~Kimberly~
Before I opened my eyes, all I felt was a pang in my heart.
Something deeply, deeply painful was on the horizon. Whether it was it something in the future or the past, I didn't know. As my eyes began to focus, all I knew for sure was that this character I was playing was real once.
They weren’t always. Most of the time, it felt like they existed within the four corners of the script alone, but in this story and some others, I knew there was more to the character.
I could never explain it to Antoine or Riley, but sometimes I could just feel it—that this was a person, a person who had lived a life and whose story I was borrowing. I could feel the character I was playing in Stray Dawn, and her story was sad and painful and not over.
The others humored me the first few times I brought it up, but, not feeling it themselves, they didn't have much to say. I never really blamed them for that. Bobby was the only person on our team that had felt it and he mostly just remembered small details like his characters' favorite foods or nearby relatives.
I felt them under my skin, in my bones, no matter what anyone said.
I was Kimberly Madison, the girl with no real problems, just the Eye Candy.
Others at Camp Dyer had reported something similar, and the Atlas talked about it, but it never said anything concrete. So a lot of players just claimed it wasn’t real, that it was in my mind, that maybe I was sensing something in the script, or I was being scripted.
After all, I had to have some role that made me worthwhile. I wasn’t a fighter, and I wasn’t a planner. I was a face, a big ball of emotion, and I was beautiful, so I must not know what I was talking about. Gentle nudgings from the script, that was all.
I opened my eyes, still groggy.
“Ma’am, I asked you if you knew how fast you were going,” a voice said with an unnatural slowness, like a memory in a dream.
With a jolt, I realized what was happening.
I found myself behind the wheel of some kind of convertible. There was no reason to try to figure out what kind because the brand names in Carousel were knockoffs.
To my left, a man stood beside my door, not much older than me. He had a long nose, red hair, and adult acne.
And he thought I was attractive. My trope, Social Awareness, told me that, but so did his eyes.
He was smiling—no, smirking.
Ever since coming to Carousel, I had met so many NPCs that stared unapologetically. This place had monsters and ghosts and all kinds of dangers, but somehow, it was the NPCs who couldn’t get their eyes off of me, who couldn’t resist the opportunity to flirt, that sent my skin crawling.
The question was, was this in their script and Carousel was forcing them to make me uncomfortable, or was it in their nature, and that was the reason Carousel picked them to begin with?
“I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t notice if I was speeding,” I said, keeping my tone light and playful. I could play a dumb blonde.
“When you rounded that curve, you were going at least 80 miles an hour. I eyeballed it. Do you know how dangerous that is?” the man asked as if he were my father—as if he wasn’t admonishing me for breaking the law but rather felt the need to scold me and teach me a lesson.
“You don’t think I was going that fast, do you?” I asked, on the verge of tears. “It’s just that I’m not used to a car with a big engine like this one.”
“This tin can does not have a big engine,” the man said. He took the bait. He had no name on the red wallpaper, but he looked like a normal NPC to me.
Officer Stares-Too-Long was the only name I knew for him, and sure enough, not long after that thought passed through my head, that was what appeared on the red wallpaper below his poster: Officer Stares-Too-Long.
“You want to see a big engine? Look behind you.”
I turned my head and saw his gas-guzzling police cruiser, about twice as long and one and a half times the width of my little convertible.
“Wow,” I said. “I bet you could chase down just about anything in that car.”
“Of course I could,” Officer Stares-Too-Long said. “I know this area like the back of my hand.”
He smiled at me, and suddenly, whatever desire he had to scold me seemed to fade away.
Flattery it was, then.
“Have you ever been in a real police chase?” I asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t really call it a chase. I mean, I catch them so quick, you know,” he said, clearly lying. He had done nothing but write parking tickets and yell at people for littering; I was sure of it.
“Oh my gosh, I would be so scared to chase somebody down,” I said.
“It’s part of the job,” he said. “So, what brings you to Carousel? Are you going to be tubing on the river or...” He paused for a moment as he stared at something in front of me. I followed his gaze and saw a photograph tucked up under the windshield, clearly visible, of a group of people—one of whom was me—posing in front of an old, beautiful Gothic mansion.
“So you’ve been up to Witherhold Manor, huh?” he asked.
Apparently, I had.
“Yes,” I said. “It was really scary.”
“It’s not that scary,” he said. “Mostly just old. The wind howls over the busted roof and makes a whistling sound, and people get scared for nothing. We’re always chasing teenagers out of that place.”
He wasn’t that far from being a teenager himself.
“Well, you must know everything about it, then,” I said.
