Five foot eight. Around 170 to 190 pounds. Age in the late 30s to early 40s. Ethnicity: Caucasian. Gender: Male.
White male is disheveled and seems to be confused. They do not look hostile. Will assess the situation further along with threat level.
***
My thoughts were burning fast like an engine, trying to absorb this guy's visual information. I was trying to craft an unspoken introduction from him, from the little snippets that went unsaid.
(But it's all estimations. One-sided assumptions. I don't really know anything about this guy except from the surface layer.)
Even then, what if I was still wrong? Misinterpreting information? Being incorrect in a survival scenario is a costly mistake. The price could be your life. You don't get a lot of those. Typically you only get one, actually.
"H-hey. Can you hear me?"
His voice sounded weak, unsure. It didn't carry the heavy tone of a threat, but it just meant that he could've veiled his intentions.
"Yes," I said.
"Uh... do you know what's happening?"
His question made my mind halt to a standstill.
(How the hell... do I answer that?)
We stood there for a few minutes as my mind burned like a four piston engine. Thoughts would enter my mind, compress and explode, and get thrown out as soon as they came in. I was scrambling for coherency in order to form an explanation and I cursed my timidness. How do I communicate with people?
(Ah,) I thought. (Why didn't I think of this earlier?)
A story. That's how I communicate. With a fable and a tale.
"Do you know about Peter Pan?" I said. "The fictional world of Neverland? Or Alice in Wonderland?"
After a pause of consideration, the man answered, "Uh, yeah. I've seen those Disney movies."
I gritted my teeth.
"Well, think of it - all of this - like that. But instead of Peter Pan bringing you to Neverland, he brought Neverland to you, and let's just say, it wasn't a pretty world."
"Uh, what-"
"What I'm trying to say, everything that's happening right now is like a fairy-tale. Magical and impossible, but happening to you. So scary and fantastical, it makes you feel like a child. Do you understand?"
My voice was hard and my tone was short because I didn't want to bother explaining too much.
[Constellations from fairy-tale lands like your explanation.]
[Constellations from fairy-tale lands have sponsored 100 coins.]
"Oh."
I felt satisfied from my answer and-
"But where are the fairies?" The man said with a laugh. Was he trying to retort and create banter with me?
"It's not exactly a fairy-tale," I said with a sigh. "But it has similarities to one. In actuality, I'd describe this world more like a game."
"Oh... okay."
What was this guy's deal? How the hell did he get here in my scenario?
(It's not necessarily mine,) I admonished myself. (As long as you're in the area of a scenario, you'll most likely be drawn to it.)
That means a few things: he was trailing behind me, coming here from a different direction, or he was already here before the Darkwood Scenario initiated.
(Those three are plausible options.)
"Can you tell me what those blue windows said? I didn't have enough time to read them."
(Really? Are you serious?)
"Like I said, this is like a game. A perverted one with magical qualities. We have to survive five days and nights in these dark woods and we'll be released by the fifth day or so."
He nodded in silence.
"There'll be monsters. Things you'll have to kill in order to survive. Are you ready for that?"
"Uh... no?"
It was time to get more aggressive with my questions.
"You can't be here," I accused. "Not without passing the First Scenario. And to do that-"
"Uh, you just had to kill something, right?" He interrupted. "I killed some mosquitoes that were eating at me as I slept."
[Constellation "Secretive Plotter" wonders what you'll do.]
[Constellation "Chained God of Trickery with the Poisoned Face" wonders if you'll take the information at face value.]
(Dammit.)
If I kill this guy preemptively to protect myself, I'll look like a sociopath. More so than I already am, anyways. Even if he were evil or not, from the perspective of the Constellations, I don't know anything about him, so I can't draw any sound conclusion. It'll all be speculation.
Even if I got it right and did kill an evil person, from the viewpoint of the Constellations, any viewer with a brain would consider my perspective, and know that I didn't have the information they had. They'd know I killed a person by just guessing.
At least with the First Scenario, I had more plausible deniability. One could say that I was shocked and scared to know my neighbors killed each other. I also had a method to parse out the people who killed in self-defense and the people who instigated their kills first. Offing this guy right now would be too aggressive of a move.
(I'll look insane and irrational. I would be insane and irrational.)
Fuck, my morality is being compromised here. Kill this guy in order to protect myself without a doubt, or give the benefit of the doubt and let him live?
(How would that impact me, though? It'd mean that a random dude I don't know is living in the same woods as me for five days and-)
"H-hey. You there?"
