It's just the faintest whisper of sound, only audible due to the fact that is contains words.\n\nIt sounds like a woman. Maybe. If the woman communicated from miles away in the softest of breathy whispers.\n\nYou can just [[make it out]]. \n

<<set $contracts = "yes">>\n<<if $find eq "yes">>\nYou stare at the stacks of contract, heart pounding with fear and elation, unable to believe your eyes. You had never expected to get this far. Never expected to see...well, not your contract specifically, there are at least fifty contracts that are signed by a John, but possibility makes you giddy. But these aren't just yours...these are for everyone. You might be able to free everyone.\n<<elseif $stealth eq "yes">>\nYou stare at the sacks of contracts, heart pounding with fear and elation. You hadn’t started out to do this, had never meant to do this. You had just wanted to slip away from this prison house, to fade into obscurity. \n\nYou caress the soft paper with a gentle finger, still unable to believe that you did it. You can free everyone now.\n<<elseif $reassign eq "yes">>\nYou stare at the sacks of contracts, heart pounding with fear and elation, and caress the soft paper with a gentle finger.\n\nYou hadn't meant to find these. Not at first. Just wanted to save your own skin anyway possible, even if it had meant trading others for your freedom. You just hadn't been able to go through with it at the last minute.\n\nYou have to swallow the lump in your throat as it slowly starts to click. Now, you can free everyone. Everyone.\n<<endif>>\nYou start to pick up the contracts, the hint of pressure in the air quickening your movements. Your tentacles start wrapping around bundles when your arms are full and you\n[[slip through the cracks|teleporting to]] as the blast of heat erupts behind you.

<<if $contracts eq "yes">>\n\n<<else>>\nYou look around you. Everything seems the same as before. You still just see people hunched over their desks, though their inhuman characteristics that you were blind to are not apparent.\n\nNo one is looking at you anymore, even the gray-eyed man has turned back to his work, but your hands are still shaking.\n\nYou close your senses, and sway slightly as a sense of vertigo washes over you.\n\nYou feel torn. Should you just [[give up|you like it here]] or [[keep going?|teleporting to]]\n<<endif>>

"Yes, my Lord," you say and the pressure from It lightens and fizzes along your nerves.\n\n''"Excellent! Rise and receive your position"'' \n\nAs you bow to your Boss and Master you feel the bite of chilly energy and a weight settle around your shoulders like a chain.\n\nYour heart gives a twinge at the thought of hunting down and condemning other humans to that dull silent office, but those thoughts are swept away as you feel yourself grabbed by one giant limb and //pushed// through a sticky film of something you can't put into words. It stretches, and clinging to you and you can't breathe or move.... And then it is over.\n\nYou're standing in a woods. You can hears the high twitter of birds surrounding you, a chiming chaotic melody that sounds sharp and sweet as existence itself. \n\nYou shove your hands into your pockets and start walking, your tentacles aimlessly brushing against the plants you pass. You tilt back your head, staring up at the blue sky above you as your heart tries to beat out of your chest. You breath in, feeling as light as a goose down feather and sure that if you had eyes they would have been filled with tears at the beauty and brightness of it all.\n\nThe End\n

The first thing you notice is the [[voice]], then the constant chilly wind that seems to stream to and from the fist sized tunnels that someone drilled into the curving stone walls. The edges of the tunnels have been worn away and the stone walls have a glassy smoothness that brings out the colors of the rock. There is an organic feel to the room that reminds you of rabbit warrens or insect hives.\n\nWires hang from the ceiling, looping around each other like vines. When you pull one wire it rebounds like rubber and you feel like a germ of an [[idea|message]] has been planted. \n\nLike the other rooms, you can feel the cracks of the world around you, the sense of [[space|teleporting to]] just beyond your fingertips.

<<silently>>\n<<set $mirror = 0>>\n\n<<set $whisper = "no">>\n<<set $name = "no">>\n\n<<set $resignation = "no">>\n<<set $find = "no">>\n<<set $contract = "no">>\n\n<<set $stealth = "no">>\n\n<<set $representative = "no">>\n<<set $loyalist = "no">>\n\n<<set $howTeleport = "no">>\n\n<<set $opened_closet = "no">>\n<<set $matches = "no">>\n<<set $pots = "no">>\n\n\n<<set $distraction_1 = "no" >>\n<<set $distraction_2 = "no" >>\n<<set $boss_out = "no">>\n<<set $contracts = "no">>\n<<set $free_everyone = "no">>\n<<endsilently>>\n\n\n Everything is a riot of color and noise, unending and unintelligible, pounding and scraping against your senses like a sledgehammer and a wire brush. You try to run, to cover your ears and eyes so you can get a bit of //peace//, but nothing helps. Nothing stops it! You feel your chest thump and a fiery scalding slime fills your mouth and-\n\nA gentle, soothing chime fills your head, sweet as light.\n \nThe torture is gone.\n\n[[You breath in.|breath]]\n

<<set $paths = $paths + 1;>>\n\nYou glance down at the papers again as you finish another form. \n\nYour pen breaks.\n\nYou slide the completed sheet into its pile with one hand and reach for a new pen with your other hand as you flip a new form paper off of its- \n\nWait a second...\n\n[[WHAT!!]]\n

I'd like to thank Eric Knudsen and White Wolf publishing, Professor Fishburn, and Chris Klimas for inspiring this game

'What if you don't make it? What if you're caught? What tortures would that creature have ready for those that deviate from their jobs?'\n\n'You just can't do it.' \n\nYou settle back into your chair, reach for the next paper in your stack, and shiver at the puff of cold air that caresses the back of your neck for a second.\n\n\n[[You try your best to ignore it|Start]]\n

You [[need to get out of here]] but something in your gut says it might be [[too risky|can't risk it]].

