DARJETTE'S PROFILE

Lots of great advice here. If I can just add one thing: I've noticed something horror games do well to create tension and a sense of dread is the element of oncoming danger. In games like Outlast or Amnesia, they tend to give some kind of warning to the player. You'll often see the enemy coming towards your direction, or hear them approaching. Players begin to panic, trying to figure out if they should run away, or hide, or find some way past them. If they fail to figure something out, or make the wrong choice, they die. So translating that to RM games, force them to make quick decisions at certain points after making a small announcement of approaching danger.

The summary sounds a bit short, but it looks like the developer put some time into it. I'm eager to see where this goes.

The woman stared at the coffee-colored ceiling with half-closed eyes, feeling comfortable enough to sleep. She could get a whiff of the cigarette billowing from the glass ashtray on the corner table a few feet away, sitting next to the man she came to see. He wore a comfortable suit with a red, plaid tie neatly wrapped around his collar in a double windsor. His blue shirt seeming kinda tacky under his maroon sweater vest. His neatly trimmed hair was parted perfectly and his face cleanly shaven, making his professionalism apparent.

“Margie.”

His voice brought her attention back to where she was, laying on a divan in an office room. She stretched out on the soft material, blinking her eyes opening as if from a nap. She scooted up in her seat and propped her head up, brushing away a couple strands of her crimson hair from her face.She wore a red tank top with blue jeans and a short-sleeved jean jacket. Her eyes, slightly puffy and moist, turned to the doctor sitting near her.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Margie. Shall we continue where we left off last week?”

The red-haired woman casually placed her arm behind her head and sighed with exasperation, “You don’t have to be so formal about it, Bill.”

The doctor laid his pen on his notepad and gave her a look of annoyance, “Margie, we may have dated, but in my office, I’m still your psychiatrist. I’d appreciate it if you showed me a little regard. You came to me, did you not?”

“Yeah, I did, but that’s for a different reason…”

“What reason would that be?” The doctor seemed interested.

Margie hesitated a moment, then changed the subject, “Yes, let’s pick up where we left off, doctor.”

The man picked up his pen again, skimming over his notes quickly before he began, “So far, you’ve been rather evasive as to the root of your problem. I understand that the past is often difficult to come to terms with, but we do need to address it at some point. Perhaps we could start at what it was that led you to come to me and face this problem.”

Margie stood up and took a deep breath, she was certainly facing a big problem in her life, something that had been eating away at her for some time now, an itch in her mind she couldn’t scratch. The memory kept repeating itself in her head, and she had to tell someone she trusted. She and Bill had dated for a few weeks, and after an emotional conflict, she decided to break it off with him. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, she liked him a lot. She just couldn’t let him know about the kind of person she was, the world she was involved in.

“About a month ago, I was in a car accident. I wasn’t seriously injured, but the officer on scene told me the severity of the crash should have left me in critical condition. It made me realize that if I were to die, I couldn’t go in peace knowing the things I’d done. I couldn’t look back and be proud of who I was,” Margie began to pace slowly around the room, “I’m left wondering what I should do, how can I make up for the sins I’ve committed?”

“What sins, Margie?” The doctor asked.

Margie was silent a moment, and then, “It’s complicated.”

The doctor sighed dissatisfied, then picked up his cigarette and took a puff before putting it out in the ashtray. He stood up and made his way to a large renaissance-style globe in the corner of his office. Holding one side of it, he lifted it up to reveal a drink station with an ice bucket and a half-empty, glass carafe of bourbon. Seeing the glass was missing, he turned and picked it up from the corner table and poured a drink, offering it to her, to which she simply shook her head.

“Margie, you can’t simply expect to know how to repent for the things you’ve done if you can’t open yourself up to others and admit what you’ve done wrong.” The doctor sat back in his seat and took a small swig of the chilled bourbon.

The red haired woman sat back down in the divan and contemplated his words. He was right, after all, and the whole reason for her to see him was to get answers. She was afraid of what would happen if she were to admit her true nature, but this wasn’t about their relationship. At least their conversations were always confidential.

