"Got through that without any of the bad endings. Jesus Christ, how did I pull that off?"

Thumbing a button on the side of his headset, the mic turned off with an almost inaudible click. With a flick of his fingers, the little rod of plastic clicked away from his mouth and Cry could have his sigh of victory in peace. The credits scrolled down the screen as classical music rolled sweetly through his head set.

Well that was definitely a hell of a ride.

With a wire grin, he laced his hands together and stretched and stretched…and just because he could stretched some more. When he opened his eyes, his view of the darkened bedroom was upside down and the chair and his back were complaining with the contortion. But his butt was sore from sitting through the latest gaming session and his leg muscles reveled in the movement. With one last wiggle of his toes, he flopped back into his seat, the residual warmth soaked into the seat both kind of gross and kind of relaxing at the same time.

Cry idly thought back to snippets of the story and soaked in the flashes of distant emotions. There was always something about finishing a game. A mix of pleasure and grogginess that he'd always associated with a list of names and music. Adrenaline and excitement were still running high, but the last few hours of sitting in a chair were finally catching up to him. He wanted to run through the aisles of the half-price game store like he was twelve again and flop down in his bed and refuse to get up for a few days all at once.

Both the energy and the exhaustion stemmed from the flow of the game, the pulse-pounding action sequences mixed with heart-wrenching story. It was a heady mixture and the better the story, the more potent the mixture at the end.

Somehow, he always forgot that feeling after a few hours. But another good game would remind him of it, leave him blinking and reeling for a few hours afterwards.

The best part, though, was everything seemed new after playing for so long in another world. His bedroom, the house, the world seemed sharper, clearer, better focused as he stepped back from fantasy and took in reality again. The cool wood of the chair jutted all its angles and planes into his elbows and back while the warmth in the cushion radiated his own heat back into him. His bedroom was dark, but the different shades and shapes of grey belied familiar objects. The window was a lattice of yellow-orange lines of light from the street lamp that tried to cut through his blinds. While the feeling of accomplishment would fade, that new perspective would stay with him as he stumbled downstairs for breakfast, fed the cat and dogs that could never stay still, and took out the trash under a sticky heat and white clouds. Reality seemed better somehow, after spending so long in world of fiction.

N/A: I usually don't like putting author's notes for my stories, just because a story should be self-explanatory. But this one has a lot more of my own feelings then anything about Cry in it, so I thought I'd explain my mindset for this one.

I read. A lot. And if the book is good and if circumstances allow (or if the book is just that d*** good), I don't like to just read it. I devour it. As in read the whole thing in one sitting as fast and as deep into it as I can. I've definitely forgotten to eat (or sleep) because of this and its one of those bad habits that I'm (kind of) working on. But the feeling I get from this kind of reading was always the best and it's what I described in this story. That "I've just been steam-roller-ed with feelings and non-experiences, but I could take on the world right now" feeling sometimes came right after I finish, but I was always surprised afterwards when I looked up from the last page to be curled up on my couch back at home. Surprised in a good way. Reality seemed familiar and new at the same time and I loved that feeling of coming back to reality after a good romp in a fictitious world.

Now I've never actually finished a game in this way (or finished a game at all), so I didn't really think it applied to gaming. But then, Cry kept talking about how he felt really "satisfied" after completing Catherine and I realized he played games the same way I read (all in one sitting and getting into the characters' heads). I thought other gamers (or one of you readers) might have had a similar experience. And this popped out of my brain.

Also, for those of you who are curious, I got the line of dialogue from the last part of Cry's play through of The Crooked Man. I was going to use something from The Last of Us, but decided it was way too much emotional in its own right to really fit with the tone here. (Also, I was starting to tear up. God dang good games, making me have so many feels.)

That's pretty much it, just wanted to share this feeling and wondered if it was just me being crazy or if anyone else felt the same way. I'll talk to you guys in the next story / ficlet.

(PS I've kind of been on a ficlet kick lately, but do you guys want me to try something longer? I don't think it would be a good idea for Cry fanfiction, but I'm a fan of a lot of different stuff, so let me know what you guys think.)