Gamer Girl - Part 1 (Patreon)

A multi-caption commission for an anonymous Patron.

Pictures in this set are property of Bob Stewart/Galaxy Photography (neither I nor the commissioner could find their site, so I'm guessing it's become inactive, though if anyone knows differently, let me know) and ABDreams.

"That's weird," Janie thought as she looked at her console. "I don't remember buying that game..."

In fact, she didn't remember even hearing of it before. The icon was pretty nondescript - a black square that had a white triangle in it, pointed downwards - with no title, nothing to tell her what kind of game it was, what to expect if she booted it up. More than likely, her boyfriend had downloaded it when he was over last, but why? He hadn't mentioned it to her, at least that she could recall, and she hadn't noticed him paying anything unfamiliar. Had he even used her console?

She assumed it was a free game, or perhaps a demo, if he'd put it on her system without asking, since it was tied to her account. Or maybe it was a promotional thing... Perhaps she was blaming him for no reason, and everyone was getting it automatically. That was almost worse; she didn't play that much, mostly puzzle games and RPGs, and those were rarely the ones that would get that sort of advertising.

She considered calling her boyfriend to see if he knew anything about it, or looking online to see if anyone else had complained about the game showing up on their system without warning, but, really, she'd sat down so she could play a game... That's what she wanted to do. She hadn't known what she was going to choose when she'd sat down, either, hadn't been in the mood for anything specific... Why not give it a try? It was already there, after all, and there was a slim chance she'd love it. If her boyfriend had picked it out for her, that chance went up quite a bit, and he'd probably be disappointed if she didn't test it out and say something to him.

She selected the icon, and it blinked for a moment before transitioning to a black screen. It lingered just long enough to make her worry her console had crashed, then, when she was about to get up and restart the system, the start screen popped up. If anything, it was less helpful than the icon, since there weren't even any shapes here... It was a black screen, no images, no title, nothing except the word 'Start', blinking slowly in the center.

This was either something super low budget, or some horror game where something spooky was going to pop out at her... Janie was certain of that. If it was the latter, she was going to kill her boyfriend; he knew she hated that kind of thing. It did sound like something he'd do, though, and it almost kept her from hitting the start button on her controller.

Why she changed her mind, she wasn't sure. Maybe the mystery of it, or her innate curiosity... Even though she didn't want to be jump-scared, there could be almost anything on the other side of that screen, including a game that was perfect for her, despite her seemingly ominous introduction to it. Puzzle games didn't need huge budgets to be fun, and it was possible this was one of those, one that had chosen to spend what little money it had on the gameplay, instead of a fancy intro graphic. Of course, that really only needed to be a single image: how expensive could that be?

She almost stopped again, even reached for her phone... All it would take was one little call, and she'd at least know if this was her boyfriend's doing, or a viral marketing thing. He might not tell her if he was trying to scare her, but his response could tip her off anyway... She knew him well enough to be able to tell when he was lying.

What he liked about scaring her, however, was watching her reaction; one of the first things they'd done together was watch what turned out to be a horror movie, one that had startled her bad enough to make her wet herself. He'd found that hysterical, and been trying to replicate it ever since, to her annoyance. If that was his plan, why wouldn't he have waited until he was around to download this, to make her play it in front of him? He'd have no way of guaranteeing she'd ever open it, or, if it truly did frighten her, that she'd give him the satisfaction of telling him.

If he wasn't involved, though, it could be anything, and, unless he'd turned his console on, seen the same thing, and opened it already, he probably wouldn't know any more about it than her. If he was, maybe he'd intended for her to get confused and call him, to let him know he should come and watch the fun. If it was a nice game that he'd found and thought she'd actually enjoy, she could always play it when he was over next; if not, she could delete it and, if he asked her about it, say she'd assumed she downloaded it herself by mistake and deleted it. Perhaps she'd surprise him, learn where all the jump scares were, and not react if he tried to get her to play it in front of him, potentially ending his crusade to shock her into wetting herself again.

Whatever motivated her to do it, she, at last, pressed the button, the word onscreen blinking slightly faster in response before fading into the darkness. Again, she was left staring at nothing for several seconds, though not as long as the initial boot-up, before, finally, she got her first glimpse of the game itself.