Plot in The Cat Lady

The events of *The Cat Lady*, chapter by chapter.

## Prologue

**“***My name is Susan Ashworth. I live alone in this old two-bedroom flat. I rarely go outside. Some would say it's a lonely life, and I guess that's true, but I don't like people's company. Not lately, anyway. I only trust in my cats these days, and I will miss them dearly... but they will understand, like they always have. Teacup stays with me 'till the end. He watches me, as if he knew... Because, early tonight, I swallowed a whole bunch of pills. They're legal, of course. Prescribed by my doctor for my sleeping problems. But I've taken thirty four of them. All I could find in the cupboard... and now the room around me spins in a blurry tango as my heart slows down. Any second now, I will be dead. I've only got one thing to say now. Thanks for nothing... Goodbye.***”**
―Susan Ashworth
Susan Ashworth introduces herself as a woman who lives alone in a two-bedroom flat and rarely goes outside. She says she has been disliking other people's company lately, preferring the companionship of her cats. Lately, she trusts only her cats and will miss them dearly when she is gone.

Susan says that Teacup, a black cat with luminous yellow eyes, will stay with her to the end. Teacup watches Susan as she takes an overdose of prescription sleeping pills. Susan narrates her fading sensations as she slips out of consciousness.

## Chapter 1 - "House in the Woods"

Susan finds herself outdoors, standing in a field of barley at dusk. She finds a shack but the door is locked. The countryside landscape suddenly transitions to a tunnel, MFT-37, where she finds an ambulance with her body on a stretcher. She retrieves a key from the body. The key opens the door to the shack, but she cannot operate the strange machine inside the shack.

Susan follows a deer into a nearby forest and explores the area. She obtains a key that allows her to unlock a gate with a pig's head and a deer's head mounted on the bars. Inside, she finds an old woman sitting on the porch of a mansion. The old woman appears to know a lot about Susan's life and claims to have been always present in it, but Susan has never seen her before. The old woman says that they are in her kingdom, and the mansion is her castle. She invites Susan into her house as a special guest of honor and calls herself the The Queen of Maggots.

The Queen of Maggots offers Susan a chance to end her sadness in exchange for returning to the human world and killing five Parasites, cruel-intentioned people who will try to deceive Susan and kill her. If she doesn't stop them, they will hurt innocent people as well. Susan refuses at first, saying that she just wants to die forever. But the Queen of Maggots says that Susan will become her hunter, serving punishment for the sins the Parasites committed.

The Queen of Maggots also explains that death solves nothing and Susan's suffering will never stop. She says the place serves as the passage between the world of the living and the world of the dead - if Susan enters one of the corridors, she will never come back. Susan is given immortality by the Queen, even though it's the last thing she wants.

The Queen takes her to the wheat field, where they encounter Susan's crucified body. Susan takes a crowbar from the body. She tells the Queen she will carry out the mission. Back in the mansion, the Queen says she must make a "sacrifice of soul" and a "sacrifice of blood" in order to return to the human world. Susan blows a candle out and watches a vision of a man hanging himself, performing the first sacrifice. The Queen instructs her to go to the shack in the field. Susan uses the crowbar to operate the machine. She reaches deep inside a bloody hole to press a button, and a blade suddenly severs her arm.

Bleeding profusely, she runs to the door and it opens with the sacrifice of blood. The credits play as she runs down an open corridor, and the screen goes black when a gunshot is heard.

## Chapter 2 - "Second First Breath"

In an office, a doctor briefly talks to Susan about his appreciation and interest in fine art, and begins Susan's mental health evaluation. As a former nurse, Susan knows the procedure well, and she is anxious to go home and take a long shower to unwind.

The scene transitions to Susan lying in a hospital room with a breathing mask. A nurse dressed in blue alerts a doctor who introduces himself as Andrew. Andrew tells her that she's at Cedar Lake Hospital and that her condition is stable. Before he leaves, Susan starts to mumble something and Andrew answers, "Don't worry, Ms. Ashworth, your arm is fine. No, no, no, there's nothing wrong with your arm, darling. Now calm down."

Susan sleeps, and is later awoken by a nurse. She is extremely friendly and starts chatting with Susan while taking her blood pressure. She expresses her dislike of being overworked in the hospital. After the dialogue, Susan again sleeps, until the lamp above her animates and burns her alive. However, this is a nightmare which ends abruptly with Susan awakening to the company of the nurse. The player has the option of telling the nurse about the dream. The nurse, whose nickname is Liz, listens to Susan talk about her suicide attempt and a dream of the events of Chapter 1 (If the player chooses to talk about it). Liz says that it might not be a dream - she believes in the supernatural.

Liz tells Susan that she's in the Dime Ward, a suicide watch at Cedar Lake Hospital, and that her "daughter" apparently saved her life by entering her apartment. Susan says she doesn't "have" a daughter and the person who called the emergency line must have lied.

Liz talks about Dr. Xavier Zellman, also known as Doctor X, a doctor who will talk to Susan before she is released from the hospital. She warns Susan about his flirtatious attitude and his affair with another girl who was supposedly paid to leave the scene. After a minute of talking about the mysterious Doctor, the player has the opportunity to ask more about Liz herself before asking to be left to sleep.

The scene transitions to Susan talking to the psychiatrist from before, now known as Doctor X. The player has the freedom to craft Susan's childhood story line from different options concerning her parents, resulting in some variance.

Back in the hospital room, Susan gets up and decides to attempt leaving the hospital. After leaving her room, Susan can walk right to find an occupied toilet and left to discover drug charts for both herself and the patient beside her - Ann Burton. It reveals that Ann has checked herself into the ward, and is on several medications to recover from heroin abuse.

The receptionist of the Dime Ward receptionist is unhelpful and impatient, and the discharge letter on the desk belonging to Ann Burton as well as the other files further to the left on the desk cannot be inspected as the receptionist will tell Susan off. You can go further left down the hallway to talk to the security guards who confirm that the only way to get out of the hospital is with a discharge letter.

Upon going back to where the bathroom is located, Ann Burton herself will exit the bathroom. Unsteady, confused and haunted by her mother, Susan must gain her trust by guessing the name of Ann's mother. Entering the bathroom, Susan can find a medication pot, and a shard of glass from the broken mirror. Turning on the hot water will steam the mirror, making the letters "EIL" appear on the mirror above. Susan then rings the bell beside the mirror in order to call the nurse from the reception, who will usually give her a dose of drugs.

