Eurydice
Anonymous
alternative endings ancient Greece Anonymous built-in hints cover art grief hospital IF Competition 2012 IFComp Game journey magic male protagonist multiple endings Mythology NightFloyd transcript orpheus Oxford profanity romance strong NPCs Xyzzy Awards 2012
A short game about grief, with occasional snakes.
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Eurydice

This room is full of silence. Freshly disturbed dust hangs upon the air. There are patterns of pressure upon the carpet, suggesting there are spaces where once there weren't. The walls are bare, but for the occasional pictureless hook. There is a wardrobe here, a chest of drawers and a skeleton of shelves against the far wall.

The only way out is to the west onto the upstairs landing.
About yourself
You've been better.
You look at the wardrobe
The wardrobe casts a knobbly shadow against the bare wall behind it. The door hangs very slightly open, showing a crack of darkness.
You open the wardrobe
You step into the wardrobe and sit down in the space, pressing your senses against the emptiness as if longing alone is enough to create something from nothing. With your eyes closed you can almost feel the soft pressure of Celine's clothes against your face and breathe in the scent of her rising from the disturbed fabric. But you cannot delude yourself for nearly as long as you would like to. This wardrobe is empty. There is nothing here, and you get out again before you start to feel foolish.
You examine the shelves
These shelves are a framework for nothing but air. The books they held not so very long ago evade you now.
You look at drawers
A pale pine set of drawers.
You open the drawers
There is no point opening them because you know they contain nothing, and you don't want to have to remember everything that's gone. All her scarves, and rings, and pretty things.
You look at the hooks
The walls are magnolia, the colour of amnesia and rented houses.
There used to be a framed print of Munch's Madonna hanging from one of these picture hooks, and  passion in Celine's voice as she talked about it.
You examine carpet
The carpet is the colour of sand, as though the room has become a tideline, washed clean of its cockleshell memories and mermaid-hair dreams.
Go west
The upstairs landing is dimly illuminated from the light in the empty room. From here, you can hear a murmur of voices coming from the living room downstairs.

To the north is Dave's room, to the west your own. The empty room that was Celine's is to the east. There is a flight of stairs leading up to John's room and another going down to the ground floor of the house.
You listen
The voices are too muffled by distance for you to make out anything beyond the fact that people are speaking.
You go to the west
Your room is a complete mess. The bed is unmade. The bookshelves that once lined the walls are a ruin of fallen books and splintered wood. There are piles of things that shouldn't be piled everywhere. All the things you thought you cared about feel like mockery.

A mysterious lyre, slightly battered from possibly having fallen from your bookshelves, lies among the wreckage.

Behind you, to the east, is the upstairs landing
You look at the bookshelves
Your books are strewn like roadkill across the carpet among the jagged pieces of shelving, far beyond any easy rescue. Along with the books, have come the sort of foolish tokens that reside half-forgotten on bookshelves. You have a Cuddly Cthulhu and a Darth Vader Mr Potato Head, a string of silver starred tinsel you forgot to take down two Christmases ago.
You look at the lyre
It looks out of place. It is not an especially beautiful object; if anything it seems worn.
Hug
(yourself)
If you think that'll help.
You hug Cthulhu
You can only do that to something animate.
You examine Cthulhu
He is really rather cute for an elder God.
You examine tinsel
It is rather dusty and threadbare; now it crowns a pile of fallen books with stars.
You look at potato
This is a very silly item. It was marketed as Darth Tater. You were quite delighted by it, at the time.
You take the tinsel
It is October - you have already accumulated ten months of bad luck. No need to carry it round with you.
You take Cthulhu
Elder Gods should not be carried around like a child's comforter; it is undignified for them.
You take lyre
You certainly can't remember ever having bought, or been given, a lyre. It is smooth and slightly warm in your hands, its shape a graceful curve like a human spine.
You look at your surroundings
Your room is a complete mess. The bed is unmade. The bookshelves that once lined the walls are a ruin of fallen books and splintered wood. There are piles of things that shouldn't be piled everywhere. All the things you thought you cared about feel like mockery.

Behind you, to the east, is the upstairs landing.
You examine piles
It's just stuff, the accumulated detritus of a life lived heedlessly.
You wear the tinsel
(first taking tinsel)
It is October - you have already accumulated ten months of bad luck. No need to carry it round with you.
Wear the potato
(first taking Darth Vader Mr Potato Head)
You don't really want to be carrying him round.
You go to the north
Dave's room is little more than a storage space. The bed is just a bare mattress and there are boxes of books - mostly yours - piled everywhere. Damp socks, and half-finished laundry, strew the floor.

The upstairs landing lies to the south.
You examine the socks
Dave's socks are plentiful and, truthfully, not entirely pleasant. They are bought in bulk by his parents and are therefore always identical, bobbly and embroidered - incongruously - with Ws. You are not sure if they are damp because they have recently come out of the washing machine or because they desperately need to go in it.
Examine boxes
You own far more books than can be stuffed onto your shelves - here they live in boxes and gather dust. Every now and then you open them up and rifle through them and it's like meeting old friends you forgot you cared for.
You examine the mattress
An uncovered bed really gives a place a transient look.
You check your inventory
You are carrying:
a lyre
You play the lyre
You plunk disconsolately at the lyre for a bit.
You look around
Dave's room is little more than a storage space. The bed is just a bare mattress and there are boxes of books - mostly yours - piled everywhere. Damp socks, and half-finished laundry, strew the floor.

The upstairs landing lies to the south.
Xyzzy
You are eaten by a grue - just kidding.
You go to the south
The upstairs landing is dimly illuminated from the light in the empty room. From here, you can hear a murmur of voices coming from the living room downstairs.

To the north is Dave's room, to the west your own. The empty room that was Celine's is to the east. There is a flight of stairs leading up to John's room and another going down to the ground floor of the house.
Up
You pad about halfway up the staircase and then a vague sense of guilt assails you ... you probably shouldn't be snooping around in John's room.
Up
There is so much guilt washing about at the moment that violation of privacy hardly seems like bothering over and you make your way up the stairs to John's room.

John's room occupies the attic spaces. It is a room of peculiar geometries. The whole place is a mess at present, and the blinds of the skylights are down so that triangular shadows cast themselves across the walls. There are no obvious signs of Celine, but why would there be? There is the jester's mask she bought John for Christmas hanging on the wall.

