Condition record before the gap

Artifact Intent

• Story role: Condition Record (conditional). Only appears on the foreshadowing route. Lets the player feel something is wrong before the wrong thing happens.
• Playable-lore position: clue step. This entry is the player's anchor for the Lost Hours arc — proof, in the MC's own hand, that something began before the blackout.
• 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, written like a person who has been ill before and knows how to write a symptom list. The MC does not editorialise.
• Player-facing uncertainty: the MC names sensations, not causes. Pressure, taste, balance — registered. No diagnosis.
• Journal or objective linkage: appears only on the foreshadowing route; in the Journal it is the entry the player can return to after the gap.

Body Draft

Condition record. I am writing this in case I need to read it later.

Sitting on a rock. I have been sitting for, I think, a minute. The slope is in front of me. The shelter is below and to the left. I have the food. I am not done with the slope but I had to stop.

Symptoms. Listing.

One. Taste in the mouth. Metallic. Not blood. Closer to iron filings or a battery on the tongue. I have not put a battery on my tongue in this country and I do not believe there is a battery in this country, so this is the wrong taste in the wrong place.

Two. Pressure behind the eyes. Not headache. Not the headache I had earlier. Pressure, like the air is leaning on me from inside.

Three. The world tilted once, while I was standing, and the tilt did not match the slope. I was standing on a slope but the tilt went the other way. It corrected. I am sitting because I do not want it to do that again while I have a knife in my hand.

Four. The air went quieter for a moment. Not the quiet of earlier. A different quiet. As if something stepped sideways out of a room I did not know I was in.

I do not know what is happening. I am writing this down because if I forget, I want a piece of paper that remembers.

I am going to stand up slow and go to the shelter. Slow. The pot is in the pack. The fire is not lit yet. The light is still here. If I can make it back, I will make it back.

If I am reading this later and I do not remember writing it: hello. You are me. You wrote this. Believe it.

Playable Consequences

• Immediate consequence: registers the symptom list as a Journal anchor; if the player follows the foreshadowed path, the next entry is act0-day1-the-missing-hours with the foreshadowing flag already set.
• Follow-up clue, mission, site, or world-state change: unlocks the "I had a warning" callback on act0-day1-the-missing-hours; the Lost Hours arc is more legible to the player when this entry is in hand.
• Related branch or linear continuation: conditional on lost-hours-foreshadowed; does not appear on the linear path; rejoin point is act0-day1-the-missing-hours.

Review Notes

• Open questions: whether a UX surface should highlight the symptom list as a pinned reference inside the Journal is a gd-journal.md concern; this entry leaves the highlight to the body prose itself.
• Canon-delta follow-up: none.
• Audit carry-forward: the symptom vocabulary (metallic, pressure, tilt, sideways quiet) should stay consistent across the post-blackout entries so the MC can be heard to recognise it.

Voice Readback

Condition record. I was writing this in case I needed to read it later.

I was sitting on a rock. I had been sitting for, I thought, a minute. The slope was in front of me. The shelter was below and to the left. I had the food. I was not done with the slope, but I had had to stop.

Symptoms. I listed them.

One. A taste in the mouth. Metallic. Not blood. Closer to iron filings or a battery on the tongue. I had not put a battery on my tongue in this country, and I did not believe there was a battery in this country, so this was the wrong taste in the wrong place.

Two. Pressure behind the eyes. Not a headache. Not the headache I had had earlier. Pressure, like the air was leaning on me from inside.

Three. The world had tilted once, while I was standing, and the tilt had not matched the slope. I had been standing on a slope, but the tilt had gone the other way. It had corrected. I was sitting because I did not want it to do that again while I had a knife in my hand.

Four. The air had gone quieter for a moment. Not the quiet of earlier. A different quiet. As if something had stepped sideways out of a room I had not known I was in.

I did not know what was happening. I was writing this down because if I forgot, I wanted a piece of paper that remembered.

I was going to stand up slow and go to the shelter. Slow. The pot was in the pack. The fire was not lit yet. The light was still there. If I could make it back, I would make it back.

If I was reading this later and I did not remember writing it: hello. You are me. You wrote this. Believe it.