One Eye Open
by Caelyn Sandel (as Colin Sandel) (2010)

Had you known the bloody history of Corona Labs, you would never have signed up as a test subject. But now, plunged into that history, surrounded by the damned and the dying, you must find the truth. Perhaps you will even survive it.

action: %
response: Please be advised that One Eye Open is a horror game. It contains mature content (including blood, gore, human injury and death, mild language, tobacco reference, violence, and violent references.)

We do not recommend this game for a younger audience.
action: Y.
response: After only ten days, you're becoming surprisingly comfortable with life as a Corona Corporation guinea pig. It helps that your routine is so reliable - meals, exercise, rest, and sleep are clearly arranged on a schedule hanging beside the white clock in your room. As for the tests - well, you've grown used to the sight of your blood in a sample vial, and the rest is mostly paperwork. Personality tests, aptitude tests, intelligence tests, psychological tests, Rorschach and the MMPI and even kinetic family drawing... you're starting to worry that they'll run out of tests by the end of the month.

Although 7:30 PM is always the day's last test, you never leave your room alone, so you were still watching American Beauty when Dr. Marnie Ephart knocked at the door. "Oh, you're almost to the end!" she said brightly, seeing the screen. "I can wait until you're through."

"No, that's fine." You hit PAUSE to freeze Angela in mid-motion as you got up from the couch. "I've seen it before." Last Monday, actually. The video collection isn't that good, and, considering what they're paying you, it's a pity Corona couldn't invest in a few more options. It's hard to complain, though; the staff is friendly, the tests aren't hard, and the salary is great.

During the day, Raymond, Best, or one of the scientists might be around, but at night, it's usually just the two of you, and the hall you cross now is deserted. You accompany her through the antechamber and into the main testing chamber. By now, you're used to being watched from behind one-way glass, but the observational room is fully lit today, and you can easily see inside.

"Back in a moment," Dr. Ephart says cheerfully. "See you on the other side!"

Test Chamber, Corona Labs
In the center of the room, a single black office chair sits in front of a broad, heavy desk. The desk and chair are familiar, but the wireless keypad sitting on the desk is new. There are five large white buttons on the keypad, each displaying a different symbol in broad black strokes. The symbols are a circle, a cross, a set of three wavy lines, a square, and a five-pointed star. As always, you are quite aware of the cameras watching you from above.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

The familiar black office chair sits invitingly nearby.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the curved desk in the observational room.

>I beg your pardon?
action: You sit in the chair
response: You sit down on the office chair.

Through the thick pane of glass, you see Dr. Ephart come into the observational room carrying a stack of cards and a notebook. She waves to you in friendly fashion, sets her notebook on the desk, and sits down before pressing the intercom button.

"This is a different kind of test," Dr. Ephart explains. "I have twenty-five cards here, each of which shows one of the symbols on your keypad." She holds up five cards and fans them so you can see the circle, cross, wavy lines, square, and five-pointed star. "I'm going to draw one of these cards and concentrate on the shape. I want you to concentrate, to really focus your mind, and try to pick the same symbol that I do. After you've decided on your symbol, press it on the keypad. We'll do five of these."

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the first card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: You concentrate on the card
response: Dr. Ephart is holding up one of the cards. The back shows several blue loops and a line drawing of a building.

As you concentrate on the deck of cards, you get a dull headache. For a moment, you think you see the cross superimposed on the back of the card, but then it is gone.
action: You press the cross
response: The keypad chimes, and the cross button glows briefly. Dr. Ephart nods unconsciously as she tucks her card back in the deck.

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the second card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: You concentrate on the card
response: As you concentrate on the deck of cards, you feel a peculiar twinge behind one eye. The back of the card distorts until it's like looking at the front of the card. You see the five-pointed star on the card.
action: Press star
response: The keypad chimes, and the five-pointed star button glows briefly. Dr. Ephart tilts her head to one side as she takes note of your response.

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the third card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: You concentrate on the card
response: As you concentrate on the deck of cards, small spots of light glitter through your vision. You close your eyes for a moment, then open them and look at the card. You clearly see the wavy lines on the back of the card before it swims out of sight.
action: You press lines
response: The keypad chimes, and the wavy lines button glows briefly. Dr. Ephart's lips curve slightly up as she writes something in her notebook.

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the fourth card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: You concentrate on the card
response: As you concentrate on the deck of cards, your headache increases. Staring at the card, you sense that Dr. Ephart's card is the cross.
action: You press the cross
response: The keypad chimes, and the cross button glows briefly. Dr. Ephart glances at your response and looks impressed.

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the last card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: You concentrate on the card
response: As you concentrate on the deck of cards, you feel briefly lightheaded. The five-pointed star jolts sharply and painfully into your brain. There's no doubt: that's her card.
action: Press star
response: The keypad chimes, and the five-pointed star button glows briefly. Dr. Ephart breaks into a broad smile.

Dr. Ephart picks up the deck of cards again. She smiles at you and presses the intercom switch. "You did great - thank you! I'll be back in just a moment."
action: You look around
response: Test Chamber, Corona Labs (on the black office chair)
Two cameras watch the heavy desk from above with unwinking red eyes. The desk currently has a wireless keypad on it.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the blue notebook and the curved desk in the observational room.
action: You examine the blue notebook
response: Dr. Ephart reliably documents everything in her dark blue notebook. Unsurprisingly, you've never gotten even a peek at the inside.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying nothing.

The door to the testing chamber rattles briefly before Dr. Ephart enters. The doctor gives you her warm, customary smile as she sets a manila folder in front of you. "I've placed a photograph in this folder," she says, tapping the folder. "Please study it closely and learn as much as you can about the scene. I'll be back shortly, and I'll have some questions for you when I return."

Taking the keypad, Dr. Ephart departs, leaving you alone with the closed folder.
action: You take the folder
response: You pick up the manila folder.
action: You open it
response: You open the manila folder, revealing a glossy photograph.
action: You take the photo
response: Your fingertips tingle slightly as you pick up the photograph.
action: You examine the photograph
response: The glossy 4x5 photograph shows the side view of a teenage student.
A falling wave of shoulder-length russet hair obscures her face as she leans over an open book, leaving only the slight frown on her pale lips visible. Her left cheek is propped against the curled fingers of her left hand, and her right rests lightly against the beige wood of the desk.
action: You look at the hair
response: The student's russet-colored hair is pretty and well-brushed, falling barely past her shoulders.
action: You look at the book
response: The photo's detail is good, but not so good that you can read the tiny print of the large book. By its heft, it could easily be a medical textbook.
action: You examine the desk
response: (the photoed desk)
A desk made of finished beige wood.
action: You examine the face
response: The slightly warped 4x5 photograph shows the side view of a teenage student. A straggling wave of rust-red hair falls to shoulder length, half-hiding her face as she leans over an open book. She's frowning slightly, and her lips are very pale. Her left cheek is propped against the fisted fingers of her left hand, and her right tenses against the beige wood of the desk.

>The student's face is obscured, but her skin and lips are visibly pale, like someone about to faint.
action: You look at the left hand
response: The photo's detail is good, but not so good that you can read the small print of the book. By its heft, it could easily be a college textbook.

>You can't see any such thing.
action: You examine the hands
response: The student's hands are very pale, their veins standing in sharp blue against white skin. Both hands are clenched in tight fists, the left under her chin and the right pressed against the desk.
action: You examine the hair
response: The student's hair is rust-red, but of a duller hue than you swear it was a moment ago. The hair is somewhat straggled, as though not quite dry and unbrushed.
action: You look at photo
response: The slightly warped 4x5 photograph shows the side view of a teenage student. A straggling wave of rust-red hair falls to shoulder length, half-hiding her face as she leans over an open book. She's frowning slightly, and her lips are very pale. Her left cheek is propped against the fisted fingers of her left hand, and her right tenses against the beige wood of the desk.
action: You examine the lips
response: The student's face is obscured, but her skin and lips are visibly pale, like someone about to faint.
action: You concentrate on the photograph
response: The photograph blurs before your eyes.

The warped 4x5 photograph shows the three-quarter profile of a teenage student. Lines of blood straggle down from the broad cut on her forehead, and she cradles her left eye behind her bloodied left hand, hiding it from view. Her lips are bloodsmeared as well, and blood spots the book she leans over. The fingers of her right hand are crooked into claws, tearing at the beige wood of the desk.
action: You touch the blood
response: The photoed face is smooth to the touch.
action: You look around
response: Test Chamber, Corona Labs (on the black office chair)
Two cameras watch the heavy desk from above with unwinking red eyes. The desk currently has nothing on it.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the blue notebook and the curved desk in the observational room.
action: You wave to cameras
response: You wave at the security cameras.

A distinct *click* sounds from the door to the antechamber.
action: You examine the antechamber
response: It's a plain aluminum door with a straight handle.
action: You concentrate on the photo
response: You wave at the security cameras.

>The photograph blurs before your eyes.

The extremely warped 4x5 photograph shows the image of someone, face buried in both hands, about ready to collapse across a damaged, bloodsoaked book. Cruelly tight braids bind the student's hair back so sharply that you can see the skin stretching.
action: You look at the student
response: Only the edges of the person's face can be seen, but the skin stretches like a rubber mask at the very edges.
action: You concentrate on the photo
response: The photograph blurs before your eyes.

The damaged 4x5 photograph shows the image of a young man dragging his fingernails down his face. Long furrows run down his cheeks, and blood drips from those furrows onto the savaged book in front of him. His green eyes are open but unfocused, and his lips are parted in a soundless scream.
action: You examine man
response: He's definitely not the same person that you first saw in the photograph. His features are not just refined, but gaunt, and the hollow bruises under his eyes suggest he hasn't slept well for a very long time.
action: You concentrate on photo
response: The photograph blurs before your eyes.

Something's happened to the photograph - there are dull yellow spots marring its surface, like it's been damaged with some kind of chemical. Past those spots, you can make out the image of a young man screaming. Hands shielded with surgical gloves restrain his arms and head as he struggles. He clutches two handfuls of torn, bloodstained pages, but one gloved hand is prying the fingers of his right hand open.
action: About yourself
response: Even without a mirror, you know you're not looking your best. You haven't been sleeping well for a few nights now, leaving dark circles beneath your eyes, and your appetite's been off as well. Not that it's been Corona's fault - the food's been surprisingly good - but you're just not feeling so hot.
action: You concentrate on the photograph
response: The glossy 4x5 photograph shows the side view of a teenage student.
A falling wave of shoulder-length russet hair obscures her face as she leans over an open book, leaving only the slight frown on her pale lips visible. Her left cheek is propped against the curled fingers of her left hand, and her right rests lightly against the beige wood of the desk.
action: You go to the west
response: The unlocked door opens readily under your hand.

(first getting off the black office chair)
You stand up from the office chair.

Antechamber, Corona Labs
There are no hangings on the dull off-white walls, but a fake palm tree in one corner attempts to add some cheer. In the other corner, there's a simple chair, which looks like a refugee from some grade-school classroom. There's absolutely nothing else in this spartan antechamber.

A windowless door separates the antechamber from the testing room further in.

A matching door, also windowless, leads from the antechamber to the hallway outside.
action: You look at the palm
response: The palm tree looks strikingly realistic, and it wasn't until you examined it closely one day that you realized it was fake. Sadly, its realism provides an unpleasantly discordant accent to the sterile room.
action: Go east
response: Test Chamber, Corona Labs
Two cameras watch the heavy desk from above with unwinking red eyes. The desk currently has nothing on it.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

The familiar black office chair sits invitingly nearby.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the blue notebook and the curved desk in the observational room.
action: Go west
response: Antechamber, Corona Labs
There are no hangings on the dull off-white walls, but a fake palm tree in one corner attempts to add some cheer. In the other corner, there's a simple chair, which looks like a refugee from some grade-school classroom. There's absolutely nothing else in this spartan antechamber.

A windowless door separates the antechamber from the testing room further in.

A matching door, also windowless, leads from the antechamber to the hallway outside.
action: Go west
response: You take a step toward the hall door, but your movement is arrested suddenly by a wrenching sensation. Your gorge leaps toward your throat abruptly, giving you the unsettling sensation of having been dropped a foot down. The sensation is gone quickly, but your throat remains thick with unease.
action: You look
response: Antechamber, Corona Labs
The antechamber is nearly as spartan as the test chamber itself. The walls, painted a dull off-white, are bare of hangings. A simple chair squats in the corner like a grade-school refugee. The only decoration in the room is a straggly ficus tree, which sprawls in the opposite corner from the chair.

A windowless door leads west from the antechamber to the hallway outside.

A matching door, also windowless, separates the antechamber from the testing room further to the east.
action: You examine the ficus
response: (the ficus tree)
A real, living ficus tree sprawls outward from its pot in the corner of the room. While you can't imagine how it can survive in a windowless room, it looks healthy enough. Sadly, its realism provides an unpleasantly discordant accent to the sterile room.
action: You search the ficus
response: (the ficus tree)
The ficus tree's untrimmed branches obscure but do not conceal its staid black pot.

In the ficus pot is a small piece of unlined paper.
action: You take paper
response: You reach through the shrouding branches and fish the small piece of unlined paper out of the ficus pot.
action: You read it
response: The small piece of unlined paper reads:

Alice's Diary, 4/30/78

He screams at night.
Ian says that he's had these nightmares as long as he can remember, that it's fine and everything is normal. I really want to believe him, but the last few days have been different. I've seen him tossing and turning, but now he screams. Says things. His eyes are open, but he can't see or hear me.
Are they doing something to him? I'm not supposed to ask about why he's here. I've been sort of hoping that he would tell me something, but he doesn't even like to talk about the nightmares. All I can hear are the things he says when he's asleep, strangled bits of words. "Teeth. Dark. Coming for me."
I wish I could do something for him. Anything.
action: Go east
response: This door was open just a moment ago, but it's closed now. You can't recall hearing it close.
action: You unlock door
response: Which do you mean, the hall door or the test chamber door?
action: You focus on the ficus
response: (the ficus tree)
You try to concentrate on the ficus tree, but you don't sense anything out of the ordinary.
action: Go west
response: You open the hall door.

This is not the hallway you expected. The far wall is the correct distance away, and the ceiling is the correct height, but the walls are painted a dull, sterile white instead of the light blue-green that you associate with Corona Labs, and long banks of fluorescent lights cast everything into an unexpectedly harsh light. Your room should be through the metal door across the hall to the west, but in light of the other changes, it's easy to doubt that it's yours. A small brass sign identifies it as Room 320.

A windowless door leads east into the testing room's antechamber.

A piece of unlined paper leans face-down against the west wall, just slightly to the left of the door.
action: You get the paper
response: (the piece of unlined paper)
You pick up the piece of unlined paper.

You add the pages you are carrying together and classify them all inwardly as your notes.
action: You read the notes
response: The piece of unlined paper reads:

5/12/78
Oh god, want to write better but so sick.
I don't know what happened.
A psychic spike - has to be. Nauseating.
What happened? Echoes of ... Cross. Dr. Yehuda.
Is Theo hurt? Dead? Did he hurt Ian?
Something has pushed Ian over the edge. I think we've all made a terrible mistake.
I've got to get it together. Theo left a bottle of pills on his desk -- the label says "Sandepam". I'm going to carry it with me. I don't know what it does, but if I have to face Ian, I need whatever edge Theo might have found.
I can't believe it's come to this. Something awful is about to happen. EGB
action: Go west
response: You open the door.

As you step across the threshold, you freeze at the grisly sight beyond.

A broad ivory spike protrudes from the floor and pierces the ceiling, transfixing the corpse of a slender, dark-haired woman on the way.
Her blood stands starkly red against the dull white tile and walls. The room's furnishings - a hospital bed, a bookshelf, a dresser - have been smashed into a still-recognizable pile of twisted metal and wood on the west side of the room. Thousands of pieces of shredded paper, none much larger than a fingernail, cover the floor near the wreckage and shiver in the slight breath from the broken window. The only exit is to the east.
action: You search the shredded paper
response: Looking through the confetti, you come across a single page of mostly-intact paper that doesn't seem to match the others. It's a small piece of unlined paper with a ragged edge. You fish it out of the pile of shredded paper.

You add the small piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The small piece of unlined paper reads:

Alice's Diary, 5/12/78

I just saw a man die. He was standing in a shadow and a mouth came
out and bit him in half.
I feel numb and awful and I'm so scared. I don't know where Ian is
and I'm afraid that he's going to be hurt or killed. I don't know why he isn't in his room.
I have to help him and protect him. I'll wait for him here and he'll come back, and we can be together and I'll stop the awful things from hurting him.
Please Ian come back. I will be here waiting until you come back.
I love you.
action: You examine the corpse
response: The woman impaled on the white spike is dressed as you imagine a nurse might have been in the seventies, with a button-down skirt that must once have been clean white. Her face, frozen in a look of wide-eyed shock, indicates asian-american heritage and youth.
action: You look at the spike
response: The gleaming, slightly curved spike broadens near the base and comes to a sharp tip just as it pierces the ceiling. It resembles nothing quite so much as a cat's fang, though one of mammoth proportions.
action: You examine the window
response: A small window looks out of the room. Some glass is still present in the windowframe in jagged shards, and you're loath to touch them. The wood frame of the window is very badly warped.
action: You look at bookshelf
response: A nearby bookshelf likely held most of the books that now lay in scraps. Its frame is mostly intact, but all of the internal shelves are smashed, rendering it useless.
action: You go east
response: Long banks of fluorescent lights cast sharp shadows along the half-familiar, half-unfamiliar hallway, which continues off to the north. The tiled floor is only a shade darker than the dull off-white walls. A strange, unpleasant odor hangs in the air and stings your nostrils. The door to Room 320 is across the hall to the west.

A windowless door leads east into the testing room's antechamber.
action: Go north
response: Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.
action: You look at the map
response: The legend identifies this map as "Mt. Airy Hospital - Third Floor". Three-quarters of the map is obscured with a large bloodsmear, but the lower right quadrant is mostly visible.
action: No
response: View the lower right quadrant? (y/n) >Okay.
action: Y.
response: View the lower right quadrant? (y/n) >
[Picture number 3 here.]
action: Wait
response: Time passes.
action: You wait awhile
response: The elevator call button stops glowing. Nothing else happens.
action: You go north
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. A long, slow breeze flows from the south past you, reaching towards the deep shadow to the north. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a swinging panel to the west.
action: You go south
response: Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.
action: You look at floor indicator
response: The twelve-character split-flap display currently reads "BASEMENT".
action: Go east
response: You open the bathroom door.

Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
The single fluorescent light in the bathroom flickers rapidly like a strobe. On the other side of the room, a bloodied corpse seems to be partially buried in the toilet, folded in half. Near the toilet is a sink, above which is a mirror marred by a spiderweb crack. The light's strobe effect gives the room a surreal, filmlike quality. Behind you, to the west, a door leads back into the hallway.
action: You examine the mirror
response: You peer into the mirror. The spiderwebbing cracks divide your face into strange angles, and the strobing light gives a strange, jerky cast to your movements.
action: You examine the corpse
response: Upon closer inspection, you can see that the corpse was male, and is dressed in the scrubs of a hospital orderly or nurse. The blood strewn on his uniform seems to have come from his mouth, likely vomited out when he was folded violently in half.
action: Search corpse
response: You peer into the mirror. The spiderwebbing cracks divide your face into strange angles, and the strobing light gives a strange, jerky cast to your movements.

You try to concentrate on the cracked mirror, but you don't sense anything out of the ordinary.

>The dead man's scrubs are completely contaminated with blood and more unpleasant fluids. You don't see anything worth taking on the corpse, and going through his pockets is impossible, since they're folded into the toilet.
action: You hit the mirror
response: The mirror is already badly damaged. You'd risk injury trying to break it further.
action: You look at the sink
response: A small hand-washing sink is attached to the wall near the toilet, made of white porcelain and a metal faucet and handles.
action: You turn on the sink
response: You turn the handle. The sink rattles and coughs, but no water comes out.
action: You turn off the sink
response: The faucet is already off.
action: You examine the lights
response: There's only one light here, positioned above the mirror, and its strobelike flickering makes everything jerky and strange.
action: Go west
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. There's a long, slow rush of bad-smelling air coming from that direction. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a swinging panel to the west.
action: You examine the panel
response: Upon closer examination, the swinging panel appears to be a laundry chute. Pushing open the chute, you take a look down. There's enough light to see, strangely but unmistakably, rows of oversized shark's teeth set into the sides of the chute partway down its length. Going this way seems like a particularly bad idea.

There's also a white object visible in the shadows of the laundry chute. It looks as if something white fell partway down and got caught on the protruding teeth.
action: Go north
response: You start north into the darkness, moving cautiously. The halitosis smell gets increasingly strong as you proceed.

A gleam alerts you to halt in the darkness. As your vision adjusts to the low light, you see a row of long, sharp, curving shapes projecting both from the floor and the ceiling. Careful examination convinces you that the hallway has grown a mouthful of fangs. Proceeding north seems like an incredibly bad idea.

You back away until you have returned to the relative safety of the lit hallway by the bathroom door.
action: Go east
response: Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.

Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.
action: You go east
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: You go to the south
response: You open the door to room 323.

The glimmer of glass greets your eye as you enter this shadowed room. Running through the layout of the facility in your mind, you realize that you're now standing in the observational room, though the furnishings have changed from your memory. For instance, the gutted corpse is definitely new.

Observational Room, Mt Airy Hospital
A broad pane of one-way glass separates this room from the testing chamber beyond. The lights are off in this room, cloaking everything in shadow, but you can still see enough to navigate past the rectangular table, the chairs, and the filing cabinet tucked into one corner. Your view of the observational room is somewhat blocked by the gutted corpse sprawled across the table.

A door to your north leads back to the hallway.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see a gaunt young man huddled in the far corner of the test chamber.
action: You look at the man
response: (the gaunt young man)
A gaunt young man huddles on an office chair in the far corner of the room, clothed only in a pair of navy sweatpants. He is slumped forward in a hunch, the outline of his spine standing sharply against the skin of his emaciated back. His face is obscured by a mass of messy, tangled brown hair.

You feel drawn to the young man. The feeling vibrates between empathy and sympathy. You can all-too-easily imagine the slight chill of the air against his bare back, the way his elbows dig into his knees, and the slight ache of his spine from the unnatural posture. You can imagine how he sits, alone, listening to the emptiness which is not empty enough - the emptiness that is filled with too many thoughts, fears, dreams. He shifts position slightly and raises a hand to his hidden face. You feel the way he drags his fingernails down his forehead - not breaking the skin, not quite, but toying with the idea. Flirting with the idea of blindness, as his nails trail over his closed eyelid, or disfigurement, as they trail over his cheek.

He has the answers you seek. The knowledge thumps home like a bullet thumping into flesh - not hurting, not yet - only a solid impact like nothing else in the world.

You shake yourself out of the bizarre reverie to see the young man hunched and still. You're not sure whether he ever moved at all.
action: You concentrate on the young man
response: You focus your thoughts on the young man huddled in the corner of the test chamber. For a moment, nothing happens.

Then, suddenly, you think you see the young man's head snap up, but your vision immediately bursts with a nausea-inducing green light that blots everything else out. You are overcome with dizziness. Images of death, terror and madness fill your brain, swelling it, pressing against your skull. Reaching out to destroy everything around you, you are a whirlwind of insane destructive force. You see images of teeth, mouths, throats, closing in to devour you, and you fight against them with everything you are....

You fall back into yourself with an involuntary scream. Your skin is covered in cold sweat. After a few moments, your heart rate and breathing return to normal, though it takes some time before you stop shaking. You have been Ian McMoneagle, and his mind is a hell.

The gaunt young man still sits, huddled into himself, immobile.
You're still not sure whether he ever moved at all.
action: You look at Ian
response: A gaunt young man huddles on an office chair in the far corner of the room, clothed only in a pair of navy sweatpants. He is slumped forward in a hunch, the outline of his spine standing sharply against the skin of his emaciated back. His face is obscured by a mass of messy, tangled brown hair.
action: You look at the corpse
response: A broad rip across the man's shirt and stomach reveal the shredded ruin of his abdominal cavity. The remains of the ruined organs and flesh within have jagged edges that you cannot help but equate to small toothmarks. There's a sheet of paper pinned under the corpse's shoulder.
action: You take the paper
response: (the bloodstained sheet of paper)
You push the corpse sideways, releasing the bloodstained sheet of paper from beneath its shoulder so that you can pick it up.

The table is small, and the blood on the table is still fairly slick. Unbalanced, the corpse suddenly starts to slide off the edge, and you fail to arrest its movement in time. With a startlingly loud thump, the corpse hits the ground.