Lying on the floor, in a corner, is a plastic bag

The stairs down will take you back to the upstairs landing.
You examine the mask
From last Christmas, you seem to remember, another lifetime. Like all Celine's gifts, it came exquisitely wrapped - black and gold, perhaps, to match the mask itself. You wonder if Celine's box of wrapping paper, ribbons and decorations is still beneath the eaves, or if her parents took that too. "Why go to all that trouble for something that's just going to be ripped off?" you'd ask. But Celine loved the ephemeral. And, so, apparently did you.
You take the mask
You have no intention of stealing it but you unhook it carefully from the wall and, after a moment of hesitation, place it against your face. The interior of the mask is cool and smooth, like dead skin. You look out at the world from a different face, your peripheral vision imprisoned by the edges of the eyeholes. You trace your fingers over the painted smile. It strikes you as no less real than any other expression you have worn lately and it is with reluctance that you return the mask to its place on the wall.
You look at the bag
It is a weirdly bulbous shape. The handles are knotted together so it looks as if the bag has bunny ears.
You open the bag
You undo the tight knots with difficulty and look inside, already knowing what you'll find. The contents gleam silver like pirate treasure - the empty packets of Celine's medication you found on the floor of her bedroom the night she disappeared. It is not the first time you have asked yourself if you should have insisted on taking it with you to the hospital, but it is not a question you dare ask yourself too often.
You examine packets
Diazepam ... fluoxetine ... aripiprazole ... the names fly past you, tangling your tongue up in a merciless succession of rarely used letters. Most of the packets are empty but not all.
You take the packets
You rifle through the packets and eventually find one that isn't gutted. You pop a couple of pills from their foil cocoon ... although they represent a peculiar form of memorabilia to say the least.
You check your inventory
You are carrying:
some pills
a lyre
You examine the pills
(the pills)
Smallish, off-white, round, innocuous, except not.
Look around
John's room occupies the attic spaces. It is a room of peculiar geometries. The whole place is a mess at present, and the blinds of the skylights are down so that triangular shadows cast themselves across the walls. There are no obvious signs of Celine, but why would there be? There is the jester's mask she bought John for Christmas hanging on the wall.

Lying on the floor, in a corner, is a plastic bag

The stairs down will take you back to the upstairs landing.
You open the blinds
You stand beneath the skylight and draw up the blinds. From this peculiar angle you can see nothing but sloping roofs and an expanse of endless sky. Light as bright as orange juice pours down from the setting sun but it is not warm. After a moment or two, you let the blinds fall back into place. You don't want John to know you were messing about in his room.
You look at the shadows
They form strange shapes and gather up in corners like they are plotting something. It is very Lovecraftian, which John would probably appreciate.
You play lyre
Strange notes fall from the strings of the lyre, not discordant but you can't describe it. And you aren't quite sure you like the music. It tastes like lemon juice in your mouth.
Keep going
You don't really feel like playing more. The inside of your mouth feels sour.
You eat lyre
That's plainly inedible.
Sing
Your singing is abominable.
You take the mask
Better not keep indulging yourself with painted fancies. Besides, it belongs to John and you shouldn't really be fiddling with it.
Go downwards
Winter light lies in anaemic strips upon the floor from where it has fallen through the glass panels in the front door. There is an awful painting hanging on the wall. The murmuring voices are more of a babble now; too many over-lapping conversations create an alien, baboonish gibberish.

The outside world lurks to the west and the living room to the north. Or you could always just retreat upstairs.
You listen
There are too many voices for you to be able to make out much of any conversation. Besides, eavesdropping is the most foolish of vices.
You examine the painting
You painted this - in the loosest sense of the word - when you were about eighteen and nurturing an over-inflated sense of your own creativity. It is a black canvas with a heavily textured shape of reddish swirls in the middle and a speckling of white stars in one corner. Sometimes it looks like a wound, sometimes like a freshly forming galaxy. Your last housemate thought it was something obsence. So much for your aristic soul. Ho hum. So much for your artistic soul.
You go north
There are lots of people gathered in the living room. Stepping inside unfortunately catches the attention of the one you like least. Laurie clatters towards you and, before you can do anything to save yourself, captures you in a hug you feel vaguely socially obligated to endure. You hold yourself as rigid as a blade until she goes away again. The rush of hatred you feel towards her is positively intoxicating.

There are so many people here. Have they come to ... what? Stare at the bereft? Why? Is this how other people grieve? En masse?

Your housemate John is sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the coffee table, frowning over a game of a Go. His opponent, Twitch, sits opposite and appears much more laid-back about the whole business. Rick is slumped on the sofa, a bottle of port at his elbow; Elsie is sitting next to him, apparently watching the game. Jess is huddled in a cloak on the other sofa, Adrian beside her, looking almost as uncomfortable as you probably do. As for Laurie, she's leaning against the fireplace, and wearing an expression of infinite suffering like she's living her own little Victorian melodrama.

And finally, in the far corner of the room by the open door to the kitchen, like a person in its own right, is the last piece of household furniture you bought in consultation with Celine: a wrought iron coat stand. So nouveau-gothic darling.
You examine the stand
You seem to own far more coats than four people living in a house could possibly need or want. The metal of the coatstand is almost entirely obscured beneath fabric. One of your own coats is just visible. There are two identical big brown dusters belonging to Dave. Celine's slightly shabby, soft velvet jacket. A zebra-striped hoodie of John's. His big military coat with the golden buttons. More beneath.
You take the coat
You unhook your coat with difficulty from the coatstand, nearly over-toppling the whole teetering structure. Folding it over your arm, you can feel the edge of something caught in the lining.

Twitch steeples his fingers as he ponders the board in front of him.
You search the coat
Digging through your pockets, your fingers catch the edge of something that has fallen down into the depths of the lining. After an impressive display of digital dexterity, you fish out a 50p coin.

Someone makes a desultory remark.
You look at the coin
This is exactly what it looks like, except it is relatively freshly minted and has a brightness to it that would have delighted you when you were a small child.

Twitch steeples his fingers as he ponders the board in front of him.
You look at John
You remember the first time you invited John and Celine to come to dinner. You can see them now on the doorstep, John slightly behind, handsome and distinguished in a military-style coat with gold buttons and braiding, Celine, in black just like always, holding out to you a hand-tied bouquet of flowers the colour of her lipstick, and smiling.

Somebody asks the Rick the time.
You hug laurie
Keep your mind on the game.

Jess and Adrian converse in soft whispers.
You look at Laurie
Laurie is small and pretty, pale with apparent grief, and you despise her. She's only here because she's dating Twitch (although they are both fucking other people) and she must have met Celine all of twice. You suspect she is enjoying the enactment of tragedy.

Laurie stands behind Twitch, combing her fingers through his lightly curling hair.
You examine Twitch
You only know Twitch by reputation. He is an old school friend of Celine's and your paths have never crossed. He looks like the clinically depressed stoner he is, which is not devoid of a certain glamour. He has restless fingers and idle eyes.

Jess leans over and makes a show of being of interested in the progress of the game.
You look at Jess
You cannot look at Jess at the moment without remembering the drive the hospital, stars streaking overhead, the slow drip-drip-drip of time in the waiting room, and the hushed, awkward solemnity of a brief bedside visitation.

Jess shifts on the sofa, sinking a little further into her jumper.
You examine Rick
Rick is a man not suited to inaction. On the sofa like this, he looks like a pile of himself. The port he is drinking is surely of excellent quality but it seems to afford him little pleasure at the moment.

Somebody asks the Rick the time.
You examine Elsie
You don't know Elsie very well, but this mainly because there is not much overlap between your lives bar some friends in common. She has always struck you as a terribly nice person.

Someone makes a desultory remark.
You examine Adrian
You find a flickering of kindred in Adrian's glance. You are sure he finds this gathering almost as unendurable as you do.

Jess and Adrian converse in soft whispers.
You smell john
You smell nothing unexpected.

Twitch steeples his fingers as he ponders the board in front of him.
Smell coat
You smell nothing unexpected.

Elsie smiles at you.
You listen
You hear nothing unexpected.

