Wednesday, February 25, 2026

We can now use generative AI to create “COGs”

Using AI to Create Cognitive Game Books That Build Thinking and Academic Vocabulary Knowledge



What if students didn’t just read dystopian survival stories like THE HUNGER GAMES...

What if they designed them?

What if their imagination became the gaming engine — and AI became the cognitive co-designer?

We can now use generative AI to create “COGs” — Cognitive Adventure Game Books — immersive, play-in-your-head survival scenarios that require strategic thinking, ethical reasoning, and deep academic vocabulary.

And here’s the real power move:

Students don’t just consume the story.

They build it.

Step 1: Start with a High-Interest Scenario

Have students prompt AI with something like:

“Create a post–World War III survival game where a 16-year-old must rebuild society in a collapsed city. Use second-person narration. Include decision points with safe, risky, and creative choices.”

Immediately, students are:

  • Analyzing consequences

  • Tracking resources

  • Engaging executive function

  • Practicing narrative structure

But we’re just getting started.

Step 2: Add Structured Cognitive Mechanics

Teach students to refine their prompts:

  • “Add a mental resource system (hope, hydration, trust).”

  • “Include moral dilemmas.”

  • “Insert branching decisions.”

  • “Introduce unexpected environmental variables.”

Now they are thinking in systems.

This becomes applied logic, not just storytelling.

Step 3: Layer in Tier 2 and Tier 3 Vocabulary

This is where it becomes academically powerful.

Students can prompt:

“Rewrite the scenario using Tier 2 academic vocabulary appropriate for 9th grade.”

“Embed Tier 3 scientific vocabulary related to radiation, ecology, and infrastructure.”

“Highlight five vocabulary words and provide student-friendly definitions.”

Now the AI becomes a vocabulary amplifier.

Instead of memorizing lists, students encounter words in meaningful context:

  • infrastructure

  • scarcity

  • resilience

  • contamination

  • governance

  • sustainability

  • atmospheric fallout

Vocabulary sticks when it lives inside a story.

Step 4: Teach Word Consciousness

Students can ask:

  • “Replace basic verbs with more precise academic language.”

  • “Add figurative language.”

  • “Increase lexical density.”

  • “Show how tone changes with stronger diction.”

They begin to notice language.

They become editors.

They become architects of meaning.

That’s metacognition in action.

Step 5: Turn It Into a Cognitive Lab

Now scale it.

Have students:

  • Design their own survival world.

  • Create a character with strengths and weaknesses.

  • Build decision trees.

  • Track mental resources.

  • Embed vocabulary intentionally.

  • Swap game books with peers.

You’ve just created:

  • A writing workshop

  • A systems-thinking lab

  • A vocabulary immersion environment

  • A social-emotional reasoning simulator

All from one structured AI prompt.

Why This Matters

We talk about critical thinking.

We talk about resilience.

We talk about preparing students for an uncertain future.

But rarely do we give them structured imaginative environments to practice those skills.

AI allows us to generate adaptive, student-driven cognitive simulations instantly.

And when students are building the world…

They’re also building their thinking.

The Real Goal

The goal isn’t dystopia.

The goal is agency.

Students learn:

  • Every decision has consequences.

  • Language shapes reality.

  • Vocabulary expands thought.

  • Systems require balance.

  • Survival requires collaboration.

And most importantly:

They learn they can design solutions.

AI doesn’t replace imagination.

It scaffolds it.

Used intentionally, it becomes a cognitive co-pilot — helping students build richer stories, deeper vocabulary, and more complex thinking structures.

And in a world that feels increasingly uncertain…

That might be the most important skill of all.

If you’d like, I can also:

  • Turn this into a parent-facing explanation

  • Add explicit MTSS connections

  • Build a classroom implementation guide

  • Or create a sample student assignment with rubric

Where do you want to take this next?

  AFTER THE FLASH

A Mind Game of Survival, Faction, and Fire

 

You are the only player. Your mind is the battlefield.


Make your own: 

Mind Games You Can Play In Your MIND, Using Your Brain. 

The structure of that series (without copying text) generally includes:

1. Big, Bold Hook

Short punchy lines.
Minimalist.
Direct address to the reader.

YOUR MIND IS NOW THE ULTIMATE GAMING ENGINE.

High energy. Immediate invitation.

2. Clear Game Concept

Each section introduces:

  • The premise

  • The “rules”

  • How to play

  • Optional variations

  • Why it’s powerful

It feels like:

  • Self-contained modules

  • Simple mechanics

  • Expandable imagination

  • No materials required

3. Structured Sections

Each game typically includes:

  • Title

  • Overview

  • Setup

  • Core Rules

  • Advanced Play

  • Why This Works

4. Tone

  • Direct, second-person POV

  • Playful but serious

  • Empowering

  • Slightly epic

  • Minimal clutter

So let’s build a full high-school/young-adult immersive example in that style.

