Back when I was still in high-school, I wrote and published a short fantasy novel called Legends of Ravengrove. It was supposed to be a bleaker, more cynical take on the sword-and-sorcery genre that was popular at the time. The story revolved around a cast of unlikely adventurers that were far from your typical heroic archetypes. Each of them had been in some way ostracized from their respective communities, often for entirely valid reasons, and were now looking to redeem themselves in the plague-stricken lands of Ravengrove.
Given that this is probably the first time you’re hearing, or as the case is, reading about it, you can probably guess how well it sold. Not that I expected it to. To be honest, I was surprised it made it past the concept stage at all, and was just happy to have my work out there. I had all but forgotten about it since around 2009, which was when I was first contacted by Chloe. She introduced herself as a fan of my book, supposedly having grown up reading it. She also explained that her friends and her were aspiring video game developers, and that they were looking to create a RPG set in my fictional universe.
I’ve played my fair share of Dungeons & Dragons with my brothers growing up, but video games were never something that I got into. I felt like I was too old for them by the time they really got popular. I had no idea what it took to create one, nor what the end product would’ve even looked like. Still, she seemed so excited to be talking to me; I didn’t feel like bursting a young creator’s bubble by being stingy with something that I’d published as a fluke over twenty years ago. And so, I gave her my blessing and told her to keep me posted.
Over that following year, she’d often send me recordings of the progress her team was making. Again, I had scarce little to compare it to, but it did seem impressive, looking about on par with what my kids were playing at the time. Although a far cry from the graphics I see nowadays, it still did a good job capturing the gloomy atmosphere of the setting close to how I’d imagined it. They were making such great progress, in fact, that they were apparently planning on turning what was initially envisioned as a single player experience into a massively multiplayer one à la World of Warcraft. Even I was starting to become skeptical, yet Chloe kept ensuring me that they’d be able to pull it off—that they quote unquote “have to” pull it off.
I had no doubt that she was passionate about the project, but I feared that her ambition might’ve exceeded her abilities. It only took her another six months to prove me wrong. I was combing through my emails one evening when I noticed that Chloe had sent me a link. Upon clicking it, I was prompted to install a very rudimentary looking launcher, which then proceeded to download a few gigabytes worth of files onto my computer. I sat back and let the program do its thing. Once done, I was greeted by a different window. This one had considerably more flare to it. The background was made to resemble cobblestone that had two prompts etched into it. One asked for my preferred name and the other demanded that I create a password. Above them both, written in bold, stylized letters, was the title:
Ravengrove Online
I’m not ashamed to admit that the sixteen-year-old in me got excited. Memories of the weekends I’d spent hunched over my desk, pen in hand, immersed in worlds of kings, queens, dragons and magic immediately flooded my mind.
I eagerly provided what was required of me and transitioned to a screen where I could create my character. I had a choice between four species: the well-rounded humans, the magically-inclined fae, the brutish minotaurs and the sly but often misunderstood goblins. I decided to be boring and picked a human. There were even options to customize my character’s appearance, but I was so impatient to get into the actual game that I just went with the default look and clicked “Play”.
The scene opened to my chosen hero standing in the middle of a dirt road. Blocking his path forth was an, admittedly, shoddy-looking wolf, while off to his left was an abandoned wagon. I was instructed to go over and loot the vehicle’s remains, resulting in me receiving a ‘rusted longsword’, which I was then told to equip. My fledgling adventurer was now prepared to face off against his first adversary. Combat was turn-based and relied on virtual dice rows, not unlike the tabletop systems I was comparatively more familiar with.
Having vanquished my lupine foe, I pressed on. The autumn trees that bordered the path added a certain sense of melancholy to the scenery. Their colors were warm, vibrant, but there was also an underlying tragedy to the way their lush crowns bent towards the ground in reconciliation. It gave the impression of a realm that had all but surrendered to its fate. It was a nice touch, even if it likely wasn’t intentional.
