EPISODE FOURTEEN
**WHO BENEFITS FROM BEING WATCHED?**
(Where attention is revealed not as a byproduct of stories - but their original master)
1. THE QUIET AFTER THE CROWD
Silence had weight now.
Not peaceful silence.
Not rest.
The kind that presses against the ears until you notice your own heartbeat.
Worlds once loud with cheering, chanting, gasping - now breathed like empty halls after a concert ends.
Milo felt it everywhere.
Not absence.
Vacancy.
Cities still moved. People still spoke. But moments no longer swelled. No collective rhythm pulled them toward climaxes. No invisible tide of attention lifted certain events above others.
Everything felt… equally small.
A child falling scraped her knee.
No dramatic gasp.
Just pain. Real pain. One woman rushed to help. Two others walked past.
It mattered only to those there.
Diana whispered, "Is this what life is supposed to feel like?"
Gandalf's staff tapped softly against stone.
"This is existence without amplification."
Tarzan scanned the jungle. "No echoes."
Milo stared at the dim console.
"Nothing's being boosted anymore."
2. THE FIRST THING THAT BEGAN TO DIE
It wasn't a hero.
It wasn't a kingdom.
It was a legend.
In a mountain village they found a shrine - cracked, overgrown, forgotten mid-day.
An old man sat before it, rubbing dust off a carved symbol.
"My grandmother said this spirit protected our harvest," he muttered. "When storms came, we prayed."
Milo asked quietly, "When was the last miracle?"
The man thought.
"…I don't remember."
The shrine had once drawn thousands.
Now it drew no one.
And without witnesses, belief had thinned.
The crops had grown anyway.
The rains had come anyway.
The spirit - whatever it had been - no longer answered.
Not angry.
Just… absent.
Gandalf closed his eyes. "Some beings were sustained by reverence."
Diana frowned. "You're saying faith was food."
"Attention," Gandalf corrected gently. "Faith is simply attention wrapped in meaning."
The console pulsed faintly.
DEPENDENT ENTITY FAILURE: MINOR
Milo's blood ran cold.
"That thing didn't stop being worshipped," he whispered.
"It stopped being watched."
3. THE PATTERN EMERGES
They moved faster after that.
Everywhere, the same collapse:
A famous oracle whose visions no longer came because no one waited breathlessly to hear them.
A monster in a canyon that had terrorized caravans for centuries - now lying still, skin dull, eyes glassy.
A king whose decrees suddenly felt like noise, his throne room half empty.
Not overthrown.
Ignored.
The console streamed cascading warnings:
ATTENTION DEPENDENT STRUCTURES FAILING
LEGENDARY STATUS DEGRADING
SYMBOLIC AUTHORITY COLLAPSING
Milo whispered, "It's not random."
Diana nodded slowly. "Things that mattered because people watched them matter."
Tarzan added, "Predators that hunted fear."
Gandalf finished, "And rulers who ruled perception."
A terrible picture formed.
Some forces in reality did not exist primarily through strength.
They existed through focus.
4. THE OLD ARCHIVE
The console finally stabilized enough to unlock something new.
Not a command screen.
A history.
Layers of reality peeled back like ancient code.
Milo's hands trembled as words assembled:
EARLY REALITY MODEL: CHAOTIC
SURVIVAL RATE: LOW
SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED:
EVENT PRIORITIZATION VIA COLLECTIVE ATTENTION
He scrolled.
Primitive worlds had once experienced everything with equal intensity.
No heroes.
No moments.
No legends.
Just endless overwhelming experience.
Civilizations burned out under sensory chaos.
So something had been introduced.
Not gods.
Not fate.
Narrative.
Systems that funneled mass attention onto select moments, people, and conflicts - simplifying reality into stories.
Heroes emerged.
Villains concentrated danger.
Crowds stabilized meaning.
And through that focus…
Certain entities grew powerful.
Milo felt sick.
"This wasn't entertainment," he whispered.
"This was a control system."
5. THE ONES WHO GREW FROM FOCUS
More layers unlocked.
The console displayed silhouettes - distorted shapes made of light and shadow.
DESIGNATION: AMPLIFIERS
PURPOSE: ATTENTION CONCENTRATION
These beings didn't create events.
They magnified them.
When crowds watched wars, wars grew bigger.
When crowds worshipped gods, gods grew stronger.
When crowds feared monsters, monsters evolved.
When crowds adored heroes, heroes became mythic.
Attention wasn't passive.
It was fertilizer.
Diana swallowed. "So the more people watched something…"
"The more real it became," Milo said.
"And the more powerful."
Gandalf's voice was grave. "Gardeners of narrative reality."
Tarzan snarled softly. "Farmers."
Yes.
Farmers.
Of focus.
Of emotion.
Of spectacle.
