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[gowoshusoul]

Fanmade Chaos Insurgency Item: Grandmother’s Ring

(TW: themes of suicide, mentioned/implied domestic violence)

Item: Grandmother’s Ring

Size: Size 8

Type: A wedding ring of unknown era

Living: No

Sentient: No

Potential/current hazards: Can induce madness, can cause death

Location: Base Five

Reported Anomaly: Mind altering cognitohazard

USAGE

The Insurgency currently has no use for Grandmother’s Ring. 

REPORT

Grandmother’s name is an ornate, diamond Victorian wedding ring. It was a family heirloom before being collected by the Insurgency. While it appears to be nothing out of the ordinary, there are multiple written testimonies of its anomalous properties. Grandmother’s Ring should be kept in a standard felt ring box and should not be worn by anyone under any circumstances. 

If a married person assigned female at birth puts the ring on, they will be driven to madness. If a person assigned female at birth is not married, the ring will have no effect. 

If a person assigned male at birth puts the ring on, they will be strangled by an unseen force. 

The entity attached to the ring cannot be seen by anyone not wearing the ring and cannot be captured by cameras. Our only knowledge about the entity is from first-person accounts and interviews have proved unsuccessful. 

A picture of Grandmother’s ring before it was put in storage. 

ADDENDA

Below are relative journal entries written by the last person to wear Grandmother’s ring. Her skeleton was found with the ring still on its finger. Skeleton has been collected for testing. 

7/17/1841 

I’m to be married in a week's time. My dress was my mothers, though certain alterations had to be made for it to fit my figure. Ma was always a small thing. Petite and fragile, she preached that men would love me for my shape. For all the soft parts of me waiting to be slept on and hugged and loved. I would keep my husband warm at night, she told me. Her words ring true as my beloved Harry tells me I have more to love than the average woman and he loves me well. He spoils me more than I think I deserve, and I pay him back in poetry. He loves me, and he’ll love me more in my mother’s dress. White, floor length, modest with frills around the wrist and beading from foot to breast. My veil will be my own. My ring has been in the family for so long that we’ve forgotten the name of the woman that once wore it. I’m honored to wear it, and glad my sister declined to fight me for it. She doesn't wish to marry, she said. Rather, she fancies planting a garden with a close friend of hers. They can eat the fruits of their labor and that will be enough for them. I’m thankful for her decision. For the ring. 

7/24/1841 

It’s the morning of. From the moment I awoke, my hands trembled with excitement. They still did as my sister Adelia dressed my hair. She helped me in the dress and behind me I saw her eyes full of tears in the mirror. Behind her, I saw a flash of white in the corner of my vision. I’ve come to accept that I’ll meet the same mad end as my mother. Adelia will as well, but today is not one for lamenting the inevitable. Even if I’m to forget this day in my old age, I will enjoy it. I will revel in it for as long as it remains in my memory, and I will cherish my Harry long after I’ve forgotten his name. We have a love that transcends madness and forgetfulness. When we are old and decrepit, we will hold hands on our deathbeds and go together, neither of us willing to go alone. I’ve found a man I can face death with. No matter what greets us on the other side, we won’t be lonely. 

7/25/1841 

Last night was the greatest of my life. Even now, the next morning, my head is light and airy, my chest full of suppressed giggles as I awoke to his loving face on the pillow beside mine. There’s no feeling to compete with that of waking to see his face, to hear his gentle snoring as I sneak out of bed to write my love. Should someone one day in the future read my diary, know that there is love for you. Pure, untouched love you can never imagine before you feel it. It doesn’t happen fast. It isn’t like falling. It’s like sinking into a comfortable bed and having a blanket lovingly tucked around your shoulders. It’s a feeling of utter safety, of waking up on an overcast day with the gentle pattering of rain against the grass. You know you have nothing to do that day. You revel in the warmth until you realize the blanket wrapped around your shoulders are the arms of your beloved. You will feel love like this, too. All you have to do is give it the time to flower. 

7/27/1841

I never expected the madness to grip me so quickly. I awoke to the sight of Harry’s dark beard against the white silk pillow cases. At the foot of my bed, however, I saw a woman. Her hair was the color of straw, her eyes white and tearful. She stared through me, into something I can’t understand and spoke to me. Fear not. You are in danger, she said, and I am here to protect you. I whispered, so that I wouldn’t wake my beloved Harry, and asked her what danger I could be in. She wept into her palms. Poor girl, she said, you never could have known. I was frightened, so I turned to Harry and buried myself in his arms. I’m not sure when she left, as my head was in my beloved Harry’s chest. I listened to his heart until he woke. When I lifted my head, she was gone. 

