#oneaday Day 793: It Takes More Than Seven Days to Build a World

I'm making a game. This is not the first time I have said these words, nor will it be the last time, but I have a good feeling about this one. A vision. Only one past amateur development project I worked on (known as Pie-Eater's Destiny) was ever completed (twice if you count the subsequent "Gold Edition" remake) and a third (The Adventures of Dave Thunder) was going extremely well but then unfortunately lost when an old computer died without warning. (Note to self: BACK THE FUCK UP) This one, though, feels like an idea that has legs, and I'm looking forward to bringing it to life, to mix metaphors for a moment.

No, you won't be getting any details on what this project is just yet save for the fact that I'm using it as a means of trying out the latest version of Enterbrain's excellent RPG Maker software, RPG Maker VX Ace. I've used several iterations of this package over the years and each has its own quirks and foibles. Previous version RPG Maker VX turned out to be a bit of a misstep which seemingly stripped out features rather than adding them, but from my limited experience so far, VX Ace seems to be an excellent piece of software with plenty of flexibility.

One of my favourite parts of creating a game — or indeed any story, since I typically have aspirations to create narrative-focused games, even if I never finish them — is creating the world and the characters who populate it. When building a map in RPG Maker, I'll find myself visualising its context in the world — in the case of a village or town, I'll think to myself "right, this person lives here, this person runs this shop, follow this path and you'll get to…" and so on. In the case of a dungeon I'll resist the temptation to use the random map generator and instead design a dungeon which makes some degree of contextual sense, even if it may descend into bizarreness at times. (The lava flow in the opening "wine cellar" dungeon at the beginning of The Adventures of Dave Thunder was a particular highlight, which our hero lampshaded quite nicely at the time he came across it for the first time, as I recall.)

I've always been this way with level construction. The earliest instance I can remember was Wolfenstein 3D, whose map editor gave me many, many hours of enjoyment and, thanks to CompuServe, even netted me $200 when ten of my levels were included in the official Apogee "Super Upgrades" expansion pack for the game. When building my selection of maze-like levels for id's Nazi-bashing shooter, I enjoyed thinking of the "real" context for these rooms and tunnels. As such, I ended up with some memorable "setpiece" confrontations (or as close as you could get to a "setpiece" in Wolf3D's limited engine, anyway) — the one that sticks in my mind most is the one where you've crept through some moss-filled corridors in search of a Nazi secret base and open a door only to discover that a briefing is apparently in progress. One of the "officer" enemies was standing at the front of the room next to a "map" texture, and the rest of the room was full of the standard trooper soldiers all facing him. (I wasn't a monster for game balancing; I provided the player with a chaingun and plenty of ammo before sending them in to mow down this little gathering. Hey, I was a teenager. Subtlety wasn't in my vocabulary.)

The point is, I found myself thinking carefully about every block I put down, every object on the map. Everything had a purpose, a place, a story behind it. I enjoyed visualising that world in my mind and then bringing it to life on my computer screen. It was inordinately satisfying to be able to hoon around a world of my own creation and think this came from my BRAIN. I feel the same way every time I create a new map in RPG Maker, every time I make a track in TrackMania, every time I build something in Minecraft. And if I had any clue whatsoever how 3D level editors worked (I've tried and failed numerous times) I have no doubt I'd feel the same way there too.

As you may have gathered, today has been about world-building. I've only created a tiny, tiny piece of what will eventually become this game's world, but already it's bringing those old feelings back. Hopefully they'll provide the motivation to take me through to actually finishing a game project for once.

#oneaday Day 748: Life Story

Do you think your own life story would make for an interesting read? Playing Katawa Shoujo rather extensively today has made me give some consideration to the thought, since that game, despite its distinctive — perhaps even unique — premise ("This is a game about disabled girls") is in fact simply about human relationships and real life struggles. There's no "epicness" whatsoever; the world doesn't come to an end; there's no "save the princess" (except metaphorically speaking in a few instances) — it's just about normal people (albeit normal people with disabilities) living their lives.

When I think back on my own life, there are certainly plenty of interesting stories there for the telling, and given that we human beings are creatures of habit, often doomed to make the same mistakes over and over, it's fairly unlikely that there's nobody out there who could relate to some of them.

This makes the concept of autobiographies an interesting one. The shelves in ailing book retailers such as Smith's and Waterstone's are crammed with celebrity "autobiographies" (and I use the term loosely, since a large proportion of them are ghost-written), all called things like My Story, My Struggle or My Tits. (I made the last one up, but it's arguably what anything written by Katie Price should be called, given the thing that most people seem to know her for.)

The thing is, though, I almost feel like I'd rather read the autobiography of someone who hasn't led a remarkable life. Someone who hasn't shot to stardom, done something remarkable with their life. It works for fictional narratives, as anyone who has read Generation X by Douglas Coupland will attest — a narrative in which nothing happens (relatively speaking) means that you can focus more on the people and their reactions to everyday, relatable situations and then, crucially, compare your own experiences and prejudices to the same situations. This is something that you simply can't do with most celebrity works — they live in such a different world to the rest of us, almost like caricatures or fictional characters.

The "fiction" part of celebrities is arguably at least partly true. Their public perception is something which is carefully managed and controlled by their publicists. The truth behind their lives is often a lot more mundane, but by extension, more relatable. The trouble is, the only time we ever see that mundane everyday life is through the snooping lens of a paparazzi, or in some cringeworthy ITV documentary showing Peter Andre having a wank or something. The very nature of their celebrity makes them feel different, makes observing them doing "natural" things feel like an alien thing to do. Celebrity Big Brother proves this particularly aptly by being actually rather boring. In this case, it's because they're in an artificial situation where they're forced to be mundane, and this, once again, is merely a fictional representation of a real life.