Eventually, I arrived at what looked to be the entrance to a small settlement. I was already pretty confident where I was, but as if to affirm my suspicions, all of a sudden the camera zoomed past my character and focused on the commotion at the center of it. I quickly realized that I was watching a recreation of the opening scene to my book, which saw a young woman get executed at the behest of an inquisitor after having been caught coercing with demons.
The roughness of the models did little to detract from the visceral nature of the spectacle. Most of it was conveyed via text and the occasional stock sound effect, but the speech that the woman gives right before getting her head chopped off was entirely voice-acted by Chloe herself:
“I pity you, sons and daughters of Cain, for I now see you for what you are—snakes masquerading as men, spewing your poison at all which you do not understand. Go on! Let my blood soak the earth you crawl upon; Let the maggots and vultures have their fill. In the end, it’ll change nothing…”
The screen faded to black just as the inquisitor swung his blade down on the girl’s neck. There was a heavy thunk, and then I was back in control of my character. The crowd of nameless spectators scattered, returning to their predetermined routes. The supposed witch’s decapitated body was now strung upside down from the twisted branches of a tree. It swayed hauntingly from side to side like some sort of morbid pendulum.
The gore itself was relatively tame; nothing that would cause anyone who’s ever played a violent video game before to look away. However, in combination with the prevailing color palette of bleak grays and faded browns, it did its job of conveying to the player that this world wasn’t a happy one.
I had my brawny yet somehow still anemic-looking adventurer step through the overgrown archway that marked the beginning of the village. The buildings beyond were little more than a collection of ramshackle huts, yet I was eager to explore them all the same. To see the townlet of Kindling—one of the first locations I had ever conceptualized—brought to life in such a way was surreal. Although unremarkable on the surface, it set the baseline for what one should’ve expected going forth. I could think of no better place to serve as an introduction to the wider world of Ravengrove.
Just then, a message lit up the text box at the bottom right of my screen, sent by the username ‘Wallflower’:
“Hey! You’re here!”
After a few moments, a floating green orb with that same username above it materialized directly beside my character. It quickly became apparent that the one behind it was Chloe:
“Sorry, I’d load in one of my characters and tag along, but I’m testing some stuff on the back end. And with someone else here now I can actually see how everything works in practice.”
The ball hovered up and down, and then from side to side. It gave me the impression of a curious pixie regarding the hero of the story for the first time.
“Oh right, I forgot. I haven’t enabled the chat function for players yet. You’re the only one I’ve let in so far, so I figured there’s no point until everything’s polished up. Please don’t share the link with anyone! I’m not sure how much this server can handle. Anyway! Feel free to explore and do some quests if you want. There’s just Kindling, Daybreak Chapel and the Old Woods for now. The rest is still a work in progress, but there should still be plenty to do. Have fun!”
And just like that, the emerald orb vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving me to my own devices.
In predictable RPG fashion, the earliest couple of quests I picked up were nothing overly compelling: kill x-number of boars, pick some herbs, help a bride find her lost ring—the usual affair. As my skills and equipment improved, however, so did the storylines I became involved in. I had gone from running lowly errands to hunting down vampires in a matter of hours. There was even a proper murder mystery ripped straight out of the pages of my novel. Well… as compelling of a murder mystery as a teenager with little to no life experience could’ve come up with, anyway. It was certainly interesting to experience it from a third-person perspective, even if I obviously knew the twist.
It was around three AM when I finally convinced myself to log off and go to bed; only to log straight back in that following evening. Chloe was surprised to see me back so soon and, frankly, so was I. There I was: a forty-year-old man with two kids, wasting my finite amount of free time engrossed in a virtual world that was based on a silly, made-up story that I wrote as a high-schooler. When put into perspective, it didn’t paint the most flattering of pictures. But was it so wrong to seek an escape from the constraints of mundane life? Had the decades I spent waking up each day and doing the same thankless job over and over not earned me that right?