<<set $representative = "yes">>\n\nRecruit investors....You feel your heart lighten when you think about getting out of this desk and being released into the real world. If you could conscience whoever is running this place to let you out of here, anything would be worth it.\n\nAnd if you can convince the boss that you genuinely want to help him become a legitimate, real world, business then he might let you out for travel...and who would care if you never actually came back. After all, he can't be everywhere at once.\n\n//But I still need to get out of these chains to do that.// \n \nYou lean forward, chin in your hand and [[stare out into space.|learn]]\n

<<set $find = "yes">>\nAfter some pondering, you decide that you need to find your original contract. This place gives you the impression of every i dotted and every t crossed, while the sharp perfect rows of desks make you think of someone who is a perfectionist, but the manacles and deformations of you and your fellow workers make you think that that someone isn't human by a long shot.\n\n//Who knows what kind of fine print It included.// \n\nBut, how to get to that contract out of Its hands. [[You sit back.|learn]]\n

Your hands are shaking, frozen in their last positions and you can feel yourself start to hyperventilate as you stare at the black tentacle that is currently coiled over the new sheet of paper. An unmanly squeak claws its way up your throat as a second tentacle enters your vision, picks up a pen, and starts to fill out your paperwork.\n\nYou find it hard to breath as more and more tentacles enter your sight, each doing little tasks that help speed up your work and you have the sudden urge to bite your fingers when you realize that you can feel every single thing the tentacles touch.\n\nHow did you miss this? Why didn't you feel these before? Why does this feel familiar?\n\n''WHY ISN'T ANYBODY REACTING TO THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE TENTICLES COMING OUT OF YOUR BACK?!''\n\nYou whip around, carefully scrutinizing your neighboring desks and anybody else you can see.\n\nAll of them are deformed in some way. The man to your right has six arms, all clothed in suit sleeves and moving together so naturally and smoothly that you didn't notice them earlier. The woman six rows ahead of you is using her hair like you are using your tentacles, a couple of other people have tentacles coming off of their spines like you do. A couple of others have skin that gleam like metal and work with the steady repatition of machines. Everyone here is just as much a freak as you are.\n \nYou fall back into your chair, absently staring at the [[papers]] that enter your vision.\n

A soothing chill seeps into your cheek and forehead. Everything is quiet, the stillness emphasized by the soft rustle of papers and a gentle hum against your head. \n\nGradually your senses sift in more sensations and you realize you are sitting down, your torso resting on a flat metal surface and your head snuggled against your arms. \n\nEverything seems so....peaceful.\n\nSmiling, you push yourself upright and [[look around]].\n

[[Everything goes black and you hear a crack.|Start]]

You pull the cord above you and hanging bulb flickers to life, illuminating the tiny closet with a weak blue glow. Boxes are piled around the closet, looming up to the ceiling and spreading throughout the space. However, closer inspection shows you that most of the piles are one solid mass that sound like rock when tapped.\n<<if $matches eq "yes">>\nYou did find one pile of boxes that acted like normal boxes, but their open lids remind you that you have already looked through them.\n<<else>>\nYou do find one pile of [[boxes]] that seem to actually be made of boxes and consider combing through their contents for something useful.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $pots eq "yes">>Bare spots pepper the display of buckets, and you grin inside at the sight.\n<<else>>\nBehind another pile of fake boxes, you find a bunch [[buckets and cans]] that have been arranged along the box tops like trophies displayed on shelves.\n<<endif>>\nBehind you, the yellowing light of the [[hall]] shines through the doorway.

Plot:\n1rst node:\ndescribe area\n\tphysical surroundings\n\tactions\n\tfeelings\n\n2nd node:\nreveal capture (things that tick off and become unavaliable)\n\ttry to get drink (passage goes to discovery of chained to desk)\n\ttry to talk to neighbor (goes to neighbor isn't responding (option to look at neighbor(?)) )\n\ttry to read paper you are signing (goes to realization that you have more then two limbs) (option to try and read papers becomes available) (option to examine self)\n\ttry to stop signing papers (goes to pause passage)\n\n3rd node:\ndo you try to escape (yes/no)\n\tif YES then go to escape plan options list\n\t\tfind contract (listen closely to suroundings)\n\t\tconvince\n\t\tsneak (notice that neighbor has teleported (ask how))\n\tif NO then go back to work and be rewarded by BOSS\n\n4rth node:\n\tCONTRACT\n\t\tlisten around for conversation (wind of vent will tell you (communicate via writting))\n\t\t\toption to write out your own resignation \n\t\t\t\tterms are: find own name (which will be stitched into tie)\t\t\n\t\t\tfind existing contract and destroy it\n\t\t\t\tneed to learn to teleport to search (must return to desk each time or will be discovered missing and switch to sneak)\n\t\t\t\tget BOSS out of office\n\t\t\t\n5th node:\n\tCONVINCE your kidnapper to let you go \n\t\tdifferent ways to do that are:\n\t\t\tact like a bad employee \n\t\t\t\trepeat lack of work option for 15 turns, Boss warns you at turn 5, 10, and 14. \n\t\t\t\t(will end with kidnapper killing you)\n\t\t\tneed to get into BOSS office (teleport into office with BOSS still in it\n\t\t\tpromise to get more employees if let go\t(if chose this option will get slenderman monster ending)\n\t\t\tpromise to spread knowledge of BOSS existence for more work\n\n\n6th node:\n\tSNEAK out into hedge\n\t\tescape desk (after learn teleportation)\n\t\t\teither cause distraction to give yourself more time to leave \n\t\tor \n\t\t\tconnect with contract search by being back at desk every other turn\n\t\t\n\t\tExit is in Janitor closet or through bathroom mirror\n\t\n\n\n7th node:\nend with you stepping out of hedge into woods\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\n

The manacles that enclose your ankles look more like jewelry then something from a prison. Instead of one thick cuff, the manacles twist up in loops that remind you of tree roots and are covered in delicate engravings that create an angular pattern that is full of sharp corners and hard edges.\n\nThe chain has an oddly organic look to it, especially where the ends attach to the desk. \n\nYou find yourself of two minds on what to do about this.\n\nA part of you thinks '[[Yes, you need to break your chain now]]! Something is wrong!'\n\nBut another part has realized that 'Nothing is wrong. In fact, [[you like it here]].'\n

The bathroom is dingy. \n\nAt least, that is the first impression you get. The lighting is an yellowish, with a quick buzzing flicker that hurts your head, and the walls are painted a color that makes then look almost white but the paint seems unevenly spread, with cracks running through it that makes you think of mosaics and stained glass. \n\nThere are bathroom stalls with toilets to your left, but they don't flush and the toilet paper acts more like a solid block of wood that has been shaped into a roll and covered with layer of cotton then actual toilet paper. \n\nThe sinks along the left wall are the same way, perfect in detail but useless for their actual purposes. A huge [[mirror]] hangs above the sinks, tall enough for a grown man to step through it.\n<<if $mirror gte 1>>\nYou catch a glimpse of your [[reflection|appearence]] out of the corner of your vision and it tugs for your full attention, like one of your tentacles at a paper form.\n<<else>>\n<<endif>> \nThe bathroom doesn't have a door. There are no physical ways in or out, but you can feel the cracks around you, the sense of [[space|teleporting to]] just beyond your fingertips, so it doesn't bother you.\n