“I kill people, Bill.” Her voice was melancholy. There was a long moment of silence between the two of them. Only the sound of the clock ticking on the desk could be heard in the room.

“Why do you kill people, Margie?” The doctor finally broke the silence.

She sighed, “For money. I’m a contract killer.”

“You wish to repent for the lives you’ve taken, then?”

“Can I, though?” Her volume was a bit louder, expressing her frustration. She stood up quickly and walked towards a wall. She didn’t want to look at him for the moment. She noticed a framed certificate hanging on the wall; a degree from the Weiss Institute with his name on it: “William J. Scott”.

“Is that why you broke off our relationship?” Half of the question came from his position as a doctor, the rest from his personal feelings towards her. Margie lowered her face into her hand and sobbed in silence, not wanting him to see her at her weakest. She wiped her tears and composed herself quickly.

“I broke it off because I didn’t want you to get involved in my world. I didn’t think our relationship would get as far as it did, and by then, I cared about you too much.” She turned back to him, her eyes still puffy and slightly bloodshot.

The doctor leaned in to speak, “The fact that you feel remorse for the crimes you’ve committed shows that it doesn’t control your life. You have the potential to be a good person, to atone for the things you’ve done. You’ve already taken the first step in doing so.”

Margie sat back down, slouching and resting her arms on her legs to support her. “And then what? Do I apologize to their families?” She said with sarcasm.

The doctor put out his cigarette, “What is it you think you need to do?”

“I have no idea, that’s why I’m here.”

“I can’t give you all your answers, you need to arrive at those answers yourself, Margie. All I can do is give you guidance, show you the path. You have to be the one who decides to walk down that path.” The good doctor seemed pretty sincere, his eyes conveyed sympathy and a desire to help, but Margie almost saw something else there. Was it pity?

The red-haired woman sat in contemplation. What could she possibly do to reconcile her wrong-doings? She thought about the lives she took behind alleys, using her charms, and shooting them. As she tried to imagine the faces of each one, they all came up blurry; she tried to remember their names, but came up with blanks. How could she repent for taking faceless, nameless men? Who would even forgive her, for that matter?

“What about you, Bill?” she turned the conversation, “What would you do if you were in my position?”

The doctor looked away for a moment, as if in a reluctant thought, “I suppose the only right thing that could be done would be to turn myself in.” His voice was low, it almost seemed like he didn’t believe in his own words. They did nothing to convince Margie.

“Oh please, Bill.” She stood up and paced around as she talked, “You should know better than that, no one ever wants to confess their crimes unless their coerced. It’s always about a deal they made, or a guilt trip, or some cop finding proof. But no one ever wants to simply admit what they’ve done. People will go to soup kitchens or make donations or help the less fortunate, but don’t think for one second that anyone will freely admit guilt.” Her voice was stern.

The doctor exhaled, feeling a bit annoyed. No one likes to have their moral beliefs dragged through the dirt, even if it’s true. For a moment it seemed as though the good doctor was at a loss for words, so instead, he turned it around, “What do you feel when you kill these people, Margie?”

“How do I feel? Well nothing, really. I just pull the trigger, make sure they’re dead, and go get paid. How am I supposed to feel?”

“Well most people feel remorse, like it should never have happened.” The doctor said very matter-of-factly, “Do you feel anything like that at all?”

Margie stood still for a minute, thinking hard, as if getting a revelation. She didn’t bother to stop Bill in his speech.

“Don’t you see, Margie? No one may want to admit guilt, but everyone still has it, they feel it like some bug eating away at them from the inside. Your life is in your own hands, and it’s up to you what you do with it. If it feels wrong to you, it’s because it is. What you really need to do is stop doing the things that make you feel wrong, or these feelings of remorse will never begin to fade, it will only get worse.”

Margie murmured something Bill couldn’t quite hear.

“What was that?” Bill asked.

