What my body says now

Artifact Intent

• Story role: Condition Record. The MC writes the after-state in the same shape as the pre-state, so the player can compare on the foreshadowed route and meet the symptoms fresh on the linear route.
• Playable-lore position: clue step. Becomes part of the evidence base for the recover-the-lost-hours reconstruction.
• What this artifact must not claim: any cause for the symptoms; any cosmological framing; any narrator voice from outside the MC.

Narrative Surface Notes

• Artifact shape: a short, careful entry. Reads like the MC is forcing themselves to write through pain.
• Player-facing uncertainty: the MC names symptoms, not causes. The symptoms echo the pre-blackout entry but the MC does not claim to know what the echo means.
• Journal or objective linkage: contributes to act0.survive.recover-the-lost-hours; on the foreshadowed route, surfaces near the pre-blackout condition record for comparison.

Body Draft

Condition record. After.

Hands. Shaking. Not the shake of cold, although I am cold. The shake of having held a thing for too long. I have not held a thing for too long. I have been writing.

Stomach. Wrong. Empty, but in the wrong direction, like it is empty by force and not by waiting. I have not eaten the food I brought back. I have not lit the fire.

Skin. Cold on the parts that should not be cold. The back of the neck. The inside of the arms. Cold in patches, not all over. Where the skin is cold the hairs do not stand up, which is wrong.

Taste. The metallic taste is back. Worse. I keep wanting to spit and there is nothing to spit out.

Head. Pressure, not headache. Behind the eyes. The world has not tilted again. I am sitting because I do not want it to.

Hearing. The air is quiet again, but the quiet is on me now, not around me. Like someone has fitted a cloth over the part of my ear that listens for noises that are not there. The noises that are there — wind, my breathing, the small water in the gully below — are all in their right places. The wrong quiet is sitting on top.

I do not know if anything I am writing is symptoms of something a doctor would call something. There is no doctor here. There is no one here.

I am going to drink some water. I am going to eat the smaller of the two mushrooms because if anything is going to go wrong with the mushrooms I want to be conscious for it.

If I cannot light the fire I am going to wrap in the wool and sit with my back to the rock and the knife across my knees, and I am going to make it to morning the slow way.

Playable Consequences

• Immediate consequence: registers the after-state condition record in the Journal; symptom continuity becomes a fact the player can navigate.
• Follow-up clue, mission, site, or world-state change: feeds the act0.survive.recover-the-lost-hours reconstruction; on the foreshadowed route, lights up next to the pre-blackout record.
• Related branch or linear continuation: child of the Lost Hours arc; rejoin point at act0-day2-morning-came.

Review Notes

• Open questions: whether the Journal renders symptom continuity as an overlay or a side-by-side comparison is a gd-journal.md concern.
• Canon-delta follow-up: none.
• Audit carry-forward: the "wrong quiet" framing should stay consistent across later entries that touch demon-proximity quiet.

Voice Readback

Condition record. After.

Hands. Shaking. Not the shake of cold, although I was cold. The shake of having held a thing for too long. I had not held a thing for too long. I had been writing.

Stomach. Wrong. Empty, but in the wrong direction, as if it were empty by force and not by waiting. I had not eaten the food I had brought back. I had not lit the fire.

Skin. Cold on the parts that should not have been cold. The back of the neck. The inside of the arms. Cold in patches, not all over. Where the skin was cold the hairs did not stand up, which was wrong.

Taste. The metallic taste was back. Worse. I kept wanting to spit and there was nothing to spit out.

Head. Pressure, not headache. Behind the eyes. The world had not tilted again. I was sitting because I did not want it to.

Hearing. The air was quiet again, but the quiet was on me now, not around me. As if someone had fitted a cloth over the part of my ear that listened for noises that were not there. The noises that were there — wind, my breathing, the small water in the gully below — were all in their right places. The wrong quiet was sitting on top.

I did not know if anything I was writing was symptoms of something a doctor would call something. There was no doctor there. There was no one there.

I was going to drink some water. I was going to eat the smaller of the two mushrooms, because if anything was going to go wrong with the mushrooms, I wanted to be conscious for it.

If I could not light the fire, I was going to wrap in the wool and sit with my back to the rock and the knife across my knees, and I was going to make it to morning the slow way.