The deathly quiet and total darkness seem overwhelming to you. You try feeling around in the dark. Apparently, you are lying in some sort of dry, coarse dirt. Without warning, a tiny, pale sun quickly rises in the sky. Wherever you are, it is not your solar system. This "sun" is far too pale, does not give enough light, and moves too quickly. If only you knew where "here" is.
You are facing east, and appear to be near the edge of a cliff. The rock and the dirt around you are all midnight black. You approach the edge and realize that there is nothing beyond. As you scan the horizon, you see several black asteroid-like islands of rock, hovering in space. They each appear to have a city in the center. They are roughly disk-shaped. Strange. You examine the closest one to you. Although it seems like it is a few miles away, you are eventually able to discern the figure of a person at its edge, staring back at you. You try to yell out to it, but strangely, no sound comes out of your mouth. In fact, you have not heard a single sound since you got here. Not the sound of other things moving or communicating in the distance. Not the sound of your shoes moving in the dirt. Not the sound of your own breathing. Nothing. This place is dead silent. You stand up as tall as you can and try waiving at the figure on the other asteroid. It does the same. Startled, you stop. It stops. You squint your eyes, trying to get a better view. As you do, you realize the face staring back at you from across the void is your own. You look around more carefully at the other asteroids and realize each is merely the mirror image of the one you are on.
You think through the events of the last few hours, just going over it all in your mind and trying to figure it out. You start to feel immensely hopeless as you realize you are stuck on some rock, floating in another dimension or something, where you can't even speak, and you definitely can't get home. Not without doing what some computer wants you to do. Problem is, you don't even know what that is. You feel your eyes begin to water, and you try to fight back what you know is coming, but give in as you feel sobs well up inside you. "I'm just a kid," you tell yourself. "I don't get this. This is just...unnatural. Why am I here? Yeah, I lagged a bit after lunch and was probably going to be late to sixth period, but...you don't usually get shipped off to some crazy, acid trip just for being tardy to music class. What is going on? I just don't understand. This is like a...like a...like I'm living in a video game or something. It isn't possible."
"Yes it is. Now stop being a coward and go do what you have to do."
You have no idea where this other voice came from, or how it got inside your head. Startled, you look around. You see no one. The fact that it called you a coward sends you into a rage. Your father used to call you that when he hit your mother and dared you to stop him. And deep down, you felt that it was true, because you dared not lift a finger to stop him. They've always called you a coward, and you've hated them for it. More than that, you've hated yourself for it.
You wipe your face dry with your sleeve and scan the scene in front of you. From where you stand, there is a road of sorts set with pale, gold-colored stones, leading from the place you stand to the city. It looks like a long walk, but you can make it. There are several buildings, all black. In fact, everything in this place but the road appears to be black. In the center of the city is a tower taller than the rest. You see a light on all the way at the top. It reminds you of a lighthouse. "Follow the yellow-brick road," you say to yourself. The reference almost makes you smile as you walk toward the city.
As you grow closer, the dirt becomes more fine, almost like ash. The buildings have a charred appearance. You try the first couple of doors, but they are locked. You keep walking toward the center of the city, staying on the road. Alleyways branch off to your left and right, and appear to arc in the same direction. You quickly realize that the city is most likely layed out in a cirle, with the tall tower in the center. The road you are on is a radius moving from east to west. The alleys you pass are part of a network of concentric circles. Before long, you come to a pile of debris in the center of the road. It completely blocks your progress, and you can't see what is on the other side, other than something that smells really, really bad.
Do you:
A) Try to climb over it.
B) Take the alleyway to the north
C) Take the alleyway to the south
HP: 84
Status: vaseline-hand
Inventory:
MP3 Player: static OFF
Envelope
Cloth strips
Guitar picks
Healing salve (half tube)
Studio map (partial)