text: [Themes: Horror, Historical, Time Travel, Surreal, violence, surreal, time travel]
  
  > Look around
  It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.
  
  A headless corpse lies at your feet.
  
  > go west
  You proceed further into the house...
  Inside the house
  This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. There is also a large, threadbare rug in the center of the room. Exits lead east and--
  
  Wait a minute. This door was boarded shut. It would've taken an hour and created a huge racket to get that doorway clear. But here it is, door wide open, the last light before dusk streaming into the room.
  
  This has ceased to be remotely amusing. Who the hell opened that goddamn door?
  
  > look at rug
  The pitter-patter of little feet has worn this rug down to little more than a rag.
  
  > open the door
  (the trap door)
  The trap door is barred; you unbar it and take a look inside, but it's too dark to see much of anything. You let the door go and it swings shut with a heavy thud.
  
  > Go west
  You step outside...
  West of the house
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  > Go southeast
  You walk around to the south side of the house...
  South of the house
  You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack between two boards.
  
  > look in the window
  Through the crack you see an attic, converted into a girl's bedroom -- Betsy Whitman's bedroom, if you're not mistaken, and you know you're not. The same dolls on the dresser, the same splashes of pink. Except... except...
  Anyway, it makes no sense that there would be a lamp burning if the house has been abandoned, especially not in that room.
  
  > go to the south
  The forest is too thick in that direction to permit you to travel more than a few steps. It seems to thin out on the other side of the house, though.
  
  > Go east
  You walk around to the back of the house...
  Behind the house
  You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.
  
  Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
  
  > go to the west
  You open the back door and step inside...
  Inside the house
  It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.
  
  A headless corpse lies at your feet.
  
  > move stove
  It's much too heavy.
  
  > climb stove
  You are carrying nothing.
  
  That cannot be climbed.
  
  > go north
  There is a wall in that direction.
  
  > move corpse
  The corpse has nothing that you want.
  
  Nothing obvious happens.
  
  > Go west
  You proceed further into the house...
  
  > West
  This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. Exits lead east and west.
  
  There is also a trap door in the center of the room.
  
  > open the trap door
  You open the trap door and take a look inside, but it's too dark to see much of anything. You let the door go and it swings shut with a heavy thud.
  
  > look at the trap door
  For a moment you'd forgotten about this trap door, even though you installed it yourself. How? Maybe it has something to do with the bunkum going on around here... or maybe you just wanted to forget.
  
  > think
  You try to think back, but every moment of the recent past slips away before your mind can take hold.
  
  > Xyzzy
  You open the trap door and climb down the rickety staircase into the darkness...
  
  It is pitch black.
  
  You hear something growl in the darkness.
  
  > Go north
  The growling intensifies to a terrible roar as you are torn apart.
  
  > restart
  
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the remains of your corpse.
  [Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
  
  > examine the outhouse
  These heaps of wood are all that is left of what was once a small village of secondary buildings. Splintery, weathered, rotten wood. It's not good lumber -- hell, it isn't even decent firewood.
  
  > go to the west
  You open the back door and step inside...
  Inside the house
  It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.
  
  A headless corpse lies at your feet.
  
  > go to the west
  You proceed further into the house...
  Inside the house
  This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. Exits lead east and west.
  
  There is also a trap door in the center of the room.
  
  > enter the trap
  You open the trap door and climb down the rickety staircase into the darkness...
  Under the house
  It is pitch black.
  
  You hear something growl in the darkness.
  
  > Go upwards
  The growling intensifies to a terrible roar as you are torn apart.
  
  > restart
  
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the remains of your corpse.
  
  > look at the dogs
  The dogs are ferocious Bull-and-Terriers, exactly the breed you'd choose if you were selecting guard dogs for your own home.
  
  > About you
  By all rights, you should be dead. You are dead, if the corpse before you is any indication. Yet you feel fine. As fine as you ever get, at any rate -- half-deaf and half-crippled, but not bad, considering.
  
  > go to the west
  The forest is too thick in that direction to permit you to travel more than a few steps. It seems to thin out to the north, though.
  
  > Go southeast
  You walk around to the south side of the house...
  South of the house
  You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack between two boards.
  
  > open the window
  The windows are boarded shut. They cannot be opened.
  
  > knock on the window
  This seems like a waste of energy.
  
  > go to the northeast
  You walk around to the north side of the house...
  North of the house
  You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
  
  > Go southwest
  You return to the front of the house...
  West of the house
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  > look through the crack
  Through the crack you see the bedroom of Betsy, your business partner's youngest daughter. Why a lamp is burning in an abandoned house you cannot guess.
  