7/30/1841 

I see her in my sleep. The weeping woman dresses in white and veiled with sheer lace. Out of the corners of my eyes, hiding behind my Harry. She sits at my dinner table and weeps in my bed. She warns me against my marriage and I tell her I won’t leave. Harry exudes love and passion. He wraps his arms around my waist and leans his weary head against my shoulder while I cook. I sit in his lap as I read and she sits across the room from me. She can’t see our love, or she chooses to look through it. I assure her I’m safe. I am loved, but every time she takes to drying her cheeks and telling me, one day you’ll understand. One day you’ll know. But I know now the love I feel. The safety of Harry’s strong arms and will. He’ll let no harm come my way. 

8/12/1841

I had an awful dream last night. It started at my wedding, though it wasn’t really my own. The man standing before me was not my Harry. He was a tough, rugged man with eyes of blue and hair of brown. It was curly and tousled. He smiled with his teeth bared and I woke as he slipped my ring onto his finger. As I look down at it now, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and the image of that man in my head. One look from my beloved Harry banishes any thought of him. However frightening that man was, my beloved is infinitely more comforting. He is safety and warmth personified. 

8/20/1841

She comes to me daily with her eyes red from drying tears. He doesn’t love you, she says, but I know she’s lying. I argue with her in the dead of night when I’m able to slip from my bed and join her on the porch. I don’t want my voice to wake Harry. She stood by the steps as I sat in my rocking chair. I told her Harry loves me, that he means no harm, but she won’t be swayed. She shakes her blond head and insists, Time will tell. I sit with her on my loneliest of nights, when Harry’s too tired from work to keep his eyes open after dinner. She reveals nothing of her life, but asks me about mine. I readily tell her. I try to comfort her. I tell her how lovely Harry was during our courting, how patient and gentle and kind he was. She hears none of it. 

8/26/1841 

I’m teaching myself to ignore her, though I hear her heels on my wooden floor in the dead of night. Back and forth down the hall, always stalling by the bedroom door but never barging in. She seems to have learned to respect my boundaries. I contemplate taking the ring off, though I fear hurting my beloved Harry’s feelings. I shall keep it on, as a testament to my love and a promise to her that Harry can be trusted. She whispers to me that my mother thought the same thing as my father. That she saw the same light and felt the same comfort in her own husband. But those men are different from my beloved. I tell her she has no reason to doubt him, that it’s unfair to judge him for the acts of men that have come and gone. She won’t hear me. 

8/27/1842

I had another horrible nightmare and woke to a cold, empty bed. The same man as before was in the dream. The same ring was on my finger. He took me by my hand and led me to bed. I refuses to lie with him and his face twisted with terrible anger. He took my hips in his wide hands and I relented. In spite of his anger, there was a warmth to him. A light that shines through his blackened soul and gave me hope that he might one day change. As my dress slipped from my shoulders, the dream ended. She was waiting for me by the door. Her cheeks were wet with tears. I was like you once, she said, men never change. I told her my Harry has nothing to change. He is pure and handsome and kind. She shook her head and left me. 

9/10/1841

He plagues me nightly. Every time I lay my head down, he’s waiting for me. With every night, he looks more and more like my beloved. His hair straightened and turned black. He shouts with a voice like thunder and crashes glass against the wall when I try to comfort him. I tell him I love him. He takes the words out of my mouth. Every morning, she’s waiting for me. By the door, on the porch; an apparition following me every step of my life. That was my ring, she says, but I’d already guessed that. I asked her who she was, and she replied: It doesn't matter. I’m someone else now, and I can protect you. I need no protection, I tell her, but she doesn’t hear me. 

9/14/1841

My paranoia controls me. I finally told Harry about the woman and the dreams. He wrapped me up in his arms and kissed my hair. It’s okay, he says I’ll protect you. I’ll love you in sanity and madness alike. I’ll chase the man from your dreams and the woman from your visions. I still dream of him. I still see her, but I am loved. That’s all that matters. 

