epilogue
I woke up in the dead of night and glanced around. What a horrible nightmare, I thought to myself. I turned on the bedroom light, taking a glass in my hand, and making my way to the washroom where I filled the glass and looked into the mirror. That was definitely me. I smiled as I shut the tap off, and walked into the kitchen. I grabbed the phone and dialed up Richard. "Hey, Richard? This is Suzy. I had a horrible nightmare tonight. If you get my message, call me back. Thanks, I just want to know someone's there for me," I said to the answering machine, before hanging up.
I sat at the table, looking out the window above the kitchen counter. The stars outside were truly something special, something humbling. I took a sip of the water. The phone rang, and I quickly took it off it's hook. "Hello?" I asked.
"Suzy?" Richard said on the other end.
"Working late?" I asked.
"Yeah, kind of, totally missed your call! Sorry about that."
"It's alright," I reminded him.
"So your first night in a proper house in so long. How are you enjoying it?" he asked.
"It's going great. It's a sort of quiet, reverent moment, but I'm sure it'll wear off."
"Glad to hear from you. You take care, Suzy."
"Same with you three," I replied to Richard.
"Oh, hey, you might like to know, we're rebuilding the statue of the author. The old Retconologists thought it was super important, and we want to get everything back up and running just how they had it, in case they come home."
"Something tells me they're already home," I said.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Well, alright, you guys take care."
"Alright, good night."
Richard hung up, and I returned my phone to its cradle on the wall. Part of me felt like I could have done better, part of me still regretted that Memmi perished the way she did. We had the option way back when to take the fight straight to the Watchers, there's still some of them out there, and we could have eliminated them all, if we knew how to approach it, but... I guess there's no use fretting about it now. We can't turn back time, can we? I finished my glass of water, placed the cup behind the sink, and headed back to the bedroom, checking in on Flux and Craggy sleeping in the living room. There was still a lot on my mind, a lot of different worries, fears, concerns I couldn't shake, but I could deal with them tomorrow. I pushed Scriff's arm out of the way, settled under the covers again, and replaced her arm over me, and headed off to bed. There'd be a lot of questions to answer tomorrow, especially now that I had kind of become the acting leader of the afterward, but it's no use worrying about that now. After all, it wasn't really about what we could have done better in the past, but instead about what happens afterward.
Still, I can't help but wonder what could have happened if we were successful in finding the Watchers.
"Our founder, the storyteller, the story. His door, the watcher. Speak its name and enter."
Thank you sincerely for reading draftware, and a double thank you if you also read afterward. This is the "default" ending of this story, you can access hidden chapters and a different ending if you know what to look for. Once you've figured out how The Watchers hid their stories, you can get to the true ending of Suzy's tale, but I consider both endings something good for Ms. Emmerson.
Either way, thank you sincerely for reading, and may we cross paths again. Don't be a stranger. Reach out to me on Twitter for any questions or comments, and a thank-you to everyone in my Discord for being a fan of the things I do.
E3kHatena, 9 May 2019
ns 15.158.61.6da2
