I'm not new to writing stories, I've just never done fanfictions so this is a first. ;) This has been on my mind for a while now and I hope some people out there find what I do interesting enough to keep reading.
I'm happy for every feedback I'll get, but I write mainly for my own pleasure and because this would be something I'd like to read as well (topic-wise).
Family. I don't know why this is the first word that comes to mind when I think back to the day I was miraculously pulled into a video game – no, not just any game; Dishonored. Sounds like a good plot for a fanfiction, right? It is, or would be, if I were still in possession of my oh so beloved laptop. Since I'm not, all I can do is write everything down in the notebook Sokolov gave me last week. The perfect gift for a young lady with too much going on in that pretty little head of hers, he called it.
Speaking of family, Sokolov has become something like the weird uncle I never had. Always good for a laugh and a hell of a lot of great stories, making for a good companion, if you ignore is occasional outbursts of brilliancy – too brilliant even for a twenty-first century girl with over one hundred hours playing a game about Sokolov's world!
I could start my story by mentioning how tragically I lost my own family in a plane crash many years ago and how heartbroken that's left me, but I won't. Because, if you asked me about my parents, I wouldn't be able to remember them at all – not their faces or their voices, not even my mom singing me a lullaby. In some way, I often felt like Harry Potter – except that I hadn't been raised by my abusive relatives who wanted nothing to do with me, but in a small orphanage with caring and gentle people surrounding me. The only thing that really irked me was when someone expressed their condolences about me losing my family, that it had to be really tough to grow up without my parents. It wasn't. You can't miss what you don't know. End of the story. Did it make me a less emphatic person compared to others? No. I'd had the same lovely birthdays, the same Christmases… My family merely consisted of different people, not the typical mother-father-child-combination.
Of course, life wasn't always peachy for me – which is the same for everyone, I guess – and to escape reality, because it tends to be boring and awful at times, I used to just sit in front of my computer, completely absorbed in whatever video game I had chosen for the day. Though my favorite – with a huge margin to the second place finisher – was called Dishonored. I really enjoyed games with a good storyline, similar to a good book that you can't put away until you've found out every last secret, and I definitely had a knack for conspiracies and drama. Dishonored pretty much covered them all. The only thing I wasn't happy with? The very unspectacular death of the Empress five minutes into the prologue. Not because it reminded me of myself, but because I thought that it was brutal to make a young girl watch her mother die and then be kidnapped by a bunch of strangers, only to be used to their political advantage. And, like every devoted Dishonored fan, I started looking for a way to slightly alter the prologue a little, which is how my story actually begins.
It was a rainy day, awfully windy and too cold to even consider leaving the comfortable warmth of my tiny apartment. Tiny, because it literally only had two rooms; a small bathroom and everything else perched together in a total space of 25 square meters. The only thing separating my bed from the kitchen was a white IKEA bookshelf stuffed to the brim with practically all my belongings other than clothes. Despite the tight space, I liked to keep my little home neat – not to the extent where it could be considered obsessive, but I liked to wake up to a clean environment in the morning.
On this particular day, I made myself a cup of steaming tea – cinnamon and baked apple, my favorite – and settled down at my desk, getting comfortable for a long round of gaming. It was the perfect opportunity for me to search for a way to avoid getting the Empress killed five minutes into playing Dishonored and for some reason I was more excited about the idea than I was curious to see whether it would actually work. Patiently waiting for my computer to load the game, I absentmindedly sipped at my tea, imagining what a future in Dunwall could be like, if Jessamine Kaldwin didn't die. Perhaps it would be less dark, less bloody – the political intrigues would probably still remain, as well as the plots to overthrow another noble just to gain that extra inch of power. Emily would be raised by a loving mother and a super athletic father who also happened to be the Lord Protector, Hiram Burrows would probably remain the Empire's Spymaster and continue to try to get rid of his Empress somehow. Or maybe Corvo would find the necessary evidence that would get the other man behind bars, possibly facing execution for his crimes.