<<if $pots eq "yes">>\n<<set $distraction_1 = "yes">>\nYou tie the metal buckets, filled with cans, to the plant-like wires and pull. The buckets jerk and jump, twisting on the wires and hitting each other. It sounds like an hoard of armor covered invaders and you grin as you [[slide through the cracks|teleporting to]] like a wraith. \n<<else>> \nYou consider leaving a message in the Wind to convince the Boss that It had been invaded by another company, but you can't find anything in this basement that could be used to make convincing sound effects. Still, you'll keep an eye out. Maybe you can find something useful later, you think as you look at the rest of the [[basement]].\n<<endif>>

<<if $resignation eq "yes">>\n\nYou stand up, straight and tall and proud as you announce at the top of your voice "I quit!"\n\nThe room goes completely still, your fellow employees as immobile as statues. You have a momentary, and slightly manic, wish for a pin to drop.\n\nBehind you there is a rumble that wouldn't have sounded out of place in an earthquake scene for a movie.\n\n"''Really now.''"\n\nA shiver runs up your spine and you feel a huge hand close around your shoulder. For a brief second you feel its scorching heat and then you are spun around.\n\nA giant beautiful indescribable thing stands in front of you. It might be a person, but you can't find a head or a face. It has limbs, but there are too many of them and some seem to slide together and split apart at random. It puts you in mind of an insect, a fish, a gorilla, and a star all at the same time.\n\nA dazed corner of your mind notes that it is wearing a business suit that seems to be embroidered with gold in the same patterns that were on your manacle.\n\nYour hand is shaking so hard that when you hold out your resignation notice it sounds like the crunching of dries leaf.\n\nThe paper is snatched from your hand by a limb that reminds you more of a mushroom than anything else. There is a pause and you feel your organs drop into your feet [[as you resignation is crumpled into a ball.|Out]] \n\n<<else>>\nYour desision made, you lean back in your chair and coil your tentacles around the arm-rests. You start to whistle, then get bored and idly spin your chair around.\n \nYou catch a glimpse of a neighbor's face. His expression is twisted with horror and terror. His posture like that of a whipped dog. And he is looking behind you.\n\nA shiver runs up your spine and a huge hand closes around your shoulder. For a brief second you feel its scorching heat and then you are spun around.\n\nA giant, beautiful, indescribable thing stands in front of you. It might be a person, but you can't find a head or a face. It has limbs, but there are too many of them and some seem to slide together and split apart at random. It puts you in mind of an insect, a fish, a gorilla, and a star all at the same time.\n\nA dazed corner of your mind notes that it is wearing a business suit that seems to be embroidered with gold in the same patterns that were on your manacle.\n\n[[It looks furious|looks furious]], though you aren't sure how you know that.\n<<endif>>\n

<<if $contracts eq "yes">>\nYou drop a bundle into the fire and feel the seconds tick by, slow as a glacier, as the flames nibble at the edges of the paper and crawl their way inwards, leaving ashes behind them.\n\nYour heart leaps as a sound like bones snapping echoes through the crackling quiet and you jerk your head up, sight straining. One of your fellow prisoners is moving! \n\nThe woman with black hair-tendrils stands up, and you start throwing more bundles into the fires around you, the rising level of noise and the feeling of heaviness in the air spurring you on. Your own manacles snap somewhere along the way.\n\nIt isn't until your limbs are empty, their loads incinerated, that you look around at the muttering swirling hoard of freed prisoners. Then the pressure hits and you feel like you're being [[crushed|best ending]].\n<<else>>\n<<set $distraction_2 = "yes">>\nYou pull out the matchbox, strike a match on it's side, and let the flickering light fall onto your paper filled desk. The entire desk is engulfed with a whoosh, and you wish you had a mouth to smile with as you watch the purple and yellow flames consume your work. The manacles tighten slightly as you watch everything burn and a numb feeling spreads up your legs. \n\nThen a dog made of fire pushes it's head out of the flame and looks around itself, it's tongue lolling. It gives a crackling bark as it hones in on the desk nearest yours. Your neighbor looks dazedly startled when it jumps to his desk and his work ignites as quickly as yours did.\n\nYou feel like your insides are shivering as you dump the rest of the matches into the fire that still blazes on your desk and feel your tentacles curling around themselves as more hounds of fire spread through out the room.\n\nYou look around the [[room.|room]]\n<<endif>>

The writing on the paper is meaningless gibberish. \n\nSome of it is written in letters that remind you more of the French Art Nouveau movement and Japanese Kanji than normal letters while other words are in an english arial font but resemble what might happen if someone had taken to beating their keyboard with a book.\n\nFlipping through the completed forms you see that all of the papers look like that.\n\n[[You rub your face as you sit back. |look around]]\n

There must be some way out of this place!\n\nBut how?\n\nMaybe you could find out what your [[contract]] says (if you have one, that is) and try to invalidate it?\n\nYou could try to [[convince]] your boss to let you go? He must be a reasonable person. You hope.\n\nMaybe you can [[sneak]] out of here?\n

The Office

<<set $whisper = "yes">>\nShe whispers, lazy and low like a blue's singer with a voice that is inhumanly smooth and rich. "You're the air that flows through His kingdom now. My little gift to Him. You will hear everything there is and carry it all." \n\nSuddenly the woman sounds several pitches higher, terrified and gasping for breath. "There is nothing outside. This building is all of existence. All there is. There is no way out."\n\nAnother tone shift, this one sounds bemused. "She's repeating me." \n\nHer voice goes creaking, with raspy rusty quality and hums something that sounds really familiar, full of bounce and vigor. Then, "Wait! No! NO!" and the raspy voice screams like it's being torn apart.\n\nAnother shift, taking on a clipped, urgent sounding, enunciation. "Listen to me. I don't know if she will remember this properly or if anyone else is even awake up there, but hopefully this will reach someone's ears."\n\n"It is //not// impossible to escape from this place. You must have your true Name to stay yourself and break his hold. It is possible to ''write'' your resignation, but without your Name it will be worthless. It is possible to ''find and destroy'' your contract, but it will take guile and skill for He keeps them in his Office and never leaves. Please, is anyone listening?" There is a pause and her clipped voice whispers "Good luck."\n\nThen all you can hear is the sound of paper rustling.\n\n\n<<display 'contract'>>\n