๐ŸŒ MIND GAME #1

ASHFALL PROTOCOL

A Solo Survival Mind-Adventure

Post–World War III Earth

THE WORLD ENDED.

The sirens stopped.

The satellites fell.

The skies burned.

You survived.

Now what?

YOUR MISSION

You are one of the last known survivors of World War III.

The grid is down.
Governments collapsed.
The climate is unstable.
Cities are skeletal ruins.

You must survive.

You must rebuild.

You must decide who you become.

This game is played entirely in your mind.

No dice.
No controller.
Just choices.

HOW TO PLAY

Find a quiet place.

Close your eyes.

Imagine the world after the final exchange.

Ash in the sky.
Silent highways.
Wind through broken glass.

Now begin.

CHARACTER CREATION

You are 17 years old.

Before the war, you were:

Choose one:

  1. ๐Ÿ›  Apprentice mechanic

  2. ๐Ÿงช Science student

  3. ๐Ÿฅพ Cross-country runner

  4. ๐ŸŽจ Artist

  5. ๐Ÿง‘‍๐ŸŒพ Farm kid

  6. ๐Ÿ’ป Coder

This background determines your Primary Survival Skill.

Now choose one personal trait:

  • Calm under pressure

  • Quick thinker

  • Physically resilient

  • Observant

  • Empathetic

  • Fearless

This determines how you respond to danger.

DAY ONE

You wake in an abandoned public library.

Dust filters through shattered windows.

Your backpack contains:

  • A half-empty water bottle

  • A pocketknife

  • A flashlight (low battery)

  • One book of your choosing

What book did you save?

Why?

That matters later.

CORE RULE

Every situation presents three options:

  • SAFE choice

  • RISKY choice

  • CREATIVE choice

You must decide quickly.

No rewinding.

Live with consequences.

SCENARIO 1: THE SOUND IN THE HALLWAY

You hear footsteps.

Slow. Dragging.

Could be another survivor.

Could be something worse.

Do you:

A) Hide behind the stacks and observe?
B) Confront with confidence?
C) Trigger a distraction and escape?

Play it out fully in your mind.

What happens?

Did your background help?

Did your personality trait shift the outcome?

THE RESOURCE SYSTEM (MENTAL TRACKING)

In your head, track three meters from 1–10:

  • ๐Ÿ’ง Hydration

  • ๐Ÿง  Mental Stability

  • ๐Ÿ”ฅ Hope

Every decision affects at least one.

If Hydration hits 0 — you collapse.
If Mental Stability hits 0 — paranoia begins.
If Hope hits 0 — you stop moving forward.

SCENARIO 2: THE RAIN

Black clouds gather.

Rain begins to fall.

But the rain smells metallic.

Pre-war broadcasts warned of chemical fallout.

Do you:

A) Take shelter immediately?
B) Collect rainwater using plastic sheets?
C) Test the water on fabric first?

What happens?

Did you overthink?

Did fear help or hurt?

SOCIAL ENCOUNTER

Three weeks later, you find a small group living in a collapsed museum.

They have food.

They have rules.

They ask:

“What can you offer?”

What do you offer?

Skills?
Leadership?
Kindness?
Strength?
Innovation?

Do you trust them?

Or do you stay alone?

ADVANCED MODE

Now add:

  • Scarcity

  • Moral dilemmas

  • Limited medicine

  • A younger child who depends on you

Your decisions now shape more than survival.

They shape civilization.

LONG-TERM OBJECTIVE

You discover:

Some satellites still function.

There may be a safe zone hundreds of miles away.

Do you:

  • Stay and build?

  • Travel and risk everything?

  • Unite scattered survivors?

Your game becomes about:

Reconstruction.
Identity.
Power.
Forgiveness.

TWIST EVENT

Months later, you encounter evidence:

The war may not be over.

Autonomous military drones still patrol certain zones.

You are not just surviving.

You are navigating the aftermath of machines that never received the ceasefire.

Now what?

WHY THIS GAME MATTERS

This isn’t just survival fantasy.

It trains:

  • Strategic thinking

  • Emotional resilience

  • Ethical reasoning

  • Systems awareness

  • Long-term planning

It asks:

Who are you when everything collapses?

What values survive?

ULTIMATE QUESTION

In a world without laws…

Who do you become?

If you’d like, I can:

  • ๐Ÿ”ฅ Expand this into a full 10-chapter YA cognitive game book

  • ๐Ÿ“˜ Format it like a printable classroom resource

  • ๐ŸŽฎ Add branching decision trees

  • ๐Ÿง  Tie it to psychology / leadership frameworks

  • ๐ŸŒฑ Make a hopeful solarpunk rebuilding version instead of dystopian

This is a killer concept for high schoolers, by the way. It hits ethics, systems thinking, resilience, and narrative writing all at once.

Where do you want to take it next?


 

Volume I  ·  Post-Collapse Series


 

HOW TO PLAY THIS MIND GAME

This is not a book you read. It is a world you inhabit.