Sleeping while on the drugs causes Susan to seemingly reappear in an alternate dimension, inside a corrupted version of Cedar Lake Hospital. It is here where the letters on the mirror are revealed to have been part of the name of Ann Burton's mother, "SHEILA", and a huge pulsating narcotic heart dominates the reception, which Susan stabs in order to let it leak a narcotic substance into the medication pot.

With the name of Ann's mother and the filled medication pot, Susan finally gains Ann's trust and Ann will finally switch name bands. Distracting the nurse away from the reception, she takes Ann's discharge letter and uses it to finally leave the Dime Ward. This is futile,as she is intercepted by Doctor X, with the nurse and security guard walking up behind Susan, having realizing her absence. Susan is told that she was given the wrong medication, for which Doctor X apologies, and while she will be let to leave the hospital the next day she must stay another night so Doctor X can meet with her in his office in the morning for her required evaluation.

The evaluation in Doctor X's office continues, and it goes smoothly until the last question when Susan is asked if she had any children, which causes Susan to become evasive and refusing to answer. Before she leaves, Doctor X prompts her about the night before, and a flashback enacts of Susan following Liz up to the hospital's roof; Susan attempts to convince Liz not to jump, which may or may not be successful, however Liz jumps regardless of the player's actions. After telling the Doctor about this event, Doctor X proclaims Susan is just imagining things and that Liz is fine; he spoke to Liz that morning. The evaluation is over, however when Susan tries to leave the door is locked. Doctor X corners her in the locked room, revealing he would've let Susan go if it wasn't for her story about Liz. He he then viciously stabs Susan dead several times.

Susan awakes up in a limbo environment, inside a creepy theater, with a massive eyeball soon appearing on the screen, proclaiming itself as The Crow. The Crow's raspy voice tells Susan that he will help Susan get out of there; two dolls guard two doors, one door will take Susan to where she belongs, and one door has a reward behind it. Susan is allowed to ask one question from the dolls regarding which door to open. One doll will always tell the truth, one doll will always lie. If Susan takes the door with the reward, she enters a dark room with a vase of flowers in the middle of the room, causing her to exclaim that she hates flowers and The Crow lied to her. The massive eyeball appears again and asks her if she really thought that the reward would be something precious.

Regardless of which door she went through, she will eventually find herself back in the The Queen of Maggot's candle room. She has no choice but to blow out another candle, witnessing an Old Lady die in a hospital room.

Susan walks in a dark alley until she comes across a writhing black body bag. Unzipping the bag reveals Susan's bloody, stabbed body. The body suddenly opens its eyes and sits up, appearing in a cushioned room containing two other female corpses. Susan screams in despair and condemns Doctor X for what he did. Exiting the chamber and discovering several of Doctor X's horrifying "artworks"; bodies of women strung and hung and positioned to resemble real-life famous paintings such as The Girl With The Pearl Earring and the Mona Lisa. Meanwhile, she hears the pained screams of Doctor X's newest victim down the hallway.

Susan discovers Liz's corpse, pinned to a gate. If Susan answered Liz's questions correctly on the hospital rooftop, Susan will retrieve a key that unlocks the exit to the underground torture facility. She contemplates how she could just leave and forget about it or stay behind and kill Doctor X, saving innocent lives.

If Susan chooses to stay, she must assemble and craft any of two weapons using the workbench found in one of the side rooms. Using her weapon of choice, she then slays Doctor X, completing her revenge. The rescued young woman profusely thanks Susan and asks who she is, Susan tells her to get out of there and call the police, as she is going to go home, and can remain anonymous, give her name, or proclaim Susan as The Cat Lady.

## Chapter 3 - "River"

Susan stands on a bridge over a river and recites the first two lines of a poem.

*"Standing by the river I wonder...do I need a stone...no...my heart is heavy enough...it will drag me down for sure."*

She returns to her apartment and decides to try and relax. Two gauges appear at the bottom of the screen. A **red** gauge representing Susan's mental state fills up incrementally when she gets upset, while a **green** gauge fills up incrementally when she does something that makes her happy and satisfied. If the red gauge is filled, she will suffer a complete breakdown. If the green gauge is filled, she can relax and get some sleep.

Susan must complete a series of little tasks: put money in the electric meter outside, take a shower, have something to eat, drink some coffee, and smoke a cigarette.

First, she must put money in the electric meter. By searching her bag in her bedroom, she will find some change which she can then place in the meter just outside her front door (**green** gauge increase). However, the large number of unpaid bills next to her bag will also upset her (**red** gauge increase). If Susan tries to have a shower before putting money in the electric meter, the electricity will suddenly be cut leaving her apartment in utter darkness and Susan will be upset (**red** gauge increase). During this time and if at any point Susan enters a room in total darkness without turning on the lights in that room, Susan may abruptly encounter a shadow. Although the shadow's appearance is brief and Susan disregards it as her imagination, it will upset her (**red** gauge increase).
Once there is electricity, she can go to the bathroom, switch on the light and take a shower, calming her (**green** gauge increase). During her shower, the scene changes to the river again, where she recites another two lines of the poem.

*"Standing by the river I smile...will I miss it all?...no...I'll be glad to leave it behind...and never come back."*

After her shower, Susan must venture to the kitchen to find food and coffee. After finding a mug on her balcony, filling up the kettle, switching it on and making coffee, she has to find a way to make it milky. The milk in her fridge is off - leaving her no choice but to use the coffee whitener in the cupboard (the player may use the fridge's milk, at the cost of the **red** meter going up and having to restart the task).
Next, food is on the agenda. In the fridge there is a cheap microwavable burger. Upon examination, it needs 60 seconds in the 800W microwave she has in the kitchen. Failure to put it in for the wrong time causes the microwave to explode and the **red** meter to go up. After eating the burger (**green** gauge increase), Susan should take the matches and cat food from the cupboard, as well as the hat outside in her hallway, the volleyball from her closet and the shirt from her spare room (where she has an upsetting memory of a teddy bear waiting for her causing an unavoidable **red** gauge increase). With these new items, Susan can venture to the balcony to find solace in a cigarette and her coffee.

