== AN INTRODUCTION TO MEDICINE AND BARBIE DOLLS ==

by pr0c

Made with the Unform Text Adventure Engine

UID: 564894651321549

Copyright 2067

At last, you emerge from the neon haze and find yourself standing in the middle of a road. It's night. The air is warm. There are no crickets; only a faint, distant whistle, carried by the light breeze. It must be summer time.

In front of you is a building. The flickering sign on the roof says: 'Hotel Delore.'

You squeeze the grip of your doctor's bag.

It's going to happen again.

> Enter hotel

The bell at the door announces your arrival. The sound surprises you as much as it does the woman sitting at the reception desk. While she scrambles to put her phone away, you glance around the lobby.

It tries its best not to show it, but something tells you the place is on its last legs. It's the little things, really. The photos all hang on their walls with a slight tilt to them. An ashtray still sits unclean on one of the tables. The light in the reception's back room is flickering.

Most troubling of all, however, is the silence.

The girl at the desk knows as much. That's why she jumps to take the initiative. "Hey, there! Good evening! Welcome to, uh, Hotel Delore! Do you happen to have a reservation?"

> Talk to girl

Please specify in more detail who you wish to talk to.

> Talk to Cassie

You do not know anyone by that name.

> Talk to reception girl

"Do you have a reservation, sir?"

> Figure out if I have reservation

'Figure' is not a valid command.

> Fuck you

You do not know how to 'fuck.'

> Inventory

You have:

* Doctor's bag

* Reservation information

> Give reception girl reservation information

"One sec, please."

As the girl haphazardly operates the laptop behind her desk, you hear footsteps come from the hallway. Their source is a man; his black shirt is missing a button, hinting at the Led Zeppelin T-shirt underneath. In his breast pocket appears to be a gerbil of some kind.

The receptionist stops fiddling with the computer the moment her eyes lock with his.

"Juice, for crying out loud." she says. "You better not let Dan see you're not manning the bar."

"Given that I just spent the past twenty minutes dragging him to bed, I somehow don't think that'll be an issue." Noticing you, he slides his hands into his pockets. He strikes you as the type to paradoxically grow in unprofessionalism when face-to-face with customers.

"Hello, there." he says. "Staying the night or repo-man? The odds are about fifty-fifty these days."

"Juice!" the girl exclaims and falls quiet soon after, immediately catching herself in whatever insult she was about to throw the man's way. She clears her throat. "Mister—" she looks at your reservation, "—Cromwell here is one of our valued customers. So be nice, please." This last sentence, she speaks through gritted teeth.

He smiles. "I'm always nice."

For some reason, she can't help but smile along.

> Examine Juice

He looks to be in his early thirties. His hair is short, but travesty on just about every level; an embarrassment no barber worth his salt would claim as his own. He must groom it himself. If such a thing could be considered grooming.

> Examine hamster

You don't see any 'hamster.'

> Examine gerbil

It's almost as if it's staring at you.

> Talk to Juice

"I'm Jacob." he says. "But you can call me Juice. Everyone does. I man the bar, just down the hall there. Feel free to stop by whenever." He glances at the clock on the wall. "Well. Whenever that's within the next hour. Before, you know, we close."

Although not much of a salesman, there is something about him that makes you ache for a drink.

"I also clean." he yawns. "And sometimes cook. Well, generally cook. Oh, and bring the owner to bed. Like now. On the account of the fact he's a drunk."

"Juice." the girl's gritting her teeth again.

"Sorry. He's a high-functioning alcoholic."

> Talk to Cassie

You do not know anyone by that name.

> Talk to reception girl

The girl claps her hands together. "Ha. I did it."

"You're a genius, baby." the man tells her. "Your Excel spreadsheet powers are unmatched."

"MENSA, here I come." she murmurs, grabbing a key from the rack behind her and placing it before you. "Your room's 205. Breakfast is at 8. Your check-out time is tomorrow at 11. If you have any questions or requests, feel free to phone the reception desk, but keep in mind all services relating to your room should be kept to an emergency basis after 2 AM."

