How do you defeat a perfected version of yourself?
You don't.
You just run.
.
.
.
.
At the start of my novel, I created two unique characters. Two versions of the same person—me.
The protagonist, Lucian, was made to be a perfected version of myself. A version that had everything I didn't, that was everything I wasn't. Everything a protagonist should be.
And then there was Artemis.
He was the complete opposite of Lucian. He couldn't even be considered a proper villain or a mob character—he was disposable. His entire role was to serve as a connection between the main character and the heroine, nothing more. I never created him to be anything beyond that single narrative function.
He was an oddity. Everything about him existed in opposition to the protagonist, so yes, he was an imperfect me. But not just imperfect—he was horribly WRONG.
That was who I woke up as.
THAT Artemis.
And from that very first moment of realization, I knew I was going to die. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it because that's how the story worked. It's like being cast in a movie where your character dies at a specific point in the script—you can't change it, you can't rewrite it. It MUST happen for the story to proceed.
So I stood there staring at that mirror, letting it all sink in slowly, and I finally accepted the undeniable fact that I was dead and was never going back home. I didn't even understand why it hurt so much to begin with. Was it because of my family? Was it because of Emy? Or was it just the reflexive horror that comes from knowing you died?
I didn't know.
However, from that moment on, all I wanted was to see my creations come to life. I did see them eventually, walking and talking and living in a world I had written. What I didn't expect was for the hatred directed at Artemis to be THAT intense.
I had created Artemis to be the embodiment of everything despicable in a person. What I hadn't done was detail out his life properly, so most of it ended up as vague background information that I never bothered to flesh out.
The result? I barely had any allies. All the major characters hated me with genuine passion, even the protagonist himself. In fact, with Lucian it felt different—like he just wanted to hate me on principle, even more intensely than the others who at least had scripted reasons for their disgust.
But I didn't mind it at first. It didn't matter to me because I understood my role in this world. All I did was let the story take its natural course without interference. I remained entirely passive, watching it all play out exactly as I had written it. I never intervened in major plotlines or even tried to properly act out Artemis's designated role in the story.
I just became a spectator in my own creation.
But with time, things started getting weird. Certain characters began acting outside their established parameters—a few of them, actually. But one character's actions were particularly concerning given that she was a heroine, a MAJOR heroine at that.
Her name was Amelia.
In the story I wrote, she was supposed to despise Artemis for what he had done to her when they were younger. The hatred was meant to be absolute and unwavering.
But her actual actions didn't match that setting at all.
To be honest, she reminded me of Emy. Evasion meant nothing to her. Rejection meant nothing. All that mattered was whatever thought was running through her head, and with Emy back in my old life, that thought had been that I secretly had feelings for her and was lying to myself about it. Nothing I ever said to prove otherwise got through to her.
THAT was the same case with Amelia, or at least somewhat similar in its fundamental irrationality.
What I didn't expect was for her interest in me to generate even MORE enmity from the protagonist. His hatred just kept growing exponentially even when I was doing absolutely nothing to provoke him.
With time, I began fearing the worst. Nothing was going according to the script anymore, which made everything increasingly worrying. Was the story actively changing to bring about my inevitable death since I had strayed from the original plot? That seemed like the only logical explanation for why things were diverging so drastically.
The problem was that as time went by, I began noticing something disturbing about myself. I was no longer as apathetic as I had been before. At first I tried to ignore it, but with my increasing interactions with the other characters, it became impossible to deny that I had somehow gained more emotional receptivity than I ever had in my past life.
I had become what I always wanted to be.
More human.
It was from that moment on that I made the gravest mistake of my life—I opened up. I began to actively intrude in the plot I had once promised myself not to be part of.
I helped people. I saved characters who were scripted to die for one reason or another, altering their fates because I couldn't just stand by and watch anymore. Slowly, impossibly, I made friends.
With time I stopped running from Amelia as well, as she began showing more and more tendencies like Emy. Hers were even worse, actually.
Her jealousy grew to the point that she began harassing anyone close to me. I had even found some cameras in my room, which I instantly knew was her doing. It even got to the point where she had framed me for some shit I can't remember and began trying to blackmail me with it, even going as far as using her connections to change my dorm placement to hers. There was even one time when she had set me up using herself and used it as more blackmail material.
All in all, she was becoming a problem.
And to stop things from going even further, I decided to do the smartest thing I could do.
I got in a relationship with her.
Yes, I knew she was the protagonist's love interest. I knew that alright. But with how things were going, I also knew a time would come when she would lock me up in some isolated place forever. I knew how yanderes worked after all. I had watched and read a lot on that aspect to know that if I didn't get her under control early, then a time would come when she would become the greatest danger to me.
As expected, the protagonist's hatred grew to unprecedented levels. He didn't even bother to hide it anymore.
But I thought it was only a matter of time before he came around.
He never did.
But that doesn't matter anymore. It no longer matters.
In the end, I was right. I should have never trusted them, none of them. I should have found a life for myself outside the plot. I never needed to be among them. I was never meant to be in the first place.
A time came when THEY all betrayed me.
All of them.
They left me there to die. Even Amelia. They used me.
Sighs.
It really is the worst kind of feeling to be betrayed by the ones you loved the most.
Maybe it would have been best if I never came to feel emotions this clearly. At least it wouldn't have hurt so much.