Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

In the AGC Discord, Adrian is currently writing a choose your own adventure story. Here is what has happened so far.

The Buzzfeed Quiz

THE BUZZFEED QUIZ - PART 1 Timothy worked for Buzzfeed where he put together silly personality quizzes based on pop culture. He was leaving the company in a few weeks so decided to have a bit more fun with the quizzes. He wrote one called ‘Tell us what you ate for breakfast and we’ll tell you exactly when you’ll die’. It was pretty funny, and he decided to message it to his mate Ryan. Ryan replied straight away. NEW MESSAGE FROM RYAN HARTLEY Hah! LOVE this. Also tell me you love me as it looks like my time is up next Monday!! (always knew corn flakes were poisonous) The quiz got posted online and no one seemed to notice it was darker than usual, so the following week Timothy made another, this time entitled ‘We can work out which genocide you are, based on these ten questions’. Chuckling, he sent this one to Ryan too. A few hours passed and Ryan didn’t respond. Weird. Ryan was always on his phone. A few more hours and still nothing. The following morning Timothy sent Ryan a follow-up message to check if he was okay. Nothing. Then Timothy saw the news. Ryan had been hit by a car at 11.04 the previous day. He’d been taken to hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Timothy felt sick. His best friend, gone, just like that. But then he remembered the quiz. It had said Ryan would die on Monday, hadn’t it? Timothy scrolled back through his messages and clicked on the screenshot Ryan had sent him. ‘You will die at 11.04 on Monday 12th June. Thanks for playing!’ What the fuck. It had to be a coincidence. A stupid quiz he’d made up couldn’t actually predict someone’s exact time of death.

THE BUZZFEED QUIZ: PART 2 (Players voted for Timothy to analyse the code of the quiz) Either way, Timothy felt like he had to delete the quiz. He logged into the staff portal and clicked on the ‘edit quiz’ button. In front of him was not the usual simple code, but a dense page of numbers and strange symbols. The numbers were written in the ‘chiller’ font, making them extra scary. Timothy stared at the screen. What the fuck was going on? He didn’t remember typing any of this. And how could he have typed it if he didn’t even know what it meant? Something about this quiz was deeply, deeply wrong. Timothy decided to phone his boss. ‘Hi, Clark, can you have a look at something for me? The quiz I did last week.’ ‘Oh, the breakfast one! That was pushing it a bit but to be honest I did find it funny.’ ‘Yeah, well, can you have a look at the code because-’ ‘Actually I haven’t played it yet! I may as well have a go!’ ‘No, no, don't play it.’ ‘Don’t be silly - I’m not gonna fire you if it’s shit, haha.’ ‘It’s not that - please, don’t play-’ ‘Let’s see…eggs on toast…orange juice…an apple…’ ‘Clark! No!’ ‘There we go. It says I’m going to die at 3 o'clock this afternoon. Bit of a shame!’ As Clark finished his sentence, Timothy noticed that the numbers and symbols on his computer screen had changed. They were moving around in a spiral formation, following each other like a flock of birds migrating. ‘Anyway, Timothy, what was it you wanted me to look at?’

THE BUZZFEED QUIZ: PART 3 (Players voted for Timothy to try and find out what the numbers and symbols mean) ‘Anyway, Timothy, what was it you wanted me to look at?’ ‘Erm, the code for-’ ‘Oop, sorry, hang on. I’m getting a sort of ringing sound. Can you hear that?’ ‘No?’ ‘It’s quite loud. Sorry, can I phone you back? Ow.’ The call went dead. Timothy ran back to his computer and stared closely at the symbols. He noticed that they looked almost like they had been hand-drawn. The most common symbol, Timothy realised, was an optical illusion. When you first looked at it it appeared to be the outline of a bird, but if you stared at it long enough it flipped, and looked like the outline of an ugly, jagged face. A face that Timothy recognised. He wasn’t sure from where. But there was something familiar about the face. Timothy took a screenshot of the symbols and did a Google reverse image search. The results were various symbols, letters and fonts, none of which matched the original photo. He frantically scrolled down looking for something even vaguely similar. Nothing. He tried Googling a description instead. ‘Weird code symbols bird ugly face optical illusion’ The web page results were links to ‘top 10 optical illusions that will blow your mind’. The kind of shit he had to write for Buzzfeed. He clicked on the image results. Again, as he scrolled, the results looked nothing like the symbols in the code. But then just as he was about to give up and close his laptop, he saw an image on the bottom-right corner of the screen. It was the symbol. Slightly different - as if hand-drawn by the same artist but with subtly different results - but definitely still the same jagged face. Timothy clicked on the link below the image. REPORTS OF NEW VIRUS - AVIAX.EXE VIRUS INFECTS WEB PAGE CODE VIRUS MUTATES WITH EACH INFECTION, EVADING ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE VIRUS IS SUPPOSEDLY PART OF NPBL13 BIOSCIENCE PROGRAMME The final section of the page made Timothy go pale. VIRUS HAS MUTATED TO INFECT HUMAN HOSTS AS WELL AS COMPUTER HOSTS ONCE INFECTED WITH VIRUS, HUMAN HOSTS END THEIR OWN LIVES TO STOP THE SIREN Timothy threw up a bit in his mouth.