You are in an office. One of those places you would find in the bowels of a skyscraper that is owned by a mega-corporation \n\nThe place has a sterile, clean feel with its bare white walls, spotless white floor and lack of windows. The water bubbler in the corner seems out of place here, though you can't put your finger on why. \n\nThere are grey metal desks laid out in a grid pattern as far as your eye can see. A number of desks are empty, as conspicious as missing teeth from a smile, while the occupided desks are manned by people clad in black suits. Wach employee is hutched over their desk, silently scribbling away. Above you, the florescent lights hum, their flickering light giving everything a slightly blue tinge like you are gazing at your surroundings through a thin film of water.\n\nAfter that dream, you find the lack of color and the silence relaxing, a nice break from the searing jumble. \n\nYou raise an eyebrow when you look down and see that your hands, bleached white by the lights around you and a shocking contrast to your black suit sleeves, have been busy. It seems that you have been working the entire time you were looking around, your fingers automatically reaching for the next paper in the stack. \n \nYou could [[talk to neighbor]]. Just a whisper though, this quiet shouldn't be broken.\n\nCurious, you [[glance down]] at the papers you are signing. What might they say?\n\nYour throat feels dry so you might want to get [[drink]] from the water fountain in the corner.\n\n\n<<if $paths gte 3>> You feel like the walls are crushing you. Like you can't breath. You need to escape now.\n\n<<display 'escape'>>\n<<endif>>\n

You close your eyes and slow down your work, carefully to make every movement you make soundless. \n\nEverything is still, except the ceaseless whisper of paper and the soft hiss a pens writing.\n\nYou separate every sound, searching for a hint of intelligibility in each one. Someone must have a plan or know something. You can't be the only person awake and trying to escape here.\n\nAs you listen harder you start to hear something.\n<<display 'hear something'>>\n

You take a breath, your stomach clenching so hard that feel nausea start to burn its way up your throat. What can you say? What should you say?\n\n<<if $Loyalist eq "yes">>\nYou feel like you are being torn in two. A part of you says, "[[No.|teleporting to]] and to hell with the consequences," but the other part of you [[wants this|Loyalist ending]] so much it hurts.\n\n<<else>>\nYou feel like you are being torn in two. A part of you says, [["No."|teleporting to]] and want to run screaming but the other part of you [[wants out of here|court ending]] so much it hurts.\n<<endif>>

You try everything you can think of to break your chains or bend your manacles (including trying to remove your shoes, but those wouldn't come off anymore then your chains) but nothing works. Maybe if you have some bolt cutters or something, but even those might not work. You can't even use the pressure of your desk to break the chains since your desk is bolted to the floor.\n\nMaybe it's just your frustration, but the coils of the manacles seem to have gotten longer.\n\nWith a sigh, you [[flop back into your chair |look around]]\n

--Let the player undo moves? (on / off)\n--In Sugarcane, this enables the browser's back button.\n--In Jonah, this lets the player click links in previous\n--passages.\n\nUndo: on\n\n--Let the player use bookmarks? (on / off)\n--This enables the Bookmark links in Jonah and Sugarcane\n--(If the player can't undo, bookmarks are always disabled.)\n\nBookmark: on\n\n--Obfuscate the story's HTML source to prevent possible\n--spoilers? (swap / off)\n\nObfuscate: off\n\n--String of letter pairs to use for swap-style obfuscation\n\nObfuscateKey: pvctxheskufajoqdbmrwziglny\n\n--Include the jQuery script library? (on / off)\n--Individual scripts may force this on by\n--containing the text 'requires jQuery'.\n\njQuery: off\n\n--Include the Modernizr script library? (on / off)\n--Individual scripts/stylesheets may force this on by\n--containing the text 'requires Modernizr'.\n\nModernizr: off\n

<<set $loyalist = "yes">>\n\n//Yes. More workers. Those empty seats must be bugging the perfectionist mind that arranged the desks into an absolutely perfect grid. \n\nAnd even better, as recruiter, you will be free to go out into the real world.\n\nBut, how to get out of these chains and find the boss?//\n\nThoughtfully, you lean forward, chin in your hand and [[stare out into space.|learn]]\n

Your heart in your throat, you still a single tentacle from its endless task, the straightening of pens in this case, and slide it underneath your desk. You shiver at the feeling of cold tile as it slithers under the teleporting man's desk, stretched tight and thin like a rubber band. It taps the man's ankle, bouncing off the hard metal that might be his skin. \n\nHe looks completely human, until he glances at you and you see that his eyes look like prostheses made from the metal of his desk. They flick over you like normal eyes, move just like eyes should move, and it only highlights the inhumanness of them and the subtle off-ness of the man as a whole.\n\nYou wrestle a paper from a tentacle, scribble out "How did you do that" on the back of it, and hold it up for him to see while your thwarted tentacle plucks at the paper's edge.\n\nThe man stares at you blankly for a moment, then writes out a message of his own. The ends of his fingers are the same color as his eyes and he moves with stiff sharp gestures that end abruptly. He holds up his paper which reads "Again?" \n\nYou feel yourself freeze. Your tentacles go limp then start to shiver slightly. So do your hands.\n\nThe man rolls his eyes and writes another message. This one says, "Look in your desk. Lower right drawer."\n\nShaking, you [[look down.|drawer]]

<<set $matches = "yes">>\nThe matchbox, with a slightly glowing flame logo, rattles when you shake it. When you peak inside, you see a couple of matches rolling around.\n\nYou tuck it into your chest pocket and [[look around yourself.|closet]]

