It is a chilly night. You stand in the long, dark night looking aimlessly at the mysterious and intriguing abandoned building. You wonder why you’re here and why the building somehow is able to draw you in despite looking like a dilapidated piece of piss someone threw up over. You vaguely recollect that you are in some sort of competition that involves a lot of work and a big pay day.
[[Go Inside->Inside]]
[[Don't go inside->WHAT? WHAT?]]
a) Boom, Boom, Boom. You hear cannons going off.
You watch as the brown, expressionless walls curve and move with the rhythm of the sound. A deep carnal boom that seems to radiate with every vibration and yet cannot be pinpointed. You look around. The interior of the shop is filled to the brim with stack after stack of elaborately conceived and decorated rugs, each seemingly made with extraordinary care. Your heart tells you to go deeper inside.
[[Go deeper in...->...]]
[[Go outside->What the devil?]]
What do you mean, don’t go in? You’re supposed to choose to go inside, not choose the sensible and sane option of not going into the creepy old mental asylum that has a history of unfortunate events. It’s not like it’s the most terrible thing in the world to do. I mean, your narrator has had to do much more terrifying things. Things that would petrify even your grandfather with the scars and shite. Things like going to the female bathroom or having to watch the newest Adam Sandler film.
So please, go inside. I’m sure you’ll have a good time. Maybe you’ll even find a girlfriend/boyfriend. What? I don’t know what gender you are.
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[Don't go inside-> You're joking.]]
[[Go inside already->Inside]]
[[NO. I'm not joking-> SERIOUSLY?]]
Just do it!
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[You can't tell me what to do!->Yes I can!]]
You venture further into the darkness. You hear the creaks and murmurs in the distance. You somewhat regret the decision to enter the building. You try to open the door but it’s locked.
Suddenly you hear something in the dark.
[[Investigate-> WHOA!]]
[[Don't investigate->There's a journal on a nearby desk]]
Ok, mate, here’s the rub, you literally just went inside. We just had this conversation a minute ago. Get back in there ya wankstain.
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO, you can't tell me what to do!->Yes I can!]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO!->YES!]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO!->Just go inside!]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO!->Listen]]
Listen old chum, I assure you it's perfectly safe.
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO!->That's it!]]
That's it! That is the final straw! I quit!
[[???->Guten tag]]
Ahem! Ja, Guten tagen! I am your new narrator Otto Plath, totally not a Nazi. My predecessor has taken vacation in Bahamas. In any case, I am here to point you back into the original path, ja? Now if you could kindly go into the darkness. No untermensch boogeymen, I promise.
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[No, I am not going in->Scheisse, come on man!]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO!->Pretty please?]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[No.->....]]
[[Go inside->Inside]]
[[NO.->Ok fine, hear MY story then.]]
[[Hear his story->Otto Plath: Deustchland]]
Deutschland. Duetschland uber alles.
Ahem. I, uh mean glory to the Arstotska!
No? Oh I know, Death to the Red Dogs!
Nein? Nein. Ja, I think I know now.
My apologies, reader. I am quite alright now
The Doktor is back in the house. Now what shall we talk about today? Nazi Vampires? Donlad Drumpf? Who shot Mr Burns?
My daughter? Sylvia Plath.
Alright, investigator. I shall tell you all I know about my daughter. You may trust me, I am Otto Plath, decorated hero of the 1st Fallschirmjager Division and former head of the Wehrmacht Moon facility and now strange entity residing inside your electronic device.
You would like to know why she did what she did. Well I shall tell you as best I can. Perhaps you should ask her later.
Born on the 27th of October 1932, my sweet little Stuka was one of the brightest children in the state. Ja, she was the most wonderful child anyone could ask for. But then I died.
Understandably, my death affected her a great deal. Depression and suicide attempts were momentous flashpoints in her life. Eventually it became too much and my Stuka ended it all. She killed herself through carbon monoxide poisoning. I don’t know what she felt when I died. I can only fil in the blanks, speculate what happened. It is a great tragedy. A tragedy becoming of the Greeks. I will see her again investigator. I will.
