Author Games: Red Room

Task Eight: 8-r3dx

September 5th, 2018
10:15 am

Winona Taylor

Angela Belmont

The rims of Dina's eyes were red, and not just from the cold. Her cheeks stung bitterly from the trails carved into them, but they were not as painful as the ring still encircling her finger. She'd threatened to pull it off several times now, let it slip into her warm hands and palmed it a few times before sliding it back on. There wasn't a word to link to the feeling yet, nothing that was strong enough to let her take a full breath of air in. It was too early to let go.

Instead, she stood with her feet brushing hard packed dirt, her hand placed against chipped, worn bark as she watched the scene unfold before her. What should have felt like justice was hollow. Men and women were lead out of the old asylum, graffiti painting its outside walls as thick as the rain that smoother the area. New reports ran around, scattered and lost as foals trying to get their wobbly legs beneath them for the first time. But these people weren't as innocent. They leapt on the bad news as prey, tearing it apart for information, crowding the red robed figures for more. For a reason, a motive, an answer aside from the sins that so blatantly coated the halls inside with blood.

The woman closed the phone that hung limp at her side with a snap. Not all sinners faced what they deserved when they deserved it—many would slip away like the rats they were, back into the crumbling, concrete building to hide in the cracks and survive off what they could find—but all would eventually. And those that had been ruined by it, she couldn't speak for. It was a heavyweight to suffer under, and it would never be lifted away, not fully.

The Task

Welcome to the finale!

For your final task, most of this will be relatively free reign seeing as it is an epilogue and your story has come to a close. That being said, there is only one requirement that we ask of you and this is where last task's choices come into effect.

If your character chose to reach out for help/accepted being saved by the police congratulations, you got away from the cult. However, following the dark theme that is Red Room, you may have gotten help but did you truly get it? This is a cruel world and we want you to write your character having a less than great time trying to recover from their traumatic experiences. Perhaps their time afterwards has been nothing but trials and testifying in front of a court, or maybe they're receiving counseling from an apathetic therapist—the choice is yours. The only requirement here is the recovery from everything that's happened hasn't been as pleasant as your character would've liked.

If your character rejected help from others/law enforcement your task is slightly different. Likewise to the other, life sucks sometimes and you can end up alone. Show us your character on their own and how they're handling the stress of recovering by themselves. Of course, they don't have to actually be alone—this can be done in a metaphorical sense and it's ultimately up to you how this is done. The only requirement is that your character is alone in some way or another, whether literally or metaphorically.

Everyone kinda gets shitty endings, so just have fun with it. (Not that you can't write it being bittersweet if that's what you're into, however.)

Word Limit

None.

Deadline

Tuesday, November 13 at 6pm PST

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If you have any questions, by all means, PM either Linz or myself!