall, vaguely humanoid, with a smile that didn’t match her eyes—leaned lazily on the counter. The nameplate still read Narrative Processing Department: Where Characters Wait to Be Broken, but now there was a sticky note attached:
“Don’t Feed the Protagonists.”
> “Seriously?” Salem muttered, flipping through the papers. “What even is this?”
The forms were endless. Boxes for his name, his age, his blood type, his “primary existential dread,” and one that simply asked:
“Do you consent to narrative manipulation? (Y/N/Maybe later)”
He scowled and wrote: “Screw you” in all caps.
The receptionist tutted.
> “We’ll mark that as ‘Maybe later.’”
> “This is insane,” Salem said. “I’m not filling out bu
