I'm afraid of what this game is doing to me.
Spoilers for Miracle Mask.
Pack Your Love and Run
"Hershel!"
The waves grew higher and more violent, forcing Randall to run faster. He clutched the mask in his hand tightly, adrenaline coursing.
"Hershel, hurry!"
He faintly remembered glancing back, seeing a mop of brown hair right behind him.
A moment later he was grasping at the ground, knees planted firmly on soil and rocks digging sharply into his skin. The mask bit into his palm leaving it marked with shallow cuts.
"Hershel… Hershel, are you all right?" he managed to gasp out, shoulders slowly relaxing.
He was given no response, the sound of roaring waves suddenly gone. He craned his head back to see a gaping hole where the water had been, and two dirtied hands gripping the newly formed cliff's edge tightly.
Quickly scrambling towards them, Randall cried out intelligibly.
He reached forward to grasp one of the hands, pulling as hard as he could. Hershel gasped up at him, already exhausted from the previous fighting and running and navigating for hours through hot ruins. Randall nearly had him pulled over the edge of the cliff when the ground shook once more, stone splitting and threatening to send the two of them plummeting downwards into the dark.
Hershel slipped backwards despite the other teen's firm grip. He gave Randall a look, one the redhead had not seen before. It was a mixture of regret, of resignation.
"Hershel, don't you dare-!"
Randall tried desperately to cling to his friend's hand, his arm, his sleeve, anywhere - but the tanned fingers gripping his own went slack, and it became harder to hold on.
"Randall… I-"
A moment later, Randall's hands were empty and the only thing on his mind was Hershel's frightened, dirt-streaked face.
It was an hour before he moved again. He turned, silently scooping up the previously forgotten mask before stumbling forward. Solving the last puzzle was easy – painfully so. A room full of glorious riches lay ahead, but it only made him sick. He glanced at the mask in his hand and choked back bile.
He felt nothing as he made his way back to Stansbury, hand now limply grasping the mask he'd once been so protective of.
Angela saw him first, the joy on her face digging into his heart.
"Randall! Randall, over here!" She cried, Henry smiling in relief behind her.
"Randall, this is-"
"I'm not interested in talking anymore. I've worked so hard for this. You can go back home if you must, but Hershel… I can't do this alone."
"… All right, Randall. Let's go."
Henry noticed it first - that there was one person missing. Angela caught on quickly enough – she was an intelligent young woman, after all. She cried, and cried, and Henry's stricken face said enough.
Randall lay in bed that night with one single moment burned into his head.
"Randall... I l-"
Hershel's hand slipped out of his own sending the brunet plummeting downwards, two more words left trailing off his lips.