Every human has a coping mechanism. My daughter’s was poetry. Beautiful poetry, as great as Homer’s Iliad. But let us analyse one poem in particular. Lady Lazarus.
“My skin bright as a Nazi Lampshade.”
Now even I am repulsed by that and I…. well you know what I am. In truth, Sylvia’s poems are the bomb, ja! There are numerous references and little metaphors in here that turn into big things. It is as expected of Sylvia; her German brain guides her well.
“Jew linen.”
……. Uhh, no comment.
I digress, this is messed up Sylvia. Not even South Park would go there.
“Herr Doktor”
Ja? You called? Hello? Investigator? Oh you were reading. I was just looking at your internet history. Very interesting stuff. Wink wink.
“Beware”
Eh? Oh! Mein Gott! Die Amerikaner ist hier! Warum sind sie hier? Obersturmbannfuhrer? Scheisse..
Amerikansie grenater!
……
……
Uh, all is well. I am okay.
How about you? How is your day? Pleasant as always?
That’s gut.
…..
…..
Uh, where were we? Oh yes, my Sylvia turned into a phoenix and tried to kill me. How nice.
Well Sylvia, you may kill me if you can.
I remember, there was a time when she was not like this. When she called out happily to me “Daddy!”
A summer day, a day not like these increasingly grizzly winters you have here. To describe it accurately, it was pleasant. The war was over for some time now, peace had taken its time to grow. It was in this season that the flowers blossomed to their fullest potential. Sylvia loved playing in the fields, frolicking amidst the dandelions and tulips.
I was a retired Stormtrooper enjoying a nice cup of tea when she asked me, “Daddy, what did you do during the war?”
I told her that, “I was a professor in biology. We studied many important scientific endeavours regarding human eutrophication, biometrics, advanced stem research, you know science.”
She frowned, science was not enjoyable for her.
Sylvia had a philosophy, that there is a reason for everything and a reason for her death and mine. I have always fought to die. I am sorry that she had to fight to live. In all my years and all my wars, there is one defining thing that I shall always remember. There does not have to be purpose, if there is, then I shall leave you to find it out. Perhaps she found it, my Sylvia. Perhaps the horror of the realisation that life was just a façade for some damned reason broke her… or perhaps she could not bring herself to continue it. We cannot know. I will never know. You will never know.
But perhaps we shall try again tomorrow?
It is time for me to ask the questions now.
First question, is your name Donna?
It is a wild guess but am I right? Or am I right?
I’m completely wrong?
Well, scheisse.
Some of your friends jump out scaring you.
They laugh roaringly.
[[Tell them it's not funny->Not funny, bro.]]
[[ Stare passive aggressively->......]]
[[Read it?->The Journal]]
[[Don't read it-> WHOA!]]
I don’t know how, but it happened.
The Germans tried to find it in World War II, the Soviets tried. MKULTRA came close to figuring it out but at the last second, the plug was pulled and the project was closed. It seemed that they knew how deep the rabbit hole went.
It was a recently discovered genome in the DNA of every human being. The genome was inactive in most humans. It was dormant.
Humans with the active genome were noted to have had superior reflexes, more muscle mass, better eye coordination. Governments around the world were excited with the prospect of having genetically enhanced humans that were faster and stronger than their enemies.
But there was one flaw, in each case, all of those who had this gene developed severe psychotic tendencies. Subjects experienced near constant bouts of violent schizophrenia, memory distortion, hallucinations and homicidal urges. They mentioned about something inside them urging them to “kill”.
Scientists learned about it firsthand, when a man with the gene
We called it the Zero eventuality. The point at which man will succumb to his basic instinct, a desire to kill. The secrets of the gene were locked away by governments shortly after its discovery. At home, all remaining samples of the gene were locked away in secret military installations across the country.
