Null Paradox | Annabelle

Annabelle’s strange relationship with The Bully started at one of Seth’s all-night poker card games.

As Seth’s card dealer, she made it a point to know everything about everyone. Part of it was for Seth–he’d made it a point when he first interviewed her that he wanted to know exactly who everyone was at his Game Nights, what they did during the day, and most importantly, who they socialized with.

The other part was that she wanted the same information that Seth did for her own reasons.

Several months after she started working, The Bully showed up well after everyone else had left. His mannerisms indicated that he knew Seth well was a slight hint of discomfort. Something they shared when dealing with Seth.

 

Annabelle and Victoria

Everything was going to plan until Victoria ghosted Seth.

At first, Annabelle was frustrated with Victoria. As her confidant, she felt Victoria owed her at least a brief warning. Instead, she was Seth’s love one minute; the next, she had disappeared. 

The two of them set up a monthly meeting late at night in the town’s park. This is where she learns why Victoria had to leave Seth in such haste. Victoria suspected that Seth was not who he seemed. She also felt that Seth was beginning to know that she suspected him. 

While she loved him dearly, there’s one thing that everyone in town agreed upon: Seth may be shy, but he was also dangerous.

 

Annabelle and The Bully

Trying to handle the complexities of Seth’s anger toward those he believed had harmed Victoria while maintaining her calm demeanor made Annabelle anxious. To deal with it, she started multiplying numbers in her head, sometimes letting them whisper out during card games so quietly that no one noticed.

Except The Bully had noticed. He had seen a similar trait in Gertrude, and now he turned his attention to her.

 

Annabelle |  Zero

Like most Null Paradox characters, Annabelle lives in the same multiverse.

Physicists describe the multiverse as an object that contains all possible universes. At its core, the Null Paradox multiverse is the same, but how we navigate the infinite permutations of each universe within the multiverse is different.

In Null Paradox, we perceive life as a series of tiny hops from one universe to another stitched together to create the life they experience. This is facilitated by a machine briefly described in the first book (Gertrude & Grace), which plays a more significant role in the upcoming second book (Victoria & Seth).

 

Here’s the tricky part | Zero, One, and Two

The Gertrude, Grace, Victoria, and Seth that you read about are technically the primary ones. “Zero” is appended to their names to reduce confusion, as in Victoria Zero. The adjacent universe has a Victoria One. And so on, for all of them.

But Annabelle is different.