Normal (i.e. non-celebrity) people, though, the non-player characters of society? Those are the ones I'd be interested in reading about. Whether it's the story of how they got into a fight with their supposed best friend at school over what one of them assumed was light-hearted teasing and the other one took to heart, or the tale of how they met their partner. Truth and real life is sometimes far stranger than fiction, and it's worth remembering that sometimes.

I'm not sure what my point is, to be honest. I don't think I'm planning on writing an autobiography (though certain fragments of this blog stray into that territory sometimes, admittedly) but I feel like doing so in one form or another might be an interesting experience. Perhaps writing fictionalised stories based on real-life experiences? It's something I've toyed with the idea of before, but have always shied away from for fear of people connecting the dots too much and making judgements about things I've been through.

That said, despite my shyness in a lot of social situations, I'm generally pretty up-front with talking about past struggles if given the opportunity to do so, so perhaps it might not be such a terrible idea to do, after all. The truest, most resonant creative works come from the creator tapping into their own personal well of past experiences and pain.

Anyone reading this tapped into the contents of their own soul and memory and come up with something great?

#oneaday Day 724: Schoolyard Tales: Group Work

Mr Benson was a strong believer in cooperation and collaboration, particularly where his students were concerned. Every opportunity he had, he encouraged them to work together on projects and get to know each other a little better. At times this led to conflicts, especially in the more "lively" classes, as he termed them, but on the whole he felt it was a positive teaching strategy, and one which had seen him comfortably through several school inspections with a "Good" rating.

It was a new term, a new chance for the kids to group up and work together. 9F weren't the most cooperative class in the world, but most of them had seemed to accept the fact that English might be a relatively important subject, at least as far as qualifications were concerned.

He surveyed the classroom, the pupils gradually moving into their friendship groups to work on the first assignment he'd given them: to prepare a short interview-style presentation on a book they'd read recently. He always kept the first assignment of a new term relatively freeform and allowed the students to pick who they worked with. As time went on, he deliberately mixed them up and made them work with people they might not normally think to collaborate with. Sometimes this had disastrous consequences, but more often than not he found it had a positive impact on the interpersonal relationships in the classroom.

There was a wild card this time, though. He glanced at the new girl sitting in the corner and frowned at his register. Erin Adams, her name was, scruffily added in pen underneath the cleanly-printed class list he was already familiar with. He'd taught 9F when they were still 8F, and even the "tough" kids in the class gave him some grudging respect. This Adams girl, though, she was an unknown quantity — and judging by her reticence, she felt the same way about her peers.

"Erin," said Benson. "Having trouble finding a group?"

"Y-yes," she said meekly. "I'm new."

"Yes, I know," he said, smiling. "How about you go and work with Berri and Danielle?" He indicated a pair of smiling girls sitting in the corner, knowing full well that they were probably the friendliest of the whole bunch. "Berri? Danielle? You all right with that?"

The two girls nodded and beamed at him. Mr Benson was their favourite. They secretly both harboured a crush on him, but neither would dare admit it to the other, and certainly not to him.

Erin wandered over to the pair of girls and stood looking at them shyly, waiting for one of them to speak.

"Hey," said the blonde girl. "I'm Berri. You knew that already, probably. But I think this is the first time we've spoken."

"And I'm Danielle," said the girl with auburn hair. "You might have known that already, too. You're Erin, right?"

"Yes," said Erin. "I'm, err, new."

Berri giggled.

"Well, no shit. C'mon, this class may act tough but they're easy enough to ignore. Let's get started."

Benson sat down at his desk and began to mark books as the murmuring of conversation began to take hold of the class. Over the course of ten minutes, the murmuring had crescendoed to chattering, and the volume was gradually increasing bit by bit. He knew perfectly well that a goodly proportion of the group weren't listening, so he pulled out his favourite trick.

"All right!" he bellowed, slamming a hardback dictionary down on the desk as hard as he could. His Internet-connected computer in the corner of the room had made physical dictionaries almost obsolete, but he kept the bulky volume around specifically to bang on the desk when he needed to restore order. "And stop."

The chattering gradually subsided, a few disgruntled-looking boys in the corner continuing to whisper for a few seconds longer than anyone else. Benson frowned at them, but said nothing, and they too fell silent.

"I want to just check you're all getting on all right," he said. "And to do that, you're going to tell me what your group is going to talk about."

Benson methodically questioned each group in the room on what they were covering. He weeded out those who were slacking and made a mental note to have a quiet word with them once discussion started once more, and publicly praised those who had taken on ambitious books.

When he came round to Erin, Danielle and Berri's group, he actually applauded when Erin claimed to have read Pride and Prejudice.

"I watched the TV series," admitted Erin. "And I thought it might be fun to read it. You know how people always say that books are always better than films, right? I wanted to see if it was true with a TV series."

"Loser," muttered a boy in the corner. Darren Jackson, Benson's least favourite student. He tried very hard not to have favourites — and, for that matter, least favourites — but when a child was as obnoxious as Darren was, it was difficult not to dislike him. Benson knew there were extenuating circumstances — a broken home life, some possibly-spurious medical condition, a brother in prison — but he didn't felt that excused poor behaviour.

"Darren," said Benson coolly. "What you have done there is made a choice. You have made a choice to be rude and unpleasant to someone we should be making feel welcome. You can wait behind after class, if you please."

Darren tutted, but didn't argue further. He'd learned long ago that Benson was impossible to argue against. Benson only raised his voice when he was banging his dictionary on the table, and even then only to get the students' attention. He certainly never did it in anger.

Erin looked around at everyone who was staring at her after what she had said, and Darren's outburst. She blushed and sat down again.

