Nothing ever happens to Stillin Mcgrakil.

He sits, he places his tentacles on his crumb covered console, and proceeds to create content, he does this for four hours a day, with 2 hours preceding this for responding to viewers, and 2 hours after this he uses to stalk his actors and draft ideas for more content.

He shares a ship with four other people, in far orbit of Earth, the Galaxy's most popular form of entertainment, Stillin spends his days collating content for his 5 shows, one for each day of the galactic week through a series of small, automated droids he directs to stalk the main cast, his job is to take this mass of footage and create more content.

Stillin remembers one of the first shows he ever made "The Mound", a show on the life cycle of an earth creature, an ant colony, and remembers directly controlling one of his droids to see his stars feasting on the corpse of a bird, the show was one of his earlier ones, and a total flop, achieving a paltry 57 views for it's forty episodes, Stillin often remembered those ants, he felt like them.

Nothing ever happens to Stillin Mcgrakil.

Things do happen to his actors though, Stanley McGrail, for instance, is dying, and is dying alone, and having a conversation with a pallative care specialist.

Stillin had struck gold with Stanley, the man who had pushed everyone away, and his brain had a dull light he had summoned many times before, splice in cuts to the argument with his brother, him seeing the invitation to his father's funeral, his mother's death at a young age- a tragedy buffet "weave the story, sell the story, get to eat tommorrow".

He'd managed to get one of his droids hidden into Stanley's forehead, nestled just above his skin and small enough to be invisible, the dull light said "cut to a POV shot of the doctor after the sad roll", and his tentacles went to work arranging it to be so.

"Quest for the grail" was incredibly successful, his five shows were picked up by some networks, and he made enough to live, crammed into a pod with 3 others, Earth wasn't a mirror to the galaxy, it was a funhouse mirror, and his trade was warping it to make people feel better.

Stillin had two thoughts, one, He'd need to find some new material, Stanley had been given three weeks to live, maybe his brother? He'd had success "Gene hopping" as it was known in the trade before, and secondly, why did the pod smell even worse than it usually did?

He took his proboscis away from his drink, and shuffled from his tiny cubicle where he spent most of his waking life, past his second cubicle, containing his wall bound sleeping bag, and all his worldly possessions.

He pushed past this and into a third, slightly larger cubicle, which had the gall to be on blueprints labelled "Living Quarters", 2 of his Co-Renters were sat there, staring intently at the fourth's door, he vaguely knew their names, and they vaguely knew his.

He sat, and for a brief few seconds, joined them in silence watch of the door.

"This isn't like that time he bought a tub of Garin Eels" said Stratav, whose wiry body looked malnourished, but left his historical predators starving in consequence.

"Smells." said, Garv? Grint? Started with a hard G, but Stillin wasn't sure. The creature whose name may or may not be Grint was always quite blunt in his manner of speaking, and he made no exception.

"I've got a keener sense of smell than you two, it's been a bit like this for two days." said Stratav, all three kept staring at the door. "Was about to knock, but i assume that's what we're all here for now."

Stillin broke the trepidation, selecting a combination to unlock his co-renters door.

The three, in line, walked through, opened the second door, and found him.

He was leant back in his chair, dead, his exposed organs had gone from their usual pink to a quiet grey.

Stillin had two thoughts, one, they'd need to find a new roommate, he'd paid up for the next three months, but they'd want the body gone, and their new co-renter wouldn't need to know, and secondly, he thought of 'The Mound', and that dead bird.

30- Stillin Mcgrakil