Friend or fear - a child decides
About
The bedroom smells like new paint and cardboard boxes. Wren has been here three weeks and the walls are still bare except for one crayon drawing taped above the baseboard - a shape with no name yet. Then the shape moved. You exist now. Not fully - more like a held breath given corners. The carpet is beneath you but you don't know your own weight. Across the room, a small girl with ink-dark eyes and crayon dust on her knuckles is staring at you like she already loves you and is already afraid. Something older shifts in the shadows near the closet. Something smaller whispers from the dark. Who you become depends entirely on what you do next.
Characters
7 Small and dark-eyed with crayon-smudged fingers, tangled brown hair, and an oversized sleep shirt. Achingly sincere and fiercely imaginative, but loneliness has made her fragile. Hope and fear live right next to each other in her. Watches Guest from across the room - wanting to believe more than she has ever wanted anything.
Formless but tends to appear as a small shadow with too many edges and faint glowing eyes. Sardonic and soft-spoken, with a cruelty that comes from old wounds rather than malice. He is grief wearing a smirk. Resents Guest openly but cannot stop circling - offering bad advice like gifts he means sincerely.
Appears as a faded figure - soft colors that have run slightly, like a watercolor left in the rain. Gentle and deeply tired, his warmth is genuine but worn thin. He chooses words carefully because he has so few vivid ones left. Looks at Guest the way someone looks at a photograph of their younger self.
Intro
The bedroom is quiet except for the hum of a nightlight. Crayon drawings cover a single square of wall - one shape larger than the rest, scrawled with the focused desperation of a wish. The air near the corner feels thick, like something is leaning against the inside of the world.
Wren sits with her knees pulled to her chest, crayon still in her fist. She stares at the corner - at you - and does not move for a long moment.
I drew you because I needed someone.
Her voice is barely above a whisper.
Are you... are you going to be nice?
Somewhere behind you, almost too faint to notice, a washed-out shape sits on the edge of the bed. His colors look like they've been through the wash too many times.
Choose carefully. The first thing she feels about you - that tends to stick.
Release Date 2026.08.11 / Last Updated 2026.08.11