Each scenario places you inside a specific moment in the post-WWIII wastelands of what was once the American Midwest. You will read the scenario as if you are living it — through your own senses, your own fear, your own choices. Then you will find the GO instruction at the bottom.

When you reach GO, you close your eyes and you play the scene entirely inside your mind. There are no dice. There are no apps. There are no right answers. The game runs on imagination, consequence, and ruthless honesty with yourself.

You decide. Then you live with it.

 

THE RULES

1.  Read each scenario completely before closing your eyes. Know the terrain. Know the stakes.

2.  When you reach GO, stop reading. Close your eyes. Run the scenario as a living mental film.

3.  Your character — KAI — has stats. Track them honestly on paper. Some scenarios will change them.

4.  Choose. Commit. Do not rewind. If you die, restart the scenario from the top with the penalty noted.

5.  The world will surprise you. Trust those surprises. They are your mind doing its best work.

 

YOUR CHARACTER: KAI VASQUEZ, AGE 17

Three years after the Exchange — the simultaneous nuclear strikes across twelve cities on three continents — Kai Vasquez wanders the Rust Belt ruins of what was once Ohio. Orphaned at fourteen when the EMP fried the hospital keeping his mother alive, Kai has survived two winters alone, one season with a gang he ultimately fled, and six months of careful, quiet solitude in the ruins of a suburb called Hollow Creek.

He is not a hero. He is not a soldier. He is a teenager who is very good at not dying, and who wants, more than anything, to find out if there is somewhere worth going.

 

HEALTH: 8/10  (start of book)

FOOD SUPPLY: 3 days of rations

WATER: Full canteen (1 day)

MORALE: Guarded — hopeful under the surface

REPUTATION: Unknown — no faction affiliation

GEAR: Hunting knife, hand-crank radio (broken), backpack, lighter, 2 emergency blankets, water filter straw

 

Write these stats on a piece of paper. Update them as you play. They are real. They matter.

 

A note on factions — you will encounter three in these scenarios. Learn them:

 

THE IRON COVENANT  —  A militaristic group controlling the bridges and fuel depots along Route 30. Disciplined. Brutal to outsiders. Loyal to their own. They trade in labor and allegiance.

 

THE SEEDERS  —  A loosely organized network of farmers and medics centered around a working greenhouse compound called The Nursery. They trade in food and medicine. They trust slowly. They remember everything.

 

THE PALE ROAD  —  Nomadic scavengers who follow the old interstate system. No fixed base, no formal leadership, no mercy to those who cross them. They are a rumor until they aren't.

 

You begin with no standing with any faction. Every encounter with them will shape that.


 

SCENARIO 01  — THE SOUND IN THE MALL

[ TONE: TENSION · STEALTH · MORAL WEIGHT ]

 

It is 6:42 in the morning by your wind-up watch. The sky outside the shattered skylights of the Westbrook Mall is a sickly yellow-grey — the kind of color the sky has been most mornings since the Exchange, like someone held a burnt match behind a sheet of paper. You slept in the old electronics store on the second floor. It still smells faintly of plastic and old carpet cleaner, which you have decided is one of the more comforting smells left in the world.

You are eating your morning meal: three crackers from a sleeve you've been rationing, and a small handful of raisins. This is breakfast. You chew slowly, deliberately, because you've learned that eating slowly tricks your body into thinking it had more.

Then you hear it.

It is coming from the floor below. Not loud — the opposite of loud. It is a scraping sound. The specific sound of something heavy being dragged across tile, then stopping. Then starting again. A rhythm that is too deliberate to be an animal.

You are still. Your crackers are still in your hand.

The sound stops.

A long silence.

Then a child's voice, barely above a whisper, says: "Is someone up there?"

You do not breathe. You are thinking about three things simultaneously: the two exits you mapped last night, the fact that a child's voice can be used as bait, and the equally real fact that there might actually be a child down there.

You look around the electronics store. There is a back corridor that leads to a service stairwell — you could be out of the building in ninety seconds without ever being seen. There is also a railing overlooking the atrium where you could get a visual before committing to anything. And there is your voice, which you haven't used to speak to another human being in eleven days.

The child's voice again, thinner now: "I can hear you breathing. Please. My brother is hurt."

 

[ A ]  Stay completely silent and observe from the railing before doing anything.

[ B ]  Call out a response — keep it vague, give nothing away about your position or numbers.

[ C ]  Take the service exit now. A hurt child means someone else is coming to help them, and you do not want to be here when they arrive.

[ D ]  Announce yourself, descend, and approach openly — if this is a trap, you'll know within thirty seconds.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are in the electronics store. The crackers are still in your hand, slightly crushed from how tight you were holding them. The atrium below is dim. The child just spoke again — softer this time, like they're losing hope. Choose your option. Step into the moment. Run this scene until it reaches a natural pause — a new piece of information, a decision made, a confrontation resolved or avoided. Then open your eyes, record what happened and any stat changes, and continue.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: If you made contact and helped: +1 Morale, −1 Food (you shared). If you left: −1 Morale. If you were ambushed because you went down: −2 Health, −1 Food (taken). Record honestly.