However, a crow lands on her balcony (**red** gauge increase). To scare the bird away, she fashions a scarecrow out of the hat, volleyball and shirt from her apartment. With the bird gone, she can peacefully enjoy her coffee and cigarette (**green** gauge increase). She then decides that she wants to see her cats before the end of the night. The scene changes again to the river, where looks over the edge of the bridge and says;

*"Standing by the river I close my eyes...one jump and I’m there... no... Someone jumped after me...he will never be my friend."*

Back in the apartment, Susan plays the piano to summon her cats. She is warm and affectionate towards them, and prepares a can of cat food for them (which the player can find in the kitchen cupboard). She talks to Teacup and calls him a "good friend" for coming to see her and asking for nothing in return, not even the cat food she leaves out. She expresses uncertainty whether she can deal with the new events in her life, and envies Teacup's serenity and happiness.

At that moment, someone knocks on the door. She opens it and sees her neighbor, Bryan. He is upset about Susan's late night piano-playing and the noisy cats. He threatens to call the police and pest control if the noise continues late at night. The player can decide Susan's response; whether it is "I'm done talking to you, go fuck yourself" (dismissive) or "I didn't realise it was so late; I promise it won't happen again" (apologetic). If Susan is dismissive to him, it will award the achievement Go Fuck Yourself, at the cost of her **red** gauge going up. If Susan is apologetic to him, no achievement will be awarded, but it can fill up her **green** gauge or even the red one. After shutting the door on him, Bryan remarks that he thinks Susan is a "total nut job" and should be locked up somewhere.

If the red bar is full, Susan suffers a terrible breakdown, destroying the mirror in her room and collapsing on the floor, distraught. She finally crawls to her bed to cry hopelessly, watched silently by Teacup at her window. This will disqualify the player from the secret golden ending and the A Flower That Bent Towards The Sun achievement. The river scene appears once more;

*"Standing by the river I'm thinking, will I jump again? No...behind the closed doors I have fallen in love with the razor."*

If the green bar is full, Susan goes to her bedroom and sleeps. The achievement Unbreakable will be awarded and this is one of the requirements needed to unlock the secret golden ending and the A Flower that bent towards the Sun achievement. The river appears again, and Susan recites the last few lines of the poem:

*"Standing by the river I’m thinking... will I jump again?... no... I'll float like a feather... far away from here."*

## Chapter 4 - "Bullet for Susan"

The opening cutscene depicts a van marked "Pest Control" driving through a deserted suburb. When it pulls up to a two-story house, lights flicker on in the house. The driver, a man in a khaki suit, opens the van doors and drags out a body.

Susan Ashworth wakes up in her apartment. She answers the door and sees Mitzi Hunt. Mitzi reveals herself to be the person who saved Susan's life the night she tried to commit suicide. Mitzi says she came to Susan because she was interested in renting the spare room in the apartment. Mitzi is strangely insistent about renting the room, and promises not to be a nuisance. Reluctantly, Susan allows Mitzi to enter the apartment.

Susan asks how Mitzi got into the locked apartment that night. Mitzi admits that she picked the lock, and claims that she learned the skills from her dad, a master locksmith. She says she always carries around a box of custom-made lockpicks, and that it's the only thing she has in remembrance of her dad. Mitzi elaborates that she "had a hunch" that something was very wrong when she heard the cats yowling and "making an almost inhuman cry", and she was right.

When Susan warns her that the spare room is pretty bad, Mitzi says she isn't fussy and will only rent the room for a few weeks. She says she slept in the train station the previous night. Susan points out that Mitzi could just rent a hotel since she has the money to pay two months' rent in advance. Mitzi replies that she hates hotels. Susan asks Mitzi for reference contacts she could possibly call, and Mitzi says she doesn't have any because she's lived with her mom all her life, until recently.

Mitzi explains that she is looking for "a friend of a friend". She says she's only talked to him online, so she doesn't know what he looks like. She used her computer skills to find out that he lives in the apartment building they are standing in. She says there are eight flats in the building, but she doesn't know in which one the guy is living. Susan asks why Mitzi is looking for him, and Mitzi says he did "something horrible" and she wants to talk to him to "get closure".

They return to the living room. Mitzi is praising the spare room when the Queen of Maggots suddenly appears behind her and kisses Mitzi's cheek, to Susan's shock and dismay. Susan shouts at Mitzi to go away. Mitzi reassures Susan that she means Susan no trouble or harm. Susan realizes Mitzi is not a Parasite, and tells her that she is not safe and has to leave. Eventually, Susan must say the line, "You're going to die." Mitzi's voice goes quiet. She says she knows, and wonders if Susan is a psychic, or if it's "just so fucking obvious". She takes off her dark wig to reveal her bald scalp; presumably she has terminal cancer.

Susan comes to her senses in a bloody basement. She is tied to a bloody grate. A man wearing a gas mask says, "It's time to wake up, my little pussycat." He offers to give her a cuddle and a kiss to take the nightmares away, and asks, "What do you say? Should I take a good look at this pussy of yours?"

Gladys, the man's wife, walks in. She immediately asks if he was playing with Susan. He denies it and calls her "the only girl for him". He says that Susan is there for dinner, to which Gladys replies that she is sick to death of those cats. The man leaves the room. Gladys accuses Susan of trying to seduce her husband in her own home, and talks abusively to Susan. She pours strong bleach on Susan's face, saying that she won't need her eyes and face much longer anyway, and hobbles out of the room.

The camera switches to show the other side of the room, where Teacup meows from a cage. The player takes control of Teacup and escapes the cage, entering an air shaft near the ceiling. In the meantime, the Pest Control Man returns to the bloody room and puts a gun at Susan's feet in case she wants to kill herself. He says, "Feel free to use it. The bullet's meant for you anyway." When Susan struggles to reach it, he says, "Well, what did you expect? Life's a real fucker sometimes."

Teacup enters an adjacent room and takes a key by putting it in its mouth. The Pest Control Man enters and starts examining one of the guns he owns. Teacup avoids being seen by him and gives Susan the key. Susan uses it to unlock her handcuffs. She finds the gun, makes a quiet apology to Mitzi for breaking her earlier promise to Mitzi not to commit suicide again and shoots herself.

