"The third man," he said. "Or probably woman, in this case, since we're both men. That's how it usually goes: two men and a woman. Or two women and a man. Or three women. I've never actually seen a story with three men - usually, in those cases, it's five people, three men and two women."
I stopped and finally said, "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"We're going to meet someone else," he said. "You didn't think it would just be you and me, did you? On a road trip to end the world? No, there's going to be a third. She'll show up soon and probably be in trouble. Or save us from trouble. One or the other."
"Why?" I asked.
"Three is a magic number," he said. "Lots of things come in threes. Three Wise Men, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Three Blind Mice. And it's lucky. Did you know that in Chinese, 'three' sounds like the word for 'alive,' whereas 'four' sounds like 'death'? So a story like this has to have a third."
"This isn't a story," I said.
"Of course it is," he said. "It's all a story. It's never going to stop being a story. And if you think you're outside the story, that just means there's a larger story around you, like a Russian nesting doll. That's why it won't work."
"What won't?" I asked.
"Breaking the Wall," he said. "She thinks breaking the Wall will bring her into the real world. But the 'real world' is also a story, so it won't work. She can't escape by using stories. It's just...impossible."
"So why are you doing this?" I asked.
He shrugged and said, "The show must go on."
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