9/20/1841

My beloved Harry’s support is something I never could have imagined. When I tell him where I see the woman, he stands in front of her and blocks her from my vision. He saves me the grief of having to interact with her. She still plagues me, though she never speaks. She watches with worried eyes as Harry dips me to give me a kiss, as his beard tickles my neck with his kisses. He protects me from her, just like he said. 

10/1/1841

I’m still shaken from last night’s dream. Never in my life have I seen something so horrid, a scene so disgusting. I never would have thought my mind capable of conjuring such offensive visions. I awoke with tears and my beloved was there to hold me, to whisper into my hair that he has me, that I’m okay. And I was okay, though my hands still tremble as I write before bed. 

I dreamt of the same man. This time, though, there was something wrong with him. I was timid and small, made to feel smaller by his oppressive figure. I was backed against a wall. There were hands around my throat. My lungs burned. My lips were numb as I dug my nails into his arms. As my vision faded, I looked at him one last time to find that it was my beloved Harry. I woke to see his face on the pillow next to mine. He left a bitter taste in my mouth. 

10/2/1841

I’ve had enough. I confronted the woman, cornered her in my own home as her ghostly figure passed through my walls. I asked her who she was and she burst into tears. I noticed the bruises on her neck for the first time and she admitted to me, I am the Angel of Death. I come to you as I came to your mother and your mother’s mother, to warn you of the evil that lurks in every man’s heart and carry you away from their cruelty. I shouted at her, My Harry has no blackness in his heart. He is the off-white pages of my girlhood diary where I lamented my lack of love, where I professed my jealousy for my friends as they found love I vyed for. She shook her head, but I made her listen. My beloved Harry is good and pure. He loves me as I love him. He protects me against my madness, about the madness she brought onto me. I cursed her for my undoing. For my nightmares. For the voices that live between my ears and steal my thoughts from my head. I cursed her for daring to put such a horrible image in my head and I cursed her because I’ll never forget it. Harry heard the commotion and came to collect me. Now he lays his head on my thighs as I write. I’m infinitely thankful for him. 

10/21/1842

My nightly horrors have grown too much to bear. Every night, Harry strangles me. I wake gasping for breath with tears on my cheeks. Tears that he dutifully wipes away, though I’ve learned to flinch from his touch. He never raises a hand to me, never speaks a harsh word to me. He’s always worried, always kind. He is a light in my life, one threatened to be snuffed out by the Angel’s cruel visions of the past. I confronted her again, once again on the porch so that I might not disturb my love. I asked her why she tortures me, and she tells me again that she’s protecting me. From what? I asked. She shook her head. You still don’t see it, she said. I don’t. I never will, because my beloved is not her husband. He is not my father nor my grandfather. He is a good, patient man, and she has no right to punish me for having a love purer than hers. My love is right, I said, and yours was wrong. My heart aches for you, but I have a life to live. I have love to dive into and comfort to feel. I don’t deserve to be driven mad like my mother and my mother’s mother. She shakes her head. She doesn’t hear me. 

12/1/1841

We thought the delusion was genetic. We thought the woman mom saw in her dreams and out of the corner of her eye was a symptom of living in such an old home. Ma  grew up on stories about a fair-skinned woman roaming the halls lamenting for her short life. This was before mom ever saw her. When grandma was still alive and had the mind to tell stories of her youth. She said the woman first appeared before her on her wedding day. There was an unfamiliar face in the crowd. The woman with blond hair and white eyes was crying in a church pew next to my great-grandmother, who warned her nonbelieving child of what she called the wedding ghost. I thought she was lying or crazy. I should have known better than to doubt three generations of women seeing the same apparition. I’m killing myself tomorrow to rid myself of her. Her fear and delusions, her unending scare tactics and the wailing in the middle of the night. She hovers behind my husband, my beloved Harry, and whispers over his shoulder all the horrible things he might do to me. The horrible things he wants to do to me. She never lies, she says, she never will. She claims she knows what’s best for me, but I know best. I’ve lived in my head longer than she has. I’ll put an end to her torture. I’ll die with the ring on my finger and hide my body so that no one else should be hurt the way she hurt me. She tells me she’ll accompany me in death, that she’ll carry me to somewhere better. 

I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. I curse her. 

I curse her. I pray that my body is too heavy for her arms, that she might be tied down to my corpse, that my rotting face will torture her as she’s tortured me with Harry’s. 

My love, I’m sorry. It’s too much to bear.