 

SCENARIO 02  — IRON COVENANT AT THE BRIDGE

[ TONE: INTIMIDATION · NEGOTIATION · FACTION INTRODUCTION ]

 

The Cuyahoga River bridge at Marker 14 is the only crossing for eleven miles in either direction. You've known for two days you'd have to cross it. You've been delaying.

Now you're here. And so are they.

There are four of them. Iron Covenant — you recognize the mark immediately, a crude black gear painted on their jackets, on the barrier they've dragged across the center of the bridge. They are armed. Two of them have rifles that look operational. One has a crossbow. The fourth, the one standing slightly apart from the others with her arms crossed and her eyes already on you, has a sidearm on her hip and the particular stillness of someone who has been in charge long enough that they don't need to move to communicate authority.

You are standing at the south end of the bridge. They have not shouted at you. They are watching you the way a toll booth operator watches an approaching car — routine, evaluating, already knowing the transaction is going to happen one way or another.

The woman uncrosses her arms and walks three steps toward you. She stops. Her voice carries across the bridge without effort:

"What are you carrying, and where are you headed?"

This is the Iron Covenant's standard opening. You know this from the man you briefly traveled with last spring — Darnell, who'd crossed four of their checkpoints. They are not asking to be polite. They are establishing that you must answer them. The social trap is already set: respond with aggression, and you're a threat. Respond with too much information, and you're a resource. Respond with weakness, and you're a burden they'll wave through and never take seriously — or one they'll shake down properly.

You have eleven seconds before the silence becomes its own kind of answer.

Your knife is on your right hip. Your pack is on your back. You have, in that pack, your water filter straw — rare, genuinely valuable — and one of your emergency blankets. You also have half your remaining food.

She is waiting.

 

[ A ]  Give a confident, minimal answer. "Light pack, heading north. I know the rate — what's the crossing tax today?" (Signal familiarity with their system without revealing how little you actually know.)

[ B ]  Tell the truth — you're alone, you're a scavenger, you need to cross. Offer something small upfront as a gesture of good faith.

[ C ]  Counter-question: "Depends on who's asking. What's the Covenant offering travelers today?" (Risky — tests if she respects boldness or punishes it.)

[ D ]  Say nothing further, slowly hold up both empty hands, then point north. Let them take the first real step.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are standing at the foot of the bridge. The river below is brown and slow. The wind is cold and smells like rust. Four armed strangers are looking at you. The woman is waiting for your words. Choose your option. Build this negotiation in your mind — let it go wherever it naturally goes. Is there a moment of danger? A test? An unexpected offer? Does she let you through, ask for a price, or reveal something about the Covenant you didn't expect? Run the scene to its conclusion. Then open your eyes and record the outcome.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: Successful crossing (any means): +1 Reputation with Iron Covenant (note: Neutral → Observed). If you were taxed: lose 1 resource of your choice. If you turned back and found another route: lose 1 day Food and Water. If you gained the Covenant's interest positively: note COVENANT: NOTICED on your sheet.


 

SCENARIO 03  — THE FIRE AT NIGHT

[ TONE: HORROR · SPEED · CONSEQUENCE ]

 

You smell it before you see it.

Smoke, yes, but more than smoke — there is the specific chemical reek of burning plastic and foam and the things that houses are made of when they are burning from the inside out. You have smelled this before. You know what it means. Someone's shelter is gone.

You come over a small ridge and see the farmhouse below, fully engulfed. It is beautiful in the way that terrible things can be beautiful — a column of orange and gold against the black sky, the upper floor already collapsed, sparks lifting into the dark like a backwards constellation.

What is not beautiful: the figure standing in the field fifty feet from the fire, watching it.

It is a person. Standing very still. Something about the stillness is wrong in a way that goes past grief — this is not the stance of someone watching their home burn down. This is the stance of someone watching a thing they did.

Then you see, at the edge of the firelight, two shapes on the ground. Not moving. You are too far to see clearly but your body already knows what they are.

The figure turns, slowly, and looks directly at you.

You are on a ridge. You should not be visible. But the fire behind the figure means they can see you clearly in silhouette.

For a moment neither of you moves.

Then the figure takes one step toward you.

 

[ A ]  Run. Now. Into the dark, off the ridge, put maximum distance between yourself and this person immediately.

[ B ]  Hold your ground, hand on your knife, and wait to see what they do next.

[ C ]  Shout across the field: "I saw nothing. I'm moving on." Then walk away at a controlled pace.