Rick opens a new bottle of port.
You talk to John
"How's the game going," you ask. There is a pause as John considers. "I'm losing," he concludes finally. "Oh," you say.
You talk to Laurie
God no. You don't want to support her delusion that she has any place here. If you tried to talk to her, you might have to kill her.
You talk to Twitch
Like most comprehensively broken people there is a touch of the rockstar about Twitch, and he wears it well. You are conscious of an uncomfortable intermingling of attraction and disdain, and that makes you rather shy of talking to him.
You talk to Elsie
"Would you like a cup of a tea?" asks Elsie, the moment you step into her visual range. You shake your head and thank her. Elsie is a perpetual tea-maker. It might annoy you in somebody else but Elsie's tea is the sincerest tea you have ever drunk.
You talk to Rick
"Care for some port, m'dear?" offers Rick, with a valiant semblance of his usual bonhommie. "It's a very fine old tawny." You don't doubt it but you aren't sure inebriation would be the best addition to your mood right now.
You ask Rick the the time
(To communicate in Eurydice, TALK TO a character.)
You talk to Adrian
Under different circumstances you would actually quite like to talk to Adrian. Maybe you are deluding yourself with suspicions of kinship but you can more readily imagine yourself saying something that feels true to him than anyone else. But how can you speak of anything in this company, at this time. Better not to talk to him at all.
You talk to yourself
You soliloquise, because you're a bit of an arse:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
You look around
The extensive living / dining area was one of the features that drew you all to this house when you were looking for places to rent. That and - despite the fact none of you have been able to bring yourself to do anything as prosaic as cleaning for days - the fact it's not an abject shit hole like most of places on offer when you were doing the rounds.

Currently, it's all cluttered with people. Your housemate John is sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the coffee table, frowning over a game of a Go. His opponent, Twitch, sits opposite and appears much more laid-back about the whole business. Rick is slumped on the sofa, a bottle of port at his elbow; Elsie is sitting next to him, apparently watching the game. Jess is huddled in a cloak on the other sofa, Adrian beside her, looking almost as uncomfortable as you feel. As for Laurie (fucking Laurie), she's leaning against the fireplace, and wearing an expression of infinite suffering like she's living her own little Victorian melodrama

The coat stand is still in its corner, looming like an unexpected guest.

Your escape routes are east into the kitchen, or south into the hall.

Laurie paces back and forth in front of the fireplace, her fuck-me boot heels clomping on the wooden floor - clearly she is not garnering enough attention to feel comfortable.
You go to the east
You remember long, sun-drenched afternoons in here with Celine, baking and talking, filling up the kitchen with laughter, the scent of sweet things cooking and occasionally smoke and the smell of stuff you've burned to a crisp. The kitchen is surprisingly spacious for a rented house. It has faux-granite counter tops and matching tiling, and fitted cupboards in shades of coffee and cream. It would be a pleasure to cook in such a kitchen.

Scattered across the  worksurface nearest the hob is an array of cooking utensils, onion skins and pepper cores, including the wooden knifeblock you bought for a tenner in Boswells during a sale.

Vera and Tilda (plants, not people, and therefore bearable) are on
the little round kitchen table.

Natalie is by the hob, stirring a pan of pasta.

The back door leads into the back garden to the north, and, if you're feeling particularly brave (or masochistic), the living room is to the west
You look at the vera
Vera-the-Aloe is an aloe vera plant, hence the name. You christened her in an excess of cleverness. Celine grew her from a tiny shoot
Her soil is dry, and her long leaves are droopy, fraying brown at the ends.
You look at Tilda
Tilda is also a plant, although you've forgotten what kind. You named her Tilda after Tilda Swinton because she is a very beautifully androgynous plant. She has green leaves, shiny as wax, and generous, open-mouthed flowers with immensely long, lascivious stamen. Celine also bought and nurtured Tilda. She seems to be fine.
You eat the Vera
(first taking Vera)
You're not massively keen on the idea of wandering around with a houseplant under your arm.
You eat tilda
(first taking Tilda)
You're not massively keen on the idea of wandering around with a houseplant under your arm.
You talk to the vera
Um, it's a plant, remember?
You look at Natalie
Oh hell, you'd entirely forgotten Natalie was here. She's come up from London for you, especially for you ... to be with you now in your time of need. You know you ought to feel gratitude but you can't seem to muster any.
You talk to Natalie
Natalie comes over and hugs you. She is no Laurie but you find touching people, and being touched, difficult at the moment. The world waits for you, or possibly recedes from you, behind a pane of glass, visible but inaccessible. Somebody breaching it is a dull kind of ache.
You hug natalie
Keep your mind on the game.
You examine the pan
It looks ... like human intenstines flobbing around in simmering water. You can't remember the last time you felt hungry.
You examine the knifeblock
Currently it contains only one knife.
You take the knife
You draw the knife from the knife block, earning yourself a worried look from Natalie.
You look at the knife
A cleaver-style knife, still relatively sharp despite your ineptitude with a sharpening stone.
You play lyre
Natalie looks at the lyre, and then at you, rather curiously as you pluck the strings at random.
You cut yourself
Self-harming in front of Natalie would be juvenile and ridiculous.
You look around
The kitchen is surprisingly spacious for a rented house. It has faux-granite counter tops and matching tiling, and fitted cupboards in shades of coffee and cream. It would be a pleasure to cook in such a kitchen.

Scattered across the  worksurface nearest the hob is an array of cooking utensils, onion skins and pepper cores, including the wooden knifeblock you bought for a tenner in Boswells during a sale.

Vera and Tilda (plants, not people, and therefore bearable) are on the little round kitchen table.

Natalie is by the hob, stirring a pan of pasta.

The back door leads into the back garden to the north, and, if you're feeling particularly brave (or masochistic), the living room is to the west.
Kiss natalie
Keep your mind on the game.
You play knife
That would make you feel very silly.
You cut natalie
Random acts of violence are probably unnecessary.
You look at the cupboards
They're just household cupboards, banal, ordinary cupboards, filled with banal, ordinary things, some of which belonged to Celine.
You eat natalie
(first taking Natalie)
You can't really see reason to cart that around with you.
Go north
The back garden is really little more than a lawn-gone-wild and a weedy patio. The sky is a cool grey curtain backlit by the weak sun. The chill air bites at your skin.

