This is my first, and possibly only Truman Show story. I own nothing.

While I admit I don't know a great deal about the film, I found the story to be...sad and horrifying that anyone would place a child into a reality show and the world would be entertained by their life without thinking of the morality. I hope I've caught that in this one-shot.

Please let me know what you think.

Ending it.

Dawn was starting to break over San Francisco, the sun was lighting the sky which created an incredible haze of orange, pink, red, and peach coloured light shining through an early morning mist. It was like the sky had been painted with strange paints as natural as watercolours and yet had the luminescent quality of a low-gloss paint that glowed by an omnipotent artist with a flair for colour and light.

Truman Burbank watched the sunrise silently, admiring it while he memorised it as best as he could despite the depression he had been in for the last two years. He sat on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was the perfect place to watch the sunrise, so when he did end it all then he would have something beautiful to take with him into Heaven. Or to Hell; he honestly had no idea where he would be going since his entire life had been one great big lie, and he hadn't done anything for years except to entertain strangers across America with his life without him even knowing it, so he had no idea of whether he had done good or bad.

He had broken into one of the maintenance doors where workmen could work on the suspension cables with a crowbar, and he had gotten to the top and he had been on the top of the bridge since midnight.

A part of him didn't really care. As he watched the sunrise, Truman took a moment to reflect on the last two years. Had it really been two years since he had discovered the truth, how his life had been watched by millions of people? Two years when he had learnt that the town of Seahaven was nothing more than a giant, elaborate TV studio, with millions upon millions of tiny cameras documenting his every move, transmitting them into TVs everywhere in America, and even beyond without anyone batting an eyelid to the deception. In fact, so many people seemed more entertained that he had been imprisoned his entire life and didn't seem to care that he was being watched every second of every day, a prisoner in a world that seemed so real and yet was nothing more than a fake.

Surely there were laws against that, but apparently not. In the name of entertainment, it seemed nothing was sacred. And it disgusted him. Two years where everyone he had known, everything he had thought he had considered normal, everything was nothing more than a filthy lie.

Truman looked down for a moment as he felt his heartache before he lifted his eyes and looked back at the sunrise. He knew it wouldn't be long before the haze and the mist cleared, and the rich colouring would become the classy blue of a classic sunny day. In the meantime, he could hear, right behind him, the sounds of the city. He could hear the distant sounds of traffic which was intermingling with the sounds typical of this city; the tram bells clanging, the sparks of the overhead power lines and the grinding sound they made as their wheels scratched the rails. It distracted him for a moment while he thought about the terrible trauma he had gone through.

Yes it had. Two years, and yet for Truman those same two years had gone by so fast he'd barely even registered it. Everything had seemed like a blur when Christof had spoken to him just as he had found the wall with that flight of stairs leading to that door hovering in the fake horizon far from the fake town, the creator of the so-called Truman Show begging him to return. At the time and right now, Truman didn't understand the logic behind the sick bastard's attempts to get him back.

What was he thinking? The man had ordered that fake rainstorm to force him back to Seahaven, and he hadn't seemed too concerned that his star might die. But what Truman hadn't been able to work out was why he would think it would even work. Surely Christof, who was smart and charismatic enough to come up with such a horrific project, was smart enough to see it just wasn't viable anymore? Did he really think after manipulating his life, manoeuvring everyone whom Truman had once considered friends and family only they were nothing more than actors mentally counting the dollars they were making just being with him and being on TV to take part in his sick creation, that he could just snap his fingers, tell Truman to go back and everything would be hunky-dory again? Truman had to admit, at the time it had been tempting; go back to a place he had known, or at least thought he had known.

But he couldn't.

Everyone in Seahaven were fakes. They had been put there to play the part in a great big TV reality show, where everyone watched Truman grow up from a child and into an adult. In many ways, a lot of it made sense and as he looked back on his life he could see little clues about how fake that life had been; how the teachers discouraged him from even thinking of visiting other parts of the world, how Meryl always seemed so stiff whenever they kissed like she was forcing herself to do it. And then there was her reluctant talk about having kids, which now made sense; Truman had always assumed her reluctance was because it had nothing to do with their relationship, but because she was worried of how a pregnancy might impact her life.

Now that Truman knew the full depths of the horrors that had been done to him, he knew that any child he had would go through the same hell and not even realise it. Even worse, if he'd had children with Meryl, and they'd had kids of their own, it would be a whole dynasty of innocent souls watched on the TV around the world, locked away inside a fake town with fake friends and fake lives.

And it would be allowed. Nobody had been bothered when it had just been him, they wouldn't care or give any thought at all to any child he fathered with the fake wife. Truman knew that everyone around the world would have tuned in just to see how Truman junior was doing, they'd be forced to go through a life of hell without realising it. And it angered and sickened him. He hadn't seen any of those 'co-stars' since, and he didn't care what happened to them now.

