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Stranded through a realm of darkness, you wake up among your peers working towards your first project in assisting the welcome ceremony play. Yet unforeseen circumstances in each one of your attempts bring you back to the beginning, can you find the culprit trapping you in this eternal cycle?
Abate
Hide Behind the Curtains
A text adventure
Made for Spring Thing 2022
#do died_from_paperwork = false;
An interactive fiction about investigating your death while stranded in the time loop, a short story with an an expanding world.
What more things can you do once everything that you could think of has already failed, follow the rules of the world and abate, or make your own rules and take control. What surprises await you?
For hints go
here.
Given how tense most projects in Spring Thing and If Comp can be, I wanted to make a lighthearted piece, something to have fun with. If some of the interactions make you laugh.
What can you do in a world where you have the knowledge of everything due to being stuck in a time loop. Will you choose to help everyone or just yourself?
You are floating in an empty space, darkness surrounds you. You hear nothing. You feel nothing on your skin, it's neither cold nor warm, even the rustling of your clothes on your body has subsided.
Intense fear grabs your heart as you start questioning your surroundings. You have no memories of who you are and what brought you here. As you move your arms and legs against the nothingless, a bright light shines before your eyes.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iftrue
You are not as scared as you were the last time you were here, still the restlessness is unbearable. The papers in front of you are no longer here, all you can remember is a bright flash. All you have is this moment, and there is nothing in it.
Open your eyes
The game is mostly linear up until the point you start waking up in your room. From there you have ten turns to research the world. Do the facts change though?
r e a d n o f u r t h e r
You can write blog posts on your computer.
r e a d n o f u r t h e r
We know that Murphy likes to read your blog.
r e a d n o f u r t h e r
He's obsessed actually.
He even wrote about it in his journal.
r e a d n o f u r t h e r
He keeps the journal at the lab.
r e a d n o f u r t h e r
Who makes a neural net out of potatoes?
You open your eyes and see the worried but calm eyes of Vyusian, the top student in your class, and your best friend.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iftrue
Hesitant yet determined,
Vyusian looks towards your bag and says "there's only so far you can go avoiding breakfast everyday", moving his eyes towards you he offers his hand ...
"Can you get up?"
Take his hand to get up
#iffalse "Can You?"
#do made_pun = true;
They don't call you the jokester of Shikyou High for nothing. Too many people are staring at you though, perhaps
get up?
You get up and pat on your clothes to remove the dust. Vyusian grabs your bag and hands it to you. You face Vyusian but before you can say anything he stops you.
#test made_pun
#iftrue
"Vyusian stares at you and says "I'm glad you are okay but it's really not a time to make puns."
He brings out a water bottle from his bag and hands it to you.
"I'm taking you to the nurse's office, after that we eat something first"
#do rejected_president = false;
#test died_from_paperwork
#iftrue
You notice your palms are shaking, they look pale and cold and keep reminding you of the emptiness of the void. The whole ridiculousness of the situations scares you more than you find yourself capable of handling. You notice Vyusian being worried about your behaviour.
#iffalse
As you walk towards the nurse's office, you get some time to yourself to reflect upon Vyusian and your friendship. It was a cold and dark night when you had first met. You had just lost your way home from the department store while distracted thinking about spices. As you kept walking through your fear, your eyes met with Vyusian's and you decided you must ask for some directions. "Quite a distance you seem to have missed" were the first words spoken to you by Vyusian. Meeting him in your school only gave you more oppurtunites to hang out whenever you could and be the become close. Luckily everytime you spaced out Vyusian somehow reached you and brought you back home. "Why do you even space out so often?" Vysian would always ask you with confusion, and you would make something up but one day you decided that he deserves the answer -- "spices" you shout, "I was thinking about the spices that adds the most value to boiled potatoes, I'm yet to find the one." "Onions" Vyusian assures, "boiled potatoes taste the best with onions". You felt a spark within your heart that could only be used to light up the dream that one day you may just find the one, and here it was, you rushed to your house, prepared the dish to your satisfaction and take a taste -- "this is indeed the one, my dream has been achieved."
#do kick_ed = false;
The door to the nurse's office seems locked.
#do kick_ed = true;
The door is doing it's job well. However inanimate objects must acknowledge your authority.
A loud
"hey!" reaches your ears.
The
student council president appears from the stairs nearby.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iffalse
A strict figure, she is respected by everyone for her determined focus on her work and high grades. While you deeply respect her too, it has taken the shape of fear in your heart over the last 2 years. Her short temper might have been the reason for that.