You can get back into the house to the south.
You examine the patio
Yellowing stone, green weeds, a maze of cracks and encroachment.
You examine the lawn
The blades are tipped by an unhealthy yellow and sway indolently in the slight breeze. As you watch, a violent ripple of motion seizes the stalks and whips them back and forth. At first you think it must be the wind but then you see a blur of a new green in the grass and a snake slithers onto the patio.
You examine the lawn
The blades are tipped by an unhealthy yellow and sway indolently in the slight breeze.
You examine the snake
You would not have thought there were such snakes in England. It is a strong, sinuous creature, dappled in black diamonds like a snake on a Snakes And Ladders board. It has hateful yellow eyes, as blank as pieces of glass. You are not by nature inclined towards anthropomorphisation but there is something both directed and malignant in its gaze.
You play lyre
A sudden surety takes possession of your fingers and they dance seemingly of their accord across the lyre strings as if they find them familiar. Music floats across the still evening air, honey-sweet and sad. You play to the neglected grass and the uncharted sky, to the inconstant breeze and the fading light. Even the snake lifts its head, and sways entranced.
You play lyre
You are reluctant to touch the lyre again so soon, in case you dispel your own song by remembered incompetence.
You hug the snake
Keep your mind on the game.
You cut the snake
Random acts of violence are probably unnecessary.
You examine the snake
The snake has risen up from its coil, its eyes wide as its head moves back and forth in the thrall of the music from your lyre.
You touch the snake
Keep your hands to yourself!
You cut yourself
You toy with the idea of dragging the knife across your arm. You are really too old for these adolescent theatrics but for a few moments there is actually something like pleasure in the contemplation of neat parallel lines, slowly filling up red. If nothing else would be something to feel.
You tell yourself again that you shouldn't be acting out like a teenager. The edge of the blade is cool. You remember Celine's arms, covered from shoulder to wrist, in long white scars, the skin creased like the folds of an accordion. They were not ugly, but it was difficult to see such violence and pain enacted by choice upon her own bodyOh why the hell not. You push your sleeve right back and very calmly cut yourself. There is that split-second of anxiety before the blade touches you for the first time, as if your very nature recoils from what you are about to do, but the motion is almost gentle. The next three cuts come in a frenzy. The pain - bright and clean -  hits only after you see the blood. A familiar giddiness washes over you after and you feel an artificial ease, as if something wound too tight inside you has finally given way. When the endorphins fade away, you hear a rustle and the snake disappears into the grassThat's more than enough of that. In the aftermath, although you feel vaguely better, you also feel vaguely embarrassed.
Look around
The back garden is really little more than a lawn-gone-wild and a weedy patio. The sky is a cool grey curtain backlit by the weak sun. The chill air bites at your skin.

You can get back into the house to the south.

A snake, still as stone, has partially emerged from the long grass.
It seems to be watching you.
You go south
The kitchen is surprisingly spacious for a rented house. It has faux-granite counter tops and matching tiling, and fitted cupboards in shades of coffee and cream. It would be a pleasure to cook in such a kitchen.

Scattered across the  worksurface nearest the hob is an array of cooking utensils, onion skins and pepper cores, including the wooden knifeblock you bought for a tenner in Boswells during a sale.

Vera and Tilda (plants, not people, and therefore bearable) are on the little round kitchen table.

Natalie is by the hob, stirring a pan of pasta.

The back door leads into the back garden to the north, and, if you're feeling particularly brave (or masochistic), the living room is to the west.
You talk to Natalie
"How are you doing, hon?" she asks, all warmth and sympathy. You suspect "doing" is a polite way of saying "coping". "I'm fine," you lie. And, then, because it's so obvious a lie: "It's hard, of course." "Yeah." Natalie gazes you at with an expression that is starting to become familiar - why do people always look at the bereaved that way?
You talk to Natalie
"I'm nearly done with the pasta," says Natalie, "so at least this way I'll know you're eating." You mumble your thanks, inevitably sounding ungracious. You feel monstrous, caged behind your glass, snapping at proffered kindness, howling at a heedless sky.
You talk to Natalie
Seeing you lingering in this awkward, Natalie stops stirring and smiles at you encouragingly. "I'm here for you," she says. "Do you want to talk?" You have to bite back sarastic things you don't mean. So you keep smiling and shake your head.
You jump
You jump on the spot, fruitlessly.
You go west
You had better not wander around the house carrying a cleaver. For a start, you could fall over and accidentally stab yourself, which would be embarrassing. But also it could make the people in the living room - who are technically your guests -  feel uncomfortable
You go to the west
The extensive living / dining area was one of the features that drew you all to this house when you were looking for places to rent. That and - despite the fact none of you have been able to bring yourself to do anything as prosaic as cleaning for days - the fact it's not an abject shit hole like most of places on offer when you were doing the rounds.

Currently, it's all cluttered with people. Your housemate John is sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the coffee table, frowning over a game of a Go. His opponent, Twitch, sits opposite and appears much more laid-back about the whole business. Rick is slumped on the sofa, a bottle of port at his elbow; Elsie is sitting next to him, apparently watching the game. Jess is huddled in a cloak on the other sofa, Adrian beside her, looking almost as uncomfortable as you feel. As for Laurie (fucking Laurie), she's leaning against the fireplace, and wearing an expression of infinite suffering like she's living her own little Victorian melodrama

The coat stand is still in its corner, looming like an unexpected guest.

Your escape routes are east into the kitchen, or south into the hall.
You talk to John
"How are you doing?" you ask, since it is the officially sanctioned question at a time like this. "Still losing," he says. You didn't mean the game, and you're pretty sure John didn't either but it's probably better this way.
You talk to Elsie
"How are you doing?" you both say, at exactly the same time and with exactly the same intonation. You smile awkwardly at each other. "I'm okay," you say into the pause that follows. "I don't think I am," says Elsie, shyly. Her honesty ripples through the room like a stone dropped into a fetid pond.
You talk to Elsie
You feel obliged to click into comforting mode. It is not that you don't want to comfort Elsie, it's just you're afraid that all your words are lies. "I have to believe that it's a choice she made," you say. "She was so unhappy, you can understand why she did it." But you don't. You don't.
You talk to Elsie
Elsie nods. You wonder if her faith makes this even harder for her. You want to ask about it, but what can you say? "So do you think Celine has gone to Hell for what she did?" Maybe not.
You talk to Elsie
Neither of you really dare say anything else. It's too delicate a balance to maintain, between honesty and lies, compassion and cruelty.
You talk to Twitch
"Is that a lyre" asks Twitch, unexpectedly. You look at the lyre, surprised to find yourself carrying it even though you already knew you were. "Yes," is the only reply you are capable of forming at the moment. There is a pause. Twitch nods with the sort of profound understanding only displayed by the stoned. "Cool," he says.
You talk to John
"Why on earth are you playing Go?" you ask. John shrugs.
"Distraction is good," he says, finally. "Surely you can do better than Go?" you say, striving for a levity that goes down about as well as cyanide. John just shrugs again, Swedish and withdrawn. "Why not?" offers Twitch, who presumably brought the board with him and you cannot really think, or be bothered to think, of an answer.
You talk to John
You decide to leave him to the game.
You talk to Laurie
God no. You don't want to support her delusion that she has any place here. If you tried to talk to her, you might have to kill her.
You talk to Jess
You know that Jess is grieving much as you are grieving but she has tangled it up in a need to support others, and - you think - to be seen to be supporting others. She wants people to at look her and say to themselves "she's so brave" and then she can believe it for herself. But you don't want to be supported, you don't want to be the mechanism by which others distract themselves. Grief is not enobling in you. It seems to make you hard, ungracious, cold and churlish.
You talk to Adrian
Under different circumstances you would actually quite like to talk to Adrian. Maybe you are deluding yourself with suspicions of kinship but you can more readily imagine yourself saying something that feels true to him than anyone else. But how can you speak of anything in this company, at this time. Better not to talk to him at all.
You talk to Rick
Rick produces a silver hip flask with a flourish. "Absinthe?" he suggests, raising his brows, entirely conscious of the effect. Amusement temporarily alleviates the atmosphere in the room.
You talk to Rick
Rick reaches a hand into a shopping bag languishing by the side of the sofa. "Iberian ham?" he says. "Brie? Some pate?" You are starting to feel churlish but you keep shaking your head.
You talk to Rick
Rick has probably run out of random indulgent  foodstuffs to offer you by now, and you do not want to press in case the temporary semblance of normality founders. You remember that some of the people in this room are your friends and that you will not always feel this way.
You talk to Jess
Anyway, you think, hard, ungracious, cold and churlish as you are, Jess is here specifically and explicitly for John. When somebody dies, there is a grief hierarchy, topped by those denoted closest to the deceased, usually based upon length of acquaintence. Blood, is of course, thicker than water, more meaningful than love.
You talk to Jess
For the moment, it is probably best you don't talk to Jess. It has so little to do with her, in any real sense, but she seems to inspire particularly miserable thoughts in you at the moment.
You play lyre
The few discordant notes you manage to strike garner you a collection of odd looks, both sympathetic and less sympathetic, and it occurs to you that you're behaving rather strangely.

