But you keep getting stuck on the fact that you do not know your name.
Maybe John? No, that doesn't seem right. Jane? You've forgotten if you're a woman or man, which feels like it should be important, but doesn't seem to be right in this moment.
Tom? Richard? Harry?
None of these feel right.
"Hello?" You blink. Right, forget the name—someone else is here and has been calling you for a while. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can hear you." You call back, looking down at yourself. You're sitting in a ditch, legs half-buried in the ground. You're disheveled and covered in dirt, but you seem to be okay overall besides that. "Sorry, I was a little distracted. What were you asking me?"
"I asked if you were alright." The person standing at the top of the ditch you're in replies, cautiously, as if they are not sure if you are crazy or not. Which is fair play, really, considering where you have woken up.
"Right." You say, wondering if you should pick yourself up and dust yourself off. "I'm not sure. Would you happen to know who I am?"
The color drains from the person's face, eyes straying to the side, voice trembling a bit as they seem to read off of something. "Uh, does the name Daniel J. Fenton ring any bells?"
"Hm." You think on that for a moment, surveying the ditch and shaking your legs a little to free them. You don't feel like a Daniel, but then again, you don't not feel like a Daniel either. You tell them so, before looking back up in confusion. "Maybe I went by a nickname?"
"Like, Danny?" The person tilts their head, biting their lip. "Probably?"
You consider this, feeling out the possibly-not-new name. "Danny does feel more…right."
"So you don't remember who you are?" The person crouches, leaning more closer. "Or why you're sitting in…uh. There?"
"I have no earthly idea." You admit, to which the person snorts.
"Earthly. good one." They chuckle, reaching a hand down. "Do you, uh, maybe need help getting out?"
"That'd be nice." You take their hand, climbing out of the ditch with surprisingly little effort. You think you've been down there a while, but again, you can't quite remember. Still, you have a lot less aches and pains than you thought you would.
When you are successfully out, you start dusting yourself off, pausing when you see your new companion fidget uncomfortably. You're about to ask what's wrong when you catch sight of the small slab of stone at the head of the ditch you were in.
It's a tombstone, crudely made, with a name and years written on it as they usually do.
Daniel J. Fenton. April 3, 2004 to December 24th, 2023.
"Huh." You say, words slipping out as you carefully make your way over. "That's…interesting."
"I'll say. If I had a nickle for every guy I've seen rise out of his grave," your companion laughs, disbelieving and almost depressively, "I'd have two nickles."
You hum, something not quite sitting right. Your clothes are covered in dirt beyond belief, but beyond the normal wear and tear you're relatively clean. No out of place rips or tears, not even a speck of blood, on your once white teeshirt and blue jeans.
"Which isn't a lot," your companion continues, oblivious to your conundrum. "But it's weird that it's happened twice, right?"
You turn to look at the ditch, inspecting it for a moment, leaning over before your companion grabs you to yank you back.
"Whoa, what—" your companion turns you around, hands clamped around your biceps as if to keep you there, "we just got you out, why are you trying to get back in?"
"I'm not trying to get back in," you try and wriggle your way out, but your companion is not budging. You crane your neck as best you can, before giving up and staring into your captor's blazing eyes. "I just thought it was strange is all."
"Strange?" They finally let you go, moving over to look over the ditch themselves, as if to block your path. "What is?"
"Well," You make a face down at your beat up sneakers. "The grave looks very…machine dug. It's not really what you'd expect from someone crawling out of their own grave, right?"
Your companion freezes, turning slowly too look you up and down in a new light. Their entire countenance changes, as if a switch has been flipped.
"Come to think of it, you don't have a suit," They stalk back to you, taking your hands carefully into theirs. "And your fingernails are too clean to have dug yourself out."
"In the first place," You venture, as they let your hands drop,"Where's my coffin?"
That seems to puzzle them as well, both of you leaning over to peek at the empty grave. It truly looks too clean to have been done by human hands, the walls of it oddly straight. It's about 6 feet deep, with only the side you used to climb out looking slightly lopsided.
