Uncertainty looms over the Dreamer’s final days before the Ceremony in Many Nights a Whisper. 10 years of your life dedicated to landing a shot to light the Chalice, an action that could potentially fulfill the wishes of a whole town.
What keeps you awake at night is not the day itself, but what will come next.
On the eve of the Ceremony, your mom, whom you’ve not seen in a decade, lets you take her wish as your own. Each dialogue option its own parallel of what was going on in my mind in the days before my own Ceremony: the thesis defense for a degree I was no longer interested in pursuing after five long years.
I want to remain the Dreamer forever.
A temptation of endless purpose, at the cost of endless responsibility.
Continuing the academic path.
Two to seven years without having to ask myself what I really want.
I forgive my mom. I want her to live without regrets.
Does she not know that going through all this was a privilege in itself? That I’ll be thankful forever for all the experiences I got to have thanks to her? I don’t want her to think her sacrifices were in vain.
But in the end, I tell her:
I want to find a higher purpose after the Ceremony.
Whether I light the Chalice or not, the outcome will be the same: I will no longer be the Dreamer. That feeling is as terrifying as it is freeing.
After so many years, I feel lost. But I trust that, in time, I will find myself again.
If you fail the shot in the game like I did, a single word fills the screen:
CALAMITY
But once the shock fades, only two thoughts remain in the Dreamer’s mind.
It’s over.
You’re free.
