Loading screen (disambiguation)

In Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Amnesia: Justine and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the Loading Screens that come up when accessing from one section of game to another contain important bits of story. These sentences are told by an unknown third-person omniscient narrator.

The Loading Screens are organized in various sets that come up in different parts of the game. Every set has a different background picture.

The Dark Descent

The following screens appear when exploring the different areas of Castle Brennenburg.

A Rose On the Floor

These Loading Screens come up in the first and last part of the game.

The other children cheered him on. His name voiced in a steadily rising pace, urging him to do it. “Am I really doing this?”, the young boy thought and struck his victim with a rock.

He fell to the kitchen floor. Tears were beginning to well in his eyes as he received the first kick in his stomach. Hazel remained hidden, in fear she too would be punished.

A fragrant taste of rose lingered his mouth. Turkish Delights, he thought, just like the ones at the consulate in Constantinople.

Traveling to Dover meant going through Canterbury. He made sure to pay a visit to avoid the sense of guilt connected with neglect of family.

The door slammed shut behind him and he knew he would never again see the old tailor at Berkeley Square. Another lone soul in London-seemed appropriate somehow.

Alexander became silent. He didn't know what to say. He could no longer recognize his friend sitting across the carriage.

The crying had stopped and he could hear a whisper coming from the cell. They were up to something and he would have to punish them.

Daniel exploring the tomb of Tin Hinan

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Entrance Hall side rooms.

The desert dunes were like waves in a sluggish sea. While the caravan moved the land appeared motionless, but in camp the hills moved.

The sand gave way to his tired body as he fell from the camel's back. He felt the wind gently sweep across his face and his dry, crusted lips.

It was done, the men said. The tomb had been revealed. Tin Hinan awaits, grinned the toothless foreman.

The statues were praying - gazing into the dark domed ceiling.

The stone slab looked like a safety measure. It wasn't meant to be moved ever again.

A handful of sand trickled from the crumbling stone ceiling and pushed down on the brim of his hat. He braced himself as the cavern suddenly shifted and settled.

Tents In the Desert

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Entrance Hall side rooms.

He sat down by the Casbah wall gasping for air. Sweat poured from his forehead and onto the sand veiled ground.

After Enduring three days in Algiers, a sailboat was finally arranged to take him across the Mediterranean Sea to Gibraltar. Having reached British territory, it was just a matter of reserving a cabin on SS Hortensia, headed for London.

The cloth smelled of desert and damp musk. The pieces lay scrambled on top. Too many of them, he thought, or perhaps too few.

It became impossible to avoid. The commotion in the streets begged for his attention. As he opened the shutters the French soldiers opened fire on the two young men fighting back. Their voices silenced in a haze of gun smoke.

Daniel In the Water

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Kaernk-infested rooms of the Castle: the Cellar Archives and the Archive Tunnels.

He crashed through the surface. The dark Atlantic water smothered him as he struggled to make sense of the situation.

Something large brushed against his leg and he felt himself being dragged along by the current of the beast. He pushed himself above the surface. “Help!”, he cried as the ocean swallowed him again.

He felt himself being hoisted out of the ocean. The lacquered hull of SS Hortensia glittered in the soothing warm light of a setting sun. He turned his head to the calm ocean reaching towards the coast of Portugal and thought, "Is this another dream?".

An Opened Suitcase

These Loading Screens appear when exploring the Back Hall. The suitcase contains some papers, a pair of glasses and a pocket watch.

Herbert's trunk was wrapped in rope. The lock had been broken, by thieves he assumed. He wondered if anything had been left considering all the hands it had passed.
He climbed out of the bed and looked out the window. It was completely dark. He waited, glanced at the old clock, and waited some more. Four o' clock, he thought, it's enough.
The thin cold mist brushed his face as he stepped outside. London weather could be cruel, but it was the kind of cruelty he could handle.
"Is this another dream?", he thought, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
He returned the tea cup to the saucer and picked up the orb as one would an apple, and pondered on the strange happenings.
He tried to fit the pieces together, but like the sand dunes, they shifted when you weren't looking.