"Wow," said Berri. "You're smart. Don't mind Darren, he's a dick."

"Yeah," said Danielle. "Stick with us and you'll be fine."

"All right," said Erin absently, but she wasn't really listening. Her hands were shaking and she felt more nervous than she had ever been in her life. She'd spoken up, and someone had ridiculed her. It was going to take a while to recover from this one.

#oneaday Day 722: Schoolyard Tales: First Day

[Explanatory Note: I feel like writing some fiction again, but not sure I want to commit to a full month of nothing but an improvised story at this time. Instead, I am officially inaugurating the Schoolyard Tales series, in which I will attempt to create some recurring characters and provide them with a series of self-contained stories for them to feature in. This may or may not spin out into something bigger over time — I haven't decided yet.]

[Second Explanatory Note: I am English, and as such all the Schoolyard Tales will be set in an English school. This means any mention of "football" refers to soccer, people will use words like "wanker" and no-one has any idea what a "Glee Club" is.]

It was the first day after the holidays — a time for renewal, a time for changes. Today marked the day that some moved on to the next stage of their lives, while others began the part of their journey that would eventually lead to adulthood, and others still were stuck in the middle — drifters, wondering what their role in life was, where they'd end up and whether or not there was any point to it all.

It was 8 a.m., and the bus stop on St George's Road had by now picked up a small collection of kids. The atmosphere was muted. The only sound was the distant sound of traffic, the wind rustling the nearby trees, and the tinny rasp of a mobile phone speakers playing "Power" by Kanye West, its appreciative audience of two halfheartedly dancing and occasionally attempting to sing along, while the remainder of the bus stop's population occasionally gave disgruntled glares in their direction.

Erin Adams adjusted her tie, tightening the knot slightly and pulling it up to the collar of her blouse. She knew that most girls her age tended to wear their ties very short, tucking the longer narrow end into their blouses, but she preferred to be neat and tidy. It was a trait she'd picked up from her mother, who was a compulsive cleaner. The Adams house was always free of dust and looked immaculate — all apart from Erin's room, of course, after an incident with a diary and the subsequent screaming match had taught Mrs Adams that interfering with her daughter's personal space would be a very bad idea.

Erin sighed to herself. She was the new girl. It was all right for the little kids standing over there, wide eyed and curious, apart from the one with his head stuck in his iPhone — how the hell did he afford that? — they got to all be new together. But to join a new school in Year 9, when all the cliques have already formed, everyone is already friends with one another and no-one knows quite what to make of a new face?

She wasn't relishing the prospect, but she knew it was an unavoidable one. Erin's father had fled the family some months previously, leaving Erin and her mother in a house they couldn't afford. Mrs Adams, who had always been rather strong-willed, spent a day of grieving for her failed marriage before waking up bright and early the next day to begin preparations for what she called "The Big Move".

She'd done her best to make it seem like an exciting adventure, and Erin appreciated her mother's efforts to remain upbeat. But Erin had always been something of a daddy's girl, and she missed her father very much. His departure had been sudden, unannounced, inexplicable. He'd made no attempt to reconnect with the family — he'd just packed his bags and gone, and neither Erin nor her mother knew where to find him. Erin knew that she should probably resent him for forcing her into the role of the new girl this late in her school career, but she was more confused than anything else.

She blinked and looked around. No-one seemed to have noticed her presence, or if they had, they didn't seem to care too much. Perhaps the school got a lot of new kids.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the bus. It was a battered-looking old double decker that had seen better days. She joined the line of figures trudging up to the now-open door and fumbled in her trouser pocket for her purse, which contained the bus pass she'd been given.

"Pass please," said the driver, a kindly-looking bald man with a salt-and-pepper goatee. Erin flashed her pass and he nodded, waving her through into the body of the bus.

She surveyed her surroundings. A few kids were scattered on the ground floor. There were a couple of tiny-looking Year 7s who looked as if they were friends from primary school, desperately sticking together in a hope they wouldn't have to talk to anyone they didn't know. There was a tough-looking kid sitting in the middle of the back seat, legs akimbo and arms resting on the backs of the seats around him. No-one was sitting anywhere near him. Erin made a mental note to give him a wide berth. Back-seat kids were generally trouble, in her experience.

She decided to ascend the stairs to the top deck. The bus gave a lurch as she was halfway up, and she nearly fell, but managed to grab hold of the handrail in time. The experience made her heart pound, and she realised that she was actually quite nervous about this whole experience. If a bus pulling away could feel like something frightening, then clearly she was on edge.

She emerged from the staircase on to the top deck, which was also sparsely populated. The number of kids catching this bus really didn't warrant a double-decker, but Erin guessed that the elderly-looking bus would probably have been retired long ago were it not for the school run.

She looked around. A blonde girl with long, immaculate-looking hair. A bespectacled nerdy type in a puffer jacket. A sour-faced boy in a baseball cap. And a couple of giggling boys looking at something concealed by their bags.

Erin walked through the juddering bus and selected a seat that was out of the way of everyone else. She gazed out of the window as the vehicle passed through the streets of the town she'd had just a few weeks to learn to call home. Past what passed for its high street — a tiny collection of local shops, a Co-Op and a Smiths. Past that new-looking estate with the nice, clean-looking houses. Past that really old church. And into the traffic leading through the school gates.

Erin heard the bus driver growl something downstairs and sound the horn. Evidently someone was getting in the way. It had always been the case at her old school, too — tons of kids were driven to school by their parents, and it made the traffic hell. Erin had been able to walk to her old school, so she always watched the congestion with some amusement. Now she was stuck in it, she could see why people got frustrated.

She heard the "hiss" of the doors opening downstairs, and the driver call out "Everybody off! Might as well get out here, 'cause we're not going anywhere and I ain't making you late!"