#test kick_ed
#iftrue
"What do you think you are doing?" The President shouts. You panic internally but Vyusian seems calm, "we were waiting for the nurse", "what part of it involves kicking the door" the president asks you assertively, you stand firm and spit out the first excuse that could come to your mind -- "I, having lost my balance and falling forward, decided to kick the door in an attempt to push my body back bringing the center of gravity to the equillibrium". The president visibly confused at your comment decided to give it a moment of thought and then brought forward a file with a brown cover.
"Vyusian, you are assigned to Entry 4 of the hall," the president states and starts walking towards the stairs while pointing a finger at you signalling to follow her. She seems to be walking towards the student council room.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iftrue
Vyusian asks you to meet him at the canteen, "I could come with you if you want" he suggests while you assure him not to worry about you. Then again you are hungry. The day in it's entirety is repeating right in front of you. Whatever you saw in your dreams when you were unconscious is happening all over again. As the shaking of your legs calm down you realise it is upon yourself to avoid redoing the same things you did in your dreams.
Follow the Student President
Go to the Canteen with Vyusian
The corridors look bright and cheery with decoration. The ribbons you attached last week near the windows have been removed.
The president doesn't seem to be in a hurry. How far is the
student council room anyway?
#do rejected_president = true;
A long line of customers seem to indicate that there is something special on the menu today, but then again this could be the result of late service too.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iffalse
Vyusian isn't planning on eating anything right now. Judging by the long line he warns you that the president might get furious knowing that you didn't follow her order. He suggests waiting on your behalf and grabbing something to eat. You realise that Vyusian's concern is legitimate, however you are really hungry and have already fallen unconscious once. Buying atleast a bag of potato chips shouldn't take too much time.
#iffalse Wait for the line to end then go to Entry 4 of the hall
or Go to the president
#iftrue
You can't waste your time here as whatever the reason for the bright lights was can only originate at the science lab. The only other possibility is that the lights were from the canteen which however can't be true given the distance of the student council room from the canteen and the lack of any superficial equipment here.
#iftrue Go to the science-lab
The neverending line at the canteen brings a sort of calmness in your heart. Perhaps you were an extrovert all along.
#do left_vyusian = true;
The half an hour wait was worth it for the bag of chips.
Time to go check out Vyusian's Gate Duty
#test rejected_president
#iftrue
The student president greets you at the door with a stern face. "Did I not ask you to follow me?", the rhetorical nature of the question suggests that the situation demands an apology. Before you can prepare an appropriate grimace the president orders "see those papers on the table? that's your job."
#iffalse
"The nurse's room is going to stay closed today, they are using the room and the other door for keeping the props for the play, I don't know what is going to happen if someone gets sick." You wait for her instructions but she leaves the room and walks out. You run after her to ask what your task will be for the festival and she points you towards the table.
As you walk towards the table you notice the president returning to the room, this time with a smile on her face.
#test kick_ed
#iftrue
"Did you get upset that I shouted on you" the president asks you gracefully, "I don't think I should have done that" you answer.
She picks up the file folder she was carrying and leaves.
The table awaits your presence.
A large pile of papers are left on the table with a note. The note reads - "These are the attendees of the welcome ceremony, use the seating arrangement map of the main hall and assign everyone a chair." Some of these seem to already have been filled. The job will take you atleast a couple hours.
#test died_from_paperwork
#iffalse
Start working on the papers.
#iftrue
You can however ditch the work and explore around, while you have been excited to work for the welcome ceremony you can't really see yourself in the same situation again. It is very likely that whatever was the source of that light was from the sciencelab, things may not change if you don't do something about this.
#iftrue Go to the science hall
#test died_from_paperwork
#iftrue
As you enter the corridor, you feel a sudden burst of heat to your face followed by being pushed to the floor. The floor seemingly collapses.
#iffalse
The security is a bit too strict for an event like this.
#test left_vyusian
#iftrue
You weren't allowed to enter the hall through Entry 6 which was closer to the canteen and thus had to walk around the building to reach Entry 4.
#iffalse
Despite being in charge of a gate, Vyusian couldn't enter the hall from Entry 6 which was closer to the canteen. You follow him on his adventurous journey.
Vyusian has quickly figured out all the particulars of his role. As many excuses you could make vyusian insists on you going to the president's office.
