My friend Cory, (who often comes over to watch me play games) said she might come by. I told her I'd be totally engrossed and just to come in if she did. I shut off my lights, turned off my phone, and started my very first Journey.
It took virtually no time for me to get sucked in. I was smoothly sliding through the desert on my own, taking in the surroundings, but I knew why I was there. I was there to find my way to the mountain in front of me, and I set off determinedly on that path. The desert is vast, and the feeling of emptiness and desolation becomes apparent quickly. The cloth is limited, and flight was a luxury, so I walked carefully from point to point until I needed to use my scarf.
I eventually wandered and learned some history along the way, which then opened a path to an area with arches that used to contain a bridge. It was while wandering here that I encountered my first traveller.We sang out and met up, leaping and running from point to point, finding glyphs floating in the air, singing to each other, and assisting each other in flying recklessly across the landscape and making our scarves longer. After several minutes of exploring, my companion sat on the ground, and I walked up to them waiting, assuming that their player had to attend to something. Except that they slowly turned to sand and blew away.
I was stunned, frightened, and suddenly very much aware of being alone. Mistimed flight meant walking to the nearest floating cloth and singing to it, begging for help. The pitch of my voice not met with the slightly different call of a partner suddenly seemed very small. I wandered slowly rebuilding a bridge of cloth, when I heard a new call off in the distance. It drew my attention and we hurried over to each other.
We sang and leapt and flew together. If one of us missed a glyph, the other would stand and sing in patterns to attract the other's curiosity and help them get to it. We subconsciously chose sides, me taking the left and them taking the right. We hurried along together, supporting each other and desperately curious for Glyphs and what else lay ahead. We were helped briefly by little kites, but payed most attention to one another. Whenever one of us became separated, the other slowed and called out. If we didn't see the other one flying to catch up, we'd run back to sing flight back into their scarf. At some point here, my friend Cory wandered in and sat down to watch.
We slid down hills and played, continuing to call out attention and ensure that they never missed a glyph that the other found. We called out more cautiously in the underground, slowly progressing through the darkness. The giant cycloptic statues awoke, and we avoided them safely. My companion stayed ahead, being more bold than I. We stayed safe for a while, until one of them spotted my companion, and ripped them into the air, tearing their scarf. I flew to assist them, and then it became a desperate run to the end. I fell behind, and watched the lights blaze red, and they locked in on my companion, ignoring me. I tried to catch up, but at the last moment, they turned back, and we made it to a safe haven.
From there, we wandered up through a sea of light and glyphs, having some time to play again, though slightly more reserved than we had been before. We climbed and flew, finally reaching the summit of the tower, where I was presented with a vision of my Journey thus far, and a vision of the road ahead. I wondered if my companion had seen it as well.
We trekked into the snow, and I noticed that when I strayed from my companion, my unlit scarf began to freeze and wither. I tried to stay close, knowing my companion was focused on forging ahead. We made our way slowly, ignoring the re-freezing cloth, and making our way steadily upwards through the wind and passageways, waiting and following. Then we came to small hideaways from the Stone Serpents. Several times we strayed too far, and they smashed away our barrier, throwing us off into the snow, and tearing what remained of our scarves. Soon neither one of us had any left. We walked desperately upwards, striving to reach the summit. I tried to share in warmth of closeness, but the pace slowed... and then they fell down, motionless.... and so did I...
I saw the white figures, and I was regenerated from the frost. I arrived in a bright, flowing mountainside, and set to fly up the summit amongst cloth rays and whales, singing out to the nature around me. My scarf was long, and life was brimming, but I was aware that I was alone. As I rode on a whale, listened to it's strong call, and wondered if we all arrive alone into this strange paradise, and pondered if we had both died on that mountain, or if my companion had awoken and found a way without me. While I wondered, I flew higher into the heavens as an enlightened being brimming with light, finally reaching my destination, and walking alone, softly into the light.
As I watched my glyph fly off of the mountaintop and back through the world, I wondered what it all meant. Why the story that I'd had happened how it did, and was I really alone in the end. I moved and sat next to my friend Cory, suddenly very glad not to still be alone, and I was glad that it was dark, so my emotions didn't show in my eyes - which were brimming with tears (and are again while writing about it).
My emotions of this Journey are, "Departure, Finite, Loss, Wonder, Confusion, Loneliness" If I could think of a term to describe this all wrapped into one word, that is what it would be named, but I don't need to, because I can envision the shape of my first Glyph, and that symbol represents this Journey.
I thought over my experiences here for almost a full week before I decided to begin my second Journey.
The Companions I met along the way were: KiteShinji, TheSadStork, HouseOfSuffering.