Insert Your Character Here

Dave paced the room once then turned around.  "Okay.  Wait here, I'm going to go get some other people who want to meet you."

Richter pursed his lips and nodded.  "Very well."  He looked around the empty room.  "But who are these other people."

"You'll see.  One is... well, I don't know really if I'm the best one to explain it I mean actually I'm not supposed to explain it.  It's not really my job.  I'm just the greeter, really."  Dave moved toward a door.

Richter kept silent and watched Dave slink out through the door.

Two men emerged.  The bald one spoke.  "My name is Terran... and you must be Richter."

Richter nodded.

"This is difficult, I know."  He stood up taller and rolled his shoulders back slightly.  "I know."

"What is it you know?"  Richter folded his arms across his chest.

"I too am of the tribe."  Terran gave Richter a formal bow that, owing to a certain angle of the head, a certain narrowing of the eyes and the speed of the action, confirmed the statement.

"But I have never met you."  Richter managed the words slowly.  "And your man... you man Dave said that my tribe was nothing but a fiction - that my journey was nothing but a test for this place."

"All truth, brother."  Terran stepped closer to Richter.  "The tribe is a fiction that we share.  I lived that fiction and took that test just as you did."

Richter nodded in assent.  "I see.  And you chose to stay here, to abandon the tribe."

"I did."  Terran returned the nod.

"Why?"

"These people made the tribe.  They invented that world and those people to teach us - to raise us - and to bring us here."  Terran put a hand on Richter's shoulder.  "Do you understand?"

"They wrote a story and put us in it?"

"Yes."