limbo by james

limbo

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"Limbo" by Jimbo

Woods is a room. "(Context for action-taking: You are facing north.)


You've spent years figuring out how to find this place, and you've spent days navigating it, and now you're here. In the middle of the woods. Despite how tiring the journey's been, you suddenly can't bring yourself to remember it. You can't remember much at all, because you're face to face with something amazing, something awful.

The trees are tall and skinny, but you're right on the cusp of a clearing. Halfway into the center all the flowers and grass cut off. A perfect circle of entirely flat dirt all the way to the center. And hovering right above the center, it's bright, incredibly bright, and incredibly dark all at the same time. It's glowing, with white light barely tinted yellow and orange. But right where the source should be- it's blank.

Just a black square, in the middle of the air. The blackest black you've ever seen, like somebody took the scene you're looking at and just cut out part of it entirely. Like some photoshop trick, but real.
Every single bone in your body is telling you to go. You have goosebumps and the hair on the back of your neck is standing straight up. Every instinct you've ever had is telling you to leave. To run. You've never felt like this before. Like the north pole of a magnet, facing against another.

The longer you stand here, the sicker you feel. Your hands begin to tremble, just barely. Your heartrate picks up, just slightly, then faster. You hear it pounding in your ears, and your hands- they're shaking now. How long have you been standing here? You think a minute at most, surely- but you're more and more aware that it's been much longer.

What do you do?

Turn around and run? (Are you facing north? Are you facing any direction? Where are you?)

Examine the void? (Will you ever have this chance again? Will all your efforts be for naught?)"

The void is a fixed in place thing in Woods. The description is "You step forward, and you're fine. You feel fine, your hands are stable and your nausea is gone. You realize, suddenly, that the only noise here is your breathing. There isn't any wind, and there never was. You can still hear though, because you hear your exhale and the shuffle of your feet as you take a small step, forward again. You don't feel inclined to run anymore. You're slightly unsettled by the void- it's still strange (not the strangest you've ever seen), and you feel like it should be making noise. Some sort of hum, or a low buzz. But it isn't. It's just you walking towards it. And you are walking towards it. You're drawn to it, now, like there's something in your gut pulling you closer. And in your logical head, it worries you. But there's no going back now. Reach out. Touch it. Go forward." 

South of Woods is Running.

Running is a room. "You whip around. And you start running. You run as fast as you can, as fast as your legs can take you. You weave through the trees and you don't look back. You run. You run. You RUN. Trees blur past you and the thrum of your heart against your sternum bleeds into the sound of your feet hitting against increasingly uneven ground. Eyes straight ahead, you jump over rocks and logs and even when you stumble in the sudden patches of mud, you keep running. You keep running even when you're certain your legs might fall apart. You keep running. You don't stop running until you see it- where the forest ends, right beyond the pine trees (they weren't pine trees before), and houses dotting the horizon. This isn't the route you came in from. You needed mirrors, and strange books, and trains cursed by trickster gods to get in. You don't care. All that matters is that you're out, you're almost out. You propel yourself past the treeline and you let your momentum falter, tripping over a knotting of grasses on the light green plain. You stumble, still running, before falling and tumbling onto your side, rolling for a moment before unfurling on the ground, panting, heaving, aching. Your legs hurt. Your head hurts. Your chest hurts. And birds are singing. And the grass is damp and cool, and you feel it wet the back of your shirt. You laugh, and then you turn over and cough for a half a minute. And then, you start crying. You've seen much stranger things before. You've felt much worse things than throbbing legs and nausea. But there was something deeper beneath the surface, and you're suddenly so, so glad you're alive. Glad you exist. Glad you've ever existed. As you hiccup and sob, a bumblebee flies past. You'll be okay."
After going to Running, award 50 points.
Every turn while in Running:
if score is 50
begin; say "You whip around. And you start running. You run as fast as you can, as fast as your legs can take you. You weave through the trees and you don't look back. You run. You run. You RUN. Trees blur past you and the thrum of your heart against your sternum bleeds into the sound of your feet hitting against increasingly uneven ground. Eyes straight ahead, you jump over rocks and logs and even when you stumble in the sudden patches of mud, you keep running. You keep running even when you're certain your legs might fall apart. You keep running. You don't stop running until you see it- where the forest ends, right beyond the pine trees (they weren't pine trees before), and houses dotting the horizon. This isn't the route you came in from. You needed mirrors, and strange books, and trains cursed by trickster gods to get in. You don't care. All that matters is that you're out, you're almost out. You propel yourself past the treeline and you let your momentum falter, tripping over a knotting of grasses on the light green plain. You stumble, still running, before falling and tumbling onto your side, rolling for a moment before unfurling on the ground, panting, heaving, aching. Your legs hurt. Your head hurts. Your chest hurts. And birds are singing. And the grass is damp and cool, and you feel it wet the back of your shirt. You laugh, and then you turn over and cough for a half a minute. And then, you start crying. You've seen much stranger things before. You've felt much worse things than throbbing legs and nausea. But there was something deeper beneath the surface, and you're suddenly so, so glad you're alive. Glad you exist. Glad you've ever existed. As you hiccup and sob, a bumblebee flies past. You'll be okay."; end the game in victory;
end if.

North of Woods is Blank. Blank is a room. After going to Blank: say "You touch the void. And it's too sudden, and there's no way you could have known. Suddenly, there is nothing, and you are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of just nothing. There's nothing, and you're nowhere, and you're nothing too. You're in the void, now. You can't see anything. You can't hear anything. You can't- you can't feel anything, or taste anything, or smell anything. There's nothing here, and you feel like crying. You can't. You don't have eyes to cry with, and you don't feel it welling up in your throat (because you don't have one). You're just here- you're just nowhere. Unless you aren't. Where are you? Where is this? Is this anywhere? Are you dead?

You have a lightning strike of clarity.

You aren't dead. You are gone. More specifically, you were made so that you never were. Your name was erased from time. You don't have a corpse. And people don't remember you. Because you are in the pinprick center of the hurricane of the universe, and in the middle of so much everything, you found it.

The nothingness.

Here, you are starved of even a history. Because in nothingness, nothing ever was, and you're here, so you never were. You're just your mind, stuck drowning in inky waters. You poor, idle soul.

I'm sorry."; end the game in death.
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limbo

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