Feb 2022 chooseyourownadventure orchestral score electronic story fantasy
I created a placeholder for this song because I knew it would take me time to finish this story up. I was sick for a couple days, so there was another reason for the delay.
Sorry, I rushed to get this finished and I know that the mix/master aren't perfect, but I make up for it in length. I use themes from different songs from the previous story bits. This was hard.
Anyway, here's the ending of the Choose Your Own Adventure story. Thank you so much for hanging out with me through all of this! I wanted this FAWM to be a kind of experience for people. I wanted you to be able to have an adventure where you had some say. I was amazed by some of your reasoning as to why you voted a certain way. I think it tells a lot about what kind of person you are, but also strive to be. There were no wrong answers, no bad choices. All of the story was completely done on the fly based on your choices.
For who are we but our choices and our memories of them?
You voted to A) Kill Delphine.
*******************
You choose to kill Delphine, though it is not an easy choice.
By killing her, you’re killing the future you may have had and the hope that came with it. It hurts you inside, the thought of her sacrificing herself. By killing her, you are killing a piece of yourself.
You take the blade and look at her one last time. She is frightened, not because she is going to die but because you might not have the stones to go through with it. It’s a mercy killing, you tell yourself. She asked for this. She wants this. You’re psyching yourself up and you’re completely aware of it.
Brace yourself, aim for her heart, and go for it....
But it’s too late.
She is not Delphine anymore. The knife doesn’t even penetrate her chest and, instead, bounces off it, as if she were wearing Janga-oni bronze armor. The blade drops from your hand and the shock of the hit travels up your arm. Angered, she sends you flying across the room. You hit the wall with a hard and audible smack, then fall to the floor. Mathias makes a move to stop Delphine, but she flings him to another wall. He hits it with a crunch and goes limp.
You look around you, dazed, and Silas is crouching down in the corner, scared out of his mind. The king, who has been still and quiet, suddenly becomes animated. He walks towards you, his steps heavy and slow. You look in his face and it’s blank and expressionless. He may have no soul left inside, but he’s stronger than you are. He picks you off the floor, swings you around, and throws you against the opposite wall. Ouch. Your left arm is definitely broken now.
You look over to Silas, his eyes, whimpering, and you yell at him to get him out of his panic spiral. “Silas, help, PLEASE! Knife!”
Silas opens his eyes and looks at you. The king is making his way towards you again and you’re not sure if you can take another hit. You stand up and try to outmaneuver him. He seems almost trained onto you, as if he had a string tied onto him that was attached to you. Maybe if you run in circles or in a serpentine pattern, he can’t get a hold of you.
You test your theory and run away from the king, looping back and forth like a figure eight. The king, in turn, follows the same pattern and cannot deviate from it. He mimics your movement. This must be part of the spell used to animate him.
Silas, who has been watching you, retrieves the blade and you lock eyes with him as a signal to get ready. You circle back around the room and Silas hands you the knife as you pass. You stop abruptly and quickly plunge the knife twice into the king’s heart. He knocks you back hard after the third blow and the knife is left in his chest.
The king stops in his tracks, then begins twitching. The twitches turn into convulsions, then the corpse falls onto the floor. The king’s mouth begins opening and closing, as if he were speaking, but no sound comes out. Open, close. Open, close.
The spell is broken.
Delphine, however, is not. She furiously screams in a multitude of harmonics, piercing your ears with a deafening cry. She makes an upward motion with both her arms, and you and Silas begin levitating. Lifting one person takes effort. Lifting two, even more so.
Delphine lifts you both into the air so that you can almost touch the ceiling. You can tell that she’s expending a great deal of energy, so that her white brow is beginning to drip with sweat. Beads of salty water run down from her forehead to cheek to neck, then are absorbed by her elegant dress. She begins squeezing your throats and you automatically reach for the invisible hands crushing your trachea, but there is nothing that can be done. Silas is scrambling, legs and arms flailing, but it’s all in vain. The pressure inside him is so high that one of his eyes begins to bulge and come out of the socket.
You look around the room from your high vantage point and see Mathias stirring. He clutches his side, and that crunch you heard earlier was the sound of his rib breaking. He doesn’t stand, but crouches down, trying to stay low to the floor so that Delphine can’t see him. He crawls across the floor to the king’s body and removes the knife from his chest. He tries to make it to Delphine undetected, but fails as she turns her gaze to him. She bares her teeth and, before she can do anything, noise interrupts her.
Soldiers are now at the door, banging hard, trying to push the door open. You hear the sound of them trying to break the door down combined with the sound of your own blood pressure as the life is being squeezed out of you like an orange. Delphine keeps one arm in the air and makes a movement with the other to keep the door shut.
You lock eyes with Mathias and mouth, “Now!”. As Delphine is distracted, Mathias takes this opportunity to plunge the knife in her heart. He puts all his force behind it and Delphine’s eyes go wide as he makes contact. The dented tip of the blade slips between her ribs and pierces her heart. Blood squirts onto Mathias’ hands and Delphine gasps and clutches the knife sticking out of her, immediately releasing you and Silas. You both drop to the floor, coughing.
