To Fly [Depression][Cutting][Suicide]

[AsHLeX]

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A semi-fantasy, semi-true story about one girl's experience with depression, cutting and suicide. It's a mixture of fictional elements with some true occurrences mixed in. It's a really short story, and I wrote it to serve as a sort of recognition to people everywhere who are suffering from mental illnesses. It basically tries to let you see the world from one girl's point of view, through the monochrome glasses of depression. Keep in mind that this is only one person's experience of it and that everyone if different. I admit that I may not do much justice to this, due to my limited abilities, but I do hope that this might help to spread some sort of awareness in a way. This is not a happy story, and neither does it have a happy ending, so if you think you might find that to be disturbing, please, don't read it. I don't mean to hurt anybody by writing this. It's a really short story that I finished in one all-nighter, so please forgive any typos or grammar mistakes that you might find.

Credits
Author & Programmer: AsHLeX
Artwork: hdwallsource.com, studiomugenjohncel.wordpress.com, sei.chan (lemmasoft), tropicalmonsoon (lemmasoft), http://www.vita-chi.net
Music: Alcaknight - https://soundcloud.com/alcaknight
Sound Effects: soundbible.com
Title Font: cooltext.com

To the people wondering whether it's a KN or a VN, there's only one choice near the very end.

Code: Select all

Statistics:

The game contains 136 dialogue blocks, containing 4,204 words and 24,391
characters, for an average of 30.9 words and 179 characters per block.

Download (All) 86.29MB
Mirror 1 (Mediafire): https://www.mediafire.com/?jvcxshozufb28zf
Mirror 2 (Dropbox): https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqxpxc3yjvdkk ... l.zip?dl=0

[cjunk]

Hello, thank you for making this!

To start off, from a technical standpoint I thought the audio, visuals (especially your use of color), and UI all worked well together. It is short, but given the content I don't think anyone would really be able to play a longer version. I thought both endings were fitting too, especially "Stay."

I also have depression (although I'm lucky and have found treatment that works for me) and I thought you captured the emptiness well. I often thought the writing had a sort of poetic quality to it. In some ways, I found the Heartfelt Letter PSA to be as moving, or possibly even more moving than the main storyline, because of how straightforward and personal it was.

Mental illness is an issue close to my heart, so I really appreciate any attempts to increase awareness. Thank you so much for sharing this, and best wishes to you as well.

[AsHLeX]

First off, thank you very much for your kind comment. Apologies for taking awhile to respond, I fell asleep while I was typing.

Thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot to me. Yes, mental illness is a beast, something that eats you up from inside. I wrote this short story when I was at my lowest point, because I needed somewhere to channel all my feelings into (I had stopped writing for a long time due to the pressures of medical school) so a lot of the emotions that I tried to convey in the story was what I was feeling at that time as well. Of course, part of the actual story is made up, but the feelings in it are real. Having already been in that kind of situation myself, it felt frustrating to not be understood and I know that there are a lot of people out there with mental illnesses - although, many of them keep it hidden and it still remains a stigma in some places. I wanted to try and convey that feeling to reach out to other people, both for myself and for the many others who are affected by it. I think that it's hard for others to understand how it feels if they haven't experienced it themselves - even among people inflicted with mental illnesses, every experience is different, and I definitely do not claim that I can fully understand what they're going through myself, because that would be wrong for everyone. I merely wanted to try and help others kind of understand the feeling of hopelessness, the kind of conflicting emotions that many people suffering from depression go through (or at least, my own perspective on it, which I do not deny is a small one indeed), without them ever hopefully having to go through it themselves - because I would never wish that on someone. I admit that I'm just one small person and that my abilities are extremely limited, but if I could help even one person by trying to raise awareness, then I would think that it was definitely worth it.

By the way, I can see that you made an account just to comment here and I am extremely grateful for that. I cannot put into words how encouraging that is for me. To know that this has reached at someone really means a lot to me. I wish you all the best too. Thank you, again, for taking your time to respond to this.

[M.Knight]

First of all, thank you for writing something so personal and congrats on finding the strength to talk about such a difficult topic.
I finished reading it and thought it conveyed quite well what can happen within a depressed person's mind. Short, but to the point. One thing kinda took me aback though : third-person narration. IMO, it created a bit of distance between us and the girl. I don't know if it was intentional though, as if to make us also feel like the girl's acquaintances who can't really get close to her as she isolates herself more and more.

I found the Heartfelt Letter PSA to be as moving, or possibly even more moving than the main storyline, because of how straightforward and personal it was.

I agree with this sentiment, and I think it is due to that removal of third-person narration.

[AsHLeX]

To answer your question, yes it was partly intentional. Like you had said, it would probably be easier to relate to her if it was in first person narrative, but I don't know - it just felt "right" to put it in 3rd person. Before I wrote the story, I wrote this short poem;

Another day has passed,
The cold, lonely night at last,
Seeps through the thin curtain of old,
Chilling bones as frail as snow,
Another day of battle has begun,
As she stared at the knife in her hand,
Would tonight be the end at last?
Her blood-streaked eyes seemed to ask,
Help - she screamed out internally,
Her grip on the knife wavers,
I don't want to die. Someone save me please.
She drops the knife and buries her head into her arms; something that she has been doing for what seems like forever,
It hurts so badly, but she can't do it,
Not yet.
Not tonight.

And I don't know why, but I felt like the poem seemed more proper in 3rd person and I just sort of carried it forward to the story.
Not sure if that answered your question ^_^" Hope it did? To be honest, I guess I don't really know why myself.

Thank you so much for your support. It really means a lot to me