Laurie paces back and forth in front of the fireplace, her fuck-me boot heels clomping on the wooden floor - clearly she is not garnering enough attention to feel comfortable.
You look around
The extensive living / dining area was one of the features that drew you all to this house when you were looking for places to rent. That and - despite the fact none of you have been able to bring yourself to do anything as prosaic as cleaning for days - the fact it's not an abject shit hole like most of places on offer when you were doing the rounds.

Currently, it's all cluttered with people. Your housemate John is sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the coffee table, frowning over a game of a Go. His opponent, Twitch, sits opposite and appears much more laid-back about the whole business. Rick is slumped on the sofa, a bottle of port at his elbow; Elsie is sitting next to him, apparently watching the game. Jess is huddled in a cloak on the other sofa, Adrian beside her, looking almost as uncomfortable as you feel. As for Laurie (fucking Laurie), she's leaning against the fireplace, and wearing an expression of infinite suffering like she's living her own little Victorian melodrama

The coat stand is still in its corner, looming like an unexpected guest.

Your escape routes are east into the kitchen, or south into the hall.

Rick opens a new bottle of port.
You check your inventory
You are carrying:
a 50p coin
your coat
some pills
a lyre

John hands an empty glass to Rick who obligingly sloshes port into it.
Wear coat
Wearing a coat indoors is generally considered a bit odd.

John sighs heavily as he loses yet another game of Go.
You go north
You can't go that way.

John sighs heavily as he loses yet another game of Go.
Wear coat
It is a little chilly but you'll be going back inside sooner or later.
You examine the snake
The snake has risen up from its coil, its eyes wide as its head moves back and forth in the thrall of the music from your lyre.
You eat the pills
While imitation may be thought to be the sincerest form of flattery, you should probably not start randomly taking someone else's medication. It didn't do much good for Celine, after all.
You show the pills to Natalie
Natalie is unimpressed.
Inventory
You are carrying:
a knife
a 50p coin
your coat
some pills
a lyre
You turn around
You glance nervously over your shoulder but there is nothing untoward.

Playing pieces clink in the silence.
Go south
Winter light lies in anaemic strips upon the floor from where it has fallen through the glass panels in the front door. There is an awful painting hanging on the wall. The murmuring voices are more of a babble now; too many over-lapping conversations create an alien, baboonish gibberish.

The outside world lurks to the west and the living room to the north. Or you could always just retreat upstairs.
You go west
This is just an ordinary street, lined by Victorian terraces, with their slightly over-ambitious moulding and bow windows. In the distance you can hear the muted roar of traffic streaming down the Abingdon Road. It is not quite suburbia but it's a pocket of Oxford unreached by spires, dreaming or otherwise. The fading light is nonetheless tinged by gold. The sky is a swirl of grey and pink, like the interior of a shell. There is a biting promise of winter in the air.

Hinksey Park is to the northwest, your house to the east, and other places lie elsewhere.
Wear coat
You shrug into your coat. It is a familar weight across your shoulders and you feel something shift within the tattered lining.
You search the coat
What else do you expect to find in there? An undiscovered Shakespearean sonnet
Inventory
You are carrying:
a 50p coin
your coat (being worn)
some pills
a lyre
You play lyre
You feel like a busker as you plunk away on the lyre and you sound ... very bad indeed.
You go northwest
The gate to Hinksey Park is not far from your house but by the time you arrive the sky is already suffused by a greyness that has blotted out the potential glories of an Oxford sunset. Night is snapping at your heels. The park  is the old fashioned kind, a basic arrangement of paths and benches, grass and trees. The nearest bench is over-hung by a willow tree, which has wept a burthen of withered foliage onto the seat. There is a lake, girdled by a path and an open air swimming pool.

A river, which must be a tributary of the Thames, flows to the west. Malborough Road lies to the southeast.
Examine willow
Oh willow, thou art sick. Autumn has stripped its bravado, leaving it frail and naked in the gathering dusk.
You examine the lake
The lake is misshapen splodge in the gloom. The breeze occasionally picks up ripples on the water. At its edge, an enormous swan twists its neck towards the sky and flings wide its white wings like an angel.
You examine the pool
Currently it's just an empty hollow, painted chlorine blue. You used to go all the time during the summer months - sometimes with Celine. You used to say she was a water-ninja she could swim so fast.
You examine the path
A path, plainly paved and circling the Lake.
You look at the swan
Swans are peculiar creatures. How can something so beautiful be so ungainly?
You sit on the bench
You go into the park and sit down on the nearest bench, letting the darkness enclose you. You're not very far from the houses and the road but the light and the noise doesn't reach you here. You could be in another world. The feeling of being entirely alone saturates your skin like cold. You listen to the almost imperceptible sound of air moving across the lake and through the scrubby grass. Tilting your head back, you stare at the sky. It looks as if it is made of stone. You wonder if this is how Celine felt, sitting on this bench perhaps, waiting to die, and stand up again hastily.
You take the swan
Are you mad? They can be really dangerous. You read a story once of a swan breaking a man's leg.
You go to the west
The river is a snake of moving darkness. There is a railway line running parallel on the other side and open fields after that. There is some kind of flat-bottomed boat by the bank nearest to you, and a tall man, in a long coat, is standing in the bow of the boat.

Hinksey Park is behind you to the east.
You examine man
The man is so swathed about in garments it is hard to make out much about him. He is imposingly tall, or would be if he didn't stand in the hunched-over fashion he does, and seems gaunt. His hood is pulled down over his face, so you only occasionally catch glimpses of his profile: you piece together an impression of sharp-nosed pallor and pale eyes the colour of dirty water. One of his gloved hands rests upon the pole he probably uses to propel the boat through the water.
You look at the boat
You're not really an expert in boats. This one seems to be designed upon similar principles to a punt, although it lacks the comfortable cushions, champagne and strawberries you know for a fact to be an essential part of any punting trip.
You give the coin to the man
You toss the coin to ferryman. It turns over and over in the air, flashing silver, and then he reaches out a gloved hand and engulfs it in darkness. He carries it to his mouth and bites it. "That's not silver," he says. But then he shrugs. "It'll do. In you get."
You get in the boat
As you step towards the boat the Ferryman intercepts you again. "Coming back is harder than going," he says. "Are you sure?"
Yes
You step into the boat. There is a space for a single passenger but it is not  exactly luxurious. You barely have time to sit down upon the damp wooden boards before the ferryman takes his first stroke, propelling the boat forward at an unlikely speed that causes the moving air to catch at you like icy hands. You  remember that someone told you once that a punt can travel at 30 miles an hour in
favourable conditions ... but this one slips across the moonslick water as effortlessly as if it is glass. At any rate, you are glad that the man has sufficient  taste to punt from the Oxford end. You tilt your head back. You are going so fast that the stars are smeared across the sky.

