The page stops

Artifact Intent

• Story role: Objective Shift with a Journal-gap device. The MC's writing visibly truncates mid-sentence and resumes later; the gap is the story.
• Playable-lore position: clue -> investigation pivot. The Lost Hours arc opens here.
• What this artifact must not claim: any cause for the gap; any explanation of how time was lost; any narrator voice from outside the MC.

Narrative Surface Notes

• Artifact shape: a broken diary entry. The page stops mid-line. The MC resumes later, in a new paragraph, observing that the writing stopped and that the sun has moved.
• Player-facing uncertainty: the MC does not know what happened. The MC describes the visible changes — fire dead, sun shifted, stones nearer-seeming — and assigns no cause.
• Journal or objective linkage: opens act0.survive.recover-the-lost-hours; threads the child entries act0-day1-tracks-in-camp, act0-day1-condition-post-blackout, and (conditional) act0-day1-dream-fragment.

Body Draft

I am coming back down with the food. The light is still good. The pot is in the pack and I am thinking about whether the nettle goes in first or the mushrooms. I have to find —

The page stops there. I do not remember finishing the sentence. The sun is in the wrong place.

I am writing the next part slow because my hand is not steady. I sat down on the floor of the shelter because my legs did not want to be standing. I have read what I wrote up there and I do not remember writing the last word. I do not remember walking back. I do not remember choosing the floor.

The fire is out. The fire was not lit when I left so the fire being out is not the strange thing. The strange thing is the way the wood I had stacked is moved. Not knocked. Moved. Like someone tidied it badly.

The pack is on the wrong side of the shelter. I keep my pack to my left when I sleep, which is not a thing I think about because of how long I have been doing it. The pack is on the right. I would not have put it on the right.

The water skin is half empty and I do not remember drinking from it again.

Outside the wedge, when I look uphill, the old stones — the ones I noted in the morning when I came back from the stream — are sitting more in the open than I remembered them sitting. The trees around them look the same as they did at noon. The stones look bigger. Or the trees look smaller. Or my head is doing something my head should not be doing.

I do not know how long I lost. The light says I lost more than I would have lost if I had walked back at a normal pace and sat down at a normal time. I do not have my watch because I do not have a watch here. I have a sky.

I am cold. I am cold in a way the air does not explain.

I am writing this down before I forget the parts I still have.

Playable Consequences

• Immediate consequence: opens act0.survive.recover-the-lost-hours as the next directive; pins the broken-line page in the Journal so the player can re-read the truncation.
• Follow-up clue, mission, site, or world-state change: the Lost Hours arc begins; subsequent child entries register against the lost-hours branch key.
• Related branch or linear continuation: parent of the Lost Hours arc; child entries act0-day1-tracks-in-camp, act0-day1-condition-post-blackout, and (conditional) act0-day1-dream-fragment chain off this entry.

Review Notes

• Open questions: how the Journal-gap device renders in Journal UX (a literal page break, a visual scar on the page, a fade) is a gd-journal.md concern; this entry expresses the gap as in-prose.
• Canon-delta follow-up: none.
• Audit carry-forward: the "stones look bigger / trees look smaller" framing is intentionally ambiguous; later entries should treat it as MC perception, not as established fact.

Voice Readback

I was coming back down with the food. The light was still good. The pot was in the pack and I was thinking about whether the nettle went in first or the mushrooms.

I wrote, "I have to find," and then I stopped. I do not remember stopping.

The next part I am reading aloud slow, because my hand was not steady when I wrote it. I sat down on the floor of the shelter because my legs did not want to be standing. I read what I had written up there and I did not remember writing the last word. I did not remember walking back. I did not remember choosing the floor.

The fire was out. The fire had not been lit when I left, so the fire being out was not the strange thing. The strange thing was the way the wood I had stacked was moved. Not knocked. Moved. Like someone had tidied it badly.

The pack was on the wrong side of the shelter. I keep my pack to my left when I sleep, which is not a thing I think about because of how long I have been doing it. The pack was on the right. I would not have put it on the right.

The water skin was half empty and I did not remember drinking from it again.

Outside the wedge, when I looked uphill, the old stones — the ones I had noted in the morning when I came back from the stream — were sitting more in the open than I had remembered them sitting. The trees around them looked the same as they had at noon. The stones looked bigger. Or the trees looked smaller. Or my head was doing something my head should not have been doing.

I did not know how long I had lost. The light said I had lost more than I would have lost if I had walked back at a normal pace and sat down at a normal time. I did not have my watch because I did not have a watch there. I had a sky.

I was cold. I was cold in a way the air did not explain.

I was writing this down before I forgot the parts I still had.