In September 18th, 2001, I had the luxury of serving within one of these installations. That was when the Anthrax attacks began. The facility was locked down. We had orders to pull rank and evacuate the installation.
I got lost. The facility was a huge underground bunker designed to house entire armies in the event of nuclear war. At that time, it was being used as a research centre for the US military.
The power was out. The generators offline. In the dark, the once well-lit corridors became mazes from which people may never have come out of. The power issues had been recurring issue for a few weeks, no one really where the power fluctuations were coming from. We also didn’t really have answers for the little details that seemed to change place every day. Little bits of clothing or tools that had placed in one spot and then the next day turned up in another.
The foundations of the place created large bending shadows that warped across the corridors. It created an uneasy feeling in me. I could hear the metal creaking; the weight of the world was crashing down.
I couldn’t see anything in the dark. My flashlight’s battery was on its last legs. The officers had always warned us, that after 9, you cannot go past a certain line marked inside the base. They would point at it, each time they mentioned it. Something about radiation and what not.
My radio crackled to life. My CO was giving me orders but I couldn’t make it what he said. There was a lot of interference.
But then, the lights came back on. They must have restored the power, I thought.
Then I saw something in the distance.
It was a man. He seemed to be a civilian.
He was shivering. I walked up to him to see if he needed help.
“Hey!” I called out, the moment I said that the man stopped shivering.
He turned around and seemed to try to say hello.
Only he had no face. There was nothing on what should have been his face. No recognisable facial features, just a blank canvass. He had no skin. His body was massively distorted. It looked as though he was made of several bodies. I cursed. It was some fucked up shit. He almost looked at me, and out came the same sound.
There was something on his neck. A huge gash probably caused by a knife. No blood just a giant gash. The gap in his throat was unimaginably dark, there was no colour there just darkness. As if the colour had been absorbed and taken out.
I jumped in terror. Using the gap in his throat, he almost seemed to smile before running off into the darkness. Seconds later, I was alone again. He, or it had run off at a breakneck speed, faster than any of the best sprinters here.
I decided that I didn’t want to hang out here anymore and I started running as well. I didn’t stop for anything.
Not for the creaks of the metal.
Not for the whispers at my back.
Not for the dread that continuously dawned on me.
As I was running, I could see on the wall, the words written in blood “One minute it’s here, the next it’s not.”
I didn’t want to stick around for it to come here so I just ran. A few minutes ago, the radio was abuzz with chatter but now it had gone dark.
What seemed like an eternity of running finally ended when I came across stairs to the outside. I climbed up the stairs eagerly, not looking down at any potential zombies. I got to the top and reached for the door and opened it.
It wasn’t the exit. Instead I fell down again.
The stairs led to nowhere. Stairs in the middle of the mines. Stairs with no real destination. I had read about these stairs, but they were usually found in the forest. Relics of human history. I had heard about what happened to the people who walked up them. Some people felt nothing, others lost a hand immediately after touching the stairs, while others were never heard of again.
I did not want to suffer that fate and so I ran.
I knew I shouldn’t have but I looked back. And I saw the man again. This time, he sprinted after me.
I upholstered my pistol and fired.
The flash was surprisingly bright. It blinded me and I couldn’t see anything for a while. But I could hear the sounds of bones crunching as if someone was gorging on something.
Next thing I know; I’m surrounded by my squad. They were as spooked as I was. They said that I sprinted out of the bottom floor as if I was being chased. After me, they heard sounds of moaning and screeching of metal. When they checked it out, they found nothing.
We were spooked by the incident and we were glad to call it a night and wait for our replacements arriving.
I don’t intend to go back there, but I do to intend to spread the word.
You believe me, don’t you?
[[You close the book->Your friends]]
You scold them for jumping out of the wardrobe like that.
You tell them if you had a bat, you would have knocked them out.
"Relaxxxx" they tell you.
Rachel grins at you, "You have to admit, it was pretty funny, right?"
You look at her. Her big blue eyes look at you in turn with her rosy cheeks and mouth morphing into a smile.
