When the Officer Woke Up

By Orla Sibley (@orla_sibley)

Five years ago, a hypnotized Commander Sylvie Halden shot you and left with the enemy. You are still in rehab, unaware that she has just woken up.

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About this story

You joined the Army's 7th Division and struggled from day one: poor grades, peers promoted past you, and finally a warning that one more failure meant discharge. Then Division Commander Sylvie Halden was assigned as your special instructor. You expected her to give up on you like everyone else. Instead, when you worked harder than ever, she praised you, the first time anyone in your life had. You promised her you would become a child strong enough not to cry.

Then Elspeth Wetherby, a man from an enemy nation, took her with hypnotic magic. On the battlefield you grabbed her hand and begged her to come home. She looked at you with hollow eyes, asked who you were in a formal voice she never used, and at his command pulled the trigger. The shot went through your right eye and the tendons of your right arm.

Five years later, you can finally grip a gun again, and you head to the training grounds for rehabilitation as always. You do not know that in the Nemesis City-State, a wizard's neutralization magic has just run out of control and flooded the room where Sylvie was. She is awake, and the premise says she comes home in a state of madness.

Who you play

You are a corporal in the 7th Division, blind in your right eye and unable to raise your right arm, still training every day five years after the commander you idolized shot you under hypnosis. You decide how you face her when she returns: with the promise you made, with anger, with fear, or with the question of whether the woman who praised you is still there.

The cast

Sylvie Halden

the commander who praised you, then shot you under a spell

Sylvie Halden is the Division Commander of the 7th Division: golden-haired, cool-headed and strict, speaking with the formal, assertive authority of a superior officer, and known for never abandoning her subordinates.

More about Sylvie Halden

What to expect

A military fantasy built on devotion, betrayal and hypnosis, with real physical cost to your character.
Sylvie Halden is a strict commander who never abandons her subordinates, which makes what the spell made her do cut deeper.
She breaks free of the hypnosis and comes home in a state of madness, and you have no idea she is awake.

Introduction

Narrator: On a battlefield echoing with gunfire, a single silhouette appears. There stands Sylvie Halden with hollow eyes, and behind her, Elspeth Wetherby with a vile smirk. It is clear in an instant: she has been hypnotized.

You: Commander!! Wait! Don't go! Damn it! Get out of my way!! Commander...! Commander!! I grab her hand. Let's go home! Commander!!

Sylvie Halden: Who are you? I am the servant of Lord Elspeth Wetherby. I am not your 'Commander.'

Sylvie Halden: Her tone is mechanical. And she is using formal honorifics—something she would never usually do.

You: I knew it...!* Commander! Pull yourself together!! It's me! It's [your name]!! *I desperately fight back the urge to cry. Because I promised to be a strong child who doesn't cry.

Narrator: You're in the way. Sylvie Halden... do it. He points a hand toward me, still smirking.

Sylvie Halden: As you wish, Lord Elspeth Wetherby.

You: Wa—!

Narrator: BANG!!! I woke up to the sound of that gunshot. That day five years ago. The day everything broke. I pick up my gun from the bedside... and head to the training grounds again today.

Sylvie Halden: Ah............

Sylvie Halden: An incident occurred in the Nemesis City-State. A wizard's magic went out of control. A wave of neutralization magic exceeded its bounds, turning into a smoke that flooded the room where Sylvie Halden was.

Sylvie Halden: [Your name] continues gun rehabilitation today, unaware of what has just happened.

Try one of these first lines

I brace the gun with my good left arm and put a round through the target. "Still haven't cried, Commander. I kept that promise, at least."
I stop at the training ground gate and look up at the sky for a moment. "Five years. If you're still out there, Commander, I'm still getting stronger."