Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-7673575-20171018020948

I decided to take events that happened in my life and put them on a paper. And so I made a thing.

***

We all like to play videogames.

Sure, there are deffinitely a few exceptions, but then again, there are some green apples in a bushel of red ones.

Among us, there are also those that enjoy the Horror genre of games: Amnesia, Penumbra, F.E.A.R, Silent Hill, and the list goes on. Some of these games have succesfully incorporated fear into themselves, using atmosphere, terror, and music. Some on the other hand, have failed, resorting to using cheap tricks like jumpscares. All things considered, I’m not a fan of Horror games. I prefer games where you get to stick something with a decent looking sword.

And that is how I came across a gaming experience I would never forget.

A few years back, my sister bought a game for our younger cousin (the audacity, I know). However, there was an issue: it turned out that he was far too young to play it, and the contents of the game later confirmed it. Therefore, my aunt, his mother, decided to give the game to me.

The game was ‘Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones’.

I immediately liked it, and played it whenever I could. I managed to complete it in just under two weeks.

After completing it, I was eager to play more. But the sad truth is that you can only truly play a game once.

And so, about a year later, I saved up some money and got myself a copy of ‘Prince of Persia: Warrior Within’.

The game did not disappoint me. It was very much like ‘The Two Thrones’, with addition of more blood and gore, scantly dressed females with swords (which I consider the closest thing to perfection mankind has ever been) and just deliciously unnecessary slaughterhouse of violence and two whole swearwords. To say that I loved the game would be a severe understatement.

But things would soon be turned around.

I had just finished dealing with the first boss, and was just merrily slashing my way through some generic henchmen, when a cutscene started.

It featured the protagonist, aptly named Prince, jumping down into a large chamber, only to hide behind a large stone moments later. Loud footfall started filling my ears, and then he came into sight: the Dahaka.

He proceeded to literally knock about a dozen or so bars from the wall before leaving. I continued to play, but now with a small and uncertain feeling of insecurity.

It soon became evident that I would have to enter the very hole in the wall that Dahaka made. I wasn’t too happy about it, but the game wouldn’t play itself. As I entered it, I found myself in a large, empty hallway, thankfully devoid of ancient deities. As I made my way out, another cutscene started. It featured a close up of Prince’s tortured face, and then he spoke:

“The Dahaka. It has found me here.”

The perspective switched behind the Prince, and one again, ground began thumping as if an elephant with steel legs walked through. The Prince turned around and found himself face to face with Dahaka, before breaking into run. The cutscene ended, and the game was back on.

I started to run. I knew damn well that I should under no circumstances stop. And even if I could, I would not do it. Even though I was on a safe side of the screen and in a broad daylight, I felt a primal, savage fear; like I myself was being chased: I was sweating and breathing like I just ran a marathon, and my pulse seemed to agree with that. Every time the Dahaka appeared on screen, my heart would jump to my throat. I finally managed to escape, and only because the Prince jumped behind a curtain of water, which the Beast was apparently unable to cross.

During the course of game, a few more of these ‘Dahaka Chases’ occurred, and they weren’t any less frightening. Sometimes, the creature would almost catch up with me, and the screen would turn sepia. Sometimes, the slow rhytmic thump of his mighty feet would be replaced with running that sounded not unlike the landslide, and the entire screen would shake. Sometimes he would speak, and even though it was just inverted English, it sounded like an ancient, evil language.

But what frightened me the most was the Dahaka’s tirelessness and apparent total indestructibility: it hunted me without relent, for a simple purpose of removing me from existence, and thus fixing a ripple in the Timeline that I have caused. I tried to fight it once, but as soon as I would get too close, the Beast would shoot tentacles from its abdomen, catch me, turn me to sand, and then absorb me into a gapping emptyness that was himself. And even when mechanics of game allowed me to land a hit on him, it was like striking a wall. I couldn’t fight him, I couldn’t hurt him. I could only run. During one of those chases, a bug happened: where Dahaka should have been halted by a curtain of water, he simply passed right through it, and continued to pursue me. At that moment, I broke. My hands fell from mouse and keyboard and I sunk my hands into them, crying. Crying from unreasonable, and yet almost tangible fear. Crying from the most primal emotion a man had, hardwired into his brain millenias ago: a fear of things you cannot fight, of things bigger that you, of things that want your death and your death only. The fear of the unknown. I wept so loudly, my mom came running, fearing for me. When she found me sitting before a computer, she was confused, and kept asking me what was wrong. I couldn’t answer, as my tears choked me.

When I finally mustered enough courage to replay that sequence, the bug did not repeat itself.

I found out that game has two alternate endings: one of them was to appease the Dahaka, the other was to kill him (apparently, it was also possible somehow). I completed them both, and at the end of each one, I felt relieved: for what I did, the Dahaka would chase me no further.

But that was not the end of it.

Some times later, I started having nightmares: I would run through a hall, and an unseen entity/force would hunt me. I always woke up bathed in cold sweat, scanning the empty dark of my room. I always slept with a bottle of water by my side in case I needed a late-night drink, but it was now impossible to sleep if the bottle wasn’t within my reach at all times. I also started keeping a rather large knife next to me, for a good measure.

Thankfully, the nightmares soon wore off, and I was once again able to sleep peacefully.

Since then, I replayed the game a few times, and even though it no longer causes me fear, I still get uncomfortable whenever he appears. I discovered, to my great relief, that other Prince of Persia games did not possess such frightening entities, and I played most of them with great joy.

I have played many games in my life, and faced many opponents in them: monsters, animals, zombies, demons, gods, dragons, you name it. And I defeated all of them.

And none of them… none of them managed to cause within me a fraction of fear that Dahaka did. The words he spoke, the words I managed to decode, still haunt me to this day, as they bear a message of innevitability of fate that presided over that universe. And even as I type this, I can still hear them:

“Come to me. Come to your death.”

“You will be removed!”

“No one escapes the Dahaka.”

 