Narrative science fiction

Unforecast

The Absent Day

unforecast /ʌnˈfɔːkɑːst/ adj. not predicted; that no forecast saw coming.

In 2042, the Archive forecasts every future. All but one day.

Make the impossible choice.

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MARCH 14, 2042, 07:14

A barrier drops without warning on the Nadir bridge. In fifteen minutes, more than four hundred people walk off it. The Archive had calculated that the bridge would give way. The Archive is the system that, in 2042, calculates the most probable futures and advises those who decide. In its projections, one day is missing. Just one. Not March 14: that morning did happen. Another day, one no one can place: lived, erased, or prevented from existing. It is called the Absent Day.

THREE FUTURES

Three versions of the future survived that gap. Each defends its own reading of March 14. Stable: the bridge was closed in time. What was lost that morning was archives, not lives. Broken: someone decided what had to be erased. That decision must be made public. Ghost: someone was forgotten on that bridge, and is still waiting to be remembered. None of them is neutral. Each needs you to believe it.

YOUR ROLE

The three futures agree on only one thing: you took part in the disappearance of the Absent Day. None of them says how. They send you messages from 2042: the Echoes. You read them today, and your replies travel back to them. There, someone can follow them, or refuse them. Over thirty days, you will gather the six fragments of the Absent Day. The first Echo is dated tomorrow, 07:14. The same time as the bridge closure, but not the same day. And it has already arrived.

The first Echo

ARCHIVE / PARTIAL RECEPTION
ORIGIN: PROJECTION — ARCHIVE 2042
RECEPTION DATE: TOMORROW — 07:14
RECIPIENT: YOU

“If you hear this, do not answer the first voice.
It will already know what you are about to say.”

The voice stops there. The file keeps running for another nine seconds.

A door closes. Not slams — closes, with the slowness of someone who does not want to make a sound. Then breathing, close to the microphone. It lasts four seconds and turns uneven at the end, as if the person were holding something back.

It sounds like yours.

Three futures, three versions of the same morning

STABLE

Protect

Protects what can be protected, even if it means closing files.

BROKEN

Expose

Wants every decision made in secret brought into the open.

GHOST

Remember

Refuses to forget those the registers left behind.

None of them is neutral, and each needs you to believe it. Along the way: Mira, who asks when you met rather than whether she is alive. The Archivist, who defends the price of every life saved. The Shadow, who claims to keep a part of your memory. A child who draws thirty boxes, then an empty place.

One message a day, for thirty days

Day 1: the first message, dated tomorrow, 07:14. — Tomorrow, 07:14. The message has already arrived.

Day 7: three recordings of the evacuation, with the Stable, Broken and Ghost voices. — Three futures. Three versions of the same morning.

Day 15: the interface predicts your choice before showing it: a protection, a rupture, a memory. — Every choice you make is predicted. Until it isn’t.

A choice is integrated: First Resonance, plus one unit of time powder. — Every choice counts. Some earn you time powder.

Day 3: the first fragment, the Timestamp, joins your collection. — Six fragments of the Absent Day to recover.

What you will find

A complete story over thirty days, one real day per Echo.
Choices that come back later in the story.
Six fragments of evidence to gather about the Absent Day.
Three endings, all within reach until the last day. None of them forgets the road you took.
A Codex of the characters and words of the world of 2042.
The Signal Memory, to reread every day from the first.
Your activity and your town’s weather can shape details of the signal. It is optional: the game plays in full without that data.
Time powder opens the next day without waiting, up to three days in a row. It is optional: the whole story can be played without buying anything.
English and French.

You are looking for what happened on March 14.

The missing day may not be behind you.