junokuth

[junokuth]

I Know the End.

Screenshots from my recent game.

[junokuth]

019_250302_018_11_09_stable

I liked this new town. It was quiet, secluded between the glaciers and calm waves of the river. It was nothing like the city we left behind, and to my surprise I still missed it, despite everything we left there.

It's weird, how once disturbing rattle of the railroad had become a fond memory, an ever present constant from my earliest memories all the way into the adulthood. It made the city feel alive, all those people were heading somewhere and someone waited all that cargo.

And there were busy shops, and packed roads early in the morning and loud festivals over some empty cause. When all of that mattered, of course. When cities weren't cages.

But then we left, don't get me wrong, I haven't grown to regret it in the time since. And yet, no matter how comforting this town is, it hardly makes it easier to get accustomed to.

[junokuth]

018_250228_023_19_08_window

There's always something to rely on. A trustworthy friend, a caring family member, a loving pet. Always someone by your side.

There's always light, and warmth, and comfort in this house, floors covered in soft pastel carpets, wallpaper a gorgeous maze of shiny patterns. It was always like this, a place to rest and feel at ease.

When you wake up, it smells of fresh bread, and you leave the table feeling pleasantly full and content. When you go to bed, the air is crisp and chilly, just the perfect temperature, and then you're embraced by blankets and lulled to sleep by rain knocking on the window.

You can hardly wish for anything else. Soft grass in the garden filled with flowers, nice looking house by the lake, secure fence around the whole place. There's nowhere you would want to go.

And yet, the windows always catch your eye. Foggy and crying with condensation, you can still see the lights dancing behind them. Soft pinks and oranges, purples and vibrant reds.

You have no neighbours. The nearest road is a forest away.

You're safe in your house, of course. You'll never be in need of anything here, wrapped in softest sheets and quite well fed. You will never be alone here.

And so, you leave the light behind the window be, go on about your day and draw the curtain when the night falls.

You keep them closed, you use the towels when small puddles form below the windows. It doesn't have to be important.

You're pretty sure you hear a knock one time, from the window in your living room, on the ground floor. It must've been sometime closer to morning, and you were lazying around in your bed. There was no way you would get up to check.

Besides, that would mean having to open the curtains, and really, what haven't you seen there?

Whatever that could've been, it will never happen again. You can be sure of it. And so, you spend you day and go to bed in peace.

[junokuth]

See for yourself.

On the subject of the upcoming game (link to previous works in bio), welcome our dear narrator.

[junokuth]

017_250226_022_20_10_embrace

When I wake there is no tomorrow. It was dead for years, tears spilt and ran dry, pages marred. There is no today either. Long poisoned old thing, holding on out of some bone deep reluctance to let go, to give into the sweet call of the past, to leave. It's blurry on the edges, fading in and out of existence and it screams as it laughs, ugly trails marking its face as blood seeps out from the holes below its fingers. It isn't here. But it hasn't passed.

The blankets were always a perfect defence, from monsters in the darkness when we were younger, from monsters in the daylight where we are now. A simple, widely accepted routine to climb into a false chrysalis for the night, to hope that anything will become clearer tomorrow. Perhaps, this time we will have longer, a few hollow moments to keep our head under the water, to press out hands into the pillows and keep the illusion alive. I crave embrace more than my body ever dared to crave food. It makes me sick to think about. Oh, but no bodily embrace will cut it, you see, it has to be a hug of teeth on skin, it has to be devouring. I will not to take matters into my own hands, I wish not to keep the pillow down until the air runs out. I want to be of service as my life goes out, the blood turns cold and sour. I want to feed the breathing things, the stupid things that still persist and will pay tenfold for not following my lead. I wish to feed. Because I know of hunger. And I have held, and bitten, and devoured. Each pretty thing that crossed my arms, undying light radiating from the glassy surface of their eyes, from behind the strangled heaving of their sighs, their mouldy paper of a skin. I took their hands, I cradled their face, I kissed their forehead after I tucked them in their bed. I read them stories as their breathing failed. And every time, there was not a single thing I could have done, their body tired and their mind unwilling to keep fighting for no one knows how long, no hope in sight. I could only sing them lullabies, unruly throat closing, clicking, hurting with unwanted tears, but those damn songs were more important that whatever turmoil my body thought it had the right to go through. So it could wait. And wait. And wait. What else it had to do?

