The Narrator 
 
The light on the camera turns on. 
“This will be a long shot, for sure” John said, “But there's one more thing we can try." He waited a bit after for a response or for someone to ask what the plan was. Then finally someone said something. “John, you sound like a stupid protagonist in an action movie.” Alice said in a teasing We manner, but she was right he is a stupid protagonist in an action movie. 
“Hello there, I’m your reliable “unbiased” narrator, the fourth wall whatever you prefer to call it. I’m a 3rd person narrator for stories that have 3rd person and need a 3rd person narrator. Of course, there are  1st person narrators, but they must go along with the narrative in real time. They are annoying; all they do is complain about their jobs. They don’t have anything to complain about when they get a name when none of the rest of us do. Sorry went on a tan chant” 
“Sense I’m not a 1st person narrator (professionally do not expect me to talk in third person all the time) I don’t have a name, but sense I’m a third person narrator my number starts with three. Now I'll tell you, my number. I’m 3.4 other third person narrators call me 4.” 
“That’s enough about that part of my job. Let’s talk about characters cause let's be honest that’s what you want to know about. Let's start off with one of the most important character roles, the protagonist. They don’t know what they are experiencing isn’t real. It's really annoying from what I've seen from other characters' reactions, Kinda like John from a bit ago. Now if they are a first-person narrator, they do know but all the other characters hate them even more for forcing them into this.” 
$“While I am on the topic the love interest is acting up again so let me just”, I pull out a red string and pulled it, then the love interest went from looking annoyed to happy in a matter of seconds. “Sorry I had to do some personality tweaking. If she keeps acting up, I might have to replace her.” 
“Welcome to the job”. The camera light turns off and it's over.  
Finally, that was a terrible project but now I can get back to narrating after the lunch break. Maybe I’ll finish and get assigned a better book next time. I pushed in my chair under the desk and left the office. 
When I got to the lunchroom there was a bunch of 2nd person narrators whining about having nothing to read besides fanfiction. Honestly, I don’t feel bad because they are paid to do little to nothing and widened a lot of our workload by adding fanfiction to it. Thankfully, there aren’t any 1st person narrators here since they have a different lunch hour than us. Honestly, I do feel bad for the characters that have to work with them. Though this is a place for roaming spirits, so I guess it probably is deserved. I forgot to mention that earlier, sorry. The characters are basically dead people that had nowhere else to go so we took them out of Heaven’s hands. 
“Hey Four, how's work” oh no it's him. This is Three, I met him on my first day and he is the only non-first-person narrator I find terribly annoying. I don’t answer him and go back to eating. “Come on Four don’t pretend to ignore me.” I should probably answer him, but I don’t feel like talking right now and I’m chewing. Footsteps approach us and Three go from looking happy to being disappointed immediately. “Hello Three, Four how are you both” “Decent” decently now Three will stop bothering me. You see the person who just spoke is Nine. He is what Three calls his “rival” Nine does not think of their relationship in that way. Nine is less annoying than Three and he annoys Three so it's nice to have him around. Though I wouldn’t hang out with Nine and he wouldn’t hang out with me if it wasn’t for Three but he is a good situational friend. “Go away Nine” Three sounds annoyed when he says it and I take this as my cue to leave. I don’t want to third wheel them nor hear their banter today, not in the mood.  
I still need to finish filming that video now that I’m back in my office. The office is relatively well lit, and it looks like it's more for recording and just happens to have a desk. There is a window which I can project my story onto to visualize what's going on and what I need to change or see if a character isn’t doing their job.  
I press play on the video and wait for the light to turn green. “As I was just saying these red strings can make characters do things that they need to do for story reasons. In some situations, you will need to replace a character. This is a last resort if they won’t do what's needed too often. To do this you need to stop the story, snap the character's neck and get the body out of the story. Then press this button on the desk.” I look in the direction of the green button on the desk. “That will tell the first floor you need a new spirit. Well, that’s all and I wish you well with the job.” I end the recording. Now it's time to edit it and turn the video in and send it to whoever oversees these.  
We don’t know much about the higher ups. All we know is that they assign the stories and characters.  