The kids on the bus got up and trudged miserably downstairs. Erin waited until they'd all passed before following them and getting off the bus.

This was it, then. Time to be The New Girl.

#oneaday Day 695: Where Are They?

Longtime viewers of this blog are probably wondering where my cast of stickmen characters has got to (besides the top of the page and the sidebar, obviously). Newer visitors are probably wondering why on Earth there is a parade of stickmen at the top of the page and in the sidebar.

You'll be pleased (or disappointed) to know that I will be resurrecting the stickmen images for posts starting in the New Year. I haven't yet decided if I'll do a comic every day or only on certain days, or if I'll simply use individual images. I've tried both over the course of the last while, and both have their pros and cons.

I'm not going to make any excuses as to why I'm not doing them at the moment — they may not look like very much, but those images and comic strips take a surprising amount of time to put together, and since getting a lot busier I just didn't have the energy to keep up with doing them and a blog post every day, to be frank. To put it in a simpler, arguably more honest way, I couldn't be arsed.

Now, however, I'm twiddling my thumbs in anticipation of potential new work which may be coming my way from several sources from the New Year onwards. As such, it's got me thinking about flexing my creative muscles a bit more. I've already mentioned that half-finished novel sitting in Google Docs waiting for me to 1) figure out where it's going and 2) finish it. And indeed I've been doing sporadic bits of work on that — though haven't yet got into the "habit" of working on it regularly. Alongside this, I've been experimenting with making YouTube videos of bullet hell shooters — fun, though I anticipate my audience being somewhat limited! And, since I invested a fair amount of my own time, effort and soul into those silly little characters you see at the top of the page, I figured it's time to bring them back.

Creating characters is an odd experience. When you create a character, whether it's a comic book stick figure, a character in a novel, a roleplaying character in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign or any other persona, you can't help thinking of them as your own "children" in a way. You become attached to them — though not necessarily to the degree that you want them to always succeed, particularly in the case of novel characters prone to attracting disastrous situations — and you feel like you "know" them.

Such is the case with the stick figures. There's obviously me, though my abstract representation resembles me in the most superficial manner possible my emphasising what I consider to be my most prominent characteristic — my beard. And from there the others sort of took on a life of their own.

Alex didn't originally have a name and existed purely because I wanted to put a redhead in there. She's often there to provide a splash of colour to an otherwise monochrome scene. Her name came from me asking on Twitter what I should call her, and a (male) friend named Alex politely requesting she be named after him. Alex is relatively normal, though the character trait that she only reads Grazia, not books, was set relatively early in the characters' lifespan as "speaking parts".

Lucy, first seen in this post, originally had black hair, but her overexcitable nature was present and correct. She didn't show up with her blonde hair until considerably later. (I think. I admit I didn't look that hard. But after a cursory glance, that appeared to be the first time Blonde Lucy showed up.) From this we could arguably deduce that one of those is not her natural hair colour. That or I simply decided she'd look better as a blonde, particularly as her dizziness as a character conforms to the "blonde stereotype". (Note: I don't actually believe the blonde stereotype. But Lucy does, and is happy to conform to it.)

Phillipe (don't you dare call him Philippe or he'll hurt you) was an odd one. His distinctive, fixed facial expression came about from how my buddy Edd and I used to draw stickman characters shouting, screaming or generally being noisy back when we were at secondary school. The idea to have him permanently stuck like that coupled with a predilection for getting his knob out at every opportunity was alarmingly quick to occur to me. He's generally used to say things that are a bit closer to the bone (no pun intended) than the other characters might. His name is the result of another Twitter poll, and privately amusing because his personality is pretty much the exact opposite of the person he's named after.

Those four are the main cast who have been present in pretty much every crude drawing on this blog in one form or another. Other recurring characters such as the Money-Bot (originally introduced as a pun on the term "monetization") and Des (whose existence is explained in great detail here) have come and gone and, like the "core four", have taken on something of a life of their own.

So yes, they will be back. As I slowly piece my brain back into some semblance of order — not particularly helped by recent setbacks relating to employment — these facets of my personality (because that's what they are, let's face it) will be making a resurgence. Because for all the pain in the arse it is to draw them every day, having them there is oddly comforting; creating them strangely cathartic.

#oneaday Day 682: Wasteland Diaries, Final Part

[Read from the start. If, you know, you want to. Excuse any typos or errors along the way — this was written along the lines of NaNoWriMo: get it done, (maybe) fix it later. It was also mostly written at ungodly hours in the middle of the night. AND NOW THE CONCLUSION.]

I have come to a decision, and I'm ready to stick to it and live with the consequences, whatever they might be. It's a scary moment, but also a liberating one. By freeing myself from uncertainty and committing to a course of action, I feel that I can positively move forward and take on the future head-on.

Earlier in the morning, Clarkson had called me and said that Adam wanted to see me. I'd had an instinctive feeling when I woke up that today would be an important day, and that feeling's only been growing ever since then.

I've made an effort. I've done my hair, put on a little makeup for the first time in I can't remember how long, and I've found something nice to wear rather than PJs or a horrible, faded old T-shirt. If it's a big day, I should look the part, and to do so I've found a dress I always liked. I've lost a bit of weight ever since all this started, so it hangs a little loosely in some parts, but it stays up, at least, and is probably the most respectable thing I own.

I set off down the street in the direction of the hospital, wondering how the day will unfold. While I've committed to my own course of action, I'm well aware I'm only one of two people in this scenario, and it's entirely possible that things might not go the way I expect. In the end, nothing is certain.

I stop proceeding down that chain of thought because it leads to hesitation, uncertainty and nervousness, none of which I can afford right now. This chapter of my life ends today, and I'm not going to let self-doubt stand in the way of all that. I will do my part to strive towards the future I want, and then I'll just have to see what happens.