The guy's voice snapped me out of my thinking. Did he get a little closer?
"Hey," I whispered. "Can you back up a little?"
"Oh-uh, yeah. Sorry."
There was an awkward pause between the both of us. I didn't add anything more to the conversation, so now there were two guys in the woods staring at each as the sky bled a hazy crimson hue.
"Uh, is that food in those bags?"
This random homeless guy gestured to the stuff I looted from the houses.
"Could I, uh... have some of it?"
(Are you really trying to leech off of me, a person you just met?)
The audacity. But what would be the best play? If I deny him the food, that may lead to resentment and escalation, and he may try to attack me. Depending on when and where, I might die if it's a surprise attack.
But if I do give him the food, I might look like a doormat. I hate being treated like that.
(We'll need to use every bit of our social wit - if I have any - to construct my best scenario possible.)
"Sure," I said while approaching the bag, "but I can't give you everything. I need to take this to my family. We got separated and I need to bring this to them."
[Some Constellations of Absolute Good are shocked by your audacious lies.]
"Oh- I'm sorry, nevermi-"
"No, no, it's okay. So, what do you want?"
"Uh... I need something to last, you know?"
(Nine items, that's all he gets.)
I whipped out some cans of beans and fruit, Spam, and water bottles.
(He should have a decent balance of sodium, protein, and carbs. Although there isn't a lot of sugar.)
I dug around into the bag and dug out another item. Hopefully this item would show enough goodwill to distract him, but if it emboldens him for more, then it means I'll have an excuse to kill him. Greed is the killer of character; the allure of greed frazzles the mind and thus logic.
(I'm going to have to be careful of that myself.)
I placed the last item, which was a box of Cosmic Brownies, on the picnic table alongside the rest of the goods. Now it was time to take my stuff and walk away.
"See ya. Survive well."
[Some Constellations are surprised by your sudden compliance.]
[Some Absolute Good Constellations are surprised by your goodwill.]
[A few Absolute Evil Constellations are wondering what your angle is.]
[Several Absolute Evil Constellations say there isn't an angle and that you're soft.]
[Some Absolute Good Constellations have tentatively sponsored 100 coins.]
I gritted my teeth again. This was the curse of living in the scenarios. Constant observation and scrutiny, always living under the gaze of someone else who'd never understand a modicum of your reasoning or pain. Why do anything for these bastards who couldn't even bother?
My eyes flicked to the tarnished sky, the one that the Star Stream just ruined for the sake of the scenarios.
(Just you wait, dear Constellations. I'll rip you down from that sky soon enough. I promise.)
***
I was lying on the floor of my living room. I was on the dirty floor. The washed out white light was bearing down on me. I couldn't get up.
(What-)
I was lying on the ground now. The gritty sidewalk, filled with bugs and dirt.
(Murderer.)
I was face to face with a woman. A black woman. The black woman I stomped to death. For some reason, her face was whole, unlike the cranium I stomped to pieces. Now... it was looking at me in judgement.
I felt people standing around me, crowding around and looking down at my prone, unmovable body. Men and women of varying appearances. Each of them unique individuals of varying nationality, ethnicity, and age. Each of them my victims after the First Scenario.
(Killer.)
(Murderer!!)
(Abandoner.)
(Evil child...)
Somehow, I don't know how, but somehow from where I lay, I was able to see all of them. All eight of them. The husbands, wives, and relatives that used to exist, the ones who were connected to others but used those connections to selfishly survive. They were working class, they were poor, some of them were in school or had jobs... one of them was homeless.
All of those existences stood above me, bearing down on mine. They opened their mouths into perfect, gaping holes - they had no tongues, no teeth... they had no mouth, but they screamed.
They screamed one thing.
(MONSTER.)
Everything faded into an instant black, only to transition to another void.
There was a woman right in front of me. She was on her knees, sobbing into her hands. I recognized her.
My mother.
Perfectly illuminated in the dark, like an actress on a stage with a light shone onto them. My mind grew cold as if icy water was splashed onto me.
My mother's hands started to fall away, unclenching from her tear-riddled cheeks, and through the gaps between her fingers, I saw one of my mother's eyes stare at me. Another impossible angle since her head was facing down, but somehow it made sense. How did it make sense?
My heart shook.
(I don't want to see.)
I didn't want to see the look at my mother's face. I knew I wouldn't be able to bear witness to it. I knew if I did, it'd destroy me. What type of expression would it have to be in order to destroy me?