You add the bloodstained sheet of paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The bloodstained sheet of paper reads:

Raymond Pearce, M.D.
Assistant Director, Mt. Airy Hospital
April 16, 1978

I am upset with the Director.
While I am well aware that our hospital is under-funded and that we should take sources of revenue wherever we can find them, renting out our space to private companies performing procedures that we cannot oversee makes me feel rather like a hotel manager. Moreover, I have enough duties to see to without having to carry out the blind and deaf duty of being the Corona Corporation's liaison. Couldn't we have one of our administrators do that? A secretary, perhaps? My medical expertise certainly does not come into play, as I am not allowed to see the experimentation, nor interview the patient. If he is indeed a patient.
The lead researcher is friendly enough, but I've not been able to
get a private word with him since the corporate auditor showed up. I swear, he looks more like a Secret Service agent than a medical professional, and he seems to be everywhere.
I only want to know what's going on. And barring that, I'd frankly rather not have anything to do with the Corona Corporation. This is not what I signed on for.
action: You examine the cabinet
response: It's a fairly small filing cabinet, squatting at about waist height. There seems to be some kind of strange liquid leaking down to the floor from the edges of each drawer.
action: You open cabinet
response: Opening the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, you are instantly greeted with a foul biological scent, like stomach acid. The inside of the drawer is completely empty, but covered with some kind of slime. You open the top drawer as well, only to see (and smell) the same results.
action: You get the slime
response: It's too awkward to pick anything up while you're carrying the gutted corpse around.
action: You get slime
response: You heave the gutted corpse off your shoulder and lower it carefully to the ground. Then, you untuck your notes from your armpit with minimal damage done.

You consider scraping some of the stuff off to carry it with you, but the idea of having it under your fingernails is a dreadful one.
action: You go north
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: Go west
response: Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.
action: Go west
response: Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.
action: Go north
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. A long, slow breeze flows from the south past you, reaching towards the deep shadow to the north. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a laundry chute to the west.
action: Y.
response: If you put the gutted corpse in there, it's a good bet you'll never see it again. Are you sure you want to do this? (y/n) >You heave the gutted corpse feetfirst into the laundry chute. It falls partway down before the laundry chute's teeth snap closed. There's a hideous crunching sound, accompanied by the flash of bloodstained teeth in the gloom.

The gutted corpse is gone. The teeth slowly curve in an unmistakable smile. Then, they melt into the sides of the laundry chute and vanish from view, leaving only smeared blood on the stainless steel tunnel to document the carnage.

There's no sign of the piece of paper any more, either.
action: Y.
response: Are you sure you want to go into the laundry chute? (y/n) >After some awkward experimentation, you realize that you'll have to go in headfirst. You put both arms in, shield your face with your arms, and wriggle into the chute. You slide rapidly down through the narrow darkness until the chute abruptly ends. For one heartstopping moment, you plummet through space, but you land safely in something soft. A quiet, papery crunch accompanies your landing.

Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital (in the laundry bin)
Crumpled white sheets fill an enormous laundry bin underneath the chute's entrance - a great relief, since those sheets were dense enough to competently break your fall. You're currently inside the laundry bin, but you can see the rest of the room well enough. There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

The giant laundry machine is running, filling the room with ominous sound and vibration.

An open door leads south out of the room.

A sheet of typewriter paper is lying on the sheets, looking only a bit worse for its misadventures (including having you land on it). It looks like the one that you knocked free from the laundry chute.
action: You read the notes
response: (your notes)
You already have that.

The bloodstained sheet of paper reads:

Raymond Pearce, M.D.
Assistant Director, Mt. Airy Hospital
April 16, 1978

I am upset with the Director.
While I am well aware that our hospital is under-funded and that we should take sources of revenue wherever we can find them, renting out our space to private companies performing procedures that we cannot oversee makes me feel rather like a hotel manager. Moreover, I have enough duties to see to without having to carry out the blind and deaf duty of being the Corona Corporation's liaison. Couldn't we have one of our administrators do that? A secretary, perhaps? My medical expertise certainly does not come into play, as I am not allowed to see the experimentation, nor interview the patient. If he is indeed a patient.
The lead researcher is friendly enough, but I've not been able to
get a private word with him since the corporate auditor showed up. I swear, he looks more like a Secret Service agent than a medical professional, and he seems to be everywhere.
I only want to know what's going on. And barring that, I'd frankly rather not have anything to do with the Corona Corporation. This is not what I signed on for.

You nearly jump out of your skin as a buzzer sounds loudly from the huge laundry machine. Its motor gradually slows to a halt.
action: You get typewritten
response: You pick up the somewhat crumpled sheet of typewriter paper.

You add the somewhat crumpled sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The somewhat crumpled sheet of typewriter paper reads:

Unofficial log, April 2, 3:10 pm
Day one with the Corona Corporation! The intrepid doctor embarks on
a real adventure; hardly the first of his career but certainly the most extraordinary.
I always considered my interest in the paranormal purely academic.
No matter what a man has seen or believes, bringing such beliefs and experiences into the professional arena is a dangerous prospect. Being approached to pursue such things -- for a very tidy sum, no less! -- is not something I ever expected to see in my resume ... but here I am.
My team is eclectic, which I suppose is to be expected. Dr.
Atwater, slated to be my assistant overseer (and the previous man who held my current title), has a closed-minded cynicism matched only by his impressive credentials. Miss Elaine Buchanan, on the other hand, is not only a believer but actually considers herself a psychic. The company evidently agrees, since she is effectively our lead subject-seeker, spending her days poring over newspaper articles, tabloids and television programs.
It is difficult not to find the entire outfit somewhat difficult to take seriously, but this is my chance to see what is really behind the closed door of the human mind. I find myself very nervous and excited. - Theo Yehuda
action: You examine the laundry machine
response: This laundry machine is positively monolithic, reaching chest-height on you and almost as wide as your full armspan. It lacks controls of any kind; its only feature is the hinged metal door on its top.
action: You open the machine
response: You lift the lid of the large laundry machine.

The inside of the machine is not, as you expected, a metal cylinder, but a fleshy tube with a sphincter-like hole in the bottom. Stubby, glistening cilia, like the ones lining the inside of an intestine from a biology textbook, line the curved walls of the tube, each one wriggling with life. Sitting in the tube is a skeleton, complete but with its flesh eaten cleanly away. The skeleton is wearing a clean, white lab coat.
action: You get the skeleton
response: In the clean lab coat is a Corona Labs keycard.

>You gingerly reach inside the laundry machine, cringing away as the hungry cilia reach for your hands. You grasp the skeleton's shoulders through the protection of the lab coat and lift it. Thankfully, enough ligaments and tendons and so forth remain on the skeleton to maintain its cohesion as you pull it out, and you are able to extract it from the machine without breaking it. You lay the skeleton down on the tile floor.
action: You take the keycard
response: You fish the keycard out of the lab coat's pocket.

>You already have that.
action: You enter machine
response: For a moment, you picture yourself climbing into what appears to be a cannibalistic digestive system in a box. You spend the next few moments being glad that you possess a functioning self-preservation instinct.
action: You examine the sink
response: The basin of this sink is made of heavy-duty steel, its shiny surface dulled from poor care and abuse. The functioning parts of the sink are in even worse shape than the basin, though; both handles seem to be missing, and the thick metal faucet, which would normally trace a graceful, high arc, is bent at a jaunty angle.

In the heavy-duty steel sink is a sheet of ruled paper.
action: You get ruled
response: (the sheet of ruled paper)
You pick up the sheet of ruled paper.

You add the sheet of ruled paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The sheet of ruled paper reads:

Raymond Pearce, M.D.
Assistant Director, Mt. Airy Hospital
May 1st, 1978

Well, things are clearly getting exciting for our guests from
Corona Labs.
I'm not sure what's different, but I've heard signs of a struggle
from McMoneagle's room during the day. Nurse Kim reports that his sleeping at night has been disruptive and suspects that his nightmares are more intense than when he first arrived. I want to know more, but obviously none of the Corona employees are telling me anything at all. As always, Cross watches me whenever I'm near their annex.
Something very suspicious is going on. They're experimenting on
that young man, and it's obviously not anything safe. Be it on their heads if he dies, or becomes violent. They'd better be able to contain it, or we are going to come down on them as hard as the law allows. I swear it.
Yehuda has seemed the most concerned of the lot of them, and has mentioned to me that he may need to requisition "a few medications" from me in the near future. Truth be told, I hope he does so. That might give me some insight to just what in heaven's name they're doing.
action: You look around
response: Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital (in the laundry bin)
Crumpled white sheets fill an enormous laundry bin underneath the chute's entrance - a great relief, since those sheets were dense enough to competently break your fall. You're currently inside the laundry bin, but you can see the rest of the room well enough. There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

There's a human skeleton lying on the tiled floor. It's wearing a very clean lab coat.

An open door leads south out of the room.
action: Go outside
response: You get out of the laundry bin.

Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital
There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room, and three canvas-walled carts filled with dirty linens squat awaiting their purpose. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

There's a human skeleton lying on the tiled floor. It's wearing a very clean lab coat.

An open door leads south out of the room.

You can also see a laundry bin (in which is a heap of soiled sheets) here.
action: You look at the faucet
response: Even if the sink had working handles, the sharp angle at which this faucet is bent would render it useless anyway.
action: You take the faucet
response: Tugging on the faucet has no effect; whatever bent this must have been a tremendous force.
action: You go to the east
response: The only obvious exit is south through a doorway into a hall.
action: You go to the south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Like the hallways upstairs, this hall has fluorescent lighting, dull off-white walls, and tiled floors, but the basement is clearly less cared-for. Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies between the elevator doors, blocking them from closing.
action: You examine the corpse
response: The battered body of this older man is swollen and purple with bruising, and his limbs bend in more places than they should. Drying blood marks his nostrils, lips, eyes, and earholes.
action: You move it
response: You get behind the corpse, set your hands under his shoulder, and shove. You can feel his broken shoulderblades and ribs shifting as he moves, but you manage to get him out from between the elevator doors.
action: Go south
response: You open the boiler room door.

Boiler Room, Mt Airy Hospital
A single incandescent bulb behind a metal cage provides harsh yet inadequate light to this room. A maze of large pipes runs along the ceiling. Most of said pipes lead to a large boiler that squats in front of you, easily taking up three quarters of the small room's real estate. A door to the north leads back to the hallway.

A metal box with a glass surface is mounted on the wall, a fire axe tantalizingly close.
action: Examine box
response: A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself in the doorway, a roaring fills your ears, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see that the room is hideously spattered with gore, particularly the wall behind the boiler. Amid the less recognizable chunks, you spot a bloodsoaked leather dress shoe, a cracked cell phone, and a shredded lab coat.

Your vision clears and the roaring fades. The blood, the half-identified body parts, the shoe - all have vanished.

It's a metal box containing a pristine, solid steel fire axe. The glass on the front shows the words, "In case of emergency, break glass." With what, a fire axe?

In the metal box is a fire axe.
action: You examine the pipes
response: The harsh light barely illuminates a maze of large metal pipes, most of which lead to the large boiler in the center of the room.
action: You touch the pipes
response: Upon contact, your fingers convulse tightly around the pipe. The pipe groans, a sound that resonates not only through the boiler room, but through your bones and your skull. Your fingers slacken....

As your outer eyes close, your inner eye opens. Dimly, you perceive your body rebounding from the pipes to crumple on the floor, but you're not there any more.
Press any key to continue.

Fleeting impressions flash through your awareness. It's hard to orient yourself. You're running - banging helplessly at an elevator button that doesn't respond - turning desperately down the hall. Fleeing down a set of stairs. Thoughts pelt past with the same speed as your running footsteps, rasp through you like your hard-stolen breaths. Grasping for inner purchase, you come up with a name:

Leon Shaunessy.

With the name comes identity:

Neurologist, Corona Laboratories, Mount Airy division. Father of two, divorcee of one, lover of good scotch and handwritten letters and speedcubing. Probably the world's leading expert in the effects of Naegleria splendens, though it doesn't mean a good goddamned thing now....

His perceptions are yours, his thoughts rush through you, and his fear contaminates you as he runs down the hall, stumbles through the door, and slams it shut. You look and see:

Until today, you had never visited the facility's boiler room. A single incandescent bulb behind a metal cage provides a harsh yet inadequate light, and a maze of large pipes runs along the ceiling. Most of the pipes lead to a large boiler that squats in front of you, easily taking up three quarters of the small room's real estate. In the rear of the room, an oversized exhaust fan with wide blades stands unmoving.

A loud, electronic buzz permeates this room.

The door to the east is closed, but there's no lock. You've got to bar it somehow.
action: You search pipes
response: You find nothing of interest.

You think you hear something outside the door, and your strained nerves shriek. If the door isn't barred, the horrors could come straight in after you. You can't possibly hold the door shut with muscle power alone.
action: You look at the pipes
response: The pipes run all over the room, most eventually reaching the boiler. Two red pipes run parallel to the door. A pipe that seems to be loose from the rest of the framework is wedged in the fan at the room's south side.

Your heart is beating so fast it could burst. You urgently need to block the door somehow.
action: You take the pipe
response: (the loose  pipe)
You grab the loose length of pipe and pull hard on it. After a few tries, you hear a groaning noise, and the pipe suddenly breaks free. You stumble backward with the pipe. The fan blades, now loose, resume their rotation, turning in a slow circle. The buzzing in the room stops, becoming a low hum instead. Something about the humming resonates through your mind, dizzying you....

In the moment of your dizziness, Leon moves with no prompting. Heart pounding, he slides the metal pipe behind the pair of red pipes, resting it on the pipe bend and the door's handle. The door is effectively barred shut.

The fan's rotation gently increases in speed, causing a breeze to waft through the room.
action: You examine the fan
response: It's an almost comically large exhaust fan, six feet in diameter and with blades about a foot wide. While the room may get hot because of the boiler, the fan seems a bit larger than is necessary. The fan is currently spinning.

The fan continues to turn. Your hair moves in the strengthening breeze.
action: You check your inventory
response: You're wearing a dirt-smeared lab coat and a security badge and carrying a Samsung cell phone. In sum, you have absolutely nothing of use.

The fan's rotation picks up speed, causing the breeze to increase in intensity. You brush hair from your face.
action: You examine the badge
response: Corona operates on a magnetic security badge system instead of physical locks. This is your badge, complete with a rather august photo, which allows you to open any doors in the secure Corona area of the Corona building.

Of course, you're not exactly in the secure Corona area now, nor would you want to be (he remembers the jointed, steel-legged spider crouching to fit through a doorway, blood streaking its legs to half their height - then pushes the idea sharply out of his mind).

The hum of the fan's motor has become increasingly loud, and it shows no indication of stopping. Dust is dragged from the ground and sucked through the fan.

Some internal alarm rouses you, and you struggle for identity. This is not you. Leon Shaunessy is not you..
action: You examine the cell phone
response: The cell phone is off, its screen dark.

The Samsung cell phone is currently switched on.

The fan's blades are now a blur. It's getting harder to breathe in here. The pipe rattles in the door, drawn, like all loose objects, toward the fan.

He's going to die. You can feel his death coming.
action: You get the pipe
response: (the barricade pipe)
You don't dare take the loose pipe away; it's the only thing separating you from the nightmare outside.

As the fan's speed continues to increase, you find it difficult to maintain your footing. You realize with despair that the horror has found you after all, and tricked you into trapping yourself with it.

Not you. This isn't your death - it's his.

You struggle your way to the door and grasp the length of loose pipe, trying to remove it from the door and make it out of this wind tunnel. Just as you grab the pipe, the suction becomes too powerful. Your shoes lift from the ground and you find yourelf holding onto the pipe for dear life as the fan cuts a deadly whirlwhind behind you.
action: You get the pipe
response: (the barricade pipe)
Leon doesn't respond to your suggestion. He's too busy clinging to the pipe.

After a few seconds, his grip, slick with nervous sweat, begins to fail. His fingers lose their strength. Suddenly he is torn free, his body falling sideways through the air for a few long moments before striking the fan. The powerful blades churn Leon Shaunessy's body into a paste, spraying the wall behind with gore.

In the instant before death, you rip your consciousness free of his. Leon Shaunessy is dead, but you are still alive.
Press any key to continue.
action: Y.
response: You sense it.
action: Look around
response: Boiler Room, Mt Airy Hospital
A single incandescent bulb behind a metal cage provides harsh yet inadequate light to this room. A maze of large pipes runs along the ceiling. Most of said pipes lead to a large boiler that squats in front of you, easily taking up three quarters of the small room's real estate. A door to the north leads back to the hallway.

A metal box with a glass surface is mounted on the wall, a fire axe tantalizingly close.
action: You examine the cage
response: It's a metal cage surrounding the single lightbulb, providing eerie shadows to the light it casts. It appears to be screwed into the ceiling.
action: You examine Boiler
response: It's a large metal boiler. A gentle hiss comes from it, so you assume that it's still functional. You don't see any visible controls, but even if you did you don't think you'd know what to do with them.

You note a white piece of paper lying behind the boiler.
action: You get the paper
response: (the piece of unlined paper)
You pick up the piece of unlined paper.

You add the piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the paper
response: (your notes)
The piece of unlined paper reads:

4/20/78
I knew it! I was right about him!
Ian is consistently testing better than any other subject we've put through the paces. His score with the Zener cards is consistently over 50% and he's shown some promise with psychometry. Dr. Atwater says that it's all within the limits of random chance, of course. That man would, presented with a UFO, write it off as a trendy new model of Chevette.
We still have some testing to do to determine Ian's psychological resilience and mental strength. There is some concern about his chronic nightmares and emotional difficulties, but I honestly think that one comes from the other. It's not uncommon for psychics to have problems like these.
If everything checks out, it should be about a week before he's introduced to the symbiont. I have a lot of faith, but it still makes me nervous. No one's survived it. If I don't trust my instincts, I have no reason to believe that Ian will be an exception.
Nothing to do but wait and see.
EGB
action: Go north
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: You go to the east
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
At this end of the dingy basement hall, the only intact door is labelled with a black sign reading "Autopsy Room/Morgue".

A white 10-digit keypad is attached to the wall beside the door.

In the adjoining wall, a bent doorframe holds a severely dented metal door that has been very badly dented toward you.
action: Go east
response: You shove the bent door experimentally. It does not even budge.
Even with tools, it would take hours to get through this door.
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

A piece of unlined paper lies face-down on the elevator floor.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
I beg your pardon?
action: You get paper
response: (the piece of unlined paper)
A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself on the far wall, your ears fill with a strident, sharp ringing, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see a pudgy man with thinning brown hair lying on the floor. His open eyes stare lifelessly into nowhere, and his lips are twisted in a half-smile. There's no nametag on his white lab coat. A small trickle of dark red blood runs from his ear to the floor.

Your vision clears and the ringing fades. The corpse is gone.

You pick up the piece of unlined paper.

You add the piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read notes
response: The piece of unlined paper reads:

3/20/77
This diary has seen a lot of angry words from me and a lot of them have been related to my being declared an "inadequate" test subject for Corona. I have the ability. I have the will. I've never been able to understand what they meant when the Corona techs said I had an "inadequate psychological profile" to be a carrier for the Project's symbiont.
Since being hired, though, I'm starting to see an ugly truth: My inadequacy may have saved my life.
This thing is killing people. It hasn't even been a year since I was placed as Dr. Atwater's assistant and we've seen twelve deaths. Twelve.
Presumably all of these people had stronger minds than me, if they were taken into the program. But days after they're declared suitable and given the symbiont, they end up tagged, bagged and shelved. Would that have happened to me?
No, I'm better off where I am. And I have to have faith. I believe in the researchers behind the symbiont, believe in Mr. Schuyler because he believes in us. Believes that I'm the only person who can find him. I'll find the one soon.
EGB
action: You answer the phone
response: You hit the ANSWER button. Nothing happens.

Your cell phone rings again. It might be Rayjay.
action: You look at what you're carrying with you
response: You are wearing your lab coat, which has your cell phone in one pocket but not (you discover now) your Palm Pilot. In light of the carnage upstairs, you're not too concerned. The white lab coat also contains a security badge. You also have your wallet and the key to your van. And, of course, the scooter.

Your cell phone rings again. The sound seems terribly loud in this confined space.
action: You examine the wallet
response: Your wallet is made of real leather, but of inexpensive design. You recently cleaned out all of the extra junk in it, so it only contains the bare essentials... all of which are utterly useless right now.

The cell phone's ring fills the car again, painfully loud, and you realize that it's not just the confined space. The sound is increasing in volume.
action: You look at the scooter
response: You call it a scooter to keep from calling it a wheelchair, but you never really forget that it's a wheelchair. It's four-wheeled, candy-red, and equipped with a neat little joystick to trigger the motor. It isn't that you can't walk - you can - but the shaking gets too bad, and if you fall down in the middle of the lab, where will you be then?

Not that you can do much in the lab except point and instruct. That's why you need Rayjay - his steady hands are your hands now, and his confidence in you keeps you centered.

The cell phone rings again, as loud as a child screaming. Why is the elevator so slow?
action: Smash phone
response: You tighten your trembling hand around the phone and then smash the phone into the wall. It's a brand new Nokia - surely there are delicate electronics in here. Surely even you can break it. You hit the wall with the phone again.

The cell phone rings, and the sound transfixes your flesh to vibrate your very bones and your spine. Redness flashes before your eyes as the sound fills your head. The elevator is so very slow.
action: Keep going
response: You tighten your trembling hand around the phone and then smash the phone into the wall. It's a brand new Nokia - surely there are delicate electronics in here. Surely even you can break it. You hit the wall with the phone again.

The phone rings again, and scarlet spirals through your vision as agony rips through your ears, your skull, your brain. The sound is too much for you to endure.

He's going to die. You can feel his death coming.

Why won't the elevator stop? The number 2 glows, the elevator hums, but surely you should be at the ground floor by now.

>You tighten your trembling hand around the phone and then smash the phone into the wall. It's a brand new Nokia - surely there are delicate electronics in here. Surely even you can break it. You hit the wall with the phone again.

The phone rings, and it is louder than anything you have ever heard. You can't see anything but red, and your involuntary scream of pain is lost in the terrible ringing.

Not you. It's not your death.

Your vision clears as the floor indicator flashes to 1.
action: You wait a while
response: Time passes.

The phone rings again. Your entire body twitches, as if the sound were an electric shock, and the familiar, well-hated tremors run through your hands and over your face, making you twitch like a seizure patient.

It's not you. You're not the one dying.

The elevator stops.
action: Scream
response: No. No one would hear you through the elevator walls.

Not you.

The phone rings again. The klaxon sound overwhelms Tobias Ensfield's trained, calculating brain and disrupts delicate balances in his head. A fine trickle of blood seeps from one of his ears, strangely ticklish, strangely painless.
action: Wait
response: You're out of time.

The elevator doors slide open. Beyond the doors, the ground floor hallway is a half-obscured hell of crackling electricity. Amid the leaping sparks are bodies every bit as hideous as Camille deVries's.

Tobias Ensfield gives up. He relaxes into the agony of the phone's next strident ring, and an odd sense of relief overcomes him as he dies.

And then the noise is blessedly gone.
action: You wait for a while
response: Press any key to continue.
action: Y.
response: You are sure of it.
Press any key to continue.

You're lying on the elevator floor. You slowly get to your feet.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: You look at the panel
response: The control panel is heavily scuffed at gurney-height, and the button for the 2nd floor appears to have been replaced at least once. The buttons are marked B through 4. There is also an extended button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire", which is scarred with key marks.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.
action: You wait awhile
response: The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The ground floor button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.
action: Go east
response: You step through the elevator doors and into the dim hallway.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
The overhead lights are shattered to the north and south, leaving this solitary space brightly lit in the white-walled hallway. Looking to the south, you can glimpse the dim squares of light that are the windows of the far-distant lobby. Twin doors stand open across the hallway, and a placard beside them reads "CAFETERIA". The elevator doors are to the west.

There is a handwritten menu taped below the placard.
action: Examine menu
response: In looping calligraphy, someone has written out a rather unappetizing menu.
action: You read it
response: The handwritten menu reads:



~~o~~
Mashed potatoes
~~o~~
Carrots and peas
~~o~~
Pears or sherbert
action: You go to the east
response: Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into the kitchen, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
action: You examine the machine
response: A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself against a table, a feverish heat rises in your cheeks, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see a tall black woman contorted into a protective fetal position. Although her arms are shielding her face, you recognize the beaded braids and lab smock of "Best" Ife, one of the techs from your Corona Labs. Her skin is horribly blistered, and it hangs loosely on her slim-boned body. In places, the flesh has split to reveal the cooked muscle below.

The fever fades, and your vision clears. Mercifully, the corpse is gone.

It's an old-style snack vending machine. A small window near the top displays a few snacks, doomed to forever be display products only.
The rest of the machine's surface displays an abstract design featuring several loops and a drawing of a building. The design seems familiar to you. Bizarrely, the vending machine lacks a keypad and any means of inserting money; you have no idea how anyone is supposed to get snacks out of it. A plastic flap conceals the lower compartment where the snacks are supposed to come out.
action: You open flap
response: You push open the plastic flap. Inside the compartment of the vending machine, you see: the piece of unlined paper.
action: You take the paper
response: (the piece of unlined paper)
You pick up the piece of unlined paper.

