Just as soon as it began, the light burns out. The memories of its blazing brightness swing before your vision despite your eyes being shut.
Slowly, the light returns. Seeping in through your eyelids. Penetrating your pupils. Bleeding to the back of your skull. But this light is different; it is not blinding. It does not hurt. It is a warm flickering - a dancing redness. An indication of a world beyond your face. You open your eyes.
A beautiful woman is dancing. She turns, and her outfit flutters beautifully around her, shimmering. The dips and flows of her movements remind you of a liquid, but she is upright, her hands pointed towards the sky. She stands on the end of a smooth, wax cylinder. Balanced perfectly on a single leg. An ode to beauty, to life, and to destruction. You breathe, and she disappears.
Darkness again.
This time, the light you see is of the sun. It is morning. You are awake.
And yet you feel as though you are still asleep. Is this real? You do not recognise your surroundings. You are lying on a blanketed wooden cot. It does not appear foldable. Next to you, there is an end table, with an unlit candle in a simple wooden stand. In fact, almost everything is wooden. Wherever you are, wood must be cheap and easily available. The room reminds you of an ant burrow. Claustrophobic. Tight. Alleviating that, you are alone. Still, it does little to give any sense of space. You can smell dust as thick as a morning dew, and there are cobwebs in the corners of the room that light just doesn't reach. There is a window on the wall behind the cot's headrest. Though there is what can only be described as an attempt at shutters on the window, your skin feels warm as drops of sunlight are mottled across your arms. There is a door opposite the window, well-hung on its hinges. It appears sturdy, almost as a contrast to the shutters. It's even a little foreboding.
Actually, nevermind your surroundings. Who are you? You despair; surely you could not have forgotten something as basic to your identity as your name. Your memory groans into gear, as though unused for many years. You start with the basics.
So guys - I decided I wanted to try something out. It is essentially a game, so it goes in forum games, even though the quality of the posts will hopefully be higher than the norm in this forum.
The general function of this game is as follows:
- You - all of you - are the protagonist. The protagonist's decisions and identity are wholly dependent on your consensus.
- If five people want the protagonist to, for example, leave the room he's in through the door, and three want him to leave through the window (what why would that even be a suggestion) - he will leave through the door.
- Basically, consider it an unlimited choose-your-own-adventure, or something. I don't know. I'm just the writer here.
- The setting is a kind of generic fantasy thing. I really have very little of this planned out in order to allow for extreme flexibility. For this reason, you might have to be very patient at times.
Because I have no idea what this is going to turn out like I am going to lay down some ground rules:
- Make your suggestions in an arbitrary colour of your choice, so long as it is obviously not black (I am not going to hit 'quote' just to make sure you didn't use color=#000001 or something). This ensures, to me, you would have at least read the first post!
- Ridiculous suggestions will be considered. Out of character suggestions will not be considered. You create the character initially, but once you have a personality rolling, y'all gotta stick with it.
- Do not clutter the topic with pictures! That's my job. But seriously, try to keep your posts down only to suggestions and discussion.
So, as the intro says - let's start with the basics.
Who are you?
I need a name and a general (up to as detailed as you like, but at least general) description of your appearance. Obviously this includes you deciding gender!
I don't know how much attention this is going to get. I hope it actually gets something.