An Arm Lying On the Floor

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Back Hall's side rooms.

He flipped though the Book of Monarchs looking for etchings and counted. Nine different kings from all over Europe had been depicted with an orb resting in their hands.
Sir William Smith had been marked. There was no way for him to know that the young man from the other day cast such a terrible shadow.

Professor Taylor was the second death caused by his damned curiosity.

He panted heavily, trying his best to keep himself from screaming. The medicine cabinet had been overturned and lay collapsed on the floor. He reached through the broken glass door and grabbed all the sedatives he could find.

The strange letter frightened him, but it was the only one which offered him some comfort.

Castle Brennenburg In The Distance

These Loading Screens come up in the Prison, from the Elevator to the Cistern Entrance.

The dark towers of Brennenburg rose above the forest and were silhouetted against the snow white moon. He couldn't help feeling sad for some reason.
Carefully treading the unknown land, he looked over his shoulder at his travel companions. The outrider touched the brim of his hat as a final farewell.
The morning sun flickered between the pine trees as the carriage approached the castle. A faint memory of reflections in the window pane repeated itself over and over.
The servants avoided him, yet he knew they were there. They all smelled of spiced wine, a mystic scent permeated by clove and sage.
He unraveled the cloth protecting the orb. Alexander reached out, picked it up, and held it up against the light. "Cover it", he said, "Keep it covered at all times".
Moving that orb was like pushing a star in the night sky. It wasn't supposed to happen. The Shadow isn't some vengeful spirit, it is the universe catching up with itself.

Alexander Walking In A Corridor

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Cistern Entrance's side rooms.

The red taint burst from the walls as if they had begun to bleed. He cried out in fear as the spectacle began to consume the blue shimmer.

He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but no shape or contour appeared.

The beautiful wild orchid seemed a testament to nature's strength, being able to grow inside Brennenburg. Alas, it was Alexander's studies and care which enabled the flower to blossom.

Alexander knew there must be a way to finish the ritual before it was too late. He had to teach his friend to harvest the vitae. That much was certain.

The purpose of the Inner Sanctum had always been to study the orbs and find a way to force them to yield their power. However, he was still unaware of this.

The blue light blinded him as it had done inside that murky tomb in Algeria. It was just as enchanting and he tried to approach it, but the baron's firm hand held him back.

A Pit Or Tunnel

These Loading Screens come up while in the Sewer and when the Servant Grunts knock Daniel unconscious.

Henry Bedloe went to class carrying the anger of his bitter mother. He never cried, he made others cry instead. Pain is like that, you either become sad or you become angry. Henry always chose the latter.

There is never any escape. Things like this live with you always. How could he know if Henry would show up down the road or even at his house? Is he that mad? Would he do that?

He wasn't particularly afraid of the dark, but he had always disliked going into the basement. His father urged him on to fetch the red dye. As he stepped into the dark, he thought, "I will never escape this".

The blue colored tint came crashing down. His father heard the jar break and yelled from upstairs. There was no need for punishment. He could already feel the sting of his father's belt.

He cried like the little boy he was. All alone in the dark basement, broken glass tearing at the flesh of his naked feet, and blood mixed with blue tint.

After the capture

Hazel spent all summer in bed. He used to read to her after helping father with his work. In his mind he was like Scheherazade, and as long as he kept telling the story she would not die.

When Hazel turned fifteen she had lived three years longer than doctor Tate had foreseen. Her parents had given up from exhaustion and decided to have her committed for permanent treatment at Canterbury Hospice, but she was still alive. She had embraced him and wished him a grand adventure in Algeria.

Arms Tied to a Strappado

These Loading Screens come up while exploring the Nave's side rooms for the first time (before being knocked down by the Servant Grunts)

Such filth, he thought. Good men can safely cheer departure as they are nothing but a burden to mankind. They shall not be missed.

Carefully cutting the man open made him think. “This is how father must feel about his craft. Being an artisan, relying on one's skill to perform something so delicate, grants a certain form of pride”.