Panic ran up my neck and body. I wanted to desperately move, but all the fear caused me to seize in place, like a lock was placed in my spine.
My mother's arms fell to her sides in defeat. She stopped sobbing. Her dark black hair hung around her head. The silence was deafening. Slowly, her neck began to raise.
I would be face to face with my mother in less than a moment.
The anticipating fear made it feel as though my mind would collapse in on itself, but soon I grew resigned.
(So be it.)
As soon as that thought came, the world grew black again. My mother vanished.
(What?)
Now there was only me and the dark.
(No.)
Something's different. I looked down and saw the void. Or my eyes perceived absolute darkness and perceived it as the black void. But yes, there was something different. There was something in my right hand.
My fingers clutched it and I raised my arm to look at it, just like how I would do it with my phone.
In my hands... was a black rock.
[Ethan.]
A formless voice spoke out, reaching me from all directions. Everything grew less tense. It felt like locks were being shattered and lifted away. Relief flooded through me.
(What-)
***
I woke up from my nightmare.
(-was that?)
It was still fresh within my mind. I could still remember it - every scene and visage.
(I can literally analyze a theme.)
Being an English student had its perks.
(There were so many eyes. My... victims...?)
Recollecting it all, it just made me laugh.
Why was my dream like that? I started to create some answers in order to understand, but I settled for a different, easier explanation.
(It's the eyes. Authors and producers always write and show humans killing each other on the page and screen, but they don't understand all the horrifying details.)
One of them being the eyes. The way they look as the human dies or after the soul leaves the body. When every quality that made that human - human - is gone and all you're left is a deceased object. An empty husk. When every feature and quality that displays life goes hollow and empty, it's disturbing. Uncanny. It doesn't make sense. It shouldn't look that way, but it does.
The most haunting thing about killing someone are the eyes. The way they look at you, then no longer look at you.
(Which is why I probably dreamt - had a nightmare about it.)
(It must be trauma or something.)
I rubbed at my eyes. My body was sore. I tried to make the woodland floor as comfortable by using my backpack as a pillow and my black rain jacket as a comforter, but it didn't work. Everything was still uncomfortable and I wasn't used to it. My body felt all the aches and pains.
I think that's why I was rigid as a rock in my nightmare. I was tensing up in real life and the bodily sensation translated into my dreamscape.
I sighed out in exasperation. I felt so tired.
(In a few months, I should be fine as long as I forget most of it.)
Although, how would I make myself forget?
(You can't really do that,) I told myself. (Or else you'll remember it more.)
I just needed to focus on something else, anything else. Something productive. I needed to function and perform different tasks aside from sleeping.
[Constellation "Secretive Plotter" is glad you're up.]
[Constellation "The Black One, Lord of Muspelheim" is looking at you.]
(Hey.)
[Constellation "The Black One, Lord of Muspelheim" wants you to pay attention!]
(What?)
I heard rustling above me. After I left the central area, I went into offshoot paths that led deeper into the vast woods. One of them led down into a gulch, where at the bottom lay a river. It meant I was isolated and alone with a harder way to get out.
(Damn, I just wanted water.)
I clutched my new bokken. It wasn't even finished.
Through the trees and foliage, coming down the paths was a lanky creature: 9-feet tall, inhumanely thin, and black as onyx. The way its flesh undulated and shimmered - as if a statue came to life, struggling to remain animated. So ill-proportioned and impossible, it didn't make sense that it should move. How could anything that looked like that be a flesh and blood being?
(The Grade 6 monster from the Ebony-Universe.)
[Constellation "Innumerable Hand of Madness" has entered channel #HE-2020.]
[Constellation "Innumerable Hand of Madness" chuckles from seeing their creation.]
[Constellation "Innumerable Hand of Madness" says they'll give you coins if you survive this fight.]
I gritted my teeth.
"Nightshade."
That was the creature created by the Constellation "Madness." His creations weren't just simple monsters made to exist, they were created to kill humans. So, of course the demise had to be extremely agonizing and lethal.
(The humanoid hands of Nightshades' are coiled tendrils that split apart and lash out like whips. It's similar to a sting-rays.)
I glanced at the Nightshade's arms. Deep seams ran along and past its elbow, resembling contracture scar tissue. The worst part?
"Just like certain sting-rays, each tendril is an apparatus... which secretes venom comparable to tetrodotoxin."
If one hit from that creature ruptured my flesh and injected the venom, I'd die from my nervous system breaking down.
[Constellation "Innumerable Hand of Madness" is eager to see this fight.]