The soldiers, who were banging at the door, plus the Commander, burst in and are surprised by the scene. You and Silas both on the floor, coughing and gasping for air, the king’s corpse on the floor in a state of accelerated decomposition, Mathias with blood all over his hands, and, of course, Delphine, fallen over, her hands still on the hilt of the knife inside her.
Mathias goes over to Silas to help push his eyeball back inside, but it’s no use. The eyeball is detached and must be fully removed. The soldiers rush to inspect the king and watch silently as the king rots before their eyes. His mouth is still opening and closing, like a fish out of water. In a matter of minutes, the flesh from his face melts off. The mouth stops moving when the skin dries out completely and all that is left of the king are his clothes and his petrified looking skeleton. The Commander goes to Mathias and asks him about what has just happened and Mathias begins to explain, every so often clutching the area where his rib snapped.
You crawl over to Delphine’s body and her eyes are open. Just a few more minutes, and she would be gone. You cradle the side of her face with your right hand and she looks at you, tears in her eyes.
“I’m…sorry,” she says weakly, looking up at you. “I…guess I…turned out to be a threat to the kingdom after all. Isn’t…isn’t it funny…how…some things…work out?” She coughs and a drop of blood escapes her mouth and trickles down her chin. You wipe it from her face with your finger.
She’s making a joke, but it hurts to hear it and you begin crying.
“Thank…you, Kaleb,” says Delphine, her voice getting quieter and breathy. “You…came..for me..after…all.”
You want to say something to her, something calming, something kind, anything to make this moment easier for her. But your words fail you and you are left speechless.
Her eyes become unfocused and her neck goes limp. Her glassy blue eyes have no light in them, like someone blew out the flame inside her.
You begin to wail like an injured animal and it reverberates through the tower. She was back and gone again and it feels like a wound reopening inside you and never fully closing. You stay with her even as her body is being taken away by the palace coroner.
You insist on washing her yourself and brushing and perfuming her hair, keeping a small lock of it in your pocket so you never forget. You go through her wardrobe and find that blue dress you always remembered right, the one she was wearing when you first met. It is burned into your memory and, even as your memory failed you, it still remained the same. You take it with you.
At her funeral a few days later, she is laid out in her best dress, one made of white silk, with blue embroidery around the bodice. Silas, who is now sporting a brown eyepatch, makes a flower crown for her and places it on her head.
Her body is set on a pile of straw on top of a pyre and you swear it looks like she’s sleeping, and that, at any moment, she would wake up and tell you that it was all an illusion. Just an illusion. But it’s not and you know it, you stupid id—-Stop it, Kaleb. Stop talking to yourself like that. You’re not an idiot. You shake your head in an attempt to shake away the thought.
A priest is there, but only out of precaution. He says some prayers just in case there is some evil left lingering inside, maybe some dark spirits who haven’t left. He was the one who insisted on burning the body. Fire was purifying, he said, and would purge any evil left behind. You hope that's enough.
You turn to Mathias, who hands you a lit torch, which you take with your right hand. Your left arm is still out of service after the big fight a few nights ago, and has been tended to and bound by a doctor. You light the pyre and the fire grows quickly. It’s a warm, spring day and the breeze helps fan the flames. You stand back and watch as she burns. You feel someone take your hand and you know it’s Silas. You look over at him standing next to you. You can see tears falling out of his one eye and you give his hand a squeeze. You don’t let go until he’s ready.
The funeral for the king is held a week after that. You and everyone who was present during the fight concoct a story about the king and how he passed away. You choose to lie, mostly because people would not understand. The Commander suggests that he could have died from old age. Mathias mentions that it might be better to say he had a terrible accident, which is why no one was allowed to see his body. You suggest that the blame is placed on Delphine to explain her death, as well. The coroner, who was quite shocked by the rapid decay of the body, also wishes to keep the true events secret and promises to go along with whatever you decided. You decide on a version of events that will not lead to more violence or incitement–a hunting accident involving a particularly aggressive boar.
In the end, the king’s body, in a closed casket, is paraded around the capitol with huge fanfare. People throw flowers in the road as the dead king passes by in a carriage, followed closely by the Official Weepers. One of the moirologists hits her tambourine at regular intervals so they all cry in rhythm. A drummer joins the parade soon afterwards and you can feel the energy buzzing in the air. There is a large turnout wailing in unison, not because the king was very popular, but because he had reigned for so long. Generations of families were bridged by his rule over the kingdom and all types of people were there, from the lowliest peasants to high-born politicians. Even Mayor Adaline makes the trip from Caminoord to attend the king’s funeral.
Since the king has no direct heirs, the decision of who will rule is up for debate. Groups of advisers, distant relatives, and politicians all try to push their own agenda. You prefer to stay out of that. You watch as the king is buried in the family mausoleum with his wife, son, and daughter, all to the atonal tune of wailing, and drum, and a tambourine.