After another week or so of adventuring, my now seasoned warrior was ready to head off to Daybreak Chapel, where he met the Grand Inquisitor herself. Impressed by his numerous exploits, the matriarch offered him a place amongst her ranks, which naturally came with its own title and benefits. I had him reluctantly accept her offer despite the organization’s somewhat sordid reputation. The cloak that came with it was simply too good to pass up.
It was around that time when I first realized that I hadn’t heard from Chloe in a while. Last we spoke, she offhandedly mentioned that she had been having issues at home. I didn’t want to pry too much so I didn’t ask for details, but I did encourage her to perhaps take a step back from Ravengrove for a bit and devote some time to her personal life. Chloe was awfully hellbent on always doing everything by herself, despite supposedly having an entire team behind her. Granted I had yet to meet any of them, but she’d always assured me that they were as dedicated to the project as she was. I figured that she had taken my advice. And yet, I was so used to her messaging me almost daily that I couldn’t help but feel like something wasn’t quite right. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she became like a daughter to me, but I did see a lot of my younger self in her, or rather a version of me that had yet to have his artistic aspirations crushed beneath the monotony of adult life. I admired her for it, and wanted her to succeed where I couldn’t. That said, I also didn’t want it to seem like I was putting some sort of pressure on her, so I decided to give her a few more days before reaching out.
What followed were weeks of complete radio silence. Neither my emails nor my concerned messages ever got a response. There was no word from her in-game either—though the server was still up, so, evidently, somebody must’ve been maintaining it. By that point, I had already completed everything that there was to do. The only reason I kept logging in was to distract myself from the expanding ball of worry that pushed against the inside of my chest. I had this distinct feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Had I only trusted that feeling sooner, perhaps things could’ve turned out differently. No use dwelling on it now, I suppose.
In late November, just before Thanksgiving, was when the first in a series of anonymous updates began to roll out. The changes to the game were subtle initially, to the point where I wondered if things had always been that way and I just hadn’t noticed—like, for example, the addition of actual crows perched atop some of the rooftops, where before only their ominous caws were heard over the ambience. Certain textures were reworked entirely and, though It was difficult to tell for sure, I could’ve sworn that the way my character swung his sword suddenly looked a lot more fluent.
It seemed like a good sign at first. The game was clearly still being worked on. Even if not by Chloe herself, I doubted that her friends would’ve just gone on as usual If something serious had occurred. Maybe the poor girl was just burned out, or perhaps I had overstepped my boundaries in trying to be some kind of cross between a father and big brother to her. All reasonable conclusions, and yet that same feeling of impending dread still gnawed at the back of my thoughts. There was this frenetic quality to the whole thing; like an obsessive painter redrawing the same pair of eyes over and over, fully aware that they would’ve then had to uphold that same standard of agonizing meticulousness throughout the entire piece, but still unable to help themselves.
Entire questlines were removed, re-written, re-added and then replaced altogether. Systems and mechanics were overhauled at random, despite them having worked just fine up till then. The game was objectively being improved upon, yes, but to what end? At what point does something become “good enough”?
And then, on January 11th 2011, came the last update that Ravengrove Online would ever receive.
It took a good forty minutes to install. I was expecting to be overwhelmed by yet another batch of superfluous reworks as soon as I opened the game. Upon loading in, however, nothing stuck out as unfamiliar straight away. On the surface, everything was exactly as I last left it; That is, with one negligible but oddly specific exception. The remains of the girl who was made an example of during the introductory sequence were gone. The rope and the dark red stain beneath it were still there, but the body was no longer on display.
In the book, nobody from the village dared to take it down even as it began to putrefy, for they were too frightened of being branded as a heretic sympathizer. It was an uncharacteristic deviation from the source material, assuming that it was done on purpose. Not that I minded the occasional creative liberty. In fact, I encouraged it. Perhaps the subtext here was that times were changing, and that the common folk were quietly rebelling against the tyrannical dogmas imposed upon them by an order of self-appointed saints. It would have certainly made for an interesting plot hook.