The game transitions back to Susan helping Mitzi to move her things and to settle down at her apartment. Susan reads a large poster that Mitzi stuck on the bedroom wall, reading "YOU ARE DEAD." Mitzi says her boyfriend made creepy posters. She offers to share a bottle of wine with Susan and get to know each other a bit more. Susan accepts the offer.

If you walk up to Mitzi after the scripted dialogue and select "Examine", Susan comments, "She reminds me of myself, when I was younger. I'm not sure if I can fully trust her... but so far she seems genuine. Maybe I will give her a chance..."

Susan goes to the kitchen to fetch the corkscrew, and the Living room cabinet to get two wine glasses, and after giving them to Mitzi, they begin their conversation.

On the balcony, the two talk about a huge variety of topics. Mitzi acknowledges that she didn't mean to tell Susan about her cancer that way and says that getting the room was part of the last and most important thing she must do, before her time is up. Susan realizes that it's about time she saw that other people have problems of their own, some of which are bigger than her depression. Susan asks Mitzi what kind of cancer is it, and Mitzi tells her it is glioblastoma, brain cancer. Mitzi says her doctors predicted she has six months left.

They agree to make a map of the apartment building and systematically figure out which apartment the guy Mitzi is looking for might be living in.

The weather can be brought up, and Mitzi admits that she likes the rain, but is afraid of fog after getting lost in fog when she was 9 or 10. She says she was afraid of the monsters in the fog; Susan can bring up that the only monsters in the world are humans. Murderers, rapists and arsonists fit the bill in her eyes.

Susan asks about Mitzi's boyfriend, **Jack**. Right off the bat, Mitzi says he is dead, and he is the main reason why she's here. Mitzi says that she was lucky enough to have experienced perfect love with him, and they were made for each other. They had a huge fight after he found out about her cancer. Afterwards, she did chemotherapy for his sake, but it didn't work. She says her emotional state prevented her from noticing how her cancer was destroying Jack's world. Jack became obsessed with death, and went online to a forum where he met a user called The Eye of Adam. The Eye of Adam encouraged users to commit suicide and gave them ways to do it. Jack became brainwashed by him and suggested that he and Mitzi die like Romeo and Juliet, in each other's arms, by inhaling a toxic gas. Mitzi told him he was nuts, but he wouldn't stop trying to persuade her to do it. Finally, he said he would get everything ready and wait for her at their special place at dawn and stormed out. Mitzi cried for hours and accidentally fell asleep. She woke up and saw the sun rising. She ran to their special place, a parking lot, hoping that she could stop him before it was too late. But she knew in her heart that it was too late. She went to the car park and found Jack's car, sealed with warning signs of poisonous gas stuck on the windows.

Susan says she is so sorry and Jack must have loved Mitzi so much he couldn't bear the thought of living without her. Susan sympathizes with Mitzi's desire to find The Eye of Adam. Mitzi then reveals that The Eye of Adam *told* her where he lives and actually wants to meet her. Mitzi explains "trolling" to Susan, and says The Eye of Adam is a hungry Internet troll who wants to devour as many hearts as he can get ahold of. She says she convinced him that she's a huge fan of his "work", and is a suicide advocate like him.

Susan asks about the gas that killed Jack and Mitzi says it's easy to make, but extremely toxic.

The game transitions back to Susan waking up from the basement of the Pest Control Man's house, having been resurrected by the Queen of Maggots's gift to Susan with Susan's face and sight restored. Susan gets up from the floor of the bloody basement. Upon leaving her room, she finds a cat grabber on some shelving and soon discovers that the door opposite her basement room is the "private room" of the Pest Control Man, who is asleep beside a cabinet of guns. She decides to kill him in order to get out of the house. Up the stairs, she finds several rooms in the house. In the kitchen, Susan finds a dreadful mess, along with a blunt knife which she pockets. Moving through the dining room, Susan collects a painting on the wall. At the far corner of the house, she finds a room with a cloth on some shelving and a crate with bottles of bleach, bringing back memories of her conversation with Mitzi about the poison gas. When she sees a bottle of bleach, she remembers what Mitzi said about the ingredients needed to make the toxic gas. A flashback suddenly plays: Susan and Mitzi both hear the cats yowling from the balcony, and Susan goes downstairs to check on them. Mitzi stays in the apartment because of her phobia of fog. Outside the building, the Pest Control Man talks to Susan and takes advantage of the thick fog to kidnap her.

Grabbing both the bleach and the cloth, she seeks out the other ingredient for the gas.

The back yard is littered with bath tubs containing green slime and dead bodies - one such bath contains a corpse with a key. Susan uses the cat grabber she found earlier to obtain it. Susan takes a peek inside the shed, the wife of the Pest Control Man chops meat with a cleaver. On the shelf behind her is some Pesticide.

Leaving the scene, Susan wanders through the house to the main door, where she leaves the house. She soon finds she cannot leave through the thick fog, and has to find other means of escape. Wandering through the fog for some time will award the achievement Monster in the Fog.

Finding the window to the "private room" of the Pest Control Man, she covers it with the painting, cutting out the ventilation in the room which makes conditions ideal for the deadly gas.

Using the blunt knife on the wall of loose bricks, Susan obtains a brick and uses it on the van to get a cell phone. Opening the back of the van with the key from the corpse, Susan finds the Pest Control Man's gas mask.

Susan has the choice to phone home, but cannot remember her number, and tries the emergency police hotline; but the police officer is painfully slow to realize the urgency of her situation. When the police officer finds out that she had been recently hospitalized for mental health issues, he directs her to a psychiatric hotline instead of taking her seriously.

Susan gives up and attempts to contact Mitzi. She unscrews light bulbs from the hallway with a cloth she found and uses them in the library for light. She finds Susan's apartment telephone number in a phone directory. The room also contains a house phone, from which Susan can jot down the telephone number for the house.

In the library, Susan calls Mitzi and convinces her to tell her the ingredients needed to make the toxic gas. The other ingredient is Pesticide. In order to get the last ingredient, Susan makes her way to the dining room and rings the house number from the cell phone. She ducks under the dining table while Gladys leaves the shed to answer the phone. Susan then gets the Pesticide from the shed's shelf and once again hides under the table. Gladys leaves and Susan emerges with everything she needs for the deadly gas.