It starts drizzling with rain as I walk down the street and, inevitably, I've forgotten an umbrella. Fortunately, the rain doesn't built to the levels it has in the past few days, but it still soaks my hair, putting it at severe risk of doing that fuzzy thing it always does in damp conditions. I may as well have not bothered sorting it out.

I quicken my pace and before long have arrived at the hospital. I follow the familiar path up to Adam's room, and find Clarkson waiting outside for me.

"Hello, Evie," he says, a serious expression on his face. "Go on in, he's awake."

I push open the door and walk into the dimly-lit room. Adam is lying in the bed, propped up into an almost-natural sitting position. He looks tired, still.

"Hi," he says, his voice cracked and weak. "Glad you're here."

"Me too," I say, sitting down in the chair next to him and taking his hand. "I–"

"Wait," he croaks, interrupting me. "Please, let me talk first."

"Okay," I say.

"Evie," he says. "I've come to a realisation after the very strange experiences I've had."

He pauses, swallows and licks his lips before continuing.

"After you… told me you weren't ready to be a mother, I jumped to a conclusion," he says. "I jumped to the conclusion that it was all about me. That you didn't want me, that you didn't see a future with us both in it."

"That's not what I thought at all," I say quietly. "But I understand why you thought that, and why you did what you did. I'm sorry I did what I did in the way I did. I'm sorry — I'm sorry I killed our baby."

He smiles and shakes his head.

"When I ran from you, I felt like the world had been destroyed," he says. "I felt like you were the one who had destroyed it. Everything ceased to have meaning, and I felt that there was no place for me in a world like that. Everything, everyone was dead to me."

He pauses and coughs a little. I move to help him, but he just shakes his head, dismissing me. I sit back down again.

"I know now that I was wrong," he growls, his voice weakening. "I know now that it wasn't you who was being selfish, it was me."

There's a silence for a moment. I can't deny it, even with the guilt I feel over causing all this.

"It wasn't your fault," he says, as if reading my thoughts. "You didn't cause this. I did. My own stubbornness, my own stupidity."

I see his eyes filling with tears. I let him speak.

"You weren't the one who ended my world," he says, "I was the one who ended yours. I've put you through all this. I've made you suffer. And for what? It's not fair. I can't keep doing that to you. I can't ruin your life any more. I can't hold you down. I can't keep you back. You're not my property. You're not mine to command."

He changed. He's like a different person. No — he's like the person I first fell in love with, not the hollow wreck of a man who'd been plummeting towards rock bottom even before all this happened. It's good to see him back again. And a feeling of relief sweeps through my mind.

"No," I say, smiling. "I'm not. But I've learned something, too. What we are is a team. We work together. We decide things together. Neither of us has to be alone. Neither of us has to make the difficult decisions by ourselves. What's done is done, and I hope you can forgive me, but I can assure you it will never happen again."

"I know," he says, quietly. "You were the one who led me back to reality, Evie. By following you, that's why I'm here. You were the whole reason for my journey. You saved me, whether or not you intended to."

"What journey?" I say. "What do you mean?"

He smiles and closes his eyes. I feel his fingers wrap around mine.

"This is the end," he says. "And the beginning, all at once."

#oneaday Day 681: Wasteland Diaries, Part 29

She was there, and talking, and I heard her, and then she was gone and I felt sleepy. I drifted off into slumber, but this wasn't like it had been before. This was restful and relaxing. When I woke up, I felt invigorated, though my body still felt stiff, and unable to move, and I was still strapped to an array of beeping, whirring machines.

An older guy with a kindly face came in to see me. I recognised his voice, though I wasn't sure from where. He did some tests. I felt him fumbling around on my body, but it didn't hurt. I wasn't sure exactly what he was doing as I couldn't lift my head up to see.

"Don't worry," he said to me. "You're probably feeling a little disorientated right now. And that's perfectly normal. So is that feeling of numbness and stiffness in all your limbs. You haven't moved for a good long time."

I tried to reply, but no sound came out.

"You keep resting," he said. "You'll be fine from here."

I wanted to believe him. This room that I was in was claustrophobic, and being stuck on my back wired up to gadgets and gizmos wasn't helping me. I felt anxious, and suddenly keen to be outside.

I wasn't even sure where "here" was. The memories of my desperate flight up the stairs away from the beast were still with me, though details were fading. Had that really happened?

I frowned. Feeling in my face was starting to come back, so I wiggled my eyebrows comically as I pondered the meaning of what had transpired. I must have looked ridiculous, but fortunately the man had left by this point.

I was confused. What was real, and what was fake? She had been a prominent part of what I'd just been through, but then she was there when I woke up too, and it didn't seem to add up.

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind. I felt as if parts of my body were slowly coming back to life. The sensation was distracting enough to divert my thoughts away from the confusion of my situation. I twitched my toes and my fingertips, though moving whole limbs still felt like an impossible task. I moved my nose in a sneer, and back down again, and wiggled my eyebrows again for good measure. I opened my mouth and tried to make a sound, but my throat was so dry it simply came out as a zombie-like gargling. I wanted to laugh at how absurd I must look right now, but it too much effort.

I heard the door go again and opened my eyes. I tried to move my neck, but it didn't go anywhere. Before long, the older guy's face was before me again. I think he was sitting or kneeling next to the bed on which I lay.

"Adam," he said. "Welcome back. I'm sure you're very confused, and you have many questions, and equally are finding it very difficult to answer them right now. So let me try and explain what has been happening to you.

"You have been in a coma for some time now. You took one hell of an overdose, but fortunately your ladyfriend was able to call for an ambulance and get you here in time to save you. She wasn't with you when it happened, as you'd had a falling-out, but you'd sent her a text message — a technological suicide note, as it were. She did the right thing and saved your life by calling us straight away.