You add the piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The piece of unlined paper reads:

5/3/78
Ian is suffering a lot, and he says that his headaches are worse than ever. I knew that this would be a part of it, but things are going to be difficult for all of us until his mind adjusts to the symbiont. I'm confident that it will.
In the meantime, it's a bit difficult not to be a bit unsettled by
the intensity of his nightmares. I don't think I would even know about them if it weren't a set part of our counseling sessions. He's very reluctant to talk about them, and refused to do so until I reminded him that failing to do so might hamper testing.
There's a common theme to his nighttime ordeals. Imagery involving teeth, internal organs, and being trapped in a moist, wet space are showing up over and over again. I've got to assume that Ian is obsessed with being eaten.
I can't help but wonder if he witnessed something awful when he was little, but he gets very upset when questioned about the possible source of the nightmares. Maybe I'll ask again once his mind has recovered a bit.
Nervous but hopeful!
EGB
action: You look at rails
response: It's a set of rails that you put cafeteria trays on while you're getting your food. Strangely, there are no such trays in sight.
action: You look at the tables
response: Plain particle board tables with a wood veneer surface. Clearly a permanent fixture here, they look pretty heavy.
action: You look at gap
response: You look through the gap into the kitchen, only to find that the kitchen is not there. Where the floor of the room through the gap should be, some kind of room-sized fleshy tube leads down to God-knows-where. Some kind of strange smell emanates through the gap. You find yourself somewhat grateful that there is no visible way to get there.
action: Go west
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
The overhead lights are shattered to the north and south, leaving this solitary space brightly lit in the white-walled hallway. Looking to the south, you can glimpse the dim squares of light that are the windows of the far-distant lobby. Twin doors stand open across the hallway, and a placard beside them reads "CAFETERIA". The elevator doors are to the west.

There is a handwritten menu taped below the placard.
action: Go north
response: You turn your back on the distant lobby windows and walk north along the dim hallway.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
It's very dark here, but enough light from the south stretches up the hall to help you find your way. Underfoot, the texture of the tile floor seems less stable and more mushy than it used to be. The air is thick with a dank, somehow metallic odor.
action: You look at the floor
response: Your questing fingers come across a sheet of partially damp paper clinging to the floor. You peel it off and pick it up.

You add the piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: It's too dark to read anything here.
action: You go to the south
response: More quickly than you might have expected, you reach the well-lit square by the cafeteria and the elevator.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
The overhead lights are shattered to the north and south, leaving this solitary space brightly lit in the white-walled hallway. Looking to the south, you can glimpse the dim squares of light that are the windows of the far-distant lobby. Twin doors stand open across the hallway, and a placard beside them reads "CAFETERIA". The elevator doors are to the west.

There is a handwritten menu taped below the placard.
action: You read the notes
response: The piece of unlined paper reads:

5/12/78
There will never be anything I can do to make up for the sins I have committed. Blinding myself to the danger of this experimentation, as tied to it as I was, is a pure product of my own ambition and bitterness at having been rejected. I should have known long ago.
Now it is only because of that connection that I am alive and
everyone else is dead.
I know where he is and where his nightmares are. I can stay alive while I find out what I need to do to beat him.
No matter what else happens, I have to try. Even if it kills me. I helped birth this monster in an innocent young man. Now I must kill it or die trying.
It's all up to me now.
EGB
action: You go south
response: You walk south down the hall toward the distant lobby.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Above, the lights are shattered, leaving this part of the hallway dark, and shards of glass crunch softly underfoot. To the south, the lobby windows shine like a will-o-the-wisp. To the north, harsh fluorescent lights still illuminate the hall near the elevator.
action: You look at the glass
response: You crouch to feel across the darkened floor. Your fingers encounter curved shards and prickling splinters before encountering something of a different texture - papery and flat. You pick up the piece of paper, brushing off the fragments.

You add the sheet of ruled paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read notes
response: The sheet of ruled paper reads:

Raymond Pearce, M.D.
Assistant Director, Mt. Airy Hospital
May 8th, 1978

Well!
Dr. Yehuda has come to requisition supplies as he said he might,
but I daresay I expected the man to be more composed when he did so. He was wild-eyed when he came to my office, with the air of a
fugitive who had just escaped a pursuer. It was therefore somewhat less of a surprise when he asked that I not report the requisition to Mr. Cross. Much as I would have liked to use the information as a bargaining chip, I am inclined to be more lenient to Dr. Yehuda as opposed to Cross, not to mention the fact that any requisition at all would give me information that I didn't have before.
Though suspicious, I therefore consented.
Dr. Yehuda asked for a dose of liquid tyramine for synthesis, as
well as a drug that contained diazepam, benzodiazepenes, and beta blockers. Concerning the tyramine, I knew that the hospital had only one supply of the stuff suitable for the lab, and that went by the brand name Vanemine. We also had a cocktail matching the doctor's second request, which sold under the brand name Sandepam. I assured him that both would be made available to him.
As soon as I was clear of the Doctor, I began researching his
choices, starting with the most specific and targeted. Given its specific chemical cocktail, Sandepam is primarily kept as a treatment for a potentially fatal adrenergic storm. While there are a lot of causes of such a condition, an overdose of tyramine is one. I can assume, then, that the relationship between the drugs is causal. So why would he need tyramine in the first place? I have trouble believing that Corona has hired out an annex to research some kind of advanced "cheese effect."
Given the secretive and dangerous air about the project combined
with a need for high levels of a potentially life-threatening norepinephrine, I can only assume that they are playing with McMoneagle's brain. Are they trying to create a supersoldier? An advanced neurotoxin?
This is too dangerous. I've got to get to the bottom of it, even if
it puts my position in danger.
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: Wait
response: Time passes.
action: You wait awhile
response: The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The second floor button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.

The scene that greets you as the elevator doors slide open is one extracted directly from nightmare. Rather than a hallway, the area ahead of you appears to be some kind of cave made of flesh, lined with fanged jaws and pulsating sphincters. Hideous, amorphous creatures spawn within seconds, only to be devoured messily seconds later. The air is thick with the smell of feces, bile and death. A rusty iron portcullis directly behind the doors, glistening with blood, does little to hide the horrors but mercifully separates you from stepping into the hall... and keeps the things there from getting to you.
action: You wait
response: The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The fourth floor button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.
action: Go east
response: You step through the elevator doors into unfamiliar terrain.

Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: You go south
response: You open the wooden door.

Staff Lounge, Mt Airy Hospital
This windowless room smells of cigarette smoke and less savory things, but it's comfortingly normal - no corpses, no blood, no mystery teeth, and no other signs of the cataclysm experienced by the rest of the building. Signs and memos litter the bulletin board and the surface of the refrigerator. Utilitarian black chairs cluster around a small round table, and, at the far end of the lounge, a pale blue couch sprawls in front of the silent television sitting on a back counter.

A windowless wooden door to the north leads out of the staff lounge.
action: You look at the bulletin board
response: A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself in the doorway, static fills your ears, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see a dark-haired man lying on the floor in an unnaturally twisted position. You recognize him as Rayjay Farley, a tech of some kind from your Corona Labs. Below the neck, his skin is completely raw, as if it had been sunburned badly and then sanded off.

Your vision clears and the static fades. The corpse is gone.

It's a normal bulletin board made of dark cork.

On the cork bulletin board are an assortment of plastic-headed push pins, a bake sale advertisement, a neatly written memo and a newspaper clipping.
action: You look at the push pins
response: Several push pins stud the dark surface of the cork bulletin board.
action: You examine the ad
response: This is an elegantly designed (yet still visibly amateur) bake sale ad.
action: You read it
response: The bake sale advertisement reads: Bake sale Wed. 5/17 to Fri. 5/19 to benefit the American Cancer Society. Cookies, brownies, cupcakes, we want it all! Contact Sandra C. to donate.
action: You examine the memo
response: The handwriting is neat and precise. The numbering is so careful that you could mistake it for computer printing, save that it's some twenty years too early.
action: You read it
response: The neatly written memo reads: Please don't forget - the autopsy room access code has changed -> 5 7 1 3 9
action: You look at the clipping
response: The garishly large headline of the story is clipped from another source - the front page, perhaps - and stapled to the top of the article. The article starts, "HUMAN CLONING IS HERE! David Rorvik, author of bestselling book Your Baby's Sex: Now You Can Choose, has written a new book talking about his secret cloning lab in South Africa!" Across the bottom of the article, someone has written "B.S.!" with a wide black marker.
action: You look at the fridge
response: (the massive refrigerator)
The tall refrigerator has just one door - there's no freezer compartment.

On the massive refrigerator are a handful of colorful magnets and a fridge warning note.
action: You read it
response: The fridge warning note reads: FRIDGE CLEANING NEXT TUESDAY. Label your things if you don't want them thrown out!
action: You look at the magnets
response: A number of thin magnets are stuck to the surface of the fridge, every one of them some kind of advertisement. Many are ads for pharmaceuticals, but a few are for local restaurants.
action: You open fridge
response: (the massive refrigerator)
You're not sure what you expected to find in the fridge, but even at your most pessimistic you wouldn't have guessed this. Opening the fridge reveals a full set of working internal organs, filling the fridge completely from wall to wall. You watch the lungs inflate and deflate rhythmically next to a distended yellowish heart, only a short distance from a gurgling stomach and pulsating intestines. The organs all churn with life, though each one looks discolored and bloated. An indescribable organic stink wafts from the organs.
action: You look at the heart
response: Pulsating, yellowish, disgusting, smelly organs pack the inside of the refrigerator. The layout seems to be similar to that of a human, but much larger and bloated beyond belief.
action: You close fridge
response: (the massive refrigerator)
You shut the refrigerator door, blocking out the hideous sight within.
action: You examine the couch
response: This couch has definitely seen better days. A rip on the side mars the upholstery, and the cushions are lumpy and malformed.
action: You examine the cushions
response: These cushions are worn-down from years of being sat on, and the stuffing has gotten malformed, giving them a lumpy feel. They seem to be sewn directly to the couch's upholstery.
action: Describe the surroundings
response: Staff Lounge, Mt Airy Hospital
This windowless room smells of cigarette smoke and less savory things. Signs and memos litter the bulletin board and the surface of the refrigerator. Utilitarian black chairs cluster around a small round table, and, at the far end of the lounge, a pale blue couch sprawls in front of the silent television sitting on a back counter.

A windowless wooden door to the north leads out of the staff lounge.
action: You look at the table
response: A cheap-looking but inoffensive coffee table, probably of Swedish design.

On the small round table are a dirty ashtray and a small piece of unlined paper.
action: You take the unlined paper
response: You pick up the small piece of unlined paper.

You add the small piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read notes
response: The small piece of unlined paper reads:

Alice's Diary, 4/17/78

I know it's totally unprofessional, but I can't help but think that the patient in room 320 is really interesting.
I don't know much about him. He's in an annex that's being used by an outside corporation for a secret project or something. I'm not even really supposed to talk to him, but ...
Well, he looks so sad. He hasn't gone home in a week and a half and he'll be here for even longer than that, and he's got to be really lonely. They can't expect me to come through the room and give him food and change his linens and keep my mouth clamped shut the whole time. That's not fair to him and it's not fair to me either.
More than food and linens and medication, what a patient like that needs right now is a friendly face and light conversation if he happens to be up late. That's not a crime, is it?
And I've gotta admit ... he's kind of cute.
action: You examine the ashtray
response: It's just a dirty ashtray.
action: You look at the tv
response: The television sits dark and silent.
action: You turn it on
response: The television turns on with a click. The meaningless roar of static fills the room as tiny black and white dots flit over the screen.
action: You turn the tv off
response: The static seething over the television screen shrinks to a tiny dot and disappears. Silence fills the room again.
action: You search the couch
response: You search among the cushions, but surprisingly enough, you don't find any spare change. However, there is something small, hard, and squarish in the couch rip. Easing it out, you discover that it is a typewriter key.
action: You look at the key
response: A small black key with a white letter I.
action: You take it
response: You already have that.
action: You go to the north
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.
action: You examine the water
response: Water trickles from under the bathroom door in a slow stream, moving to the seam between the floor and wall and running down the hallway.
action: You go to the north
response: You open the gray door.

Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
You step in a thin layer of water that covers the floor immediately upon entering the bathroom. While the single toilet here appears to be whole and undamaged, it is filled nearly to the brim with some kind of thick, reddish-brown substance that you cannot immediately identify. The sink's faucet is on, and the sink is filled to the brim with water, which is overflowing continuously onto the floor. An undamaged mirror sits above the sink.

A gray door to the south leads out of the bathroom.
action: You turn off the faucet
response: You turn off the faucet and water ceases to flow from it.
action: You examine the mirror
response: There is something profoundly disturbing about seeing your own likeness in these environs, as though it somehow legitimizes the nightmare you're slogging through. You quickly look away.
action: You look at toilet
response: The toilet is filled with some sort of disgusting reddish-brown gunk. It stinks of rotting meat, though not as badly as the hallway.
action: You examine the water
response: (the thin layer of water)
Spilled water sits perhaps an inch deep on the floor, making your footing treacherous. There doesn't seem to be anywhere for it to drain away.
action: You examine the gunk
response: (the clogged toilet)
The toilet is filled with some sort of disgusting reddish-brown gunk. It stinks of rotting meat, though not as badly as the hallway.
action: Go south
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: You go east
response: You begin to walk east, and have not walked ten paces before the darkness engulfs you completely. You are unable to see so much as your hand in front of your face, and the vomitous smell increases in intensity.

It's dark here, and the darkness reeks. You can barely perceive the dim light of a dying fluorescent bulb back to the west, where you came from, but there is only darkness moving forward.
action: You examine the floor
response: You briefly crouch down and touch the floor. Its texture is unpleasantly slick.
action: Smell
response: The air smells horrible, like a stew of fresh vomit. You're trying not to dwell on it too much.
action: You go east
response: Your steps become more cautious out of instinct and you place your hand in front of you, feeling for a wall or obstacle. It is only as you slow down that you notice the floor giving a bit beneath your feet, as though you are walking on a gym mat or soil after a rain.
You pause and consider turning back, and are only moments too late.

The walls and floor, rubbery and sticky, constrict together with no warning and pull you down into an unseen tunnel. You can feel ropy, pulsing movement as you are pulled down further and further. After what seems like an eternity of being pulled through a hot, suffocating nightmare, the walls shove you into some kind of burning liquid.

The liquid stings every surface of your skin. The pain is unbearable. You black out....
Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You muzzily realize that you are gazing at the ceiling of the Corona Labs test chamber just before the door slams open. Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist, hurries into the room. Dr. Ephart follows close enough behind to step on his heels. "How many fingers do you see?" Dr. Shaunessy asks, kneeling down beside you, and Dr. Ephart rests light fingers on your wrist to take your pulse. In short order, they conclude that you suffered a vasovagal syncope and struck your head in the fall.

You try to talk to the doctors, but your words are confused and disjointed. Your gaze drags across the fallen photograph, half-shadowed by the folder above it, and you see the gaunt young man screaming. You can't find the words to make them understand. Though you can nearly stand on your own, the doctors firmly escort you from the room and off to bed.

Dr. Shaunessy leaves, but Dr. Ephart stays with you as the sedatives take hold. "Don't worry," she says, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. "Everything will be all right."

Six days later, the past repeats itself in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.
action: Go west
response: You rapidly return to stand beneath the single dying light.

Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: You wait
response: The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The basement button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.
action: Go east
response: You step through the elevator doors and into the grimy basement hallway.

Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: You go to the east
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
At this end of the dingy basement hall, the only intact door is labelled with a black sign reading "Autopsy Room/Morgue".

A white 10-digit keypad is attached to the wall beside the door.

In the adjoining wall, a bent doorframe holds a severely dented metal door that has been very badly dented toward you.
action: You examine the keypad
response: The ten white keys on the keypad are numbered in black from 0 to 9. There are also two lights, both unlit at this time.
action: You look at your surroundings
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
At this end of the dingy basement hall, the only intact door is labelled with a black sign reading "Autopsy Room/Morgue".

A white 10-digit keypad is attached to the wall beside the door.

In the adjoining wall, a bent doorframe holds a severely dented metal door that has been very badly dented toward you.

The green light on the keypad winks out.
There's a click from the door as the lock reengages.
action: You go to the east
response: You shove the bent door experimentally. It does not even budge.
Even with tools, it would take hours to get through this door.

The green light on the keypad winks out.
There's a click from the door as the lock reengages.
action: Go north
response: You open the autopsy room door.

Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A sheet of typewriter paper lies on the floor very near the hallway door.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.
action: You take paper
response: (the sheet of typewriter paper)
You pick up the sheet of typewriter paper.

You add the sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The sheet of typewriter paper reads:

Unofficial log, April 15, 11:00 am
I suppose someone must have listened to Elaine's assertion that
this test subject was different from the rest, since we've just gained a new member of the team.
This was not a pleasant cup of chicory to down first thing in the morning. Don't get me wrong -- I would love, more than anything, to welcome Simon Cross to our ranks, and G-d knows that we could stand to gain another team member. Of all of the positions we had open prior to today, however, I'm not sure I ever would have counted "Company Spook" among them.
Perhaps I am being unfair, but it is my opinion that hypnotizing yourself into believing that a knife is a rolling pin will not prevent you from needing stitches after trying to make bread dough. Cross's official title is "auditor." He claims that he is here to oversee Corona's professional interests in the Project, and I don't doubt him one bit. Cross oozes "professional interests." He brushes his teeth with it, or he wouldn't be able to give me that sharkish grin.
Still, we are bedfellows now. There's nothing to do but see to it
that he is comfortable ... and bored.
- Theo Yehuda

The hallway door swings closed. There's a click as the lock reengages.
action: You examine the corpse
response: Until very recently, this body belonged to a precisely-handsome man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a finely-pressed and very expensive suit. Now both the suit and body have been peeled open, exposing everything within. The flaps of skin that once held the corpse's organs in place are stretched in four directions, one for each flap. Surgical thread embedded in the ceiling with heavy needles stretches the skin upward, giving a coliseum view to the gore within. The man's vivisected torso is littered with dozens of surgical instruments - scalpels, forceps, hypodermic needles - each one driven in with such force as to be stuck in place. Some are barely visible. Only a surgical bonesaw, currently half-bisecting the man's neck, looks extricable. The man's face is distorted in a silent scream, and, upon closer inspection, you can just see something stuck inside his mouth.

The corpse's right hand is curled desperately around a small black pistol, the kind you're used to seeing in spy films.
action: You examine the pistol
response: A small, sleek black pistol with a short barrel. It reminds you of the Walther PPK from 60s spy movies.
action: You take the pistol
response: The corpse's hand maintains a death-grip on the pistol, rendered unbreakable by rigor mortis.
action: You examine the mouth
response: You peer into the mouth of the corpse.

In the corpse's mouth is a wad of crumpled paper.
action: You take crumpled
response: (the wad of crumpled paper)
You gingerly reach inside the corpse's mouth and extract the piece of paper, trying not to touch the dry-yet-tacky sides of the mouth as you do so. Then, you flatten it into legibility.

You add the small page torn from a compact notebook to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The small page torn from a compact notebook reads:

S.C. - Entry 1978-05-12-0230

Doctor, Doctor, Doctor.
I know that you're not used to people sifting through your notes, but you should know by now that you are out of your element. I'm sure that you have a private diary that I won't find, but keeping crib notes of your experiments on the side is simply not a very good survival technique.
Tyramine? Diazepam? Dead samples of the symbiont? I may not be a doctor, Doctor, but I am not a fool and I am in a facility chock full of useful texts.
"Curing" Ian will not save him, and your attempt has sealed your fate. This is bigger than you or me, Doctor. We are but tiny satellites floating in the corona of the sun. Dive too deep and you will burn away.
You have dived too deep, Doctor. Now I must burn you.
action: You examine the bonesaw
response: A rather old-fashioned looking bonesaw, it has a molded grip made of painted wood and a sharp steel blade that is mostly hidden by being buried in the corpse's neck.
action: You take the bonesaw
response: You grasp the handle of the bonesaw and pull upward. With a sucking sound, it pulls free of the corpse's neck, still smeared with partly-congealed blood.
action: You cut the hand with the bonesaw
response: [This command only takes one input. Ignoring "with bonesaw".)]

You grasp the corpse by the wrist. You set the edge of the bonesaw against the edge of the hand where its fingers begin, and set your teeth for an unpleasant task. You brace your shoulder and begin sawing the fingers at the joint, easily slicing through the first layers of flesh and grating against the hardened muscle. After a few moments of nauseating work, you feel the grate of bone beneath the saw. You set your back into a few more passes, trying to neither see nor hear the flesh shredding under the bonesaw.

At last you are rewarded for your gruesome work: the pistol clatters to the ground amid curled, severed fingers.

Unfortunately, you do not anticipate the sudden success. The weight of your shoulder throws the saw forward, driving it solidly into the side of the metal table and bending it nearly in half. You discard the ruined bonesaw.
action: You take the pistol
response: You pick up the small-caliber pistol.
action: You look at the sinks
response: Literally the cleanest sink you have ever seen, the polished steel of the basin gleams like a mirror. A long faucet curves in a neat arc over the sink and its long handles flank the faucet like wings.

In the sink is a small brass key.
action: You take brass key
response: You pick up the small brass key.
action: You examine the key
response: Which do you mean, the small brass key or the typewriter key?
action: You look in the sink
response: The sink is empty.
action: You look at the cabinets
response: The cabinets are curiously empty. Many of the instruments from them are likely buried in the corpse's chest now.
action: You examine counters
response: The polished stone of the counter is spotless, with no hint of dust or scoring on its immaculate surface. It almost seems as though the room was recently built, though you have trouble believing so.
action: You look at the corpse
response: Until very recently, this body belonged to a precisely-handsome man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a finely-pressed and very expensive suit. Now both the suit and body have been peeled open, exposing everything within. The flaps of skin that once held the corpse's organs in place are stretched in four directions, one for each flap. Surgical thread embedded in the ceiling with heavy needles stretches the skin upward, giving a coliseum view to the gore within. The man's vivisected torso is littered with dozens of surgical instruments - scalpels, forceps, hypodermic needles - each one driven in with such force as to be stuck in place. Some are barely visible. The man's face is distorted in a silent scream.
action: You examine suit
response: At one point, this suit was probably worth over a thousand dollars. Its cut is precise, its silk fine. Sadly, it has been shredded by its owner's impromptu vivisection, and is now worth nothing to no one. A quick check of the suit's remaining pockets reveals nothing.
action: You examine the glass door
response: A door made from two panes of thick glass mounted in a metal frame, with rubber seals on all sides.
action: You go east
response: You open the glass door.

Morgue, Mt Airy Hospital
The astringent smell is even stronger in the morgue than in the autopsy room. The single working fluorescent light here flickers slightly, giving your movement a cinematic cast to it. The east wall of the morgue is lined with large drawers for corpse storage, like a giant, morbid filing cabinet. Along the north wall is a counter with a large industrial sink. Nearby, a hospital gurney squats at an odd angle, one of its wheels bent sharply to the side. There is a spatter of dried blood on the drawers, marring the otherwise spartan cleanliness of the area.

A heavy glass door to the west leads back to the autopsy room.
action: You look at the gurney
response: It's a hospital gurney of dated design that has seen heavy use. It is currently stripped of any bedclothes, its surface flat and uncomfortable-looking. One of its legs has bent near the wheel, causing the wheel to rest on its side and causing the whole gurney to lean slightly.
action: You look at the sink
response: The large industrial sink is empty.
action: You look at the counter
response: A heavy-duty industrial sink sits in the middle of the counter.
Below the sink is a concealed storage cabinet.
action: You open the storage cabinet
response: You open the concealed doors, revealing some pipes and a bulky wastebasket stashed beneath the sink.
action: You examine the pipes
response: Just ordinary pipes. You don't see anything strange about them, which in and of itself is sort of strange.
action: You look at the wastebasket
response: The wastebasket is awkwardly large. It's possible to reach and see into the wastebasket in its current position, but wrestling it out from its niche among the pipes would be a chore.

In the bulky wastebasket is a bloodstained lab coat.
action: You examine the coat
response: The neck, back, and shoulder of the lab coat are wet with disconcertingly fresh blood. However, the lower half, including the pockets, are unstained. Through the scarlet stain, you read the embroidered name: Dr. Theodore M. Yehuda

In the bloodstained lab coat is a typewritten page.
action: You take the page
response: (the typewritten page)
You pick up the typewritten page.

