Don’t Play This Game: Event 15: The Ritual
It begins with firelight.
I’m already bleeding when I wake. Arms slack, head spinning, wrists sore from whatever they used to drag me here.
The chanting starts before my eyes fully open.
There are figures all around me. Dozens, maybe more.
Robes pieced together from old funeral clothes, charity shop leftovers, coats that once hung in someone’s hallway.
Not ceremonial. Not sacred. Secondhand devotion.
Some of them wear masks — jagged things, bone, plastic, old toys painted black.
But most don’t bother.
They want me to see their faces.
At the centre of it all is a circle. Burned into the concrete. Ash, soot, and something darker.
The symbol in the middle is familiar:
The origami bird.
Split down the middle like it’s been cut open and can’t fly anymore.
They pull me forward. Someone whispers in my ear:
“You brought this. Now you pay for it.”
Then comes the blade.
It’s not clean.
The cuts aren’t precise.
They want it to hurt.
They want me to bleed.
The chanting builds.
Fire bends sideways, drawn into the circle like gravity flipped.
Tar bubbles up. The stench of burning hair and cold copper fills the room.
And then—
Something emerges.
Sistercut
It drags itself from the tar like it was always waiting.
No feet. Just limbs wrapped in wet gauze that never touches the ground.
Its face is a cracked mirror.
Inside the cracks, I see myself. Again and again.
Afraid. Bleeding. Alone.
Its mouth splits down the mirror’s centre—vertical. Not a mouth. A wound.
Inside: static. Like security footage of my final moments.
The cultists welcome it.
They kneel.
And it punishes them for their faith.
The gauze whips out like wire. The screaming doesn’t stop.
It doesn’t kill.
It shreds.
In the chaos, I crawl.
The door’s there.
Just a few feet.
Hands slip on blood. Knees fail.
I reach.
Fingers grip the handle.
But then—
The pain lances through my side. One of them still breathing. Still reaching.
Their hand grips my ankle. I fall.
My chin hits the floor. Teeth split open.
Everything spins.
My vision narrows.
Sistercut turns toward me.
In its mirror-face, I see the flat.
I see Layla.
I see the bedroom door opening.
And then—
Darkness.
Cold.
Nothing.
DON'T PLAY THIS GAME is a Solo TTRPG