"Since that time, you've been unconscious. We've been monitoring you closely, and it's clear that your brain was very active during that time — dreaming, in a sense. Not all coma patients dream — it depends on how much damage the brain has suffered, if any. But we could tell that your brain was still alive and well, if not what was going on."

A dream? That would explain the vagueness of the memories I have of what I've been through, and why they're fading so quickly.

"Evie came to see you almost every day," he continued. "She never gave up on you. She'd spend time with you, talk to you, read to you. She gave up her life for you. It's not often you see that amount of commitment to another person."

"Guilty," I eventually managed to murmur in a choked voice. "But… My fault."

"No-one's to blame," he replied. "Or if either of you are, there's no sense in assigning blame at this point. You've reached the end of one thing and the beginning of another. This is a turning point. Whatever happened before doesn't have to matter now. You can start afresh — if you want to, of course."

Although details of my long journey were slowly disappearing into the darkest recesses of my memory as we spoke, I still recalled the conversation I'd had with Evie over that table, and how I'd responded to her admission.

"ALPHA AND OMEGA WILL UNITE," that strange text message had said. It had stuck in my mind because of how unusual and out of place it was, but now I understood.

The beginning and end will unite. It meant so many things. What I had thought would be the beginning of a new life with Evie and the baby turned out to be the end of everything. The end of the world was the beginning of my journey. The end of my journey was made up of the events which had caused it to begin in the first place. And now that chapter of my life was ending, causing a new one to begin.

I was ready to face that future. But was Evie?

As I felt my strength returning and my body awakening after its long slumber, I knew that the next day would be the true day of reckoning.

#oneaday Day 680: Wasteland Diaries, Part 28

I look down at him, gazing into his eyes for the first time since the whole nightmare started. They're tired and bloodshot, but I recognise them like I last saw them yesterday. They look calm, at peace — or perhaps it's just the tiredness. He's squinting at me, as if even the little light in the room hurts to look at.

"I'll give you a moment," says Clarkson, vacating the room. I hear the door lightly thump shut behind him, and we're alone.

I'm lost for words. I don't know what to say. Those eyes are looking at me in that way they always did, piercing my soul, as if they knew my every innermost thought. Of course, they didn't, which is what led us into this whole situation in the first place, but–

I blink and push the negative thoughts from my head.

"Adam," I say at last after what seems like an eternity of the only sound in the room being the regular bleep, bleep, bleep of the equipment he's wired up to. My voice cracks a little. "Adam," I say again.

He keeps looking at me, but he says nothing, and doesn't move. The only sign of life in him right now is in those eyes, and even then the spark within them is weak.

"I'm sorry," I say. "Look, you don't have to say anything. I know that I'm the one who put you here. I know that I'm the one who caused this nightmare to happen with my selfishness and foolishness. And I want you to know that I'm sorry."

His eyes keep looking at me, but now I see them fill with tears. He doesn't make a sound, but a sparkling droplet emerges from the corner of one eye and rolls down his cheek before plopping onto the sheet.

"I know there's things you want to say to me, Adam," I continue. "And I will hear all of them, listen to all of them. I owe you that much."

I stop, and find myself sobbing, though I'm not sure why.

"I don't even know if you want me here," I say, tears blurring my vision. I blink them away. "After what I did I'd understand if you'd be disappointed that the first person you saw when you woke up was me. But I– I never gave up on you, Adam. I know you gave up on yourself — and on me. I know you felt like your world ended when I said those words to you. But I–"

I can't finish the sentence, and only partly because I'm not sure exactly what it is I want to say. The tears are flowing freely, and trying to say any more only comes out as choked sobs. I take his hand in my own and lift it up. There's no resistance in his arm, and his fingers don't grip my hand in the way they once did. I squeeze his hand all the more tightly to make up for it.

I hear the door open behind me, and Clarkson comes back in quietly. He places a hand gently on my shoulder. It's a comforting feeling, and it reminds me of my father.

"Okay, Evie," he says. I'm only vaguely aware of his voice. "I think it's time that we let him rest for a bit."

I nod, trying to compose myself and failing.

"He's been through a lot," continues Clarkson. "And I'm not sure any of us will understand quite how much. Perhaps he won't, even. But he's on track to make a full recovery. I can't say how long that will take, but it will happen. Then your life can begin again anew." He hesitates a moment. "Assuming… you both want it to, of course."

Do I? I can't answer that right now, but the amount of times I've stood by this bedside imagining what this very moment would be like surely speaks volumes. Or does it? What if I was just coming here to deal with my own feeling of guilt? It was my sin that put him here, my sin that destroyed his world, his future.

Am I willing to give him what he wants? I still don't have an answer to Annie's question. I'm confused right now, not thinking straight, waves of emotion washing over me, making my knees tremble and my pulse race. I'm barely even aware of where I am or what I'm doing, and am surprised to find myself outside the room sat on one of those uncomfortable chairs, Clarkson kneeling before me.

"Evie," he says. "I know this has been tough, and it might not be quite what you'd expected or hoped for. But I thought you would want to be there as soon as it happened."

"Yes," I say in a voice little more than a whisper. "Yes, I would. I do. I will. I– oh, whatever, I… Thank you."

"Now," he continues. "You're clearly exhausted, and so is he. Despite being unconscious for so long, it's pretty obvious that he needs some proper, uninterrupted, normal sleep before he takes on this brave new world he finds himself in."

I feel Clarkson's eyes on me and I'm suddenly aware that I'm barefoot, clad only in my robe and pyjamas.

"How about I call you a cab?" he says. "You're in no state to be walking home like that."

