CONTENT WARNING: This chapter may contain coarse language, mentions of blood, sexual violence, and suicide. Please proceed with caution.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The day before 2018. The day everybody in the whole world is reflecting on all the events, and everything they learned, on the preceding year. This dreaded year is coming to an end.

Especially for Gwen, who looked weary after days of playing---

"Gwen! Open up!" knocked her mother on the door.

Her heavily bagged eyes just blankly stared at the salmon door. Hands still on the Gameboy. There still goes the banging.

"What?! Are you not gonna open this door?" the mother yelled. The pale looking girl laid down on the floor. The mother unlocks the door and slams it open as she couldn't take it.

"What?" she asked her daughter as she made her dramatic entrance. "Are you gonna play video games for the rest of your life? You think about yourself for once young lady!" she continues to sermon her. "Now look at you. You've become lazier than usual because of those stupid video games. Is that how a lady act?"

There was no answer.

"Fine. If you don't talk, you'll see your things on the streets!" the mother then left her.

Gwen stood up and turned everything off. She just stood up and looked upon the ceiling. Her tears are beginning to stream down her face. She then saw her mother rushing to her position and threw her laptop, along with the Gameboy, out of the room.

"Get out!" the mother sternly told. "I don't need useless people here! Your laptop and Gameboy are outside!"

Still with no response, Gwen went outside as her mother told. She picks up her things and went to the front door. She was pushed out by mother making her stumble down the stairs.

"That's right! You better go! I don't wanna see your face again!" the aged woman slammed the door right after these words.

"Stupid girl. After all this time, no one helped me." the mother mumbled to herself and continued with her work. But the noisy stereo shut down. She looked away from the dough.

"The power must be out." she whispered.

Either way, she continued making the media noche, the meal for New Year's Eve until she discovered that the fire isn't turning on. She is surprised at this. "I just bought this tank yesterday." she said.

Footsteps can be heard from in front of her direction. "Gwen?"

She went to the kitchen to make sure, but she saw that the refrigerator is open. Frost is coming out from it.

"How could I forget to close this thing?" she slammed it shut. The mother heard another batch of footsteps going up the stairs.

A familiar 16-bit background music can be heard from Gwen's room, the mother went inside the room again and saw Gwen. The mother gulped. It's as if she didn't kick her out, throwing harsh words at her just a while ago.

"Mom, get out of my room, I'm playing Pokémon!" she yelled.

The mother was dumbfounded. All her stuff was still here, she was seeing her own daughter in the flesh.

"I kicked you out, didn't I?" she mumbled. "You're supposed to be outside! With your useless junk!"

Gwen didn't mind her mother. She was just busy with her game. Angry, the mother marched in her room and tried to turn off the switch of the extension. The light not going off made this woman confused as she knows that the power went off.

"Ma, I said get out. I'll go down to the dining table later, then we'll eat." The mother gasped, getting goosebumps as to what she just witnessed. First the power going off, the gas stove not working, then Gwen showing up just as early as when she kicked her out of the house.

These are exactly like what happens on the movies she watches on TV; she knows it isn't real until everything happening on her own eyes proves her wrong.

"I kicked you out!" she yelled loud enough to catch Gwen's attention. The girl froze on her seat. Then she stood up.

"You kicked me out?" Gwen laughed at her mom. "Why would you do such a thing, ma? When I'm in my room this whole time?"

The lady, in her old age, was creeped out.

You're not her. She whispered to herself. She wants to get out of that room now, but her feet are still glued to the white marble floor. The mother stayed as she watches the figure of her daughter playing the Gameboy, and her laptop, and table, that aren't damaged.

They're not real. All these are in her head! She just threw her daughter, and her things out a while ago... but they're too real to be just her hallucinations! The mother unknowingly walked close to where Gwen was supposed to be, attempting to throw her out again.

"Ma, I said I'll come down later!" Gwen's voice sounded like she's asking for help. "Let me finish this game." The mother didn't hear her. She yelled at Gwen like she did a while ago.

"Didn't I tell you to get out?!" The mother's hands are balled into fists. Gwen finally looked at her and said, "Do you want me to go out?"

"You don't say?" She raised an eyebrow at her daughter and continued, "You've been a useless runt this whole time, playing with your Gameboy!"

The mother made Gwen put her pocket console down, crawling backwards against her direction.

"Ma, please! I'll stop!"

"Don't wait for me to drag you down again!" she shouted, and as she grabs the girl, her hard hand just passed through Gwen. She was shocked.

And everything just disappeared. The room went back to when she just threw Gwen and her things out. The mother is close to panicking, so she breathes in and out.

She went out of the room, and to add more insult to injury, the mother started to see splashes of blood on the walls. And a trail of red, pungent liquid, on her right was only significant as it surprisingly leads to the way to the living room.

The mother coughed. She's had enough of the scent of rusted iron in the house. But she couldn't take her eyes off the living room...

A splash of blood on the glass window. A figure of a young girl hanging from the ceiling. And a notebook left open at the coffee table.

The mother wanted to run away again; this sight is so traumatizing for her. As if her legs have a mind of its own, she walked towards the coffee table where the notebook is. She read what was inside.

ADVENTURE RULE NO. 1: Open the MENU with START.

ADVENTURE RULE NO.2: Record your progress with SAVE., one page wrote. After flipping several pages, the mother found:

"Lora" written on a whole page was all capital letters and as if blood was used writing it. The mother gulped; she'd rather think of it as something she can just shrug off but... it made her freak out.

She flipped the pages of the notebook and out of those many pages, she found the words "hung" and "herself" done in the exact same manner.

"Enough of these," she whispered to herself. "After all, this is all in my head now..."

She stopped in her tracks; a dark figure loomed all over her. This could have been an opportunity for her to run away but before she can, she's caught by it.

The mother was laid down the floor, the blank-faced man smashing what looked like a Gameboy at her head as she cried for help. Then she was raised up and pinned to the floor, strangling her. The aged woman couldn't see what the man looked like, and how his face reacted. She's slowly losing her breath.

Then the same masked man bashed her head against the walls of her own living room. Still, she cried for help, but her body is too weak to even control herself any longer. Something was shoved in and out of her womanhood.

And when the man finished her, he just dragged Gwen's mother out of the living room, and he threw her on the stairs. He disappeared quickly without showing his face. The mother opened her eyes, and she's at the living room with the loud music on.

"Gwen!" she immediately yelled.

She rushed up the stairs, she saw it empty. Only Gwen's bed was left. She began to get nervous. The mother breathed in and out to calm herself... she realized that she was never calm from the beginning.

What added to her worries is the stove that's left on. The casserole is on fire! The mother ran towards the kitchen, but before she could turn the knob, it exploded. The fires consumed the house... including the helpless mother.