Something has happened. You have lost track of time, or track of yourself, or something. You were looking at the sky, feeling stars upon your skin, no, you were in a boat, cold seeping through you, wind tangling in your hair. But there is no trace of the punt here, or the man, or even a river. How did you get here? Where are you? There is a set of open wrought iron gates before you, as intricate as briars. Beyond them, hazy in the darkness to the southeast, a round lawn, dotted with trees. It all feels familiar somehow.

Guarding the gate is biggest dog you have ever seen, a haunch of bloody meat and a vast water bowl at its feet.
Enter
The trafficless road twines away into darkness. You could probably get to Headington, and from there into town but you're a long way from home and still not entirely sure how you got here.
You examine the meat
This well-gnawed haunch is marbled red and white like cartoon meat. Flesh hangs from the bone in bloody tatters. It must have belonged to a damn big animal. You hope it was an animal. Maybe it's the leg of the last person who tried to go through the gates.
You look at bowl
The water within reflects pieces of the moon. It's just a dog's drinking bowl, although it is noticeably larger than average, presumably to accommodate three thirsty mouths.
You look at the dog
"Dog" somehow doesn't cover it. This creature would put a lion to shame, although there is something more serpentine about it than leonine. Maybe it's the three heads, on their long, sinuous necks, and the whiplashing tail with its barbed end. It is covered in sleek black fur and its slitted eyes are ruby red.
You talk to the dog
"Nice doggie" you say, hopefully and the creature glares at you as if it feels horrendously patronised. You try making soothing sounds, while desperately maintaining a posture that would make it feel neither hostile nor amorous towards you.
You play lyre
All three heads turn in your direction as you lift the lyre, and a strange shiver runs down the length of the beast's back. If it was human you don't know what emotions you'd ascribe to it. It holds itself still and silent, only the heaving of its flanks to betray the fact it lives at all. And you play, strange, savage music, spiralling out of the lyre, drenched inhuman colours, filling your mouth up with heat and the tang of metal. Your heart tightens sickeningly in your chest, pulsing with the lyre strings, something like excitement, something like dread. The dog trembles where it stands, its eyes ablaze.
You describe your surroundings
The wrought iron gates hang open.

Beyond them, hazy in the darkness to the southeast, a round lawn, dotted with trees.

Guarding the gate is biggest dog you have ever seen, a haunch of bloody meat and a vast water bowl at its feet.
Go southeast
You move. The beast throws back all three heads and hurls a howl of blood-curdling ferocity at the sky. And the clouds shake. You think it would probably be for the best to stop moving.
You play lyre
You feel as if you have been running, and running hard, and your fingers tremble on the strings, fearful of the lyre and its music.
But everything has changed. Softly, softly, comes the scent of green things growing, dark places, damp fur, warmth in your belly and all around, different songs. You lose time, the names of things. The stars becomes nothing but distant light. Your four clawed feet trample complex concepts to nothing but travelled earth, and happiness is the flow of the night. Then comes the creeping cold, not without, but within, and it snaps like winter at your heels. And you don't know what it means that yours is now the only song, and yours the only pounding paws, and yours the fur and yours the hunger and you alone who slumber in the dark places and dream of dreams once shared. The music fades to silence, and the dog slumps to the ground, ungainly now. Its eyes fall closed and it seems to sleep.
You go southeast
You muster up your courage and sidle past the subdued monster, holding your breath lest you rouse it.

You could be visiting a stately home, or an Oxford college, or a country church, except you're not. You know there are more modern constructions hidden away behind it, one of which - the severely acute ward - lies like Sleeping Beauty's castle behind thorns of metal and stone.

Circling an oval of moderately well-kept grass is a gravel path and, beyond it to the west, a sandstone building gleams palely golden against the shadowed sky. The gates loom to the northwest.
You examine the sandstone building
From its harmonious proportions and the flanking classical pillars, you suspect the main building must be Regency in design ... that or made out of lego blocks. There is something desperate in the rigidity of its symmetries, as if somebody believed that order could be imposed upon the universe by the application of lots of straight lines.
You go west
As you cross the lawn, your footsteps lost among the many you have already taken, you feel a horrible tightness round you heart as if someone had a hand round it and was squeezing. There is a burning at the back your throat, like a lump of tears and bile is stuck there.

The path sidles away down the side of the main building, taking you away from facades. Here, there are no country house lawns, no sandstone and classical pillars. There are patches of scrubby grass, borders that may perhaps bloom one spring, and scattered buildings that are too perfectly, facelessly functional to have anything of beauty or ugliness to them. There are jaunty painted signs to Cotswold House and Wintle Ward.

Vaughan Thomas waits to the west, the Hospital Approach is to the east.
You examine the signs
The signs are big, friendly and helpful.
You go west
As you walk down the path, a human cry breaks upon the silence and dies.

Vaughan Thomas Ward is another grey building. It has a bow-window which looks like an ill-at-ease addition to its uniformity. There is also an awkward, spindly tree guarding a nearby bench.

The door that leads west into Vaughan Thomas has been painted blue. There is a doorbell next to it in industrial grey. The path leading to and from Vaughan Thomas lies to the east.
You examine the doorbell
Strangely totemic, it has a button for you to press and a grill - such as you might find on the visor of the villain in a sci-fi movie - for you talk into.
You talk to voice
You mumble your name into the grill, and explain you have come to get Celine. A warped sigh gusts out of the grill with such force you are surprised it doesn't ruffle your hair. Then crackling dies away and the grill speaks to you no further. You assume that that means someone is coming to open the door but for all you know they could be activating the lever that drops you into the alligator pit.

You are starting to wonder if perhaps they've forgotten you're there, or if answering the doorbell is a mere hobby, when there comes the sound of muted rattling and banging from behind the door as someone on the other side begins the ceremony required to open it. It is finally eased open, just enough for you to squeeze through, by a Nurse, glowering at the effort required to perform the most basic tenets of her job.
Go west
As you edge past the Nurse, she put out a log-like arm to momentarily stop you entering. "You'll need to see the Doctor first," she says, gruffly. "You can't take a patient away without the doctor's permission." You nod your understanding, although your mind is full of Escape from Alcatraz visions, search lights flashing, sirens screaming and helicopters whirling overhead as you and Celine run, hand in hand, giggling into a different coloured future.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
You look at the bookshelf
There are overly-rifled paperbacks, yellowed by use, stuffed haphazardly onto the shelves. A quick glance at the spines reveals them to be without exception the kind of airport novels you probably wouldn't want to read even at an airport. Or in a loony bin.
You go south
The greyness unrolls before you like the tongue of a sick frog. This sign above your head (this is not an exit) reminds you that it's women only past this point, but who is going to see you at this time of night?

Identical doors, all closed but for the one that stands slightly ajar to the west, line the corridor. Going north will return you to the Vaughan Thomas Corridor.
Go north
An inmate - dapper, or as dapper as a man in a mental aslyum can be, sidles up to you. He wrings his hands in constant anxiety. "I wonder if you could possibly oblige me in a small favour," he says. "I'm terribly embarrassed but I threw my clock radio out of the window because the aliens were talking to me through it and now I cannot listen to classic fm. And I daren't tell the nurses because they will think I did a mad thing. I can pay you back, of course, and if you would take care to get one without an alien transponder, I think it would help. And you won't tell the nurses will you?" He looks bewildered as he tells his story, as if he caught himself trying to eat soup with the salad fork. You make your promises and he retreats, thanking you profusely.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
You go west
This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.

