A New Ending

I had lived a thousand lifetimes, and in every one, I was the villain. The wolf, the witch, the dark wizard, the dragon, the goblin king - just some of the many parts I had played across my cursed existence.

If the reader knew every book they read is brought to life, would they put it down, or would they wish to live within? Well, it was some twisted wretches who concocted this set of realities, since I find myself repeating the same existence over and over. Names like 'Grimm,' 'Aesop,' and 'Anderson' come to mind - I don't know how I know. They fester in my head like parasites, burrowing their way into memory with each incarnation I inhabit.

In every story, I serve the same purpose. I am the bad guy, the monster in the woods, the thing that goes bump in the night. I am a wicked stepmother, the greedy fairy, the evil queen. Always the villain, always predestined to fall by the hand of a hero, a princess, a knight, or every now and then - enchanted woodland critters.

The heroes just love their roles. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who's sentient. Like an actor type-cast into the same jobs time and time again, I am bound to the name 'Villain,' and so that is how you may address me, should you wish.

Allow me to paint a picture of this scene. It is the tale of the red-robed girl wandering the woods to her grandmother's house. And I am once again fitted to the role of the wolf.

She skips merrily along, a basket of baked goods on her arm - half eaten, as usual. Myself on the other hand, why, it feels I have not had a morsel in weeks. I've lived this story so many times now that I can't help but wonder what became of my pack - why should a wolf be wandering hungry and alone, left to stalk an unsuspecting child?

I do all that I can to resist the urge to attack - I have to change the narrative, to prove I'm something more than the disheveled wolf. But drool rains from my lip - those treats smell divine, and what irresponsible parent allows their child to wander in wolf territory alone? If she would only spare some food for me, I might be full enough to leave her... Though I know that won't work. I've tried it before - this isn't the first time I've gone off-script. Last time, she gave me a bite of her bread, and I was so ravenous I almost took one of her fingers with it.

And off she goes again, completely oblivious, playing to the narrative like a puppet on a string. I approach, as usual.

"Hello little girl, yadda, yadda yadda, where's your grandma live?"

She doesn't even blink. There is nothing behind those eyes, I'm sure. She's not like me at all - might as well be a shoebox with how little autonomy she has. She gives me that stupidly cute face and tells me exactly where to find her grandmother.

And I'm off. I'll devour and replace grandma as usual, the girl comes in - "Oh what big ears you have," and chomp, just like that in one gulp, don't even bother chewing. Then I try sleeping it off, and some bloody maniac with an axe chops me into pieces, the girl and the grandma are saved, and there's one less man-eating wolf in the woods. How very dull.

That's the role I play, the life I lead, over and over and over. As soon as one story gets put down, another is picked up for me to get torn apart, incinerated, or stabbed in. Why couldn't there be one story where the villain earns the happy ending for a change?

I just know I have to resist. No matter what, I can't go to that house. Let me starve, if it changes the narrative, so be it... My stomach growls painfully, itching to be filled and then filayed by a sharp instrument. I am stronger than my hunger, stronger than these wolf instincts... But once again, I find myself closing in on the house, drawn like a moth to a flame. The storyline is intoxicating. I must go inside, I must fulfill my destiny. I'm not strong enough to resist it.

Somehow, though my wolf form has no hands or thumbs to its name, I manage to twist the handle. She'll have no defences from a wolf - strange since she has chosen to live in the middle of wolf-infested woods. I'm inside - she is waiting in the other room. I... No, I must fight it. I'm more than a wolf, I am me. I have lived a thousand lives, I have been the passage of time, the infinite tangle of thorns, the inescapable mire. I can overcome a little hunger.

The door slams shut on my tail. I howl in pain - and she hears me from the other room. I lay on the floor, unable to escape, and she finds me. I recognise her nightdress - the same as the one I would use to disguise myself. She is skin and bone, barely a meal at all, I convince myself. I grin - now she has a chance to arm herself, to escape or hide. The story can still be re-written.

She kneels to meet my eyes, a look of terror in hers... And then terror fades to annoyance. "You're making a fool of yourself."

"What?" I gasp, still trapped.

"Come on, Red will be here any minute, let's get to the part where you eat me already."

I study the tedium in her wrinkles, the impatience in her thin lips, and the growing anger in her sunken cheeks. She is conscious, like me, but I still don't understand. "You want this to happen?"

"It's just how the story goes. Now get out of that door and get on with it." She moves to pry my jaw apart. I back away, paws wrapped over my snout.

"No! Not this time. The story has to change!"

