Sherman Chex feels like he recognizes one of the characters from the book. The narrator’s wife, Sel Dorian. She’s a very peculiar fellow. The main character Rocko seems to absolutely hate her, for whatever reason. Chex doesn’t quite see why. He claims it’s because she never explains anything to anyone, but Rocko is the same. He’s quite a hypocrite.

  It’s been a few more days, he thinks. Sherman Chex has a very poor sense of time when he’s formed.

  Sherman Chex is nearing the end, finally. For some reason, Rocko stops appearing near the end. It’s for the better, though. Rocko was an incredibly lousy character, and made the reading experience much worse.

  The text gets smaller the closer to the end of the book, leading to each chapter being more dense than the previous. Just one of the last pages is equivalent to around 30 of the early pages. It’s very strange.

  He stops before the final page. Jenny is still staring at him, as she has been for the past many days. She hasn’t moved a muscle since she brought him here. Sherman Chex has no idea why she’s doing this.

  It’s been around three hours outside. Sherman Chex is entirely mistaken about the amount of time that's passed.

  Suzanne is running in circles around the set of Jenny's Town trying to figure out where he is. She hasn't found him, evidently, leaving her incredibly agitated. Walker’s also searching, using his incredible speed to search outside the set. Now that three hours have passed, they're meeting at the fountain.

  “Did you find him?”

  “Did you?”

  Neither of them did. Suzanne walks in circles around the fountain.

  “She has him. Of course she does.”

  “What?”

  She throws her hands up into the air.

  “How can one snake hold a grudge this long?”

  She's not answering his question. Walker’s quite annoyed at this.

  “Can you explain anything, please?”

  Suzanne picks up the fountain, places it somewhere else, and starts to walk down the stairs.

  “There is NO point.”

  She’s been walking down the stairs for two minutes and five seconds. She turns around and walks back up. She’s made her way into the caves under the continent.

  Under the continent, there’s a very intricate system of gigantic caves. Every district sits on top of them, and can move freely. This usually doesn’t happen. The caves were dug out by a giant snake. It’s incredibly fortunate for everybody how that giant snake sleeps most of the time. Though, she is very clearly awake now.

  Suzanne sighs.

  “She always gets rowdy before one of those fellows forms for the first time.”

  Just a few hours earlier, Jenny Watcher is watching Sherman Chex as he’s close to finishing the book. She’s very happy. She finally has a replacement! She laughs, though very quietly, such that Sherman Chex does not hear.

  She’s studied his entire face. He looks exactly like the other guy. This makes her a little sad. Though, she’s also happy. It’s quite odd. She’s a very odd fellow.

  She starts to think of something that happened a long time ago. It’s not a very fond memory of hers, but she forces herself to remember it. As she remembers this event, she loses her hold on the form she’s currently in, and starts to turn back into a giant snake. This forces her to stop early.

  It’s a very, very long time ago. Suzanne and Alexander are still in university. Jenny remembers this very well. It was a very interesting time. Minister Revels was in power, he’d just been elected into office. The districts stayed in place, and nobody knew about the set of tunnels

  Jenny Watcher finds herself in the second capital. It’s the place where the Lie of Progress finds itself. She’s in the form of a person at the moment, rather than a giant snake. She’s standing outside a library. It’s a large building made of a type of dark brown wood. She’s intrigued at what books are in here.

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  She walks inside, pulls out her ID, which functions as a library card, and scans it. The second door opens, allowing her into the library. She finds a map and looks for the fantasy section. She’s a big fan of fantasy, specifically ones where everyone dies at the end. The section is on the second floor, which lies at the top of an incredibly long staircase.

  As she walks up them, she feels like she hasn’t actually gotten any higher. She looks down, and she sees she’s definitely gotten higher off the ground. Though, when she looks back up, she swears the second floor is the same distance away from her. She’s quite confused, and continues to walk up the stairs.