[[Tell her it's fine->The Apparition]]
Some of your friends jump out scaring you.
They laugh roaringly.
[[Tell them it's not funny->Not funny, bro.]]
[[ Stare passive aggressively->......]]
They laugh even harder.
"Relaxxxxx" They say.
Rachel grins at you, "You have to admit, it was pretty funny, right?"
You look at her. Her big blue eyes look at you in turn with her rosy cheeks and mouth morphing into a smile.
[[Tell her it's fine->The Apparition]]
Out of the corner of your eye, you see something.
You freeze.
Your freinds ask you what's wrong.
You try to answer but nothing comes out of your mouth.
"It's fine." It says.
[["Wait what?->It]]
You and your friends look at the source of the sound, the sound of your voice.
It looks back.
You should probably run, by the way
[[Run!-> The escape]]
[[Don't run->Death]]
You all run to the nearest exit.
It doesn't follow.
Yet all the same, you hear it's breath behind your back.
You run as fast as your legs can carry you.
Until you escape out the door.
You run so far away, that you trip and fall.
Rachel trips over you and falls straight into your hands.
You check to see if It follows.
You see nothing.
Rachel looks up at you and smiles.
"That Wasn't so bad huh?"
THE END
OR IS IT........
[[EXTRA LORE->COLD DREAMS]]
It comes closer.
Your skin peels off. So does the skin of your friends.
Your tongue falls off.
Rachel's perfect skin is all but gone when she looks at you in pure terror and fright.
You try to grab her hand but as you do...
Your head falls off your body.
The ENd
Or you could try again.
The elevator bell beckoned with a grim redness. The agent calmly walked inside the stoic cage. Around him were the average men and women from yonder. The doors closed, shutting the light away and sending the elevator into a sudden darkness illuminated only by the pitch red of the sign of the number. Like mirrors, the shiny white walls reflected the piercing light on all their souls. And as the luminous cage descended deep below, the agent’s eyes showed themselves in all their splendour. And a grim smirk soon took hold. Hands reached into pockets, slowly yet deliberately as those around him endeavoured to maintain the abyss. To no avail.
They lunged at the agent, wildly and viciously with eager ecstasy slashing at all they could find. A vile orgy of mayhem and violence had occurred. Once perfect, streamlined suits and dresses turned into slaughtering gowns and above it all stood the agent. He had watched all of them, carefully examining the signs and patterns of the group’s insanity and their inhuman desires. Revealing himself, the agent plunged the elevator into further damnation as it descended perilously into what laid below. A disappointed look on the agent’s face but a stare with utter pleasure, the agent cut apart the creatures with deadly force. Whispers broke from the cage as boom after boom erupted from the inside. The wires groaned from the agony. Inside, darkness had come, overwhelming everything else with the light covered in a thick layer of red fluid. No reflection would remain even if there was still light. A series of quick blows and unnatural slashes continued to play out until one was left. The familiar sound of the elevator soon rung out again and the door opened revealing nothing but darkness. Nothing but that which looked back. The eyes of the agent.
There were sirens in the distance, but none headed to the carnage that unfolded. For a while, the scene was calm with the occasional blood pool leaking out. The agent had decided to remain in the darkness for some time and the empty car park suited this option very well. A few minutes later, the agent ventured out, taking care to avoid tripping. There was barely a stain on his suit, from top to bottom, the agent was immaculate. There was steam rising up from his hands as if a subtle reminder of what went on. The smirk had been replaced by indifference of the first degree. The agent looked around and walked towards a spot in the middle of the car park. He waited for a while until an orderly came from somewhere.
“Pleasure to be you acquaintance sir,” the orderly politely said, “What may I do for you?”
The agent simply stared and pointed down, much to the distaste of the orderly.
“Well, I am terribly sorry but I am afraid, Master Lucifer would not allow this. After all, he’d have my neck!” the orderly sputtered.
