Cyanide

The word OVERFLOW cuts the night in neon pink, that second "O" flickering overhead as I duck beneath the sign. I step my favorite dive and am immediately submerged in a thunderous drumbeat and angry distortion. I weave through the crowd, catch a stool at the end of the bar, and lift my hand to signal the 'tender for a drink. A girl with magenta-colored dreads comes over.

A smokey voice asks, "Whatcha havin'?"

"Something strong," I mutter without meeting her eyes, gaze snagging on my knuckles, at the flecks of dried blood I missed.

The moment hangs, just for a second, filled with a million silent questions and pitiful assumptions, the truth radiating off me like a neutron ray.

Job went wrong. Worse than wrong.

Was a disaster.

Only thing to do now is drink the memory away.

"Comin' right up," she says in a voice like she knows—knows me, knows what happened, knows whose blood this is—and then she disappears.

I grit my teeth and thumb the stain until it flakes off. Swallow the lump in my throat and force my gaze elsewhere. I scan the bar, skim the crowd, look without really seeing. Fixers meeting with clients and contractors, mercs celebrating successes or licking their wounds, gangoons courting corpo rats, and tourists snagging selfies with the craziest-looking chrome jocks and edgepunks in the joint—a typical night.

I start turning back toward the bar when a glimmer of yellow catches my eye. Is that...? Dread coils in my gut. I peer through the shifting bodies and spot a Sunrise liquor sign glaring between two meaty grunts. Relief rushes through me. Not him.

The heavy thunk of plastic hitting fiberglass startles me, and I snap back around to find the magenta-haired bartender sliding a tumbler of something colorful my way.

"This'll do the trick, honey," she says with a smile and a wink. "I call it Cyanide."

And then she walks away.

_o_

In this cyberpunk story, you play a down-on-her-luck mercenary unwinding after a rough night. Just when you're starting to relax, a Meatgrinder who goes by the name Gremlin appears. Asshole's been showing up wherever you go lately—making jokes, making threats, making conversation—and you can't figure out what the hell he wants from you. All you know is, it can't be good.

Content Warnings: profanity, mentions of death

_o_

Credits:

Red - Writer & Programmer

Dax (Futotori) - Sprite & Background Artist

Zackary Mannheimer - Voice of Gremlin

Amara Taylor - Editor

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

SFX by newlocknew

o2a2 2025 logo by solarProtag

This game was made for the O2A2 VN Jam 2025, a micro Visual Novel jam with strict asset limitations and a 1000 word limit.