Wearing the Pest Control Man's gas mask to protect herself, Susan creates the gas in the boarded-up basement room by placing the bleach and pesticide in a bucket on the shelf. This kills the Pest Control Man, letting Susan snatch his shotgun. Moving upstairs towards the shed, Susan enters primed to kill Gladys, only to find she isn't there. Upon leaving the shed, Gladys erupts from one of the bath tubs and pounces on Susan, only to be shot dead. If Susan has not been caught and killed by Gladys during all this time, this will award the achievement How very Cleaver.

Susan leaves the house and makes her way home to Mitzi.

## Chapter 5 - "Some Flowers Never Bend Towards the Sun"

Susan returns to her apartment and Mitzi exclaims that she was worried sick about her, and asks if she's alright. Susan says she saw a monster in the fog (referring to Mitzi's childhood fear of being hunted by a monster in the fog). The women hug.

While Susan is taking a bath, Mitzi knocks on the door and says she has an important question. She elaborates that she is making pancakes and would like to know what topping Susan wants on hers. Susan wonders why Mitzi is making food for her, and Mitzi answers it's because she cares about other people. The player can choose to express interest in having the pancakes or refusing them.

Later in the kitchen, Susan says she's full, and asks where Mitzi learned how to cook. Mitzi proudly says she learned it from her dad, "the king of pancakes." Susan offers to do the dishes. Mitzi says she enjoys doing dishes because she's "a good girl", and it's a treat for Susan after all.

On the laptop in the spare bedroom, Mitzi shows Susan a social networking site. Susan says she finds the idea of social networking stupid and would have no reason to tell other people about her ups and downs. Mitzi answers that maybe she will feel better for sharing it with her friends. Susan acutely points out that she doesn't have any friends, while Mitzi has two hundred and seventy-four. Mitzi replies that she's a likable person.

Susan feeds the cats while Mitzi watches. Mitzi says she knows a song that she wants to play for Susan, called "All Flowers In Time Bend Towards the Sun".

The next day, Mitzi announces to Susan that she created a profile for Susan on the social networking site. Mitzi suggests adding old colleagues and friends from school, but Susan said she probably didn't care about anyone enough to consider them friends. She reads, "Friends: 0", and says they got one thing right. Mitzi says she'll add Susan as a friend.

Later, after sitting down at the table for coffee, Susan shows Mitzi a map of the apartment building she drew last night. Mitzi is pleasantly surprised that Susan is going to help her find The Eye of Adam. They fill out the map together, attempting to find the correct flat.

On the first floor, Susan sometimes hears a dog barking in Flat 2, which is opposite the vacant **Flat 1**. Susan hears Joe Davis and Ivy Davis arguing sometimes in **Flat 3**, although they both seem very friendly to Susan. Susan comments that Ivy is very thin and looks ill, like "a walking skeleton", and that when Joe shouts, he seems "like a different person". Susan assumes the couple have serious relationship problems. They used to have a cat named Lucipher.

Susan and Mitzi live in **Flat 4**. On the third floor, an Old Man lives in **Flat 5**, and Bryan Palmer lives in **Flat 6**, directly above Susan and Mitzi. Susan notes that strange noises like shouting and gunfire come from **Flat 7**, which is on the top floor. A woman with a baby lives in **Flat 8**.

Mitzi notes a baby pram she saw in the spare bedroom, and asks if Susan has kids. Susan doesn't want to talk about it, complaining that ten years of suffering was enough for her, and that she deserves some peace for once. Mitzi accidentally knocks Susan's favourite mug to the floor, but Susan says she doesn't care anymore, and to just leave it.

Someone knocks on the door. Susan goes to answer it, and a man - known as The Carpenter - holding a hammer and a bunch of flowers steps into the apartment. He drops the flowers and crushes them. He walks towards Susan and knocks her out with the hammer. The camera pans to show Mitzi standing in the corner of the living room, staring in fear at the man.

Susan awakes, and finds herself in a bizarre place. Part of the area looks like a pier with some abandoned ships, while part of the area has an industrial appearance. Outside, she finds a pier with a docked elevator-submarine that can transport her away; but there is a minimum requirement of two people to operate it.

To the left side of the lobby area, she enters a derelict version of her apartment, where the walls are skulls and the furniture is broken or missing. She discovers that she is trapped on both sides. She finds a knife under the rag on the table by the mirror, and pries open the mirror's back. In the secret compartment, she finds a key to the spare bedroom, and a lever. She pulls the lever inside the compartment, revealing the same mace from Chapter 2. She takes it and uses it to smash the walls trapping her.

Entering the spare bedroom using the small key, she finds herself in the candle room in the Queen of Maggots' mansion. Materializing as an aged Susan, she blows out a candle, and witnesses an "accident" - a car crashing in a field.

Returning to her skeleton flat, Susan heads back to the lobby and uses the code 384 on the padlocked door to open it, and discovers machinery similar to the shed machinery in her first trip to the land of the dead. The blood sacrifice seems to be the price again. Susan uses the lever and mace alternatively between the panels in order to lure the shadow version of herself to the machinery end of the room. The shadow Susan is killed by a saw-blade, paying the price required to activate the elevator.

Susan stabs the fidgeting monster in the bathroom with the knife she got from the alternate apartment. The light goes out briefly. When it flickers back on, a drugged version of Susan, dressed in the hospital gown, hobbles behind the real Susan.

They walk to the elevator-submarine dock on the pier and enter it. The elevator is gradually crushed by the water pressure, and Susan clutches her head in despair before the screen fades to black.

Mitzi and Susan find themselves covered with tape in the bathtub. They try to escape, but to no avail. Susan begins tell Mitzi about a suitor who sent her flowers and phoned her frequently, even though she was married to Eric Ashworth, a taxi driver.

Susan remembers how he sent one bouquet of beautiful lilies, which particularly mesmerized her. She usually threw away his flowers, but she was so entranced by them that it took her a while to realize the phone was ringing, and she realized it was her suitor calling. The scene turns to a flashback. Susan, in a red dress with her hair tied back in a bun, answers the phone. The player can choose to respond positively or reject the suitor. Rejecting the suitor with certain dialogue choices will award the achievement Nettles.