"No money," I say weakly. My blood suddenly runs cold, but I calm down slightly as I pat my pocket and realise that I fortunately did have the good sense to at least pick up my keys when I raced out earlier.

"Ah," says Clarkson. He stands and fumbles in his pocket before drawing out a leather wallet and lifting a crumpled £10 note from within. "My treat," he says.

I'm overcome with gratitude. I want to cry again, but I really don't have the energy. I take the £10 note and just look at it dumbly.

"Look, Evie," he says. "What happens between you two from here is your business and your business alone. But I want you to know that I have faith that you'll both do what's right. I've seen the way you look at him every time you've been in here, even when there's nothing new to report. And it's inspirational. Few people have the strength of character to keep going like you have. That's worth a lot. And I'm sure he knows that too."

I'm glad someone has faith in me, because although I know he's back, suddenly I feel very alone. It's all on me to draw this sorry business to a close.

#oneaday Day 679: Wasteland Diaries, Part 27

"So that's your answer?" said my voice from somewhere in the darkness. "Interesting. Well, if you get the chance, let's see if you can stick to it. Now, though, you have more pressing matters."

There was a rumble, and the floor shook. Evie had disappeared immediately after I had answered what she'd said, but I was still sitting on the chair. The table was still in front of me, and the earth tremor was strong enough to knock it over. I leapt to my feet and planted them firmly on the floor to keep my footing as the ground seemed to buck and writhe beneath me. My heart was still pumping from the conversation we'd just had, and my senses seemed heightened, alert. I was in full-on "fight or flight" mode.

From somewhere in the darkness came a terrible roar. I couldn't see what it was but I recognised the awful feeling of rage behind it. I knew that right now, I didn't want to be anywhere near that thing, so I started running. All around the pool of light that had held the table and chairs was darkness, so I didn't even know if I was running in the right direction. All I knew was that I needed to get away from that awful sound, that howl of anguish, that outcry of fury.

I kept running, looking only ahead of me, not daring to glance over my shoulder in case it was there. Before long, out of the darkness loomed one of the horrible fleshy walls, and in it, right in front of me, a door. This one had a handle, but it flew open before I got to it and allowed me through. Presently I found myself in a corridor much like that through which I had arrived in this strange place, only this time it was sloping slightly upwards — to freedom?

I couldn't tell, but I had to keep moving. I raced up the shallow slope of the long staircase, taking care not to trip on the steps or slip on the puddles of liquid on the floor — blood or water, neither were something I wanted to skid on and injure myself or, worse, end up in the maw of whatever beast was pursuing me.

I ran, the adrenaline making my pulse thump in my ears and pushing my body forward at a speed I barely thought possible. The red lights on the walls seemed to swirl past me in a blur, and still I ascended, breathing deeply and panting as I did so. But I had to keep going.

The beast roared behind me once again and I knew it was in the passage with me. I chanced a look behind me, but the staircase descended into darkness behind me — it looked like the lights were going out as I passed — and I couldn't see what it was that pursued me. I wasn't going to wait around for formal introductions, either, because it didn't sound like it wanted to talk — more to tear me limb from limb.

The walls blurred past me and in a strange inversion of what I'd witnessed on the way down, the fleshy, living walls gradually gave way to cold steel. And off in the distance, I wasn't sure, but I felt like I could see a white light. Some of it was filtering down the corridor, giving the otherwise red-tinted scenery a hint of colour.

I knew I had to reach that light, and I had to do it before the creature caught up with me. A frustrated howl sounded behind me, and I could tell it was drawing closer. I couldn't stop, though my breath was giving out, my legs burning with the effort of climbing and my heart beating so hard I felt like it would burst through my chest.

I let out a shout of my own — not in an attempt to intimidate the beast, but in an effort to spur myself on and make it through this final stretch. I could see my goal ahead of me in the distance, up yet more of these infernal steps, but it didn't seem to be coming any closer, and all the while I felt the beast gaining on me. As I struggled to keep running, my mind started to turn to thoughts of what the creature might do if it caught me, whether there was even the slightest chance of me surviving if I didn't keep moving.

Of course there wasn't. Nothing that makes a sound like that is willing — or able — to negotiate. That sort of otherworldly roar is the stuff of fiction — or nightmares. But it was here, and it was closing on me.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw a pair of glowing red eyes in the darkness — or was it more of the red lamps? I didn't know, or care at this point. I spurred myself on and pushed onwards, ever further up the endless staircase towards the brilliant white light in the distance and the possible freedom it held. It didn't matter that I didn't know what the light represented. It didn't matter that it might turn out to be nothing. I couldn't give up. I wouldn't give up. Not after all this. I wasn't going to let things end this way. Everything would have been for nothing if they had.

The beast roared again, this time right behind me. I was too terrified to look back to see how much space — and time — I had left, but I was close to the light now, so close. There were only a few more steps remaining. I was going to make it. I was going to be free. I was going to escape this horror. I was going to–

I felt the beast's claws slash at my back and I stumbled forwards. The pain was unbearable. It felt like acid-tipped spikes had torn through my flesh. Tears sprang to my eyes and I cried out, but I regained my balance and kept moving.

I looked back. I shouldn't have, but I did. It was upon me — a writhing mass of pure darkness, two flaming red eyes glaring at me as it bore down on me, nothing but death on its mind. In the smoky blackness I was sure I saw images, but I knew I couldn't get drawn into them, for that truly would be the end. Instead, all I had to do was–

The beast interrupted my flow of thoughts by lunging for my leg, trying to grab me. I leapt forward, straight into the white light.