I was prepared for things to go bad.
After I’d searched the car for any other clues, I began driving toward Carousel, not knowing exactly where my character’s story was leading.
I was filled with a lot of nervous excitement that did not belong to me.
And a little that did.
I arrived in town five hours before the dinner party was to start. That meant one thing—it was time to start talking to people.
That was what I brought to the table. Antoine could fight, Riley could see tropes and come up with plans, and I could be the center of attention. I could let the audience get to know me, maybe even like me, as much as I resented needing that.
So, that’s what I set about doing: just talking to people. I parked my car at a small motel and wandered from place to place, looking for NPCs who might engage with me.
It was nerve-wracking.
In some ways, it was scarier than walking alone in the woods, knowing a monster could be lurking. But the fear here was different. As I looked through the crowds of hikers, swimmers, and fishermen, I worried I would miss something or not do well enough.
I was always afraid to let the others down.
That fear started to rear its ugly head as I failed, time after time, to get anyone to talk to me in a meaningful way—not like the officer had, with his flood of information.
They spoke, sure, but in short, unremarkable ways, never letting the conversation unfold. That was the telltale sign: when people just kept talking, as long as you kept pulling the thread, you knew you were onto something.
After two hours of chatting with cashiers and drunk teenagers heading for the river, I felt like I was failing entirely.
I hadn’t even been On-Screen for more than a few seconds at a time. What was I doing wrong? I tried to think it through. The plot cycle was still at the very beginning of the Party Phase, so it wasn’t too late—but I needed to get a move on. I needed to figure out why Carousel had dropped me here.
As I pondered this, walking on a thin, worn sidewalk along the road, a woman with a flattering pixie cut waved to me.
She was just an ordinary NPC—a waitress, in fact—and she waved me over to take a seat at a small diner with outdoor benches and picnic tables.
I was so eager for an interaction that I practically ran over, and as soon as I sat down, I was On-Screen. That meant I hadn’t screwed up yet.
“What’ll you have?” she asked as if she hadn’t just waved me over and was a little annoyed to see me.
“Just some French fries,” I said.
The formerly friendly waitress gave me a look of disdain like she hated her job. She rolled her eyes and said, “It’ll be just a minute.”
As strange as it was, I liked those moments when I caught a glimpse of what might be the "real" person, watching her put on this facade of annoyance. But that was the last time I would speak to her. I had no real scene here.
Why was I brought to this place? Was I supposed to have said something else?
I looked around, hoping to make eye contact with someone.
From my spot on the bench, I could see across the street to the motel parking lot where my convertible sat. A cluster of teenagers hung around, but none were messing with my car. Beyond the motel was a trailhead leading down into the woods and eventually to the river—I’d seen it while wandering around, looking for interactions.
And then, I saw what I’d been meant to find.
I saw a dead woman.
Knowing immediately what I needed to do, I stood up from the bench, squinting to get a better look. Beyond the motel was a group of hikers with beach towels draped over their shoulders, and beyond them was a trio who looked like they’d just come from a grungy music festival.
In the center of them was a woman with long black hair, red lips—red as blood—and bare feet. She walked with a sure, confident stride.
“Sarah!” I screamed.
This was my character’s friend from the article I’d found in my car—one of the friends who was supposed to be dead.
I screamed her name again, louder, and this time she looked at me. Our eyes met, and we just stared at each other On-Screen.
Social Awareness told me she remembered me. It told me she had strong feelings, but I couldn’t tell what they were. She looked like an ordinary NPC, but according to Social Awareness, her Moxie level was 7, which was strong enough to resist my insight trope a bit.
She was hiding something, but I couldn’t say what. Lots of NPCs had higher Moxie than their Plot Armor would suggest. Carousel used them to manipulate players without them knowing.
NPCs had a trope that hid their Moxie and didn’t apply it to their effective Plot Armor. It didn’t ever come up unless you were interacting with them in a very specific way, a way related to their purpose in the story.
I started moving toward her.
“Ma’am, your French fries,” the waitress called after me, having conveniently delivered them just as I spotted my supposedly dead friend. But I ignored her.
I called Sarah’s name again. As I ran to cross the street, a car suddenly honked, tires squealing on the pavement. I swore I’d been watching where I was going, yet this car had come out of nowhere, trapping me on my side of the road just long enough for Sarah and the two men with her to vanish without a trace.
When the car passed, I looked around, panicking, trying to evoke the emotions my character must be feeling.
“Sarah!” I called out one last time, but she was gone. And the scene was over. And the story was just beginning.