The agent looked around once more. Then he slowly turned his head to the orderly, at an incriminating speed, “If you don’t let me down there, I’ll have your neck.”
The orderly’s face weakened and turned blue before the orderly said, “Very good sir, have a nice eternity!”
Once more, the agent descended into darkness. The secret elevator descended several kilometres and revealed an expansive and wide facility built beneath the city. The facility boasted a wide assortment of guards and researchers all working around the clock to serve the facility’s insidious purposes.
Deep within, the whispers grew into faint screams as the elevator continued its dark descent amongst the floors of terrified people. Light seeped and tore apart the doors as the elevator made its stop. The agent stepped outside. He was greeted by a handful of burly men dressed in suits. They looked at him with silent anticipation and amusement.
The agent broke the silence, “how insulting.”
In mere moments, most of the guards had either fled or died. Reinforcements were soon coming. The agent swatted them with ease. These guards, while deadly to most humans were nothing to him.
“What are you?” one of the dying guards croaked.
The agent glanced at the dying guard. The Agent simply stared as he took the guard's keycard.
The halls of the facility were soon filled with the dead as the agent made his inevitable journey deep into the heart of the facility. Creature after creature was sent to stop him and death after death occurred as the agent used their very arrogance and strength against them. The heavily armed guards were soon set upon by their own experimented prisoners to be devoured.
A locked door was impeding the agent’s path. The agent looked around. Nothing but dark corridors with ghostly echoes as their only unique features. The whole facility, it seemed had gone quiet. The occasional bout of screams and shouts, here and there. The agent put his head against the door and listened. Drums. He realised his error.
The door flung open with the force of a bomb as the agent was flung far back into the corridor with the door collapsing on him.
“Well, well, well,” the Man in the Black Suit said, “what have we here? An intruder. Do you know what this place is?”
The door flung out. Broke the wall. The agent got up. He stared at the Man and the Man stared back. The Man was smiling. How arrogant. The Man’s smile slowly turned into a scowl. Darkness had swept across the corridor, leaving only the section that was occupied by the Man and his followers.
The Man sighed, “You know, me, being Lucifer, I’m going to enjoy this very much.”
“As am I.”
Red eyes. That was what anything last saw.
The henchmen leaped and sprinted at the agent with vigour and energy. They were stopped by blades to the chest. The next challenger used his fists in a valiant attempt to show his loyalty. His challenge was answered in kind with blows being landed to the abdomen and spinal cord, severing the connection and sending a loud crack through the air. His friend followed and met an unlikely end with the solid wall. Two more raced at him with flying kicks only to be permanently grounded, their bones shattered.
Lucifer watched on in amusement. He was positively intrigued by this being who had waltzed into his realm with hardly a sweat.
The agent scrubbed his hands and walked up to him.
“Hello,” Lucifer said.
The agent grabbed Lucifer’s neck and threw him against the wall, making a large indentation. Lucifer fought back. Using his insane strength, Lucifer threw a steel block at the agent and used the opportunity to disappear and reappear. He landed a tornado of blows on the agent as Lucifer disappeared from one window to the next. Lucifer was amused at the bravery of the agent. With a final kick, the agent was brought to the ground, kneeling. Lucifer appeared before him smirking.
But the agent was just getting started. He stood right back up. Lucifer’s smirk turned into anger. He disappeared before the agent once more. The agent looked on expectedly and lashed out into the air, grabbing Lucifer by the neck.
“Goodbye,” said the agent. He struck into the ribcage damaging and dislocating the heart. He let go, letting Lucifer to his feet. The agent turned and made a kick into a leg, striking the femur, breaking it into two places before ramming a blade into his neck, sending blood sputtering out Lucifer’s mouth. The agent looked on and pushed the standing body to the ground with a light jab.
The agent walked into the darkness, content.
It was finished.
The atmosphere had changed. It was time to ascend.
When the agent returned to the surface. He soon received word that there were was news of another abnormal case.
A group of teenagers had survived a deadly house in this world of darkness....