The city of New Devlin has been the only home you’ve ever known, surrounded by vast woodland and mountain ranges that’s given the city a cold, mysterious aura long before today’s modern era. Recently, however, strange things have been going on. People are going missing only to turn up dead in the woods, either completely drained of blood or completely torn apart. Authorities are starting to wonder if the murders are cult related. Others are hell-bent in insisting that it’s mere animals (there are wolves, after all) picking off unsuspecting victims.
And, to make matters worse, your younger sibling is caught up in the middle of it all, just months before graduation.
You knew life was hard long before you were charged to take care of your younger sibling fresh out of high school.
You just never knew life would get this hard.
- Play as male or female, gay, straight, bi, or no romance
- Have a younger brother or sister
- Investigate the things happening around your younger sibling . . . or pay the cost of ignorance
- Discover clues in your family’s past that had led to your parents’ ultimate end
- Meet and befriend a wide cast of characters, each with their own motives, hopes, and wishes - but beware, not everyone is out to be your best bud. Some will try to kill you if given the chance.
But who knows. Maybe there will be someone to provide you a bit of light in all this darkness - or, at the very least, a bit of fun.
How will you deal with the tacked-on stress of surviving the unknown? Will your family’s past bring you down or encourage you to move forward?
This story contains a wide variety of paths. So far, the main paths involve a vampire, hunter, or werewolf, for example. Some may be a little less intense than others (so far, the vampire route is by far the most extreme), but all will contain their fair amount of violence. Please read at your own discretion.
Content Warning
Due to the variety of routes this story has/will have, the list of mature content includes, but is not limited to:
→ Abuse, both physical and emotional
→ Potential gaslighting
→ Domestic abuse
→ Kidnapping
→ Torture
*more to be added in time
Character Details/Current ROs
So far, the story will start with three ROs. I will expand the list as I finish more chapters; this is just because I haven’t determined which characters I want to enable having something more than friendship with or not. There are characters later on that you can . . . ehm, do stuff with if you decide to be bold, but it’s so incredibly toxic due to their natures that I don’t know if they’d belong on this list or not (they could screw you and still not care if you die later on, I mean)
Joyce/Jace Toln
One of your closest friends since you were left to take care of your younger sibling. Short, dark hair against olive brown skin and piercing, bright blue eyes, they walk around with a special kind of emotionless, unnerving vibe . . . the kind that gives most the impression that they could shoot someone and not so much as flinch. Usually calm and collected, you are one of very few people that’s ever seen them in their darkest moments.
Ranger Sofield
You don’t really know much about him, just that he moved to New Devlin not long after the “incident” that turned yours’ and your younger sibling’s life upside down. Toln doesn’t like him much, and you’re not sure if you should be bothered or not about the fact that Ranger doesn’t really seem to care that he’s on Toln’s bad side. He has pale blond hair, tanned skin, and dark eyes that he always keeps directed on anything else but you. What is he hiding?
Tess Baily
An old friend, and a single mom. You knew her in high school as a studious, high-achieving student that spent most of her time in books than not, but she did participate in the school’s varsity cross country team as well. She calls you every so often to catch up when she’s not busy studying to become a librarian and taking care of her five-year-old son. With dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, Tess is almost the exact opposite to Toln, which means she isn’t afraid to take a beggar off the street and offer him a warm meal (so as long as there’s no imposing risk to her son, that is).
**Note: I have decided that I won’t make Tess or Ranger gender-flippable. I’ve tried working on them being switched, and while I got close with Ranger, it feels like I’m forcing it. It’s just not the way I created them.
Demo Link: The Monsters Around Us (dashingdon.com)
A/N: Hello! This is my first IF story I’ve ever attempted. All feedback is welcomed and much appreciated. I have been writing for several years, and I have dabbled in a fair amount of programming, so I feel like I got the gist of this down (I could be gravely mistaken, though). This was originally a passion project of mine for the past couple of years, written based off of nightmares I used to receive.
My goal is to make the environment and its characters as well-rounded as possible. Part of that means addressing the wide variety of actions that comes from overly stressed-out people. Should there be a character that feels as basic as cardboard, feel free to point this out.
Future Updates/Plans
→ Conflict between sibling and friends
→ Potential outing scene with Joyce/Jace
→ Stakeout scene
→ Implementation of minor stats
→ Ranger and Tess Introduction (implemented)
→ Vice introduction/coping mechanism (next update)
→ Town introduction/events
- Try not to go off of this too much. As I’m working on this, there are some things that will happen sooner or later depending on the branch you’re following. This is just a general idea
Actual Update Log
- May 28th → Posted Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 - 15k Words
*June 4th → Posted Chapter 3 - 15k Words
**Note, I have implemented the save system, but beware that you may have to start anew for certain updates. The reason for this is because of how many insane variables I keep having to add/take out. I really want to implement a stat system that focuses heavily on personality. Meaning, the MC will respond to things in accordance with what their base personality is. So if you have a character that is generally warm and friendly, but then chooses an option to belittle someone, they will do it - and then step back wondering why they did it, start to feel bad, etc. versus someone who is generally callous and simply does not care about those around them. I went into this thinking that that shouldn’t be an issue . . . until I realized that people are going to respond differently given the situation (stress and health generally provide a huge factor in how someone acts around others) and . . . yeah. Character progression (and regression) plays a heavy part on the story, and I’m trying to figure out the best system to implement this. I’m hoping that I’ll have this figured out three chapters in, but until then, I don’t expect saves to work in future updates. I will, however, try to establish premade characters so you don’t have to go through the whole story each time.
~Current work is about 30k words, a little less without code. I’ll be building on a few of the earlier choices as well over time ~
I want this to feel more like the MC is living and struggling rather than simply the reader going through a game, so there’s that.