There is a woman curled up on one of the wicker chairs, looking away from you, out over the shadowed grounds.

The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
You look at the woman
She seems to be at the unforgiving end of the spectrum of middle-age, her face worn and withered by the cold glare of the moon. Shadows emphasise the gauntness of her cheeks and define in cruel charcoal the lines that radiate from her eyes. Her coarse, ash blonde hair falls straight to her waist and hangs like dead weight. Garlands of withered flowers give her the air of an aging hippie. Under your scrutiny, she turns her head in your direction and smiles and you feel a fleeting trace of warmth.
You talk to the woman
Hesitantly you offer a polite greeting and are relieved when the woman turns away from the window and smiles at you in return. If she is an inmate she is, at least, not antisocially mad. "Hello," she says, "I can see that you're a visitor." Her voice is as deep and rich as freshly turned earth. You think of honey-drunk bees and heavy, golden days. "So am I," she says. "At least, I think I am. It's sometimes so hard to tell."
You talk to woman
She turns away from you again towards the windows. "I wish I could make something flourish here," she says. "I can sometimes make things grow but it's not the same." She strokes a hand absently through the brittle strands of her hair. "I miss the colours of things. It all fades so quickly. What's your favourite colour," she asks, suddenly, with a glance in your direction. You tell her and she smiles again. "Of course it is," she says. "Mine is green." Same as Celine.
You talk to the woman
She is plucking at her skirt. As the fabric moves you realise it isn't grey, as you first thought, but a pale green, all but washed out. "I'm truly sorry about your friend," she says. And there must be a look on your face that makes her add: "That is why you're here, isn't it?" Her voice is gentle and her eyes are pale and sad in the moonlight. "You know you shouldn't have come. She can't leave with you." She is silent a moment. When she continues speaking the reassurance in her voice is as warm as sunlight against your skin.
"Of course you'll miss her. It will never be easy but it will be easier than this. And one day you'll stop and be surprised at just how easy it is. Then I'm afraid you'll feel guilty but that, too, will pass. As it should."
You talk to the woman
The woman smiles reassuringly at you and her regard travels across your skin, leaving a glissando of fading warmth in its wake. Then she turns away and casts her gaze out of the window again, moonlight etching the lines on her face.
Go east
Two nurses are standing by the pay phone, talking animatedly about nothing you can catch. It is strange to hear giggles and whispering, as if this was some kind of ordinary place. They fall silent as you approach and then disappear into an office.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
Go north
This is the large, bow-windowed room you could see from outside. Dull light washes in from the corridor behind you and flickers from beneath the door to the television room. Square tables are neatly arranged and the far wall boasts a display of artwork. Upon the air hangs the cloying scent of old, institutional dinners.

The Doctor's Office lies to the north, the Vaughan Thomas corridor to the south.
Go north
This is a typical Doctor's office. It has a clinical air, but no more than you would expect. It is really very neat in here. The walls are hung with what look to be modern art prints, all in identical frames, imprisoned behind glass.

The Doctor is sitting behind the desk, his elbows resting atop it and his chin upon the platform provided by his interlocked fingers.

The door to the south leads back to the dining hall.
You examine Doctor
He seems surprisingly young for his role. His hair is coal black and his eyes only one shade lighter, stark against the white coat that hangs open over an austere pinstriped suit. He has a stern, unlovely face and returns your regard steadily.
You talk to Doctor
"Yes?" The Doctor's voice is not quite impatient, but the clipped quality of it suggests it very soon will be. "You know I cannot accede to your ..." He stops abruptly, as if searching for a word, and settles finally on "...request". I suggest you let me send you home, where you belong."
No
At your refusal, the Doctor frowns.
You examine the art
You look at each of the paintings in turn. They are placed a precise intervals along the grey wall. Each print has the name of the piece and the artist printed along the bottom. First, there is a Rothko, Blue, Green, and Brown. Then IKB 73. And finally Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow.
You talk to Doctor
Before you can speak again, the Doctor forestalls you. "I'm afraid you will not change my mind with tragic looks or eloquent words. I have seen and heard them all a hundred throusand million times before." You wonder, briefly, whether you are supposed to challenge him to a game of chess or, possibly riddles. "I cannot be tricked," he says, as if in answer. "Nor changed. It is not my nature."
You talk to Doctor
"Your insistence is as wearisome as it is predictable," comments the Doctor.
You play lyre
Time seems to unravel around you like the fraying threads of a tapestry as you lift the lyre into your arms. The Doctor is on his on his feet, his face pale with fury and his eyes ablaze, but it's too late to stop you. Music fills the air like cherry blossom, sweetly drifting, falling like fleeting kisses upon the senses and fading as swiftly as a summer evening. For a moment, the Doctor is tranfixed, his face naked in pain and sorrow, and then his cold hands are wrenching the lyre from your grasp. The notes shatter into rainbows of refracted light and then they're gone. There is a vicious crack, like a bone breaking, and the Doctor flings the pieces of the lyre to the floor. In seconds nothing remains of the lyre but a sprinkling of dust the colour of old blood. "Take her then," he cries, "take her and may damnation have you both. You'll find Celine in the gardens beyond the Sun Room. Take her with you, as you wish, but remember: don't turn around, or she's mine forever.
You go to the south
You  hear footsteps behind you, slapping like wet fish against the grey hospital floor. You freeze and half-turn but then they recede.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
You go south
The greyness unrolls before you like the tongue of a sick frog. This sign above your head (this is not an exit) reminds you that it's women only past this point, but who is going to see you at this time of night?

Identical doors, all closed but for the one that stands slightly ajar to the west, line the corridor. Going north will return you to the Vaughan Thomas Corridor.
You go west
The memories of past visits rise up to gnaw at you like wolves. You see Celine, sitting on the bed, the colour washed out of her by her surroundings, her knees pulled up to her chin. Jess is there beside her, back to the wall, feet dangling off the end of the bed. You'd snuck in and you're kneeling on the floor, elbows folded on the coverlet. You're probably pretty damn uncomfortable. Spread out between you are brightly coloured cards. You're playing Once Upon A Time, a game for telling fairytales. "Are you sure I used to like this?" Celine is asking. "Yes," you say, "it's one of your favourites." "You used to win all the time," Jess adds. Celine laughs, uncertain. "That doesn't seem very likely," she says. "It'll come back," you say, half-reassuring, half-pleading. Except it, of course, doesn't. None of it does.

A small, perfectly square, yellow-painted room, probably identical to all the others on this corridor. The carpet is a greyish-blue, only slightly stained. There is a pine-coloured wardrobe and bedside table, a single bed and a chair. There are signs of occupation - the black cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, books and a radio on the bedside table - but it's not the kind of room you can personalise. It is a transitory space. Above the bed, the wall is splashed with a grid of cards and postcards, twenty or thirty of them maybe, pinned up there as bright as butterfly wings.

You can see the Women's Corridor through the door to the east.