Susan wants to put the flowers somewhere without Eric noticing, so she puts them in her baby Zoe's bedroom, on the window counter. She says to herself that she can tell Eric that Mandy, a friend, had brought them for Zoe; a seemingly innocent lie.

Eric comes home, and he is very upset by an accident: a terrorist bombing took place near his taxi, and two cars smashed into the cab. He is stressed from the incident, and said he called Susan four times but she didn't answer. Susan tries to say that she was busy with the baby, but Eric says "it's the same old story." Eric drinks some wine. The suitor calls again, and Susan replies as if she were talking to someone else, because Eric is watching.

Afterwards, Eric accuses Susan of being lazy while he works really hard to provide for the family. Susan argues that he never takes care of Zoe. As they argue, the present Susan's voice narrates that the couple didn't notice a thunderstorm starting outside. The window in Zoe's bedroom was open, and pollen from the flowers blew onto Zoe's crib. Unknown to both parents, Zoe had a rare flower pollen allergy, and had a severe allergic reaction thanks to the open window blowing the pollen towards her while Susan and Eric argued. By the time the parents found out, it was too late - Zoe did not survive from her allergic reaction to the flower pollen.

Eric went missing shortly afterwards. The police found out that he had drunk himself to death in the woods and reported the matter to Susan a few days after Eric's disappearance.

The man with the hammer comes back and takes Mitzi out of the bathroom. Susan is distraught.

After a while, the man unties Susan. Susan is confused, but she walks into the living room and sees Mitzi hanging from the ceiling, struggling to stay alive. The man — the fourth Parasite — gestures to the piano and howls at Susan. Susan takes this as a cue to play the piano. The cats come into the apartment. Seeing the intruder, they pounce on him and maul him. Susan quickly frees Mitzi, and tells her to look away from the sight of the cats mauling the man to death.

## Chapter 6 - "The Legend of Cat Widow"

Susan Ashworth and Mitzi Hunt begin their survey of the apartments in their building. The player gains a Mitzi icon in their inventory, which can be used to ask Mitzi for advice on what to do next, or to pick a lock.

Flat 3, the one opposite Susan and Mitzi's flat, has a special lock beyond Mitzi's lockpicking abilities and cannot be picked open.

On the first floor, they see some cats scratching a large red sofa in front of the vacant Flat 1. On close inspection of the sofa, Susan notices that the sofa appears to have been mended recently. The Morrisons, who moved out the prior month, left a note on the front door asking The Dog Lady living in Flat 2 to put up with the cats for a while, just like they've put up with her dog for so long. Mitzi picks the lock to enter Flat 1. In the living room, they see a large hole in the ceiling with a small cat statue just at the edge of the hole on the upper floor. They find nothing else inside, and cross off Flat 1 from their list. They have a short exchange about the difference between depression and cancer. Susan says that being depressed makes you feel like you want to die while you must live. Mitzi replies that cancer makes her want to live while she is fated to die.

Susan, accompanied by Mitzi, talks to The Dog Lady at the ground floor who complains about the stray cats and their strange attraction to the red sofa. The Dog Lady says her dog Williams, sometimes ran away trying to catch the cats. While examining the flowers behind the Dog Lady, Susan accidentally breaks the vase. Susan is able to retrieve a fragment of broken glass from the broken vase. Later, Susan and Mitzi discover that the sofa was planted with a vial of valerian extract, which cats love as much as catnip, prompting Susan to cut the sofa open with the broken glass fragment.

Susan and Mitzi head to Flat 5. The Old Man answers the door. Mitzi tries to ask him questions about his internet service, but the Old Man appears to have bad hearing and Mitzi cannot get much information out of him. They rule him out as a suspect for The Eye of Adam.

Susan places a rag covered with the valerian extract outside Flat 2. The cats crowd around the rag and William (the dog) barks loudly. Susan talks to the Dog Lady about William, and the Dog Lady opens the door to check on him. William starts chasing the cats, and the Dog Lady runs after William. Mitzi asks Susan if the cats will be alright, and Susan coolly replies that the cats can easily outrun an "old mutt". After searching Flat 2, Mitzi says there are no internet devices or phone lines in the Dog Lady's apartment, ruling her out.

Mitzi picks the locks on the mailboxes, and she finds a letter addressed to Pauline about interviewing a new babysitter from an agency. Mitzi and Susan decide to impersonate the babysitter in order to infiltrate Pauline's apartment.

Back at the ceiling hole in Flat 1, Susan uses a broomstick the Dog Lady left behind to knock down the cat statue. She breaks it and finds **a key to Flat 3** inside.

Susan and Mitzi enter the forgotten basement from the ground floor. Susan takes **an extension cord** and finds a **coal chute** which she can open with the crank taken from Bryan's bicycle, a can of red paint after opening it with a screwdriver, and a sewing dummy with a white dress on it. Susan comes up with the idea of an elaborate plan to punish Bryan for calling the Pest Control Man. The plan revolves around an old story called "The Cat Widow", and Susan needs some red paint, a black dress, and a mask to tell it.

Susan and Mitzi enter Joe Davis's apartment using the key. In the bedroom, which has an ominous door to another room with the letters "666" scrawled on it, they find Joe's laptop. It can't be turned on because it has no power. Susan herself is anxious to leave the apartment because she doesn't want to stick around, but Mitzi insists on going back to their flat and getting her power cable, which may work on Joe's laptop. Mitzi tries to comfort Susan, saying...

Shortly after Mitzi left the apartment, a telephone ringing inside the apartment can be heard. If Susan tries to approach the telephone, the ringing will stop and Susan will realize the telephone is not connected and wonders if that ringing sound was her imagination. If Susan tries to turn on the TV, she will only receive white noise. However, the TV will mysteriously turn on and show a disturbing picture as Susan was moving away, frightening her to start thinking of leaving the apartment. After Mitzi has been gone for a while, Susan decides to leave the apartment, but the doorknob comes off in her hand. Returning to the bedroom, she uses the doorknob to open the "666" door. It opens into a creepy bathroom with a mannequin standing in an overflowing bathtub. A power lead extension may be picked up from inside.