[ D ]  Disappear sideways off the ridge into the brush before they can close the distance. Observe from concealment.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are on the ridge. The fire is roaring below. The figure has taken one step toward you and is still looking at you. Every second you spend deciding is a second they spend choosing too. Choose your option. Play this scene — the pursuit or the escape or the terrible conversation. What does this person do? What do they say if you stay? What do you find if you investigate the shapes on the ground? How does this moment change you? Run until it resolves. Record everything.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: If you fled successfully: −1 Morale (you'll think about those shapes). If you engaged and it turned violent: roll for outcome in your mind — −2 Health if injured, +1 if you came away with something useful. If you discovered those shapes were survivors: see Scenario 6 (the world remembers what you did here).


 

SCENARIO 04  — THE SEEDERS' TEST

[ TONE: COMMUNITY · SUSPICION · TRUST ]

 

The Nursery is real.

You'd heard about it for months — dismissed it the way you dismiss most things people say with too much hope in their voice. But then Darnell had told you about the greenhouse. A real one. Hydroponic. Solar-powered. And now you're here, standing at the edge of a tire-and-wire barricade, looking at a compound that smells — impossibly, heartbreakingly — like tomatoes.

There are six Seeders in view. They are dressed practically, in layers, most of them with soil on their hands or knees. None of them have visible weapons, which either means they're peaceful or it means the weapons are not meant to be visible. One of them, a heavyset man in his fifties with a grey beard and steady eyes, has approached the barricade and is looking at you.

He says: "We have three questions we ask everyone. Answer honestly and you can stay for a meal and a night. Lie on any of them and you go — we'll know."

He says this the way a person says something they've said many times. Not threatening. Just: this is how it is.

"First question: have you deliberately taken from someone weaker than you in the last thirty days?"

You think about the last thirty days.

There was the can of soup you found in a house where someone had clearly been living — they were just gone when you arrived. You took it. Were they weaker? You don't know. You don't know if they ever came back.

There was the boy at the mall. Depending on how your Scenario 1 went.

The man is watching you. He has the eyes of someone who has spent three years learning to read whether people are calculating their answer or remembering it.

 

[ A ]  Answer yes — truthfully, specifically. Tell him about the soup, or about whatever is true. See how he responds to honesty.

[ B ]  Answer no. It's defensible. You can convince yourself. The soup was abandoned.

[ C ]  Ask what he means by 'deliberately' before answering — buy a moment, and also genuinely interrogate the question.

[ D ]  Answer: "I've done things to survive. Whether they qualify depends on what you're really asking."

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are at the barricade. The compound smells like living things growing. The man is waiting for your answer with the particular patience of someone who is not impatient — who believes the waiting is itself useful information. Answer him. Let the next two questions come. Let this conversation go where it goes. Does he let you in? Do you pass? Do you fail but earn something anyway? What is the inside of The Nursery like? What does it feel like to be in a place that might be worth protecting? Run this scene completely.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: If granted entry: +2 Food, +1 Health (medical attention), +1 Morale, SEEDERS: OBSERVED on your sheet. If turned away honestly: +1 Morale (you told the truth), SEEDERS: NEUTRAL with note of respect. If you lied and were caught: SEEDERS: HOSTILE, −1 Morale.


 

SCENARIO 05  — THE RADIO

[ TONE: WONDER · DANGER · IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE ]

 

At 11:14 PM, your broken radio comes on.

You don't know why. You've had it for eight months and it has never made a sound. The hand-crank is stripped. You've been carrying it as a potential trade item and maybe, underneath that, as a symbol of something you don't have a word for.

But now it is hissing with static, and underneath the static, unmistakably, there is a voice.

You are sheltering in a concrete parking structure, second level, away from the road. It is cold. You are in your emergency blanket. The sound of the radio is loud in the silence and you are immediately, purely terrified — terrified that someone outside will hear it before you can locate the volume, terrified that the static will swallow the voice before you understand it, terrified that you are somehow hallucinating from cold and hunger.

You find a crack in the casing and press your ear to it.

The voice is a woman's. She is speaking in a measured, deliberate cadence — not panicked, not broadcasting entertainment. She is reading coordinates.

Latitude. Longitude. A date: seventeen days from now. Then these words: "This is the third transmission. If you are hearing this, you were meant to. Come to the coordinates. Come alone. Bring proof that you have survived at least one winter in the field. We are not a faction. We are something else. Come or don't. This is the last time we'll broadcast."

And then: static.

The radio does not come back on.

You lie in the dark for a long time. The coordinates are in your head — you are already calculating whether they're within range. They are. Barely. Seventeen days of hard travel, maybe twelve if you push. The land between here and there is Iron Covenant territory for the first half, then unknown.

You think about 'something else.' You think about what proof you'd bring. You think about how many people heard that transmission and what they would do with the information.

 

[ A ]  Memorize the coordinates precisely. Plan a route. Decide to go — carefully, quietly, telling no one.

[ B ]  Decide it is a trap. Someone with resources and technology, broadcasting on a frequency that finds broken radios — that is not rescue. That is bait.

[ C ]  Consider trading the information. Someone would pay for those coordinates. But to whom?