I thought nothing more of it and made my way over to the huntsman’s camp at the northern outskirts of Kindling, intending on selling all of the pelts I’d been stubbornly hoarding for the past few play sessions. Waiting for me at the end of that well-trodden path, however, wasn’t at all what I had come to expect. All of the torches had been snuffed out. The old trapper was nowhere to be seen. Instead, standing further inwood behind the cluster of tanning racks was an ominous figure. The fog that was used to mask the game’s limitations was so dense that I could only make out a distorted silhouette. The more I approached, the further it retreated, until I inevitably lost sight of it in the trees.
Exploring the abandoned campsite thoroughly yielded no answers. Just being out there by myself didn’t feel like a safe thing to do anymore, regardless of how comically large my character’s battleaxe was. Next to disappear was the goblin herbalist who also happened to reside outside of Kindling, proving that this wasn’t just a one-off creepy occurrence. Once more I caught a glimpse of that same shadowy blotch taunting me from afar, and again it sunk back into the fog as soon as I ran towards it. Wherever Chloe and her team were going with this, it undeniably had me invested. Adding a horror sub-plot to a dedicated role-playing game was a bold choice. I wasn’t sure how well it would’ve gone with other players, but, then again, they knew their target audience better than I did. This might’ve been exactly what the game needed to stand out from the rest.
As more and more notable characters got deleted without a trace, a realization dawned on me. Soon there would’ve been no one left to give out quests, or to sell potions, or to even repair my gear. All of a sudden there was a time limit on figuring out how to stop whatever that thing was, after which the game would’ve been rendered virtually unplayable.
I know it seems laughable, but the possibility of having my tiny pocket of escapism ripped away from me was a genuinely distressing thought. As sad as it was to admit, I had become attached to this world and its virtual occupants, and I wasn’t about to give it all up just like that. The two things I knew about the entity thus far was that it either couldn’t or didn’t want to confront the player directly and that it only acted when not perceived. With all of its isolated targets disposed of, it would’ve had no choice but to strike at the heart of Kindling next, which was fortunate for me, because all the important NPCs were within relative view of each other. All I had to do was position my camera in such a way that I could oversee them all simultaneously. Now, I obviously couldn’t just sit there and stare at the screen for an indeterminate amount of time, so I just left the computer running overnight. It was just a program, after all; it shouldn’t have been able to tell whether it was actually being observed or not.
Sure enough, that following morning everybody was still there, heedlessly going about their simulated routines. Yet my relief was short-lived. There it stood in the distance, a dark blemish on the scenery, waiting for me to relinquish my futile vigil. Although we were caught in a stalemate for the moment, the outcome was predetermined. Time was irrelevant to an unfeeling construct of ones and zeros that only had a singular directive. I had inadvertently backed myself into a corner, unable to do anything but postpone the inevitable, leaving me in no more of an advantageous position than I was beforehand.
I chased it off again and again, only for it to reemerge as soon as I retreated—a lurker on the threshold between the discernible and indiscernible. It was as if I was fighting against the inevitability of death itself.
And then, all of a sudden, an epiphany! I recalled what Chloe said about sharing the link to the game’s client. The way she phrased it implied that there was nothing actually preventing other people from joining, provided that they knew how to. My sons were over at their mom’s place for the weekend, so I went upstairs to their room and grabbed the oldest’s laptop. From it, I logged into my email, installed Ravengrove and proceeded to create a brand new character, all the while keeping an eye on my old one. I decided to be a fae my second time around. The species’ bonuses to magic would’ve proved invaluable for what I had in mind.