“...You’re wrong.”

“Wrong?” Bill queried.

“About how I feel. I don’t feel bad that I killed them. I don’t feel bad that those people are dead, or what I do. But you’re right about one thing: it’s up to me what I do with my life. I don’t know why I was beginning to feel remorse after the crash, maybe just a moment of weakness. But I see things clearly now…”

“Margie, that’s not what I--”

She cut him off when she reached behind her and retrieved a pistol from her waist, it was hidden before under the jean jacket and had a silencer attached to the end of the barrel.

“Margie, what are you doing?” Bill was shocked at her reaction.

“Thank you doctor, for all your help. But I’m afraid I made a mistake before when I started dating you to get close to you. You were just a mark, and I made the mistake of falling for you.” She pulled down the hammer with her thumb.

“Why are you doing this?” Bill asked, scared for his life.

“Your testimony put a powerful man behind bars, you should have just let him have his insanity plea, but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“Margie, you can stop this now. Just put down the gun, and we can forget this happened.” Bill pleaded with her.

“There’s no negotiating this. I already received my payment. All that’s left is the deed. Goodbye, Bill.”

This should have been the moment she received her satisfaction, to hear the muffled bang and and see him fall. But something was wrong, her trigger finger wouldn’t move. She tried hard to pull the trigger, but her finger was frozen in place. She tried holding the pistol with both hands and force the trigger back, but nothing worked. She couldn’t understand what was going on, her breathing becoming labored. It wasn’t until Bill stood up casually that things were coming to light.

“My dear Margie, I knew.” His fear seemed completely gone.

“You knew? What do you mean you knew?” Her voice was nervous.

“Your appointment was at ten this morning, it’s three now. I placed you under hypnosis, I kept you under for hours.” Bill slowly approached her.

She looked at the clock on the wall, he was right. Had it already been so late in the day?

“You confessed earlier while I had you under, and I knew you were planning to kill me the whole time. But I wanted to give you a chance. To make you change your mind of your own free will, so we could be together. Of course, I had to be sure, so implanted in your subconscious the inability to kill me.”

Frustrated, Margie pointed her gun at a vase and fired, the vase shattered. She quickly turned it back to Bill and pulled the trigger, but again, her fingers wouldn’t let her. Margie’s eyes welled up in horror, Bill had complete control of her now. He didn't even flinch when the vase broke. Bill approached her and took hold of the gun, gently taking it from her. Margie couldn’t believe how easily she just gave it to him, and began to cry for her failure, for her weakness.

“Bill… please--”

“No, Margie. As you said, there’s no more negotiating.”

He lifted the gun to her and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck Margie in the chest. She looked at her wound in shock, her breath pained and labored. She collapsed onto the divan, watching as the blood spilled from her. Bill came closer to her, and leaned in close to her face.

“I fell in love with you, Margie. I wanted more than anything to be with you. But you can’t change what you are. You’re a killer.” He leaned in closer to kiss her, her body trembling, the taste of blood on her lips. Then broke the kiss, “And there’s no repenting for killers.”

Bill grabbed the pillow at the end of the divan, and placed it over her face. Margie struggled, grabbing his arm, trying to remove the pillow, but Bill wouldn’t let her. He placed the nuzzle of the pistol against the pillow, and fired once more. Her hands became weak, and her arms limp. they fell to her sides. Margie was lifeless now, the pillow still over her face. Bill didn’t even bother to remove it.

He took a step back and dropped the gun on the floor, saddened. His eyes welled up as he turned back to his chair and sat down, picking up the glass of bourbon he’d been working on since he began hypnosis on her. Bill heard a beep from his phone, and pulled it out. He received an email confirming his flight schedule to Argentina, a non-extradition country where he could hide from his adversary.

He had already relieved his assistant for the weekend. No one would find Margie’s body until Monday, and he would be long gone by then. He would live with his sins, and the pain of the love he could never have.

Yes, it is. :)

I do like cookies... :D