You add the typewritten page to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The typewritten page reads:

Unofficial log, May 6th, 8:00pm
Ian's test was strange today.
As I've said in my notes, Ian is showing a great deal of promise in remote viewing. He's able to come up with at least one salient, unique detail about anything he is asked to see. Over the past day or two, his "scrying" has been strikingly accurate, including not only corroborating details but also an understanding of the situations he has been asked to view.
Today's trial, though, has left me with a nasty sense of
foreboding. Dr. Atwater had just excused himself to make a run to the convenience store, so I proposed to Ian that he perform a viewing on the doctor. I was initially merely disappointed when Ian described an office within the facility, indicating guesswork on Ian's part. After that, the boy became seriously agitated, babbling about being in danger. He dissolved into a panic attack and spoke very fast. It was hard to understand him, but he seemed to be saying that Cross and Dr. Atwater were "out to get him," claiming that "they want to terminate me."
I did my best to placate the poor boy, but he was having none of
it. By the look in his eyes, he seemed to be caught in the vision and unable to escape it. After a few minutes, I saw no recourse but to tranquilize him and have him moved back to his room under supervision. Once awake, he was very paranoid, still believing firmly that Cross and Dr. Atwater were conspiring to end his life. By my estimation, this must have been his nightmares bleeding over into his visions, tainting them with the paranoia of being chased on a nightly basis. It's possible that Ian's abilities interpreted Dr. Atwater's departure from the facility as abandonment, termination. It's the best that I can guess.
There is a part of me that believes that I should have put all of
this into the official report. Instead, I used the most generic terms I could. Panic attack. Adverse effects. Unexpected delusions.
Why not the truth, Theo? You are a Doctor and an employee of
Corona. They don't pay you to omit details.
The truth is ... by now, I trust Ian's abilities more than I trust
Dr. Atwater's belief in the project. When Ian told me that Dr. Atwater wanted him to die, well, it was very difficult not to believe him.
Where is this project going, and why are we in a handbasket?
- Theo Yehuda
action: You look at the blood
response: (the spatter of dried blood)
The blood is dry, and there wasn't much of it to begin with. Its spray and drip pattern indicates a violently inflicted wound. You note that apart from the spray, there is a smear of dried blood on drawer 6.
action: You open the drawer 6
response: You open drawer 6 and slide its metal tray partway out. On the tray are a pair of corpses, stacked atop one another face-to-face in some gross parody of intimacy. The upper corpse is fresh and sports a nasty-looking head wound; the lower corpse is paler and clearly embalmed.
action: You examine the upper corpse
response: This corpse is fresh, and, from what you can tell, hastily-stowed in this drawer. Before death, Dr. Yehuda was a somewhat overweight middle-aged man. Although he was stacked face down, his head is turned to the side, away from his grisly companion, so you can see that his face looks tired but kindly. The neat bullet-wound between the corpse's eyes has dried, but the messy exit wound in the back glistens with still-drying blood. Behind a thick pair of black-rimmed glasses, the skin around his eyes shows clear laugh lines.
action: You examine the lower corpse
response: Judging from what you can see of this corpse, it was once a white man of average build and below average height. His features are those of a man in his middle age, but his face is craggy for its youth. The corpse has bags under its closed eyes and stress lines on its brow. The corpse has clearly been autopsied and embalmed, as its naked, pale skin shows no sign of decay. There are also no visible injuries on this corpse.
action: You move yehuda
response: Which do you mean, the fresh corpse, the face, Yehuda 4/15, Yehuda 4/2 or typewritten page?
action: Corpse
response: Which do you mean, the embalmed corpse or the fresh corpse?
action: You move upper corpse
response: You'd prefer not to disturb Dr. Yehuda's corpse. He surely deserves whatever measure of peace he has achieved.
action: You examine the face
response: (the embalmed corpse)
Judging from what you can see of this corpse, it was once a white man of average build and below average height. His features are those of a man in his middle age, but his face is craggy for its youth. The corpse has bags under its closed eyes and stress lines on its brow. The corpse has clearly been autopsied and embalmed, as its naked, pale skin shows no sign of decay. There are also no visible injuries on this corpse.
action: You close drawer 6
response: You slide the tray back into the drawer, then close the door and lock it in place.
action: You look at the drawers
response: (drawer number 1)
These are morgue drawers just like the ones you've seen in the movies, with heavy latched doors like those on industrial refrigerators; the doors are labeled 1 to 12. There is a spatter of dried blood on the doors. The spray and drip pattern indicates a violently inflicted wound. You note that apart from the spray, there is a smear of dried blood on drawer 6.
action: You open the drawer 1
response: You open the door to drawer 1. Rather than a metal tray on rails, you see a reddish, pulsating, fleshy tunnel that extends into a darkness you cannot see.
action: You close it
response: You close drawer number 1, hiding the abomination from sight.
action: You open the drawer 2
response: You open the door to drawer 2. Rather than a metal tray on rails, you see a reddish, pulsating, fleshy tunnel that extends into a darkness you cannot see.
action: You close it
response: You close drawer number 2, hiding the abomination from sight.
action: You open the drawer 12
response: You open the door to drawer 12. Rather than a metal tray on rails, you see a reddish, pulsating, fleshy tunnel that extends into a darkness you cannot see.
action: You close it
response: You close drawer number 12, hiding the abomination from sight.
action: Go west
response: Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.

You can also see a ruined bonesaw and some severed fingers here.

You hear the meaty thunk of something large hitting the ground to the east.
action: Go east
response: Morgue, Mt Airy Hospital
The astringent smell is even stronger in the morgue than in the autopsy room. The single working fluorescent light here flickers slightly, giving your movement a cinematic cast to it. The east wall of the morgue is lined with large drawers for corpse storage, like a giant, morbid filing cabinet. Along the north wall is a counter with a large industrial sink. Nearby, a hospital gurney squats at an odd angle, one of its wheels bent sharply to the side. There is a spatter of dried blood on the drawers, marring the otherwise spartan cleanliness of the area. The doors beneath the large counter stand open, exposing steel pipes and a wastebasket.

A heavy glass door to the west leads back to the autopsy room.

The fresh corpse lies face-down on the floor here.

Drawer number 6 is open, exposing a tray with a prepared and embalmed corpse on it.

The corpse on the ground seems to melt and grow, its flesh pouring rapidly along the ground from its sleeves, pantlegs and collar.
action: You look at the fresh corpse
response: The fresh corpse lies face-down on the floor, unmoving. The exit wound in the back of the skull glistens dark and red.

The flesh pours from Dr. Yehuda's corpse, expanding rapidly in all directions. The edges form coherent, fleshy tendrils that glisten like fresh, exposed muscle, and the tendrils reach toward you hungrily.
action: You shoot it
response: You raise the gun and fire a bullet into the prone corpse. You are immediately seized with a sense of dread, feeling that you have made a terrible mistake. The corpse's hideous mutation continues unabated, and now you are out of bullets. Perhaps you should have waited until the thing displayed an obvious weak point....

Lightning fast, one of the fleshy tentacles wraps around you with crushing force. You set your heels and lean back against the pull of the tentacle, but you are unable to maintain your footing. With a sudden jerk, the fleshy muscle jerks you forward and you stumble directly into the mass of pulsating flesh. You hit the stuff face-first, and you can feel it wrap around you as soon as you touch it. You attempt to scream, but the noise is cut off as something warm and soft expands down your throat. Deprived of air, you can only struggle helplessly as you feel your flesh begin to prickle. Every contact point between your body and the mass of flesh begins to burn, almost as though you are being digested....
Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You muzzily realize that you are gazing at the ceiling of the Corona Labs test chamber just before the door slams open. Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist, hurries into the room. Dr. Ephart follows close enough behind to step on his heels. "How many fingers do you see?" Dr. Shaunessy asks, kneeling down beside you, and Dr. Ephart rests light fingers on your wrist to take your pulse. In short order, they conclude that you suffered a vasovagal syncope and struck your head in the fall.

You try to talk to the doctors, but your words are confused and disjointed. Your gaze drags across the fallen photograph, half-shadowed by the folder above it, and you see the gaunt young man screaming. You can't find the words to make them understand. Though you can nearly stand on your own, the doctors firmly escort you from the room and off to bed.

Dr. Shaunessy leaves, but Dr. Ephart stays with you as the sedatives take hold. "Don't worry," she says, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. "Everything will be all right."

Six days later, the past repeats itself in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.
action: You examine fresh corpse
response: The flesh of the corpse has become a glistening red, like exposed muscle. The clothes now seem to float in a sea of the stuff as the substance takes over the entire room. You should probably get out of here.

Lightning fast, one of the fleshy tentacles wraps around you with crushing force. You set your heels and lean back against the pull of the tentacle, but you are unable to maintain your footing. With a sudden jerk, the fleshy muscle jerks you forward and you stumble directly into the mass of pulsating flesh. You hit the stuff face-first, and you can feel it wrap around you as soon as you touch it. You attempt to scream, but the noise is cut off as something warm and soft expands down your throat. Deprived of air, you can only struggle helplessly as you feel your flesh begin to prickle. Every contact point between your body and the mass of flesh begins to burn, almost as though you are being digested....
action: You look at the door
response: Which do you mean, the glass door or the hallway door?
action: Hallway
response: You don't see a keypad on this side, or even a lock.

The corner of a white piece of paper is visible beneath the door.

A wet sliding noise emanates from the morgue, starting quiet but getting louder by the second.
action: You take the paper
response: (your notes)
You already have that.

Through the door to the east, you can see a writhing, pulsating mass of what appears to be raw red muscle. It is filling the morgue and rapidly approaching the autopsy room.
action: You take the white piece of the paper
response: I only understood you as far as wanting to take EGB 4/20/78.
action: You take the white
response: (the tiled floor)
That's not really feasible.

The opening to the morgue fills now with pulsating red flesh, pouring over the sides of the door like a sideways drain overflowing with sludge, all the while making a ghastly wet sliding noise. In the center of the mass, a pale bubble forms. It appears at first to be a blister, but its features define until you recognize a face - that of Dr. Yehuda. The face's expression is wracked with pain; it lets out an anguished sound as the mass of flesh pushes its way into the room.

"I didn't know! I'm so sorry!" the face moans.
action: You shoot the face
response: (the pale face)
You raise your pistol toward the face-blister and pull the trigger. With a deafening report, the gun kicks in your hand. A spray of white liquid splatters from the face's forehead where the bullet lands. The white liquid runs in rivulets down the front of the face as it contorts in even further agony.

"God, why?" the face moans. "Why did I die?"

The mass of bloody flesh begins to retract, pulling away from the walls and leaving a glistening red trail as it goes. Steam billows from the flesh as the white liquid runs onto it and burns it away.
The face begins to lose coherency, melting as it cries.

"My only sin was ignorance," the dissolving face murmurs. "Please forgive me my part in this."

After a minute, the mass has retreated entirely into the morgue. Through the door, you see it retract back to the center of the room, curl into a small ball, and collapse into a small pile of ash with a peculiar clinking sound.

After several seconds of empty silence, you hear a click from the door to the south.
action: Go east
response: Morgue, Mt Airy Hospital
The astringent smell is even stronger in the morgue than in the autopsy room. The single working fluorescent light here flickers slightly, giving your movement a cinematic cast to it. The east wall of the morgue is lined with large drawers for corpse storage, like a giant, morbid filing cabinet. Along the north wall is a counter with a large industrial sink. Nearby, a hospital gurney squats at an odd angle, one of its wheels bent sharply to the side. There is a spatter of dried blood on the drawers, marring the otherwise spartan cleanliness of the area. The doors beneath the large counter stand open, exposing steel pipes and a wastebasket.

A heavy glass door to the west leads back to the autopsy room.

There's a small, circular pile of ash below drawer 6.

Drawer number 6 is open, exposing an empty tray.
action: You look at the ash
response: It's a small pile of gray ash. Nothing more remains of the corpse of Dr. Yehuda. You note a faint glint of metal in the ash.
action: You search the ash
response: Upon closer examination, the small piece of metal turns out to be a ridged key. You pick up the ridged key.
action: You examine the ridged key
response: This is a typical office door key. It has a slightly ridged handle.
action: Go west
response: Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.

You can also see a ruined bonesaw and some severed fingers here.
action: You examine the fingers
response: (the severed fingers)
These four severed fingers used to belong to the corpse in the autopsy room.
action: You take the fingers
response: (the severed fingers)
You pick up the severed fingers.
action: You open it
response: The hidden lock releases under your hand.

You open the hallway door.
action: You take the paper
response: (your notes)
You already have that.
action: You go south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
At this end of the dingy basement hall, the only intact door is labelled with a black sign reading "Autopsy Room/Morgue".

A white 10-digit keypad is attached to the wall beside the door.

A sheet of typewriter paper lies on the floor very near the hallway door.

In the adjoining wall, a bent doorframe holds a severely dented metal door that has been very badly dented toward you.

The autopsy room door swings closed. There's a click as the lock reengages.
action: You take the sheet
response: Which do you mean, Pearce 5/8/78, Pearce 4/16/78 or Pearce 5/1/78?
action: You take the paper
response: (sheet of typewriter paper)
You pick up sheet of typewriter paper.

You add sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The sheet of typewriter paper reads:

Unofficial log, April 15, 11:00 am
I suppose someone must have listened to Elaine's assertion that
this test subject was different from the rest, since we've just gained a new member of the team.
This was not a pleasant cup of chicory to down first thing in the morning. Don't get me wrong -- I would love, more than anything, to welcome Simon Cross to our ranks, and G-d knows that we could stand to gain another team member. Of all of the positions we had open prior to today, however, I'm not sure I ever would have counted "Company Spook" among them.
Perhaps I am being unfair, but it is my opinion that hypnotizing yourself into believing that a knife is a rolling pin will not prevent you from needing stitches after trying to make bread dough. Cross's official title is "auditor." He claims that he is here to oversee Corona's professional interests in the Project, and I don't doubt him one bit. Cross oozes "professional interests." He brushes his teeth with it, or he wouldn't be able to give me that sharkish grin.
Still, we are bedfellows now. There's nothing to do but see to it
that he is comfortable ... and bored.
- Theo Yehuda
action: You look at the notes
response: [To see the next page of your notes, just TURN the page.]

Your notes consist of a sheaf of various papers that you found scattered about this facility. Currently, a sheet of typewriter paper written on 4/15 by Yehuda is the topmost page.

This is a piece of paper punched for a three-ring binder, its words typed out from an old self-correcting machine.
action: You look at the bent door
response: This metal door is damaged beyond repair, dented inward and fused with its frame as though struck from the other side by a car moving at high speed. Whatever hit it must have been incredibly strong, given how sturdy the door seems to be. The doorknob is missing from the door completely. A sign on the door reads "stairs".
action: You wait awhile
response: The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The third floor button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.
action: You go east
response: You step through the elevator doors into a familiar hallway. In front of you, the lurid orange biohazard symbol all but glows from the end of the east hall, and a broader hallway stretches away to the left and right.

Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.
action: Go east
response: As you walk away, you hear a peculiar fluttering noise behind you.

Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.
action: You unlock the north door with brass key
response: [This command only takes one input. Ignoring "with brass key".)]

You insert the ridged key into the lock of the door to room 322 and turn it, successfully unlocking the door
action: Go north
response: You open the door to room 322.

Room 322, Mt Airy Hospital
While spacious, this office is surprisingly austere. The office is clearly separated into two sides. On the west side, a large but inexpensive-looking metal desk is festooned with decorations; a calendar covers its center, while several photos are proudly displayed with their faces to the door. The desk on the east side is a standing oak desk, precisely arranged and nearly bare. All of the decoration on that side of the room is on the walls, an array of diplomas and commendations. An office chair stands in front of each desk.

Only a single object dares to split the room: a wall-mounted television displaying half of a grainy black-and-white picture.

To your south, a door leads back to the hallway.

Below the television, there is a wall button with a typewritten sign taped next to it.

A piece of unlined paper lies face-down on the floor, half in and half out of the oak desk's shadow.
action: You take the unlined paper
response: You pick up the piece of unlined paper.

You add the piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: The piece of unlined paper reads:

4/7/78
I've found him!

It's hard not to doubt myself. I've written about candidates before. I believed in each and every one of them. They all had that spark, that brilliant glint of possibility. It shone in them like a tiny sun. How could I not believe? And with each failure it became harder to believe in myself.

But he's different, McMoneagle. Ian. A skinny boy from the suburbs of Olney with nothing spectacular about him but chronic nightmares, headaches, and emotional problems. But that sun, his sun. So much brighter than any I've seen.

Dr. Atwater is of course convinced that he'll fail just like all the others, and refuses to refer to him even by his first name since we picked him up. Even Dr. Yehuda is cautious, given our track record. I have to convince him, both of them.

He's the one. He's our hope.
action: You look at the calendar
response: A large desktop calendar with disposable pages. The currently-displayed month is May of 1978. While notes are scrawled on the calendar, little are of any use; most are for day-to-day activities centered around someone named "Ian". Several other names are mentioned: "Atwater", "Elaine", and occasionally "Pearce". A quick page-flip reveals that little is filled out for future months in the calendar. Whoever was using this lived in the moment, or at least by the month.
action: You look at the oak desk
response: This desk is smaller than the one on the other side of the room, but taller and made of fine varnished oak. Upon closer inspection, it is in fact conspicuous in its barren appearance. There is literally nothing on this desk, as though it had been cleaned out but not taken away. The diplomas on the wall remain, but the desk itself is a suspense story of a departed occupant.
action: You examine the diplomas
response: Several diplomas, commendations and awards adorn the wall around the standing desk. Each one is awarded to an Edward Atwater, Ph.D, MD, and each one congratulates the man for his astonishing skill and study in the field of medicine. Apparently, Dr. Atwater both knew his stuff and wanted everyone around him to know it.
action: You examine the metal desk
response: While somewhat cheap, this steel desk is large and provides a good deal of real estate for its user. A large desk calendar sits on its surface, stained with rings of coffee and marked with a near-illegible scrawl. Several framed photos sit on the right corner of the desk.

A black safe with a prominent dial has been bracketed beneath the left side of the desk. The safe was obviously manufactured separately and attached in a somewhat haphazard fashion, but the metalwork is effective even if it isn't attractive. The safe is currently closed.
action: %
response: Are you sure you want to quit? 

Please be advised that One Eye Open is a horror game. It contains mature content (including blood, gore, human injury and death, mild language, tobacco reference, violence, and violent references.)

We do not recommend this game for a younger audience.
action: Y.
response: After only ten days, you're becoming surprisingly comfortable with life as a Corona Corporation guinea pig. It helps that your routine is so reliable - meals, exercise, rest, and sleep are clearly arranged on a schedule hanging beside the white clock in your room. As for the tests - well, you've grown used to the sight of your blood in a sample vial, and the rest is mostly paperwork. Personality tests, aptitude tests, intelligence tests, psychological tests, Rorschach and the MMPI and even kinetic family drawing... you're starting to worry that they'll run out of tests by the end of the month.

Although 7:30 PM is always the day's last test, you never leave your room alone, so you were still watching American Beauty when Dr. Marnie Ephart knocked at the door. "Oh, you're almost to the end!" she said brightly, seeing the screen. "I can wait until you're through."

"No, that's fine." You hit PAUSE to freeze Angela in mid-motion as you got up from the couch. "I've seen it before." Last Monday, actually. The video collection isn't that good, and, considering what they're paying you, it's a pity Corona couldn't invest in a few more options. It's hard to complain, though; the staff is friendly, the tests aren't hard, and the salary is great.

During the day, Raymond, Best, or one of the scientists might be around, but at night, it's usually just the two of you, and the hall you cross now is deserted. You accompany her through the antechamber and into the main testing chamber. By now, you're used to being watched from behind one-way glass, but the observational room is fully lit today, and you can easily see inside.

"Back in a moment," Dr. Ephart says cheerfully. "See you on the other side!"

Test Chamber, Corona Labs
In the center of the room, a single black office chair sits in front of a broad, heavy desk. The desk and chair are familiar, but the wireless keypad sitting on the desk is new. There are five large white buttons on the keypad, each displaying a different symbol in broad black strokes. The symbols are a circle, a cross, a set of three wavy lines, a square, and a five-pointed star. As always, you are quite aware of the cameras watching you from above.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

The familiar black office chair sits invitingly nearby.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the curved desk in the observational room.
I beg your pardon?
action: You look at your surroundings
response: Room 322, Mt Airy Hospital
While spacious, this office is surprisingly austere. The office is clearly separated into two sides. On the west side, a large but inexpensive-looking metal desk is festooned with decorations; a calendar covers its center, while several photos are proudly displayed with their faces to the door. The desk on the east side is a standing oak desk, precisely arranged and nearly bare. All of the decoration on that side of the room is on the walls, an array of diplomas and commendations. An office chair stands in front of each desk.

Only a single object dares to split the room: a wall-mounted television displaying half of a grainy black-and-white picture.

To your south, a door leads back to the hallway.

Below the television, there is a wall button with a typewritten sign taped next to it.
action: Examine button
response: A white plastic button about a half-inch in diameter, mounted in a brass plate.
action: You examine the sign
response: It's taped to the wall next to a plate with a button. Instructions concerning "remote viewing" are typed on the page's surface.
action: You read it
response: The typewritten sign reads: No remote viewing tests are to occur without a remote supervisor. The subject is to be released by the remote supervisor at the signal of the local supervisor. This button will unlock the door for fifteen seconds, at which time a local buzzer will sound.
action: You examine safe
response: (the black safe)
A black safe with a numbered dial has been bracketed to the inner left leg of the inexpensive desk. The safe doesn't look overwhelmingly expensive, either, but it does look durable and effective. There is a safety label on the front advising you that it is Class 350 and rated for four hours of fire resistance. It is currently closed.
action: You read the label
response: The safe label reads:

Underwriters Laboratories, Inc
As To Fire Resistance
Rating: Class 350-4 Hr
action: You open safe
response: (the black safe)
It seems to be locked.
action: You look at the dial
response: The numbered dial goes from 1 to 60.
action: You examine photos
response: There are three photos in frames on the desk. The one in the center seems to be a family photo. A man with curly salt-and-pepper hair laughs, his hands on the shoulder of a woman of about his age and a child of about ten whose features, though youthful, strongly resemble those of the older man. After a moment, you recognize the curly-haired man as Theo Yehuda. The younger boy and the woman feature in their own photo, as do the older man and the woman. Happiness all but shines from the subjects as they gaze into the camera lens.
action: You look under the desk
response: As you concentrate, an ache pulses powerfully through your temples. You feel the need to pay closer attention to the small brass key, the ridged key, and the typewriter key.

>Which do you mean, the inexpensive desk or the standing desk?
action: You turn on the tv
response: It's already on.
action: Examine tv
response: It's a wall-mounted television monitor, antique by your standards. The screen seems to be split into two halves, but one half is completely dark. The other shows a familiar sight: the testing chamber. A skinny young man is hunched on a chair in the corner of the room, next to the table. A timestamp shows in blocky white font on the bottom of the monitor: MAY 12 1978 20:20.
action: You look at Ian
response: On the television monitor, a young man hunches over on a chair, stock-still. Scraggly hair falls over his eyes, obscuring his face. His bare back is curved in a painful arch, and skinny elbows rest on a pair of plain sweatpants. His feet are bare and stained with something dark.
action: You examine the smudge
response: Closer examination convinces you that the red substance staining the paper is blood. The mark is about the size and shape of a smeared fingerprint.
action: You look at the typewriter
response: (the typewriter key)
A small black key with a white letter I.
action: You examine the diplomas
response: There's something very familiar about these diplomas.

Several diplomas, commendations and awards adorn the wall around the standing desk. Each one is awarded to an Edward Atwater, Ph.D, MD, and each one congratulates the man for his astonishing skill and study in the field of medicine. Apparently, Dr. Atwater both knew his stuff and wanted everyone around him to know it.
action: You search diplomas
response: You slide your hand along the side of one of the diplomas and find a folded typewritten page hidden there. You pull it gently from its hiding place, unfold it, and smooth it out.

You add the creased sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: Go east
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

A legal-size page lies face-up on the floor amid the debris.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: You take the page
response: (the legal-size page)
You pick up the legal-size page.

You add the legal-size page to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: The legal-size page reads:

From the desk of Dr. Edward Atwater, M.D., Ph.D.
April 3rd, 1978
Not a day passes by that I fail to be astonished by how willing
Corona is to throw their money away. Such tremendous cost of research! Such lucrative pay for the staff! Such reparations to the families of the dead!
This project has killed fifteen fools who believed themselves to be psychic. I would painstakingly run them through personality tests, IQ tests, psychological profiles. They would pass muster or fail, and those who failed would be turned away. The poor fools who pass receive the treatment that will inevitably kill them. I'm not sure that they've even told the new project head, Yehuda, how many subjects have died thanks to the "symbiont."
Symbiont. Pah. I'm no microbiologist, but I recognize the symptoms
of a parasite when I see one, and this one has killed everyone that it's been fed to. The thing dies like any other microorganism when exposed to formaldehyde in the lab as when creating a vaccine, but once it's in the body there's no cure. The little beasts go straight to the brain, the subject goes mad and then dies in an out-of-control adrenergic storm that even a near-lethal dose of diazepam won't stop. And now we're looking for another one. At this rate, we'll never
get the contract -- at the very least, someone needs to live through the damn infection.
action: You look at debris
response: It's unclear what happened here, but sorting cautiously through the debris by eye, you identify at least two broken test tubes, a shattered syringe, and a couple tiny clamps. A dark, clotted brown substance clings to several of the sharper edges among the debris.
action: You look around
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: You go south
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You think that you left this door open, and you know that it wasn't locked before. But it's closed now, and as you try the knob, you discover that it's locked.