It was a strange sensation, like leaping through a silk sheet while someone shone a floodlight in your face. I was blinded. The beast was nowhere to be seen. My ears filled with white noise. I was disoriented. I couldn't tell which way was up. I fell. I tumbled. I span. I called out, but the noise was too great. I was in the middle of everything and nothing, so insignificant in the midst of the chaos around me. I screwed up my eyes and waited for it to pass as I fell through — what?

Abruptly, the sensations and the terrible noise stopped, and I was lying on my back, my eyes still closed. It was surprisingly comfortable after what I'd just been through, though I felt like there was something stuck up my nose. I tried to move, but my muscles were stiff from the climb, and I only managed to twitch a finger.

Then I opened my eyes, and there she was.

#oneaday Day 678: Wasteland Diaries, Part 26

Annie's question haunts me.

"What are you going to do? Are you going to give him what he wants?"

As I lie awake staring at the ceiling — a familiar sight by now after many sleepless nights — I ponder it. Will I give him what he wants? I'm still not sure if I can, particularly after all this. When it happens — if it happens at all — I want it to be because we're both ready and able to support both ourselves and the little one — oh God, a little person, an actual real human person…

I screw my eyes up and pull the pillow around my ears as if muffling the sounds of the outside world will also muffle out the thoughts whirling around the inside of my head. I'm going in circles, around and around and around. I don't even know if the possibilities I'm considering are even, well, possibilities. But my brain, on edge as it is right now, is flitting from one extreme to the other of what might happen when — if — he comes around. And for all I know, that might never happen. Although if that were so why did his–

I growl to myself, more to break the silence than anything else, and the sudden noise in the otherwise almost completely silent room distracts me for a short while. Then it's back to that sound of emptiness. In the near-silence, all the other sounds seem amplified. There's the whirring sound of the fridge, the gurgling sound of the dodgy boiler, the sloshing of water in the pipes. Outside I can hear the occasional car going past, the occasional shouting drunkard in the street. These are all sounds so familiar to me by now that I just tune them out usually, but now they're providing welcome distraction from the thoughts in my head.

Before long, though, they fade into the background once more, and I find myself asking the same questions over and over again. Will I be welcome back into his life? Do I want him back in my life? Could I give him what he wants? Will he give me what I want?

After all, we actually both want the same thing. The only difference is that he wants — wanted — it now, I want it when things are more stable. I couldn't bring up a child in the situation we were in. It wasn't that I didn't want it at all, it's that it just wouldn't work, and it would end up tearing us apart. The ironic thing is the way I handled it all ended up tearing us apart anyway. Perhaps if I'd just talked to him, we could have worked it all out, come to a compromise.

But it's too late to think about that now. He's lying there, unaware of anything and everything. I don't even know if he's dreaming, if he's aware of what's going on around him, if he'll even remember me when he comes back. His reaction showed me that he was on the edge, that his life depended on me, on us.

Do I want that? Do I want him to be dependent on me? I'm not sure I do. I can't be responsible for the happiness of one human being so completely. Can I? It's what I'd have to do if I was a mother, so why not–

My thoughts are cut abruptly short by the shrill, piercing ring of the ancient telephone in my flat. It used to belong to my parents and is seriously retro, but I could never bring myself to part with it. Right now its mechanical ring is echoing around my brain. It feels like the loudest sound I've ever heard. And it's frightening.

Phone calls in the middle of the night are only ever bad news. But what could it be? Could it–

I don't have time to sit around thinking about it. It'll stop ringing in a moment and despite my fear, I have to know what it is. I leap out of bed and run to the phone in the hallway, snatching it up to my ear and breathlessly muttering "Hello?" just as the person on the other end is saying something to someone else, probably wondering where I am.

"Oh, hello," comes a familiar voice, their conversation cutting off hastily. "Is that… Evie? Evie Anderton?"

"Yes," I say, panting. It isn't far from the bedroom to the hallway but I feel like I've just run a marathon.

"I'm sorry to disturb you so late," says the voice. "This is Dr. Clarkson down at the hospital."

So that's his name.

"Hello, Doctor," I say. "Is… everything all right?"

There's a pause.

"I… I'm not sure over the phone is the best way to do this," Clarkson says. "If it's not too inconvenient for you, I think you might want to get down here quickly."

My heart leaps into my mouth, and my gut ties itself into a knot. What does he mean? What could have happened? Why is he calling me? Why is–

"Please hurry," says Clarkson. "I'm sorry I can't explain more. But if you're coming, come quickly."

I slam the phone down without saying goodbye, hastily grabbing the keys off the table in the hallway and bursting out into the street without putting any shoes on. It's cold outside, and it's raining heavily. I pull my robe more tightly around myself for warmth, but it doesn't really matter to me right now. I have to get there.

My bare feet splash through puddles on the floor, spattering the legs of my pyjamas with droplets of water, sticking them to my ankles. But it doesn't matter. I have to get there.

I round the corner, ignoring the funny looks I get from the few people still wandering the streets at this time of night — mostly drunks and tramps, I guess — and follow the familiar route through the streets to the hospital. The rain is worsening. There's a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder almost immediately. The storm must be right overhead. But it doesn't matter. I have to get there.

I burst through the front doors of the hospital and charge straight past the reception area. I hear someone calling after me, then a murmured call to security. But it doesn't matter. I have to get there.

I take the stairs two at a time — I can't wait for the lift, I have to keep moving — until I'm on the floor I've been to so many times by now. I charge past a tired-looking nurse in the corridor before he can say anything, and see the door to the room I've been in so many times in front of me.

Clarkson is sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the room. He stands at my approach, a warm, fatherly look in his eyes. I want to cry, but there's no time. What has happened?

"Follow me," he says solemnly, pushing open the door to the room.

I follow him, knowing nothing except one thing: for better or worse, what I'm about to see will mean the end of this particular nightmare.