text: [Themes: Alien Visitation, aliens]
  
  > Look around
  This is the library that you remember, the desk, the carpeting, the walls, they all feel right to you.
  
  > go south
  You can't go that way.
  
  The living room is tastefully decorated. Plush wall-to-wall
  carpeting soothes your feet while your eyes marvel at the new sofa and coffee table. The wood-burning stove is the only real reminder of the house you live in. The front door to the north opens out on the driveway, the sparkly new kitchen is to the south, and the bedroom is west.
  Your dad is sitting on the couch.
  
  Click.
  
  The kitchen is just as small as you remember, but completely renovated, just like the outside of the house. The appliances and the linolium on the floor are new. There's a space-saving microwave oven installed above the range.
  
  > drive
  You have to get in the car before you can drive it.
  
  > examine the desk
  It's not until you step towards the desk that you realize what you had been subconsciously hoping to find here. Laying on the desk are the two newspaper articles that might convince your dad of what's happened.
  
  > Examine newspaper
  These are the two articles that you always come back to in the library's newspaper archives. One is yellowed and stiff, the other is only a few weeks old.
  
  > read the newspaper
  You must have read each of these articles hundreds of times, perhaps trying to glean some deeper meaning out of them, maybe just to make yourself numb to the implications. Every detail of these articles has been pressed into your being. You know every word before you read it. The first is from ten years ago:
  
  illegal handgun  and opened fire  yesterday,
  killing  one  and  critically   injuring two
  others  before employees  managed to wrestle
  him to the ground.
  
  According to witnesses, he was screaming
  "Wife-stealers!" repeatedly. We talked to
  his  neighbors,  and learned that  Knott  is
  convinced  that aliens  have  been abducting
  him  for the  past  several months,  and the
  stress of his claims caused his wife to move
  out.
  
  At  the  urgings  of his  lawyer,  Knott
  pleaded  no contest at  his hearing  and has
  been  committed  to an institution  for  the
  criminally insane.
  
  The other is from just two weeks ago:
  
  rampage,  the people of Springfield have not
  forgotten.
  
  him early, a large crowd gathered around the
  Mayor's office and staged a  loud protest on
  his lawn.
  
  Knott's release, but unless the county comes
  up with more  money for  the facility,  they
  will have to release twenty patients and lay
  off several staff members in order to remain
  operational.
  
  A spokesman for the complex said: "We are
  only thinking of releasing those individuals
  that  have  responded  completely  to  their
  therapy and that  we believe  pose no threat
  to themselves or to others."
  
  > About you
  Assuming you haven't lost your grip on reality, you are Isaiah Knott, a twenty-seven year old man from the Appalachian mountains. You are wearing your comfortable jeans, a thick flannel shirt, and hiking boots.
  
  There are four wires protruding out of your head, and a large, painful bruise spreading across your arm.
  
  > show the newspaper to pop
  Pop takes the articles and briefly glances at them before handing them back. "These are entirely outside of my program. Sorry."
  
  Click.
  
  > show the newspaper to Dad
  You watch your father's lips move as he scans down the articles. His brow furrows and he shakes his head several times as he reads. Finally, he looks up at you quizzically. "I don't know where you got these, but they aren't real. First of all, I've only been here a couple of months, so this one from..." He checks the date again, "ten years from now is just a plain lie." He shakes his head. "They're both lies! I've been here the whole time, I couldn't have killed anybody. Unless these aliens are body snatchers, and it was my evil twin that done it." His agitation fades as he puts the articles on the coffee table. "Ain't no way those are real." When you look back to the coffee table to retrieve the articles, they're gone.
  
  Click.
  
  > check your inventory
  You have a hoe, a bucket, and an axe. The bucket seems to contain some water.
  
  Click.
  
  > examine the desk
  The old, familiar library desk is a welcome sight.
  
  > go to the south
  The kitchen is just as small as you remember, but completely renovated, just like the outside of the house. The appliances and the linolium on the floor are new. There's a space-saving microwave oven installed above the range.
  
  The building to the north looks far too good to be your house. It sports new aluminum siding and shingles; the screen door is in place and freshly painted. Off to the northwest, the garden is an explosion of color. The path through the woods leads back south.
  
  > Chop tree
  You swing the axe and strike the initialed tree. There is a loud thunk and the impact jolts your arms. You pull the axe away and inspect the initialed tree. It appears undamaged.
  
  > Chop window
  You swing the axe and strike the window. There is a loud thunk and the impact jolts your arms. You pull the axe away and inspect the window. It appears undamaged.
  