  > take corpse
  The corpse is too cumbersome to handle by yourself.
  
  > Go east
  You return to the kitchen...
  Inside the house
  It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.
  
  A headless corpse lies at your feet.
  
  > close the door
  You try to close the door, but it swings open again. The latch isn't catching.
  
  > go east
  You return to the yard behind the house...
  
  > go east
  You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.
  
  Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
  
  > Go north
  You walk around to the north side of the house...
  North of the house
  You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
  
  > Go west
  You return to the front of the house...
  West of the house
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  > go east
  You walk into the house...
  Inside the house
  So this is what Whitman was afraid of, the reason he summoned you all the way out here -- he was afraid of his own brats. Three of them this time, busy clearing the table after what seems to have been a small banquet: William Junior, nearing thirty and still a menial bank clerk; Ann, the ugly daughter, twenty-five and still unmarried; and your old friend Johnny, younger now than when he blew his head off, but still twitching like a damn Shaker. Good God, what a sorry lot.
  
  "Where have you been?" Junior asks, pouring you a glass of wine. "You missed dinner entirely! And after we went to all the trouble of making you this meal..." He shakes his head. "But at least there's some wine left," he says, pressing the glass into your hand.
  
  > examine junior
  William Jr. was always a bookish little worm, more concerned with the schoolmarm's opinion than his own father's -- not that Whitman was much better than the schoolmarm. Setting aside money that could've been used for the business to send Junior to Hahvahd... took a damn war to convince him of the idiocy of that plan. The cash infusion really helped the business. And dipping into the money Junior made from his work at the bank? Well, you didn't hear him whining about all the free meals he ate growing up. Little ingrate.
  
  > examine the wine
  If you were Whitman, you'd have drained this glass already -- he was never a big drinker before the war, but he picked up the habit quickly enough, even before he had any physical pain to dull. By the time the two of you got to the hospital, he was drinking more than even the surgeons. Your own tastes ran more to chloroform.
  
  > look at the table
  Whatever it was that the others had for dinner has been carried into the kitchen.
  
  > examine the rug
  This rug has seen better days, but it is still in far better condition than it was when last you saw it.
  
  > move the rug
  "GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Johnny shrieks.
  
  > look at case
  Whitman used to keep his memorabilia from the war in this case... no telling where it went.
  
  > look at Ann
  It's hard to believe that Whitman's younger daughter and this one come from the same stock. It was clear from the time she was a small child that Betsy was going to become just the model of the perfect Southern belle, but Ann -- one minute she's an annoying snotnosed kid always in your face with the questions and then you get back from the war and she's turned into an old maid overnight. And now with her chances of ever getting a husband dwindling, it looks like she's going to be a drain on the household and, more importantly, the business, for the rest of her days. Useless.
  
  > About yourself
  You're feeling quite well for someone who's died several times over.
  
  > Go east
  Johnny produces a pistol and points it at you. "You're not going anywhere," he says, his voice shaking violently.
  
  > throw the wine at Johnny
  The shrapnel in your body makes throwing things too painful to be worth the effort.
  
  > examine shrapnel
  Most of the shrapnel is in your lower body -- your hips, your thighs, your knees. But there's a smattering in other places. A small spur in the back of your hand, for instance, right above the knob of your wrist: it's thickly calloused over, a deadened bump you can poke and prod, but every time you flex your wrist just so, the metal slices through a nerve and it is all you can do to keep from trying to tear the shard out with your fingernails.
  
  > drink the wine
  You take a swig of the wine and slump down deep into the easy chair. After a couple of minutes you start to feel very tired.
  
  As your eyes begin to droop, Junior walks up to you, his steps tentative. "Father," he says, "please try to understand what is happening to you..."
  
  You start to protest -- do I look like your goddamn father, you imbecile? -- but stop short. All these resurrections, and the way the house is different every time you turn around... could you be inhabiting Whitman's body? You try to look at yourself, but you're just so damn tired...
  
  "This isn't about stealing my money," Junior says. You squint: suddenly there are two of them, then four. "This isn't about me at all," they say. "Or about Mother, or even Gregory. No, this is about Betsy. Betsy was the last..."
  
  Junior no doubt has a lengthy harangue memorized for this occasion, but his voice grows quiet in your ears and soon he is talking to himself.
  