You try unlocking the door to room 323 with the ridged key and the small brass key, but you don't have a key to fit the lock.
action: Go north
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You try unlocking the door to room 324 with the ridged key and the small brass key, but you don't have a key to fit the lock.
action: Go east
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You swipe your keycard through the keycard reader. After a moment, the door emits a loud click and the airlock door slides open.

Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

A sheet of ruled paper lies beside a prone figure.

On the floor, there is a prone figure in a complete hazard suit.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: You take the paper
response: (the sheet of ruled paper)
You pick up the sheet of ruled paper.

You add the sheet of ruled paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: The sheet of ruled paper reads:

Raymond Pearce, M.D.
Assistant Director, Mt. Airy Hospital
May 12th, 1978
I don't know what kind of disaster they've uncovered but it's happening right now and it's in my hospital.
They're all running around like they're possessed. The subject, McMoneagle, went tearing past me less than a half hour ago. It's more energy than I've ever seen him display. He went down the stairs, not a doctor or escort in sight. I should have followed, but something gave me this unearthly fear. Ridiculous, but it's hard not to fall prey to the mysticism that's surrounded this whole absurd affair.
Minutes later, I heard screaming, like the kind in the giant
monster pictures my nephew is so damn fond of. I couldn't tell where it was from. Now there's something strange going on in the wet lab, something obscuring the window in there.
It's now or never. I have a terrible feeling about all this, but I have to find out what the hell they've been doing before we're all run out of the building.
action: You look at the figure
response: Someone in a hazard suit lies, unmoving. The faceplate of the hazard suit is completely obscured by a red, wet substance that looks not entirely unlike sloppy joe filling. The stuff inside the suit is moving, churning within itself.

The external airlock door slides closed with a hiss and locks with a click.
action: You examine the hazard suit
response: Someone in a hazard suit lies, unmoving. The faceplate of the hazard suit is completely obscured by a red, wet substance that looks not entirely unlike sloppy joe filling. The stuff inside the suit is moving, churning within itself.
action: You examine the lamps
response: A battery of six red lamps glares down at you. The light manages to be both subtle and harsh.
action: You look at the hooks
response: A pair of small brass hooks is mounted in the wall. They are small and somewhat flimsy, appearing to be designed for exactly the kind of environment suit that hangs, shredded, from one of the hooks. The other hook is empty.
action: You open the hazard suit
response: You begin to unzip the hazard suit. The moment an opening appears, you are sprayed in the face with some kind of reddish mist. It stings your eyes and nose, and you stumble backward. You start to feel queasy immediately, and the skin where the mist touched you starts to experience a buzzing sensation.
action: Sing
response: You are too distracted by your condition to take any action.

The pain in your face ebbs away, replaced with a vibrating numbness. You reach one hand up to touch your cheek but feel only a churning, moving wetness where your face used to be. Your limbs have become numb, and you can feel your heart's beating become labored in your chest. Something moving in your lungs begins to retard your breathing.
action: Keep going
response: You are too distracted by your condition to take any action.

Gurgling helplessly, you slump to the floor. You can feel the intruder in your body slowly eating away at you, from the inside and out. Mercifully, the pain is now gone, replaced only by a strange vibration in the places of your body that remain uneaten. As your lungs and heart slowly stop moving, your senses fade away, replaced by an ominous stillness.
action: You check your inventory
response: Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You muzzily realize that you are gazing at the ceiling of the Corona Labs test chamber just before the door slams open. Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist, hurries into the room. Dr. Ephart follows close enough behind to step on his heels. "How many fingers do you see?" Dr. Shaunessy asks, kneeling down beside you, and Dr. Ephart rests light fingers on your wrist to take your pulse. In short order, they conclude that you suffered a vasovagal syncope and struck your head in the fall.

You try to talk to the doctors, but your words are confused and disjointed. Your gaze drags across the fallen photograph, half-shadowed by the folder above it, and you see the gaunt young man screaming. You can't find the words to make them understand. Though you can nearly stand on your own, the doctors firmly escort you from the room and off to bed.

Dr. Shaunessy leaves, but Dr. Ephart stays with you as the sedatives take hold. "Don't worry," she says, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. "Everything will be all right."

Six days later, the past repeats itself in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.
action: Go east
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You swipe your keycard through the keycard reader. After a moment, the door emits a loud click and the airlock door slides open.

Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

A sheet of ruled paper lies beside a prone figure.

On the floor, there is a prone figure in a complete hazard suit.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: You take the paper and the hazard suit
response: sheet of ruled paper: You pick up the sheet of ruled paper.
action: Yes
response: You begin to unzip the hazard suit. The moment an opening appears, you are sprayed in the face with some kind of reddish mist. It stings your eyes and nose, and you stumble backward. You start to feel queasy immediately, and the skin where the mist touched you starts to experience a buzzing sensation.

You add the sheet of ruled paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You take the paper
response: (the sheet of ruled paper)
You pick up the sheet of ruled paper.

You add the sheet of ruled paper to your existing collection of pages.

The external airlock door slides closed with a hiss and locks with a click.
action: No
response: Do you mean to unzip the sealed hazard suit? (y/n) >Did you mean to pick up the prone figure? (y/n) >Please answer yes or no.> Then what did you mean by trying to take the hazard suit? Now I'm all confused.
action: No
response: You think you could lift the prone figure, but you'll need to have your hands free first. Set down the severed fingers, the ridged key, the small brass key, the small-caliber pistol and the typewriter key? (y/n) >Please answer yes or no.> It's too awkward to lift the prone figure while carrying the severed fingers, the ridged key, the small brass key, the small-caliber pistol, the typewriter key, the Corona Labs keycard and your notes.
action: Yes
response: You think you could lift the prone figure, but you'll need to have your hands free first. Set down the severed fingers, the ridged key, the small brass key, the small-caliber pistol and the typewriter key? (y/n) >
You discard the severed fingers.

You set down the ridged key.

You set down the small brass key.

You set down the small-caliber pistol.

You set down the typewriter key.

You fold your notes, slip the keycard into the fold, tuck them under your arm, and heave the prone figure onto your shoulder. It feels both heavier and squishier than you expected it to be, given its size.
action: You go west
response: You push the button marked "EXIT". The external airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: Go west
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.
action: You drop the suit
response: (the sealed hazard suit)
You haven't got that.
action: You look at what you're carrying with you
response: You are carrying a hazard-suited figure slung over your shoulder. Also, you have your notes folded under your arm with the Corona Labs keycard tucked inside.
action: Drop figure
response: You heave the hazard-suited figure off your shoulder and lower it carefully to the ground. Then, you untuck your notes from your armpit and fish out the Corona Labs keycard with minimal damage done.
action: No
response: That was a rhetorical question.
action: Go west
response: Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

There's a large white butterfly flitting back and forth near the ceiling.

A building map is posted on the wall.
action: You examine butterfly
response: Looking more closely at the white butterfly, you realize that it is nothing more than folded paper. Still, its wings beat like a real butterfly's wings against the slight breeze in the hallway, and it dances through the air with careless, casual grace.

There seems to be something written on the butterfly, but you can't make out the words from here.
action: You take butterfly
response: It's too awkward to pick anything up while you're carrying the hazard-suited figure around.
action: Drop figure
response: You heave the hazard-suited figure off your shoulder and lower it carefully to the ground. Then, you untuck your notes from your armpit and fish out the Corona Labs keycard with minimal damage done.

The paper butterfly traces a lazy spiral through the air before coming to rest on the dull white tile. Its diamond-shaped wings flex, unflex, and then unfold. The corners and edges pull apart from one another like some sort of magical puzzle box.

The transformation is complete. The butterfly is gone, and only a small piece of unlined paper remains.
action: You take the paper
response: (the small piece of unlined paper)
You pick up the small piece of unlined paper.

You add the small piece of unlined paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: The small piece of unlined paper reads:

Alice's Diary, 5/6/78
Today must have been different for Ian. When I came in, he greeted me with a plea to keep him company and keep him awake. I was glad to be able to help, so we talked late into the night.
It feels like he's putting a lot of trust in me, even though he doesn't like to talk about his nightmares or his past. He seems to be afraid of himself, and said over and over that he didn't want to hurt anybody. He's afraid, he says, and he doesn't want to hurt anybody. It was hard not to laugh at the notion of Ian hurting anybody. He wouldn't -- couldn't -- hurt a fly.
He really didn't want to fall asleep, but eventually he just couldn't stay up any longer. I tucked him in and tried to make him as comfortable as I could for when the nightmares came.
I think I'm developing feelings for Ian. His eyes are so expressive and he feels for other people so keenly. Unprofessional or not, Ian's a really special person and I hope Corona's able to cure him of whatever it is that he's got. I wish I could do something for him. Protect him from his demons.
In the meantime, I'll just do the one thing that it seems like only I can do:
Care.
action: You go north
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. A long, slow breeze flows from the south past you, reaching towards the deep shadow to the north. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a laundry chute to the west.

The sterile breeze flowing north slowly stops and then reverses. A long wave of bad-smelling air pushes toward you from the dense darkness down the hallway.
action: You enter the chute
response: It'll be a difficult enough wriggle to get into the chute without carrying the hazard-suited figure at the same time. If you want the hazard-suited figure at the bottom of the laundry chute, you should probably drop it in first.
action: You put the figure in the chute
response: You drop the hazard-suited figure into the laundry chute. It promptly vanishes into the darkness.
action: Y.
response: A peek down the laundry chute suggests that it is still safe, but looks may be deceiving. Are you sure you want to try it? (y/n) >You slide headfirst down the laundry chute. The fast, exhilarating, and death-free ride ends with a heartstopping plummet through space and a faceful of soiled sheets. They're soft enough for you to land safely, but still pretty disgusting.

Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital (in the laundry bin)
Crumpled white sheets fill an enormous laundry bin underneath the chute's entrance - a great relief, since those sheets were dense enough to competently break your fall. You're currently inside the laundry bin, but you can see the rest of the room well enough. There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

An open door leads south out of the room.

There's a human skeleton lying on the tiled floor. It's wearing a very clean lab coat.

In the laundry bin you can see a hazard-suited figure.
action: Go outside
response: You get out of the laundry bin.

Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital
There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room, and three canvas-walled carts filled with dirty linens squat awaiting their purpose. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

An open door leads south out of the room.

There's a human skeleton lying on the tiled floor. It's wearing a very clean lab coat.

You can also see a laundry bin (in which are a hazard-suited figure and a heap of soiled sheets) here.
action: You put the figure in machine
response: You heave the hazard-suited figure into the cilia-filled tube of the laundry machine and close the lid.

The laundry machine starts up with an audible whine and a whirring noise that increases in frequency as its internal motors (or muscles, you suppose) spin up.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.
action: You wait awhile
response: You nearly jump out of your skin as a buzzer sounds loudly from the huge laundry machine. Its motor gradually slows to a halt.
action: You open the machine
response: You lift the lid of the large laundry machine, revealing the fleshy, cilia-lined tube within. Flattened around the inside of the tube is the limp form of an empty hazard suit, clean and white.
action: You take the suit
response: You reach into the machine and grasp the suit by your thumb and forefinger, then gently extract it while avoiding the reach of the undulating cilia. You shake the hazard suit out, noting that it is now completely clean and dry. You momentarily find yourself wondering whether, if you could manufacture machines like this, the American public might be able to overlook its flesh-eating properties for its clearly superior garment care.
action: You wear the suit
response: The suit is somewhat flimsy. You'd better not wear it until you really need it or you might tear the thing.
action: Go south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand closed.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

The split-flap display whirs into life, reporting the elevator's transit from floor to floor.
action: You look at the display
response: A single call button glows beside the elevator doors. The floor indicator has a split-flip display currently reading "BASEMENT".

The split-flap display stops on "BASEMENT". The elevator call button goes dark, and the metal doors slide open.
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: You go east
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You swipe your keycard through the keycard reader. After a moment, the door emits a loud click and the airlock door slides open.

Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.

You can also see a typewriter key, a small-caliber pistol, a small brass key, a ridged key and some severed fingers here.
action: You take all
response: typewriter key: You pick up the typewriter key.
small-caliber pistol: You pick up the small-caliber pistol.
small brass key: You pick up the small brass key.
ridged key: You pick up the ridged key.
severed fingers: You pick up the severed fingers.
action: You wear the suit
response: (the clean hazard suit)
You clamber awkwardly into the suit. It takes you several minutes to figure out how to get your hands into the gloves at the end of the sleeves without having to zip it up first, but after some struggling you are completely suited up. You check all of the airtight zippers and make sure that the filter is letting you breathe properly. You feel clumsy and big, but you should be protected from all but the most minute contaminants. Unless the suit tears, of course.
action: Go east
response: Biohazard Lab, Mt Airy Hospital
This room seems to have been the subject of some kind of massive biological explosion. Some kind of glistening, mealy red substance similar to ground meat is splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling in large patches. The substance seems to have a life of its own, pulsing and undulating in great colonies. Large piles of it merge and separate.

The room itself seems to have been some kind of biological experimentation laboratory. You can see a large sink along one wall, with nozzles for a bunsen burner mounted next to it. While most of the counters are covered with the disgusting red substance, one table is mostly untouched thanks to an overhanging edge.

On the table is a measuring pipette, fixed in place above a wooden test tube rack. There's also a small lab refrigerator branded with a biohazard symbol.

The bottom of a glass test tube projects from a mound of the mealy red stuff.
action: You look at the rack
response: A wooden rack with holes and divots for holding test tubes. It's currently empty.
action: You examine the fridge
response: The refrigerator is half-sized, like a dorm fridge, but designed to contain various heat-sensitive biological supplies instead of beer. A striking orange and black biohazard symbol has been stickered to the front. Unlike so much else in the room, the refrigerator appears uncontaminated by the red mass.

The internal airlock door slides closed with a hiss and and locks with a click.
action: You examine the suit
response: It's a thin white hazard suit. While not very durable, a combination of a charcoal air filter and an airtight fiber weave should serve to protect the wearer from most environmental hazards. Mealy red stuff smears the outside of the hazard suit, giving it a certain butchery chic look.
action: You look at sink
response: The mealy red substance covers this large sink. Next to it are some equally contaminated-looking bunsen burner nozzles.
action: You examine the nozzles
response: There are two of the cone-shaped, ridged nozzles, each with a handle on top. If there were a bunsen burner nearby, you could connect it to one of these. Unfortunately, you see no such thing. Worse, the nozzles seem to be covered with red goo and rust.
action: You open fridge
response: You open the small lab refrigerator, revealing a vial of blood and a legal-size page.
action: You take all from the fridge
response: ["take all from fridge" is vague - please be more specific with your command.]
action: You take the page from the fridge
response: You pick up the legal-size page.

You add the legal-size page to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: The legal-size page reads:

From the desk of Dr. Edward Atwater, M.D., Ph.D.
April 25th, 1978
I'll be damned, they're really buying it. McMoneagle's due to be
dosed within the next few days.
I am not a completely heartless man. It is a popular conceit in
this office, and I suppose I cannot blame anyone for thinking so. But I have been here for years, now, and overseen the snuffing out of over a dozen lives. With each death I hope to the godless heavens that Corona will see the depth of its mistake, realize that experimenting with a lethal parasite and calling it a symbiont will not make wishes come true. If we want to join the Project it will only be through methodical chicanery, not methodical murder.
What do they want of me? To become McMoneagle's friend, like
"kindly old Doc Yehuda?" To have faith in the absence of reason, like "Crazy 'Lainey?" I dread to think of how crushed they will be when the young man's brain floods itself with chemicals. I will be the only staff member in his right mind.
I am not a monster. I am a doctor. To hell with anyone who doesn't understand that.
action: You look at the vial
response: It's a small vial of dark red blood with a handwritten label on the front.
action: You read it
response: The vial is labelled "Ian McMoneagle, 5/10/78".
action: You examine the pipette
response: It's a long, very thin tube with a valve to control the flow of liquid through it. It is mounted in place above the test tube rack. The pipette is marked with numbered graduations along its side to aid with measurement, and it is flared at the top so that pouring liquid into it is easier.
action: You close the fridge
response: You close the small lab refrigerator.
action: Inventory
response: You're wearing a sludge-smeared hazard suit, which is excellent protection, but which does give the world a certain surreal quality as seen through the faceplate. You are carrying some severed fingers, a ridged key, a small brass key, a small-caliber pistol, a typewriter key, a Corona Labs keycard and your notes.
action: You examine table
response: A black stone table. Its edge extends outward from the solid wood base supporting it, and the hanging edge seems to have kept any of the red goo from making it to the top of the table. It's a miracle that none has fallen down from the ceiling.
action: You examine the red substance
response: You study the goop for a moment. It's a pulsating mass of red, mealy, meat reminiscent of nothing so much as living, malevolent sloppy joe filling.
action: You examine test tube
response: (the sludge-encrusted test tube)
A dark brown substance clings to the inside of the test tube.
action: You take it
response: You pull the test tube out of the churning mound of mealy red stuff.
action: You look at the brown substance
response: A dark brown substance clings to the inside of the test tube.
action: You smell it
response: From inside the hazard suit, most smells are muted under your own body odor, but you can still pick up a faint meaty reek.
action: You read the tube
response: (the sludge-encrusted test tube)
There's nothing written on the sludge-encrusted test tube.
action: Look around
response: Biohazard Lab, Mt Airy Hospital
This room seems to have been the subject of some kind of massive biological explosion. Some kind of glistening, mealy red substance similar to ground meat is splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling in large patches. The substance seems to have a life of its own, pulsing and undulating in great colonies. Large piles of it merge and separate.

The room itself seems to have been some kind of biological experimentation laboratory. You can see a large sink along one wall, with nozzles for a bunsen burner mounted next to it. While most of the counters are covered with the disgusting red substance, one table is mostly untouched thanks to an overhanging edge.

On the table is a measuring pipette, fixed in place above a wooden test tube rack. There's also a small lab refrigerator branded with a biohazard symbol.
action: Search goop
response: Wincing, you grope about for a moment in the sludge near the door until you encounter something that feels like a button.
action: Go west
response: Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

A few slowly shifting tendrils of red, mealy meat have made their way into the airlock.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: You close the entry door
response: The internal airlock door resists your attempt to close it.
action: You go east
response: You push the button marked "ENTRY". The internal airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

Biohazard Lab, Mt Airy Hospital
This room seems to have been the subject of some kind of massive biological explosion. Some kind of glistening, mealy red substance similar to ground meat is splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling in large patches. The substance seems to have a life of its own, pulsing and undulating in great colonies. Large piles of it merge and separate.

The room itself seems to have been some kind of biological experimentation laboratory. You can see a large sink along one wall, with nozzles for a bunsen burner mounted next to it. While most of the counters are covered with the disgusting red substance, one table is mostly untouched thanks to an overhanging edge.

On the table is a measuring pipette, fixed in place above a wooden test tube rack. There's also a small lab refrigerator branded with a biohazard symbol.
action: You put the tube in the rack
response: (the clean glass test tube in the wooden test tube rack)
You lower the clean glass test tube through a hole in the wooden test tube rack and nestle its base into the appropriate divot.
action: You look at your surroundings
response: Laundry, Mt Airy Hospital
There is no mistaking the purpose of this room. Industrial washers and dryers line the walls of this room, and three canvas-walled carts filled with dirty linens squat awaiting their purpose. The room stinks of offal, blood and bleach all at the same time. On the east wall, a large sink made of heavy-duty steel sits, but its long faucet is bent at a peculiar angle and it is missing both handles. A particularly large laundry machine looms at the end of the row.

An open door leads south out of the room.

There's a human skeleton lying on the tiled floor. It's wearing a very clean lab coat.

You can also see a laundry bin (in which is a heap of soiled sheets) here.
action: Go south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand closed.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: You wait awhile
response: Time passes.

The split-flap display stops on "BASEMENT". The elevator call button goes dark, and the metal doors slide open.
action: You put the suit on the hook
response: (the clean hazard suit on the small brass hook)
You set the clean hazard suit on the small brass hook.
action: Go west
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.

The airlock door slides closed with a hiss and locks with a click.
action: Alarm
response: You push the alarm button, and a strident bell rings out, filling the elevator painfully for a long moment. The sound dies away, but the ringing in your head takes a bit longer to fade.
action: You examine Alice
response: Which do you mean, small piece of unlined paper, Alice 5/12/78, Alice 4/17/78 or Alice 4/30/78?
action: Unlined
response: Which do you mean, small piece of unlined paper, Alice 5/12/78, EGB 4/20/78, EGB 5/12/78, EGB 5/12/78, EGB 4/7/78, EGB 3/20/77, Alice 4/17/78, Alice 4/30/78 or EGB 5/3/78?
action: You go south
response: The only way out of the elevator is through the elevator doors to the east.
action: You go south
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Long banks of fluorescent lights cast sharp shadows along the half-familiar, half-unfamiliar hallway, which continues off to the north. The tiled floor is only a shade darker than the dull off-white walls. A strange, unpleasant odor hangs in the air and stings your nostrils. The door to Room 320 is across the hall to the west.

A windowless door leads east into the testing room's antechamber.
action: You go west
response: Room 320, Mt Airy Hospital
A broad ivory spike protrudes from the floor and pierces the ceiling, transfixing the corpse of a slender, dark-haired woman on the way.
Her blood stands starkly red against the dull white tile and walls. The room's furnishings - a hospital bed, a bookshelf, a dresser - have been smashed into a still-recognizable pile of twisted metal and wood on the west side of the room. Thousands of pieces of shredded paper, none much larger than a fingernail, cover the floor near the wreckage and shiver in the slight breath from the broken window. The only exit is to the east.
action: You look at Alice
response: (the the corpse of the young nurse)
The woman impaled on the white spike is dressed as you imagine a nurse might have been in the seventies, with a button-down skirt that must once have been clean white. Her face, frozen in a look of wide-eyed shock, indicates asian-american heritage and youth.
action: You search Alice
response: (the the corpse of the young nurse)
You go briefly and quickly through the dead nurse's pockets, but you find nothing of interest.
action: You put the brass key in Alice
response: (the the corpse of the young nurse)
That can't contain things.
action: You give the brass key to Alice
response: You can only do that to something animate.
action: Examine tv
response: It's a wall-mounted television monitor, antique by your standards. The screen seems to be split into two halves, but one half is completely dark. The other shows a familiar sight: the testing chamber. A skinny young man is hunched on a chair in the corner of the room, next to the table. A timestamp shows in blocky white font on the bottom of the monitor: MAY 12 1978 20:02.
action: No
response: Are you sure you want to do this? (y/n) >Please answer yes or no.> You let out your breath in a long hiss. You know that you must eventually open the test chamber, but you have to be absolutely prepared.
action: You go south
response: Boiler Room, Mt Airy Hospital
A single incandescent bulb behind a metal cage provides harsh yet inadequate light to this room. A maze of large pipes runs along the ceiling. Most of said pipes lead to a large boiler that squats in front of you, easily taking up three quarters of the small room's real estate. A door to the north leads back to the hallway.

A metal box is mounted on the wall, about the right size for a fire axe. The glass on the front is broken, and the broken glass is strewn near the foot of the box. You see no fire axe anywhere nearby.
action: You look at box
response: The metal box's glass has been shattered, and someone has taken the fire axe from it.
action: You examine Boiler
response: It's a large metal boiler. A gentle hiss comes from it, so you assume that it's still functional. You don't see any visible controls, but even if you did you don't think you'd know what to do with them.
action: You take the pipe
response: The pipes are firmly fixed in place.
action: Go south
response: The only routes open to you are a door to the north labelled "Autopsy Room/Morgue" and a hallway leading back to the west. There's also a door to the east, but it's too damaged to open.
action: Go north
response: You open the autopsy room door.

Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A sheet of typewriter paper lies on the floor very near the hallway door.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.

You can also see a ruined bonesaw here.
action: You take the paper
response: (sheet of typewriter paper)
You pick up sheet of typewriter paper.

You add sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read it
response: You already have that.

The sheet of typewriter paper reads:

Unofficial log, April 15, 11:00 am
I suppose someone must have listened to Elaine's assertion that
this test subject was different from the rest, since we've just gained a new member of the team.
This was not a pleasant cup of chicory to down first thing in the morning. Don't get me wrong -- I would love, more than anything, to welcome Simon Cross to our ranks, and G-d knows that we could stand to gain another team member. Of all of the positions we had open prior to today, however, I'm not sure I ever would have counted "Company Spook" among them.
Perhaps I am being unfair, but it is my opinion that hypnotizing yourself into believing that a knife is a rolling pin will not prevent you from needing stitches after trying to make bread dough. Cross's official title is "auditor." He claims that he is here to oversee Corona's professional interests in the Project, and I don't doubt him one bit. Cross oozes "professional interests." He brushes his teeth with it, or he wouldn't be able to give me that sharkish grin.
Still, we are bedfellows now. There's nothing to do but see to it
that he is comfortable ... and bored.
- Theo Yehuda

The hallway door swings closed. There's a click as the lock reengages.
action: You read the notes
response: The sheet of typewriter paper reads:

Unofficial log, April 15, 11:00 am
I suppose someone must have listened to Elaine's assertion that
this test subject was different from the rest, since we've just gained a new member of the team.
This was not a pleasant cup of chicory to down first thing in the morning. Don't get me wrong -- I would love, more than anything, to welcome Simon Cross to our ranks, and G-d knows that we could stand to gain another team member. Of all of the positions we had open prior to today, however, I'm not sure I ever would have counted "Company Spook" among them.
Perhaps I am being unfair, but it is my opinion that hypnotizing yourself into believing that a knife is a rolling pin will not prevent you from needing stitches after trying to make bread dough. Cross's official title is "auditor." He claims that he is here to oversee Corona's professional interests in the Project, and I don't doubt him one bit. Cross oozes "professional interests." He brushes his teeth with it, or he wouldn't be able to give me that sharkish grin.
Still, we are bedfellows now. There's nothing to do but see to it
that he is comfortable ... and bored.
- Theo Yehuda
action: You look at your surroundings
response: Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.