  > Chop cylinder
  The metal of the cylinder appears to be much stronger than the blade of the axe. Aside from a faint scratch on the cylinder, all you have accomplished is severely dulling your axe blade.
  
  > Chop dad
  [TADS-1026: wrong number of arguments to user function "<NO SYMBOL TABLE>.<NO SYMBOL TABLE>"]
  
  > Chop bed
  You swing the axe and strike the brass bed. There is a loud thunk and the impact jolts your arms. You pull the axe away and inspect the brass bed. It appears undamaged.
  
  > Chop cylinder
  (on the keypad)
  You start pressing buttons. The keypad buzzes sharply at you when you finish.
  
  The metal of the cylinder appears to be much stronger than the blade of the axe. Aside from a faint scratch on the cylinder, all you have accomplished is severely dulling your axe blade.
  
  > Type 1026
  (on the keypad)
  There are only nine keys. (You can't use zero.)
  
  > tell Dad  about the cylinder
  "Okay, okay, I'll go look at it." He gets up and wanders into the bedroom.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You have a hoe, a bucket, and an axe. The bucket seems to contain some water.
  
  You wait for some noise from the bedroom, some sign that your dad is still functioning. Eventually you hear him say, "Bastards lied to me. They lied." There is a short pause, and then the harsh phrase "Bastards'll pay." He storms into the living room, obviously on his way towards the back door.
  
  > wait awhile
  Time passes...
  Your dad strides angrily off to the south.
  
  > Go south
  The kitchen is just as small as you remember, but completely renovated, just like the outside of the house. The appliances and the linolium on the floor are new. There's a space-saving microwave oven installed above the range.
  Your dad strides angrily off to the south.
  
  > Go south
  The building to the north looks far too good to be your house. It sports new aluminum siding and shingles; the screen door is in place and freshly painted. Off to the northwest, the garden is an explosion of color. The path through the woods leads back south.
  Your dad strides angrily off to the south.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  > Go south
  You are on the top of the hill just south of your house, surrounded
  by trees and spring-time air. The familiar path beneath your feet leads south, just like it always has. A thick fog in the distance obscures a normally beautiful view of the surrounding hilltops. You are surrounded by artificial trees. One of them has initials carved into it.
  Your dad is here.
  
  Your dad keeps running his hand over the tree with the initials carved in it, and muttering.
  
  > give the axe to Dad
  Your father looks at you for a long moment before it registers what you are offering. He accepts the axe grimly. Your dad looks at the axe solemnly for a moment, and a tear streams down his cheek. "Too many damn lies." are the only words he says before beginning to swing the axe at the tree with all of his might.
  
  The sound of hollow thuds fills the air. You can't see any visible damage on the tree, but your father continues chopping with demented ferocity.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  Just as you are about to give up hope that the tree can be damaged, you see sparks of electricity shooting off of it, and smoke starting to rise off of its branches. Your father continues striking it with the axe, and there is a loud crackle as the tree simply winks out of existence, revealing a tall, seamless metal tower inside the spot the tree had been. Your father, unfazed at this transformation from wood to metal, starts striking up sparks and horribly denting the side of the tower with his axe.
  
  An alien hurries down the path. Its gaze is locked on your father, and it's holding a metal prod.
  
  > look at the alien
  The alien is wielding a metal prod at your father.
  
  You watch the alien as it approaches your father and touches the metal prod to the base of his skull. Your father stiffens and falls to the ground. The alien turns to you and holds your gaze as the ground beneath it becomes foggy and it and your father are swallowed into the hill.
  
  > hit the alien with the hoe
  As you rush the alien, you can feel that you are stepping over some internal boundary. The madness rises within you, but the only way out of it seems to be through it. You strike at the alien with the hoe, and experience what feels like an eternal moment of fear and rage. Your hand comes over your head in slow motion, yet with all of your strength behind it. You can hear your father's axe bite into the tower just as the hoe reaches the alien's face. You hear the metal of the tower yielding: a slow, tortured squeal of anguish.
  
  The world around you begins to melt away-- the alien, your father, the hoe-- they all fade into nothing. It is only the screaming: the shrill, metallic squealing that accompanies you all the way into unconsciousness.
  
  Your eyes come into focus on a slate-gray sky. Your arms are firmly gripped by two guards on either side of you, who are firmly escorting you towards the gates of Juniper Hill asylum. The same asylum that your father was taken to.