énouement - The bitter-sweetness of having arrived in the future and seeing how everything turns out, but not being able to tell your previous self.
There's a lot of things Mae would tell her past self, if she could.
She could tell herself not to worry so much about the future, because in the end, everything always works out. Somehow, somewhere.
She could convince herself nothing that is happening to her that autumn will be the end, that while shapes might never stop being shapes, they could be things as well. Wonderful things, horrible things. Sometimes just regular old things.
Maybe she could mention how many cute girls she'll meet in Bright Harbor. That's definitely a plus.
But on the other hand, perhaps life just wasn't mean to be that easy. Perhaps that fall will just have to haunt Mae for the rest of her life.
There was a fear that gripped her throat back then. Not at once, but gradually, getting tighter and tighter with each passing day. As if the town of Possum Springs itself was chocking the life out of her, dissolving the shapes even more still.
Until there were only fractured lines left.
Or brightly colored dots like the ones you see when you press both palms firmly against your eyes.
But in the end it was the houses that were dissolving. The businesses and the families fading away into busy city streets, disappearing into the tides of modernization. Until even the edges of your memories feel not the same as before.
Nothing she did, could have kept them alive.
And when all the leaves have fallen, when the ground is covered in the color of fire and blood and the only smell that reaches you is dusty old mines full of buried secrets. Full of terrifying things that will clutch at your brain, your dreams, your shapes. Pull them apart until there is only emptiness.
Mae found herself staring at the nothing that once was everything.
It hurts, not like cuts from pocket knives, but in a disconnected sort of way that leaves her weary. Leaves her wondering if anything ever mattered at all, or ever will again?
Now she knows. And if she could be, she might have told herself, beneath the ashes there is always more.
Like game night at the apartment Angus and Gregg share. Like going to the mall with Bea, talking for hours and not buying anything. Like going out and discovering you really do like tacos.
Like feeling the pain and loss as if an open wound is pulling you apart and still living through it.
Like despite the harshness of winter, spring is right around the corner.
NITW quickly became one of my favorite games ever, so of course I had to write something for it. In this case, just a post-game drabble. Hope you enjoyed.
tumblr: sharada-n