In any case, even if he had just bowed his head as Christof had wanted, what would change? Truman was not stupid; he knew Christof had been desperate for him to return, but the problem was the damage was just too catastrophic in his eyes for the so-called Truman Show to continue. Truman knew the truth of the deception, knew he had been a prisoner for his entire life. And even if he had gone back, what would have changed? How would everyone have viewed him after discovering that door in the dome? He doubted they would have been fond of him after he had essentially ruined their acting careers. Now he didn't care. He didn't care one little bit what had happened to any of them.

Granted, Truman had to admit there had been one or two who seemed genuinely upset by what was going on. Sylvia or rather Lauren Garland and Marlon, or rather Louis Coltrane were prime examples of this. Even their names in Seahaven were fake. Yeah, he could understand they were actors, but the revelation did hurt especially since Louis had essentially promised to look out for him.

One of the reasons why he had gone through the door in the first place was to spite Christof and the others. But at the same time, he had wanted to know what was out there.

Truman sighed and looked into the mouth of the bottle of beer he had been nursing for the last few hours. He had bought a large amount of beer to the top of the bridge with him. What he had in mind was mad and finite, he wanted to go with a buzz in his head. He lifted the bottle and took a massive gulp, grimacing at the flat taste of the beer which had been open for hours. So he grabbed another bottle, popped the top off, and he took a large swig.

After he had swallowed the beer, Truman grabbed the bottle of water sitting nearby and drank from that. He might want to be buzzed with this, but he didn't want to be completely drunk out of his mind. As he was drinking Truman thought about what he had found on the other side of the door.

The real world. For someone who'd been imprisoned for years and knew no other life, it had been scary. Not only was he seeing the real world, but he had also realised very quickly that he didn't have a clue how he was going to live in this world.

He had no real qualifications; sure, he might have gone to school, but it was in Seahaven, and he doubted very much any of his experience or expertise would allow him to make a living in the real world. He had quickly learnt that he didn't even have a real family. He had learnt to his horror he had no real parents, he had been one of six unwanted children. Truman had no idea where those five other children were, except that he envied them for being able to have normal lives… He pushed that thought aside; he guessed that those children had grown up to become fans of the sick show he'd been forced into his entire life. The thought that he'd be a fan himself if the roles had been reversed sickened him because he knew at some point, they would have found out the truth.

Truman sighed as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. He had been awake all night, thinking to himself and drinking one beer bottle after another while he had been trying to keep the alcohol level in his blood from driving him nuts.

Who were his parents? His real biological parents? Where were they? Did they even know about his time on the show, in prison? He had learnt that Christof had carefully chosen a child who was not wanted by their parents, at least officially; after everything Truman had been through, he wouldn't have put it past the manipulative showrunner to have ordered a baby to be kidnapped. He hoped that it wasn't true, that Christof hadn't crossed that line, but he couldn't be sure.

He hadn't seen or heard from Christof or any of the others from the show for the last two years. He had gone into seclusion, which was virtually impossible since there was nowhere on Earth it seemed where he could go without anyone not knowing who he was. People had come up to him for autographs although there were many who were extreme and had threatened to do him in because he had just walked out. His lack of qualifications had stopped him from even thinking of how to get a normal life after he and Sylvia had sued Christof. The studio had given into the demands for a settlement, he believed it was because they had wanted to look good. But once he had been given the money, Truman had done his best to escape and build a new life, but he had failed.

Truman looked down in sadness as he remembered how things with Sylvia had gone. Sylvia had left him when the depression that had settled into him when everything had gotten to him, his inability to find work, proper work and he hadn't seen her since then. Truman was very upset about that, he had assumed she would have stuck by him, but she hadn't. It was clear that, like himself, Sylvia had dreamt of what could have been and hadn't seen the reality. He hadn't realised stepping through that door would cause him so much pain and grief, he had also not seen how much strain it would cause for Sylvia.

He took another swig of beer and he stood up, wincing from the aches. He walked to the edge and looked down. The cars were coming and going on both sides of the roads, from this high up they appeared to be little brightly coloured ants going in opposite directions.

Truman closed his eyes and he jumped over the edge. Gravity instantly took hold of his body and he fell. In his last moments while he watched in a detached manner as the red of the bridge flashed by so quickly before he felt the agony as he landed on top of a car. With the speed he'd been falling, Truman crushed the car, stopping it in its tracks. He gasped as he felt the crash rip through his body like a shockwave.

He coughed in pain, aware people were around him, muttering. But he died with a smile on his face, now truly at peace.