Something died inside of him that day. Watching that man slip away was more than his mind was willing to handle.

The fear had begun to drown him again. He reached once more the empty bottle of Laudanum. In frustration he smashed it against the bedpost.

It had gone too far. The man was suffocating as he could no longer breathe properly between the lashes. Displeased, he started to look for the Damascus rose oil.

The thick liquid spread across his tongue. He swallowed excessively to consume every drop. He looked through the window at the widespread forest and the morning sun. “Will this ever end?”, he thought.

A Running Young Girl

These Loading Screens will come up in the very last part of the game, while heading to the Orb Chamber.

She cried and struggled as he pulled at her arm. Her flowered Sunday dress ripped and she fell into the mud.

The sight of her lifeless body crippled his psyche. He tried to remove himself from the scene, but he could not. Instead he fell to his knees and begged her for forgiveness.

All his life he had thought that he was a good man. Terrible deeds were only committed by terrible people, like Henry Bedloe, the bully in school, but now he had seen what he himself could do.

He had turned angry. It was easy to take her insolence and make her the villain in this story. But she didn't deserve to die. Even he could see that.

Alexander saw that the evening had taken a toll on his friend's mind and barred him from the Inner Sanctum. He could no longer be trusted to be a part of the ritual.

If it wasn't for Alexander, he would still be innocent and be able to die so.

Justine

The following screens appear when exploring the different areas of the Cabinet of Perturbation.

Scattered Debris

These Loading Screens will come up in Justine.

Justine had overdosed on Lithium before and had a pretty good idea of what effects to expect.
Could it be that she was not herself anymore, she thought. It was time to find out.
The downstairs library still reminded her of father. All those hours spent there had fostered a sense of shelter.
Justine was not a person who would go about planning. The Cabinet came about as her whimsy collided with other people's misfortune.
The gloomy place downstairs became a playground - a mysterious place for Justine to discover with her friends.
Abacinating the suitors had not been a part of the original plan, but she liked the added excitement.
They knew that they would have to capture the men, but what to ultimately do with them, was a decision that had to be postponed.
When she first imagined the cabinet, it was for her amusement, but since it had grown into something more important - an opportunity to reveal her most suppressed desires.
The basement had been extended well beyond the manor during the time of the first revolution. Justine was not to enter without permission, but now there was no one left to ask.

Dark Descent Death Screens

These Loading Screens will appear upon Daniel's death. Different messages are triggered and displayed for every action or inaction that caused his demise. The black screens with white text are purely intended to serve as "hints" so the player does not repeat the fatal mistake(s).

Stay out of the water... (Death by Kaernk)
Dead flesh can act as a distraction... (Death by Kaernk)
Block the path. Run... (Death by Kaernk/Servant)
The Shadow is closing in...(Death by Shadow residue or Killed by a Brute second times in Morgue)
Think before running...(Death by Shadow)
You have to carry on... (Any death)
Run... (Death by Gatherer)
Do not venture too far... (Death by Gatherer)
Darkness can act as a cover...(Death by Gatherer)
Hide in closet...(Death by Gatherer)
Close...(Death by Brute in Sewer when failing to hide properly)
Paths change as the world darkens... (Death by Kaernk in the Cistern)
They are close... (Death by Servants)
Hide and wait.. (Death by Servants)
Don't run.... (Death by Kaernk)
Move quickly...(Death by Kaernk/Shadow)
Sleep...(Captured by Servant Grunts in the Chancel)
Watch your step...(Death by leftover Shadow Residue)
Tread carefully... (Death by falling to a chasm/well)
Create a distraction...(Death by Brute in the Sewer)
Move carefully... (Death by Grunt)

A Machine for Pigs

"They weren't looking forward to visitors, were they?"
This article contains spoilers for Amnesia: The Bunker. Proceed with caution.

The first loading screen plays into the introduction of the game.