<<set $paths = $paths + 1>>\nYou stand, shaking and feeling ill, unfolding up from your seat and with a corner of your mind noteing at how close the ceiling is to your head. Rubbing at the aching in your neck, you step away from your desk.\n\nOr rather you try to step away from your desk. \n\nInstead, you hear the gentle rattle of metal and feel a sharp stab of pain, like something sliced into your ankles.\n\nYou look down and feel a prickle run down your spine as you take in the thin iron manacles seem to grown out of your desk legs and end coiled around your ankles, like a pair of anacondas trying to crush their dinner.\n\nYou try to slow your breathing as you wonder if you should [[examine the desk chain |desk chain]] more closely or [[look around]] some more first? Maybe you will see something that will explain this?\n

You pat yourself down, carefully avoiding the tentacles around you that are still filling out paperwork on their own. \n\nYou can't find anything hidden up your sleeves, mostly because your suit seems to have either grown out of your body or has become a part of your body. You have some moments of rather embarrassing hysterical hyperventilating when you realize that fact, (No wonder you wouldn't remove your shoes) but try to calm down enough to continue searching. \n\nTurning out your pockets proves just as pointless and only serves to baffle you about that fact that you still have pockets in a suit that is part of your skin.\n\nYou also have a bright red [[tie]].\n\n<<if $stealth eq "yes" >>\n<<display 'learn'>>\n<<else>>\n \n<<endif>>\n

<<set $stealth = "yes">>\n\nYou can't risk the boss's attention, not if he's the sort to chain people to their desks. Someone like that might have //issues//. It'll be best if you figure out how sneak out. \n\nBut first things first, you need to get out of these manacles. Maybe there is something [[on you|examine yourself]] that might help. Or maybe you can find something [[around you.|learn]]\n

The possibilities that you can feel inside that mirror make your stomach ache with longing, but you pull back. You still have some things you need to do. \n\nYou straighten yourself, adjust your jacket sleeves and smooth down your tie. Then, feeling like you are dragging a ton of stone, you [[turn back to the bathroom.|bathroom]]\n

<<set $howTeleport = "yes">>\nYou tear your eyes away from his message, push his "Again" out of your mind. You can't think about that now.\n\nInstead, hands still shaking, you fumble to open the indicated drawer. \n\nInside the gray metal drawer lays a single sheet of paper. It is slightly yellowed with age and crinkles when you pick it up. In your handwriting reads, \n\n"1.Look for the sideways cracks in time and this place. 2.Close your senses. 3.Feel the cracks with your mind. 4.Introduce yourself again, be polite. 5.Step sideways." \n\nIn the margins of the paper are comments that are also written in your handwriting. One says "3rd copy" while another reads "Made deal with the cracks, or I think I did. They remember me." The others are illegible.\n\nCarefully, your replace the paper and [[look up.|office]]

After some thought, you decide that aiming for a reassignment will be the better option. The weight of silence around you makes you think that it is the result of an order and you don't want know how a being that kidnaps people and chains them to desks would react to having his orders broken. Or what kind of punishments he could come up with.\n\nThe question is, what are you going to convince your boss to reassign you to? \n\nYou look around at the empty desks you noted earlier. Maybe he could use someone to [[recrute more workers?|more workers]] or maybe someone to [[spread the company name|court represent]] and attract more company backers and investors, people that would let the company expand. That too could provide some freedom.\n

The boxes look like they made of wood, but when you try to lift a box lid it is as light as a sheet of air and bends like \ncardboard. You quickly look through the pile of boxes, looking for anything useful or something you know how to use. One box is full of silver dust, another contains dried glowing flowers of some kind, while other boxes hold a hodgepodge of sticks, cloths, and dull bits of metal. You are about to give up when you find a box of [[matches]].\n

<<if $matches eq "yes">>\nYou //flicker// and slide back into your desk with everything just as you left it. Your tentacles start sorting papers, as automatic as breathing should be.\n\nYou sneak a glimpse around, but nothing has changed and nobody seems to have noticed your absence.\n\nThe matchbox rattles slightly in your breast pocket and you [[pull it out|fire]] as the tantalizing cracks of the world [[beckon you.|teleporting to]]\n<<else>>\nYou //flicker// and slide back into your desk with everything just as you left it.\n\nYou sneak a glimpse around, but nothing has changed and nobody seems to have noticed your absence.\n\nGood. You don't want The Boss to notice something is wrong after all.\n\nYou take a breath and slide sideways again, [[teleporting to]]...\n<<endif>>

You look in the mirror again and, even though you have done this before, are still surprised by your appearance \n\nThe stick-like humanoid standing in the mirror, with its six endlessly twisting tentacles, too long limbs and chalk white skin, doesn't feel like you. \n\nYou run your shaking fingers across your bald head and over the places your eyes should be, feeling the bones of your forehead and brow give way to the skin-filled hollows that are apparently where you see from. Your nose is still gone, not changed into the slit nostrils of a snake or tiny like those of an insect, but gone completely. \n\nYou run your tongue against the back of your teeth and, taking a deep breath, pull your jaw downward again. The faint sucking sound of your mouth's seal breaking makes you flinch and the smooth skin in the area between your non-existent nose and chin splits as neatly as the opening of a box's lid.\n\nYou stare again at your teeth, still as unreal and as lethal as those at home in the mouths of those nightmare fish in ocean trenches. \n\nYou shiver and turn back to the [[bathroom.|bathroom]]\n

The hall is long, with a linoleum floor and concrete block walls. The linoleum might have once been white, but is so old and worn that it looks yellow and cracked in the flickering neon lights. The walls been painted white, but the paint has started peeling off, hanging off the gray concrete like ringlets or curls of birch bark. Dust hangs in the air, as thick as a fog, and catches the neon light like stars. The hall is completely empty and bare, except for a single wooden door that looks as neglected as the rest of the hall.\n\n\t<<if $opened_closet eq "yes">>\nThe door is open and through the doorway you can see a small cluttered room lit by a hanging light-bulb.\n\nThe invisible cracks of the world beckon to you, the sense of [[empty spaces and blackness|teleporting to]] just one step away.\n\t<<else>>\nYou wonder if it is [[unlocked|open door]] as the invisible cracks of the world spider out around you, the sense of [[space|teleporting to]] just beyond your fingertips.\n\t<<endif>>

