crystal_wb
Greenhorn
I worked on updating the mod "Cotton the sweetest shopkeeper" by AcidHeartmus, however I was unable to obtain permission to share it. Though disappointing it gave me the idea of making my own NPCs. I've had this story in my head for many years and I feel more than ready to tell it because that story ended up foretelling various events in my life. Sometimes I wonder if I had managed for a brief time to link with my future self. It's probably coincidence, but the story feels even more relevant to my life than when I initially wrote it. I no longer have that old spiral notebook I wrote it in but the memory of it is seared in my mind.
This is a dark story. There are many triggering things. It is a fictionalization of my mental health struggles, survival of abuse, and the realization that you can't fix someone.
I wrote the original story steam of consciousness style. I'm going to attempt to do that here as I work on translating this story into a mod.
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The summer is hot, muggy. The air thick, so much so that it feels like walking through feet of hot water. I sit in a room decorated in pink floral. My emotions are mixed beyond recognition. I should be happy right? Excited? I'm a freshman in college in a new town, a new state even. All the bad memories of my past are left behind. Do I leave the good memories behind too?
I feel strangely alone even though for the first time since I was little there are other people home with me and they aren't asleep. Yet here I am, in my new room, not talking to them. The hallway sits like a mouth opened in a silent scream. Why do I feel like I walked death row and I'm waiting for someone to flip the switch? My stomach queasy, my heart beating a little to fast, my chest tight, and my head buzzing. I should leave... but I can't leave. It's too late. It must be nerves or something. This is my aunt and uncle's house, my cousin seems fine, so why wouldn't I be?
No matter what I tell myself, I'm scared and I don't know why.
That's not true... I know why but I don't understand the why. My uncle and my cousin have a strange relationship. My aunt acts like it's good and normal. What do I know? I grew up without a dad. Maybe this is how father's are with their daughters. I don't know, but it feels tense and oddly sexual somehow. He's not her birth father. He married my aunt when me and my cousin were 13. I felt he was a bit odd from the time I met him. But I assumed it was awkwardness and lacking social grace. I recall the time he talked about how he ended up at the same college as my aunt. She had moved out of state gone to college after getting divorced. She is much older than my uncle and when she first introduced him to us it was as a friend. Eventually they became more than friends. My grandfather objected to their marriage. He didn't think my uncle would be a good husband. But his opinion didn't hold much weight sense he included anti intellectual rhetoric. I wasn't sure about the marriage either, I felt like my aunt was in a bad place when she met him and she moved to quickly to marriage. But I kept those thoughts to myself. I digress. The reason I'm thinking of how they first met is because of something my uncle said to me. He said he had fallen for this girl, but he didn't know how to approach her. The way he spoke of her you'd think she was a goddess or something. In any case. She moved out of state to go to college and he followed her... he followed her and went to the same school as her... he followed her and joined the same church as her. She got married and he got married not long after. This was very strange to me. It wasn't like some years ago act, this was fairly recent and all of a sudden he loved my aunt, whom looks/acts nothing like the woman he spoke of like she was the love of his life.
It was weird already but got stranger. He told me that I reminded him of her and that I was his "type". This is when I was in high school. And that is who I'm living with right now.
Not that I need more than that to be uncomfortable but the room I'm currently in, the one that has been decorated in my favorite color and is full of floral art because I love flowers, this room used to be my cousin's bedroom. And when it was her room, it wasn't decked out like this. My cousin will from now on be sleeping on a futon in my uncle's office. It feels completely wrong, but they are all acting like it's normal, even expected. I keep thinking I should be happy to have a nice room, but my mind won't leave the idea that I was favored over their own child.
I should probably stop there right? That's all I need to be scared. But of course there is more. My Uncle is very involved in my cousin's sexual health and her menstruation. He takes care of it in place of my aunt. They spend isolated time together. My cousin once mentioned that to save water they sometimes shower together. How would that save water? I hope he never tries to shower with me.
