Day 2 - One Page Left
One Page Left is a solo role-playing game about surviving a horror movie. Your character will be chased by a killer of your own creation. Over the course of the game you will journal your experiences on a single sheet of paper. If you ever run out of space or Luck, your story will come to a tragic end. Will you survive the night?
Name: Vera Ashcroft
Lucky Number: FOUR
Archetype: Horror Writer
Secret: Visions of your own death
Killer Mask: Plague Doctor
Weapon: Scalpel
Trait: Only seen in mirrors
I’m Vera Ashcroft, I’m twenty-seven, and I should be celebrating. My first novel didn’t just do well, it
hit. Bestseller lists, airport kiosks, my name on a spine in places I never imagined. People call me promising and keep asking what I’m working on next. Of course I have ideas, notebooks full of them, half-written outlines, characters begging for their stories to be told. I feel like my real life is just about to start... but I keep seeing how it ends.
The visions started after the book hit. At first, I told myself it was exhaustion, adrenaline, too much caffeine and not enough sleep. But they’re too real... the way the air leaves my lungs, the angle of the light as my body hits the floor, the moment of recognition right before it happens...
oh, this is it.
I haven’t told anyone. I’m afraid if I do, it’ll make it real.
It stands at the end of the corridor, tall, still... waiting. The plague doctor mask tilts slightly, the long beak cracked like old bone, the lenses dark and unreadable. I’ve written this mask before, in unfinished notes, in half-remembered dream journals. The gloves are spotless, a scalpel in its hand like a pen paused mid-sentence, patient, precise. This isn’t a butcher. It doesn’t rush. It excises. It removes what doesn’t belong.
I never see it head-on. Only in reflections... polished floors, glass frames, the black mirror of a dark window. Every time I catch a glimpse, my stomach drops, because it’s closer than it was last time, always closer. When I turn around, there’s nothing there. Sometimes I swear it’s looking through me, like it’s disappointed I’m still unfinished.
I wake up from this nightmare with the same thought every time: I didn’t invent this monster; it's always been here.
Cold. That’s the first thing. Cold stone biting into my palms, seeping through my clothes like it’s been waiting for me. My head throbs in time with my heartbeat, each pulse dragging me closer to nausea. I try to sit up too fast and the room lurches, my stomach drop.
Okay. Breathe. Slow. Where am I? I don’t remember coming here. I have no memory of leaving my home. No decision. No car. Just a blank space. I push myself upright and freeze.
I've never been in this room before, and worse... there are mirrors everywhere, tall panels lining the walls, polished metal fixtures, a ceiling inset with reflective glass. Even the floor has a sheen to it, like it’s been buffed just enough to betray me. I keep my eyes down, fixed on my hands, because I already know what will happen if I look, and I don’t want to see how close it is.
My heart starts racing, panic blooming in my chest. Is this the part where I make a mistake, where curiosity gets the better of me and I look up and there it is, standing just behind me, waiting?
This isn’t real, I tell myself.
This is a concussion, a stress dream. You write this kind of thing. But my hands are shaking, and the cold is real. Whatever has been following me through my dreams has finally stopped pretending. I swallow hard and squeeze my eyes shut tight. If I look, it becomes real.
But deep down I know that it’s already here.
REP: 0
Name: Matthew ‘Huey’ Turner
Art Credit: Fjell
Name: Princess Harmony of Splendid Thicket
Name: Lucia Voss
One Word to Describe Them: lonely
One Word to Describe Them: neglected
Codename: Platinum