"…Huh." Your companion says. And really, what else were you expecting? "Should have noticed that first."
"Can't really blame you." You shrug, looking around and realizing you're also not sure where the missing dirt is, "I'd be more concerned about the amnesiac too."
"I think," Your companion finally decides, having also looked around and found nothing, "that maybe I should take you to my friends so we can sort this out."
"Sure." You agree, amiably. You have this vague notion like you should be more cautious, second locations and all that, but you also have this weird certainty that there's nothing that you can't really handle.
Do all amnesiacs have this kind of cockiness? Or is it just you? You eye your companion up and down as they take out their phone to contact their people, suddenly realizing that maybe you should have taken note of this before.
He's of African descent, skin a smooth and oddly comforting umber color. His eyes are cocoa brown, bright and rounded almond, reminding you of a chocolate Labrador. His hair is in beaded braids, some golden rings decorated here or there.
He's a handsome man, buffer than you are, though only slightly shorter than you. You think, in normal circumstances, that perhaps you would be in trouble. Your own arms are toned but slim, and though you seem to have some abs, you are more of a lean variety.
Still, you somehow know you could take him.
Strange.
"Alright," he says into the phone, "I'll see you at Leslie's."
When he hangs up and gestures for you to follow him with a smile, you realize that maybe you have forgotten something else important.
"So," You say as you trail behind him, "my name might be a mystery, but will yours stay one too?"
The man jolts, twisting around suddenly to a stop. "Right! Sorry," he holds out a hand, sheepishly smiling, "I'm Duke. Duke Thomas."
"Nice to meet you Duke." You smile as you shake his hand, feeling oddly warm. "I guess for now, you can call me Danny until proven otherwise."
"Nice to meet you too, Danny." Duke laughs, tugging you along, both of you walking side by side towards a motorcycle parked just outside the graveyard. "Let's get you sorted, yeah?"
You hop onto the bike behind Duke, feeling a little guilty about dirtying up the spare helmet you were given. The drive from there is smooth, refreshing on your skin—the sights slide by in technicolor and you lean back to flow with it, hands tight around Duke's waist.
You've forgotten your name, though you seem to have a lead on it.
You've forgotten a lot of things, truly.
But somehow, you remember this: this feeling of flying through a city, wind whipping around you, a kind of lightness to your body that feels like gravity is only an occasional visitor.
You find solace in that, this strangely familiar feeling and the warmth that seeps from Duke in front of you.
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I'm watching "Dead Light" and I've only seen Dom's face before and let me tell you - if you've asked me to assign voices to faces of the other three people - I wouldn't have gotten a single one of them right.
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Man, this book. Dead Light and Other Dark Turns (2019) is an all-timer, folks. It contains two full scenarios that are solid gold classics, plus a pile of adventure seeds.
First off is Dead Light, which was originally a holiday gift for backers of the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Kickstarters, a kind of mea culpa for delays in fulfillment (if I recall correctly). It is a survival horror scenario, with investigators stuck at a diner during a wild storm that has loosed…something. It plays a bit on the sort of dynamics you see in Alien, Evil Dead and you basic zombie movie, with players trying to survive the threat, manage the freaking out non-player characters and solve the mystery in a short window of time. Its a great, deadly pressure cooker.
The real surprise is the second scenario, Saturnine Chalice, in which the players car(s) die in sight of a deeply strange house. This one mixes Mythos stuff with traditional ritual magic and a small dose of David Lynch, to great effect. There is clear inspiration drawn from the (excellent, underrated) horror film A Dark Song (2016)(the soundtrack for which, it so happens, works very well for the scenario). The beats for this scenario are very different from the usual Call of Cthulhu investigation and it becomes effortlessly bizarre. There’s a nice puzzle to work out too. I ran this for my group last year and it remains one of the most memorable scenarios we played.
For the level of quality on display in this book, it is a bit of a bummer that it is one of Chaosium’s second-tier of print production for the Call of Cthulhu books (cheaper paper, black and white throughout). This one deserves the luxury treatment!