My Uncle flirts but it's treated like a joke. He talks about how pretty certain actresses are when they cry, that's not normal right? Him and my aunt asked me and my cousins to be surrogates for them. Where am I? What do I do? I have no money. My mom is sick, my grandpa died and my grandma nearly joined him. I'm stuck and I'm scared. I know why but I don't know why it's like this or why I'm the only one that seems to have a problem with it. Am I paranoid? Am I "scared of men" like my uncle claims?
This is a dark story. There are many triggering things. It is a fictionalization of my mental health struggles, survival of abuse, and the realization that you can't fix someone.
I wrote the original story steam of consciousness style. I'm going to attempt to do that here as I work on translating this story into a mod.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The summer is hot, muggy. The air thick, so much so that it feels like walking through feet of hot water. I sit in a room decorated in pink floral. My emotions are mixed beyond recognition. I should be happy right? Excited? I'm a freshman in college in a new town, a new state even. All the bad memories of my past are left behind. Do I leave the good memories behind too?
I feel strangely alone even though for the first time since I was little there are other people home with me and they aren't asleep. Yet here I am, in my new room, not talking to them. The hallway sits like a mouth opened in a silent scream. Why do I feel like I walked death row and I'm waiting for someone to flip the switch? My stomach queasy, my heart beating a little to fast, my chest tight, and my head buzzing. I should leave... but I can't leave. It's too late. It must be nerves or something. This is my aunt and uncle's house, my cousin seems fine, so why wouldn't I be?
No matter what I tell myself, I'm scared and I don't know why.
That's not true... I know why but I don't understand the why. My uncle and my cousin have a strange relationship. My aunt acts like it's good and normal. What do I know? I grew up without a dad. Maybe this is how father's are with their daughters. I don't know, but it feels tense and oddly sexual somehow. He's not her birth father. He married my aunt when me and my cousin were 13. I felt he was a bit odd from the time I met him. But I assumed it was awkwardness and lacking social grace. I recall the time he talked about how he ended up at the same college as my aunt. She had moved out of state gone to college after getting divorced. She is much older than my uncle and when she first introduced him to us it was as a friend. Eventually they became more than friends. My grandfather objected to their marriage. He didn't think my uncle would be a good husband. But his opinion didn't hold much weight sense he included anti intellectual rhetoric. I wasn't sure about the marriage either, I felt like my aunt was in a bad place when she met him and she moved to quickly to marriage. But I kept those thoughts to myself. I digress. The reason I'm thinking of how they first met is because of something my uncle said to me. He said he had fallen for this girl, but he didn't know how to approach her. The way he spoke of her you'd think she was a goddess or something. In any case. She moved out of state to go to college and he followed her... he followed her and went to the same school as her... he followed her and joined the same church as her. She got married and he got married not long after. This was very strange to me. It wasn't like some years ago act, this was fairly recent and all of a sudden he loved my aunt, whom looks/acts nothing like the woman he spoke of like she was the love of his life.
It was weird already but got stranger. He told me that I reminded him of her and that I was his "type". This is when I was in high school. And that is who I'm living with right now.
Not that I need more than that to be uncomfortable but the room I'm currently in, the one that has been decorated in my favorite color and is full of floral art because I love flowers, this room used to be my cousin's bedroom. And when it was her room, it wasn't decked out like this. My cousin will from now on be sleeping on a futon in my uncle's office. It feels completely wrong, but they are all acting like it's normal, even expected. I keep thinking I should be happy to have a nice room, but my mind won't leave the idea that I was favored over their own child.
I should probably stop there right? That's all I need to be scared. But of course there is more. My Uncle is very involved in my cousin's sexual health and her menstruation. He takes care of it in place of my aunt. They spend isolated time together. My cousin once mentioned that to save water they sometimes shower together. How would that save water? I hope he never tries to shower with me.
My Uncle flirts but it's treated like a joke. He talks about how pretty certain actresses are when they cry, that's not normal right? Him and my aunt asked me and my cousins to be surrogates for them. Where am I? What do I do? I have no money. My mom is sick, my grandpa died and my grandma nearly joined him. I'm stuck and I'm scared. I know why but I don't know why it's like this or why I'm the only one that seems to have a problem with it. Am I paranoid? Am I "scared of men" like my uncle claims?