The next day 
Today is Wednesday so I don’t have to read today. Sunday through Tuesday I read, and Wednesdays I see what fixes need to be made for the narrative to hold up. Along with request from the creator about the characters personalities and what they need to do for the plot. The notes from authors come from the higher ups. The note I received says to replace Alice. There is not a reason stated but that really doesn’t matter.  
I get out the red string from my desk and pull them. Her neck snaps. Now for my least favorite part retrieving the body. I can’t let the protagonist see it otherwise the character would stay dead. Since Alice was the love interest and that seems to be a requirement in media of all types now that wouldn’t be great. 
To get into the story to retrieve the body I simply just need to open the book. Now that I’m in I need to find the body. Its rather dark right how but I guess that makes sense killing characters while they are asleep is easier then when everyone is awake. If I remember correctly, she is in the tent across from the main character, John’s, tent. 
Now in her tent I grab the body and teleport back to the office. Down the hall is the garbage shoot for occasions like this in particular. There are a few disembodied limbs hanging out of the shoot. Some narrators like to tear the characters apart limb for limb out of spite for make their jobs harder. The smell starts to get to me so, I stuff her body in the garbage shoot and leave.  
Thursday 
“Numbers Three Point Three, Four, and Nine come to office three” Office three is the head or our section’s office. I don’t have any idea why she would need us; I head down there anyway, not wanting to be late. When I open the door to the office Nine is there Three is late as usual. Hopefully, he will decide to show up soon. I sit down next to Nine. 
The door creeks and Three walks in. “Sorry for being late” he sounds nervous. Three sits down next to me. “It's fine” she replies. I don’t know her number, it doesn’t say anywhere it anywhere in the office. Normally it says somewhere on the door what your number is, but I guess that doesn’t apply to section heads.  
“We have a new assignment for you three” Nine’s head perks up. He probably already finished his current assignments. While I’m finishing my last. Three, I know he has been having trouble completing his assignments because he has been relentlessly venting about it during lunch. She looks at Three. “All unfinished assignments will be reassigned since we need you to focus on this one”. “Um excuse me but what is the assignment” asked Nine. “I was getting to that.” She glares at him. “As I was saying this assignment will be more of an experiment. We have been having trouble keeping the characters under control, so we have made stronger strings. But we need you three to go in a story full time as a character to use and test them.” I nod she is rather scary so I would prefer it if I didn’t have to talk to her anymore but of course Three must ruin the silence. “Wait so we are going to be living in the story!?” This normally doesn’t happen, so I understand the shock but it’s quite annoying for him to ask repetitive questions. “Yes, Three like I just said you will all live there to watch the characters for this experiment "she rolls her eyes. Nine looks like he is about to ask a question when the head says, “You all will start tomorrow. All of you will be assigned a role in the story. You may leave the building to prepare after this meeting. You are dismissed.” 
 
“Well, she was rude.” Nine says trying to make a conversation as we walk out of the building. “What role do you think we’ll get?” Three sounds rather excited probably just because most of his assignments were no longer his problem. Personally, I am hoping for a side character, it would be easier to use the strings without being noticed, and I would not have to interact much with the characters. There are a few less options. One the protagonist can’t be filled by use given we aren’t first person narrators. Two putting one of us in the love interest spot would be stupid. So those are the two roles none of us would get. “I'm hoping to get a support character so it will be easy to monitor the protagonist” Nine says. That isn’t a bad idea, shockingly. I was expecting him to say something stupid. “I didn’t ask you.” Three sounds annoyed. I'm pretty sure he takes Nine’s sheer presentence as a personal offense. “You literally asked, and I quote “What roles do you think we we’ll get?”!” I try to walk faster but I can still hear their bickering. 
When I show up the next morning there is a note on my desk saying to go to the section three head office. Personally, I’m not looking forward to seeing the head again, but I guess I have to. Nine and Three are going into the office. We all sat down. “You will be using this book for your assignment” she pulls out a large book. It has a white color with blue detailed lines across it. “Now this won’t be the same as 3rd person narrating so you will have to get used to it.” She puts it on the desk, and we all stare at the book. “Three you will be a support character, Nine you will be one of the antagonists make sure know they do exactly what to do, and Four you will watch over the entire story narrating from the background. We all nod. “Ok now that you all understand you will all be leaving now” she opens book, and we were pulled in.  
To be continued.