I was surprised to discover that the tutorial section had been cut entirely. I was unceremoniously spawned at the crumbling archway without so much as a starting weapon. Like before, I guided the dainty, long-eared heroine through it and into an even more depressing version of Kindling. Positioned amongst the stalls with a glowing nameplate above his head was my warrior: ironclad and appearing like a set of armor given life. I was hoping I could transfer some of my gold over to his successor, but, unfortunately, that didn’t appear to be an option. I was going to have to do this the hard way. I left him to his guard and got to work, accepting each and every quest I came across. Once I had gathered a substantial bit of experience and gold, I funneled all of my earnings into perfecting the only two spells I needed: teleportation and invisibility. Individually they were close to useless for anybody trying to play the game conventionally, but using them in tandem allowed me to more efficiently scour the map without the nuisance of the wildlife constantly attacking me.
However impossible my quandary might have seemed, the solution had to be out there somewhere. It just didn’t make sense for it not to be. It’s not like I could have consulted Chloe; she still hadn’t acknowledged any of my messages. The possibility that this was all an elaborate gag at my expense did briefly cross my mind, although I failed to see the motive. No, this was something else. Whoever was responsible for all of this was desperately trying to convey something. I just had to figure out what it was.
The Old Woods were never a pleasant place to begin with. Despite me being effectively impervious to the plethora of monstrosities that dwelt below its looming evergreen—at least so long as I didn’t literally teleport into them—the shift in ambience alone was enough to instill a sense of malice. I couldn’t hear crows anymore; just the howling of the wind, like a choir of restless spirits beseeching me to go away, to turn back. I kept anxiously glancing at the other screen. The fact that the shadow had yet to move from its spot brought me a degree of comfort. Not that that necessarily meant anything. For all I knew, there could’ve been multiple iterations of it roaming the map at all times.
My eyes were beginning to sting. I didn’t even want to think about how many collective hours I had spent staring at one monitor or another. The possibility of taking a break was immediately offset by the sight of something familiar hovering amidst the towering pines. It was a luminous green orb. Highlighting it with my mouse revealed the username Wallflower, accompanied by an almost depleted health bar directly beneath it, which, in the context of the game, served to explain its sluggish movements. It was Chloe’s custom avatar—the one she used to interact with me whenever she was busy working on the game but still wanted to say hi. It seemed apathetic to my sorceress’s presence, neither acknowledging her nor attempting to flee. Circling the area around the wounded sprite yielded nothing of interest. After watching it just float there for a while, I resorted to the only thing that the game had consistently rewarded me for doing. I attacked it.
It only took a single swing of my staff for its last remaining health points to drop to zero, after which the game suddenly froze. I was presented with a blank loading screen. Instead of imparting some sort of curious tidbit or hint, the flavor text next to the icon of a spinning hourglass only read “You too, huh?”
Next thing I knew, I was looking up at Daybreak Chapel. The structure was precariously positioned atop a steep cliff, its belfry scraping at the red-tinted sky above it. With its whitewashed walls and stained glass windows, it exuded an air of righteous authority, standing as the sole beacon of faith in this land of heathens. This was my first time back here since the entity started appearing. The chapel became little more than set dressing after I exhausted all of its associated quests, thus giving me no incentive to revisit it.
I advanced up the winding steps that led to its entrance. All background noise was gone; it was as if I was playing on mute. Usually there would’ve been a pair of armored chaplains stationed at both sides of the gate. You even had a brief interaction with them before being allowed into the building proper. This time, my heroine stood alone before the imposing set of wooden doors. That tense feeling in my chest was getting more persistent by the second, but I did my best to ignore it. I was brought here for a reason, and I intended on finding out what it was.
Interacting with the gate caused the game to freeze again. A shrill burst of electronic static blared from the laptop’s speakers. I was transported to a rendition of the holy building’s interior that seemed partly unfinished. The floor patterns were even muddier than what I was accustomed to, as though they were still in the process of rendering. Meanwhile, the ivory columns that led up to the altar lacked any sort of finer detail at all. Everything was blanketed in a thick ash-colored mist, considerably darker than the one outside, making the otherwise modest space feel more expansive than it truly was. I had my character walk past the empty benches and over to the lectern, which, much like the majority of the props, also didn’t have a texture. Only once I turned my view back around did I realize I wasn’t alone.
