The misadventures of a Main Character [Complete]

LXI - An enraged pop-up birthday card

The book propped itself upright. It opened with a resounding thump, a furious face contorting from its pages. It looked like an enraged pop-up birthday card - if the card had been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci or Guillermo del Toro.

"Mr Trotter?!" Main squawked at the face.

Its protruding paper snout wrinkled in disgust. "No, you imbecile," Mr Trotter's vampiric pig voice echoed around the room. "I can assume any face in the multiverse. This swine's is most pleasing to me today."

"Can you at least get me out of these shackles, Mr Trotter?"

 "I am not some cursed immortal swine! I am the Book of Faces!" it boomed. "You will not be unshackled; your presence here disrupts the Timeline."

"So you don't want me changing things? You just want me to sit in this chair? Forever?" Main asked.

The book fixed him in a stare so heated, Main worried the book would catch fire. He wondered what he'd done wrong.  "Not. Forever." its voice grated. 

"But-" Main shuffled forward awkwardly on his chair. After a few anguished chair squeaks and a gain of several centimeters,  he unbalanced it and careened to the ground. "This is boring," Main complained, the cold tiles sucking the warmth from his face. He began caterpillar-ing along the ground towards the exit.

*

The elderly man limped back over to the Book of Faces. "We've located the signature of the time-travelling spell, Master," he said, bowing. "Our technical team is deleting the last illegal Timeline copies as we speak. We can send the prisoner back to his own time now."

That didn't sound good.

*

"Come on, how will I save Buttercup if you send me back?" Main complained. "Give me a break."

"The Princess's death is a fixed point in the Timeline," the book intoned. "Any alteration could fracture and unravel the world as you interpret it."

"I don't care!" Main shouted. "I'm in love with her!"

Mr Trotter's papery face snorted. "You've been poorly written, and that's your sole flimsy character trait. Now sit in silence, or I'll unravel even that."

"Poorly written? What kind of insult is that?" Main shouted, shuffling horizontally across the stone floors, the chair impeding any real progress.

The Book sighed. "What colour is your hair?" it asked.

Main paused. "Uh-" 

"What colour are your eyes?"

He broke into a cold sweat. "I don't know why that matters-"

"It's all evidence to my point," it said cruelly. "If you continue with this bawling hero nonsense, I'll delete your memories of Buttercup "

"But- I have to save her," he said weakly.

"Would you kindly shut up?"

"I will when I escape."

The book snapped shut and reopened. On the page, he saw a picture of Buttercup. With the sound of a reversing truck, the book began erasing her.

A fuzzy pain crept over his brain. "Stop!" Main shouted. "Okay, you win."

"Describe her hair colour," the Book said smugly.

Main tried. He really did, but nothing came to mind, just a white blur that floated through his memories.

"You know," it said, teasing an eraser over what remained of Buttercup's page. "I really should just erase all of this junk - that would stop you. You wouldn't even remember who she was."

Tears ran down Main's face. "You're a monster," he choked out. 

* 

"Fear not, I'd rather watch your eternal suffering. Get him back to the Timeline," it snapped. "Just in time to watch the Global Worming bloodbath, if you please."