Ever Dream This Man? - Session 4
Horror fiction told through the medium of a solo journaling RPG. My playthrough of "Ever Dream This Man?" by Adam Vass and World Champ Game Co.
This is a continuation of the series I started recently documenting the narrative of my playthrough of Ever Dream This Man? by Adam Vass and World Champ Game Co., a lightweight tabletop RPG that sees players diving into their recurring nightmares to uncover the truth behind an entity that appears in their dreams known only as This Man.
If you haven’t read the previous sessions, I recommend clicking the links below to catch up on what’s happened so far. Check out the first session especially to get a quick explanation of the game and how it plays, my initial set-up for my game, and a link to the Spotify playlist I am using as inspiration.
Enjoy!
Song 6: Back Foot - Dinosaur Pile-Up
I would have floated here forever, in isolation light-years deep in the darkness, and it's what I would have deserved.
But that's not good enough for you, is it? Leaving me alone with the infinite torture of my own thoughts? Because I do that every day. That's breakfast. That's lunch. That's dinner.
You know, you actually have a flair for the dramatic, Mr. Man. A whole fleet of asteroids barreling down on little ol' me. Could have just sent one, but I bet you get off on this.
I’m peppered by waves of celestial buckshot going fifty-thousand miles per hour. Pure searing heat scalds down to the soul, the ice is long gone and sorely missed. I obliterate but reform. Obliterate. Reform. Atomic trauma to the max.
They knock me out of stasis, and I’m traveling now. I’m a torpedo tearing through the ocean black. Suddenly, the distances don’t seem so vast. Sure, the trips are long in macro, but I’m visiting heavenly landmarks in relatively record time.
Some ethereal scent wafts across cosmic rays and hits my nose. Raspberry and rum. Wherever that's coming from is where the party is. Forever won’t mind if I stop and grab one for the road, right? Give this to me, brain. Get me there. If I can't taste relief, then at least give me oblivion.
It's a stop-start pivot, trying to angle this astral self where I want it to go. Too timid. Waffling between wanting and not wanting. Knowing better and not caring. But I make it, if only just, to a great molecular cloud at the center of the galaxy.
I slip into its luminous gritty mist and drift to its core, mouth open wide. The sting in my throat is familiar. Anti-freeze by way of bottom shelf vodka.
Now this? This is where I belong.
I drink deep, swallowing and swallowing and swallowing, till the whole cloud is inside of me. Rocked at once by ten million proof booze. Heavy dryer cycle swirl in my head. Pseudo-sunlight coursing in my veins. I feel amazing.
The stuff dredges up an old spasmodic habit, sending limbs flailing, a feeling like snapped fingers. I stretch and bend, flip and spin, shake off ages of atrophy. I do my best impression of a ballet dancer, hands up and arced, plies on protons. But graceful twirls turn to sickening swoons. One universe becomes two becomes three. Coalesced visuals unsettle into afterimages that overlap and bob and weave. Vision unstitches completely. Perception drowns, sunk to a brineless deep.
My bones gelatinize and pool at the soles of my feet. The skin there pulls away, distending and growling under tension, two balloons full to popping, but don't. They mutilate and elongate into great, trailing tendrils. Hands grow too, becoming webbed, becoming fins. Everything expands until I'm a flesh monstrosity twenty times my size. Errant solar winds catch the webbing of my fins, and I sail away an altogether different creature.
The swim through space is lazy and thoughtless. No gas. No brakes. Only vibes. But I swerve all over the place, too messed up to keep it on the road. A moon comes out of nowhere, I swear, and I bounce off its surface. Tumble toward its primary. A satellite graciously offers to stop me and gets smashed to pieces for it. Planetfall comes fast. The atmosphere feels thick compared to space. It chafes and burns all over. The pain is almost unbearable, till a worse pain comes. The pain of a whole city block stabbing into my underbelly at terminal velocity.
The devastation is immeasurable. This is classic me.
I feel a tickle of air swept up by a thousand souls scrambling around me. Panicked potshots from hapless cops bounce right off my surface. Don’t even feel them. I ache to brush away crumbs of city stuck to my skin.
Through a sun-soaked henge of skyscrapers, I see silhouettes creeping up on the horizon. Their forms start to take shape as they storm closer. Robots as large as me, familiar-looking bipedal machines packing a lot of heat, come jetting across the scrubland outskirts. They each have different color schemes and decorations on their tres chic contoured frames. Way more personality than you’d expect for a war machine.
I’ve seen this show before. Time to blow up the big bad alien monster. And I’m the monster.
Sounds about right.
Well, have fun. Can’t get away. Don’t even have legs. I’m just a big, fat, fucking wad over here. Go crazy. Tear me apart.
They tumble around and strike poses while they size me up, and it looks stupid, but I can sort of hear the little people at the base of me going nuts, so I guess it must be cool.
Then we get the show on the road. They fire away and rain laser hell down on my head. But the beams miss, enveloping me for a moment in a cocoon of light. The city explodes around me for blocks.
What are you doing? Hit me, you idiots.
Another volley comes and is flung further out, to unscathed areas. Death for miles.
Please stop. KILL ME. JUST ME. PLEASE. I’M BEGGING YOU. Why won’t anyone kill me?
The robots drop their cannons, no genocide left in the magazine. They’re going to have to do things old-school and throw hands. Massive steel hands. They circle me and strike fighting stances as unique as their designs. Then the fists start flying.
Jet-propelled punches slam into my flesh, rippling the outside but rupturing everything inside. The pain gets more and more horrific with each popped organ. The internal bleeding sloshes up to my eyeballs. They are relentless, only stopping to high-five and blast pithy quips at me out of chassis speakers.
Eventually, everything numbs. Their attack is nothing but a dull thudding in my brain. Overloaded synapses can’t turn the engine over all the way and then give up completely. Sounds turn to muffled warbles. Skin feels frigid. Light is extinguished, and so am I.
Thank you. Finally. Thank you.
…
Then light returns, opening my eyes slowly.
Vision stitches back together. It weaves and bobs and overlaps, and afterimages settle into coalesced visuals. Muffled warbles become ringing in my ears which quiets and becomes ambient people sound underscored by a song I remember from a middle school dance. There are broken tables and stools scattered about, piles of shattered glass too. A half circle of folks all watching me, angry. Whole body’s killing me. I'm propped up by one elbow straining against a bar. I’m looking at a man behind it, trying to say something to him.
Take me home, Stu.
What?
I'm scared, take me home.
Buddy, are you fucking kidding me?
It's okay, you're a good driver.
Look at what you've done!
What?
LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE
What have I done?
Ok, my character is really going through some stuff. But still no real reappearance of This Man, and maybe dealing with some trauma will help my character find the strength to destroy the man? We’ll just have to wait and see. Thanks for reading.
Session 5 is available now.
This is some incredible stuff and scaring the crap out of me. To be fair, I scare easily. Lol.