It stared at me from across the aisle—the entity in all its tragic glory. Its crooked contour gave the impression of a marionette being guided by an unenthusiastic puppeteer. The notion of a creature being forced into involuntary existence was further personified in its form, which was equal parts surreal and grotesque to behold. It possessed the head of a deer clumsily fused to a woman’s torso. The body itself was discolored, clearly belonging to a corpse, with streaks of stale blood splattered across its flesh and meager clothing.
Looking at it now, I wasn’t sure whether to fear or to pity the thing. Its intentions towards me, on the other hand, were far less ambiguous. The green health and blue magic bar above its antlers made it clear that the only way out of this claustrophobic, liminal prison led through it. Each step I took it mirrored, lurching closer and closer, its head slumping from one side to the other. The animation itself was the most detailed I had seen thus far. Clearly somebody had spent a painstaking amount of time bringing this monstrosity to life, though for what purpose I couldn’t say. I tried casting a basic fireball at the wretched amalgamation, but the projectile practically bounced off of it. My strongest offensive spell, the ice javelin, fared slightly better, yet the damage it inflicted was so minuscule that it didn’t even reflect on the creature’s lifebar. My poor fae was way in over her head. I did the only other thing I could think of and used my teleport ability to warp behind it, then immediately dashed for the lofty set of doors I arrived through. Instead of the usual “Exit?” prompt I’d get whenever I try to leave an indoors area, the bold white text now read “Too Late For That”
After frantically clicking on it a few more times, it changed to an even bigger font demanding that I “TURN.AROUND.”
The last thing I saw before I was booted back to the login page was a still frame of the entity with its deformed arms stretching past the edges of the screen, its dull black eyes focused squarely and unequivocally on me. Trying to log back in only resulted in a message informing me that “This account has been permanently banned”.
It was obvious what the game wanted me to do. I closed the laptop, placed it aside and sat back in front of my desktop. I stirred my warrior from his trance and, under the shadow’s watchful gaze, proceeded to visit every single vendor in Kindling, buying up anything and everything that might be considered useful. After a quick final rest at the inn, I embarked towards Daybreak Keep, leaving the townlet to its imminent fate. As all such tales, there was only one way this was bound to end—with the so-called hero confronting the monster in its own domain where their ultimate clash would determine the realm’s future.
Trees closed around me like a corridor, making sure I didn’t stray from my goal. The game wasn’t pulling its punches anymore. Werewolves, ghouls and pox-ridden goliats ambushed me at every step, but I cut them down all the same. By the time I was standing at the base of that cliff again, I had already exhausted a quarter of my healing supplies. Once more did I climb the stone steps that led up to the chapel’s entrance, and once more did I go through it, albeit with considerably more purpose than before.
Awaiting me on the other side was the fathomless abyss. What minimal decor there previously had been was stripped away, exposing the cold emptiness ever-present underneath. And there, at home amidst the uncaring blackness, was my adversary, passively anticipating my arrival. To say that it regarded me a certain way would’ve been an assumption on my part. It was like trying to ascribe emotions onto a walking taxidermy.
I opened with a volley of arrows from my enchanted bow. Each struck true, applying stacks upon stacks of poison that ate away at my target’s vitality. Only once a good fifth of its health was gone did the creature finally respond in kind. I watched as its limbs stretched and pierced the void, plunging into it as though it were a tangible substance. Hands of different sizes emerged from all directions. Some held my warrior in place, others scratched away at his armor, all the while the one evoking them twitched and trembled erratically. I couldn’t tell whether the creature was excited or in pain. Perhaps both. I had to attack each disembodied hand individually for them to finally recoil, granting me enough of an opening to close the distance.