[junokuth]

Bide your time.

A taste of what my next game will be like. Releasing in a week.

While there's still time, feel free to check out my other works (here). Nothing too fancy, but you'll be witnessing the journey of learning to make games. Thanks in advance.

[junokuth]

016_250223_020_13_07_sentence

"I was starting to worry that my pet turtle could tell what I was thinking."

I mean, obviosly, it sounds utterly stupid but listen to me. When I walk past its cage, when I sit in my armchair deep in though, when i prepare food, just all the damn time - it watches me. It watches my every steep, and then I stop, and start to worry and it gnaws on the cage bars, staring me dead in the eye.

Okay, a turtle looking at me, what can it do? That's what I though, too. It's tiny, it can barely move, and it can't climb the stairs whatsoever. But! Exactly when I was thinking of this, it nodded its head at me. And kept staring.

About a week later I come home and all seems fine but I can't get over an odd feeling. That's when I notice that all furniture is mirrored, there are dents in the carpet from the previos placement, odd patches that didn't fade in the sun. I call the police, sounding like an utter idiot, they check the house - no signs of a break in.

The turtle just keeps watching. I can't remember if it even blinks anymore. I keep coming home and something is missing, or misplaced, or suddenly reappeared months after vanishing into thin air. Almost every piece of furniture was moved, all but a small cabinet with the turtle cage on it.

I started looking at it too. After a bit to long it seems there's nothing exept its shell. Hollowness that threatens to swallow you whole, make sure you never see the light of day again.

And to be honest, I can't remember when I fed it last. Maybe it was just hungry. Maybe it hasn't moved in quite a long while.

[junokuth]

Have you seen the sunset today?

[junokuth]

015_250221_024_12_10_stay

Looking back, the odds were never on your side. Compromised from the beginning you stubbornly kept trying, time and time again until you got what you wanted.

Waking up in spite of reason, showing care when you could lounge through you life undisturbed. Few humans know such persistence.

Speechless, you taught me more than any creature of my kind could. You never ran away, you never hid, you faced beings far bigger than yourself with utter defiance and made them listen. Made them understand.

You lived a life twice over what was promised to you. I hope it was a happy life. I hope you are at peace.

But I don't miss you. Because you've never left, not really. From memories to scars your claws accidentally left on my hands, you are forever with me. An example of resilience, a promise of hope.

I remember you. You will never be lost again.

[junokuth]

Inside the box.

Stretching is important for one's health.

[junokuth]

014_250219_017_13_08_heart

The heart is a rotten old thing. Hiding behind its prison bars of bone, unrelenting in its ever growing hurry. It cares not to change and it thinks not of rest for you can hardly miss what you have never learned.

The heart is a hungry devouring bastard. Pulling forth all it fancies, pushing it aside as soon as its sated. One would dare wonder if it would care were it to have somebody to rely on, but alas, it seems we may never know.

The heart is a tender muscle, a tiny pump that moves the bodies. Resilience is all it ever known, feeding the brains that save, that kill, that would not fit such concepts of morality and those who are getting ever closer to learning them.

The heart is tired. To drum with every disturbance, to wait for something wrong to happen after every turn, to forcefully silence its song in case there's someone watching. It aches.

The heart has learned to wait. When it looks forward, ever further from the now, it sees the only way this all will end. For all it knows, it could've stopped a dozen years ago, but it goes one. Would be a waste of effort to give up so soon.

[junokuth]

The odd one out.

Just a couple of friends.