After it’s over, you try to decide what to do with yourself. You make a deal with the Commander of the army to remove the military presence from Tinmijn and for him to relinquish control of it back to Mayor Adaline. You, Silas, and Mathias had managed to free the king from the spell and, though he was dead, he was also finally at peace. There is no doubt that it must have been a waking nightmare for him and that killing him was a mercy. And since the three of you also killed the White Witch who controlled him, you are all considered heroes, though it is never officially acknowledged. However, you, Kaleb, are pardoned of your status as a Defector and you can now live openly wherever you choose.
And you choose Tinmijn.
You vow to rebuild it and turn it into the home you should have had. You can’t start over or undo the wrongs of your past, but you could spend the rest of your days as a free man trying to make things better. Mayor Adaline will need some help and you can give that. You owe her that much.
Mathias requests an honorable discharge and decides to go with you to Tinmijn. And Silas, who was once so eager to escape that village, decides to go back with you, too. All three of you played a part in the fall of Tinmijn, but it is never too late to try to make things right, piece by piece, brick by brick. You know you will all try your hardest and there will always be a part of you that wonders if you can ever make up for all that was lost.
It’s Monday at dawn when you decide to get up and head out. It's cool outside and there's a slight breeze. The flowers of spring spread their scent in the air and you inhale deeply. A heavy layer of mist blankets the city, but you know it will burn off by midday. Mathias puts a pack full of supplies on his grey horse and mounts it with a groan as pain shoots up his side. Silas tightens the buckle on his saddle and follows suit with Sprout, the black horse he rode to the capitol.
You sit atop your horse ready to go, bags packed with food, water, and Delphine’s blue dress, the one you see in your dreams. You know your heart will ache every time you look at it, but it’s a reminder that you loved someone once and that you could love again. And if you ever think you’re forgetting her, this dress is a good reminder. You don’t mind giving up most of your memories to this disease of the mind, but the memory of Delphine, no matter how painful, is the one you want to keep until you die. For who are we but our choices and our memories of them?
You have a life to rebuild, plus an entire village, and the road ahead is daunting, full of turns and forks and possible danger. But you are not alone, old man. Not anymore.
You look to the horizon and you know exactly where you’re going.
You smile at Mathias on your left and Silas on your right, then move forward into the sun. You're aching inside with an odd mixture of grief and jubilation. You wish you could convey all these thoughts inside you, all the emotions that are swirling within you like a beautiful storm. You wish you had the words to express the complexity of it all, the mix of sorrow and joy, the pain, and the hope you carry with you now, hope like you’ve never known.
Instead, you take a deep breath and say:
“Let’s go home.”
THE END
@leepat Mar 2022
Sad to see people what people chose, but necessary I guess to come to terms with one's disappointment with the way of the world.
congratulations on a great story and great compositions!
it truly was an experience, for which I thank you.
all best!
@wrenarcher Mar 2022
Absolutely amazing.
Everything about this... just absolutely amazing from the orchestration, the composing, mixing is stunning. And then your writing, which was wonderful to read, was mesmerizing. The self inflicted challenge to write a storyline based on the choices of the audience and add cinematic music like what you did is...
well, thank you.
Thank you SO very much for letting us see and be a part of this gift you have. Brava!
@headfirstonly Mar 2022
Wow—this is indeed a most triumphant ending! This is exactly the catharsis that the story requires. It's bombastic and epic and uplifting and the final section is splendidly just plain *weird*. Roll the credits!
And way to go for taking the whole idea of commenting in FAWM and turning it into something truly creative, collaborative, and very special. You've done an awesome job with this (and I'm so glad the cello takes such a big role in the epilogue. It's definitely been your MVP this FAWM).
@dragondreams Mar 2022
Oh. My. Gods.
Thank you for such a fabulous, magical journey.
@dzdandcunfsd Mar 2022
This was all so fabulous! The writing, the music, everything. Thanks for doing this. It was a gripping tale and a blast to be a part of!
This last bit of music was particularly epic... sooo many mood swings.
Really amazing job with all this! I hope you're feeling better.
I think you're really onto something amazing here. I think it was Netflix? that did a Choose your own adventure style movie a few years back. I would love to see a website setup with some choose your own adventure stories and music to accompany it even if they were just written stories and maybe some artwork to accompany it. Sounds like a whole lot of work though :D
@tamsnumber4 Mar 2022
I could have done without the eyeball part LOL! ick!
I think you are an amazing writer, the world feels so real and imagined, down to minute details. I was swept away from the first episode to the last. I am so overwhelmed with the task you undertook and your own personal situation, but you gave us this grand, epic adventure and .....Thank You Mel...I appreciate this more than you know and it was a really well thought out ending and one that had heart and I appreciate that . I hope you are ok and getting sleep and know this work didn't go unnoticed and I feel as if I am closing a worn book that swept me away........by my favorite author, Disney Princess and creative composer.......you.....Mel...Thank You.
@sunnymae Mar 2022
This is absolutely extraordinary. Epic! Every movement a universe and its own and so we'll put together. What an amazing musical Journey. I'm driving so I cannot read all of your liner notes but we'll come back later and I'm so glad you came up in my autoplay which is what I do when I'm driving. I get to find folks like you and haven't met before. This is really an amazing piece of work