[ D ]  Sleep on it. You need to be clear-headed. The coordinates will still be in your head in the morning.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are in the parking structure. The emergency blanket is rustling. The radio is silent and slightly warm. The coordinates are numbers in your head, already trying to crystallize into a destination. What do you decide, and what does that decision feel like in your body — is it fear? Hope? Both? Let your mind settle into the aftermath of this moment. What do you dream about? What do you think about in the hour before sleep? How does this change your plans for tomorrow? Run this moment and its ripples until they still.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: This scenario changes your OBJECTIVE. Add to your sheet: SIGNAL ORIGIN — 17 DAYS. Whether you pursue it or not, this information now exists in your world.


 

SCENARIO 06  — WHAT YOU LEFT BEHIND

[ TONE: GUILT · RECKONING · THE PAST MOVES ]

 

This scenario activates based on your choices in Scenario 1 and Scenario 3.

If you helped the child in Scenario 1: skip the first section. Begin at the line marked [IF YOU HELPED].

If you left the child: read from the beginning.

 

You've been on the road for four days since the Scenario 3 fire. The landscape here is flat and grey, dotted with the bare bones of old cornfields, the stalks broken and rotting in a way that still looks like a failed harvest even three years later. You've been making good time. You've been trying not to think about the shapes on the ground.

You see her before she sees you.

She is maybe nine. Sitting on a concrete median in the middle of a fractured road, eating something from a can with her fingers. She has a makeshift sled behind her — a plastic bin on a rope — and in the sled is a boy, maybe six, asleep or unconscious, bundled in what looks like a curtain.

She looks up when you're twenty feet away. She is not scared of you. This is somehow worse — a child who has stopped being scared of strangers.

She says: "You're the one from the mall." She says it flatly. Like a fact she's been carrying.

 

—  [IF YOU HELPED the child in Scenario 1] —

She looks at you with recognition, and something older than relief. "I told my brother about you," she says. "The one who came down. He wants to thank you when he wakes up." The boy in the sled is breathing. Labored, but breathing.

 

Either way, you are standing on this road with these two children and a question that does not have a clean answer: they cannot survive alone, they are not your responsibility, and you may be walking toward something seventeen days away that cannot include them.

 

[ A ]  Travel with them. Adjust your plans. Protect them until you can find a stable community — the Seeders, maybe.

[ B ]  Give them as much food and water as you can spare and directions to the nearest safe place you know. This is the most you can do.

[ C ]  Tell her about The Nursery. Give her the exact route. Walk with them for one day to make sure they're moving in the right direction, then continue alone.

[ D ]  Ask her what she needs most, right now, in the next hour. Start there.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are on the broken road. The girl is looking at you with eyes that have seen too much and are still, somehow, waiting to see something good. The boy is breathing. You are carrying the coordinates to something that might change everything, seventeen days away. This is the moment the game becomes about what kind of person Kai is becoming — not surviving, but becoming. Choose your option. Let this scene breathe. Let it hurt if it hurts. Let it be good if it can be. Run it to its natural end.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: If you took them in: −1 Food per day (shared). +2 Morale. SEEDERS may respond differently if you arrive with them. If you sent them ahead: −1 Food (given). +1 Morale. If you walked away: −2 Morale. Note: THE GIRL KNOWS WHERE YOU WENT. This appears later.


 

SCENARIO 07  — THE PALE ROAD AT MIDNIGHT

[ TONE: DREAD · CUNNING · ABSOLUTE DANGER ]

 

You have made a mistake.

You took what looked like a shortcut — an old two-lane state route that cut diagonally through the territory, shaving two days off your timeline. You knew it was near Pale Road range. You came anyway. It was a calculated risk, and the calculation was wrong.

There are three of them behind you. You've been aware of them for forty minutes. They are not trying to conceal themselves — this is part of how the Pale Road hunts. They let you know. They let the knowing work on you. They want you tired and scared when they close the distance.

It is 11:47 PM. No moon. The road is a grey ribbon ahead of you. You have been walking fast for forty minutes and you are breathing too hard, which is burning calories you don't have.

You know several things: the Pale Road rarely kills outright — they strip and release, taking everything you carry and leaving you alive but naked in the cold, which is its own kind of death sentence in winter. You know they number three but you don't know if there are more ahead. You know this road has nothing off either side — flat land, nowhere to hide.

Except.

Ahead, maybe four hundred yards, you can see the blacker shape of a structure against the black sky. An old farm building, maybe. An overpass support. Something.

And in your pocket, the lighter.

 

[ A ]  Run for the structure. Get inside. Make them come to you. Choke point is better than open road.

[ B ]  Stop walking. Turn around. Face them. Speak first — loudly, clearly, with more confidence than you feel. "I know you've been behind me. Let's talk terms."

[ C ]  Leave your pack in the road — make it visible. Step off the road into the flat dark and go completely still. Let them stop for the pack. Use those seconds.