The main menu popped up with the all too familiar Dishonored soundtrack playing in the background as I chose to start a new game, not caring about the difficulty level being set on hardcore. I didn't plan on playing any further than the prologue, and even if I did, I'd played the game at least five times and was proud to say that I could handle it.
As the first cutscene began, I waited for the boat to dock and took the passage to Dunwall Tower, heading past the two guards and refusing to play hide and seek with young Emily. An in-game character would hardly have any hard feelings, if the virtual protagonist had better things to do than giving fooling around for their entertainment.
Skipping past Sokolov and High Overseer Campbell, I went straight for the gazebo where the Empress was having a conversation with her Spymaster, a mysterious and dislikeable guy with sharp features and even sharper eyes. Instead of handing over Corvo's letter, however, I tried something I'd read on Google the other day; trying to jump onto the gazebo and glitching onto an invisible plane in mid-air that would make it possible for me to walk over to the rooftops the Whalers would be coming from and kill them before they could do any harm.
It took me several attempts but I finally succeeded, enjoying the additional view I had from being several meters above ground level. I also discovered that Corvo had magically gotten his weapons back, meaning I was fully equipped to get rid of a bunch of unwanted assassins even without the powers of the Outsider. Arriving at the scene, I was met by a very amusing picture – a single guard, who apparently didn't mind me finishing off three men right under his nose, and three potential murderers who didn't even think about fighting back. Coming to Daud, however, and it was probably just one of my stupid outbursts of sympathy, I remembered the guilt and pain he'd felt after killing the Empress – should I really do the same to him? Maybe, if I only used a sleeping dart on him and moved him somewhere else he wouldn't come back and Corvo had enough time to get Jessamine and Emily to safety?
I admitted that I was probably putting way too much thought into this, but playing a video game was like writing a story – everyone did it their way, creating many different outcomes for the same plot.
I put Daud to sleep and carried him up the roof and back onto my invisible plane, while looking for a good spot to drop him. Funnily enough, the range of my newly found platform was enormous and I actually found a promising-looking entrance to the sewers down at the docks. The only problem I now had was getting back onto my invisible plane after dropping off an unconscious Daud – easier said than done, because it took almost thirty minutes to find a way up the steep rocks leading to a stonewall. From there on, I managed to glitch several meters into the air again, making my way back to where the Empress was still waiting for me in the gazebo. Surprised to find that I could apparently still hand over the letter, I curiously let things unfold, only to learn that my little adventure caused the screen to turn black as soon as the assassins should've had their entrance.
It was somewhat disappointing to have worked so hard – I'm being lenient on the definition of the word 'hard' here, I know – to save the Empress and not even being rewarded with an achievement. All I got was a pitch-black computer screen with the occasional sound of in-game music reaching my ears, which meant that Dishonored was still up and running.
I was about to press the home button on my keyboard, when a sudden feeling of nausea and dizziness hit me without warning.
"Woah," I said, taken aback by the ferocity of it and grabbing my desk for support. "What the hell…?"
I blinked several times and the world stopped spinning for a moment. I'd never experienced anything like this before, a few migraines or nausea from eating too much, yes, but not out of the blue and certainly not this intense.
That moving to my bed was probably a good idea was the last thought on my mind before I felt my knees grow weak and then things got dark, really, really dark – and weird.
It started like a dream, a rather strange one, but a dream nonetheless, because the place I was suddenly finding myself in couldn't possibly me real. I was surrounded by staircases that lead to nowhere, rocks and street lanterns floating in the air, water that was flowing upwards as if gravity had reversed its own rules. Nothing seemed quite right in this place and left me more confused than ever, and, yet, there was something indescribable in the air. Something, which pulled me down like a heavy weight but at the same time made the space around me feel light and strangely void of emotion, thought and life.
Void… I blinked and slowly turned to look around. It all seemed to familiar… Was this the Void? The place felt so… unreal and real at the same time and it made my pulse quicken, my heart clenching painfully inside my chest.
