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The Game Player created and written by PixelPurple
The sound of sizzling food and the smell of a hearty meal filled the small kitchen.
Hailey was slaving away at dinner—a chicken and broccoli stir-fry—for her and Victor.
Victor sat patiently at their makeshift table. He noticed her wipe a bead of sweat off her forehead, and he frowned softly.
After she finished, she prepared two bowls and brought them to the table, humming a soft tune as she walked. She noticed the look on his face and tilted her head.
“What’s wrong, Victor?” She asked, her voice soft.
Victor shifted in his seat, staying silent for a moment as he gathered the courage to ask, “Am I a burden on you?”
“Oh, honey… What makes you think that?”
“W-well, you looked like you were struggling over there… You shouldn’t have to do so much for me.”
“…Victor…” She kneeled down, putting a mitt-covered hand onto his cheek. “You’re not a burden, I promise. Please don’t think that. I’d have to cook whether you were around or not, you know that? Besides…” She lifted his chin and quirked her head, emphasizing the smile carved onto her face. “You’re a joy to have around,” she said assuredly, reaching her hand up to gently pat his head.
Still, he wasn’t convinced.
“What makes me worth keeping around? Aren’t I just–” Before he could finish, she shushed him.
“Shhh… Don’t belittle yourself now.”
She cupped his face in both of her hands. “You know what makes you worth it? It’s that smile on your face. That look of pure joy whenever you take your first bite, that laugh of yours… You’re just a sweetheart, Victor.”
With a soft chuckle, she added, “The son I never had.”
She stood back up and pushed one of the bowls towards him.
“You should eat, honey. I made your favorite!”
Gosh, where do I even start?
I was trying to backtrack. You know, to return to somewhere familiar and safe(ish). Maybe even quiet, if I was lucky.
I ended up at the parking garage. I was familiar with it, yes, but I never knew what I'd find just around the corner. Certainly wasn’t quiet either. The buzzing of those lights made my head pound harder than usual.
The voices would only get louder whenever my head hurt, strangely enough. It was always nonsense. I tried to block it out, to ignore them as usual. It all blurs together in my memories, but I’m sure they were saying stuff like;
“Where are you going, Victor?”
“What’s that over there?”
“Don’t step in that puddle!”
“Too loud!”
Or some variation of those.
I at least found some peace when I wandered into a darker area. My flashlight had been out of juice for a while now, so I took it slow at first and started to move faster as my eyes adjusted.
This place has always been really hard on me. It’s always a 50/50 shot that something I see is real or not. Sometimes I approach someone, reach out to them, and my hand goes right through them.
And the other times, I see a glowing smile in the dark, glaring at me with an awful, almost sickening grin.
I wanted to excuse it as another hallucination. To be able to rub my eyes and make it disappear.
But it didn’t.
And it gave chase.
I had never been chased by something up until that point, shockingly. Looking back, I guess I’ve had a pretty lucky experience in this place.
But at that moment, I was sprinting faster than I had in years, probably.
It was also the first time the crowd in my head could agree on something. The obvious, really; I had to get out of there.
I bumped into more walls and pillars than I could count. Always the edges, at least. I didn’t knock myself out running headfirst into concrete. But it slowed me down, and it was getting closer.
It got close enough to nip at my arm. I started bleeding, but the shock gave me a boost of adrenaline.
I saw a bit of light up ahead. I just had to go further. I could escape that thing.
And I almost did.
Right when I got to the harsh border between the dark and light, it swiped me with its claws, knocking me onto the ground and into the light.
I felt a horrible pain all across my back. Then a warm wetness.
I was never able to see my wounds, but maybe I should be grateful for that.
Looking back into the darkness, it stared down at me. That stupid, awful smile was still on its face as it watched me begin to bleed out. It never passed that border, though.
I stumbled to my feet and tried to call out for help, but I was out of breath, and my voice was weak, so I had to try to find it myself.
The longer I walked, the less I could make out my surroundings. Blood ran down my legs and pooled at my feet. I'm sure I was leaving a trail.
My thoughts went wild. So did them. Some yelled that we were going to die. Some berated me for not getting away.
Some told me that I had failed.
All I had ever wanted was to make some kind of a name for myself. Or, at the very least, to not die alone.