You enter the science hall to see some familiar faces greet you. Everyone seems busy with some piece of machinary that might be useful for the entry ceremony and the play but all you can see is that they are doing nothing but fidgeting around with their tools. Asking a friend of yours you get no conclusive answer. At one corner of the hall a peculiar figure catches your attention, and his eyes catch yours.
Two years ago when your blog "Spice for my potatoes" still had readers, username Murphy always left valuable research data on your posts. Every new spice you tried he'd try them too, but unlike you he wasn't just looking into finding the best spice you'd enjoy, he was looking for the-best-spice-ever, and for that he was looking forward to a scientifically sound result of the-best-spice-ever experiment. You still remember the annoyance his long comment wall would cause you but atleast it was better than spam or having no comments at all. Dropping the whole blog after finding onions drove the guy to quite some pressure, after sending you emails for half a year he decided to start a blog of his own with thorough explanations of his research. Despite it's massive success he still credits "Spice for my potatoes" as his inspiration.
"Hey you, I'm talking to you." Murphy calls you. Despite the history you have never talked to Murphy in person, and having never seen you Murphy shouldn't be able to know who you are, just don't call him Murphy and you would be fine, a face to face version of his start-your-blog-again speech might be a bit too much to
take.
"Do you know much about using linux?" he asks, as you take a deep breath in he explains "they give me all these lights, they gave me all these projectors and speakers, and they ask me go connect it to the computers we have here at the school and get it done by today before the rehearsals, how am I supposed to do that, no one here knows anything about these, none of these gadgets have drivers for linux, am I supposed to write and compile the drivers myself here, I don't have the time, I don't even know how to do something like that, I'm not a systems programmer, what do they expect of me." Murphy stares at you but given the detailed rant you don't think he was actually asking for suggestions at the first place.
"Who are you? I have never seen you here? Are you supposed to be here for something? Are you here to fix the lights?"
Facing the barage of enquiries you realise that need to have a clear objective here. Knowing what you know if you don't figure out the reason for the lights you won't be able to stop it.
"I don't think we have been introduced before, I'm ..." Murphy makes a shusshh noise before you can finish, "Names, jobs, blood groups, date of births, they belong in databases, secure databases, there is no need for me to know yours, I assume you are not here to fix the lights, whatever you are here for do not touch anything, do not do anything, if your existence in this sacred palace of mine distracts me from what's necessary I will not fix the lights and then the school can play their play under tubelights. If someone has send you here and if you are here looking for me tell them Spud is busy and chooses to remain busy as always."
"Who's Spud?" you ask without thinking, "Who is Spud you ask ... I suppose you weren't here looking for me after all, this interaction has been nothing but a waste of time for me, perhaps not for you, Spud is the name that belongs to me and that is the name I am called with" asserts
Spud.
The awkward interaction felt to you as useless as it must have been to him, but attaching lights to a bunch of computers is not something that you think you saw in the dream, no amount of brightness can top that. As you spend time figuring out what could have gone wrong, hearing others call out Spud only increases your hunger for some potatoes if anything. And while you are at it you notice 2 shelves full of potatoes connected to each other covered under the mesh of its own wires. Before even your curiosity could strike Murphy appeared from behind the shelves.
"Potatoes can produce electricity as it reacts to metals like zinc for upto 2 days you might know, and do not tell me you do not know as I do wish to know if you know", Murphy brings out a marker pen and starts drawing on a whiteboard - "what you see before your eyes is something one of a kind as I have built the first neural network out of potatoes, soon I will have something great to tell the world, the particular way they are connected is called a ..." you raise your hands as if to apologise "I can't possibly waste your time here I would before anything else apologise to you for wasting your time here so far and then take my leave if you don't mind'. As you wonder whether you are being rude Murphy answers "you have quite good observation skills, I am indeed distracted by your presence, it was however interesting talking to you, perhaps when I have some free time I can show you the neural network at work". You thank him once again for his generosity and make your way towards the door.
The science lab has nothing in particular that can blow up to the proportions you were imagining. Perhaps the dream can just be left as a dream. The adventure here has left you very hungry. You are however very excited about telling Vyusian about finding Murphy in your own school.
Go to Entry 4 of the main hall
Your work gets interrupted as bright lights surround you, a sharp and intense sensation on your forehead leaves you unable to move. Yet you keep your eyes open.
#test died_at_sciencelab
#iftrue
Your effort at stopping the calamity has failed. The sciencelab was not the origin of the lights.
#do died_from_paperwork = true;
Ascend