The holidays are close to ending and it’s time to start packing away your decorations. In a stroke of bad luck, you drop an ornament (or other small bauble) and it shatters. Inside was a strange, glistening dust that you accidentally inhale. You are immediately met with a strong hallucination of a previous holiday memory. It only lasts for a few moments, but it feels like you are back in the memory, reliving it. It seems so real but when it ends, you are back in the present with no trace of the dust left in sight. Which holiday memory did you relive, and how do you react to being torn from it?

(You can only relive a memory from a holiday in December and it must be from this lifetime. Characters who have lost civilian memories, such as in a side swap, will have a much vaguer memory. Locations and faces will be blurred and unrecognizable, and the memory will not reveal anything about their previous life. These characters may be left feeling a little hollow after the memory.


It had been sheer effort for her to even set up a christmas tree, but set it up she did despite the lack of holiday cheer on her part. The tree, picked from a local store, had been a small and sat upon a table in a corner in all it’s multi colored light and christmas ball glory. Had it been lit often? Not as often as she normally would have but it had at least blazed its glory at least on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That was enough for her. Enough for her and Reilly to attempt to enjoy the holiday in quiet companionship huddled under a blanket on her couch watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Scrooge’.

New Years had finally come and Gwen had spent it out at a club. It had been an escape. A way to ignore the fact she was unhappy, depressed, and just outright over the bullshit she’d been dealing with. A small reprieve from real life. The high was amazing, and made her not care. Everything and everyone was alright in those fleeting hours.

No. It hadn’t been a bad way to ring in the New Year.

The low had left her feeling more depressed than usual. Perhaps it was the combined lack of drug and the end of the holiday season, or perhaps the the pressing dismay that another New Year had begun and nothing about her life had changed. Nothing had gotten better. In fact, everything seemed to have gotten worse and…

Heaving a sigh, Gwen ran a hand through hair in need of being washed. The greasy sensation clung to her fingers but she paid it no heed. There were things to do. Things to help her mind from straying to anxieties, fears, the desire for more drug.

Reaching out to dislodge a small, well worn bauble christmas ball from the tree the ornament slipped from jittery fingers. It hit the table then the hardwood floor, and the abuse to the old decoration had been the last straw as it shattered into multiple pieces. Pieces of glass went in multiple direction and as Gwen reached down to grab them in dismay, a strange powder seemed to rise up as the ball broke, filtering into her nose.

”Lift me up! Lift me up!” She bounced around the bottom of the tree. Tiny hands clutched the precious baubled ornament. A name, emblazoned in a silver filigree, wrote out Gweneth.

A laugh, a flash of red hair similar to her own and hands gripped her just under her arms. “Alright. Calm down.” Gwen felt herself being lifted up. The scent of a fresh cut tree mingling with the peppermint scent of the woman holding her was delightful. When she deemed she was high enough, hands reached out to place her very own ornament on its desired branch. “There you go! Do you like where it’s at?”

The arms that had been holding her out now pulled her into cradled Gwen against a warm body. “Mhm! It looks so pretty!” She wiggled in the arms smiling brightly. “Thank you so much Mommy!”

Gwen was kneeling on the floor holding pieces of broken ornament in her hand. A piece, with worn silver filigree nearly rubbed off, spelt out Gwen.

Letting herself fall backwards into a sitting position, knees coming to her chest, Gwen cried as a deep hollowness and depression overwhelmed her. The memory had been anything but welcomed.

wc: 578