3 Cards Pulled
Ace of Hearts: You have discovered that you can manipulate reality, change your hair color, or choose which side a flipped coin will land.
Do not discard this card. Place ten tokens on it. At the end of each day, roll a d6. On a 6, remove a token. The fewer tokens you have, the greater the changes you can make. When you remove the last token, flip a coin. Heads, you win, and can manipulate reality as you wish. Tails, you accidentally shatter reality, destroying everything.
2 of Hearts: A contact, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells you that you can’t do this alone. Who can help you? How?
Queen of Clubs: A good friend of yours is found dead. They worked in a VR software company. how do you feel? What do you do? How is the VR company involved?
Like I thought, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I tried, I really did, but as soon as I closed my eyes I could see the body of Joanna, and the dragonfly pin in front of me. In the end I did the one thing that usually helps me unwind; I got in front of my PC and started up a game. It seems ironic doesn’t it, but this game has far lower stakes and it a great waste of time. It allowed me to shut down for a few hours at least before I had to face the new day.
It seems like my days are going to be full of strange things from now on. The first thing that happened was that I looked in the mirror and noticed that my eyes were purple. I know that I took my contacts out before trying to get some sleep last night, but there was no question about it. My eyes had changed color. As I stood there, looking into the mirror, I tried to imagine my actual eye-color, and the strangest thing happened. My eyes changed color in the mirror. After a second they were back to their usual brown, and I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going crazy. I tried it again, just to be sure, and they were back to purple again. This time I left them.
I did some more experimenting, and discovered that I can change the color of my hair as well. I changed it from the dyed purple that I usually have, to its normal blond, to black and then back to purple just to be sure. It worked without any problems, and I have a feeling that the purple is no longer a dye. It looks like I am not able to do anything bigger than that though. I tried changing my clothes, but that didn’t work. I will have to try and figure out where the limits are on this strange power. Does this come from the Game as well? I feel like it must do, but I have no idea why or how it works. More tests are needed. But maybe I have a way to get some answers.
I don’t usually get mail on the weekend, so when my mail-slot rattled around noon I thought I would jump out of my skin. I didn’t even go check it for about half an hour, just to be sure that whoever left something there was gone. When I finally went to check, there was a single white envelope lying on the door mat. It was unmarked, I looked it over thoroughly for anything related to dragonflies or numbers before I opened it, and there was nothing. It did have to do with the Game though. Inside was a single sheet of paper, with a letter carefully written. I don’t know the handwriting, and there was no signature, but it seems like whoever wrote it is trying to help me, give me advice. Another player? A former player? Anyway, this is what they wrote:
‘To Player Number 11 9 20.
You do not know me, and I fully understand if you want to throw this away without reading it, but I ask you to hear me out. I will keep it short.
I will not tell you my name, because I value my continued existence, and They do not take kindly to breaking the rules. All I can tell you is that I know of the position that you are in, and might have some advice for you. It is up to you if you want to believe me, but here it is anyway.
Number one; Do not break the rules! Things tend to go very wrong when people break the rules.
Number two; Stay vigilant. You will start to notice that things around you are changing from day to day. This will become more prominent the longer the Game goes on, and you have some control in this as well. Use it well.
Number three; Find help. This is not something that you can take on alone and expect to stay sane through it all. You need someone by your side that you can trust. Find that person, and choose with care. Not everyone can be trusted.’
I spent a good hour with that letter, before resigning myself to knowing very little more than I did before. Whoever sent this obviously meant well, but they didn’t tell me anything really useful. I could guess that the ‘control’ that I had over the changing of my surroundings were connected to my newly found power of changing my eye and hair color, and from the wording it seems like that is going to get stronger. I am not sure how I feel about that. But I suppose that there is nothing much I can do about it.
Number one doesn’t really help me either. What good is it telling me not to break the rules when I have no idea what the rules are? At this rate I will break them and not even know until it is too late. I will keep it in mind though, in case I do manage to figure some of the rules out as I go. I might need to start a list.
Number three is something that I could do however. I could, but I am not sure that I agree that I should. Having had some time to think it over, I have come to the conclusion that Joanna’s death might have been due to one of two things. Either because I told her about the Game, or because she tried to make me ignore it. At the moment I am leaning towards the latter. Because there are records about the Game out there, vague as they are, it shouldn’t be that I spoke about it. But it obviously had something to do with my participation, the note made that very clear.
This was about as far as I came in thinking over the content of the short letter, when my phone rang. Glancing over I saw that it was Aleks. Of course it was, he tried to call me all night last night. A thought occurred to me, and I decided to leave answering up to chance. Looking over at the phone on my desk I imagined it answering on speaker-phone where it lay. I can’t say that I was too surprised when it rang one more time and then clicked. I had just answered the phone with nothing but the will to do it.
Aleks were sounding slightly frantic on the phone and asked to meet me right away. I agreed to meet him for lunch at the small diner down the street, and off I went. Aleks looked like he hadn’t slept either last night, and he was looking at me as if he thought that I would vanish in thin air if he looked away. And then he told me the news.
We work in Game Developement, I don’t think I ever mentioned that. It’s not that big of a studio, and all of us are friends to some degree. But it seems like we are steadily growing smaller. Aleks had gone into the office this morning to pick up something he forgot on Friday and noticed that the lights were on in Aiden’s office. Now, this is not unusual. Aiden is our VR guy, and he is quite the workaholic. I have known him since we were kids, and as far as I know, he never took a day off in his life. Aleks knew this as well of course, and went over to see if he was up for some coffee.
Aleks told me that Aiden was hanging from the ceiling by the cords of his VR equipment. On his desk was a note, making it seem like a suicide, but I am not too sure about that. Neither is Aleks. He took a photo of the note, because obviously he couldn’t just take it, and he showed me as we had lunch. The note was short, written in a messy scrawl. It said ‘I’m sorry, I failed. I broke the rules.’ And at the bottom was a set of numbers. I don’t quite remember all of them, but what I do remember corresponds with the number table that I got a few days ago. There is no doubt in my mind; Aiden was playing the game. And he somehow broke the rules, resulting in his death. I know that I should be more upset about this, but honestly, after the events of the last two days, the only thing I am feeling is numb. I suspect that it will hit me hard at some point, but at the moment I can’t seem to feel much at all.
I can’t help but think though… Was Aiden the one who wrote the letter for me? Was that breaking the rules? And why at the office? Is the company involved somehow? I am going to have to keep my eyes open when I go in tomorrow.
This is Kit, Player Number 11 9 20, signing off.
Ending Roll: 1; Tokens Left: 10