Hello! This is a story about the Until Dawn character Emily following the events of the game, focusing on her scarred psyche and the horrific memories she brought out. As of now this is a oneshot, but I may write more!
Also, before you delve into it, you might need this context information; whenever sufferers of PTSD have an episode doctors recommend they identify objects in the room to keep them grounded in reality.
Now, enjoy!
Spindly and grotesque limbs jerked vigorously towards her - a screech like a scratch of a chalk board rang out, reverberating in her ears. Disgusting white eyes peered into her own, penetrating her iron wall of bravery and shaking her straight to her core. The pale mutated creature, she could see now, was adorned with a deep back butterfly tattoo - no...
She breathed in.
And then it was upon her.
Her body rose without warning like a dart, stiff and pained. It was a dream, it was a dream, oh joyous dream! She looked at her own palm and simply absorbed the fact that she, Emily, was living in the present moment, for it was more than some of her old friends could say. But seconds after the flood of delight came the flashbacks, the sepia-tinted memories of the worst moments of her life.
Oh god, as many days, months, years run away from her she cannot find an escape from those intense flashbacks. That dreadful time on the mountain, that hellhole she and her friends were able to flee from just through the skin of their teeth.
She thought it was over when she witnessed the lodge going up in flames, she thought so foolishly that her life could go back to how it was, that she could go back to being a privileged teenager whose only fault was her insecurities which caused bitterness and her snippy attitude.
Emily was wrong.
Every night she thinks about the mountain; about Hannah, about Beth, about Josh, about the radio tower, about that man she encountered in the mines, about the Wendigo, about her bite, about Mike almost shooting her and Ashley almost letting her and then it starts again.
Chair, dresser, bed, desk, chandelier, rug, end table, magazine, chair, bed.
Identify objects in the room when it starts again, the doctors told me to do that when it starts again, just identify objects!
Dresser, desk, lamp, chair, please...! Please stop!
Emily rapidly thrashed her head around, her raven-colored locks bouncing with it in a sort of crazed dance. She sharply inhaled, filling her lungs with air in a desperate attempt to drown all the unwanted thoughts and feelings. She opened her lips to an 'O' shape and blew all the air she had just sucked in back out, all that negative energy - positive thoughts in, negative out!
In . . . and out. In . . . and out. In . . . and out.
Serenity, peace, tranquility - meditate on what is most important, like the doctor said, just do what he said and it'll go away, PLEASE make it go away.
Emily batted her coffee brown eyes luxuriously, preened her now-disheveled hair back into its normal neat and tidy state, continually focusing on her breath.
And soon she found the bad thoughts had left, gone with the wind to come back another day (although she'd like for them to stay away).
However Emily made out very clearly the whole stress of the now-typical ordeal had made her very famished in addition to fatigued, and so she made the executive decision to seek out something from the refrigerator. Through the dark she trotted, flipping every light switch she so happened to stroll by, unbothered by the possibility she might wake someone up.
At last she made her way to the object of her desires, the one safe haven she could always rely on to keep her mind at ease. With one delicate, well-manicured hand she encircled the door to the refrigerator and tugged it open, smiling in expectation.
A head fell out from containment upon her feet, hitting her just like a punch to the gut and chilling her to the bone just as the sudden coldness from the exposed refrigerator did.
Beth stared at her from the floor.
Emily screamed in terror.
Beth screamed back.
Counter, cabinet, shelf, wall, stove, coffee machine, spice rack, it isn't working!
Oven, sink, counter, fingers, Beth, Hannah, Mike, oh god.
A Wendigo clung to the ceiling and dragged itself in Emily's direction, its raggedy fingernails digging into the wall with such a universal noise Emily was sure nobody in the state could've not heard it. Closer and closer it came, unhesitatingly gazing into her narrowed eyes like a vulture stalking its prey.
It was snowing; when it had started, she had no clue, nor did she as to why she was back on the mountain. Mike stood staring at her, an empty shell of who he had been in their period of togetherness, a glistening silver object solidly gripped within a clammy knuckle aimed right at ...her.
Ashley laughed somewhere in the distance, somewhere safe and protected where she could watch her game play out. A bang pierced the silence as Ashley's cackles halted, shattering the illusion of a calm environment.
Hannah was there again in front of her - not the Hannah who had devoured her sister's flesh in a hasty fit of obscene hunger, not the Hannah who had run off after the prank Emily had come to regret, but the old Hannah. The real Hannah.
They stepped closer to each other, one with an expression of disbelief plastered all across her face and the other with only confusion.
Emily spoke softly, her voice quivering with every syllable, "Han?"
Hannah began to smile warmly in response, a wordless affirmation that Emily was correct.
Her smile stretched farther up her face. Her skin stretched wickedly in disproportion. Her limbs grew longer. Fangs sprouted from her mouth. Her human face was replaced with that of a monster.
Emily screamed in sheer terror, unrelentingly staring in horror at what her friend had become.
"THIS IS YOUR FAULT, EMILY! YOU DID THIS TO ME!" it shrieked in that shrill and nightmarish voice which sent shivers down her spine.
Emily shook her head, salty tears cascading from her eyelids in a rhythmic fashion. "Stop this! STOP!" Emily shouted rebelliously towards it, trying to muster as much commandment as she could to bolster her confidence.
The creature screamed back at her, contesting her orders to it, dismissively casting aside her defiance.
Hannah, what she had become, charged towards her former friend with a vicious snarl grimly cast over its ghastly milk-colored face.
A battle cry from Hannah. Beth's scream congregated with her sister's, creating a despicable harmony. Ashley's laughing followed. The click of Mike's revolver joined the cacophony.
Darkness.
Emily collapsed onto the floor of her dining room pitifully, sobbing freely from her reddened eyes with incredible vigor.