"You idiot, it can't change!" She tries to push past to the door to free me. "I get eaten, you pretend to be me, Red finds you, 'oh Grandma, what big teeth you have, yadda yadda, then in comes the woodsman and frees us both. Red and I survive the impossible, you get the chop, everyone's happy. That's how it works, the hero always gets her happy ending."

"Well not this time! I won't go through with it, I refuse!"

As the words leave my tongue, the room darkens around her. I feel a cold set into my fur and shoot down my spine. The old woman appears to stretch - arms growing creepily long, body bulging around her bones, her nightdress fitted tightly to her ribs. "You may be the Villain..." Her hair is thin and blackened, her eyes deep and empty, her grimace wide and sharp. "But I am the Catalyst. I am the inciting event that spins the tale. The heartless parents of innocent children, the fairy godmother, the magic mirror, the unyielding storm. In every story, I am what sets the hero on their path, what sparks your bloodlust fury, what stands at the crossroads between right and wrong. I am the Lorekeeper, and therefore I am what triggers the course of events that should pity you against her. Now do what you were created to do, or we'll just skip to the end..." She raised her hand at me. Her nails were sharp as knives, and she danced their shadows over my body.

I couldn't breathe - my lungs crushed under the weight of her spell. Though my conscious instinct was to freeze, the wolf was a simpler beast - trained to run from danger. And that's what I did. I threw myself against the door, breaking it down, and scurried away along the path. I didn't look back, feeling her presence still wrapped around my shoulders. I bounded away as fast as my paws would take me, digging in my claws for better grip on the gravelled way between the trees.

The sky bled to a moonless night, the trees rotting and crashing down around me. But I saw the little red cape ahead. She was confused and scared, lost on her way and crying for help. I skid to a halt in front of her, turning my side to her tiny frame. "Hop on, quickly!'

She must have seen the creature looming behind me because she froze, mouth agape and eyes trembling. I locked my jaw around her scruff, carrying her as a wolf would with their pup - adrenaline distracting from my lingering hunger.

It was then I pieced together why she remained ignorant to our roles, why she never tried to go against the story. In every tale, she wasn't the hero, she was the Innocent - a child, an abused stepdaughter, a cursed princess. She didn't know it was a story, because if she did, there would be no story. Everything we were, everything we did was centered around her. Of course, if she knew a wolf would devour her grandmother then wait to finish her off as well, she would never walk into the woods alone. She would flee her cruel stepmother, escape the tower, beg her fairy friends never to leave her alone. She didn't know anything that would happen to her across the tale, she just had to live it.

I threw her on my back, still running, somehow managing to leap the trees that fell over the path. The claws of the Catalyst reached out to us from the shadows, grasping for my tail, my feet, her cape.

"What do we do? What's happening?" The little girl sank into my back, sobbing over my fur.

"I..." I didn't know. How far did the story go? Back to her home? To lands beyond the woods?

A great oak crashed onto the path ahead, and I was forced to leave it, racing through the trees. I dodged and weaved the Catalyst's attacks, focused on the wild tracks ahead.

On the horizon, things began to change. The trees were too uniform, washed out, un-detailed, just single brush strokes by the break of the forest. Beyond us was nothing but darkness - watery, murky darkness. And my paws left the ground. There was nothing to grab onto, though our speed let us drift through the void, and the trees left us behind.

"Where are we? What's going on?" She mumbled, her tiny hands wrapped around clumps of my fur.

"I think we've reached the ends of the story..."

It was quiet out there, and I'm not sure the Catalyst could follow us. But what was there instead? No home, no hills, no ocean or valleys, just blank pages.

"Little Red," I began, catching my tears before they fell. "I don't know what comes next, so please remember this ending. And in the next story, come find me."

"I don't understand."

"I won't always look like this, but I will have a name. You must remember my name, 'Villain.' Promise me you'll find me." I stopped fighting, and let the darkness consume us both. I was afraid, but I tried to be strong for her. If we had to do the same a hundred thousand times, so be it. I would always save her.

And I gave myself a new name. 'Liberator.'

***

"Alice!" Her teacher's voice bore down on her like a tonne of bricks, striking terror into her heart. The child looked up from the story, black crayon in hand, and evidence of her crime all over the pages. "How many times have I got to tell you, we don't draw in the books! That's detention, young lady!" She grabbed the child's arm and tore her away from her efforts. "Why are you crying so much?"

She said nothing for a moment, looking up at her with reddened eyes. "The story, Miss... I made it sad..."

"Well you'll have lots of time to think about it in the headteacher's office!"