You can also see a ruined bonesaw here.
action: You search the coat
response: The bloodstained lab coat is empty.
action: You take it
response: The bloodstained lab coat is wet to the touch, but you pull it out of the wastebasket and smooth it out.
action: You look at it
response: The neck, back, and shoulder of the lab coat are wet with disconcertingly fresh blood. However, the lower half, including the pockets, are unstained. Through the scarlet stain, you read the embroidered name: Dr. Theodore M. Yehuda
action: You examine Atwater
response: You flip through your notes until you come to the Atwater 4/3/78 entry.

Your notes consist of a sheaf of various papers that you found scattered about this facility. Currently, a legal-size page written on 4/3/78 by Atwater is the topmost page.

Lines of neat, professional script in black pen run across the surface of the legal-size page.
action: You go south
response: There's no visible lock on this side, but you try the door anyway. The hidden lock releases under your hand.

You open the hallway door.

Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
At this end of the dingy basement hall, the only intact door is labelled with a black sign reading "Autopsy Room/Morgue".

A white 10-digit keypad is attached to the wall beside the door.

In the adjoining wall, a bent doorframe holds a severely dented metal door that has been very badly dented toward you.
action: You put the coat in machine
response: (the bloodstained lab coat in the laundry machine)
You drop the bloodstained lab coat into the cilia-filled tube of the laundry machine. The cilia crawl across its surface, first slowly, and then with increasing agitation. Then, with a sudden heave, the laundry machine expels the bloodstained lab coat in a beautiful arc through the air.

The bloodstained lab coat sails through the air to land in the laundry bin. With a sharp twitch, the laundry machine slams its lid shut.
action: You look at the coat
response: Which do you mean, the clean lab coat or the bloodstained lab coat?
action: You open the machine
response: You lift the lid of the large laundry machine, revealing the fleshy, cilia-lined tube within.
action: You take the bloodstained coat
response: You pick up the bloodstained lab coat.
action: You put it in the machine
response: You drop the bloodstained lab coat into the cilia-filled tube of the laundry machine. The cilia crawl across its surface, first slowly, and then with increasing agitation. Then, with a sudden heave, the laundry machine expels the bloodstained lab coat directly into your forehead.

You reel in surprise at the impact as the bloodstained lab coat falls to the ground. With a sharp twitch, the laundry machine slams its lid shut.
action: You put the pistol in the machine
response: You lift the lid of the large laundry machine, revealing the fleshy, cilia-lined tube within.

You drop the small-caliber pistol into the cilia-filled tube of the laundry machine. The cilia crawl across its surface, first slowly, and then with increasing agitation. Then, with a sudden heave, the laundry machine expels the small-caliber pistol in a beautiful arc through the air.

The small-caliber pistol sails through the air to land in the sink. With a sharp twitch, the laundry machine slams its lid shut.
action: Go south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: You go to the east
response: Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into a strange fleshy tube, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
action: You examine chair
response: The chairs, which are neither new nor cheap, have diagonal metal legs that come together to a support in the center, onto which is bolted a molded plastic frame. You remember seeing chairs like this in multipurpose rooms at schools.
action: You look at the pipes
response: The pipe maze is sufficiently complex that you fear for the original designer's sanity. Forking here, twisting back there, studded with valves and levers - what was it all intended for, anyway?

One pipe near the door has a red-handled lever of mysterious purpose that is particularly prominent.
action: You examine the lever
response: Inspecting the pipe maze, you find a red-handled lever within reach on the wall. Its purpose is mysterious to you.
action: You pull lever
response: From somewhere in the pipe maze, you hear a sharp hiss of steam, but your mind reels strangely. It seems like the hiss is as much within your head as outside it, and you feel very peculiar. The room twists sideways....

As your outer eyes close, your inner eye opens. Dimly, you perceive the way your ribs collide with a rectangular table and the way your body collapses to the floor, but you're not there any more.
action: Inventory
response: There's a nice white leather satchel over your shoulder, and you keep just about everything you need in there. Like almost always, your hair is braided back with a set of gold and blue beads.

You stifle a yawn. You could really go for a double right now.
action: You examine the machine
response: The espresso machine is fairly inexpensive, but produces good enough coffee for you. That's all that matters since you're probably the only person who knows how to operate it. It is already loaded and tamped; you prepped it earlier today.

In the espresso machine is a pretty white demitasse.
action: You turn on the machine
response: You switch on the espresso machine. It makes a familiar hissing sound as hot steam is forced through tightly-packed espresso grounds.

The espresso machine makes an unexpected popping noise. The hissing noise jumps in volume as the steam wand suddenly starts spewing hot vapor.
action: You turn off the machine
response: In theory, it's already off. In practice, something seems to be horribly wrong with it - the din continues unabated, and steam spews in all directions.

The steam wand of the espresso machine continues to spew hot vapor.
action: You leave
response: The only exit from the break room is into the hallway there, to the west.

A loud noise like a gunshot erupts from the espresso machine, and you flinch back from it. A powerful blast of vapor issues from the espresso machine's nozzle, shattering the demitasse into tiny shards. Menacing steam begins to leak from other crevices in the device.
action: Go west
response: You start moving toward the door, but are interrupted as a pipe near the door violently bursts, spraying hot water vapor across the entrance. You are trapped inside the cafeteria.

Unprompted, the microwave lights up, turning on. The bowl inside slowly rotates.
action: You turn off microwave
response: You press the "stop" button on the microwave. Nothing happens.

The bowl in the microwave begins to bubble over with overheated liquid.
action: You break the microwave
response: Attempting to break the microwave seems futile.

The microwave fills with steam. You begin to hear strange noises from the pipes above you.

Caught in the power of Best's mind, strung out on her confusion and alarm, you fight to preserve your thoughts. You are not Best Ife, Elizabeth Ife, Abeni Ife - you are yourself. This isn't you.
action: You turn on the sink
response: You're perfectly clean already.

The microwave suddenly bursts open, billowing clouds of hot steam. As if on cue, you hear a deafening report from the back of the refrigerator and see steam jet out from behind it.

She's going to die. You can feel her death coming.
action: You open the satchel
response: You click the clasps open on the white satchel.

A groaning noise comes from above.

But this isn't you. This isn't how you die.
action: You look in the satchel
response: That's already open.

In the white satchel are a Richard Feynman biography and a large red paperback.

With a hideous shriek, the maze of pipes above you explodes, issuing a wave of superheated water vapor. You cannot escape the steam as it fills the room. Best gasps for breath as she is bathed in burning moisture.

Not you. Not you!
action: You read the paperback
response: You're out of time.

Best stumbles toward the exit, but not fast enough. She collapses to the ground, unable to take a breath, literally boiling alive. As she tumbles to the floor, her blurring vision documents the way her skin peels away against the edge of a tile, and her ravaged nerves report the fiery sensation all the way up her arm. She covers her head with her arms and succumbs to the loss of her senses.

Not you.

Your mind flees from hers, and Abeni Elizabeth Ife dies alone in a watery hell.
action: You wait for a while
response: Press any key to continue.
action: Y.
response: It has to be true.
action: Wait
response: Press any key to continue.

You're lying on the ground. You slowly get to your feet.

Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into a strange fleshy tube, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
I beg your pardon?
action: You pull the lever
response: Nothing obvious happens.
action: You look around
response: Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into a strange fleshy tube, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
action: You examine the lights
response: The fluorescent lights cast their stark, unflattering light from behind frosted plastic covers.
action: You go to the south
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You try unlocking the door to room 323 with the ridged key and the small brass key, but you don't have a key to fit the lock.
action: You pull the lever
response: From somewhere in the pipe maze, you hear a sharp hiss of steam, but your mind reels strangely. It seems like the hiss is as much within your head as outside it, and you feel very peculiar. The room twists sideways....

As your outer eyes close, your inner eye opens. Dimly, you perceive the way your ribs collide with a rectangular table and the way your body collapses to the floor, but you're not there any more.
Press any key to continue.

You reorient slowly. You're still in a cafeteria, but you recognize this place - surrounded by the cheerful bustle of chatty office workers from elsewhere in the building, you sat here and drank tea with Dr. Ephart.

Your awareness doubles - you remember drinking tea with Dr. Ephart after signing your guinea pig contract, but there's an echo in your mind, the echo of tens or hundreds of other snacks and meals grabbed quickly in this room, either alone or with others. These thoughts aren't yours, but they strike and dissolve upon your own thoughts like falling raindrops, shifting them subtly with every touch. Grasping for inner purchase, you come up with a name:

Abeni - no, Elizabeth, Elizabeth "Best" - Ife.

And with the name comes identity:

I said my name was Elizabeth, and they called me Betsy, then Bets. When Marlene's kid garbled it to Best, I kept it - that was perfect! I'll be the best they've ever seen. A lab tech now, but that's just the start. I'm as good as anyone else in Corona, and if they really just care about skill - well, this is the way in and the way up. Even for a woman. Even for a foreigner. To hell with their prejudices.

Her thoughts are inflicted strangely - there's a lilt to them, a sway. You realize that she isn't really thinking in English, but you seem to be translating it well enough. Still, focusing on her mind is like staring into a driving rainstorm - it blinds you and dazes you with its force. You shift your focus outward and see:

Only a few hours ago, the room was bustling with people from the building's various offices, but now it's completely empty save for you and the furniture. The room is large enough to be a cafeteria, but apart from a dozen or so cafeteria tables, it isn't furnished like one. The room bears only a small kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, sink, and a tabletop espresso machine.

The exit to the hallway is opposite the kitchenette, to the west.

Best needs espresso, badly!
action: Y.
response: That was a rhetorical question.
action: Inventory
response: There's a nice white leather satchel over your shoulder, and you keep just about everything you need in there. Like almost always, your hair is braided back with a set of gold and blue beads.
action: You open the satchel
response: You click the clasps open on the white satchel.

Your eyes droop a little, reminding you of why you came here in the first place.
action: You open the satchel
response: That's already open.

Best needs espresso, badly!
action: You look in it
response: That's already open.

In the white satchel are a Richard Feynman biography and a large red paperback.
action: You get Feynman
response: You pick up the Richard Feynman biography.

You stifle a yawn. You could really go for a double right now.
action: You read Feynman
response: Dr. Ensfield loaned you this biography, and, rather to your amazement, you loved it. You need to give this one back and get your own copy. It's called Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! For a physicist, Richard Feynman got up to some absolutely crazy shit - playing the bongos, going to Japan and Brazil, sending puzzle letters with his wife to dodge the government censors, and so on.

You even had the chance to try out one of his stunts. After reading about how he cracked all the locks at Los Alamos, you went wandering around the building in search of locks to try his techniques on, and you went into a whole bunch of filing cabinets with no one the wiser. You also found this great old desk hidden in the basement with a safe bolted onto it. That was totally weird! You managed to get it open, and there were even some papers inside....

That's been bothering you, a bit - because the papers in there were old, but they talked about a set of experiments that sounded very familiar. There's no way anyone else could know about Naegleria splendens, is there? You passed them over to Dr. Ephart - she'll figure out what to do from here.

Where is your mind going? You must need that espresso very badly!

Something inside you (not Best, but you) snaps shut like a clamshell, preserving that moment and that memory. It might be important....
action: You go to the north
response: The only exit from the break room is into the hallway there, to the west.
action: Go west
response: You hesitate, casting a regretful look back at the espresso machine, but... maybe you should lay back on the caffeine a little. People joke about how wired you get. But you like the feeling - being up and high and confident and capable. Having the world melt away in a headache is much less fun.

You turn away from the espresso machine and start toward the hallway, but you're interrupted by a strange noise. Looking back, you see that the steam wand of the espresso machine has started spewing vapor. That's extremely weird.

The steam wand of the espresso machine continues to spew hot vapor.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

A loud noise like a gunshot erupts from the espresso machine, and you flinch back from it. A powerful blast of vapor issues from the espresso machine's nozzle, shattering the demitasse into tiny shards. Menacing steam begins to leak from other crevices in the device.
action: You wait for a while
response: Time passes.

Unprompted, the microwave lights up, turning on. The bowl inside slowly rotates.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

The bowl in the microwave begins to bubble over with overheated liquid.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

The microwave fills with steam. You begin to hear strange noises from the pipes above you.

Caught in the power of Best's mind, strung out on her confusion and alarm, you fight to preserve your thoughts. You are not Best Ife, Elizabeth Ife, Abeni Ife - you are yourself. This isn't you.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

The microwave suddenly bursts open, billowing clouds of hot steam. As if on cue, you hear a deafening report from the back of the refrigerator and see steam jet out from behind it.

She's going to die. You can feel her death coming.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

A groaning noise comes from above. Looking up, you discover a maze of pipes wending over the ceiling and down the walls - pipes that, Best thinks dazedly, almost certainly weren't there at lunchtime.

But this isn't you. This isn't how you die.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

With a hideous shriek, the maze of pipes above you explodes, issuing a wave of superheated water vapor. You cannot escape the steam as it fills the room. Best gasps for breath as she is bathed in burning moisture.

Not you. Not you!
action: You read the paperback
response: You're out of time.

Best stumbles toward the exit, but not fast enough. She collapses to the ground, unable to take a breath, literally boiling alive. As she tumbles to the floor, her blurring vision documents the way her skin peels away against the edge of a tile, and her ravaged nerves report the fiery sensation all the way up her arm. She covers her head with her arms and succumbs to the loss of her senses.

Not you.

Your mind flees from hers, and Abeni Elizabeth Ife dies alone in a watery hell.
Press any key to continue.
action: Y.
response: It has to be true.
Press any key to continue.

You're lying on the ground. You slowly get to your feet.

Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into a strange fleshy tube, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
action: You read paperback
response: You've already read it. You're just carrying it around because you're planning to loan it to Rayjay - he needs some help loosening up and a reminder not to take himself so seriously. He's always so stiff and formal, which makes sense, since he's working with Dr. Ensfield all the time - but Rayjay's sour too, and that worries you. Dr. Ensfield's not sour. Plus, Rayjay is the only person anywhere near your age at Corona, and it would be nice if he weren't such a grapefruit.

A groaning noise comes from above. Looking up, you discover a maze of pipes wending over the ceiling and down the walls - pipes that, Best thinks dazedly, almost certainly weren't there at lunchtime.

But this isn't you. This isn't how you die.
action: You look at the paperback
response: This is a copy of Tales from the Securemarket, this great future fantasy about gun-toting supermarket employees in a weird version of Washington DC.

A groaning noise comes from above. Looking up, you discover a maze of pipes wending over the ceiling and down the walls - pipes that, Best thinks dazedly, almost certainly weren't there at lunchtime.

But this isn't you. This isn't how you die.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

With a hideous shriek, the maze of pipes above you explodes, issuing a wave of superheated water vapor. You cannot escape the steam as it fills the room. Best gasps for breath as she is bathed in burning moisture.

Not you. Not you!
action: Y.
response: It has to be true.
Press any key to continue.

You're lying on the ground. You slowly get to your feet.

Cafeteria, Mt Airy Hospital
The hospital's cafeteria is not very large, but it's still enough to seat a few dozen people at a time. Rows of rectangular tables covered in wood veneer are surrounded by a gauntlet of cheap chairs made of metal and molded plastic. The ceiling is higher here than elsewhere in the hospital; the fluorescent lights hang down, surrounded by a maze of exposed pipe running through the room. A gap in the wall to the east looks into a strange fleshy tube, and below it, a set of metal rails is mounted on the wall, suitable for resting a tray on.

The open doorway to the west leads back to the hallway. Next to the door is a hulking vending machine.
I beg your pardon?
action: Go west
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
The overhead lights are shattered to the north and south, leaving this solitary space brightly lit in the white-walled hallway. Looking to the south, you can glimpse the dim squares of light that are the windows of the far-distant lobby. Twin doors stand open across the hallway, and a placard beside them reads "CAFETERIA". The elevator doors are to the west.

There is a handwritten menu taped below the placard.
action: You look in machine
response: You push open the plastic flap. Inside the compartment of the vending machine, you see: nothing.
action: You get menu
response: You pull the menu off the wall.

You add the handwritten menu to your existing collection of pages.
action: You go south
response: You walk south down the hall toward the distant lobby.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Above, the lights are shattered, leaving this part of the hallway dark, and shards of glass crunch softly underfoot. To the south, the lobby windows shine like a will-o-the-wisp. To the north, harsh fluorescent lights still illuminate the hall near the elevator.
action: You feel the floor
response: You feel your way cautiously across the darkened floor, but you encounter only curved shards and prickling splinters.
action: Go north
response: More quickly than you might have expected, you reach the well-lit square by the cafeteria and the elevator.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
The overhead lights are shattered to the north and south, leaving this solitary space brightly lit in the white-walled hallway. Looking to the south, you can glimpse the dim squares of light that are the windows of the far-distant lobby. Twin doors stand open across the hallway, and a placard beside them reads "CAFETERIA". The elevator doors are to the west.
action: Go west
response: You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: Unlock safe
response: (the black safe)
Resting your fingers on the dial for a moment, you close your eyes and call up Best's memory.

The room was shadowed and full of dust. How long since anyone had been down there? Since you'd picked the lock to get into the room in the first place, probably pretty long, but you were so bored, and exploring was fun.

The safe was a surprise. What a weird old desk, with the safe bolted onto its leg! You tried to open it, but it was still locked. You leaned into it just a bit, and you started turning the dial slowly, feeling the numbers shift under your fingers. You recognized the little shift in friction when it came - "you don't have to sandpaper your fingertips", Feynman wrote, and he was right. It was amazing - a small success, a minor exploration, but perfect all the same.

Releasing the memory, you open your eyes. The safe opens under your hand.
action: You look in safe
response: (the black safe)
That's already open.

>(the black safe)
In the black safe is a secret document.
action: You get the document
response: A sense of relief, quiet but intense, courses through you. You feel strongly that you have done something right.

You add the secret document to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The secret document reads: Examining hyperkinetic reactions related to intravenously induced symbiotic amoebic meningoencephalitis....

At least, you think that's what the first line says - the terminology's mostly unfamiliar, and the handwriting is an abominable scrawl. From what you can determine, these notes are the very early planning stages for a cure to combat the lethal effects of a particularly virulent amoebic infection.

Unfortunately, the notes never seem to get to an actual cure. There's extensive discussion of the ineffectiveness of Amphotericin B, for example, and the author's confusion and dismay over this are painfully clear.
action: You open the machine
response: That's already open.
action: You put the fingers in the machine
response: You drop the severed fingers into the cilia-filled tube of the laundry machine and close the lid.

The laundry machine starts up with an audible whine and a whirring noise that increases in frequency as its internal motors (or muscles, you suppose) spin up.
action: You open the machine
response: You lift the lid of the large laundry machine, revealing the fleshy, cilia-lined tube within, and flinch in surprise as some small objects burst out of the laundry machine, bounce off your face and clatter to the floor. A quick look around reveals that the fingers you dropped into the laundry machine have now been reduced to twelve finger bones, each one bleached white by the machine's industrious cilia.
action: You get the bones
response: You pick up the handful of fingerbones.
action: You look at the bones
response: Twelve clean white fingerbones, created by dropping four severed fingers into a monstrous laundry machine.
action: You drop the bones
response: You toss the fingerbones on the ground, and they clatter across it like dice before coming to a rest.
action: Go south
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.
action: You go north
response: You push the 5 key.

You push the 7 key.

(the 1 key)
You push the 1 key.

You push the 3 key.

A green light flashes on the keypad, and the door unlocks with a click.

You open the autopsy room door.

Autopsy Room, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here is thin with an astringent, chemical smell that makes you feel light-headed. Counters and cabinets line the west and north walls of the room, with a pair of sinks in the middle of each. Every surface you see is immaculate save for the metal table in the center of the room. On it, a corpse in a cut-up suit has been laid in a spread-eagled position, with dozens of surgical tools protruding from its dissected torso. Flaps of skin from the corpse's torso stretch towards the ceiling, suspended by thin pieces of surgical thread.

A sheet of typewriter paper lies on the floor very near the hallway door.

A door made of heavy, insulated glass leads to another room to the east.

The door to the hallway lies to the south.

You can also see a ruined bonesaw here.
action: You get the sheet
response: Which do you mean, Pearce 5/8/78, Pearce 4/16/78, Pearce 5/12/78 or Pearce 5/1/78?
action: You get the typewriter
response: (Yehuda 4/2)
You flip through your notes until you come to the Yehuda 4/2 entry.

You already have that.
action: Hint
response: Ah, you're looking for some assistance? Welcome to the hint system.

Dice were probably originally made from the ankle bones of hoofed animals, but their nickname of "knucklebones" can give the impression that original dice were made from the bones of human fingers.
action: You get the typewriter paper
response: You pick up sheet of typewriter paper.

You add sheet of typewriter paper to your existing collection of pages.

The hallway door swings closed. There's a click as the lock reengages.
action: You look in the sink
response: The sink is empty.
action: You drop the bones
response: You toss the fingerbones on the ground, and they clatter across it like dice before coming to a rest.
action: You examine the sink
response: Literally the cleanest sink you have ever seen, the polished steel of the basin gleams like a mirror. A long faucet curves in a neat arc over the sink and its long handles flank the faucet like wings.
action: You put the bones in the sink
response: You place the handful of fingerbones in the sink.
action: Go west
response: Basement Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
Grime coats the frosted covers of the overhead lights, causing the peeling walls and tiled floors to look shadowed and ugly. The laundry room's large entrance to the north opposes the boiler room door to the south. To the west, an elevator's doors stand open.

An open door leads north into the laundry room.

A swollen corpse with visibly broken limbs lies on the floor a short distance from the elevator doors.

You step into the elevator.

Elevator, Mt Airy Hospital
The elevator is just big enough to fit the length of a standard hospital gurney and not much else. Unlike the dull white walls of the rest of the hall, the elevator's interior is crafted with burnished steel. The fluorescent lights above shine through a thick metal grate.

There are floor buttons for B through 4 on the control panel. There is also a button marked "Alarm" and a key switch marked "Fire".
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

Time passes.

Time passes.

Time passes.
action: You go east
response: You step through the elevator doors into the familiar stench of the fourth floor hallway.

Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: You go north
response: Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
While the single toilet here appears to be whole and undamaged, it is filled nearly to the brim with some kind of thick, reddish-brown substance that you cannot immediately identify. The sink's faucet is off, and the sink is filled to the brim with water. An undamaged mirror sits above the sink.

A gray door to the south leads out of the bathroom.
action: You throw the bones
response: You toss the handful of fingerbones onto the ground, where they splash into the water. You stare at them for a moment, but nothing happens. You sigh and move to pick them up, only to realize that your reflection does not bend down as you do.

You straighten your back slowly, looking at the mirror. A skinny, gaunt-faced young man, naked to the waist, stares at you with piercing green eyes from behind the mirror's surface. You stare back. The mirror explodes with no warning, pelting you painfully with glass.
You stumble against the rear wall, throwing your hands over your stinging face and eyes....

You remain frozen in place for a moment, then cautiously move your arms away from your face. The pain is gone; your skin is undamaged. Your reflection again shows your own face. The fingerbones sit on the floor. You scoop them up again.

You toss the fingerbones on the ground, and they clatter across it like dice before coming to a rest.
action: You look in the sink
response: (the metal sink)
The metal sink is empty.
action: You get the stopper
response: You pull the stopper out of the drain by its chain, causing the water to immediately begin draining from the sink.

Water continues to drain from the sink through its pipes.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

Water continues to drain from the sink through its pipes.

You are startled by a loud, splashing clang! You see that a u-bend section of pipe has disconnected and fallen to the floor. Water pours from the disconnected drainpipe directly to the floor now.
action: You look at the sink
response: You can't see any such thing.

>(the metal sink)
The sink contains clean, clear water, which is now emptying from the sink through its drain (and from there onto the floor, since the pipe is missing). At the bottom of the sink, you can see that the sink's drain is unplugged. A chain leads from behind the faucet to a rubber stopper.

Water continues to drain from the sink onto the floor.
action: You look in the pipe
response: It's a useless piece of pipe. Not even Professor Plum could use it as an effective weapon.

In the rusty u-bend pipe is a crumpled piece of plastic.

