the basement

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There's a faint musty smell in here: the ''iconic'' garage scent all your friends talk about. It's rather dark in here, but you can find your way around implicitly. You know these streets like the back of your hand. The piled hardware and junk are like buildings in this dark, musty corner of the universe. The workshop and little storage area are back in the recesses of the garage, and they've always creeped you out. Best not think about them. The hallway door is nearby though. It's nice and warm in there. <<set $entered = 1>> [[Go back outside|The Door]] [[Stumble your way to the workshop|The Workshop]] [[Scurry to the storage tunnel you begrudgingly dug out with your father|The Storage Tunnel]] [[Enter the hallway|The Hallway]]

<<if $meds eq 0>>\ You can't use the stairs right now. They're sick. <</if>>\ <<if ndef $aware>>\ A sympathetic wave of sadness washes over you. A tear rolls out of your eye. Why is the world so cruel? Maybe you can get some medicine to cure their ailment. <<set $aware = 1>>\ <</if>>\ <<if $meds gt 0>>\ <<if $meds lt 4>>\ You have some medication that should alleviate the stairs' sickness, but not quite enough. Perhaps there are some more pills around <</if>>\ <<if $meds eq 4>>\ Looks like enough! You ought to give the pills to [[the stairs|end]]. <</if>>\ <</if>>\ [[Turn around|The Hallway]]

The hallway is just as you like it! There are some leaves and residual particulate matter from your shoes on the dirty tiled floor that you haven't cleaned in months. Winter coats hang on a poorly mounted coatrack that follows the wall in both directions. The landline phone extender your father bought ages ago is plugged into one of the only sockets in here. You look at the basement door. "Man," you think to yourself, "that's the place. That's where it all happens." It all happens in there. A wave of exhaustion passes over you. You need to get to bed, stat. (If you are unaware, your bedroom is upstairs. Your bed is in your bedroom. Which is upstairs.) [[Open the door to the stairway|The Stairs]] [[Triumphantly enter the room where it all happens|The Basement]] [[Step back into the garage|The Garage]]

There are storage bins everywhere, and some residual rainwater draining down the poorly sealed walls into some grates on the ground. Furthermore, there are loads of spiders crawling all over the place, and maybe some mice, and maybe an odd squirrel or bat or snake or something. It's not quite as bad as it is in the workshop, but it's still a little ominous. It's pretty boring though. Just stuff. Stuff everywhere. What a mess. <<if $aware eq 1>> \ <<if ndef $shoebox>>\ There's an [[old New Balance shoebox]] sitting under a dry rotting shelf. <</if>>\ <</if>> [[Back to the garage|The Garage]]

Oh. Oh, boy. This is where it all happens. Your posters of all of your favorite movies and albums cover the walls. Synchronicity by The Police is sitting on the record player from the last time you and the gang got together. Loads of musical equipment is scattered about the room. Your bass is still hooked up to the amp. You want to [[play a little diddy]]. Some of your brother's Star Wars LEGOs are on the shelves at the back of the room. That ripoff Death Star manufactured by some shady company in Hong Kong really ties the whole collection together. It does look awesome, but its assembly suggests negligence on the production side. Your movies and records are sitting around at the bottom of the shelf. <<if $aware eq 1>>\ <<if ndef $evid>> Ah, [[the evidence]]. Just don't think about it. It's fine, everything's fine. <</if>>\ <</if>>\ The couch has a blanket. You could [[sleep|couch]] on it. You hear the water running in the bathroom at the back of the room. Who's in there? [[Exit this room, which will one day be monumental to culture and civilization at large|The Hallway]] [[Slide open the door to the restroom|The Restroom]]

Steam pours out of the room. The strange wallpaper of gilded dark green and egg white stripes is sort of peeling away in a few places. It's tidy in here though. You clean this room, unlike the hallway. <<if $craig eq 1>> "Come on, you. Just leave me to my bath. I've gotta get clean for the big day." You don't like him, and he doesn't like you. It kind of works out. It's an iconic dichotomy. <</if>> <<if ndef $craig>> "Hey, I'm trying to take a bath here." Your observation of the room is interrupted. You look in the bathtub and see Craig. This guy has skin that looks as if it's trying to decompose just to get away from him. He's disgusting and sinister, but he's trying to enjoy his bubble bath. He's a squatter, but it's unclear how he got in here. Maybe just leave him alone. <<set $craig = 1>> <</if>>\ <<if $aware eq 1>>\ <<if ndef $cab>>\ The [[medicine cabinet]] is slightly ajar. <</if>>\ <</if>>\ [["Alright, Craig, I'll leave you alone for now."|The Basement]]

