RPGaDay: Tribute

Sometimes I get to the end of a game, but feel there's a little more that needs to be said about my character.  Maybe I feel the need to capture something that wasn't part of the game session.  Maybe (quite often after horror one-shots) I want to show a little of the aftermath of the game's events.  So I write these things.  A tribute to someone who I enjoyed pretending to be for a while.

I've just finished playing the Kult: Divinity Lost scenario, Island of the Dead.  How much sense it will make to anyone who hasn't played this adventure (or who didn't end it the way we did) I don't know, but if you know Kult, you'll have an idea what a horrible experience the characters have been through...

...

Amber's fashion blog has a lot more than a thousand followers now.  She's done every chat show she can think of, and her face is on magazine covers worldwide.  There are rumours flying that Netflix will be buying the TV rights to her story; rumours that she knows are true.

It will, of course, be a work of fiction.

The real story she has told to nobody.  Not her therapist, who knows she shot two men in the head but not what Anne showed her in the cave.  Not Jennifer, who has her own traumas without having to carry Amber's too.  There are only two people who know the truth, and she hasn't spoken to either of them since they got home.  Because if she talks to them, she won't be able to hide behind the makeup and the clothes and the performance she gives to the camera.

Amber sits surrounded by pictures of herself, and the photo she's staring at on her phone is no exception, but it's not her face she's looking at.  They all ask her about Jennifer, and all the others she helped rescue.  Nobody asks her about the one she couldn't save.  Which is lucky, really.  She pushes the phone away before her hot wet tears can splash down onto it.

The nightmares are getting worse.  The drugs she's been prescribed don't seem to be helping, and the temptation to go out and find some that do is getting stronger each day.  She doesn't know how many more times she can bear to watch Simon die.

She wipes away the tears, taking a smear of mascara with them, and reaches for her phone.  A few hairs get brushed into position before she takes the selfie.  Hashtag bad day.  It's barely been uploaded a few seconds before the notifications start.  She ignores them.  They're just another part of the illusion that is her life.  Fake lashes, fake tan, fake stories, fake friends, fake smiles, all plastered on in the hope that nobody will see what's real.

What is real?

She picks up the phone, disables notifications, and stares at it.  It doesn't fit with her image.  Amber's followers know she's not interested in some stupid little kid, just because he was on the plane with her.  But she remembers kind words, and moments of vulnerability.  Maybe there's some way she can turn this to her advantage at some point, but right now she just wants a friend.

And as she makes the call, it occurs to her, maybe he does too?