When my eyes land on the only two mission markers remaining on my map in Chapter 2 of Red Dead Redemption 2, my heart sinks to my stomach. Before, these early quests just felt like stepping stones to help the Van der Linde gang move on to green pastures after Blackwater, but boy howdy do I know better now. Yes, I'm all too aware of exactly what they entail and how much weight they actually carry in the grand scheme of things, and that knowledge has utterly paralyzed me. Try as I might, I can't quite bring myself to get on my horse and start making my way over to either objective, because once I do, it's all downhill from here.
At this point, I have to concede that beginning a second playthrough so soon after finishing Rockstar's Wild West adventure for the first time was probably a big mistake. Everything is still too raw, and my emotions are not even close to being in check after seeing Arthur Morgan's journey through to the bitter end. Even so, with everything that went down, I was absolutely convinced I would experience the opening of the game very differently, and I was right about that. But now my own feelings are getting in my way, and I fear I may be trapped at this particular point in Chapter 2 forevermore.
