In the original game, the final event that wrapped up the first chapter had a time limit for a reason whose underlying logic was cruel and realistic.
Within the allotted time, players had to investigate clues, piece them together, follow the trail, and ultimately find where Sylvia was being held.
Only by arriving before time ran out could they save her.
And when players finally reached her after all that effort, just before the countdown ended, they would usually see this:
Sylvia lay in the center of the Magic Circle, still unconscious.
Beside her, her kidnapper, Professor Audrey, had already descended into a madness that made communication impossible. The moment a player drew even slightly closer, combat would begin.
Naturally, this had left the player community with a persistent question:
Why did Professor Audrey, the kidnapper, go from a calculating criminal to a completely irrational lunatic in the short time players spent traveling there?
During that unseen stretch while players desperately investigated and ran, what exactly had happened inside this ramshackle wooden cabin?
Yet in the game, players were destined never to discover the answer to this crucial question directly through normal gameplay.
Whether on their second or third playthrough, no matter how thoroughly they understood the incident's origins or the characters' backgrounds, they could never skip the investigation, deduction, and journey.
Every time they pushed open that battered door, they were invariably met with Audrey's deranged muttering and an unconscious Sylvia.
The process that shattered Audrey's sanity remained forever sealed away in the game's offscreen timeline and the players' imaginations.
But that was only a game.
That was the original, bound to a fixed script and sequence.
This was reality.
Greg had not followed the steps laid out in the game.
He had not investigated the scattered clues, sat