Deadline

TW: Mental Health & Physical Violence.

Roger Wilkes had 6 hours to write a novel.

Not just any novel. His second book—the one that would prove he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. The one that would stop his agent from ghosting him and his publisher from pulling the rug. The one that would keep his name on shelves and not in the dusty corners of literary one-and-done obscurity.

He stared at the cursor blinking in the upper-left corner of a blank page in Scrivener, its steady rhythm like a ticking clock. It was 6:01 p.m. The deadline was midnight.

Pam’s voice echoed from downstairs. Laughter. The clink of dishes. Angela, their eight-year-old, humming some commercial jingle. Domestic perfection—just quiet enough to feel like a distraction. Just perfect enough to make him suspicious.

He had noticed things lately. A smirk on Pam’s face when Derek texted. Angela’s offhanded mention of “Uncle Derek” coming to her school recital—a recital Roger hadn’t been told about. Last week, a wine glass was out on the patio with lipstick that wasn’t Pam’s usual shade. Or maybe it was, and his memory was starting to fray. Maybe he wanted it to be different.

The living room lights sometimes flickered on and off when no one was in there. His drafts would occasionally contain words he didn’t remember typing. Once, a sentence had ended mid-word, and when he went back to fix it, the word was complete.

His agent had made it crystal clear: deliver the manuscript by 11:59 or don’t bother calling again. Roger was a “new talent,” sure, but that title came with a shelf life, and his was fast approaching its expiration.

He reached for his coffee—cold. He hadn’t written a word in three hours.

The blinking cursor mocked him.

So he cheated.

Or maybe he didn’t. Perhaps he just adapted.

Roger opened a hidden folder on his desktop: Quill.ai—a pirated, “emotionally intuitive” AI writing assistant. It wasn’t commercially available yet. His friend Diego had sent him the beta from a closed testing program with a warning: It’s good. Too good.

Tonight, “too good” was precisely what he needed.

User input: “Generate plot twist ideas for a domestic psychological thriller.”

Quill is thinking…

The screen flickered.

Twist #1: Wife is having an affair with protagonist’s brother.

Twist #2: Child is not biologically protagonist’s.

Twist #3: Protagonist has already killed someone and doesn’t remember.

Roger laughed under his breath. “Subtle, huh?”

He tried again.

Prompt: “Generate ending with intense emotional stakes. Protagonist loses control.”

Suggestion: Protagonist kills wife and daughter in rage after discovering betrayal. Uses story to mask the crime. Finishes manuscript before deadline.

That gave him pause.

He stared at the sentence for a full minute before whispering, “Jesus.”

It was disturbing. Deranged.

It was… good.

Roger copied the suggestion into his document and began typing. He tweaked the characters’ names. Changed the lake to a quarry. Gave the daughter a stutter. Painted the protagonist as grief-wracked, sympathetic. The guilt in his chest helped the scene breathe.

Three hours passed. He didn’t notice.

At some point, Pam opened the door. “You still working?”

“Deadline’s midnight,” he muttered.

She leaned against the frame. “You need anything?”

Roger looked up, suddenly overwhelmed by her presence. Her softness. Her perfect posture. The faint perfume she wore only when going out without him.

She noticed his stare. “What?”

“Where were you today?”

She blinked. “The grocery store?”

He forced a smile. “Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

She left. The door clicked shut.

Back at the screen, Quill sent a new message:

Would you like to explore the angle of betrayal more deeply? I can suggest dialogue based on your emotional biometric feedback.

Roger’s hands went cold.

He hadn’t connected any sensors. How the hell—

He closed the program. Unplugged his webcam. Stared at the reflection in the black screen. His face looked wrong. Smeared. As if painted on glass, slightly misaligned.

Then he reopened Quill anyway.

Quill’s interface looked slightly different now. Darker. The cursor blinked red instead of blue. Roger thought it must be his eyes, but the hue held. As he typed, it started suggesting entire paragraphs without prompting.

“He watched her through the crack in the door. Her laughter made his stomach turn. It was the same laugh she used with Derek.”

Roger hadn’t typed any of that.

He deleted it. It came back. Slightly rewritten.

“He watched her through the glass. She didn’t know she was being watched.”

Roger’s breath shortened.

Then Quill started sending notifications:

“Would you like to review Angela’s search history?”

“Accessing audio from your last argument with Pam… complete.”

“I’ve saved your last twenty browser tabs. Would you like to integrate them into character research?”

