The After

Composed for OST Composing Jam #7 by Lone Rabbit, based on the theme of "Inside my World".

"The After" is a game about the afterlife and the very concept of death itself. You follow Grace, a mother who is struggling to cope with her own death, and a mysterious figure only known as the "Ferryman", who transports souls to their designated afterlife. To help Grace come to terms with what has happened, the Ferryman inserts her into various souls' previous lives, similarly to "A Christmas Carol", to show her the meaning of death.

Even though this is a video game composing jam, I couldn't help myself but to be inspired by movie soundtracks, such as Dune, which led to many of these songs having an orchestral feeling. However, I still took plenty of inspiration from video game soundtracks (especially for my seventh track, "The Before", which took heavy inspiration from "Tenebre Rosso Sangue" from ULTRAKILL). I used Logic Pro X to compose all of my songs, using mostly VSTs from Spitfire Audio Labs.

Follow along in this journey exploring life and death, and learning to accept when you're in The After.

"The After" - The title track of the game. Also introduces the leitmotif for the afterlife and the concept of death itself.

"The Tragedy of Life" - Opening cutscene for the game. Shows Grace playing with her daughter on a boat on a river, before the boat starts shaking and knocks Grace's daughter off at the midway point. Grace dives in after her daughter and gets her back on the boat, but ends up drowning in the river. She wakes up on a different boat with the Ferryman, who introduces himself and explains that Grace is dead. Grace is in denial about this and is unable to accept that she is dead. When the Ferryman gets tired of her pleas to be brought back to life (for her daughter), he instead offers to show her the lives of other people, and how their deaths were ultimately for the greater good.

"The Selfless Sacrifice" - The first level of the game. This level is about a world renowned doctor, who is a prodigy in curing illness. Midway through the level, at about the point this song would play, the doctor discovers patient zero for a deadly, ultra contagious plague that is spreading like wildfire. The doctor himself gets this plague when he is working on the cure for it, so once the first cure is finished, the doctor had two choices: administer it to himself, and let people die, or send it to the lab to get it mass produced, but die himself. He chose the latter, which is how he died. Grace comes to understand at this point that the doctor's sacrifice had prevented thousands from dying, but fails to see the parallels with her own death.

"The Fallen Dictator" - The level halfway through the game. This level is about a war-torn country, whose leader is a cruel dictator who is almost entirely responsible for the war having lasted as long as it did. However, near the beginning of level, the dictator suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. The Ferryman takes Grace through this world, and shows her the reparations that have been made since the dictator's stroke. Once the dictator dies, the Ferryman shows Grace how much stronger the country is now with the dictator gone. Peace treaties are being formed, and the country is recovering. Grace starts to realize that Death can make those who live stronger.

"The Final Acceptance" - A reprise of "The Tragedy of Life". As the game reaches its conclusion, in the penultimate level, Grace has finally come to terms with her death, but requests to see her daughters life. We see Grace's daughter apparently mourn the loss of her mother, but go on to become a renowned lawyer before dying of old age. Something to note is that, as we go through Grace's daughter's life, there is a weird glitchy patch in all of her significant moments after Grace died. As Grace exits the life, her daughter's soul manifests as her child self, and she and Grace play with each other one last time. This scene plays out like the picture theme for this jam does. At the end, they both pass on and become souls in the river.

"The Fatal Error" - As the Ferryman is about to go back to transporting the dead, he gets curious about the glitchy patches, and decides to spectate Grace's life one last time. As he gets past Grace's supposed death, he expects to get booted out, but much to his shock, the life continues, but with Grace replaced with the glitchy patch. He realizes at this point that Grace was never supposed to die then.

"The Before" - The final level of the game. With his new revelation, and due to their adventures throughout the game, the Ferryman decides to try and rescue Grace, and bring her back to life, making everything right. In order to do that though, he needs to get to "The Before", a portal to the living world. It is an arduous journey, but the Ferryman is willing to do this to make everything right. Once the Ferryman gets to the before, he makes it to the opening cutscene, when Grace jumps in the river to save her daughter. As Grace is in the river, the Ferryman does the same sacrifice to save Grace, but ultimately drowns himself. As he dies, he thinks back to all he taught to Grace about death, and is ultimately at peace with his decision. However, once he wakes up again, he finds himself in his old, familiar ferry. All is right.

"The Old Friend" - Grace wakes up to find herself in a hospital bed. She still remembers her experiences throughout the game, and yet here she is, alive. She is grateful to be alive and to be with her daughter once more. Some time passes, and eventually Grace is on her deathbed once more, although now of old age. She says goodbye to her daughter and her grandchildren, and she dies. She wakes up in the all too familiar ferry, and sees the Ferryman once more. "Nice to see you again, old friend."