The Fourth Wall Rebuilder

Part Five: Editing

Devin was having a good day.

Or well, she was trying to. The world was working in her favour– one of her teachers cancelled a lesson, so she was sitting on a bench at her school, playing a weird chat game on her phone while her friends talked around her.

The chatroom ended.

Devin was having a good day, and she barely got any homework for the weekend. It didn't rain on her way home, despite the forecast.

She was sitting at her desk, and she opened Wattpad.

Devin was having a good day, so why did she feel like she was on autopilot? Why was she going back to work, despite being on break? Again. It had been weeks, weeks of good days that ended in logging into an app she knew she didn't have to log into.

Her glasses were on her desk, like they always had been, and any memory of a red chest or nights staring at them with unease before locking them away was long gone.

One of the comments asked her to break the fourth wall, and she didn't know what they expected from her. She didn't know how to break what didn't exist or fix what she couldn't see. Devin put on her glasses, slipped away from herself, and broke the wall.

Devin was having a good day, and she didn't see the stranger while they worked that day. It wasn't uncommon. They didn't seem to stick around much, running away the moment Devin noticed them when they weren't trying to warn her off staying. For the most part, she didn't approach them, still wary about her body, still unsure what was safe and what wasn't.

Devin was having a day, and time passed, and she was having another.

She couldn't shake off the feeling of being watched anymore. She'd sit in her room, and the walls felt flimsy under her gaze. She'd look up while walking to the grocery store and swear someone was looking back, just moments before.

She went through all the motions, but she could hear the stubborn "show, don't tell" advice in every move she made.

Devin was living life in fractions. An assignment here, a trip to the fourth wall there, and she wasn't bored because if she had been, she'd be doing something stupid and rash again.

Like seeking out the stranger again, on one of her not so good days. Like asking for their name.

Devin would never do that. It was too good of a day to waste on pointless questions. Questions like who am I and what am I doing and what does free will mean, in the context of a story?

Devin was having a bad day.

***
Hm. I planned this a bit later but I don't know how much I trust myself to bridge the gap between this chapter and the last. Not sure how much I trust myself to edit this, either, and I honestly think it would take away a bit if I do. I just know the next one will take less time to write.