<<if $entered eq 0>>\ Oh, boy. It's late, and you've grown weary by this time of the evening. Time to turn in! The dim light in the little alcove shielding the side door from the elements is hardly enough to illuminate the deadbolt lock on the door. But it's enough that you see that a key is already in the lock. Someone is home... Oh well, best head in and figure out what's going on. <</if>>\ <<if $entered eq 1>>\ You step back outside, under that little light I mentioned earlier. It's a bit nippy out. Why are you outside again? <</if>>\ [[Enter|The Garage]]

<<set $entered = 0>> <<set $meds = 0>> <<set $skills = 0>>

It's dark, awful, and scary. What if there was a big scary person in here? Oh, no, this is a bad feeling. There are many paint cans, saws, tools, stools, workbenches, etcetera ad nauseum. It smells like old wood shavings married to the iconic garage must scent. <<if $aware eq 1>> <<if ndef $guy>>\ There's a [[shadowy figure]] in there. It looks like they have a mallet in their hand. <</if>> <</if>> [[Get out of there|The Garage]]

You play a little diddy. <<set $skills += 1>>\ <<if $skills lt 7>> <<if $skills lt 3>>\ Not good. Your little diddy wasn't good. Maybe if you keep playing you'll get it. Sometimes it takes a little while to get in the groove. <</if>>\ <<if $skills gte 3>> Hey, there it is! Little diddy? No, I don't think so. You're a musician. Your dopamine receptors begin to go wild. You've gotta play some more. <</if>>\ [[Set it down|The Basement]] <</if>>\ <<if $skills eq 7>> You're a god among the world of mankind. But... your body begins to erupt into spontaneous movement. You are stricken with chorea, and you crumple to the floor. Are you dead? Yeah. But your musicianship will be remembered for ages to come. Someone heard you playing, right? <<link "Try Again?">><<run UI.restart()>><</link>> <</if>>

You get on the couch and rest your weary bones. The blanket allows you to snuggle up all nice and tight. You pass out. The morning comes, but you don't come with it. You're finished, kid. The couch has gone and sucked the life out of you with its rigid structure. All you needed was a good night of sleep, and you settled for this. What a tragic finale to your life this has been. <<link "Try Again?">><<run UI.restart()>><</link>>

You grab and open the shoebox. About 4,000 spiders crawl out of it and go up your arms and cover your entire body and kind of crawl into your mouth a little bit. Just as quickly as they came, they depart, scurrying into the drain at your feet. You wave goodbye to your awesome new friends, as the echoes of about 32,000 little feet thunder from the drain. There's a peach colored pill in the box. You slip it into your pocket. <<set $meds += 1>>\ <<set $shoebox =1>>\ [[Set the vacant cardboard hotel back where you got it|The Storage Tunnel]]

You carefully drop the pills in the stairs' mouth. They swallow them, somehow without water. I've never understood how some people can do that. I've almost choked on those gel DayQuil tablets more times than I can count, and I use water every time. Crazy. Anyhow, the stairs' condition quickly turns around, and they're feeling right as rain just like that! You walk up the stairs, and they thank you as you do. You make your way to your bedroom, fall under your covers, and snooze the night away. FIN <<link "Want to explore other options?">><<run UI.restart()>><</link>>

"Hey, don't look in there! My stuff's in there!" Craig proclaims. Everything falls into the sink, and the porcelain basin falls off the wall and shatters all over the floor. Water begins gushing out of the pipes and fountains perfectly into the general placement of Craig's head. He opens his mouth and starts guzzling water. You suppose he must be dehydrated or something. In the rubble, there's a peach colored pill. You slip it into your pocket. <<set $meds += 1>>\ <<set $cab =1>>\ [[Close the medicine cabinet|The Restroom]]

"Who are you?" you ask. "Doesn't matter," the figure replies. Okay, well that wasn't helpful of them. They draw the mallet up in the air and let it swing down onto a paint can. Paint starts spraying everywhere, and it's just such a mess in there. They keep at it for no less than fifteen minutes, the room just covered in all sorts of paints. You're not cleaning this, you think. "Thanks for letting me wreck your workshop, stranger." The stranger slips a peach colored pill into your hand and sprints out of the garage, slamming the door behind them. You slip the pill into your pocket. <<set $meds += 1>>\ <<set $guy =+1>>\ [[Wipe some of the paint from your eyes|The Workshop]]

You pick up the evidence. It all comes flooding back to you, everything you were responsible for. Why did you have to do it? Oh, God, what are we going to do with you? You'll never be held accountable unless you turn yourself in, but you can't do that. You've got your whole life ahead of you. But you and I, we know what you did. Maybe you should just burn it. There's a peach colored pill in the evidence. You slip it into your pocket. <<set $meds += 1>>\ <<set $evid = 1>>\ [[Burn the evidence|The Basement]]