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BELLOURA is a horror text adventure about a bloody struggle. It was created for Asylum Jam 2015.
It is rated MA15+ with content warnings for gore and violence.
[[Begin]]
(Author note: (link: "This track")[(gotourl: "http://soundcloud.com/j_space/clouds")] is recommended as background sound for the game)
She comes to you, licking your cut palm and whining. Amidst all else, you’re glad for her to be alive.
As befitting your rank and station, she has fought alongside you through battles – you wish she could have retired in victory, instead of struggling to survive an escape.
-
//The defeat was brutal. You were commanded to leave with the news, selected only for your relative health.
It made you sick to retreat, but the rotting, sour smell of death and terror among your slain fighters was worse.//
-
You’d rather be here, as terrified as you feel. The training didn’t prepare you for the fear, the adrenaline leaving you cold and shaky.
You sense the snapping, slick sound of a large figure moving in the dark ahead.
[[Send Waheela]]
[[Investigate together]]
He comes to you, licking your cut palm and whining. Amidst all else, you’re glad for him to be alive.
As befitting your rank and station, he has fought alongside you through battles – you wish he could have retired in victory, instead of struggling to survive an escape.
-
//The defeat was brutal. You were commanded to leave with the news, selected only for your relative health. It made you sick to retreat, but the rotting, sour smell of death and terror among your slain fighters was worse.//
-
You’d rather be here, as terrified as you feel. The training didn’t prepare you for the fear, the adrenaline leaving you cold and shaky.
You sense the snapping, slick sound of a large figure moving in the dark ahead.
[[Send Luison]]
[[Investigate together]]
A low whisper and a sharp gesture with your left hand, your companion dutifully barks and runs ahead.
Mottled, pale fur streaked with dirt disappears into a tangle of vines.
-
//Please. You need to get this through.//
-
Approaching slowly behind, you realize your breath has slowed to almost nothing, ready to hear anything.
Nothing.
You hear nothing.
[[Call for them]]
The forest has been so dark and damp, no hope of a light exists – you’ve tried to stay silent, but the scent of your hound may have drawn the animal.
At least, you hope for a beast – all you’ve seen of humanity today has turned you sick and afraid of them for now. You do not know if you could kill another tonight.
Slowly moving forwards, you have kept your crescent knife in hand.
[[You try to avoid the direction of the beast]]
[[You decide to attack before it can find you]]
A low whisper and a sharp gesture with your left hand, your companion dutifully barks and runs ahead.
Mottled, pale fur streaked with dirt disappears into a tangle of vines.
-
//Please. You need to get this through.//
-
Approaching slowly behind, you realize your breath has slowed to almost nothing, ready to hear anything.
Nothing.
You hear nothing.
[[Call for them]]You try your best to continue, though the new silence is disturbing.
Exhaustion lays heavy, your body complaining with each step. The cold, damp atmosphere feels awful.
Too late, you feel a change – the large form of something behind you, heat rolling against your back. The red burst of pain as teeth find their way to your shoulder, biting down with a sickening force.
Pushed to the earth, your last breath is shoved from your lungs. Your ending moments alive are graceless, painful and messy as gore and muscle is eaten away by the heavy //thing// on your back.
Without your hound, there was no warning. The last thing you hear is the //snap, crunch// of your shoulder being pulled from your body, the pain and bloodloss giving you the mercy of an unconscious death.
[[Try another way?|Investigate together]]
[[I’m done.]]
Gripping the knife harder, you decide to attack before it can stalk you.
Ducking low, together you creep closer to the source of the noise.
There is no time to try and figure out how best to attack.
All you can make out is a huge, shifting dark silhouette. Dark grey fur, the flash of a claw. You lash out.
Percieving the strike at the last moment, the creature shifts and rears up as you prepared to strike. You shove forwards, slicing in deep with the curved blade.
Earning a pained bellow, the huge creature bleeds thick and dark over your hand.
Somehow you’re unable to pull the knife free from its chest, and in the moment of hesitation it shoves at you.
Claws slash and cut at your shoulder, your damaged leather armor doing little to protect you.
The pain is searing. Your hound tries to bite and distract the beast.
[[Run away]]
[[Fight back]]
Your throat is sore from trying to yell affirmatives on the battlefield, but you still try.
The //nothing// continues for a while, then an explosion of dirt and leaves sting your vision, forcing you to duck down as a reflex.
The heavy weight of something alive smashes into your side, painfully slamming you onto your back.
Your eyes are in pain, watering with the grit and hot, foul breath panting against you. The scent of burned candles and meat.
You cannot tell what it is – the blur of dark, grey fur and monstrous size tell you nothing useful.
But it is angry, pushing to bite you while your shaky arms shove at its throat to try and protect yourself.
[[Look for help]]
[[Use the knife]]You cannot win against this unknowable being. You know that you //need help//.
Looking for an opening, you try to keep the creature away as you turn aside to look somewhere, anywhere for mercy.
Your hound is barking in alarm, and there is nothing else to save you.
The lost battle and the painful escape – this attack is the last unfairness is a life punctuated by misery, and you //just can’t do this anymore//.