Joe unexpectedly returns. He is agitated and distressed, confronting Susan and asking why Susan "took her away". Susan has no idea what he's talking about, but Joe asks "who sent her". He advances towards Susan and she backs away, falling into the hole in the living room floor.

Susan wakes up in a small cellar with four doors. Each door has a word scrawled over it. She opens the doors in an order that forms the sentence "Devil came through HERE" and enters a strange apartment with a broken tiled wall opening to a stormy grey sky, and bars and metal gates hanging from the walls. Joe asks for Susan's help, surprising her. Joe seems to have no recollection of their confrontation in the real-world apartment. He sadly talks about his wife, Ivy Davis, who is in the adjacent room doing her makeup. She has been in the room for a week, and gets angry at Joe whenever he tries to talk to her.

Susan enters the room, which is filled with mirrors on one side, from floor to ceiling. A frail figure sits in an armchair looking at the mirrors. If Susan tries to talk to Ivy, Ivy jerks back and forth and says in a hoarse, mechanical voice, "MISERY!" before falling still again. Susan finds a book titled "Misery" in the living room bookshelf and opens it to find a screwdriver inside.

Susan uses the screwdriver to open a panel inside Ivy's room. Pressing the left and right switches aligns the mirrors, which suddenly display multiple reflections of Ivy's gaunt face. The faces start cackling, while Ivy jerks back and forth in her seat. Joe enters the room and cries "No! No! No! This isn't Ivy! This isn't my wife! It's the monster that followed me here... it always follows me, no matter what I do." Joe suggests that Susan kill it, saying that she should use the power cord to strangle it. Susan can strangle the figure or refuse to do it and be shot by Joe.

The scene suddenly transitions to Mitzi having returned to the apartment. Mitzi will shout a warning and demand an explanation for Susan trying to strangle her with the power cord if Susan chooses to strangle the figure. Alternatively, Mitzi will comment that Susan looks like she's seen a ghost if Susan refuses to strangle the figure. Susan shakily says that she thought Mitzi was someone else or something strange happened, and Mitzi says she was gone for less than a minute. They use Susan's power cord as Mitzi's own power cord is useless, but find nothing on the computer's hard drive. They quickly leave the apartment, but not before Mitzi asks Susan if she thought of a vegetable. Susan says she did, and Mitzi asks if it was a carrot. The player can go along with Mitzi and say it was a carrot, or disappoint her by saying it was another vegetable. Strangely enough, the screwdriver that Susan took from her nightmare with Joe and Ivy appeared to have been carried over and remained in Susan's inventory.

The next apartment they visit is Pauline's apartment. Pauline is holding her six-month old daughter Elissa when she answers the doorbell. Mitzi pretends to be the babysitter who is supposed to meet Pauline for a chat, and Susan reluctantly comes along. Mitzi claims she is a medical school student who wants some hands-on experience before taking a child psychology class next semester.

On the pretext of needing to wash her hands thoroughly before handling the baby, Mitzi goes into the bathroom to wash her hands, and Pauline goes in with her. Susan answers a knock on the door, and it is Rita Tickle, the actual babysitter from the babysitting agency. Rita is extremely insistent and stubborn about getting the post, but she leaves to call the office and find out what happened to the mail interview confirmation.

Rita comes right back after a while, and introduces herself again. Susan tries to dissuade her from trying to get the job again, but Rita describes her credentials and good work ethics. Susan claims she gave her baby up for adoption, and Rita declares that she is evil and will go to hell for doing that to her child.

Using a pair of scissors found in the apartment, Susan cuts the power cord to give Mitzi a chance to make up an excuse to leave. Mitzi acts as if she is terrified of the dark, and Pauline volunteers to go outside to put more money into the electricity meter. Mitzi quickly searches Pauline's laptop, but finds nothing of interest. Outside the apartment, Mitzi and Susan come across Jesse and Rita in addition to Pauline. Jesse offers to go to a hardware store and buy some materials that he can use to repair the cut wire.

Back outside Susan and Mitzi's apartment, Susan expresses regret for causing Pauline unnecessary trouble. Mitzi points out that they can enter Jesse's apartment.

They enter Jesse's apartment. Susan takes a hockey mask from a trio of Halloween masks in the living room. They find a laptop in his bedroom, but since the power cord has been cut on that floor, they must use the power cable extension to draw power from the floor below (Flat 1) to charge Jesse's laptop. Mitzi says she found nothing of interest in Jesse's laptop either.

With the items they need, Susan and Mitzi start preparing their execution of the Cat Widow plan. They blacken the dress with coal and slash it with the scissors to make it raggedy.

Susan begins telling Mitzi the legend of Cat Widow. Her voice continues to tell the story as the scene changes to Susan in the act of pranking Bryan. The player can choose various story options to craft the story. Bryan, the main character in the story, sees various strange things around and inside his apartment, like scrawled letters on the walls. He finally comes face to face with the terrifying Cat Widow, who has intentions to make him pay for what he did to a family of stray cats. Bryan faints.

After the prank is complete, Susan and Mitzi proudly recall how scared Bryan was. Susan says he'll probably figure out who did it to him, but he is too proud to admit he's been beaten by a woman. Mitzi says all she found on his laptop was a load of porn. They cross him off the list of suspects for The Eye of Adam.

Susan suggests that they go back home and sleep before considering other things they can do to search for The Eye of Adam.

Susan and Mitzi will find a note stuck to their apartment door upon their return.

Mitzi exclaims that Flat 5 belongs to the Old Man and it can't be him. Susan says they have a few hours before midnight, and suggests that they drink some coffee in the meantime.

The camera pans across to the basement and shows a cellar where Joe is standing next to his obese, bloated and bloody wife, her head downcast. Joe declares that nobody will find them there, and tells Ivy that he will always love her. He says he will make her all better. Ivy screams and twitches erratically before the screen goes to black.

## Chapter 7 - "Don't Feed the Troll"

With a note waiting when Susan and Mitzi return to their flat, they are given an 'invitation' to meet back at flat 5 at midnight, signed by The Eye Of Adam. Susan states that there is still time before midnight, and that they should have a drink of coffee.