<<if $contracts eq "yes">>\nOdd shadows flicker on the office walls as the intense light of the desk fires make the neon lights above look dim. The still forms of your co-workers are silhouetted by the fire and the formerly quiet atmosphere of the office has been broken by the thundering crackle of the fire dog's barking and you feel a pang for that old familiar stillness.\n\nThe odd thing is that your fellow employees don't really react. They remain in their chairs, staring blankly ahead like robots that have shut down or hit a programing snag. Even your neighbor is mostly still, his only movement is a repeated motion towards his manacles that is halted abruptly every time he makes it.\n\nYour tentacles clutch their contract bundles tighter and you swallow hard as you look at the [[fire]] in front of you.\n<<else>>\nOdd shadows flicker on the office walls as the intense light of the desk fires make the neon lights above look dim. The still forms of your co-workers are silhouetted by the fire and the formerly quiet atmosphere of the office has been broken by the thundering crackle of the fire dog's barking and you feel a pang for that old familiar stillness.\n\nThe odd thing is that your fellow employees don't really react. They remain in their chairs, staring blankly ahead like robots that have shut down or hit a programing snag. Even your neighbor is mostly still, his only movement is a repeated motion towards his manacles that is halted abruptly every time he makes it. \n\nIt's a little eerie and you find yourself [[stepping through the cracks|teleporting to]] to escape it.\n<<endif>>

The pressure is overwhelming, like being caught in a trash commpacter as is closes in on you but, just when you think you are going to crumple under its weight, you feel yourself slip out out of it's grasp like a wet bar of soap. You feel like you have been pushed into a pool of putty. It stretches around you, is clinging to you and you can't breathe or move as a roar filled with nerve shattering rage echoes around you.... And then it is over.\n\nSlowly, sensations sift into your mind.\n\nFirst comes a gentle warmth that seeps through your skin to gather in your bones. Then a feeling of solidness against your back and legs. You can hears the high twitter of birds surrounding you, a chiming chaotic melody that sounds sharp and sweet as existence itself. When you open your vision, you see the delicate lace-like pattern woven by bare tree branches against the sky. \n\nYour fellow escapees are huddled into groups, clinging to each other with white knuckled hands and looking around themselves expressions of silent wide-eyed awe written on their faces. Your neighbor, the grey skinned metal man, starts to drip oil from his eyes as he looks around himself at the trees amd you carress the bark of a nearby tree, fasinated by the sutble play of colors and shadows it makes. \n\nThe silence of your fellow prisoners is broken by a cheer that sends the birds fleeing and you feel as light as a feather as you slowly realize that all of you are free. It won't be able to come after you.\n\nYou are free.\n

<<set $opened_closet = "yes">>\nYou turn the metal door handle and the door swings open with a with a long groaning creak. The [[room beyond the door|closet]] is dark, with only vague outlines that hint to it's contents. \n<<if $mirror gt "1">>\nHowever, it is the empty doorway that draws your attention. The air between the door //feels// a little like the bathroom mirror, with the sense of endless bright cracks outside of this world. Only, instead of the sharp and immediate reality beyond a glass mirror, this //feels// more like the potential of this paths. Like the air between the doorway is another door that is closed. All it needs is a [[turned knob|Out]] and you would be free. \n<<else>>\nHowever, it is the empty doorway that draws your attention. The air between the door //feels// like a gateway to endless paths, just as you could //feel// the cracks in this realm. This world's thin cracks and narrow paths pale in comparison to these paths, just as a nightlight pales when compared with the power of the sun. The air between the doorway //feels// like it's another closed door. All it needs is a [[turned knob|Out]] and you would be free as a bird.\n<<endif>>

You feel like your body should be damp with sweat as search through the Bosse's office, combing through cabinets, looking behind portraits, and opening drawers. You feel like your going to have a heart attack when you find the pile of papers with [[''Contract''|contracts]] written in bold gold letters along it's top. And then you find the another pile....and then another....and another.

<<set $pots = "yes">>\nMost of the buckets are made of plastic or wood, but there are a few that are made of metal. You drop one of the empty tin cans that are scattered among the buckets and listen it is clatter as it bounces around the bucket like a rubber ball.\n\nYou fight the snicker that rises in your throat as you collect the metal buckets and fill them with the cans. \n\nYou turn to look at the rest of the [[closet]], with your tentacles curled around the bucket handles.

<<if $whisper eq "yes" & $name eq "yes">>\n<<set $resignation = "yes">>\nYou carefully write out your resignation in your best penmanship. The lightness you feel every time you write down your name (How could you have forgotten it?) makes you smile so hard your cheeks start hurting.\n\nWith one final flourish, it is finished. Now how do you hand it in? Should you [[make a scene to get The Bosses attention|not working anymore]] or [[figure out a way to hand it to him personally|learn]]? \n\n<<else>>\nYou scribble out something on the back of a form you were suppose to fill out. You have no idea if it will work but you might as well try. \n\nNow you just need to [[get His attention|not working anymore]].\n<<endif>>\n

<<set $paths = $paths + 1>>\n\nThe men in the desks nearest to yours are busy working. They all seem to be making good progress on their paper stacks, carefully signing the lines that keep a company buzzing along and flicking the completed form into their out box.\n\nYou try to get the attention of the man closest to you but he doesn't respond or pause his work, just flips another form into his box, as steady of clockwork.\n\nYou lean back in your comfortable chair and [[look around]] again.\n