The longer I walked, the less I believed I would survive.
I thought I found some sort of hope. A door that stood out amongst the concrete hell. It was off to the side and had this checkerboard pattern on it. White and black.
When I stepped inside, I tried to cry out again before I fell to my knees. Couldn't even make out where I was before I collapsed.
I had to accept that my worst fears were coming true.
So, I managed to crawl over to the closest wall, and I sat against it, trying to catch my breath as my life slowly faded away.
The voices slowly became quieter. They were dying with me, after all.
And… Mary. The one figure whom I’d seen since the beginning. She stood before me, the only thing visible over the blur of the room. I think she nodded. Didn't say a word, as usual.
My vision started to fade to black. I heard someone approaching. They said something, but their voice melted into the ringing in my ear.
For a moment, I felt unfathomably empty. Like my very soul was floating in an endless, inky void. But, after a moment, the weirdest thing happened.
My eyes opened again, and I was surrounded by darkness. I sat up, and looked down at myself. I was hazy and blue, like a ghost. I frantically looked around. Below me, I could see the room I had died in. It was like its ceiling was made of glass, and I was on top of it. It had that same monochrome blue look that I did.
I could see my own corpse below me.
Naturally, I was panicking, trying to figure out where I was now. Was it the afterlife, or some kind of limbo? Was everything I thought I had believed wrong? Was there anything after this? Either way, it felt like an unbearable weight was pressing down on me from all angles.
Right when I was starting to hyperventilate, I felt a hand on my shoulder. And I knew immediately who it was.
Hailey was there with me. As soon as I recognized her touch, I froze. Not out of fear, but rather out of that familiar comfort and warmth. She turned me around and explained that she had been watching over me and waiting for me.
I burst into tears and hugged her as tight as I could.
It was unfair.
She soothed me until my sobs died down to mere whimpers. Once I was quiet enough, she explained where we were, to the best of her knowledge. It was some sort of in-between. She gestured towards something — a door in the distance, cracked just enough to show the glowing white light behind it.
The light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
She extended her mitt-covered hand and offered to walk me towards it. To move on.
I glanced back down. To my body below.
Sure enough, someone was down there, standing at the edge of the pool of blood around me. They were looking down, with something in their hands. I squinted to see what it was.
My journal. They were reading my journal.
I’m sure anyone else would panic, but in truth, I saw it as someone who’d learn my story. Maybe even remember me.
I told Hailey I wanted to wait, to see what would happen. She nodded, sat down beside me, and wrapped an arm around my back as we watched.
The figure was, well, strange. A jester with a multi-colored suit, held up by glowing strings that went straight into the ceiling. Certainly not human.
We watched for quite a long time. They seemed invested, though they were clearly skimming through it.
As we watched, Hailey ran her hand through my hair and pulled me closer, my head resting on her shoulder. My eyes drifted shut, and I rested in her arms, finally able to do so after an unbearably long time
I'm not sure how long I was out, but I was eventually woken up by her. She told me that they had stopped reading and floated away. We waited, and waited, but it was starting to seem like they weren't going to come back.
Hailey sighed, got up, and helped me to my feet. She told me, "we better get going," and started to lead me towards that door.
I looked down, and saw that they had come back into the room, carrying what looked like another jester just like itself, however slumped in its arms and with a differently colored suit. I stopped Hailey and told her to look.
They set the figure down and, as if things couldn’t get any stranger, they waved a hand, and the blood that had pooled around my body seemed to fade away. Once the floor surrounding my body was clear of blood, she pushed the figure next to me and waved her hand once again, this time with a much more dramatic flourish.
It felt like something was tugging at my leg. An invisible force trying to pull me down.
Before I knew it, I was suddenly falling downwards, trying desperately to reach Hailey, who was just as shocked as I was. It just happened too fast.
I was suddenly shocked awake. Again. I was back in that room, and my body was even more drastically changed.
I was that doll.
And they, or, she, was standing before me. She looked slightly surprised and/or shocked for a moment before she broke out into a grin and a fit of almost manic giggling.
She looked back at my (former) body, plucked the glasses off my old face, and put them back onto my new face, and did the same with my satchel, slinging it over my shoulder.