The clocks in Susan and Mitzi's flat chime, showing it is Midnight. Susan and Mitzi approach flat 5, and enter. They make their way through the flat, and reach a door covered with warning signs, urging them to stay out. Mitzi makes a comment on how that will not stop anyone getting in. She then states that she hears a noise in the kitchen, and carries on through the flat. Susan follows.

In the kitchen is the Old Man that Mitzi attempted to ask about his Internet Service Provider when investigating earlier. When asked, he reveals he is not The Eye Of Adam, but that Adam is his son. He tells Susan and Mitzi that he believes his son has gone too far, and tells them his son is watching them all through a camera. The Old Man then urges Susan and Mitzi to take something from him, saying that his son would never dare to kill his father, but that his son must see him without it. Susan takes the object, finding it to be a box.

Upon opening the box, Susan finds a gas mask. Realising the implications of this, Susan tells Mitzi they must leave the flat immediately.

The scene moves to show the fish tank that Susan and Mitzi walked past when moving through the flat. Mounted on the upper corners of the tank are two canisters, which are shown to release a gas into the flat.

Moving back to the kitchen, Mitzi tells Susan that it is too late to leave the flat, and Susan tells Mitzi to wear the gas mask. Mitzi refuses, telling Susan she must live and that Mitzi is going to die anyway. Susan then has a choice; she can choose to wear the gas mask herself (gaining the achievement "Scared Of Dying") or give the mask to Mitzi (gaining the achievement "Sacrifice").

If Susan chooses to wear the gas mask herself, the scene will show the Old Man and Mitzi die from breathing in the gas. Susan will survive, and on walking out the kitchen Susan will come across the deer from the first chapter. It will run to the left. Following it, Susan will encounter a large image of an eye through an open door, and the door to the flat will be a wall of skulls. Susan will then go right, and the scene will switch from flat 5 to the grass fields from chapter one. Then a distorted, broken replica of Susan's apartment will appear in the background. When continuing in this direction, Susan will encounter the Queen Of Maggots, who tells her she has been waiting for her, and has one last job for her.

The Queen Of Maggots leads Susan back into her mansion. She tells Susan that she must choose to blow out one more candle, as there are only two left. During their conversation, the Queen Of Maggots lists all the sad things that have happened to Susan in her life, and Susan realises that the Queen Of Maggots is a human representation of the depression she has been feeling. Susan then has a choice; blow out the right candle, blow out the left candle, or refuse. Regardless of the choice, Susan will live. If Susan chooses to blow out a candle, the Queen Of Maggots will tell her "Very Good." If she chooses to refuse, Susan and the Queen Of Maggots will argue, but Susan will still return to life.

Upon her return, Susan is in flat 5, and enters the room belonging to The Eye Of Adam. After figuring out that his name is due to the fact that he is completely paralysed excepting one eye, she berates him for his crimes, and laments on the fact that she was unable to save Mitzi. Susan is then given the choice to kill or spare him. If Susan chooses to kill him, she will light a cigarette and leave the room. As she has noticed that the oxygen tanks The Eye Of Adam is reliant on are leaking, she throws her cigarette into the room. The room explodes, killing The Eye Of Adam, and the achievement "Revenge" is earned.

If Susan chooses to give the gas mask to Mitzi, the scene will shown Mitzi hugging Susan as Susan and the Old Man die from the gas. Susan tells Mitzi to think of a vegetable whilst she is gone.

Susan is then shown again in the grass fields from the first chapter. The same journey through the fields and the same conversation with the Queen Of Maggots occurs, and Susan is again given three choices. Regardless of the choice, Susan returns to life.

The next scene shows Mitzi alive in flat 5. The dialogue "Tomato." appears, spoken by Susan, and Susan stands from where she is on the ground. Mitzi tells her she is silly because a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable, but Susan replies, telling her she likes tomatoes. Mitzi says she was thinking of an onion, and when asked why, she explains that onions are the saddest vegetables because they make people cry. She then asks Susan how she lived, because Mitzi watched her die. Susan tells her that "Cats have nine lives, and apparently Cat Ladies do too." but that she is on her last life. Mitzi tells her not to do anything like that again, and Susan whole-heartedly promises that she won't.

Mitzi and Susan enter The Eye Of Adam's room, and Mitzi is shocked to find he is wheelchair-bound. Mitzi is then furious, pulling out a gun and advancing on Adam. Susan attempts to tell her to drop the gun, but Mitzi will not listen. Susan then has another choice; she can choose to talk Mitzi down, and convince her not to kill The Eye Of Adam, or she can allow Mitzi to shoot him. Adam provokes Mitzi by telling her to kill him, and that the only way for her to find out why he convinced people to commit suicide was for her to shoot him.

If Susan talks Mitzi down, the achievement "I Care About You" is earned. Susan convinces Mitzi that killing Adam is not worth sacrificing all three of them, as she has informed Mitzi about the oxygen leak and that if Mitzi pulls the trigger, the entire room will ignite and all of them will be killed if not injured. She tells Mitzi that all Adam wants is for her to kill herself, as that is what he preaches, telling her that Jack would not have wanted this to happen, and when Mitzi states that she has no one to live for, Susan finally convinces her to drop the gun by telling her "I care about you. Do it for me."

If Susan allows Mitzi to kill Adam, the achievement "A Ruthless Killer" is earned. Susan tells Mitzi to kill Adam, and Mitzi does so. A gunshot is heard, and the room is shown to explode outwards. Mitzi and Adam die in the blast, but Susan survives, stating that the concussion pushed her out of the room and did not kill her.

Dialogue from Susan tells that she is here again, telling people about her life, and that she has tried to help others with the same problems she had. Text appears, cycling through the same two shots of white-on-black and black-on-white messages, then the scene moves to a bright blue sky. Panning down, Susan is shown standing next to a grave, presumably Mitzi's grave. She kneels down and leaves some flowers at the foot of the grave. She then stands and walks away to the right. More dialogue appears, telling how she has made a few friends, and that they have met up a few times, but still not that often. She muses about the evil in the world, but also mentions that now and again people like Mitzi come along, people that would smile through the horror and cruelty of the world. A comment is made on Mitzi's cause of death, whether caused by her anger, or by being claimed by her cancer. The final shot shows Susan's face in colour, close up, then fades away to the credits.