Water continues to drain from the sink onto the floor.
action: You get the plastic
response: (the crumpled piece of plastic)
You reach carefully into the pipe and pull out the plastic thing. It snags on the edge of the pipe, but you manage to get it out. It's a crumpled plastic baggie containing a folded piece of paper.

Immediately after you remove the baggie, something else falls out of the pipe. You manage to catch it reflexively and discover that you have a steel key.

Water continues to drain from the sink onto the floor.

The sink, now empty, ceases to pour water on the floor. The room is now silent.
action: You get paper from the baggie
response: You can't see any such thing.

>(the folded piece of paper from the ripped plastic baggie)
You remove the folded page from the ripped plastic baggie, unfold it, and smooth it out as best as you can. It turns out to be a small page torn from a compact notebook.

You add the small page torn from a compact notebook to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The small page torn from a compact notebook reads:

S.C. - Entry 1978-04-15-1400

Mr. Schuyler was right; there is entirely too much humanity in this project.
Only Atwater displays even the remotest scrap of professional detachment, which he manages to keep entirely useless through the judicious application of insecurity and megalomania. Yehuda, while observant and quick-thinking, is entirely too compassionate and will be doddering before his time, should he live so long. Buchanan, no matter how much faith Mr. Schuyler has in her abilities, is little more than a hippie who lacked the good graces to be born in the correct decade.
I have no doubt that my presence has their dander up. I will never be able to oil my smile so much that it would not arouse their collective suspicion. But that's of no consequence. They know their jobs, shaken nerves will not deter them, and this is precisely as it should be. Should they do their jobs, mine will be boring and that is ideal.
I am, of course, prepared for the alternative.
action: Go south
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: Go east
response: Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
The single fluorescent light in the bathroom flickers rapidly like a strobe. On the other side of the room, a bloodied corpse seems to be partially buried in the toilet, folded in half. Near the toilet is a sink, above which is a mirror marred by a spiderweb crack. The light's strobe effect gives the room a surreal, filmlike quality. Behind you, to the west, a door leads back into the hallway.
action: Go north
response: Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
While the single toilet here appears to be whole and undamaged, it is filled nearly to the brim with some kind of thick, reddish-brown substance that you cannot immediately identify. The sink's faucet is off, and the sink is currently empty. An undamaged mirror sits above the sink.

A gray door to the south leads out of the bathroom.

There's a rusty u-bend pipe on the floor. It looks pretty useless.
action: You get the bones
response: You can also see a handful of fingerbones here.

>You pick up the handful of fingerbones.
action: Go south
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
The air here has an acrid, biological tang to it that reminds you of little so much as fresh vomit. The nauseating stench is aided by a hot, humid breeze, which seems to oscillate through the hallway. The hallway itself continues to the east, but you cannot see far; the only functioning light is the one directly above you, and the hall quickly fades into an impenetrable darkness.

A gray door to your north is clearly marked by a large pictographic sign as a unisex bathroom. A thin trickle of water runs from under the door along the edge of the hallway.

To your south, a windowless wooden door sits, a small metal sign next to it marking it as a "staff lounge".
action: You go to the north
response: The third floor button lights under your finger. The elevator doors slide closed, and the elevator lurches downward.

Time passes.

Time passes.

The elevator comes to a halt with a quiet ding. The third floor button stops glowing, and the doors slide open.

You step through the elevator doors into a familiar hallway. In front of you, the lurid orange biohazard symbol all but glows from the end of the east hall, and a broader hallway stretches away to the left and right.

Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.

Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. A long, slow breeze flows from the south past you, reaching towards the deep shadow to the north. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a laundry chute to the west.
action: Go east
response: Bathroom, Mt Airy Hospital
The single fluorescent light in the bathroom flickers rapidly like a strobe. On the other side of the room, a bloodied corpse seems to be partially buried in the toilet, folded in half. Near the toilet is a sink, above which is a mirror marred by a spiderweb crack. The light's strobe effect gives the room a surreal, filmlike quality. Behind you, to the west, a door leads back into the hallway.
action: You throw the bones
response: The fingerbones clatter against the floor. For a moment, nothing happens.

Abruptly, the broken mirror breaks open and expands outward like a mouth, its jagged edges yawning toward you. You scream as it sinks its shard-teeth into your arm, and you pull against it with all of your strength.

When your back hits the opposite wall, you realize that your arm is unhurt and the mirror is still. The fingerbones sit on the floor.
You scoop them up again.

You toss the fingerbones on the ground, and they clatter across it like dice before coming to a rest.
action: Go west
response: Hallway, Mt Airy Hospital
Partway down this hall, the fluorescent lights have sputtered out, leaving the way north cloaked in darkness. There's a long, slow rush of bad-smelling air coming from that direction. Before the light fails, there's a bathroom door in the dull white wall to the east and a laundry chute to the west.
action: You go to the south
response: You insert the steel key into the lock of the door to room 321 and turn it, successfully unlocking the door
You open the door to room 321.

Room 321, Mt Airy Hospital
This small room would have made a cozy office for a single person; set up for two, it feels more like a furnished closet. The room's furnishings express remarkably different personalities: on the west, a massive black filing cabinet is flanked by a mahogany desk and expensive-looking rolling chair. On the east, the cheap metal desk has a kneeling chair in front of it, next to a gray filing cabinet much smaller than its counterpart on the west side.

There's a high shelf supporting a preserved heart, a pickled two-headed sparrow and a jar of formaldehyde above the mahogany desk.
action: You examine the mahogany desk
response: A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself against the black filing cabinet, the world doubles unpleasantly, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see two identical, obviously dead women standing nearby and watching you. Chestnut hair spills over their shoulders. Each woman's skull is hideously crushed, and each face, turned toward you, has one missing eye - the left missing for the woman on the left, and the right missing for the woman on the right. Blood and less identifiable fluids drip from the empty eyesockets.

Your vision clears and the doubled image disappears. The corpses are gone.

The mahogany desk is immaculate. Its varnished surface seems to have been cleaned not long ago, and it sports no clutter whatsoever.

On the mahogany desk is a precisely folded sheet of typewriter paper.
action: Go north
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You insert the steel key into the lock of the door to room 324 and turn it, successfully unlocking the door
You open the door to room 324.

Room 324, Mt Airy Hospital
The fluorescent lights overhead are dark - burned out, judging by the presence of the tall torchiere lamp standing by the door. The torchiere is currently turned off, and ink-dark shadows fill the room.

A small door to your south leads back into the hallway.
action: You turn on the torchiere
response: You switch on the tall torchiere. Yellow light floods through the small room, illuminating row upon row of shelves around you and a closed metal cupboard at the back of the room.
action: You open the cupboard
response: Opening the cupboard, you discover that it contains quite a few sterile packages containing hypodermic syringes.
action: You get the syringes
response: You select a sealed hypodermic syringe.
action: You look
response: Room 324, Mt Airy Hospital
The yellow light of a single torchiere lamp illuminates a small room. The room is filled mostly with standing shelves that go from floor to ceiling, reminding you immediately of the brief glances of pharmacies that you've caught over their counters. Sure enough, the shelves are filled with rows upon rows of medicine, kept in bottles of varying sizes. A metal cupboard containing a pile of packaged syringes stands open at the end of the room.

A small door to your south leads back into the hallway.
action: You search the shelves
response: You paw through the bottles on the shelf, searching for the Vanemine described in Pearce's 5/8 entry. Though it takes you a few minutes, you are able to find a small vial of Vanemine hidden behind several other medications in larger bottles. You pocket it.

"Hrtmn" is difficult to uncover until you luckily find "Hartmann's Solution" in the small print of the bottle labeled CSL. You pick up the bottle.
action: You search the shelves
response: You make one last search of the shelves for anything useful. Unexpectedly, you discover a small piece of notebook paper concealed against the back wall of the shelving. You remove and unfold it.

You add the small page torn from a compact notebook to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The small page torn from a compact notebook reads:

S.C. - Entry 1978-05-07-0400

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."
Atwater spoke to me about the possibility of terminating McMoneagle. It is true and observable that Ian has suffered more severe effects than any of the previous test recipients had before their brains succumbed to the symbiont's side effects. Since Atwater has never had faith in the possible success of the project, psychotic reactions hold no hope for him. He would just as soon destroy the subject and move to the next.
What I did not know upon this meeting is that Atwater had given an innocuous excuse to Yehuda concerning his absence from the test -- a trip to the store. This rendered him an adequate target for a remote viewing session, by Yehuda's reckoning. Ian "overheard" Atwater's conversation with me and became overwrought.
When he went to sleep, his psychic abilities manifested, somehow dealing severe trauma to Atwater's heart. By the time the doctor was taken to the hospital, he was already dead.
While I was notified almost immediately, this is going to be incredibly inconvenient to keep quiet and controlled. Elaine should be easy to manipulate; her faith in the project will ensure her loyalty. Yehuda will be another matter. I will speak to him directly, but even then I will need to keep an eye on the man. He has too much humanity to be a good Doctor.
I realize that it is my job to babysit the ignorant, but that does not keep it from being infuriating.
action: You look
response: You switch off the tall torchiere. Darkness immediately floods the room.

>Room 324, Mt Airy Hospital
The fluorescent lights overhead are dark - burned out, judging by the presence of the tall torchiere lamp standing by the door. The torchiere is currently turned off, and ink-dark shadows fill the room.

A small door to your south leads back into the hallway.
action: You wait awhile
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.

Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

Room 324, Mt Airy Hospital
The fluorescent lights overhead are dark - burned out, judging by the presence of the tall torchiere lamp standing by the door. The torchiere is currently turned off, and ink-dark shadows fill the room.

A small door to your south leads back into the hallway.

Time passes.
action: Go south
response: Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: You go to the south
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.

>You insert the steel key into the lock of the door to room 321 and turn it, successfully unlocking the door
You open the door to room 321.

Room 321, Mt Airy Hospital
This small room would have made a cozy office for a single person; set up for two, it feels more like a furnished closet. The room's furnishings express remarkably different personalities: on the west, a massive black filing cabinet is flanked by a mahogany desk and expensive-looking rolling chair. On the east, the cheap metal desk has a kneeling chair in front of it, next to a gray filing cabinet much smaller than its counterpart on the west side.

There's a high shelf supporting a preserved heart, a pickled two-headed sparrow and a jar of formaldehyde above the mahogany desk.
action: You stand on the chair
response: Which do you mean, the rolling office chair or the kneeling chair?
action: You stand on the mahogany desk
response: A sudden wave of dizziness overwhelms you. As you stumble and steady yourself against the black filing cabinet, the world doubles unpleasantly, and grayness clouds your vision.

Through the grayness, you see two identical, obviously dead women standing nearby and watching you. Chestnut hair spills over their shoulders. Each woman's skull is hideously crushed, and each face, turned toward you, has one missing eye - the left missing for the woman on the left, and the right missing for the woman on the right. Blood and less identifiable fluids drip from the empty eyesockets.

Your vision clears and the doubled image disappears. The corpses are gone.

You climb up on the mahogany desk. From here, you can reach the high shelf.
action: You get the formaldehyde
response: You pick up the jar of formaldehyde.
action: You stand
response: You climb carefully down from the desk.
action: You unlock the black cabinet with the brass key
response: [This command only takes one input. Ignoring "with brass key".)]

You insert the small brass key into the lock of the black filing cabinet and turn it, successfully unlocking the black filing cabinet.
action: You open it
response: You open the black filing cabinet.
action: You look in it
response: [To find things in the black filing cabinet's files, use the command "LOOK UP [topic] IN FILES".]

In the black filing cabinet, you see a set of files relating to employee records.
action: You look up Yehuda in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Yehuda, Theodore.

Dr. Yehuda's file contains mainly research on him and his work in the study of neuroscience. A few performance reviews from other offices are in the file, which you're not entirely certain is legal. The paperwork pertinent to Corona, Inc indicates that the doctor signed on with Corona in early April, 1978, immediately assuming a position as the head of the project. One of the reports has holes cut out of it. You suspect that there may be information missing from the report.

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Elaine in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Buchanan, Elaine Geraldine.

It takes you a few moments to parse the disparate and heavily censored information in the file, but you are eventually able to make sense of it. It seems as though she was originally an applicant for an Institute that was doing contract work for some kind of government Project. The name of both project and institute have been excised from all documents where they are mentioned, clipped out with scissors. Elaine was rejected by the Institute as unsuitable, and headhunted by Corona not a week later, judging by her interview notes. Her recruitment took place sometime in 1977, before April. Since then, it appears that Elaine has acted as some kind of scout, seeking out suitable test patients and doing field research.

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Ian in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for McMoneagle, Ian.

Ian's file is one of the thickest in the cabinet, filled with past medical reports and research. Ian was born on October 30th, 1955 in Olney, Maryland to John McMoneagle, a general store manager, and Olive McMoneagle. Judging by the neatly-organized and annotated transcripts, Ian was very bright but did poorly in school due to depressive behavior. A few reports of incidents illustrate that Ian was a frequent victim of bullying, and even the teachers and administration of his schools found his behavior off-putting. His medical records indicate a history of chronic headaches and nightmares. Ian was recruited as a test subject for Corona Laboratories in mid-April of 1978.

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Alice in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Kim, Alice.

Its contents reveal that Alice is a nurse at Mt. Airy, and she has been working for the hospital for about six months. Alice was born on May 14, 1955, in Wheaton, Maryland, to Seung and Mary Kim. While there isn't much more specific information about Alice, her performance review indicates that while Alice "sometimes lacks procedural knowledge," she is a patient favorite, known for her "bright and cheerful outlook", and people note that she "never seems to have a bad day."

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Simon in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Cross, Simon.

A single sheet of paper lies in the folder. In its center, a simple message has been typed in a bold serif font: "This space intentionally left blank."

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Atwater in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Atwater, Edward.

The files indicate that Dr. Atwater had a solid career in medicine for about 30 years before signing on with Corona Labs in 1977. Dr. Atwater was initially the lead physician in charge of Corona's project here at Mt. Airy Hospital, but about a month ago he stepped down from that role to be replaced by Dr. Yehuda. The reason for this is not explicitly stated in the file, and you can't help but feel that there may be some information purposefully left out.

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look up Pearce in the black cabinet
response: You search through the black filing cabinet until you locate a folder for Pearce, Raymond, MD.

The folder is thick with files, mainly reports, commendations and reviews. Near the front and the back you find some basic information: Dr. Pearce was born on October 15th, 1915, in Northwest Washington, DC. There isn't much about his personal life, but it appears that the Doctor's progression through the hospital's ranks was gradual and measured; his most recent promotion was two years ago, to the position of the hospital's assistant director. Nothing else that you find is of value.

You put the file back where you found it.
action: You look in the gray cabinet
response: You open the gray filing cabinet.

[To find things in the gray filing cabinet's files, use the command "LOOK UP [topic] IN FILES".]

In the gray filing cabinet, you see a set of files relating to a variety of peculiar topics, ranging from UFOs to remote viewing to cryptozoology.
action: You look up the remote viewing in the gray cabinet
response: The organization system of the gray filing cabinet is mysterious at best. You skim quickly through, but you cannot find a clipping about remote viewing.
action: You look up the ufos in the gray cabinet
response: Which do you mean, the black filing cabinet or the gray filing cabinet?

>You find three articles about UFOs. Each one centers around an alleged sighting, and is covered with notes in black marker. It seems that whoever wrote these notes actually did some research on each sighting, as the notes pertain to the likely accuracy of each statement. One article, concerning an incident near Roswell, is marked "Likely! Ask about vacation time in August."
action: Gray
response: You put the file back where you found it.

>["gray" is not a recognized command.]
action: You look up the symbiont in the gray
response: The organization system of the gray filing cabinet is mysterious at best. You skim quickly through, but you cannot find a clipping about symbiont.
action: You look around
response: Room 321, Mt Airy Hospital
This small room would have made a cozy office for a single person; set up for two, it feels more like a furnished closet. The room's furnishings express remarkably different personalities: on the west, a massive black filing cabinet is flanked by a mahogany desk and expensive-looking rolling chair. On the east, the cheap metal desk has a kneeling chair in front of it, next to a gray filing cabinet much smaller than its counterpart on the west side.

There's a high shelf supporting a preserved heart and a pickled two-headed sparrow above the mahogany desk.
action: You examine the sparrow
response: One of the heads is smaller than the other, jutting strangely upward, while the other is bowed by the weight of the first. Both beaks are open plaintively, but all four eyes are closed.
action: You go to the east
response: Glass crunches faintly underfoot as you move through the hallway.

You swipe your keycard through the keycard reader. After a moment, the door emits a loud click and the airlock door slides open.

Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: You examine the suit
response: (the clean hazard suit)
It's a thin white hazard suit. While not very durable, a combination of a charcoal air filter and an airtight fiber weave should serve to protect the wearer from most environmental hazards.
action: You wear the suit
response: (the clean hazard suit)
(first taking the clean hazard suit)
You pick up the clean hazard suit.

You clamber awkwardly into the suit. It takes you several minutes to figure out how to get your hands into the gloves at the end of the sleeves without having to zip it up first, but after some struggling you are completely suited up. You check all of the airtight zippers and make sure that the filter is letting you breathe properly. You feel clumsy and big, but you should be protected from all but the most minute contaminants. Unless the suit tears, of course.
action: You go to the east
response: You push the button marked "ENTRY". The internal airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

As the door slides open, you are immediately sprayed by a reddish liquid, which splatters against the surface of your suit. Upon wiping off your faceplate with a suited arm, you see that an amorphous red substance is now oozing into the airlock through the partly open door.

You flinch back from the vista beyond, where a strange, churning red substance has devoured almost an entire room. Before, when you looked into the faceplate of the prone figure's environmental suit, you saw a seething red hell that consumed one man. That was the microcosm; this door contains the same red hell in macrocosm.

Biohazard Lab, Mt Airy Hospital
This room seems to have been the subject of some kind of massive biological explosion. Some kind of glistening, mealy red substance similar to ground meat is splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling in large patches. The substance seems to have a life of its own, pulsing and undulating in great colonies. Large piles of it merge and separate.

The room itself seems to have been some kind of biological experimentation laboratory. You can see a large sink along one wall, with nozzles for a bunsen burner mounted next to it. While most of the counters are covered with the disgusting red substance, one table is mostly untouched thanks to an overhanging edge.

On the table is a measuring pipette, fixed in place above a wooden test tube rack. There's also a small lab refrigerator branded with a biohazard symbol.

The bottom of a glass test tube projects from a mound of the mealy red stuff.
action: You get the tube
response: (the sludge-encrusted test tube)
You pull the test tube out of the churning mound of mealy red stuff.
action: Go west
response: Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

A few slowly shifting tendrils of red, mealy meat have made their way into the airlock.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: Wait
response: Time passes.

The internal airlock door slides closed with a hiss and and locks with a click.
action: You go east
response: You push the button marked "ENTRY". The internal airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

Biohazard Lab, Mt Airy Hospital
This room seems to have been the subject of some kind of massive biological explosion. Some kind of glistening, mealy red substance similar to ground meat is splattered all over the floor, walls and ceiling in large patches. The substance seems to have a life of its own, pulsing and undulating in great colonies. Large piles of it merge and separate.

The room itself seems to have been some kind of biological experimentation laboratory. You can see a large sink along one wall, with nozzles for a bunsen burner mounted next to it. While most of the counters are covered with the disgusting red substance, one table is mostly untouched thanks to an overhanging edge.

On the table is a measuring pipette, fixed in place above a wooden test tube rack. There's also a small lab refrigerator branded with a biohazard symbol.
action: You open the fridge
response: (the clean glass test tube in the wooden test tube rack)
You lower the clean glass test tube through a hole in the wooden test tube rack and nestle its base into the appropriate divot.

>You open the small lab refrigerator, revealing a vial of blood and a legal-size page.
action: You get the page
response: You find nothing of interest.

The internal airlock door slides closed with a hiss and and locks with a click.

>(the legal-size page)
You pick up the legal-size page.

You add the legal-size page to your existing collection of pages.
action: You read the notes
response: The legal-size page reads:

From the desk of Dr. Edward Atwater, M.D., Ph.D.
April 25th, 1978
I'll be damned, they're really buying it. McMoneagle's due to be
dosed within the next few days.
I am not a completely heartless man. It is a popular conceit in
this office, and I suppose I cannot blame anyone for thinking so. But I have been here for years, now, and overseen the snuffing out of over a dozen lives. With each death I hope to the godless heavens that Corona will see the depth of its mistake, realize that experimenting with a lethal parasite and calling it a symbiont will not make wishes come true. If we want to join the Project it will only be through methodical chicanery, not methodical murder.
What do they want of me? To become McMoneagle's friend, like
"kindly old Doc Yehuda?" To have faith in the absence of reason, like "Crazy 'Lainey?" I dread to think of how crushed they will be when the young man's brain floods itself with chemicals. I will be the only staff member in his right mind.
I am not a monster. I am a doctor. To hell with anyone who doesn't understand that.
action: You get the blood
response: (the vial of blood)
action: You put the blood in the tube
response: You pick up the vial of blood.

>(the vial of blood in the clean glass test tube)
There are no measurement graduations on the test tube. You should put components into the pipette so that you can be sure you added the right amount.
action: You put the blood in the pipette
response: (the vial of blood in the measuring pipette)
Using Dr. Yehuda's notes for reference, you carefully measure some of the vial of blood into the pipette and then decant it into the test tube.
action: You put the hartmann's in tube
response: (the partially full glass test tube)
There are no measurement graduations on the test tube. You should put components into the pipette so that you can be sure you added the right amount.

(the partially full glass test tube)
There are no measurement graduations on the test tube. You should put components into the pipette so that you can be sure you added the right amount.
action: You put Hartmann's in the pipette
response: Using Dr. Yehuda's notes for reference, you carefully measure some of the jar of formaldehyde into the pipette and then decant it into the test tube.

Using Dr. Yehuda's notes for reference, you carefully measure some of the bottle of Hartmann's solution into the pipette and then decant it into the test tube.
action: You put Vanemine in the pipette
response: Using Dr. Yehuda's notes for reference, you carefully measure some of the vial of Vanemine into the pipette and then decant it into the test tube.
action: You put the syringe in tube
response: (the partially full glass test tube)
There are no measurement graduations on the test tube. You should put components into the pipette so that you can be sure you added the right amount.
action: You get the tube
response: (the partially full glass test tube)
You pick up the partially full glass test tube.
action: You fill the syringe from the tube
response: (the partially full glass test tube in the sealed hypodermic syringe) You open the plastic wrapper surrounding the hypodermic syringe and prepare the needle for use.

You draw some of the liquid from the test tube into the hypodermic syringe.

>["fill syringe from tube" is not a recognized command.]
action: You put the tube in the rack
response: (the partially full glass test tube in the wooden test tube rack)
You lower the partially full glass test tube through a hole in the wooden test tube rack and nestle its base into the appropriate divot.
action: Go west
response: Wincing, you grope about for a moment in the sludge near the door until you encounter something that feels like a button.

You push the hidden button. The internal airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

Biohazard Airlock, Mt Airy Hospital
You stand in a small room lit by a low red light. It is immaculately clean and nearly featureless. Two hooks are mounted on the wall; what appears to be a shredded environment suit hangs from one of them. Overhead, a set of red lamps shines down on you, mounted next to four spray nozzles. A sliding door with a small wire-reinforced window leads back to the hallway to your west. Another door stands to the east, a small opaque window set in it.

Three large buttons, one marked "ENTRY", one marked "EXIT", and one marked "DECONTAMINATE", glow faintly from a wall recess.
action: You wait a while
response: Time passes.

You note that some of the mealy red substance from inside the biohazard lab has found its way into the airlock.
action: Wait
response: The internal airlock door slides closed with a hiss and and locks with a click.
action: Go west
response: (the clean hazard suit)
You take off the clean hazard suit.

You push the button marked "EXIT". The external airlock door emits a loud click and then slides open with a soft hiss.

Side Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Plain, windowless doors labelled neatly with small brass signs lead off to the north and south. At the east end of the hallway, a large, lurid orange biohazard symbol marks a door of a different design.
This door is a sliding door instead of a regular door, and it has a small, wire-reinforced window.

Several curving, sharp pieces of glass and small pieces of metal litter the floor.

There's a keycard reader beside the sliding door.
action: You get the sign
response: You carefully peel the sign off the wall. Realizing that the old clear tape is likely to tear the paper, you fold it over the paper's side and add it to your notes.

You add the typewritten sign to your existing collection of pages.
action: Y.
response: Are you sure you want to do this? (y/n) >Still dazed by the sudden racing of your heart, you depress the button.

To the southwest, muffled by the walls, you hear a strident buzzer, and the noise of high heels suddenly echoes down the hallway from that direction. The footsteps pause, and you hear the sound of a door opening.

In the security monitor, you see the young man jerk his head upward suddenly. This is your first good look at his face, and his features are gaunt, his eyes sunken and haunted. He slowly gets to his feet and walks out of the range of the security camera.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.
action: You go south
response: The lights flicker. The security monitor gives a sharp, abrupt crackle before going dead.

