This is the character I played in a modern day Call of Cthulhu game at Tales from Dreaming Spires. While 13 is not my record for SAN loss in a single game of Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, never before have I had a character end an adventure so utterly broken. Which means the only way to get her out of my brain is to tell her story.
"It would really help if you could tell us what happened."
Cinthia Castillo sat hunched up on the bed, arms wrapped around her legs. Physically she was looking better. Neat dressings covered the tissue damage, and she'd finally submitted to having her hair brushed. But one look into those haunted brown eyes was enough to see that she'd suffered far worse than physical damage.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You won't believe me."
Not the first time she'd heard that. "Miss Castillo...may I call you Cinthia?" She waited for a nod, then continued. "Cinthia, I've heard a lot of strange things. You can tell me anything. There's no need to hide. I need to hear the truth so I can work out how to help you."
She watched the girl. No words, but the shift in body language gave her her answer.
"Shall we start with the plane?"
"We were all sitting together at the back." Cinthia's voice was hesitant. "Me and Doctor England. Doctor Chandrasekar and Doctor Green. Nick, the other student. The Japanese doctor - Hina? Doctor Gates. The Russian and the Italian I...I can't remember their names." She took the offered tissue, and composed herself again. "There was turbulance, but I wasn't worried about that. Someone said we'd been struck by lightning, and then...then the crash." She paused for a deep breath before continuing. "Nine of us made it. The others...all we could do was make them comfortable."
Nine survivors. There had been considerably fewer than nine people airlifted off that mountain.
"We could smell the jet fuel, so we grabbed what we could and ran. We were in the forest by the time it exploded. We had to keep walking. It was the only way we could keep warm. We found a river and decided to try following it downstream. That's when we found the writing."
"Yes?" She could guess which writing. One of the survivors was still clutching a book, with notes scrawled in two different hands and two different alphabets.
"It was written on the trees. We thought it was old Norse at first, because of the runes, but then we realised we could read some of it. So we made a copy and I wrote it out in English, but I was still working on it when we found the first stone. It had carvings on it, and...blood, I think. Doctor Green was the first one to touch it. He went a bit strange for a few moments, and then told us about how he'd seen himself as some kind of barbarian with a spear. So we decided we should have several of us touch it at once. Doctor England was doing it and I couldn't let him think I was scared."
"You were Doctor England's research student, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"But you were paying your own way on this trip. A long way to go for a conference. Was there more to your relationship?" A long silence followed that question, which nonetheless spoke volumes. "I'm not here to judge. Just to understand."
"No. But I hoped if...if we spent this time together..."
She handed Cinthia more tissues. "It's OK. I understand. Shall we go back to the rock?"
"Yes. Yes. We all put our hands on it together. I thought maybe I'd see something like what Doctor Green talked about. But it was...it was..." She hugged her legs tighter as her whole body began to shake. "I was trapped in a box. Surrounded by fire. My shoes were melting. Then my feet were burning. I thought I was going to die. And then I was back with the others and they were talking about Romans and stuff but all I could do was scream."
A hallucination, of course, but nevertheless one that had profoundly affected her. It was some time before she found the strength to talk again, and when she did it was in a quieter voice.
"It was getting dark. We went back into the trees and the others lit a fire. I was so cold. But I couldn't...I couldn't..."
"It's OK. You're safe here."
Cinthia nodded, took a few deep breaths, and carried on.
"We managed to get some sleep, but when it got light something had happened to Doctor Gates. She started wandering off back to the stones, and then she fell over. Doctor England said she'd had a stroke. If we could have got her to a hospital she might have been OK, but out there there was nothing we could do. There were these little crystal things in the ground that froze anything they touched, so we pushed her onto one of them. So at least it would be quick and painless."
She didn't wait for the offer of tissues this time, reaching out to grab a handful instead.
"We had to leave her. We followed a game trail through the trees. There was a little hut and the others found some old things there. Someone else who'd been here years ago. And then we found the clearing with the stone altar. That's when they started putting it all together."
"They?"
"The others. Some of them saw that altar when they touched the stone. We found remains in the snow. Romans. Some of them saw Romans. And the messages on the trees. It all fitted. But we'd left two people in the hut. I don't know what happened but when we went back..." She paused for a moment, steeling herself to continue. "One of them was dead. The Italian, I think. The other one killed him. He came out with blood on his face. He was holding an arm. I think he'd ripped off the body."
"Did you see the body?"
"No. One of the others did. But I couldn't go in. We ran when he came out, back to the altar. They'd all figured it out by then. The reason why the tree messages said the way out didn't work with only one. The way to escape was to sacrifice someone on the altar."
"And did you all choose someone to sacrifice."
"Yes. They chose me."
She was rocking back and forth now as well as shaking, and had given up any attempt at keeping her eyes dry.
"I ran, but they chased me. All except Doctor Chandrasekar. And Doctor Green wasn't well and couldn't keep up, but it was...it was Doctor England who caught me. I tried to stop him. I tried to make him understand. But I was so cold and so scared and he dragged me back through the woods to the altar. That's when I saw what happened to Doctor Chandrasekar."
For a while she was sobbing too hard to carry on, but with an effort she managed to pull herself together enough to speak again. "The Russian. He wasn't even human any more. He stabbed Doctor Chandrasekar with a pen. I saw him die on that altar. He was the only one who didn't try to kill me, and all I could think of was how this meant I didn't have to die."
"What happened to the Russian?"
"The others tried to fight him, but none of us knew how to fight. I stuck him with an epipen and he ran off. And that's...that's all I can remember before the helicopter arrived."
"That's OK. You've done really well."
Five people had been pulled off that mountainside alive, all frostbiten and hypothermic. She had wondered how Cinthia had been the worst affected, despite being the only one wearing a proper coat. Now she understood. But the frostbite was already healing. There were other wounds here, that had cut much deeper than mere snow and ice. And they would take longer to heal.
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