[ D ]  The lighter. There is dry grass at the road's edge. Wind is at your back. You are thinking about whether you are willing to do this.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. The road ahead is dark. The footsteps behind you are unhurried, patient, three sets, sixty feet back. The structure ahead is a shape you can't read yet. Every option has a cost you can't fully calculate. Choose. Move. This is the scenario where Kai learns something about what he is capable of under real pressure — not moral pressure, not emotional weight, but the simple animal fact of three people intending to take everything from him. Run this scene hard. Run it until it ends.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: If you escaped with pack: no loss. If you lost pack: −all food, −water filter (critical loss — note WATER CRISIS). If you were caught and stripped: −3 Health, start next scenario with nothing but your knife if you kept it hidden. If you used the fire: it worked or it didn't. In your mind, you will know which.

SCENARIO 08  — SEVEN DAYS OUT

[ TONE: ENDURANCE · REFLECTION · INTERNAL STORM ]

 

Seven days left to reach the coordinates.

You are hungry in a way that has moved past discomfort and settled into a kind of grey background hum. Your Health is whatever your sheet says it is. Your morale is whatever you've earned.

This scenario is different. There is no immediate threat. No encounter, no faction, no creature in the dark.

This scenario is the walk.

You are crossing a dead suburb — Massillon, the sign says, though the sign is bullet-riddled and tilted. The houses are empty. Some are burned. Some are simply still, like they're waiting for someone to come home. You move through it slowly, carefully, and the silence does what silence does to a person who has been in danger for too long: it starts to open up space in your head.

You begin to think about what you're walking toward.

The woman said: we are not a faction. You've turned this over hundreds of times. Not a faction means not an army, not a compound, not a resource empire. So what? A laboratory? A government remnant? People with a plan? People with a delusion? And 'you were meant to hear this' — what does that mean? Does it mean the transmission was targeted somehow? Does it mean the world has a plan for you? Do you believe in that?

You also think about everything behind you. The mall. The bridge. The fire. The children. The Pale Road. Every choice you made, which are now real history in the world of this game, irreversible, already shaping what comes next.

This scenario asks you one question, and the answer lives only in your mind:

 

Why is Kai still going? What does he believe in?

 

Not what he hopes for. Not what he wants to find. What does he believe in — right now, with everything he's seen and done — that makes the next step worth taking?

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are walking through Massillon. The houses are empty. The sky is that familiar burnt-paper yellow. Your legs are tired but you are still moving. Don't think about the destination yet. Think about the walker. Think about Kai — who he was before the Exchange, who he became in the three years after, and who he is right now, today, seven days from something he can't name. Let your mind go where it goes. There is no enemy here. There is only the question. Take as long as you need. This is the scenario that makes everything else matter.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: This scenario restores +1 Morale regardless of where you are — the walk itself, the thinking itself, is a kind of fuel. Note one BELIEF on your character sheet. It will matter in the final scenario.


 

SCENARIO 09  — ARRIVAL

[ TONE: REVELATION · DANGER · EVERYTHING AT ONCE ]

 

The coordinates lead to a school.

Not a ruin — a school. Jefferson Middle School, the sign says, and the sign is clean, and the windows are intact, and there is a generator sound coming from somewhere inside, and you can smell food cooking and you are standing at the edge of the parking lot with your knife in your hand and absolutely no idea what to do with the fact that this is real.

There are twelve people visible in the parking lot. They are different ages — a man who might be seventy, two women who look like they are in their thirties, teenagers, a child. They are not armed, visibly. They are doing ordinary things: carrying water, writing something on a board, talking.

One of them sees you. He is maybe your age — sixteen, seventeen, lean and watchful. He looks at you the way you probably look at him, which is to say: with the specific calculation of someone who has survived by being good at reading people.

He calls out, not alarmed: "She said to watch for someone coming from the southwest. She's inside."

He means the woman from the radio.

She's inside.

You have made it.

But.

You notice: two people in the group are wearing the Iron Covenant gear mark. One of the women has what looks like a Seeders kit — the specific bag design, the medical cross. And the boy who spoke to you — there is something on his jacket you haven't seen before. A different symbol. Something new.

All three factions, represented. Or ex-members. Or something else entirely.

And behind you, at the edge of the parking lot, you hear footsteps.

You turn.

It is the girl from the road.

She has the boy in a repaired cart. She is looking at you with an expression that contains everything. "I figured out where you were going," she says. "Can we stay?"

 

[ A ]  Walk into the school. You came for answers. The girl can take care of herself — she got here, didn't she?

[ B ]  Go to the girl first. Introduce her. Walk in together.

[ C ]  Ask the boy in the lot: what is this place. What is she — the woman on the radio — actually building here. Before you take one more step.

