Efiáltis Art: I Will Walk Into Hell for You

So; I've been revisiting one of my projects, Efiáltis, for Halloween. To sum up in brief; Efiáltis is a fictional arcade game made by an equally fictional company, Nincom- the same company behind all of the fake games I come up with for the music I write under my Gonkaka name- that combines early Beat 'em Up action with a heavy horror theme. If you want to learn a little more about Efiáltis as a whole, check out this game breakdown (that I still need to finish, and this piece of metafiction I wrote earlier this week!

Pictured above is the protagonist of the game, Sandra. You're probably wondering why she looks a little... not great. Here's a snippet of the text from the breakdown that outlines the backstory/premise:

"Sandra and Lucy, a young couple living in a small town in the American Midwest, are in the middle of one of their regular nature hikes in the town’s surrounding woodland when something peculiar catches their eye; the looming shadow of what appears to be a mansion, further emboldened by the setting sun behind it. They’d never seen it or passed by it before, and they hadn’t taken a different route then normal, further confusing both of them. Curiosity getting the better of them, they walk off their usual path and go deeper into the woods, deep enough that the fading sunlight is almost entirely blocked out by the ageing trees. Before too long, they appear to come across what appears to be ruins of a site of worship, crumbled and decrepit and around which the stench of copper and rot permeates; mutually deciding that they’re better off not knowing and turning back around, the pair begin to retreat until they are set upon by creatures that they cannot make out fully in the darkness, but the heightened smell of decay and unnatural noises they’re making indicate they are bad news. The couple try to skirt around the strange creatures, but find themselves boxed in at the ruins with no hope of escape. Turning to one another with intent to share a tender final moment, their one last reprieve is torn away when one of the creatures throws a sharpened blade-like object at Sandra, piercing her heart; as the cool, ivory-like weapon breaks the skin and muscle, Sandra’s vision goes blurry and her strength leaves her as she slumps to the ground, unable to save her shrieking girlfriend as she’s carried off by the creatures. Then, suddenly, she hears a voice in the back of her head; one of a cruel tone, whispering in rasps: ‘Do not cry, young one; your fate is not to die, should you choose so. I sense your confusion, but I have not the time to explain more then that I am the cursed blade which cut you down, and that I can lend you a fraction of my power if you desire. Not only will this stave off death, but it will grant you the strength you need to rescue your beloved from the cruel fate that awaits her. However, this power comes at a great cost; your soul will be tainted, and forever damned to the pits of hell for accepting a pact with me. The choice is entirely yours.’ Sandra needs no time to second guess he actions; with what would have otherwise been her final breaths, she weakly exclaims; ‘I accept’. All at once, her senses and clarity return with sharp relief; her skin decays as a sickly, but remarkable feeling of adrenaline surges through her body. She grabs the leather hilt of the blade and yanks it from her chest, standing firm and letting out a beastly roar undercut by the callous laughter of the cursed blade in her right hand."

I've got a lot of fondness for Sandra as a character, entirely because of her wholly doomed situation. Make no mistake; when the story of Efiáltis is over, she is hellbound with no way around the clause. And Bonaparte- the cursed sword from the backstory and held aloft in the art? It should be fairly obvious that it wasn't really offering aid out of philanthropy, nor does it really care what happens to Sandra and Lucy; it saw an excuse to be used to spill more blood, to have its endless thirst quenched, and it took it. But absolutely none of that matters to Sandra; no price was too high if it meant she had the chance to save the woman she loved from a similar- if not far worse- fate, not even dealing with an asshole sword that she flat out knows is just using her. She's no doubt scared of the horrors she faces in the house- and really, who wouldn't be- but she really shouldn't be; she's far, far worse then anything that lives in those hellish halls now. There's a real tragic beauty to that that really appeals to me, and it's that sense of I guess gothic or melancholy horror I want Efiáltis to have, tonally.

~ Decon Theed (26/10/19)