On the narrow strip of a windowsill is a houseplant, another daub of colour.
You examine the houseplant
This is Sylvia (after Sylvia Plath who also, we know, went mad), an Anthurium with dark red flowers, all Georgia o'Keefe. It was a gift you nearly weren't permitted to give because of the toxic leaves. "No committing suicide by eating Sylvia," you said, pretending to admonish. And how Celine had laughed. "I promise not to kill myself by eating an anthurium," she said with mock solemnitude, knowing at least ten better ways to do it.
You talk to Sylvia
You can only do that to something animate.
Go north
A young-ish, not entirely unpretty woman, who steals from the other inmates and has no visitors, is staring blankly out of a window at the shadow-sloshed world outside. She turns, smiles hopefully and shyly at you and then flees. You try to feel more kindness towards her but she pilfered Celine's favourite perfume.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
Go west
This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.

Now you notice a set of doors at the back of the room have been flung wide open, drawing you like a beckoning finger, west, towards the shadow-smothered gardens.

The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
Go west
Somebody tried. Here there are the elements of a garden. Grass, although it is mainly mud. Banks of soil where perhaps flowers might grow. Squatting shrubs, hunched in upon themselves. And in silhouette the anorexic shapes of trees, stripped before the oncoming winter. Moonlight forms puddles here and there.

The Sun room waits to the east.

Celine is sitting on a stone bench.
You talk to Celine
Ok.
You go east
The silence of the hospital surrounds you like an itchy blanket.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
Go west
A small, perfectly square, yellow-painted room, probably identical to all the others on this corridor. The carpet is a greyish-blue, only slightly stained. There is a pine-coloured wardrobe and bedside table, a single bed and a chair. There are signs of occupation - the black cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, books and a radio on the bedside table - but it's not the kind of room you can personalise. It is a transitory space. Above the bed, the wall is splashed with a grid of cards and postcards, twenty, thirty, forty of them maybe, pinned up there as bright as butterfly wings.

You can see the Women's Corridor through the door to the east.

On the narrow strip of a windowsill is a houseplant, another daub of colour.
You examine cardigan
An ankle-length black wool cardigan, thick and soft, the sort of garment you could curl up inside and feel comforted. You think it was a present from John. The smell of the Warneford and cigarette smoke clings to it.
You examine the radio
You thought it might help her pass the difficult, interminable hours. It didn't.
You take the cardigan
You don't want the cardigan. When her parents came to take everything that was left of her, you told yourself that people were not their things. You have to keep believing that because otherwise you'll have nothing.
Go north
One of Celine's few friends (one to whom you have lost endless games of Scrabble) passes you with a nod and a greeting. "I'm very much looking forward to the coping with psychosis workshop tomorrow," he comments, with a look so wry and self-knowing you cannot help but laugh. He waves and vanishes into his room.

There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
Go west
This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.

Now you notice a set of doors at the back of the room have been flung wide open, drawing you like a beckoning finger, west, towards the shadow-smothered gardens.

The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
Go west
Somebody tried. Here there are the elements of a garden. Grass, although it is mainly mud. Banks of soil where perhaps flowers might grow. Squatting shrubs, hunched in upon themselves. And in silhouette the anorexic shapes of trees, stripped before the oncoming winter. Moonlight forms puddles here and there.

The Sun room waits to the east.

Celine is sitting on a stone bench.
You look at Celine
Celine is beautiful but not today. The monochrome palette of the Warneford has wrung her out. Her clothes are too black, her skin is too pale, her eyes too dark.
You talk to Celine
Celine smiles to see you, convincing gladness, desperate eyes. You exchange the usual greetings, the usual enquiries, and, as ever, she thanks you for coming to see her, as if it is a kind and wonderful thing and not a terrible strain for both of you. You tell her silly stories of the colour of the October leaves and how much you're looking forward to the blossom trees. She listens, and laughs, and pretends.
You talk to Celine
Celine is not feeling so good and will only tell you so if you press her. She has - quite literally - forgotten the way home, along with everything she learned on her art history course last term. She has forgotten the tombstone cake you made for Jess's birthday. She has forgotten Rick's parents are dead. She has forgotten the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It'll come back, you tell her, don't worry, and anyway we can watch it all over again - think how much fun that'll be. She listens, and laughs, and pretends.
You talk to Celine
Celine tells you her secrets, the ones she hasn't forgotten, the ones you wish she could forget, the ones she has forgotten you already know. You try to make it okay with your words. And Celine listens, and laughs, and pretends.
You talk to Celine
Suddenly you remember. It's time to go home. "Will you follow me?" you ask, and Celine nods. She seems only a little afraid.
You talk to Celine
"You will follow me, won't you?" you say again and Celine assures you she will.
Go east
This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.

As you enter the sunroom from the gardens, your own footsteps sound on the floor but you hear no others. Perhaps Celine has not followed as promised she would.

The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
Go east
There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.

You strain to hear even the slightest hint of movement but there is nothing, nothing at all. Perhaps you have been tricked. Yes, that seems very likely.

This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
Go east
You look around for the nurse but then notice that the door seems to be standing very slightly ajar. You seize the opportunity and slip through
Vaughan Thomas Exterior
Vaughan Thomas Ward is another grey building. It has a bow-window which looks like an ill-at-ease addition to its uniformity. There is also an awkward, spindly tree guarding a nearby bench.

The only thing that follows you now, it seems, is silence.

The door that leads west into Vaughan Thomas has been painted blue. There is a doorbell next to it in industrial grey. The path leading to and from Vaughan Thomas lies to the east.
Go east
The path sidles away down the side of the main building, taking you away from facades. Here, there are no country house lawns, no sandstone and classical pillars. There are patches of scrubby grass, borders that may perhaps bloom one spring, and scattered buildings that are too perfectly, facelessly functional to have anything of beauty or ugliness to them. There are jaunty painted signs to Cotswold House and Wintle Ward.

Vaughan Thomas waits to the west, the Hospital Approach is to the east.
Go east
Here on the Warneford lawn again you can see a streak of lightness at the eastern edge of the sky. Behind you, a smear of gold and grey, is the Warneford. Before you, to the northwest, the wrought iron gates, as tall as thistles to a child, inevitably sealed.
You go northwest
You can't, the gates bar your way, as insurmountable as death itself. All you can do now is turn around.
You open the gates
there will be no opening them. The metal tears at the skin of your hands and you send a chorus of clattering to the silent sky. They are securely sealed and there is no forcing them. You can't go back, you can't go through them. It's time to turn around.
You turn around
You turn around slowly, as you know you inevitably must. Celine is standing behind you, smiling. The rising sun gleams upon her hair and in her eyes, her cheeks flushed with the first light of dawn. The grass at her feet is a carpet of flowers and as you rush into her opening arms you find yourself clutching at nothing but a flurry of petals the colour of her lipstick.

Marlborough Road looks exactly as it did when you left it, except it is greyish in the dawn. It seems you have been wandering all night long. Your house is dark and quiet behind its curtained windows, as if it has closed its eyes. The world waits at your back, the front door lies ahead, waiting for you to open it.
You open the door
As you reach out to the door handle, a flash of colour catches your eye. There is a flower petal stuck to your palm. Shaken free by your movement, it drifts to the ground, gleaming briefly in the gloom. The door swings open and you step inside, into neither emptiness nor cold, and your hand warm as if someone holds it still.

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