I guess I should say right out that I am a writer. Well…a wannabe writer anyway, the thing is I can never finish anything I start. I have dozens of scrapped stories and characters. There is one that stuck with me though, a fantasy story much like a lot of the stuff I write. Set in a world run by a ruthless demon. I don’t have it written completely written to be honest but I do have my characters fleshed out. I LOVE the process of creating characters, writing back-stories, giving them names, etcetera.
I digress. My friend is a game programmer, as much as I’m a writer that is. Needless to say you won’t be expecting any game of his in your local gaming store anytime soon. He regularly has me send what I have written so he can have some ideas for a game he was creating based on my concepts. He said it was just for practice and he wouldn’t release it without my permission so I saw no harm in it. I received a letter saying he was going to send me a beta of the game and couldn’t help but feel a bit excited. To see my ideas brought to life even just in a video game beta, well isn’t that every writers dream?
It took quite a while for it to come in as he lives in a different state then me but, that was okay, I keep busy so days pretty much fly by. When a package arrived I knew exactly what it was, I don’t exactly get many packages because I don’t shop online or anything like that. Frankly, can’t afford it.
I opened the package to find it was a DS game. I’d known it was going to be, I’d requested it so I’d be able to play it anywhere or anytime I wanted to without worrying about sharing the TV. Besides, his best game-play was for that platform. I popped it in and turned on my 3DS.
The image of the icon that represented the game was that of a full moon. An obvious allusion to the main character who was a moon spirit. He’s not really a “spirit” per say but I had no better term for what he was. The game started up, I could see right away it was two dimensional with the graphics being very akin to the anime art style. The title screen was a forest at night time, you could see the stars and moon shining above, it was all very beautiful. I remembered my friend’s sister was an artist.
There was two options, new game and continue. I selected new game knowing for a fact that other than my friend, I was the only one who’d touched the game. The opening sequence somewhat reminded me of on old RPG, you know, with the long dialogue in the beginning. It detailed how the demon rose to power and showed images of starvation, poverty, and death. To be expected. The realm I created is not a happy one; it is war ravaged and bleak. It was exactly as I imagined it.
After this scene the coloration ranged from grey to black with a reddish tint; there were flashes of fire and blood, it then cut to a pair of scared silver eyes which cut through the dark colors around them, almost glowing in fact. There was a loud BANG and the screen cut to black.
A young man with long black hair bolted upright eyes wide. A dialogue box appeared with a question mark in what I assumed was the name slot with the text “another nightmare?”
The youth collected himself and nodded.
“Jeez, that’s the third one this week” the unknown person said.
“Mn.” Was the only reply. I already knew who these characters were even without seeing the second one. The first boy’s name was Xaibier Miyuki, the protagonist, the boy plagued with nightmares ever since his family was murdered. The second one had to be Skye Fei, his best and only friend. Sure enough, Skye appeared onscreen his hair falling messily from his braid as if he’d just been woken…again just as I’d pictured it in my head. I noted this game was VERY smooth for a beta and was a bit proud of my friend.
As the story progressed I noticed that a lot of things were exactly as I imagined they would be and thought it odd. Sure my friend and I were like minded in a lot of things, but not THIS like minded. Not that I was unhappy, I just thought it was odd.
There were a few minor differences; Xaibier alluded to his nightmares more often than I had originally written. He is a withdrawn person that often tended to keep a lid on his feelings. Aria (a female character that came in shortly after the beginning of the story) was a better fighter than I had written her to be, no complaints there, I’m not all that great at writing battle scenes. He had also improved upon the soldiers that hunted the main characters uniforms to make them appear a bit sinister, again, no complaints there. The soldiers worked for Dravenic (the demon king) and sought out anyone powerful enough to prove useful in his army of mostly brainwashed slaves.
I didn’t really notice anything was off until around the time Shane joined the group, more specifically after he was revealed to be the half human son of Dravenic.(I didn’t promise my story wasn’t cliché…I’m working on that) Xaibier wasn’t quite as accepting as he was originally intended to be. Shane after all hated his father and could not be held responsible for the actions of said father.
“He killed my parents…” I didn’t write that. My friend had ad libbed, no big deal, with what I had written being a patchwork of undistinguished scenes, who could blame him? I noticed something else. Xaibier’s sprite in the dialogue panel looked…ragged, it must’ve been from lack of sleep. Skye and Aria watched nervously. “After all I have been through I am supposed to just accept this?!” he asked. It seemed to be directed at me. To my surprise I was given a “yes” or “no” option.
I selected “yes” he was after all a level-headed individual and they needed all the help they could get.
“No”
The voice echoed about the room from the speakers. I flinched; the game had no sound before this point; that was supposed to be added in later for the final product. “That jerk…” I grumbled thinking my friend had pulled one over on me.
Xaibier was looking directly at me. “No” he said again “I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS”
Aria and Skye tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t listen. Not sleeping had taken his toll and meeting Shane and caused him to lose it.
Shane looked at me “see this is what you get when you screw with people’s lives. Poor idiot’ll probably go insane now, no telling what he’ll do” I watched in shock, not necessarily scared but very confused. Shane had not only broken the fourth wall but was now on a roll “and me, it wasn’t enough to have EVERYONE hate me but you had to make me sick on top of that. Sick and dying. HA. And apparently I’m going to go blind too because of my disease, thanks a lot dear creator I can tell I’m SOO loved”
The words were flung in my face and something hit me. I had never once told my friend about the blind idea because, heck, it wasn’t even mine, it was my sister’s. I had wrote out a scene but not shown anyone as I wasn’t proud of how it turned out. So how…?”
He kept going…on and on telling me everything I’d done wrong, I shut off my 3DS.
The next day something within me told me I had to complete the game. I don’t know how it happened but somehow the characters within the game were trying to communicate with me and it was only right I hear them out…I created them after all. This is what I was greeted with:
“AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!”
I hurriedly turned the volume down so no one else would hear what was going on.
“hee hee eheheheh haha ahaha”
The laughter continued for about two minutes then flashed to a frame of another character whose name was Thorn. Then looked directly at the screen with a manic grin with blood spattered on his face. He stood over Shane whose eyes were wide open buy glassy…dead. My heart sank “no…you two...are supposed to be best friends”
“WE ARE! HEE HEE! I SAVED HIM. SEE! SEE! CANT SUFFER ANYMORE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA”
“Oh god…” I muttered
The scene shifted to Xaibier standing alone, he looked at me with those sad tired eyes and said “don’t forget us” and vanished without a trace
The scene shifted again to Dravenic sitting on his throne “you chose me to be villain because of my want for power, but I don’t see how we are so different. You act as if you own us, are better than us, but that is all just a delusions girl. You are a fool. Just because we are apparently imaginary. HA! Who’s to say we aren’t the real ones and you aren’t the figment in someone’s head. You are the disease that caused war in this land, starvation, pain death, all because of you. You write it, it happens that’s how things go. So who's the real villain here? You or I?”
I never returned that copy to my friend, and I told him not to continue on that particular project. I’ll keep the game, though it hasn’t worked again since that first play through I keep thinking that someday they may speak to me again.
I now know the price there is to pay to be a writer. Though we have the power to shape entire worlds to our will taking little heed to the pain we inflict. Someday this just might catch up to us. We writers can brilliant, and we can be monsters.
Author's note's: Well....this could be better. I'm planning on eventually rewriting this
-Aria