Anamnesis By Sam Leigh

Instruments: Tarot

Game Description 

Game Content Warnings 

These are content warnings that are from the game prompts and are present in all playthroughs.

Playthrough Content Warnings 

These are content warnings specific to this playthrough only.

Game Playthrough

Word Count: 1,424     Played: Nov 1, 2021

Shadow Card 

Who you were in the past: 

Judgmen:, freedom from inner conflict, A wanderer, a seeker

Act 1: Pentacles

Card1: King, you notice a scar on your body

Major: The Magician Magic, Healing

I was aware of myself, sitting silently in the darkened woods, leaves on my shoulders and a vine draped across my lap. The moon shone through the trees and onto the forest floor in front of me, illuminating the rocks and bramble and no traces of another. I cannot remember myself. I am an unknown to myself and nothing in this forest was  familiar to me. I looked upon myself and found my hands were worn and calloused, lined with thick ropes of scarification in intricate patterns. This is magic but I do not know it. 

Card2: Queen You feel pain, what caused it?

Major: The sun; The self, 

I felt it then upon the back of my neck, a thick pulsing pain that deepened and eased with each breath. I reached back to touch it and felt a large thick mass of something rough attached to my skin. My hands shook and my heart raced as I tried to dig my nails into it, but with each tug it sunk itself deeper into me and I could feel it burrowing and splitting my bones. It wanted inside me and I knew it wanted to be me. 

Card3: 6 There is someone at your side, who is this person? 

Major: The tower; disaster

I could hear voices then, one then many, whispering and then shouting then quiet. Then a person, cloaked in a robe so white it glowed in the dark of the forest. They held out their hands to me and I knew I should have felt safe as I took them, but my scarred hands were still shaking. They smiled at me and told me I was finished and it was time to leave. 

I tried to speak; I tried to tell them of the mass and the pain but my voice would not work and my body refused to cry. They led me back where others, draped in the illuminated capes, waited for us. 

Act 2 Swords: 

Card1: 6 People are looking at you, what are they saying? 

Major: The Fool, New Beginning

All of them were staring at me, at my body, and at my mass. They were whispering, excited and scared, but would not speak to me directly. 

How long until it’s finished? I heard as they took me to a set of cellar doors at the base of a tree. 

Do we know that it has worked? We descended through the roots and dirt into the smell of rotten vegetation and musk. 

How long will it last this time ? 

Card2: A couple walks in front of you, does it remind you of anyone? 

I was led to a large chamber, in the center a single chair. My guide held it out for me and I sat upon it, confused, in pain, excited and scared. Then one by one they approached me, placed their hands upon my face, whispered a name and a place in my ear, then kissed my forehead. 

Ten people in singles approached me before two women, hand in hand, came to me as one. I felt a longing in my heart and a distant memory claw desperately towards the surface of my mind before the mass stung deeper into me. Then I was alone in my memory as I felt it crawl down my back and into my spine. 

The women placed one hand upon my face and whispered at the same time in each of my ears before kissing my temples. 

Card3: 2, your eyes are drawn to a statue, what is it and how do you feel? 

Major: Death,  endings 

The people in the room leave, one by one, filing out like milk spilling from a jar until I am alone in the dark, rooted to the chair. 

Above me a single candle, in an altar in an alcove, illuminated a statue. I knew this person, Crown of Memory, Avatar in Roots Me, Us? Me. A life well lived one that ended too late. 

The statue stood with its hands in front of its face, concealing it--making it everyone and no one at once, and a halo of roots blossoming behind its head.

They left me in that room, in the dark and on that chair alone with myself--who I was and who I will be.  I felt my mass and it had begun to sprout. 

Act 3: Cups 

Card1: You stumble upon a collection, what do you collect? 

Major: Stability 

People started to come to me: together, singles, doubles, all kinds. They stood with a hand on my face and whispered themselves into my ear and I collected each and every one of their names and remembered them as I would not myself. I treasured each kiss they gave, a stability in the darkness, before they departed and I was once more alone with myself.

Card2: You find an item that was gifted to you, what was it and who gave it?

Major: The hanged man; confinement 

My chair was the only material gift I knew. It eased me and confined me--a throne and a prison, respite and commencement. My home, gifted by those who seek to ease suffering but have necessitated my custody, and for their gift I remember. 

Card3: 2 There are signs someone else was here. What are they? 

Major: Courage, Bravery, Control

I felt in the chair the divots of bodies long passed. My feet were in the grooves of the floor where they sat and my fingertips traced along the scratches in the armrests. My lineage was long and unbroken and I am one of many, all unknown to themselves and Memory Alive. 

Act 4: Wands 

Card1: You decide to change your appearance, what, and why? 

Major: The world, success, fulfillment

I stood for the first time since I was brought to this place. A signal: my body was now old and dying and a new one was soon to be prepared. Those in attendance, the bright-cloaked followers, knew to prepare a new host for The Crown. 

Card2: You see conversation with someone, who do you reach out to? 

Major: The Hierophant tradition

I sought council with a sibling who would soon, too, change themselves in their entirety. I could not speak to them but instead bring them memories of the person they hold most dear to them. If they are to remember them, then they are to remember me as well, and I grow stronger through the reminiscence of the divine. 

Card3: You are caught staring into space, what were you thinking about? 

Major: The moon; dreams, vagueness, instability, 

How did it come to this? How could one sleep have caused so much pain? When this body, a devoted husk, devoid of memory, is risen to pit petty gods against one another, is finally sent for me what will become of everything? When I, too fall, consumed and rotting, will there be another to latch onto? They should have let me die.

Act 5: Conclusion 

Card: Justice, integrity

The memory in flesh, my host and body, was dead. Myself The Crown of Memory and Decider of the Past Through the Lens of Time, retreated back inside the seed at the base of the skull, waited until a follower pulled me from the body and cradled me in holy-ark until I was brought from the depths of the tree and into the woods in the dark of night.

The host, scarred with Divine Script and pattern, sat upon the forest floor, head tilted and neck exposed waiting.

And suddenly, I was aware of myself, sitting silently in the darkened woods, leaves on my shoulders and a vine draped across my lap. The moon shone through the trees and onto the forest floor in front of me, illuminating the rocks and bramble and no traces of another. I cannot remember myself. I am an unknown to myself and nothing in this forest was  familiar to me. I looked upon myself and found my hands were worn and calloused, lined with thick ropes of scarification in intricate patterns. This is magic but I do not know it.

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