The Rift [Daryl Dixon]

Sympathy For The Devil

Chuck poured himself a large glass of whiskey and gulped it down.

My eyes just went straigh to Bela, as she just kept looking at the older guy with big blue eyes and grey hair in disbelief and... well, my best guess was a little bit of disgust as well.

"Oh! Oh, you're still there." He sighed in disappoinment.

"Yep."

"You're not a hallucination."

"Nope." I shook my head, crossing both arms over my chest.

"Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously, I'm God." Chuck said, giving me a weird look.

"You're not a God. At least not the one I know." I corrected.

"How else do you explain it, then? I wrote things that obviously came to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a God." He continued to mumble to himself.

"Can I hurt him now?" Bela asked on my left, clearly annoyed.

"No." I declined, giving her a serious look.

"Just a little bit." She insisted.

"A cruel, cruel capricious God. The things I've put you through. The physical beatings alone." Chuck added.

I took a deep breath and tried my best to keep my composure. "Fine, maybe later."

Bela just grinned at the thought of punching his teeth in, and that thought alone, was enough to keep her calm for a couple more minutes.

"I'm still in one piece, Chuck."

"I killed your father and your mother... Oh poor L." My eyes snapped open when I heard the writer talk about my long lost mom.

"Wait, wait. Let's rewind a little bit..." But Chuck didn't hear me, he was still going on and on about how much of a dickhead God he was.

"All the pain you suffered... And poor little Jack! Now he's trapped in between this crossfire, and all for what? The sake of literary symmetry? I toyed with your lives, your emotions, for... Entertainment."

"You didn't toy with us, Chuck, okay? You didn't create us." I insisted.

"Did you really have to live through the bugs?"

I just rolled my eyes in defeat and sighed. "Yeah."

"What about the ghost ship?"

"Yes, that too."

"I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live through bad writing... If I would have known it was real, I would have done another pass."

"I don't know what that means." I said confused.

"He might be a psychic." Bela suggested.

"You too?" I protested.

"No. If I were a pshycic, you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard." Chuck put the glass of whickey down on the coffee table and walked over to the dinning room. "I mean, just look at this... Oh-" The look of realization on Chuck's face only confused me even more. "This, uh, latest book, it's kind of weird..."

"How weird?" Bela questioned, watching as the man made his way back to us, holding a bunch of pages in his hand.

Chuck fixed his green robe and just gave us a funny look. "It's very Vonnegut."

"Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut or Cat's Cradle Vonnegut? I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"It's, uh, Kilgore Trout Vonnegut. I wrote myself into it. I wrote myself, at my house... Confronted by my characters."