text: [Themes: Surreal, Horror, Egypt]
  
  You are running for your life down dark, labyrinthine corridors, your heart pounding almost as loudly as the heavy boots of your relentless pursuer. But your legs are collapsing under you, your breaths coming in ragged gasps. At the last, strength fails you and you collapse face-down upon the unforgiving concrete. Cold hands grasp your neck, hauling you upright, forcing your unwilling eyes open to gaze into the hard, cruel, familiar face of your captor - and you scream with the horrible recognition that those twisted features are your own.
  
  You are still screaming when you awaken in sweat-drenched clothes, deeply relieved that it was only a dream. Yet something is not right. Why does the darkness beyond the window look so threatening? Why do the sounds of the night bear such menace? Indeed, why are you in such constant...
  
  For information, type "about"
  
  Standard interpreter 1.0
  
  Bedroom (on the bed)
  This first-floor room is almost uncomfortably warm and well-lit. The bed sits against the east wall, and curtains cover the windows to the south. A calendar hangs from a hook on one wall, and the exit is to the north.
  
  On the bedside table are a pillbox (which is closed) (in which are nine white pills), a small leaflet and a telephone.
  
  [Author's Note: The world is suddenly such a frightening place. People are out to get you, and everywhere there is danger, lurking in the dark, even here, in your own home. Can you conquer your own fears before it's too late?]
  
  > examine the leaflet
  A folded piece of paper printed in annoyingly small lettering.
  It reads:
  
  Cyclazone (R) - Antidepressant
  
  Dosage - one pill every twenty-four hours or until symptoms clear. Effects slowly increase over the first twelve hours. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD RECOMMENDED DOSAGE EVER BE EXCEEDED.
  
  Possible rare side effects - mild disorientation, temporary amnesia, partial loss of coordination. Do not drive motor vehicles while under treatment.
  
  Mode of action - (from here on, the leaflet consists largely of
  arcane biochemical terminology which you find incomprehensible.)
  
  Amnesia, eh? You wonder just what possessed you to take part in the first trial of an experimental drug. To your horror, you can't recall.
  
  You feel suddenly claustrophobic as you hear a rustling nearby. What lurks in the shadows, waiting to pounce?
  
  > examine the hook
  The calendar is turned to the page for the month of March. It bears a photograph of a snow-covered mountain range. Down the right-hand side are little entries for each day:
  
  Sat 1 Mar:
  Sun 2 Mar:
  Mon 3 Mar: Call drug research people 6pm
  Tue 4 Mar: first dose 6:30pm
  
  These entries are crossed through, and the rest of the calendar is blank.
  
  The house is strangely unfamiliar, as if you'd read about it in a book but never actually set foot inside before.
  
  > check your inventory
  There is no dial tone. Returning the handset to its cradle, you feel even more helpless and alone.
  
  As you try to compose your mind, dark memories wash over you: explosions, death, the tolling of funeral bells, gloom, isolation.
  
  What do you want to tie?
  
  You are carrying nothing.
  
  > eat it
  You open the pillbox.
  
  Taken.
  
  The pill dissolves quickly on your tongue, and within moments a feeling of disorientation and vertigo overcomes you. Then the walls of the house seem to press in around you, suffocating and crushing - and then you are stumbling, running in blind panic for the stairs, pursued by horrors of every description, maniacal laughter and agonized screams ringing in your ears, and somehow one of the steps lurches upwards, sending you hurtling down headfirst into the monsters waiting at the foot of the stairs...
  
  You were found with a broken neck.
  
  > Go north
  You'll have to get off the bed first.
  
  > stand
  You get off the bed.
  
  On the bedside table are a telephone, a pillbox (which is closed) (in which are nine white pills) and a small leaflet.
  
  > examine windows
  The windows shield you from the terror and cold of the outside world. On the other side of the glass, steel grilles fixed to the wall prevent intruders breaking in this way.
  
  > North
  Upstairs Corridor (by ladder)
  A ladder hangs down from a dark square hole in the high ceiling of this unadorned corridor. Identical doors to the north, east and south lead to various rooms. To the west, hanging over the stairs, a bright electric lamp provides illumination.
  
  Seeing the ladder suddenly reminds you where you left the house keys. They fell out of your pocket in the attic yesterday afternoon.
  
  You catch a flurry of movement out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn there is nothing.
  
  > Up
  The light switch is a long way from the entrance, and from the strange noises you hear occasionally, there could be anything up there. You can't muster the courage to brave the dark.
  