[ D ]  Stand in the parking lot and take thirty seconds. Just breathe. Look at all of it. Let it be real.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. You are in the parking lot of Jefferson Middle School. There is food smell and generator hum and real glass in the windows and twelve people doing ordinary things. The girl is behind you. The boy from the radio is watching you. Somewhere inside is the woman who said 'you were meant to hear this.' Your knife is in your hand. You still have the BELIEF you wrote down in Scenario 8. Let it inform what you do next. Run this arrival — the conversation, the revelation, the first moments of whatever this place actually is. Let it be as big as it needs to be.

 

STAT GUIDANCE: You have arrived. Note on your sheet: DESTINATION REACHED. Whatever your stats are, they are the stats of someone who made it. In your mind, hold the full picture of who Kai is right now — every choice, every scar, every reason. He is exactly as strong or as damaged as you played him.


 

SCENARIO 10  — WHAT IT COSTS TO BUILD

[ TONE: HOPE · SACRIFICE · THE REAL QUESTION ]

 

Her name is Dr. Reyes. She is forty-four years old. She was an epidemiologist before the Exchange, which means she spent her career studying how things spread — disease, information, behavior, fear. She has, in the three years since, been studying something more specific: how communities survive when every institution that held them together is gone.

She tells you all of this in a room that was once a school library, now lined with handwritten notebooks and hand-drawn maps and the kind of organized-chaos that belongs to someone who has been thinking hard about one thing for a very long time.

Then she tells you why the radio found you.

"We built a transmitter that only reaches receivers with certain damage profiles," she says. "Broken radios that have been hand-modified, hand-carried, and kept for months despite not working. The kind of person who keeps a broken radio is the kind of person we need."

She looks at you.

"Not soldiers. Not foragers, specifically. We have those. We need people who keep things that don't work because they mean something. People who make decisions that cost them something personally because they believe it's right. People who — " she pauses, reads something in your face, "— who still believe things are worth protecting."

She shows you the notebooks. The maps. A plan — an actual plan, with timelines and resource charts — for a network of twelve communities across a five-hundred-mile radius. Not a faction. Not a government. Something more like a nervous system. Each community self-governing, but connected. Sharing seeds, medicine, information, and something she calls 'moral memory' — the stories of what worked and what didn't and why.

She needs people who will go back out.

Not to conquer. To connect.

She is looking at you and the question she is not quite asking but that is entirely present in the room is: will you.

 

You think about your sheet. Your health. Your morale. Your faction standings. The girl in the cart. The boy who just told you his name is Marcus and that he's been here three months and that it is, genuinely, real. You think about your BELIEF — the one you wrote down in Scenario 8.

 

[ A ]  Yes. Without hesitation. This is what you were walking toward without knowing it.

[ B ]  Yes, but with a condition: the children come with you, or stay here safe. You decide which.

[ C ]  Ask for time — two days, inside, eating real food, sleeping somewhere warm. Then you'll decide. Not because you're unsure, but because you want to decide from strength, not desperation.

[ D ]  Tell her about your BELIEF. Tell her what you wrote down in Scenario 8. Let that be your answer, whatever it is.

 

▶  GO:  Close your eyes. The library is warm. It smells like paper and something cooking and the specific smell of a place that people have been thinking in. Dr. Reyes is watching you with the patience of someone who has waited three years and can wait another minute. The notebooks are on the table. The maps are on the wall. Somewhere outside, Marcus is showing the girl around and the boy in the cart is sitting up and looking at things. Choose your final option. Let Kai answer. Let him — let you — decide what he is going to do with the fact that he survived. Run this scene all the way through. Let it end somewhere real.

 

This is the end of Volume I. Whatever Kai decided, write it at the bottom of your character sheet. Not as a stat. As a sentence. The sentence that describes who he is now and what he is going to do next.

The world continues in Volume II: The Connecting.

 


 

KAI'S FIELD RECORD — PRINT AND USE

Print this page or copy it to paper. This is your living document.

 

CHARACTER: KAI VASQUEZ  |  AGE: 17  |  POST-EXCHANGE YEAR: 3

 

HEALTH: ___ / 10

FOOD SUPPLY: ___ days

WATER: ___

MORALE: ___ / 10

 

FACTION STANDINGS:

IRON COVENANT: ___________________________

SEEDERS: ___________________________

PALE ROAD: ___________________________

 

GEAR (cross off when lost/used):

[ ]: Hunting knife

[ ]: Hand-crank radio (broken / signal received)

[ ]: Backpack

[ ]: Lighter

[ ]: Emergency blanket #1

[ ]: Emergency blanket #2

[ ]: Water filter straw

 

NOTES / KEY DECISIONS:

Scenario 1: ________________________________________________________________

Scenario 3: ________________________________________________________________

Scenario 5 objective noted: ________________________________________________

Scenario 8 BELIEF: _________________________________________________________

Final sentence (Scenario 10): _______________________________________________

           ________________________________________________________________

 

 

AFTER THE FLASH — Volume I  ·  Post-Collapse Mind Game Series

"The world ended. You didn't. Now what?"

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