"He who makes a beast of himself removes himself from the pain of being human." - Dr. Samuel Johnson

In Lily's Honour, a Banquet

Four glassy orbs fixed upon a point in heaven. Wipe down your trousers, man, there is blood in this sweat and it is most unseemly.

Lillibeth "Lily" Mandus. Interred here on 26th September 1890. The angels weep you to the glory, your teeth sold for the dollies of the poor.

We will fasten that great mouth down over the chimney and inhale the world and suck the fairies and the nonsense from your dirty heart.

Against the Rising Waters

Send the Tramp Catcher, cosh the old man / Sink him in a barrel of gin / When he's all mixed and the bones turned to jam / We'll raise a glass kindly to him.

Planted the fingernails in flowerpots all along the river when it's dark, so the sun could hatch them. All the world is an egg, he reasoned. We will grow hands now.

Curled into his cabin, he barely noticed the passing weeks. The swell nearly sunk her, but his fever kept it afloat. In the dark, his song, glowing.

The Collar, The Neck, The Noose

Such a fanfare! The Times wrote it was a splendid occasion! The bunting stretched for streets and the fanfare blew! A proud day for the family.

Two cups of flour, one cup of water, a pinch of salt, a handful of mince, a bay leaf, a herb, a skeleton key for the nursery and a-mixing we´ll go together.

From the window, he could see almost to the docks, where they were still pulling hair out of the gratings. God knows what it´s about says the paperboy. The talk is of murder.

Livestock and Bibles

Higgeldy Piggeldy blue china eyes / My love comes to me in the fairest disguise / We skips and we totters / I seize her hind trotters / And enter her porcelain thighs.

The wires came up out of the ground whilst he lay on the grass asleep, like serpents, they were, and they burrowed into his ears and became his listening.

Lily, dancing. Lily dancing on the table, her eyes aflame. This love burnt into his heart. His heart scarred from the heat of this love, of his love dancing.

And so to The Stoking

The fog will not lift, the ship is becalmed. Everyone lies in the half-light waiting to drown in the dry air. He is the paperweight that ballasts them.

The workers sing as they work. They sing as they eat, they sing as they make toilet. They are always singing. If you place your ear to the ground you can hear them still.

Pulling cogwheels now, sneezed into his kerchief when the dust got into his eyes. I have begun to change more rapidly now, he surmised.

In the Nest of Eggs

The factory is quiet now. Stumbling the alley, a wrench hung loosely from his hand. Oil and grease dripping off it. Looking like blood in the half light.

It is cradled in his sweating hands, it sucks the fever loose from his body. He dreams of birds far above in the jungle canopy, a jaguar coughing at the dawn.

Thrupenny sixpence sparrows and doves / See all the angels a-weeping above / there's no more forgiving, there's no-one to save / for today darling Lily goes into her grave

This Leaking World

All these nails and no wood. What kind of a carpenter are you? That figure cannot help but opens its arms to you. Where is the strength in that?

And the rhododendrons seem to be taking over the garden by the wall, I could dig them for you? No, no, get out! Get out of this house! You leave them be!

The bottle of gin was empty. Sleep seemed impossible. Above the skyline of London, he could only see the temple rising into the smog.

From Tide to Spine

He placed his head in the vice and spun the wheel until the skull cracked and the thoughts leaked onto his shoes. It relieved the pressure for a while, but it soon returned.

And who is that third, that shadow, that spirit child in the background? That barely formed, that changeling. That almost lived, that never missed.

A skin of a shroud / a stump of the bled / old Lily is flyblown / old Lily is dead / and dreams of the jungle / will flood through her head / and light up her head.

The Children, Dancing

He obsessively scans the newspapers and periodicals for new inventions. They are the architecture to evalate us all, he proclaims, Edwin and Enoch just play on, unaware.

The stairs are steep, the sun beating on his neck as he pulls them up. Veins pop on his forearms, but he cannot deviate, he is a man driven by love, only love.

They pulled the child loose from the thresher, or at least what was left. More where that came from, said the foreman, apologising for the inconvenience.