  > examine the ladder
  The old and rickety-looking wooden ladder is fixed to something at the top end, though you can't see what very clearly from down here. The hole leads to the attic.
  
  > Go north
  A small, windowless and rather cramped bedroom. Perhaps that explains why overnight visitors are so infrequent.
  
  You can see an ornamental plate and a dusty leather-bound book here.
  
  > look at the plate
  A small, rather attractive copper plate inlaid with intricate silver patterns.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  an electric torch (providing light)
  
  > go east
  This narrow, low-ceilinged passage with smooth granite walls slopes downwards and eastwards into the heart of the vast edifice. It is cool inside, a welcome relief from the baking desert sun.
  
  > Go east
  The narrow passage from the west opens out into a wide sloping gallery that descends eastwards into what appears to be a burial chamber. Tall pillars set against the walls hold up the high ceiling. The walls are inscribed with scenes from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
  
  Only your footfalls break the silence, echoing ever fainter into the darkness.
  
  > examine the scenes
  The inscriptions show deities with the heads of birds and jackals presiding over the judgment of the deceased on one wall, and serene images of the pharoah's abode in the afterlife on the other. Underneath the pictures are indecipherable hieroglyphics which you guess to be ancient prayers.
  
  > Pray
  Nothing practical results from your prayer.
  
  > look at the pillars
  The square pillars are more functional than decorative; their smooth surfaces are plain and unadorned.
  
  > Go east
  What a disappointment. This chamber must have once been filled with treasures beyond imagination, before the museums plundered its wealth. Dark patches of stone on the floor are the only indication of where valuable artifacts once stood, while the walls stand bare and forlorn. The massive sarcophagus remains in the centre of the room, but only, you suspect, because of its sheer weight.
  
  The sarcophagus lid bears a menacing engraving of the spirit of the deceased Pharoah calling down maledictions upon all who would defile his tomb.
  
  > look at the engraving
  Upon closer examination, you realise this huge box could never have fit through the entrance passage; it appears to have been carved out of one immense, smooth-polished chunk of marble. The lid is as thick as your hand is wide, and is positioned an inch or so off centre.
  
  The image of the dead ruler's face, the only adornment on this box, somehow fills you with dread.
  
  > open the box
  Despite your best efforts, the lid refuses to budge. Besides, even if you were to somehow get it open, everything of interest is surely in a museum by now.
  
  > Go west
  As you turn to leave, you feel strangely compelled to glance back at the defiled sarcophagus one more time. A tiny flicker in the shadows. Did the Pharoah's lips move in a curse? At that moment, your torch somehow slips from your panicking hands, and you dive for it in the wildly flickering light. As if guided by an unseen hand, it rolls into a small gap at the foot of the north wall that you somehow hadn't noticed earlier, plunging you into complete darkness. Two heartbeats later, you hear what must surely be your torch shattering on a hard surface, followed shortly by the awful grinding noise of stone against stone in the distance, echoing through the empty chamber...
  
  You are groping around blindly in the dark. The walls and floor are smooth, cold stone. The imposing sarcophagus, thankfully, is still closed.
  
  > examine the gap
  The rectangular hole is about two feet wide and just tall enough for you, with some trepidation, to stick your arm into. It leads to a seemingly vertical, square, smooth-walled shaft. On its back wall is a curiously protruding stone.
  
  > examine the stone
  It feels surprisingly rough compared to the smooth walls of the shaft from which it sticks out an inch or so.
  
  > Go outside
  Your footsteps echo eerily back to you in the chilly air of the lightless gallery.
  
  > examine the stone
  Your spirits sink. The slab feels solid and is impervious to your efforts. Upon its surface are engraved the images of bird-headed Egyptian deities, their sharp vulture-beaks open as if to devour desecrators.
  
  > Go outside
  You get about six feet into the entrance passage before running, literally, into a stone slab that seals you inside the tomb.
  
  > look at the box
  Still massive, immovable and unopenable. Running your fingers over the engraved pharoah, you could almost swear that his features have contorted ever so slightly into a leer.
  
  > examine the hole
  The hole is now two foot square, wide enough for you to squeeze through. It leads to a seemingly vertical, square, smooth-walled shaft. On its back wall is a curiously protruding stone.
  
  > Kiss box
  You can only do that to something animate.
  
  > enter the hole
  You carefully lower yourself, feet first, into the cramped shaft.
  
  Darkness (in a shaft)
  You are braced against the cold stone walls of a narrow, claustrophobic square shaft, trying unsuccessfully to avoid thinking about burial in a tall coffin. You could climb down with some care, or crawl back up into the sarcophagus room.