Early on in life, Harlan Whyte was outside the movie theater on his way to the bookstore when there was a sudden commotion. Someone had died. It was some random sim I'd never seen before. A woman. And not terribly old, either. A small crowd gathered as the victim transformed into a ghost and was lead away by Death himself. Creepy. Many days later, it would hit Harlan closer to home.

After the jump, read about the strange sudden death of Samantha Dingus.

Several days into Harlan's old age, the game sends me a series of messages about a few sim friends who were created at the same time as Harlan. "So-and-so is getting old and won't live forever. Maybe you should pay her a visit", it says rather vaguely and ominously. Oh, dear. Well, okay. How much time do I have? But I promptly get on with Harlan's other business. Maybe I'll call my old friends on the weekend. Then one day, after the weekend has come and gone and I've forgotten to visit my old friends, the phone rings. The phone in the living room. Now this is odd, because normally my friends call me on my cell phone. Why is the land line ringing? Who even has that number? Is it a telemarketer? Are there telemarketers in The Sims 3?

The phone call is to inform me that one of Harlan's friends has died.

So I call Samantha, Harlan's closest friend, and suggest we go to the art museum. I've never been. Samantha is cultured. It seems like the sort of thing she would like. While we're outside looking at sculptures - we haven't even crossed the threshold into the museum yet - she suddenly goes transparent. Death appears. She kneels and seems to beg him. He doesn't relent. She vanishes and he floats away. Harlan Whyte freaks out. He gets a two-day moodlet for Mourning, which gives him a -50 mood modifier. He's also got one less friend.

Over the course of those two days, Harlan occasionally bursts out sobbing. A little thought bubble with Samantha's picture appears whenever this happens. But then one of The Sims 3's special opportunities pops up. At the science facility, someone is testing a ghost machine that might be able to bring loved ones back to life! All I have to do is bring the ashes of the loved one to the science facility. Perfect! Except there's one problem: I don't have her remains. However, she was my next door neighbor, and she has a daughter (who mysteriously appeared and has no additional parent listed, just like Chuck Fugger's daughter Nicole; whatever causes these spontaneously generated children seems to be catching).

Since there's no dialogue option for "Excuse me, where do you keep your mom's ashes, as I'd like to bring her to the lab and resurrect her?", I'll have to get Samantha Dingus' remains myself. So Harlan pops over for a visit. You can click on any house to visit whomever lives there. And once you're invited in, the house is open to you. Unfortunately, it seems that Kristie Dingus is a horrible daughter, as her mother's ashes are nowhere to be found. I check the graveyard to see if perhaps Samantha is buried up there. Nope. It seems that "loved ones" are limited to the sims who live in your house with you. So now Samantha Dingus is only a memory. And actually, since the mourning moodlet is gone, she's not even that.

Up next: Harlan's confronts his own mortality
(Click here for the previous Sims 3 game diary.)