  She’s incredibly confused, as she’s definitely getting away from the first floor, but she is also not getting up to the second. She decides to walk down the stairs and find an employee. As she walks down the stairs, she sees a man with long orange hair. There is a small red line in the left side of his hair, which seems to not move as his hair swings. The stairs aren’t wide enough for two people to walk, even if they try to squeeze past each other. For some reason, she feels like she recognizes him from somewhere.

  “Are you trying to go up?” Jenny asks him.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think the stairs are working, no matter how much I climb, the second floor doesn’t get any closer.”

  “Goodness gracious.”

  He jumps over her head onto the other side of her. He picks her up, places her on his head, and runs up the stairs incredibly quickly. At some point, what seems to be a pane of glass shatters. As it breaks, suddenly, they find themselves on the first floor again. He puts her down on the ground.

  “There you go. The stairs are fixed.”

  “What?”

  “You can walk up them now.”

  He goes first, rushing up the stairs, making it to the 2nd floor. She quickly follows him to the second floor. He’s very quickly searching the shelves. She hadn’t been paying attention to the shelves. They are absolutely gigantic. They’re practically pillars that could hold the roof up. In fact, the ones on the first floor do work to hold up the second floor. There’s rolling stepladders to access the high points of the shelves all around the floor.

  “What types of books are you looking for?!”

  He rushes away to another section. She follows him quickly.

  “What types of books are you looking for?”

  He jumps over one of the bookshelves. Conveniently, this bookshelf in particular didn’t stretch to the ceiling. She quickly runs around the shelf, but he’s not there. She looks at the shelf, and notices she’s made her way into the fantasy section.

  “Oh!”

  She sees a book, it’s titled A Fictitious Account of a War Which Never Happened. Looking at the synopsis, she realizes what it’s about. In fact, she doesn’t even need to read the book to know the contents. She knows about it very well. The synopsis reads:

  [ Disclaimer: This is a fictional war, and all events of this book are entirely fictitious in nature, not connected or in reference to or about anything in particular. ]

  Just this alone is enough to understand what happens in this story. She thinks further back in time.

  Jenny Watcher is a snake. At this point in time, she was a regularly sized snake. A snake which lived in a cage in a large building.

  When the army ran through a town, they’d kill all the fighters, and another person would come through, gather everyone else into a singular building, and either burn it down or blow it up. Nobody knows about it, as nobody’s survived to tell the tale.

  The army ran through the town and killed all of the fighters, and every remaining resident was brought into the building where Jenny was. She hisses. She’s thinking some very happy thoughts.

  “Oh, they’re all here to see me! Hooray!”

  “What’s happening?” She thinks. A man with orange hair, who is wearing an orange uniform stands in front of her cage. He lets her out, and picks her up. She’s outside now, and he takes her outside the building.

  The entire building is suddenly engulfed in flames.

  The man with orange hair looks down at her.

  “Isn’t this just lovely?”

  He pats the head of the snake.

  “This is truly amazing to look at. I never believed them when they said it was.”

  He smiles. Unlike most other smiles, this is incredibly genuine. This man is really happy that he’s killed an entire town. The elderly, parents who wouldn’t fight, their children, their pets. They’re all dying, and he’s incredibly happy.

  All he bothered to save was a single snake.

  How could such a twisted man exist?

  The man places her down on the ground, where she quickly slithers away.

  He waves at her.

  “Good bye, beautiful creature.”

  Back at the library, she quickly runs towards the man with orange hair.

  “Sir! What type of books are you looking for?!”

  The man finally looks back at her.

  “Hmm. Alright. I’ll answer you.”

  “Okay, what types of books?”

  He shows her a picture of a book. On the cover is a snake.

  “I’m looking for information on snakes. They’re absolutely beautiful creatures. Do you know anything about them?”

  He has an absolutely amazing smile. It’d put anyone at ease, so long as they hadn’t seen it before.

  Unfortunately for her, she had.