She introduced herself to me as “The Game Master,” or “Penelope,” and offered her wooden hand to shake. I hesitantly reached out, shaking her hand. When she let go, I stared at my own hand for a while while she talked.
She explained that we were in “The Gaming Hall” and that it was her domain. She pulled me to my feet and dragged me along, showing me around like an excited kid in a mall.
I didn’t say a word. Didn’t fight, either. Truth be told, I could hardly pay attention to her.
She showed me a shelf full of various board games, all of which were just renamed knock-offs of ones I knew. When she showed me the game “Battleplanes,” I couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t that just Battleships?” To which she cut me off before I could even finish saying “battleships,” yelling “NO” at me before swiftly moving on as normal.
She kept dragging me around and talking to me, but it didn’t take long for me to zone out in thought. Maybe this was the afterlife? But I couldn’t pin down if it was heaven or hell. Maybe it was purgatory.
She seemed to notice me not paying attention and snapped her fingers in front of me, trying to get my attention. I apologized meekly.
Once she was (eventually) done showing me around, she waved her hand, manifesting a small table with two chairs. I was involuntarily shoved down into one by some invisible force. She sat down and asked me to talk, saying I’d “been so quiet."
I took a beat to think before asking, “What is this?”
She looked at me, confused, but seemed to gauge some meaning from it. She had a strange look in her digital eyes for a moment before it was quickly replaced by that grin. She told me to “think of it as a second chance,” and that she’d brought me back because she wanted a friend. She explained that the body I was now in was an old attempt of hers to make an artificial friend. But, she said something about not being able to make it fully autonomous, since it was just controlled by her. She said that I was “the perfect opportunity,” and that my soul was now inside this body.
I wanted to ask about the journal. But before I could, she excitedly exclaimed that I was her friend now, vanished for a split second, reappeared with one of the board games in her hands, slammed it down on the table, and offered to play.
I bit my (non-existent) tongue and just nodded. And we played for quite a while.
I almost forgot about the strange experiences I had just been through. Heck, by the end of it, we were both smiling and laughing.
After that day, she gave me my own room off in a rather secluded part of the level. I thought I saw a handful of other rooms that seemed empty, but she hurried me past those. The room she gave me has a decently comfortable bed and a desk with a lot of paper and pencils in the drawers. Even paints. I guess she gauged me as the artistic type. Which, to be fair, is completely correct.
She also gave me some antipsychotics, but, I obviously can't take them. I think she was just trying to be nice.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I still have my symptoms. But, I guess that's the least confusing thing about my body. How can I still see with no eyes, speak with no mouth, hear with no ears, and feel with no nerves?
…anyways, that was a while ago now. I haven’t written since then because I wanted to get used to using a pencil again. It was hard to write with a wooden hand at first, but I think I’ve gotten used to it.
I've also been a bit busy, really. She's made me her playtester for new games. She comes up with quite the… interesting ideas. Sometimes they're original, but most of the time they're just derivatives of games back at home.
It’s all so odd. Obviously. Sure, this IS a second chance. But I’m not even human anymore. I don’t even think I can leave this place, either. She’s said that she’s bound to it, so does that mean that I am too by extension? But, if that's the case, how did she bring me back if my soul wasn't technically within its bounds? Maybe I’ll ask about that later.
She gave me a title, too. “The Game Player.’ She made it up on a whim, but I guess it’s stuck. She still calls me “Victor” anyway, though. She said it’s a funny name for me to have, especially considering I lose her games most of the time. But whenever someone wanders into here, she makes me call myself “The Game Player” and her “The Game Master.” I guess it’s just to look “professional.”
She keeps me to myself most of the time, though. Sometimes she comes into my room to check on me or ask to play a game, but I’m alone the majority of the time. Now, I’ve been alone for quite some time, but, oddly enough? This is a different kind of alone. Heck, I don’t even think I can say I’m “alone” when I can walk outside and talk with a friend. Plus, I've been able to reflect on everything without feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.
…and even if she’s not awake, I can at least find some peace. Knowing that Hailey is still around, to an extent. I can only assume that she’s still up there, watching over me…
I don’t think I’ll be getting out of this place anytime soon, but, for now?
I think I’m happy.