"We here at Hotel Delore would also like to note that, should you HAVE emergencies, help will be dispatched in the form of a very, very tired man." the gerbil-man says. "Me. Occasionally Dan, too. Although, that usually ends up leading from one emergency straight into another one, so. Think carefully how badly you want us to get involved, eh?"

The girl rolls her eyes. "We wish you a pleasant stay."

The man begins walking down the hall, towards the bar.

"There's something we have to talk about later." the reception girl tells him.

"Yep." he says simply, waving.

The reception falls back into silence.

> Go to room

Which room would you like to go to?

> Go to room 205

You don't feel like it's time for that just yet.

> Go to bar

You follow 'Juice' down the hall.

The bar is obviously where most of the money had been sunk into. The shelves lined with bottles, the shiny counter, the colored lighting — if you didn't know any better, you'd say it was a hotel attached to a bar, and not the other way around.

"Not bad, huh?" Juice remarks as you take a seat. "The whole building actually used to be a club. The whole ground floor was this huge dance floor divided into sections. The upper floors were always, like, rooms, with beds and shit. Guess that made the remodeling easier after Dan bought the place."

He coughs. "As to, uh, why a club would have rooms with beds on its upper floors... I'll leave that up to your hopefully optimistic imagination."

> Talk to Juice

"You want a drink?"

> Order a drink

You give your order. A cocktail. He doesn't make for much of a bartender, but the end result is... acceptable.

His eyes fall on your medical bag.

"Doctor, huh? My parents had something like that planned for me, too. Unfortunately, I ended up having some trouble in Senior Year. Never graduated. Made things complicated." He grins. "Still, believe it or not, I got my chance to play around with a scalpel. After I left home, I pretended to be a med student for about two years. Sure, I inevitably got caught. Went to jail for two months."

Seeing the bar empty, he fixes himself a drink, too. "The funny thing is, between me and the legit students, I walked away with less debt to my name."

He laughs.

You don't.

The gerbil in his pocket keeps staring at you.

> Ask about the gerbil

"It's a hamster. The name's Ferdinand. You can just use 'Dee,' though. You know, Fer-dee-nand?" He looks down at the seemingly unimpressed hamster and shrugs. "Whatever. I think it works."

Another guest walks into the bar. It's a woman. She's dressed far too elegantly for her environment; desperate to impress someone in a place where the people are begging to be impressed. She realizes it, too. Or, at least, she realizes the black dress was a bit too much. Maybe she's just taken aback with how empty the whole hotel really is.

In spite of her sudden and obvious discomfort, she takes a seat next to you. 'The night might still be salvaged,' she must think.

"Whiskey." she says. "The cheapest one, if that's okay."

> Examine woman

Perhaps the reason for the glamour is because her beauty almost demands to be complemented. There's something unusual about it, too; something non-traditional. Even with all the make-up, her eyes seem simply a bit too large.

But it's that imperfection that makes it work. It's the spark that makes her special. She knows it. Or, rather, she knows about it, but doesn't know how to truly appreciate it. Maybe she's insecure? Maybe she's attempting to use the dress as a distraction from what she perceives as a fault?

She looks your way.

> Talk to the woman

You feel like you can do a bit better than that.

> Compliment the woman

She smiles at the most surface-level of openers. This truly is a place where everyone is desperate to be impressed, regardless of how much they want to leave an impression of their own. The same is true for you. You want to impress her. You want her to remember you. You want her to give you the tiniest bit of her time — a simple crack in the door.

And you want her to impress you. You want her to feel right when the time comes to act.

Will she be the one you act on, though?

"My name's Abigail." she tells you.

And that's when you decide that she would be.

[Press Any Key to Continue.]

>

Already, you think of the two of you going upstairs together. Will she invite you to her room? No, probably not. She's not that kind of girl. You'll need to force yourself in. She might scream, but you've already got an injection ready in your pocket.

You decide you will paralyze her. Keep her awake, but unable to move or feel. She'll get to watch as you slice her up, limb by limb. Watch as she finally gets to be treated like the doll she is.

What will she think when the time to take her head off comes?

[Press Any Key to Continue.]