THE BUZZFEED QUIZ: PART 4 (Players voted for Timothy to ask Michael Buble out on a date) Timothy threw up a bit in his mouth. This was terrifying. He pulled out his phone hoping to call Clark again and give him some sort of warning, but then he noticed something unusual. A notification. From a dating app. Timothy almost never got matches on dating apps - he wasn’t exactly the most handsome man in the world - so this caught him off guard. Almost instinctively he clicked on the notification. He’d received a ‘like’ from a man called Mikey B. Timothy clicked on his profile and scrolled through the images. His heart sank. The images were of Michael Bublé. It was clearly some sort of joke. YOU HAVE A NEW MESSAGE FROM MIKEY B Timothy clicked the message. ‘Hey Tim. I know you probably think this is a stitch up or something, but it’s not. And I just wanted to drop a message and say you seem really cute and authentic. Just what I’m looking for after years of hollywood fakes x’ Timothy was still sceptical, but there was something about the message that seemed genuine. He decided to reply. ‘Hi Michael. If this really is you then send me a selfie of you holding up three fingers and sticking your tongue out.’ There was a pause. Then his phone buzzed. YOU HAVE A NEW PHOTO MESSAGE FROM MIKEY B Timothy opened the image. It was Bublé. And he was holding up three fingers and sticking his tongue out. ‘Okay wtf you’re legit. Wow. I’ve had a really hectic morning - wanna go for lunch??’ As Timothy sat down in the cafe opposite Michael Bublé he felt Michael touch his knee gently. ‘So you work for Buzzfeed? I love that site, man.’ Bublé wasn’t quite as attractive in person. In fact he looked a bit old and his face was more jagged than Timothy remembered. He also had a yellow smoker’s tongue and greasy hair speckled with dandruff. But it was him. There was no doubt about that. This was a date with Michael Bublé. ‘Yeah, thanks. I think I’m gonna quit, though.’ ‘How come?’ ‘Well I-’ Timothy was interrupted by Bublé coughing loudly and hoarsely. ‘Excuse me.’ ‘Well, I-’ Bublé coughed again, this time turning away from Timothy. As he turned his head, his jagged face briefly looked like a bird. The bird from the symbol. Timothy’s heart filled with fear. Something was up. ‘Michael, sorry, I think I need to go to the bathroom.’ Timothy got up and walked towards the cafe toilets. As soon as he was around a corner he started sprinted. But as he glanced over his shoulder he saw Bublé tearing after him, running in a lopsided manner like a cliched movie zombie, and coughing loudly. Timothy changed direction and sprinted out of the cafe door, out into the street. He could hear Bublé coughing and weezing behind him - his phlegmy rasp becoming louder with every step. ‘Help!’ There was no one around. Timothy jumped over a wall, and into a graveyard. He glanced behind him again and saw that Bublé was now running on all fours like an evil deer. He reached another fence and tried to climb up it, but couldn’t get a grip. He fell to the ground and turned to see Bublé leering over him. ‘Get away from me you creep!’ Bublé grinned, and mouth-froth bubbled over his rancid teeth. ‘So you discovered my virus. Very clever of you.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ‘Aviax will soon be spreading faster than any disease on earth, and you’re not going to stop it.’ Bublé pulled out a pistol and pointed it towards Timothy’s forehead. ‘Sorry to burst your…Bublé.’ He tried to wink, but some pus glued his eye shut for about 3 seconds, making it look weird.