[junokuth]

013_250216_016_16_10_word

The words were easy before you knew of their weight. Flowing freely from your lips, from the books, from the stage and on your way home. Creating stories with ease among the people you used to trust, with others you wanted to know better, with your toys. The world is a confusing old thing. To this day you can hardly explain most things you encounter daily, years after all novelty is gone, yet the clarity still didn't come around. You feel that itch in the back of your mind, to create tales in place of knowledge, that worked well in your early years.

But when you imagine trying to do so, however much knowledge you've got pushes down on you. You may not know much, but you do know that there are others, they must've done something similar and they did it better, they probably know more, tried harder, studied to do their work well. What are your stories next to theirs? But the story is still here, waiting for you to put the world aside. It does not care for other stories, they came to be to help other people, and none of those stories cared how well they were put into words, or pictures, or melodies. Neither does yours. It waits for you with patience unseen in all that's living, because it's not. And it could not care less about anything that isn't taking you away from what brings you harm. You know the feeling, the utter otherness of stories where all else falls aside, in which the lifetimes are moulded by you and it takes many days to get back to the real world. And others times, you're quite tempted to stay. It would let you. For it wishes only to comfort you, to take you far away, to hold you close. And it does not care for the words you use to paint it.

[junokuth]

Patience, attention to detail and precision.

A character from a game I made.

[junokuth]

Mx. Raven is a wizard now!

[junokuth]

012_240612_014_20_09_tradition

I drop the pen atop the marred paper and shuffle to the other corner of the room. I've sat there, staring into the cliffs of words, the waterfalls of letters, with leaking eyes unable to put down your doom.

You know what comes, had known from the beginning, a clever child of the broken shells. You've had your share of pain and joy was rarely your guest. Your path now walked, as you fulfilled your purpose, but my hands aren't strong enough to let it end.

I've made you speak, put breath between your ribs, but so did I bring loss and stolen all your dreams. You would not be here now were it not for my sole efforts, but I could never ask you if such life's worth the torment, and you would never dare to ask me back.

I take the pen again, all tales shall have an ending, such is tradition who am I to break it.

…Unsteady steps have carried our hero, as scarlet flow had marked their last retreat. With breathing panicked, voice filled with hollow pleading they stood atop the barren hills…

The lines merge as a pool of ink floods over pages, my fingers swearing dark abyss with fading words. I tried this dozen times and yet I'm weaker than I thought.

Alright. A deal, my dear hero. I've travelled with you, told you stories of my heart. I saw you slay the obstacles stood on your path, joke your way out of a dragons maw. I am no stronger than they were, I can not end you. Maybe there shouldn't be an end to you at all.

Here is the deal: I leave the paper. I leave the pen. And walk out that door. Whatever happens next - none of my worries, I my not know what's best for you at all. And if you see a thread that's better, that gives you what you've longed for all along, well, there is no one to watch what's written on the paper. At least one of the two of us will find their home.

[junokuth]

011_240611_013_19_09_silver

It healed way better than I could've imagined. Almost unnoticeable and under the right lighting, so much so I can successfully pretend it isn't there. Which does not make it go away.

It sits along the outer side of my right arm, smooth mended tissue that has lost all sense. It sings at night of all the harm that could be done, dividing all my actions on those which came before the grief and now.

It used to look far worse, when it had started. First, but an itch, a fanged dream at night, which grew in size its restless whispers devoured all my hollow innate hopes.

When first it cracked I sighed with a relief, a malady resolved itself, no outside help was needed. And then looked down to see an odd misshapen eye blink open and stare back at me.

The view went odd, an eye looking inside itself, long journey of the evolution unprepared for such event. It had my iris colour, lashes same as mine, it blinked away the tatters of the skin that held it tight.

It stayed there for a year, and then the itch began below my collarbone, my hip and my left palm. It was my body, but if that went on, I do not know who would be host and who'd become but a parasite.

It hurt far less than I imagined. A final breath, like signing your own sentence, in one swift motion it was gone. A bubble of despair now leaking over cushions, a twisted bone embraced by shaking muscle.

I had to bandage it for three whole years, as tissues closed over the carmine abyss. And in that time I've almost learned to pay no mind to brushing of the lashes below skin.