Hollowed | Aidan Galpin ’21

you guys gonna get uncharted when it comes out

maybe … ive been taking a bit of a break from actually playing games so i can focus more on college i was starting to spend a little too much time on games…ya know

i feel that… i played games a lot back when i was in middle and high school… it can really affect your grades n stuff if you let it

yup :lul:

i actually failed my freshman year… had to do summer school in order to stay on track

ive actually started writing stories about what it was like from my perspective (my psychiatrist actually gave me the idea) Actually you wanna see what im currently working on?

Before I Got Help (Reality through the eyes of a person who can’t tell video games from real life)

You start your day the same way you always do on the weekend. You wake up to the dorm parent telling you to go get your meds. When they leave, you go on your phone, watch some Netflix,

go on Clash of Clans, and then get dressed. You open the door and head down the hall to the stairwell and notice how dark it is. You just assume that it is very overcast, typical winter weather. You head downstairs and open the side door of the dorm. You notice that it is very dark, not just overcast, like everything is less colorful. The ground is hard and dusty, far from the luscious green grass you had walked barefoot across the previous day. The trees surrounding the school are all dead and in the place of all the buildings are giant Byzantine and Gothic style cathedrals and Renaissance style buildings that make you feel insignificant and fill you with dread. You begin to wonder if it is just a dream, you had spent seven hours playing nothing but Dark Souls the night before and this whole thing could just be something your mind made up. As you head forward, you notice human-like figures that appear to have lost their souls, you know them to be hollows from the countless hours you have spent playing the game, wandering aimlessly around the barren wasteland that once was your school whilst casting despair on the weak for they once were like you, but hollowed because they could not escape. Surely this was not a dream, it felt too real, but how could it possibly be reality?

You think hard about the events of the previous night. You remember that you had decided to restart the game, restart it from the beginning. Everything else is dark, you cannot recall anything else. You walk to the run-down Renaissance building where the dining hall once stood, and come across a knight with black steel armor that is covered in nicks, scratches, and the occasional patch of rust. On his back, he carries a rusty greatsword with long curved spikes like lengthy barbed wire and the etch of a human skull where the blade meets the pommel. You realize that he was the one who had woken you up, not your dorm parent. “You were almost gone when I found you,” he said. “ I was beginning to wonder if I was too late.” He, of course, was talking about you becoming hollow. “Could you do something for me?”

reality’s edge, digital rendering aidan galpin ’21

You respond with a yes. “I don’t have much time, could you finish what I have started?” You nod your head, yes. “Thank you.” And with those final words he hollowed, and you set off to finish what he had started. Although he had not told you what it was you were supposed to finish, you know inside that it is to ring the bell and light the Kiln of the First Flame because you have played Dark Souls for thousands of hours. You know that this time it is going to be different and that this time you could actually hollow and never return to the normal world.

You set off in the direction of the dining hall which, like everything else, has grown in size and become a city full of hollows, filled with buildings that are a mix between medieval and gothic architecture. You find a shield next to a withered corpse and a broken sword on the ground. You make your way through the city, going in and out of buildings, searching for items and grinding for souls in order to level up your stats. That’s how this game works, or at least you assume this because it is Dark Souls just in a new form. You find a bonfire and light it, healing you and refilling your Estus Flasks. Making your way to the first of the massive structures in the distance, you look to your left and right at the endless levels of streets and buildings climbing high into the sky far beyond what you can see. When you get to the cathedral, after battling your way through hordes of undead and other creatures, you go inside and light your second bonfire. You think that it is strange that there were two bonfires with no bosses in between, and you assume that every boss will be much harder than in the actual game since there was no tutorial boss or even a tutorial at all, which made sense because it wasn’t really a game.

so you like really thought you were living the game irl? and that was sorta a way of i dont wanna say coping but coping … uhh make sense of it .. or come to terms with just … everything

Yeah. …sorta … you knda gotta understand that those first couple of years… when i was dreaming and stuff.. Like when i slept thats all my brain would really go through...i got very little sleep as well... and thats all i experienced while i was awake… thats really all i knew so it made sense in my head at least to just

accept it and questioning it caused quite a bit of internal conflict i mean i was questioning how i had viewed everything during that time. i was … it was hard to … yeah it was hard and its hard to explain

hmm Well i think youve done a good job with it so far.. what do you have planned for it … like … uh

Thx …yeah itll continue like this a little … then itll kinda skip to the internal conflict stuff …i also wanna talk a bit about how the design of games can be a problem for ppl … games are designed with addictive color schemes and all sorts of stuff

Thx… cya

honestly id never thought about how games had an effect on me mentally or that it could even affect you mentally hope youre able to finish it and get that stuff out there gtg

veiled theatre, colored pencil ollie searle ’21

52 top: modern, drawing | drew redmond ’21 bottom: lucid dreaming, bishop, ca, drawing | henry holland ’23

Colin Brazas ’22 Henry Hollard ’23 Caleb Kurihara ’24 Jordan Edgecomb ’24 Charles Howden ’22 Henry Lytle ’23 Tony Hao ’22 Michael Jaber ’22 Ivan Mora ’22 Noah Henthorn ’24 Tobenna Okoli ’22

Jackson Fender ’21 Wilton Graves ’21 Luke Stone ’21

Erin Price Emily Pulsifer Jameel Brenneman

Struan celebrates the artists and writers who dream and create on Christ School’s campus. Designed and edited by a dedicated group of students, our art and literature magazine displays select work from students and faculty. Over the years, this annual publication has included every form of writing and art, from personal essays to Post-It poems, charcoal drawings to digitally manipulated photographs. On its pages, the definition of a “Greenie” expands to include those who find purpose, strength, and community in art.

Christ School Arden, NC 28704 www.christschool.org