>

"Refills, anyone?" Juice asks.

You reckon he'll be the one to find her. Spread out across her bed. All the pieces there, yet spread apart ever so slightly. That's the thin line that divides life and death.

The crack in the door.

She makes a self-deprecating joke about how clumsy she is. Something to do with her work. You're not even listening.

But the mention of her work awakes the same doubts as always. You will be robbing someone of their existence. A living human who was born and destined to die molded into an ugly memory — a pain in the chest of her friends and family.

Is this really worth it?

[Press Any Key to Continue.]

>

You ask Juice to give you a coin. You make up some excuse about deciding what you'll do at the medical conference the next day.

Heads. She dies.

Tails. She lives.

The outcome is already, of course, decided.

It's how it always is.

Because that's how it keeps happening.

The coin flies in the air.

== THE END ==

"You've replayed that thing more than me at this point." Dee says, her head peeking over my shoulder.

I lean back in the chair. "I guess I like to be reminded of the blatant character assassination. Guy made me sound like a complete asshole."

"Really? Seemed like he had your number the moment he saw you."

"Dude seems to be into chopping up women. I wouldn't go to him for any character references, thank you very much."

The 'game,' if you can even call it that, popped up online about a week after I found Abigail Bastillevich dead in her room; her head and limbs cleanly separated from the rest of her body, just as promised.

The link to the 'game' was dropped in one of the Facebook groups dedicated to investigating her disappearance. The uploader's name was 'pr0c.' Most members took it as some sort of sick joke.

Why wouldn't they have?

After all, because of me, her body was never found. As far as the world is concerned, no murder has even occurred. After I'd done my work with the body, Abigail was seen leaving the hotel three days after she was murdered.

A true miracle, indeed.

Don't ask me why I did it. The answer might change depending on who's in the room with me. If it's Dee, I'll say I did it for her. If it's the murderer, I'll say it was plain scientific curiosity. If it's Cassie, I'll say that I don't know what she's talking about.

If it's just me, I'll have to admit I don't really know.

Just like I don't really know why I agreed to all this. I gave Dee a body. It's all she ever wanted. All she ever talked about. Whatever sense of shock or horror she might've had when I showed her the corpse, it disappeared the moment she slipped into it.

But now, all of a sudden, it isn't enough. She wants to find the guy who killed the woman whose body she stole.

I guess, no matter how I look at it, it's the least we could do. I'm sure it says something about me. Some good quality, I hope.

After months of dead ends and false starts, I've come to my last option: Bobby.

I rub my eyes. My neck is still a bit sore from last night's dream. "I just wanted to refresh myself on the details before we talk to him. He probably can't be fucked to play it himself. And, besides, could still be some kind of clue that points to who this 'Mr. Cromwell' is."

"I still don't know how that name didn't raise any red flags all on its own." Dee says.

"Because I'm the guy that walked around with a hamster in his pocket. If anything, our flags basically signaled to each other."

"And you still don't remember what he looked like?"

"Hey, you saw him, too."

"Bit difficult to stare at someone when you're barely peeking out of a breast pocket."

I shrug. "He was just a guy. Not much to him. I mean, I never really understood how witnesses on TV can even give things like height and stuff, let alone accurately describe how people's noses look li—"

"Hey, Juice?"

"Mm?"

"Are my eyes too big?"

"Your eyes are perfect."

"Oh. Good." She blinks. "Would it be fine if they were too big?"

"As I said. Let's not take the viewpoint of what's clearly a deluded psychopath who writes text adventures. And, you know, does the whole murder thing."

"Right, but IF they—"

"I like your eyes the way they are. I don't know how if someone wants to call them big, or small, or in the middle, but you look beautiful."

"I—Good. I'm sure Abigail would've appreciated that."

"It's your body now. Get used to it."

She smiles.

I walk over to the door. "Before we head out, there's kind of this one thing I forgot to mention about Bobby."

"One of those things that's convenient to leave out until right before I have to find out about it?"

"Essentially."

"Go ahead, then."

"Just don't be alarmed when you see him. There's kind of a reason they call him The Werewolf."