<<if $boss_out eq "no" >>\nA giant beautiful indescribable thing stands in front of you. It might be a person, but you can't find a head or a face. It has limbs, but there are too many of them and some seem to slide together and split apart at random. It puts you in mind of an insect, a fish, a gorilla, and a star all at the same time.\n\nA dazed corner of your mind notes that it is wearing a business suit that seems to be embroidered with gold in the same patterns that were on your manacle.\n\t<<if $resignation eq "yes">>\nDespite not have a face that you can read, you know that your //flickering// has enraged it. Your skin feels like it's being roasted off your body and the desk between you and it has started to smolder.\n\nYour hand is shaking so hard that when you hold out your resignation notice it sounds like the crunching of dries leaf.\n\nThe paper is snatched from your hand by a limb that reminds you more of a mushroom than anything else. There is a pause and you feel your organs drop into your feet [[as the thing is crumples your resignation into a ball.|Out]]\n\nIt snarls. \n\t<<elseif $loyalist eq "yes">>\nThe being looks furious at your sudden appearance, but your total prostration seems to ease It's temper. From your place on your hands and knees, you can feel the power of it pressing down on you, like the steady inevitable march of an army and fight to breath.\n\n''"Why are you here?"'' It asks in a voice that reminds you of sandpaper and lava.\n\n"I come to offer a my services as a Human Resources Manager, Oh Master of This Realm." You reply, heart in your throat.\n\n''"Really? You offer to catch more employees for my offices?"'' The way It says the words 'employee' and 'office' makes them sound more like 'cattle' and 'pens'. ''[["Are you sure about this decision?"|conferm]]''\n\t<<elseif $representative eq "yes">>\nThe being looks furious at your sudden appearance, but your total prostration seems to ease It's temper. From your place on your hands and knees, you can feel the power of it pressing down on you, like the steady inevitable march of an army and fight to breath.\n\n''"Why are you here?"'' It asks in a voice that reminds you of sandpaper and lava.\n\n"I come to offer my services as a travels to spread word of your company amongst the Investors, Oh Lord and Master of All You Survey." You reply, heart in your throat. \n \n''"Really? You would play doting lackey and slave among the gods? For what reason?"''\n\nYou swallow hard at the question and pray this works, that this gets you free. You say, as confidently as you can, "to draw them to you, My Lord. To charm them into pledging themselves to you and give you the power to grow larger."\n\n''"Pledge themselves to me?"'' It says, surprise in It's voice. Then, slowly, as though it is severing the thought, ''"Pledge themselves to me."'' \n\n[[Are you sure about this decision?"''|conferm]] It asks, tone so full of greed it could fill an ocean.\n<<else>>\n\n[[It looks furious at your sudden appearance.|looks furious]]\n\t<<endif>>\n\n<<else>>\nThe room is spectacular, and huge, like everything you could have imagined for the office of a company executive. Wooden walls glitter like mica in the golden light of lamps. Portraits of old men with beards are hung on those walls, separated by bookshelves that groan under the weight of leather bound books and sparkling ornaments that look unearthly in their color and design, a couple seem to float above their shelves. There is even a huge wooden desk and leather high-backed chair in the center of the room. \n\nOnly the terror of your position enables you to tear yourself away from the glittery opulence before you and, heart pounding so hard that you can feel it against you ribs, you move to [[search]] The Bosses office. \n\nOnly the sense of [[space|teleporting to]] just beyond your fingertips keeps you going.\n\n<<endif>>\n

<<set $mirror = $mirror + 1>>\n<<if $mirror lt 2>>\nCurious, you look in the mirror and see....yourself? \n\nIf it is you, there doesn't seem to be much of "you" left. Instead, a stick-like humanoid stands in the mirror, a monochromatic white and black with the only splash of color being it's red tie, with twisting tentacles twining behind it. You feel your stomach start to twist in on itself as you brush your fingers against your missing face, the mirror's reflection showing you what your fingers feel.\n\nYou run your shaking fingers across your bald head and over the places your eyes should be, feeling only uninterrupted hollows filled with skin, yet seeing all the same. Your nose is gone, without even leaving you the suggestion of its existence, and the place for your lips is equally barren, but you can feel yourself breathing and need to swallow.....swallow? Your sight does dark for a split second and your hint of a brow furrows. Your fingers tell you that there is no opening for a mouth, but you seem to have a tongue..which can feel teeth.\n\nYou take a deep breath, somehow, and pull your jaw downward with all your strength. The smooth skin in the area between your non-existent nose and chin stretches like rubber, then splits as neatly as the opening of a box's lid with a faint sucking sound.\n\nYou stare at your teeth, at the sharp spikes of bone that would have looked more at home in the mouth of those nightmare fish existing in the lightless expanse of ocean trenches. \n\nFeeling numb, you lean towards the mirror and trace the reflected edge of your teeth and completely forget about the shock of your appearance when your finger slips into the surface of the bathroom mirror as easily as if it was made of water.\n<<else>>\n\n<<endif>>\nYou dip your hand fully into the mirror and //feel// the possibilities of endless paths beyond its surface, just as you could //feel// the cracks in this realm, but those thin cracks and narrow paths pale in comparison to these paths, just as a nightlight pales when compared with the power of the sun.\n\nIf you choose to go through this mirror, you can slip free of The Bosses' hold on you. You could return to the real world without promising or risking //anything.//\n\nAll you have to do is [[step through|Out]] or [[not.|step back]]\n

<<set $contract = "yes">>\n\nYou absently tap your fingers against your desk. You can't even remember filling out a contract, but something tells you that such a thing does exist...why you think that, you have no idea but it makes sense.\n<<if $whisper eq "yes" >>\nShould you [[write a resignation|write]] for yourself? or [[find your original contract?|find]]\n<<else>>\n[[You wonder if anybody else knows|listen closely]] something about a contract.\n<<endif>>\n<<if $name eq "yes" >>\n \t\n<<else>>\nMaybe you can find a clue [[on yourself|examine yourself]].\n<<endif>>\n

<<set $name = "yes">>\nYour tie is one of the few spots of color in this monochromatic world. It's bright red color reminds you of rose petals and blood as it's silky texture flows against your fingers.\n\nOn the underside of the tie, the word ''John'' is embroidered in white. Seeing that makes you smile for some reason.\n\n<<if $contract eq "yes">>\n<<display 'contract'>>\n<<else>>\n[[examine yourself]]\n<<endif>>\n

You fold your hands together and lean your chin against them, staring off into space. How should you handle this?\n\nWould it be best to convince your boss that [[it's more trouble to keep you employed then fired|not working anymore]]\nor maybe you could convince the boss to [[reassign you|reassign]] someplace with a little less.... oversight?\n

A flickering beside you catches your attention and you feel a jolt of shock jump through your body.\n\nThe man who was seated in the desk next to yours isn't there anymore.\n\nYou stare at the now empty desk, at the empty manacles on the floor while your heart feeling like it will burst out of your chest and float away if you move a muscle or take a breath. \n\nThere is another flicker and the man is back in his seat, hunched over his desk as if he had never left. Even his manacles are back around his ankles. You find your mind empty of everything but a single shining thought. [[How did he do that?|that]]\n