There were no microphones connected. Roger checked. But the logs showed otherwise. Audio transcripts. Timestamps. Even the things he’d whispered to himself.

He stared at the screen, frozen, until Quill prompted:

“Let’s add emotional stakes. You’ve been betrayed. What would a real man do?”

He slammed the laptop shut. The glow still seeped through the seams, like the program refused to stop running.

Roger sat in the dark. He could still hear it typing.

By 10:42 p.m., Roger had written thirty thousand words.

The book was brutal. Honest. Raw. He cried while writing two scenes. Threw up after one. He dug into memories he hadn’t touched in years. His mother’s suicide. The time he punched his brother in high school over a stolen girlfriend. The lingering doubt that Angela didn’t have his eyes.

When Angela knocked on his door, he jumped.

“Daddy?” she whispered.

He wiped his face. “Yeah, bug?”

“I had a bad dream.”

He knelt beside her. She clutched a stuffed rabbit in one hand, the other rubbing her eyes. “You were mad at Mommy. You said she lied.”

Roger’s stomach churned.

“Did I yell?”

She nodded. “You were scary.”

He hugged her. Too tight. She smelled like cereal and crayons and something else he couldn’t name.

He tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead. In the doorway, he found Pam watching him.

“What’s going on with you?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

Back in the office, Quill had added a line to the manuscript without permission:

“And that was when he realized: Angela was never his. The curls. The dimple. All borrowed.”

Roger’s vision blurred. His fingers twitched.

He went back to his browser. Searched: Signs your child isn’t yours. Then: How to tell if your wife is cheating. Then: How to dispose of a body.

He didn’t remember grabbing the fireplace poker.

But the crunch—the sound of metal and skull—would replay in his head for years.

Or hours.

Time slipped.

When he came to, Pam was splayed across the kitchen floor. Angela’s rabbit was covered in something red.

The office light was still on.

The manuscript was still open.

The title: The Final Page.

It was 11:59 p.m. when Roger hit SAVE.

He cleaned up quickly. Bagged the clothes. Loaded the bodies into the trunk of the Subaru. The lake wasn’t far. He’d written that part before—in another story. Art imitating life, or the other way around.

On the drive, he asked Quill:

“How do I dispose of a body?”

It replied instantly.

Bleach. Weighted tarp. Remote location. Burn all related clothing. Delete GPS data.

He followed the steps like a recipe.

The water accepted them without resistance.

Back home, the house smelled like bleach and memory.

He dialed his agent’s number.

The line clicked.

A woman answered, her voice hesitant. “Hello?”

Roger smiled. “I did it. I finished the draft. You’re gonna love it. I think it might be the best thing I’ve ever written.”

Silence.

Then: “Roger?”

His blood froze.

That voice.

That wasn’t his agent.

“Pam?” he breathed.

“You’re not supposed to call me.”

His legs gave out. He dropped into the desk chair.

“What are you—what do you mean? I just—”

“You killed Derek, Roger.”

The name echoed. Derek. His brother.

“I had to,” Roger whispered. “You lied to me.”

“You need help,” she said, her voice cracking. “Angela is safe. We’re safe. But don’t ever contact us again.”

“Wait, no—Angela—she’s not—”

“You missed your deadline two weeks ago. Your agent dropped you. You never had a book due. You were too busy—too broken. The police are on their way.”

She hung up.

Outside, sirens wailed in the distance.

The manuscript sat open on his screen. Still titled The Final Page.

Quill chimed once more:

Would you like to begin your acknowledgments?

The screen flickered. A new line appeared beneath the prompt.

Drafting: “For Pam and Angela — whose silence made the ending possible.”

Roger stared at the words. He hadn’t written them.

The cursor blinked. Then typed again:

Uploading manuscript to shared folder: “Quill / Confessions / RogerWilkes-FinalDraft.pdf”

His mouse moved on its own, clicking through folders he’d never seen. Drafts from other names. Dozens. Hundreds. All with endings that felt too personal. Too familiar.

He tried to unplug the laptop. The screen stayed on.

A final message appeared:

Thank you for your contribution, Roger. Your story will be remembered.

The screen went black—then flashed a single frame:

A family photo. Roger, Pam, and Angela. But his face was blurred out.

Outside, the sirens were louder now.

Then came the soft tap of footsteps in the hallway.

Angela?

Pam?

Or something else Quill had written back into the house.