After enduring several cleaves from my battleaxe, it expelled me back with a shriek that I can only describe as a mixture of a squealing pig, a Geiger counter and an air raid siren mashed into one continuous high-pitched noise. Our battle became a vicious back and forth dance of attrition. I’d shoot at it from a distance whilst doing my best to avoid its much more powerful ranged attacks. And then, once its guard was down, I’d rush in, getting as many hits in as I could before being violently shoved away. Had the fight kept going the way it did, my victory would’ve been assured.
Perhaps in realization of that, the creature suddenly slid backwards into the darkness. The veil lifted, revealing the true scale of our final battleground—a seemingly endless body of water, infinitely stretching in whatever direction I looked. The visual of my character suspended above the open, bottomless expanse caused shivers to race down my spine. On the horizon, where the sea and the black sky met, a partially submerged moon peered back at me, as if it were the milky dead eye of a god. But if the moon was an eye, then the horned figure standing in front of it was its pupil; twitching and dilating, distending and contracting.
It raised its trembling bloody hands and what appeared to be giant razor blades rained down like guillotines. Several struck me dead on, nearly killing me outright, but I thankfully still had enough potions left to keep myself alive. Having picked up on their pattern, I weaved around the rapidly descending objects as I charged to deliver the finishing blow. The moon occupied more and more of my screen, only satisfied once it had swallowed everything else around it. I gritted my teeth, wound back the axe…
The scene opened to my chosen hero standing in the middle of a dirt road. Blocking his path forth was an, admittedly, shoddy-looking wolf, while off to his left was an abandoned wagon. I was instructed to go over and loot the vehicle’s remains, resulting in me receiving a ‘rusted longsword’, which I was then told to equip. My fledgling adventurer was now prepared to face off against his first adversary. Combat was turn-based and relied on virtual dice rows, not unlike the tabletop systems I was comparatively more familiar with.
Having vanquished my lupine foe, I pressed on. The autumn trees that bordered the path added a certain sense of melancholy to the scenery. Their colors were warm, vibrant, but there was also an underlying tragedy to the way their lush crowns bent towards the ground in reconciliation. It gave the impression of a realm that had all but surrendered to its fate. It was a nice touch, even if it likely wasn’t intentional.
Eventually, I arrived at a small cemetery nestled between the foliage. The fence surrounding it had rusted, barely standing in places, and looking like it hadn’t been maintained for generations. The gravestones all had rather unusual inscriptions. Some consisted of two or three words while others contained entire paragraphs. It was a collage of sad song lyrics, unsent text messages and diary entries, which, when compiled together, told the story of a lonely girl trapped in a never-ending struggle with her demons. But unlike the ones in my book, these demons can’t be slain with a sword or sealed away with some forbidden ritual.
There never was a team of developers. From its inception, Ravengrove Online had always been the product of a single talented yet deeply troubled mind, desperately looking for a reason to keep going. The “Chloe” that I’d come to know was nothing more than a facade. How she managed to achieve all of this on her own I’m not qualified to say. I can only imagine the sleepless nights, the detachment from everything else around her. She was creating her own refuge—a world she could escape to, made in the image of something synonymous with simpler times. But her demons followed her there as well.
It’s not my place to go into specifics about Chloe’s personal life, or what had brought her to such a state. What I eventually managed to uncover was conveyed to me in confidence, and I’m not about to betray anyone’s trust. Regardless of my feelings on the matter, I’m a dad too and I understand not wanting your child’s struggles being showcased publicly. In the end, I just hope that she found what she was looking for.
Please, look out for each other. I know—believe me—I KNOW how bad it gets, and though I may not be able to relate to you specifically, there are other people out there that can. No part of the human experience is wholly unique, even if we like to pretend otherwise. Let others onto your island. Hell, show them the sights. They might just like it and decide to stay.
Credit: Morning Owl
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