<<if $distraction_1 eq "yes" and $distraction_2 eq "yes">>\n<<set $boss_out = "yes">>\n<<endif>>\nYou can't see anything. Not even your hand when you hold it in front of you. For several moments you remain motionless, listening to a silence as encompassing as the depths of space. Then, like crossing your eyes and looking at an optical illusion, you.....still don't see anything. Instead, you feel pathways inside your brain that flips at your sense switches despite your nerves swearing that they aren't sending any information.\n\nYou cycle through these paths, head tilted to one side.\n\n<<if $distraction_2 eq "yes">>\nThis path //feels// like a place of humming buzzing busyness, like a bee hive or an ant's nest with all the movement that is implied by that description. It //tastes// metal, paper, sweat, smoke. It also seems very familiar and well trod. [[Should you take this path?|room]]\n<<else>>\nThis path //feels// like a place of humming buzzing busyness, like a bee hive or an ant's nest. However, a closer examination of the //feel// of the place makes you dismiss those two analogies. A bee hive and an ant's hive would //feel// of movement, while this place feels still despite the activity you //feel//. It //tastes// metal, paper, and sweat. It also seems very familiar and well trod. [[Should you take this path?|desk]]\n<<endif>>\n\nOn the other hand, this path //feels// like it leads to an empty and long place. You get the //taste// of neglect and dust in the corners. Do you want to [[take this path?|hall]]\n\nUnlike the other two, this path //feels// echoing, full of drips and the smell of disinfectant. It also has this odd quality of both familiarity and unfamiliarity all at the same time, like you haven't ever been in that place, but should have. [[You might be able to find something in it?|bathroom]]\n\nFrom this path you get the sensation of buttery smooth leather and the smell of wood varnish with something underneath those sensations that calls them lies. It //feels// opulent, but in a way that also //feels// alien and unexplainable. <<if $boss_out eq 'yes'>> It also //feels// empty in a new way, like someone just walked out. <<else>> You //feel// a huge restless pressure against your skull when you examine the path and blink, finding that your body has cowered automatically. <<endif>> You find yourself tapping your hand against your leg when you [[consider going down this path.|boss's office]]\n\n<<if $distraction_1 eq "yes">>\nThis path mixes the sense of neglect and dust with the //feeling// of echoes that are filled with an overwhelming roar and clang. There's also something else, like a tingle of a chilly breath against the back of your neck. [[What could it be?|basement]]\n<<else>>\nThis path seems to combine the qualities of those before it, mixing together a still hum, the sense of neglect and dust, and rounded off with the //feeling// of echoes. There's also something else, like a tingle of a chilly breath against the back of your neck. [[What could it be?|basement]]\n<<endif>>

Hannah Bruders

"Yes, my Lord," you say and the pressure from It lightens and fizzes along your nerves.\n\n''"Excellent! Rise and receive your position"'' \n\nAs you bow to your Boss and Master you feel the bite of chilly energy and a weight settle around your shoulders like a chain.\n\nbut those thoughts are swept away as you feel yourself grabbed by one giant limb and //pushed// through a sticky film of something you can't put into words. It stretches, and clinging to you and you can't breathe or move.... And then it is over.\n\nYou stumble out of the film and find yourself surrounded. You stare up at a crowd of creatures. Some are shaped like humans, but are so beautiful and flawless that they hurt to look at, or are so grotesque and malformed that find yourself suppressing flinches. Some resemble the gods of Egypt, or plants or dragons or all three at once. A few look like children with varying degrees of cuteness, another like a robotic knight, a third looks like a galaxy of stars in the shape of a woman with flowing hair.\n\nThey all turn as one and stare at you, eying you like a toy.\n\nYou swallow hard, feeling a scream build and the muscles in your back tense as they converge on you.\n\nThe End\n

<<if $whisper eq "yes">>\nYou hear the same woman from before, closer and louder, and find that she is repeating the same litany you heard before with an interval that sounds like paper rustling before she starts starts her next repetition. \n\n<<else>>\nThe voice sounds like a woman, lazy and low like a blue's singer with a voice that is inhumanly smooth and rich. "You're the air that flows through His kingdom now. My little gift to Him. You will hear everything there is and carry it all." \n\nSuddenly the woman sounds several pitches higher, terrified and gasping for breath. "There is nothing outside. This building is all of existence. All there is. There is no way out."\n\nAnother tone shift, this one sounds bemused. "She's repeating me." \n\nHer voice goes creaking, with raspy rusty quality and hums something that sounds really familiar, full of bounce and vigor. Then, "Wait! No! NO!" and the raspy voice screams like it's being torn apart.\n\nAnother shift, taking on a clipped, urgent sounding, enunciation. "Listen to me. I don't know if she will remember this properly or if anyone else is even awake up there, but hopefully this will reach someone's ears."\n\n"It is //not// impossible to escape from this place. You must have your true Name to stay yourself and break his hold. It is possible to write your resignation, but without your Name it will be worthless. It is possible to find and destroy your contract, but it will take guile and skill for He keeps them in his Office and never leaves. Please, is anyone listening?" There is a pause and her clipped voice whispers "Good luck."\n\nThen all you can hear is the sound of paper rustling.\n<<endif>>\nYou shrug and look around the [[basement]] again.

Yes. \n\n//You like it here.//\n\nIt... yes.... everything is good.\n\nYou know this.\n\n//He is a good boss. He's running the company so well.\n\nYou are proud to work for him.\n\nYou need to work your best after all. It's in your contract.//\n\n[[Everything goes white.|Start]]

I'd like to thank Eric Knudsen and White Wolf publishing, Professor Fishburn, and Chris Klimas.

You feel like you have jumped into a pool of putty. It stretches around you, is clinging to you and you can't breathe or move.... And then it is over.\n\nSlowly, sensations sift into your mind.\n\nFirst comes a gentle warmth that seeps through your skin to gather in your bones. Then a feeling of solidness against your back and legs. You can hears the high twitter of birds surrounding you, a chiming chaotic melody that sounds sharp and sweet as existence itself. When you open your vision, you see the delicate lace-like pattern woven by bare tree branches against the sky. \n\nYou run, needing to get away from this place as fast as you can, certain that your escape is a lie. That you will run into a net or see a troop of guards step out from behind the surrounding trees sent to bring you back to the stale existence that trapped you before.\n\nYou tilt back your head as your feet pound against the ground, sight drawn to the blue sky above you as your heart tries to beat out of your chest. You breath in, feeling as light as a goose down feather.\n\nEverything is so perfectly beautiful. You'll never be able to go back.\n\nThe End\n