Game Narrative 1: Monster (Introduction)

 

Monster

INT. THE CREMATORIUM – DAY

Mr. West opened his eyes waking up from an agonized sleep with his heart pounding, sweating profusely, because the heat was infernal: “My God! I slept?" thought the old man in surprise. It had been many years since he had someone lying beside him that he could be talking to, so there was no one to ask if he'd dozed off. "I don't remember coming to bed."  Mr. West had the strange habit of sleeping late even at age 60, as they say that an old man sleeps early. He arrived tired from work, from everyday stress at the law firm, and from hearings in which he was involved.

As soon as he graduated in Law, having tuned in with a small part of the faculty, Mr. West decided to use the techniques and schemes learned from these professors, professionals with expertise in the market, to win the case regardless of the value judgment of his clients. Whether they were innocent or guilty was not the most important information. And even though he considered it boring because it was all the same, doing more of the same, over time and with the fame he was acquiring, he began to devote himself to defending the guilty; it was more worthy; the effort of the work of giving freedom to the guilty earned him more money.

He married when was 20 years old and divorced when his eldest son Paul was 5 years old and the second son, William, was 3. He didn't have time to pay attention to his children, and this recurring complaint from his wife, among many others regarding being a husband, made him decide for a divorce, as he had to dedicate himself to his career: “I have to care about myself first!” He thought back to the moment of that decision and grew old thinking exclusively in this way.

His children grew up without a father, as his wife decided not to look for a new partner; the impact and stress of the litigious divorce, added to her relationship with Mr. West as an absentee ex-husband and father of her children, made her prefer a solitary life to going through this same experience a possible second time. And despite living in the same city, Paul and William only saw their father's face in photographs. The pension was never late.

"What darkness is this?" Mr. West looked for the light from the lamppost that came through the cracks in his bedroom window, but it wasn't there. Total pitch! “Could it be that there was no light? It's like that when there's no light in the neighborhood!" He knew that this conversation with himself was fear creeping in, but he couldn't feel fear; he believed he didn't feel; he was a rational, intelligent man, and he told himself he couldn't feel these weak people's things. He never felt fear, anger, sadness, passion, or pity for anyone: "Everyone only gets what they deserve!" - He told himself if anyone was having a problem, a need, whether in the office or on the news. For all these years it was not possible to deny help to a friend because he never had any. He didn't even remember how that happened in his childhood: having friendships.

As a teenager, guided by his father, he had to devote his time to graduating in law to earn a lot of money, maintaining the West's status, fulfilling his role of being the expected pride of the family. For this the people around him could not have any value; he would always be the best. No one ever helped him, why would he have to help anyone?

His mother, a very sweet human being, always told you that her methods would result in suffering, that there were other ways to deal with earning money, but her orientations were seen by her son as someone who does not know how to live reality. His father was the hero.

"Well, let me get up so I can see what happened!" And in the first movement of this attempt, West hit his forehead on a hard surface and fell back down on the padded surface where he had been lying since he woke up. Feeling along the sides, he realized he wasn't in his room as he imagined: “Where am I? My God, what is this? Where am I? Is it a box? A box? I'm in a box…” He began pounding both fists on this surface above his face and yelling, “Help, help! Where am I? Get me out of here!" - Have I been kidnapped? Calm down, I have to stay calm! Am I in the trunk of a car? With my legs stretched out I wouldn't fit in a trunk... So where am I?” – He thought and shouted again: “Someone get me out of here! Help! Help!"

Outside, wherever Mr. West was, he began to hear many footsteps approaching, voices of some people and someone closer who addressed him: “My brother, I heard you screaming, asking for help, I'm here to help! Can you get out of there?” - Mr. West, with his eyes rolling in his sockets, changed from fear to anger and shouted: “If I could leave would I have screamed for help? Are you dumb? Get me out of here!" The stranger's voice outside got closer: "You need to get out there… and fast!"

In a cold sweat, West tried to calm down, but he was seized by rage and agitated, shouting angrily: “Get me out of here, you idiot! It's to get me out of here, do you hear? Come on! Tell me where I am! Tell me!" - A silence from the stranger and a murmur from outside, as if a small crowd were some distance away was all he heard for some time. “I've been here checking how long you have to stay in there! And being you I would leave this place soon!" Said the stranger: "You're going to be today's first customer here at the crematorium.

“Thousands of books sold by mediums and they live from misery to misery, without luxury? They must hide a lot of money. And all this humanitarian aid, this solidarity... They don't fool me!” Whenever he saw something related to helping others, institutions that aimed at non-profit solidarity, he brought to his mind the concepts of charlatanism, of being corrupt and dishonest. So thought the lawyer who dedicated his career to dishonesty in himself and others towards others. For Mr. West Conscience and Self-knowledge were professions of charlatans, a waste of time.

"Do you know me? Why did you do this, kidnap me?” Very sweetly the voice told him, “I didn't arrest you, but you need to get out of there! Wake up!" Anguished Mr. West considered the need to wake up, why did that stranger say these things? “I'm awake, you crazy! Otherwise, how would I be wasting time talking to you? Help, somebody help me!" – The lawyer was kicking.

"You died yesterday!" – The doctor at the service of spirituality was there at the request of Mr. West' mother, who in fervent prayer asked the Father for help for her recently disincarnated son, and the request was answered by an old doctor friend of the family, who herself was a volunteer at the colony in the astral plane.

"Are you crazy? And what kind of game is it? Did you lock me in this box? Kidnapped me and are making up this story that I'm dead? Mr. West, a hedonistic atheist, could not have said anything different. “My dear, we don't have much time, and I can tell you that stuck in your body the way you are, the experience of being incinerated is not going to be very pleasant; you will feel your every muscle burning to ash!" - A mixture of indignation and anger took over West' mind:

"Help! Get me out of here! There's a madman arresting me, police!"

Sweating cold and trembling, not with fear but with rage, Mr. West was silently planning his way out of that dark place. He then decided to install the character of the lawyer within himself, in order to persuade his kidnapper to release him. After taking a few breaths, he began to pretend a calm voice:

“Tell me, my son! If I died why am I still here talking to you? I already know it's a joke, right? Was it someone from the office? Let me out, I'm tired already, look at my age. And then, if what you say were true, then why would you be helping me?”

West' secretary was the one who organized the funeral, and even he didn't bother to witness the boss's cremation. “I'm not the only person here waiting for you; There's a crowd out here and it didn't come to your wake, believe me! This crowd intends to present you with a reception worthy of the worst criminal wanted by the police anywhere on the planet; they want revenge and I can help you. Make your choice!” - Patiently said the doctor. “When you leave this coffin, you’ll have the freedom to decide what do you want. However, know now that lying is not possible here. I'm helping you because nobody deserves the worst.”

As he listened to the voice speak, Mr. West searched in his memory who could have done this to him, who was really taking revenge in this way, would it be the families of the victims of the criminals he had defended all these years? Who had played this trick on him? - “There is no such thing as cause and effect, you good-for-nothing! See the life I live! Money and pleasure without much time for worthless people like you!” – Mr. West suddenly shouted.

A crematorium employee slowly lit the flames in the oven where the lawyer's coffin was. "I think you'll leave for bad." - Spoke the doctor without any irony in his voice. And Mr. West, unbalanced, enraged, kicking and punching the walls of the coffin, shouted: “I'm alive! Alive! I can't get out! I'm not leaving here, you rascal!

"No problem, I wait!" The doctor sighed in resignation.

After feeling the flames consuming his body with a lot of suffering and despair, Mr. West faints. Without the proper sense of time he woke up in a place, once again dark, but now with a horrible stench: “God, where am I”?