It was a dream, wasn't it? I had no other logical explanation for what was going on, but something in my mind protested against the thought that the only answer to that question was yes. The Void only existed in a video game! This wasn't real. It couldn't be.
What made me hesitate, however, was that the usual drowsiness I felt while dreaming was definitely missing. Instead, my head felt clear and my senses were very aware of my surroundings – the faint smell of sea water, the strange humming sound emitting from the curious dark-grey rocks floating in the air – so much so that I immediately sensed the presence of someone behind me.
"It is a pleasure, Valerie, to make your acquaintance at last," I heard him say in a calm tone.
I froze. I knew that voice. It was his voice, but he couldn't be here.
Swallowing hard and finding the courage I needed, I turned around to face him. "Is this a… a dream?"
It was an odd question to start the conversation with, deep in my mind I knew it was and that there were probably a thousand other things I could have said, but it was all my mouth was capable of forming in that moment. Logically thinking, I should be backing away from him, knowing who I was facing.
Relax, this isn't real, I kept on reminding myself. You fainted, it can happen, you're only dreaming – when you wake up, you'll be in your apartment. No Void, no Outsider, nothing but you and your computer.
"Reality is relative, isn't it?" The Outsider said with a mysterious smile. "And to answer your first question – is it a dream when you're awake?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I knew him enough to know that he liked to talk in riddles and it was a damn good question.
"I could be daydreaming…" I began lamely. "Or it is because I just spectacularly fainted and am dreaming about the last thing I did today… which was playing Dishonored, which means that you're just a pigment of my imagination. None of this is real and none of this will matter when I wake up."
I sounded very sure of myself, but all of that confidence was shattered to pieces when he simply flashed me a smile, hands clasped behind his back.
"That, young Valerie, is for me to know and you to find out. Now," the Outsider continued, his black eyes observing me with keen interest and it made me shudder. "On to more pressing matters. I must admit that, until recently, I have not even been aware of your existence. A careless mistake on my part? Perhaps. Only time will tell us for sure."
I raised an eyebrow, something I've always been proud of being able to do. If what he'd just told me was true and this really was the Void – as unlikely and ridiculous as it seemed – why hadn't he known about me in the first place? As far as I remembered, the Outsider was aware of everything that went on in his world… Woah, wait a second – does that mean I was born in a different one? Like all the parallel universes in Bioshock Infinite?
"Yes," he said out loud. "Although I do not know what you are referring to, this was my exact thought when certain events suddenly strayed so far off their destined course, that even I had not seen it coming. Imagine my surprise when I discovered you to be the source behind all of it." He paused for a moment to let his words sink in, but I was so baffled by the idea of another reality in existence that I didn't even try to interrupt him. "You intrigue me, Valerie. You have no connection to our world whatsoever, and yet you find a way to manipulate it with remarkable ease. However, your actions have created an unimaginable chaos in Dunwall that is slowly spreading across the Isles. I will give you the chance to… push things in a certain direction. I find myself to be utterly curious about your person and actions so rest assured that you will be watched throughout your little journey."
I stared at him, mouth open and all. I had about a million questions about how I ended up in the Void and how the hell it was possible to influence a completely different reality by playing a video game. Why hadn't this happened before? Where all the other times I played Dishonored influencing different realities? Would I be able to return to my world once this was over? How on earth was I supposed to survive in a hostile environment with zero fighting experience? I wasn't a killer, I was a twenty-year-old student from the twenty-first century – a kitchen knife was probably the potentially most deadly item I'd ever held in my hands, and it hadn't been to kill but to cut onions or tomatoes…
A mysterious smile made its way across his features again as he turned to walk away but looked back over his shoulder one last time. "I'm afraid it is time to wake up, young lady…"
The glitch is actually real, there's even a video on YouTube. ;) I never tried it myself but thought it would be a funny idea for a fanfiction.