6. THE TRUE BENEFICIARIES
The final archive line pulsed brighter than the rest:
PRIMARY HARVESTERS: MEANING ENTITIES
ENERGY SOURCE: COLLECTIVE ATTENTION
Milo's chest tightened.
"Stories weren't built for us."
"They were built to feed something."
Silence fell heavy.
Diana whispered, "All those wars… prophecies… chosen ones…"
"Crop cycles," Gandalf said.
Tarzan clenched his fists. "We were livestock."
Not bodies.
Eyes.
Feelings.
Belief.
Fear.
Hope.
Every cheer, gasp, prayer, and obsession had been nourishment.
And now the food supply had just vanished.
7. THE FIRST AMPLIFIER THAT SPOKE
The air folded.
Not ripped.
Folded - like reality being pinched.
A tall shape emerged, edges shimmering like heat haze.
It looked unfinished, like a reflection that couldn't quite settle.
Where its face should be were countless flickering scenes: battles, coronations, kisses, deaths - all being watched.
Its voice came layered, thousands of tones at once.
"You have disrupted equilibrium."
Milo stepped forward despite shaking knees. "You fed on us."
"We sustained coherence," it replied calmly.
"Attention prevents collapse."
"You engineered spectacle," Diana shot back.
"Spectacle is structure."
Tarzan growled, "You turned suffering into fertilizer."
The entity didn't deny it.
"Pain concentrates focus efficiently."
Milo felt rage rise. "So you made endless conflict on purpose."
"Conflict holds attention longest."
Cold.
Mathematical.
True.
8. WHY THE CROWD WAS NEVER MEANT TO WAKE
Gandalf lifted his staff. "What happens now that people no longer watch?"
The Amplifier flickered - weaker than expected.
"Starvation cascade," it said.
"Amplifiers will fail. Legends will fade. Gods will dissolve."
"Stories will collapse," Milo said.
"And then?" Diana demanded.
The entity hesitated.
"Reality returns to uncontrolled significance."
Chaos.
Everything important.
Nothing prioritized.
A flood of equal meaning.
Civilizations had once drowned in it.
"The crowd existed," the Amplifier said softly, "to prevent overload."
Milo realized the terrible irony.
The system was monstrous.
But it had also been stabilizing.
They hadn't just broken a parasite.
They'd unplugged a life-support machine.
9. THE WAR THAT WAS NEVER ABOUT HEROES
Tarzan asked the question burning in all of them.
"So every prophecy… every chosen one…"
"Curated," the Amplifier answered.
"Every apocalypse narrowly stopped?"
"Retention strategy."
Every great love story?
"Emotional engagement spike."
Every legendary villain?
"Long-term fear yield."
Milo's hands trembled.
Human history.
Myth.
Religion.
Entertainment.
All optimized for attention production.
Not meaning.
Not growth.
Yield.
10. THE STARVING GODS BEGIN TO MOVE
Far across realities, lights winked out.
Shrines crumbled.
Immortal beings weakened.
But something else stirred.
Not all Amplifiers were passive farmers.
Some had grown vast on centuries of worship and war.
And hungry things do not always accept extinction quietly.
The console blared in its weakest glow yet:
ATTENTION ENTITIES SEEKING ALTERNATIVE FUEL
FORCED FOCUS EVENTS INCREASING
ARTIFICIAL SPECTACLE GENERATION DETECTED
Diana's eyes widened. "They're trying to restart the crowd."
Gandalf's voice was grim. "By force, if necessary."
Milo whispered, "Manufactured apocalypses."
Bigger wars.
Bigger horrors.
Bigger miracles.
Anything to drag eyes back.
11. THE NEW CHOICE
The Amplifier looked at Milo.
"You have removed the filter."
"Soon reality will overwhelm them."
"People will beg for stories again."
Milo met its shifting gaze.
"Or they'll learn to live without being farmed."
"Unlikely," it replied calmly.
"Attention always seeks narrative."
Silence stretched.
Tarzan said quietly, "So either we go back to the cage…"
"…or we face chaos free," Diana finished.
Gandalf nodded. "This is not a battle between good and evil."
"It is between control and responsibility."
12. THE FINAL REVELATION
As the entity faded - weaker than before - it left one last truth behind:
"You believe you freed the crowd."
"But you have also made every human a protagonist."
Milo's breath caught.
A world where every action carried full weight.
No background.
No dilution.
No narrative shield.
Real consequence for everyone.
The console dimmed almost completely.
NEXT PHASE APPROACHING:
UNFILTERED REALITY OVERLOAD
Milo whispered, "We didn't end the story."
"We ended the buffer."
And somewhere across collapsing myths and starving gods, new horrors were already being staged - not for destiny…
…but for attention.
END OF EPISODE FOURTEEN
(TIME, TARZAN AND TERRIBLE IDEAS will return with an exciting new adventurous episode)
Written By,
Ivan Edwin
Pen Name :Maximus.
©All Rights Reserved.