The Great and Secret Game – Day 10, Sunday

5 Cards
7 of Clubs, 2 of Diamonds, King of Spades, 10 of Diamonds, 5 of Hearts

Note to self: Do not follow the dragonfly, even if it keeps flying around your head.

Looking at the date, it is hard to believe that an entire week hasn’t passed since this morning. Though, to be fair, I am not sure that time doesn’t flow differently in that place… I could have been gone a week without the day changing as far as I know. But probably not.

I am writing on the floor in my shed at the moment… I have decided that it is my shed now, and I might need to start moving my things over here more permanently. I will start tomorrow, so that I have time to get everything here.

I am not making much sense, am I? Well, truth be told, I am still not sure just what exactly happened today, except that it was a LOT.

It all started, as things seem to do a lot these days, with a dragonfly. An actual insect this time rather than a drawing. The moment I stepped out of my door this morning, it was there, flitting about my face and around my head like a little menace. I tried shooing it away, but it kept moving back and forth, as if it was waiting for me to follow it. If I tried to move in another direction, it was immediately back in my face until I was facing the way it wanted me to go.

I relented far too quickly.

It led me to the studio, and then around the back of the building. There, underneath the fire escape, was a door, and the blasted insect sat down on the handle and waited. At that point, there was really nothing for it; I reached out a hand and opened the door.

The moment I stepped through, I knew that I was in trouble. Ahead of me was a long corridor with bright yellow walls. I had barely taken two steps into it when I heard the door slam shut behind me. I immediately tried opening it up again, not wanting to be closed into this space, but the thing refused to open. I tried to get it open for at least ten minutes, but the door didn’t budge. The only way to go was forward.

It was slow, because I was on edge for every step, but nothing happened for the next hour or so. There didn’t seem to be anything else in there, just an endless maze of yellow corridors with seemingly no end in sight. I don’t know how long I was wandering those halls, I know that I sat down to rest at some point, but mostly I was just wandering around trying to find a way out.

It wasn’t much fun, but being stuck wandering those corridors aimlessly like a ghost gave me plenty of time to think. I am now sure that the studio, or at least someone running it, is behind what I am experiencing right now. I am not completely sure how though. At the moment, I am torn between an experiment with VR and something truly supernatural. There really doesn’t seem to be any other explanation at this point. Honestly, a VR experiment would make such a twisted sense that I am leaning towards that explanation right now. Which also means that I truly can’t trust anyone at all. It has been made very clear to me that everyone I decide to trust is either part of the Game or end up dead, and that I would be better off on my own. If this is truly an experiment, are any of the people I meet even real? Are they all creations of the VR environment I have been dropped in? What a terrifying thought…

At the same time, that would mean that the people who died were never real either. Does that mean that if I manage to get out of here, I could see them again? Joanna and Aiden? Would they still be there, somewhere out in the real world? I hope so…

All of this was running through my head as I walked through those eerie corridors, trying to find something, anything, that would help me get out of the situation. That was when I heard it. The buzzing. I am not sure that I would have noticed it if I hadn’t been so on edge. It was quiet, but in the silent space, it seemed to vibrate through me, calling me to follow. I was scared, of course I was, but this was the first thing happening in what felt like days at that point. I followed the sound as best I could, through the winding corridors, stopping to listen every so often to hear what direction to go. The buzzing was getting louder the longer I walked, so I knew that I was getting close to whatever it was.

It. Was. A. Swarm! A damn swarm of dragonflies! Because of course it is! As if I am not sick and tired of those little demons by now. There were hundreds of them, all swarming in a tight cluster in the corridor. But behind them… Half-hidden, but definitely there, was a door. I just needed to get past the swarm. Mind you, at this point I didn’t even know if the door would open, but I had no other way to go. I needed to try. So I pushed on. Walking willingly into that cluster of bugs might have been the worst thing I ever did, not gonna lie. The buzzing was all around me, and I could feel the fluttering of wings on my skin. It was horrific. But I did it. I made it through the swarm, and ended up at the door on the other side. I braced myself for it to be locked, but the moment I touched the handle, I found myself back outside, beneath that fire escape. The same place I entered through. A glance at my watch told me that barely an hour had passed since I left home, which only strengthened my belief that time flowed differently while I was in that strange place.

I really wish that I could say that the excitement of the day ended there, truly. I would have loved for that to be the case. But no. The moment I stepped out on the street again I was stopped. By the police. I have no idea how they knew where I was, but there they were. And they showed me the photos.

It seems like while I was stuck in that strange place, someone looking just like me was up to some odd things. The police showed me a series of photographs, asking if I could tell them anything about them. I couldn’t. All I could do was stare. It was me. Or at least, someone looking just like me, coming down the big gray steps from a large building. In the next photograph I could be seen standing beside a limousine, talking to a man in a black suit, before getting into the car in the next picture.

“Could you tell us how you know the individual in the photos?” the police asked, and quite frankly, I just wanted to go home and sleep. I had never seen the man before, not that I know of at least, and I told the officers as much. They didn’t believe me, of course they didn’t. But I know that the person in the photos are not me. They gave up after a while, although I suspect that they tailed me home after they allowed me to leave. On my way home I pondered over the photos that I had been shown. There was something about them that bothered me, but I couldn’t pinpoint it at once. Not until I stopped by a coffee shop on the way home to get some caffeine to go. My card wasn’t working. Luckily I do keep some cash on me at all times, but that was beyond awkward.

That’s when it hit me. The building, that was what had been bothering me. In the photos, ‘me’ is coming down the stairs from my bank! As soon as I got home I got on the computer to check up on my accounts. They weren’t there. I mean, I could log in alright, but the various accounts that I had set up, including my savings account, was gone. My accounts had a balance of a big fat 0. There was no way this was a coincidence, so I called my bank, trying to get some answers. This is what they told me:

“I don’t really know what to tell you, Miss Lain. Our records show that you came in earlier today and asked to have all of your accounts with us closed effective immediately. We have your signature on file approving it. All of the assets in the accounts were withdrawn in cash at the moment of closure as per policy.”

Apparently whoever went in there had my ID as well, or they wouldn’t have been able to do this. So that is the current situation. I am completely broke. Thus, I will be moving my stuff here, to the shed. Because I will not be able to pay my rent like this. Are they trying to scare me? To break me? Well, I am afraid that it might be working.

11 9 20, signing off.

[[Ending Roll: 2; Tokens Left: 9]]