Side Hall, Mt Airy Hospital
The off-white walls and dull, stain-resistant tiles of this hallway match those of the main hall to the west. Windowless doors marked with small brass signs branch off to the north and south.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.
action: Go west
response: Hall Intersection, Mt Airy Hospital
Cold fluorescent lights pace the ceiling from north to south and lead off east along the T intersection. To the west, a pair of metal elevator doors sits silently closed. There's a call button beside the elevator and a floor indicator above the call button.

A building map is posted on the wall.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.
action: Go south
response: Hall End, Mt Airy Hospital
Long banks of fluorescent lights cast sharp shadows along the half-familiar, half-unfamiliar hallway, which continues off to the north. The tiled floor is only a shade darker than the dull off-white walls. A strange, unpleasant odor hangs in the air and stings your nostrils. The door to Room 320 is across the hall to the west.

A windowless door leads east into the testing room's antechamber.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.
action: You go to the east
response: Antechamber, Mt Airy Hospital
Your last visit to this room was your last breath of normalcy; now, the madness has spread even here. A pile of shattered bones, gore and viscera lies in a wide cone, sprayed toward the door through which you entered. Blood drips from the walls and ceiling in the shape of that same cone, pelting you with a gentle crimson rain. The most complete part of the remains is a single high-heeled shoe, which lies just in front of the pile. The ficus tree that previously stood in the corner now lies on its side, its leaves glistening with blood. Its pot, now cracked, lies on its side in a pile of blood-drenched topsoil.

A metal fire axe lies on the far side of the floor.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.
action: You get the axe
response: You heft the metal fire axe. It is heavier than you expected it to be, but the weight is nonetheless somewhat reassuring.

The strident buzzer continues to sound.

With an audible click, the buzzer shuts off. The door swings closed behind you, and the lock slams home before you can intercept it.
action: You examine the shoe
response: It's a single, black, heeled women's pump. Whatever happened to its owner threw it forward just enough that it escaped the carnage, and it is mostly free of blood. Someone has written "EGB" in faded black marker on the pale gold lining of the inner sole.
action: You examine the ficus
response: The ficus tree's leaves glisten red with blood, so evenly coated as to uniformly appear that this is their natural state. The tree sprawls from the mouth of a cracked pot that lies on its side.
action: You search ficus
response: The ficus tree's pot is badly cracked, and the topsoil in which the tree was planted now spills out on the floor, soaking up the blood that coats one half of the room. You glimpse something buried in the topsoil, probably thrown there from the remains of the corpse: an intact pill bottle.
action: You get the bottle
response: (the bottle of Hartmann's solution)
You already have that.
action: You get pill bottle
response: You pick up the bottle and brush off the blood-soaked dirt. It's labeled "Sandepam".
action: Go east
response: As you open the windowless door, you interrupt the insulated barrier that was preventing sound from leaving the test chamber. The sound of screaming suddenly goes from a muted, ignorable presence to a hammering agony on your ears.

The screaming from inside the test chamber hammers down, not only on your ears, but on your mind. The world warps strangely around you, and, quite abruptly, you are somewhere else.

The door slams shut behind you with tremendous force.

Test Chamber, Mt Airy Hospital
While you are not entirely sure what you expected to find, you are halted in your tracks nonetheless. The floor of the test chamber is littered with glittering shards of reflective glass. The one-way mirror between the test chamber and the observation room is opaque, but it pushes outward in the center to form a pair of jagged, irregular halves like a pair of jaws. From the hips up, Ian McMoneagle is trapped in the grip of those jaws, his face twisted into a mask of pain. The mirror's halves grind against muscle and bone, tearing him apart as they draw him in. And yet he lives....

Ian McMoneagle looks you in the face with wide, terrified eyes, his bloody bangs obscuring his gaze but not reducing its weight. He opens his mouth and screams in guilty agony.

The mirror pulls Ian in more deeply. The hideous cracking sound that follows is almost surely his pelvis.
action: You drop the bones
response: You scoop the fingerbones up from your pocket, rattle them in one hand, then toss them onto the ground in front of Ian. At once, his screams stop, and he stares at the bones.

Following his gaze, you see that the fingerbones are gone. What lies on the ground is a set of twelve six-sided game dice, each one showing a single pip facing upward. Six sets of snake eyes stare up at you and Ian. You stare back.

The room vibrates for a few seconds, and then reality shatters. You both shatter with it.
Press any key to continue.

A darkened office. The orange light of dusk spilling through venetian blinds, laying bright stripes on the dark wood of an expensive luxury desk.

With a satisfying clatter, six dice bounce across the surface of the desk, coming to rest with assorted results: 6 6 2 6 3 1. The man who threw them, a middle-aged man with a face craggier than his age should allow, wears Brylcreemed black hair, a power suit, and the receiver of an office telephone held firmly to the side of his head.

"No, John, let me tell YOU something," he says. "The Schuyler family didn't get to be where it is because we refused to take risks. This stuff is the real deal, and whoever pulls it off first is going to be set for generations."

He grabs three of the dice, leaving the three that show sixes. With an offhand gesture, he tosses them again. One of the three comes up a six. "Look, this Buchanan broad is too hippy dippy for the Institute, but she's the real deal and she'll do anything for a break. They want to look legit, fine, but they won't land the project. We will."

He picks up one of the unlucky dice, then the other. He pauses for a moment, listening to the phone, then laughs. "Well, John, I imagine she'll go nuts after a little while, but if you're not willing to squeeze an orange hard enough, you'll never get a glass of juice. Well, all right John. Talk to you later."

The man hangs up the phone, then throws the final two dice one last time. Both come up sixes. He leans back in his chair and smiles.

"Heh-heh," he says. "Yahtzee."

Then, he puts five dice back in the game box and one die in his pocket, and he saunters off to dinner.
action: You kill Ian
response: You raise the fire axe over your head and bring it down in a long, sweeping slice. Ian's head hits the floor and bounces from the force of its removal. Ian's body slumps for a moment.

Something in the stump of his throat moves. Widening the throat, something emerges from his windpipe: a single veiny eyeball supported on a pink, pulsating stalk. It swivels to stare at you.

The mirror continues to chew at Ian, drawing him into its surface with razor-sharp shard-teeth.
action: You hit the eyeball
response: You falter, unable to break away from the  eyeball's faceless gaze. And from deep inside the headless body, there comes a dreadful keening....

The mirror begins to bubble, like a photograph exposed to flame.
Great silver blisters form in its surface, and the blisters slowly turn white from front to back. Only a few heartbeats pass before the entire mirror is comprised of large white mounds. Then, all at once, a black spot with a dark green iris appears at the center of each mound, and they all swivel to stare directly at you. The surface of the mirror, now perfectly still, has become a wall of eyes. The combined gaze bores savagely into you as the body of Ian McMoneagle collapses at your feet.

Paralyzed, you stare back, completely unable to move.
action: Break mirror
response: You heave your shoulder behind the fire axe, driving it into the mirror's surface with all of your strength. The head of the axe buries itself in the mirror, throwing cracks all the way across its surface. The cracks run straight through the mirror, through the hideous jaws, and through the body of Ian McMoneagle

Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You awaken in your bed surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar faces - Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist; Rayjay Farley and Best Ife, the lab techs; the wheelchair-bound Dr. Ensfield, previously known by you only at a distance; a slim, chestnut-haired woman with a cool gray gaze, utterly unknown to you. Dr. Ephart is missing.

Dr. Shaughnessy has soothing words for you, but most of them blur together, issuing from a face that sometimes seems to lace with scars from an unknown source. You fight to understand. You were unconscious for three days, he tells you, after collapsing during a memory test. The project will continue if you feel up for it after a few days of rest, but right now everyone's going to take it easy.

You want to know where Dr. Ephart went. Dr. Shaughnessy says that she was transferred to another project because she adjusted your medication doses inappropriately, contributing to your attack. In the corner, the chestnut-haired woman with the bullet eyes stares at you. It all seems wrong, wrong. Everyone is alive and dead. Walking around one moment, shambling with fatal wounds the next.

Nightmares plague you that night - Dr. Ephart, confused and protesting, gunned down by the chestnut-haired woman; Dr. Ensfield screaming and covering his ears in an elevator shaft; Rayjay Farley staring into static as the static takes him apart. And Ian. Over and over, that young man from the test chamber in Mt. Airy Hospital - Ian McMoneagle, wild with fear and guilt, being devoured by the walls.

Press any key to continue.

You can guard your words.

But you can't stop your dreams.

You can't stop your nightmares.

You can't stop this from happening all over again.

It's inside you.

IT'S INSIDE YOU.

And you had the chance to stop it.

But you can't stop it now.

Press any key to continue.

Your protestations turn to abjurations. Your abjurations turn to ravings. You must make them listen, and your efforts become more violent; you plead, you cry, you lose control, you scream and rave.
It is not long before the youngest and strongest of the staff, Rayjay and Best, strap you to your bed with sad, worried eyes.

But straps will only hold you down while you're still harmless.

they'll all die.

Just like you saw.

Three days later, your dreams come to life in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.
action: Inject ian
response: With no time for precision or care, you dodge Ian's attempts to fend you off and ram the syringe into his shoulder, driving the plunger home. The solution enters his body, and his screams, for just a moment, are stilled.

You watch him anxiously for some sign of change as you withdraw the needle, but nothing obvious happens. The mirror bites down again, and his screams renew.

The mirror continues to chew at Ian, drawing him into its surface with razor-sharp shard-teeth.
action: You open the bottle
response: Which do you mean, the pill bottle or the bottle of Hartmann's solution?
action: Y.
response: Do you want to swallow the Sandepam pills? (y/n) >
You twist off the lid of the Sandepam and hesitate over the pills for a moment before swallowing two.

After a moment, you feel a numb, calm sensation come over you. Your senses are slightly dulled, but the terror of your situation seems a little bit less sharp. If only you'd found these a little earlier in the nightmare.

Ian's anguished screams gargle into weak bubbles as the mirror bites into his chest, and, surely, his lungs.
action: You look at Ian
response: Ian's eyes are bulging and terrified, but filled with terrible knowledge and guilt as well. His mouth is opened wide, his teeth stained with what must be his own blood. The lower half of his body is hidden by the glass jaws that are chewing him up from the bottom to the top.

With the sound of glass grinding against glass, the mirror-glass draws Ian all the way in and shuts its uneven jaws. There is a brief and terrible silence before the mirror shatters cataclysmically.

Shards of glass fly past you, shredding your skin and muscle. You feel tiny pieces piercing your eyes, driving into your brain, flaying you alive. You stumble and fall onto a floor covered in razor-sharp pieces. There is no mercy; as you twitch in spasmodic anguish, lanced repeatedly through the cerebrum and cerebellum, everything goes dark....
Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You muzzily realize that you are gazing at the ceiling of the Corona Labs test chamber just before the door slams open. Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist, hurries into the room. Dr. Ephart follows close enough behind to step on his heels. "How many fingers do you see?" Dr. Shaunessy asks, kneeling down beside you, and Dr. Ephart rests light fingers on your wrist to take your pulse. In short order, they conclude that you suffered a vasovagal syncope and struck your head in the fall.

You try to talk to the doctors, but your words are confused and disjointed. Your gaze drags across the fallen photograph, half-shadowed by the folder above it, and you see the gaunt young man screaming. You can't find the words to make them understand. Though you can nearly stand on your own, the doctors firmly escort you from the room and off to bed.

Dr. Shaunessy leaves, but Dr. Ephart stays with you as the sedatives take hold. "Don't worry," she says, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. "Everything will be all right."

Six days later, the past repeats itself in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.
action: You look
response: Antechamber, Mt Airy Hospital
Your last visit to this room was your last breath of normalcy; now, the madness has spread even here. A pile of shattered bones, gore and viscera lies in a wide cone, sprayed toward the door through which you entered. Blood drips from the walls and ceiling in the shape of that same cone, pelting you with a gentle crimson rain. The most complete part of the remains is a single high-heeled shoe, which lies just in front of the pile. The ficus tree that previously stood in the corner now lies on its side, its leaves glistening with blood. Its pot, now cracked, lies on its side in a pile of blood-drenched topsoil.
action: Go east
response: As you open the windowless door, you interrupt the insulated barrier that was preventing sound from leaving the test chamber. The sound of screaming suddenly goes from a muted, ignorable presence to a hammering agony on your ears.

The screaming from inside the test chamber hammers down, not only on your ears, but on your mind. The world warps strangely around you, and, quite abruptly, you are somewhere else.

The door slams shut behind you with tremendous force.

Test Chamber, Mt Airy Hospital
While you are not entirely sure what you expected to find, you are halted in your tracks nonetheless. The floor of the test chamber is littered with glittering shards of reflective glass. The one-way mirror between the test chamber and the observation room is opaque, but it pushes outward in the center to form a pair of jagged, irregular halves like a pair of jaws. From the hips up, Ian McMoneagle is trapped in the grip of those jaws, his face twisted into a mask of pain. The mirror's halves grind against muscle and bone, tearing him apart as they draw him in. And yet he lives....

Ian McMoneagle looks you in the face with wide, terrified eyes, his bloody bangs obscuring his gaze but not reducing its weight. He opens his mouth and screams in guilty agony.

The mirror pulls Ian in more deeply. The hideous cracking sound that follows is almost surely his pelvis.
action: You inject yourself
response: You poise the tip of the  hypodermic syringe over your elbow and briefly consider what a bad idea this is. Before you have time to talk yourself out of it, you push the needle into your vein and press down the plunger. The solution burns like fire ants racing into your body.

Immediately, you feel light-headed, and you think your heart might be beating faster although only a few seconds have passed.

The mirror continues to chew at Ian, drawing him into its surface with razor-sharp shard-teeth.
action: Y.
response: Do you want to swallow the Sandepam pills? (y/n) >
You twist off the lid of the Sandepam and hesitate over the pills for a moment before swallowing two.

After a moment, you feel a numb, calm sensation come over you. Your senses are slightly dulled, but the terror of your situation seems a little bit less sharp. If only you'd found these a little earlier in the nightmare.

Ian's anguished screams gargle into weak bubbles as the mirror bites into his chest, and, surely, his lungs.

Your heartbeat becomes labored and fast, and you can feel its sharp, heavy thud shaking your chest. Your breathing increases in speed as your vision fades toward white. You fall to your knees, losing strength in your limbs and feeling in your extremities.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

With the sound of glass grinding against glass, the mirror-glass draws Ian all the way in and shuts its uneven jaws. There is a brief and terrible silence before the mirror shatters cataclysmically.

Shards of glass fly past you, shredding your skin and muscle. You feel tiny pieces piercing your eyes, driving into your brain, flaying you alive. You stumble and fall onto a floor covered in razor-sharp pieces. There is no mercy; as you twitch in spasmodic anguish, lanced repeatedly through the cerebrum and cerebellum, everything goes dark....
Press any key to continue.

Consciousness returns. You muzzily realize that you are gazing at the ceiling of the Corona Labs test chamber just before the door slams open. Dr. Shaunessy, the neurologist, hurries into the room. Dr. Ephart follows close enough behind to step on his heels. "How many fingers do you see?" Dr. Shaunessy asks, kneeling down beside you, and Dr. Ephart rests light fingers on your wrist to take your pulse. In short order, they conclude that you suffered a vasovagal syncope and struck your head in the fall.

You try to talk to the doctors, but your words are confused and disjointed. Your gaze drags across the fallen photograph, half-shadowed by the folder above it, and you see the gaunt young man screaming. You can't find the words to make them understand. Though you can nearly stand on your own, the doctors firmly escort you from the room and off to bed.

Dr. Shaunessy leaves, but Dr. Ephart stays with you as the sedatives take hold. "Don't worry," she says, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. "Everything will be all right."

Six days later, the past repeats itself in Corona Labs.
No one escapes alive.

>
action: You inject yourself
response: You poise the tip of the  hypodermic syringe over your elbow and briefly consider what a bad idea this is. Before you have time to talk yourself out of it, you push the needle into your vein and press down the plunger. The solution burns like fire ants racing into your body.

Immediately, you feel light-headed, and you think your heart might be beating faster although only a few seconds have passed.
action: Y.
response: Do you want to swallow the Sandepam pills? (y/n) >
You twist off the lid of the Sandepam and hesitate over the pills for a moment before swallowing two.

After a moment, you feel a numb, calm sensation come over you. Your senses are slightly dulled, but the terror of your situation seems a little bit less sharp. If only you'd found these a little earlier in the nightmare.

Your heartbeat becomes labored and fast, and you can feel its sharp, heavy thud shaking your chest. Your breathing increases in speed as your vision fades toward white. You fall to your knees, losing strength in your limbs and feeling in your extremities.
action: You wait
response: Time passes.

After what seems like an eternity of agonized arrhythmia, the Sandepam's effect begins to counter that of the cure. Your heartbeat becomes more subtle, regular, slow. Your breathing, too, begins to return to normal. While your eyes still feel wired open, the white fuzz around the edge of your vision begins to recede.

You feel decidedly unwell - nauseated and manic at the same time. But you don't think you're going to die. Not for this reason, at least.
action: Break mirror
response: You heave your shoulder behind the fire axe, driving it into the mirror's surface with all of your strength. The head of the axe buries itself in the mirror, throwing cracks all the way across its surface. The cracks run straight through the mirror, through the hideous jaws, and through the body of Ian McMoneagle
action: Go east
response: As you open the windowless door, you interrupt the insulated barrier that was preventing sound from leaving the test chamber. The sound of screaming suddenly goes from a muted, ignorable presence to a hammering agony on your ears.

The screaming from inside the test chamber hammers down, not only on your ears, but on your mind. The world warps strangely around you, and, quite abruptly, you are somewhere else.

The door slams shut behind you with tremendous force.

Test Chamber, Mt Airy Hospital
While you are not entirely sure what you expected to find, you are halted in your tracks nonetheless. The floor of the test chamber is littered with glittering shards of reflective glass. The one-way mirror between the test chamber and the observation room is opaque, but it pushes outward in the center to form a pair of jagged, irregular halves like a pair of jaws. From the hips up, Ian McMoneagle is trapped in the grip of those jaws, his face twisted into a mask of pain. The mirror's halves grind against muscle and bone, tearing him apart as they draw him in. And yet he lives....

Ian McMoneagle looks you in the face with wide, terrified eyes, his bloody bangs obscuring his gaze but not reducing its weight. He opens his mouth and screams in guilty agony.

The mirror pulls Ian in more deeply. The hideous cracking sound that follows is almost surely his pelvis.

Your heartbeat becomes labored and fast, and you can feel its sharp, heavy thud shaking your chest. Your breathing increases in speed as your vision fades toward white. You fall to your knees, losing strength in your limbs and feeling in your extremities.
action: You wait awhile
response: Time passes.

The mirror continues to chew at Ian, drawing him into its surface with razor-sharp shard-teeth.

Too late, you realize that your system is not strong enough to withstand the powerful injection. Your vision goes completely white and you collapse heavily to the floor, feeling your heart seize up as your senses fade.
Press any key to continue.

But your mind - does not fade. In the moment of death, you are drawn forward to where your body convulses in a white bed. You see Dr. Ephart's white and worried face as she drops your hand and steps away, hear Dr. Ensfield's cry for someone to use the paddles, Best coming forward with the paddles in her hands.

The paddles flare across your chest. Electricity. Your heart tries to start - and fails. Your synapses spark and jitter.

Your mind does not fade. But as electricity snaps through you, your awareness is torn backward across the planes of reality, a psychic rope ripped painfully down through twenty years of history.

You see Best retreating with the paddles in her hands, hear Dr. Ensfield's indecipherable cry, see Dr. Ephart's white and worried face as she steps toward you and takes your wrist.
Press any key to continue.
action: Y.
response: Everything faster.
Everything backward.
action: Y.
response: Everything accelerating from your death to your death.

Press any key to continue.

You don't see, but somehow sense, the Corona team cluster around your corpse. And then you're alive again. They back away from your unconscious body, compelled by worry and concern.

You lie unconscious for three days and then rise sharply into wakefulness. You press buttons on a wireless keypad; Dr. Ephart holds up the matching cards in response. You leave the test chamber backward; you watch red rose petals dance upward on the television screen.

You watch yourself retreat from the blue-walled rooms of Corona. Now you've never been there. The teams mills about briefly in your absence, consulting and debating, before it dissolves to the wind.
Dr. Ensfield leaves with Rayjay Farley. The others all leave alone.

Press any key to continue.

The building bustles with transcriptionists and secretaries, all walking confidently and casually backward. They untype letters from computers and regurgitate lunch in neat little bites and leave the building one by one, never to return.

And then the workmen come, and what they touch - the carpenters, the plumbers, the electricians, the stonemasons - they destroy. They pull paint from the walls and wires from the ceilings and coat everything in soot and decay. There is only a carcass here.

For years, the scorched and ruined carcass stands. Your mind whispers with melancholy voices, but they're all backward, shattered, bewildering. You understand none of it.

Press any key to continue.

And then men come again - dressed differently, this time, men in suits and sunglasses and briefcases. They bring corpse after corpse into the building, each more mutilated than the last, and they leave the corpses. Walking backward, they retreat into sunlight.

On the third floor of the building, shattered silver reforms into a pane of one-way glass. Seconds later, the mirror regurgitates a young man's corpse, and the corpse comes to life. Nightmare swirls through the building - acid, jaws, darkness and madness, something too inconstant and awful for your mind to embrace - and where the nightmare goes, dead men and women leap up alive and flee backward through their mortal days.

And there - with the building half-gutted, corpses springing to life around you - there is where you die again, hot cheek against the floor with the Vanemine raging through your bloodstream.

Press any key to continue.

Your mind stretches from death to death like a piece of rope. Your consciousness stretches backward and forward across twenty years.

With light, sharp-edged pressure that knows nothing of time, the young man's mind rubs at yours. Your psyche cannot endure the same space as his. Slowly, you fray.

And someday, somehow, you will snap.

But not yet...
action: %
response: Please be advised that One Eye Open is a horror game. It contains mature content (including blood, gore, human injury and death, mild language, tobacco reference, violence, and violent references.)

We do not recommend this game for a younger audience.
action: Y.
response: Would you like to proceed? (y/n) >

After only ten days, you're becoming surprisingly comfortable with life as a Corona Corporation guinea pig. It helps that your routine is so reliable - meals, exercise, rest, and sleep are clearly arranged on a schedule hanging beside the white clock in your room. As for the tests - well, you've grown used to the sight of your blood in a sample vial, and the rest is mostly paperwork. Personality tests, aptitude tests, intelligence tests, psychological tests, Rorschach and the MMPI and even kinetic family drawing... you're starting to worry that they'll run out of tests by the end of the month.

Although 7:30 PM is always the day's last test, you never leave your room alone, so you were still watching American Beauty when Dr. Marnie Ephart knocked at the door. "Oh, you're almost to the end!" she said brightly, seeing the screen. "I can wait until you're through."

"No, that's fine." You hit PAUSE to freeze Angela in mid-motion as you got up from the couch. "I've seen it before." Last Monday, actually. The video collection isn't that good, and, considering what they're paying you, it's a pity Corona couldn't invest in a few more options. It's hard to complain, though; the staff is friendly, the tests aren't hard, and the salary is great.

During the day, Raymond, Best, or one of the scientists might be around, but at night, it's usually just the two of you, and the hall you cross now is deserted. You accompany her through the antechamber and into the main testing chamber. By now, you're used to being watched from behind one-way glass, but the observational room is fully lit today, and you can easily see inside.

"Back in a moment," Dr. Ephart says cheerfully. "See you on the other side!"

Test Chamber, Corona Labs
In the center of the room, a single black office chair sits in front of a broad, heavy desk. The desk and chair are familiar, but the wireless keypad sitting on the desk is new. There are five large white buttons on the keypad, each displaying a different symbol in broad black strokes. The symbols are a circle, a cross, a set of three wavy lines, a square, and a five-pointed star. As always, you are quite aware of the cameras watching you from above.

To the west, a windowless door separates the testing room from the antechamber outside.

The familiar black office chair sits invitingly nearby.

Through the thick pane of glass, you can see the curved desk in the observational room.
action: Y.
response: That was a rhetorical question.

Through the thick pane of glass, you see Dr. Ephart come into the observational room carrying a stack of cards and a notebook. She waves to you in friendly fashion, sets her notebook on the desk, and sits down before pressing the intercom button.

"This is a different kind of test," Dr. Ephart explains. "I have twenty-five cards here, each of which shows one of the symbols on your keypad." She holds up five cards and fans them so you can see the circle, cross, wavy lines, square, and five-pointed star. "I'm going to draw one of these cards and concentrate on the shape. I want you to concentrate, to really focus your mind, and try to pick the same symbol that I do. After you've decided on your symbol, press it on the keypad. We'll do five of these."

Dr. Ephart shuffles her cards together and draws the first card. She holds the card up with its back to you.
action: Go north
response: Do you want to swallow the Sandepam pills? (y/n) >It's safer to leave the pills in their container until you decide to take them.

Ian's anguished screams gargle into weak bubbles as the mirror bites into his chest, and, surely, his lungs.