Mandus, Saboteur

Returning from Mexico, I was struck again by London´s filth. The squalor, the miasma, the rot. We should cut free the dead flesh, allow this wound to heal anew.

There are feats of engineering contained herein that would make even those clever fellows at the institute reel with envy.

You can't come in, no you can't come in, you must sleep in the yard bad piggy dirty pig, stinking filthy animal you bad child you stinking child, you filth.

Anything to Save Them

Burn away, burn away the remnants. The parts that will not process. The waste. The offal of your world. They grit the system and stick the wheels to the temple floor.

Of course, all the offal we cannot sell from our system is donated to the workhouse, making them perhaps the best-fattened unfortunates in the whole of London!

You profit my viscera. We make you escape forever, you slit the throat, bleed out the pig and it release into the curdle. That you set your species free.

Farming the World

A missing vein, I see this now. We must find them, those scrolls, those old words written upon metal rods that flow in the half-light, the dusk. This gloaming.

Let us not be coy. I will not let us drag this corpse of civilisation into a new century. Come new year´s eve, I will fling the last switches and unshackle the full power of the machine.

I saw the detritus of this so-called progress. I saw starvation and disease, I saw rubbish floating in the harbour. We are ruiners, all of us, and we make the world unclean.

The Veil Lifts, the Bride is Waiting

The man eats the pig and the pig is eaten by the machine and the man is eaten by the machine. This is as it ever will be.

Round up some orphans and the world will thank you for it. Disappear a whore and a gentleman applauds you. Cull a beggar and a lady walks safely again.

And in that instance, cradling my children´s heads in my palms, I knew I had to unbuild what I had constructed. This machine was ever mine, and it fell to me to redeem it, and myself.

Mandus Descending amongst The Spirits

Blood, Mandus. We are steeped in blood, you and I. You wear me like a mask, and we will tear the future loose from the ribcage of the present. We will save them, we will save them all.

The Aztecs believed they could avert the apocalypse through sacrifice. History tells us they failed. Their tragedy was simply that they could not spill enough blood in time.

I deny you! I am not your chattel - I will not be your operator, the monkey to your organ grinder!

Trivia

In one of the Dark Descent's loading screens, Daniel referred himself just like Scheherazade. Scheherazade is a woman from an old Persian tale who was threatened to be murdered by the King's men. However, she eventually managed to buy some time by telling stories to the King everyday. The King became very infatuated with her stories and spared her life because he was eager to hear the stories' endings. Daniel believed that as long as he kept telling stories to Hazel, she would not die of her sickness.
A loading screen for The Children, Dancing states "They are the architecture to evalate us all". This is most likely a misspelling of the word elevate or possibly evaluate.
A loading screen in "Farming The World" part shares some similar phrases with a phonograph recording in the Bilge, where Mandus attempted to justify his actions to Professor A. However, the loading screen reads "I saw starvation and disease, I saw rubbish floating in the harbor." while the recording says "I saw starvation and disease, rot and desruction polluting the waters of the Empire".
The final level of Machine for Pigs - Enoch, Edwin, Oswald and I - never has a loading screen text.

Speculation

A loading screen in "In Lily's Honour, A Banquet" part states "Four glassy orbs fixed upon a point in heaven". These four glassy orbs might've referred to the eyes of Edwin and Enoch Mandus, or the four conical glass found at the end of The Veil Lifts, the Bride is Waiting.
A Loading screen in The Dark Descent which shows an image of pit says that Daniel doesn't "particularly afraid of the dark". However, in the end of the loading screen, Daniel says "I'll never escape this" when he stepped into the dark basement, This may indicate that Daniel's fear of the dark is not about what lurks in the darkness, but the fear of being trapped inside the darkness forever.
A loading screen in The Dark Descent which shows the image of Castle Brennenburg reads "The servants avoided him, yet he knew they were there. They all smelled of spiced wine, a mystic scent permeated by clove and sage". The servants mentioned here is most likely the Gatherers in disguise, and the spiced wine mentioned earlier might have been the poisonous wine Alexander gave to the servants when they were still humans.