The sudden terror

[cullam]

So, having played this game a lot over the past few years, there is one achievement I still haven't gotten: Survive 500 days. Boredom or inattention always kills me, in some stupid way. So around day 400 of a game of Stalker, I sent my grizzled survivor off to TWM, to live in comfortable retirement. I've got supplies for years, so at this point, I can just wear the heaviest clothing imaginable, and pass time standing outside the hut, until I get cold, step back inside, sometimes sleep, repeat. Every few days I'll go scare a deer into a wolf and shoot it, or fish for a day. Easy. I watch movies on my other monitor to pass the time. This sounds like a boring story so far... 

I'm in the living room, watching a movie with my partner. Playing through this frozen groundhog day via steam streaming to my laptop, 40 days until I can cross off that last achievement. I'm slowly hauling fish across the ice, confident that even at my trudging pace, I'll make it back before the locals wolves can track the smell. 

And then I'm looking at my desktop background. No error. No crash. Just staring at a serene default picture, with Steam streaming definitely not open. For a little bit, I'm trying to figure out what happened. And then it dawns on me: what happened, doesn't matter, what matters is that THE GAME IS STILL ON AND BEING PLAYED, WITHOUT A PILOT! I may be geared to the 9s, and able to pretty readily shrug off a wolf attack. But can I literally do nothing and survive? Freezing snow, I'm about to lose my 460 day game!! 

I bolt off the couch (roughly waking my sleeping partner, who had her head on my shoulder), and run to the office. I make it to the mouse and keyboard just as the wolf jumps me. After a brief struggle, I dump my haul at the hut, sleep to save, and quit, never to Steam Stream a run that I care about again.