Your arms shake with the struggle of keeping those snapping jaws mere inches from your face. Tears sting your eyes as you know you’re about to break.
The beast snarls and lunges harder, it’s too much and your arms need to give in. Teeth sink into your throat with ease.
You’re sobbing in pain, it hurts so much as the creature pulls back, tearing your throat out. Just like your commanding officer, your death is a painful mess. //Nothing more.//
Your companion can do nothing, ears flattened in fear at the wet sound of your flesh being eaten.
[[Try another way?|Call for them]]
[[I’m done.]]
You must fight.
As terrifying as it is, you have seen the very worst of death and destruction and you have lived.
This will be no different.
Tensing your body and drawing on the little energy left to you, carefully you brace your stronger arm to keep it at bay – your other hand pulls the knife up, aiming where you hope its throat must be.
Shoving in, the answering spray of blood drenches your face. Hot and foul-smelling, you grimace and taste it while violently yanking to try and kill the damn thing.
Muscles tense hard within the beast, a sudden response to the blade striking something deadly inside.
The danger melts away as the beast relaxes into death, slumping onto you.
anting hard, you stare at the dark canopy above. Your breath comes in a wheeze under the dead weight of the beast.
Eventually, your companion distracts you with a soft bark – looking over, it seems they are limping but alive.
You breath in, slow and shaking. Your chest hurts.
It takes a while before you manage to shove the warm corpse off you.
[[Press on]]
You cannot win against this unknowable being. You know that you //need to run//.
Hopefully the wound will slow them down. Looking for an opening, your eyes scan the darkness around your sides, and decide to sprint left.
The forest is thick and oppressive, slowing your ability to escape. Too late you realize the roots and uneven stones of the forest floor are too dangerous for this, your hound barking in alarm as you trip and fall hard to the earth.
Mold and rotting plant life stick to you, the glancing blow of your skull on a rock dazing you. It takes one second too long.
The beast was designed for this place, easily finding you sprawled from your desperate escape. Helpless, you listen to your companion snarling and fighting to try and keep its attention, but the creature has already sliced your abdomen wide, hellish claws dipping into the ruined mess of your torso.
Death comes for you as you feel the unnatural pressure and //crack// of your ribcage split wide, your body a splayed meal. //Nothing more.//
[[Try another way?|You decide to attack before it can find you]]
[[I’m done.]]
You must fight.
As terrifying as it is, you have seen the very worst of death and destruction and you have lived.
This will be no different.
Tensing your body and drawing on the little energy left to you, teeth grit you charge back and grip the blood-smeared handle of your buried blade.
Yanking back, the spray of blood drenches your thighs, a wide slash of flesh where dark grey fur once was. You’re close enough that the creature struggles to slash at you again, your mind shoving away the pain to try and find a strategy.
It appears to be a gigantic, wolf-like… bear, perhaps? There in no time to think about anything but how to murder this wretched thing, your hound whining in pain as it is kicked away from a hind leg.
The jaw. It must have a neck.
Grabbing at where you estimate a throat to be, desperately you stab up under the hard bone of a jawline.
Muscles tense hard in response freezing up as the blade hits at something deadly.
The danger melts away as the beast relaxes into death, slumping over.
Panting hard, you stare at the corpse. Eventually, your companion distracts you with a soft bark – a brief examination shows they are limping now, but alive.
[[Press on]]
Thank you for playing Belloura for Asylum Jam 2015!
Pretty gross, huh?
I'd love to know what you think - hit me up on Twitter [[@laurclinn|https://twitter.com/laurclinn]] and share your creepy struggle!This is not the end.
You lived, as you have managed to do many times today.
Under your breath, you swear to never kill something voluntarily again.
Your hound stays close to you, silent and sad as you press on together.
[[Don’t stop moving]]
They need you.
Blood and darkness. The scent of the forest is thick, a rotting damp overlaid with the sweetness of wildflowers.
You are already fighting your body to continue moving, your thighs burn with the effort. A hundred tiny sticks and leaves brush, touch and scratch at you.
-
//You watch her fall, and for a horrible moment you know that she is dying.
There is no glory in this, watching your commanding officer with her throat torn open by some ungodly blade, the bubbling hiss of breath from the wound stealing her right to final words.
There is no time for goodbye – death is faster that the tales make it out to be.//
-
They need you to make it.
The message strapped to your hip – your clan must know what happened.
Behind you on the path, your hound pauses to lick at a muddy puddle, desperate for a drink.
[[“Waheela.”]]
[[“Luison.”]]You are tired and disgusted by the scent of life and death in this forest, drying blood scratching at your skin.
Exhaustion makes you worry that you’re lost now, but there’s no other choice than to [[continue]].
You have moved until your legs are numb, your skin aching all over.
How many hours have you walked? You haven’t sensed the sun rise, but the forest may be too thick for light to cut through.
When you discover a break in the trees two hours later, you suspect a hallucination.
The shadowed stone path is more beautiful than anything you have even seen. When your foot rests on the stone and it doesn’t disappear, you cry with relief.
Great, wracking sobs grip you. Tears cut clean lines through the blood and grit smeared over your face.
The message will get through.
You will make it home tonight.
[[Survived.|I’m done.]]