  > drink the wine
  West of the house
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  [Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
  
  > go to the east
  You walk into the house...
  Inside the house
  You walk back into the house to find the three Whitman children sitting around the table, talking quietly. They don't seem to notice you until you slam the door behind you. Then, in unison, they all look up.
  Johnny looks at you, then down at your corpse slumped in the living room chair, then back at you. He screams. He screams, and runs through the back door out into the yard and the woods beyond. You can hear his inhuman caterwauling even as the back door slams shut.
  
  > kill Johnny
  Junior faints dead away.
  Ann, however, seems curiously unaffected. "So," she says. "There really are two of you. So which are you really? Whitman or Blake? Or is that even a meaningful qu
  
  estion is, do you really want to know? It takes a while to drop the phat info-b0mbz, and chances are your scattered little nineteenth-century brane couldn't begin to comprehend the tale. But it's your call -- want the story?
  
  > Yes
  You are in a dim, empty living room, with only a corpse slumped in chair for company. A rug adorns the center of the room. Exits lead east and west.
  
  > Go east
  You proceed further into the house...
  Inside the house
  It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.
  
  A headless corpse lies at your feet.
  
  > About yourself
  You're feeling quite well for someone who's died several times over.
  
  > go east
  You return to the yard behind the house...
  Behind the house
  You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.
  
  Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
  
  > Go north
  You walk around to the north side of the house...
  North of the house
  You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
  
  > Go west
  You return to the front of the house...
  West of the house
  You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
  
  > go to the east
  You walk into the house...
  Inside the house
  You are in a dim, empty living room, with only a corpse slumped in chair for company. A rug adorns the center of the room. Exits lead east and west.
  
  > examine corpse
  The corpse stirs as you approach. And that's when you realize: this isn't you, it's Whitman. And he's not even dead. Merely drunk.
  
  "...goddamn brats always making such a goddamn racket..." he mutters. You don't hear anything, but then, you rarely hear much of anything over the constant roar in your ears.
  
  But a moment later you see what he must be talking about, as the boys, Johnny and Gregory, come tearing into the front room, fighting as always -- this time it's not an exchange of blows but just a frantic wrestling match, over, what? A toy? Or are they just
  
  You're doubled over. The pain, god damn it the pain -- that kid smacked right into your leg, drove the shrapnel right through half a dozen nerves, like the whole limb was being blown open all over again... and you, you seem to have thrown him across the room, and he hit the wall... that's a load-bearing wall. His head is bleeding... must have hit a wall stud...
  
  A doctor, Johnny is crying. Gregory needs a doctor.
  
  A doctor, a doctor, Whitman whimpers. He is doubled up next to you and for a moment you are back in the forest with Union shells going off around you. Except they're not called doctors in wartime, they're called surgeons. And making noise and thrashing around just means you'll get a bayonet in the gut from some goddamn Yank. Oh god, my son, Whitman mewls, and you punch him in the face to shut him up.
  
  That gets Johnny's attention. Someone has to take control here, and though you can barely see from the pain, Whitman sure as hell isn't up to the task.
  
  So there will be no goddamn doctors. No one is to know about this. You, Johnny, are to take little Gregory down to the basement. If he dies, he dies. If he recovers, he recovers. If he ends up somewhere in between, well, Johnny, that's your responsibility. I'm not cleaning up after some idiot kid.
  
  Oh, now Whitman's picking himself up off the floor. See here, he's saying. This is my house, and you aren't going to--
  
  Shut your goddamn mouth. This is my house. I built it. You just sat there. The same way you just sit there while your bastard children are running amok, have to keep calling me over anytime you need to establish a little discipline. That means I make the rules. Got it?
  
  Anyone else want to order me around?
  
  How about you?
  
  Well, to hell with you too. I don't care what you want. Nobody messes with Bill Blake, and nobody orders him around. Not snotnosed kids, not impotent cripples, not the nigger-loving Union government, not God the fucking Almighty. The Grim Reaper has no say over Bill Blake, and neither do you. If your commands and what he wants to do happen to coincide, well zip-a-dee-goddamn-doo-dah.
  
  And right now he's getting the hell out of here.
  
  The dogs are back, still chewing on that corpse... but wait. If the corpse in the easy chair was actually Whitman, alive, then this one... need a closer look...
  
  But the dogs are gone.
  
  The dogs are gone, and the sun is bouncing around in the sky like a rubber ball. And... it was so clear a moment ago... had a plan in mind, but now... don't know what to do, where to go... don't even know who's asking the question...
  
  Help... please, help...
  
  > About yourself
  This body, these hands... these hands are full of shrapnel, but whose are they?
  [Please type a command before pressing Enter.]