text: [Themes: Urban Fantasy, liminal spaces]
  
  All around the city now, parties are taking place. It's been a hell of a year, emphasis on hell.
  
  But tonight, there are other things you have to do. The end of the year is a threshold. And like all thresholds...
  
  All the units in this old building have been divided and subdivided until they're dangerously cramped. The apartment is much as you found it; a year is not so long, and you'll be gone soon.
  
  You can see an engraved wastebasket (empty), a cardboard box (empty), a desk (on which are a handkerchief, a tallow candle, the keener fragment, a goathorn piece, a shred of fabric, a broken propeller, a pint glass, and a trapped butterfly), and a chair here.
  
  (If you would like explicit guidance on how to play, type INSTRUCTIONS)
  
  [Author's Note: All around the city now, parties are taking place. It's been a hell of a year, emphasis on hell. But tonight, there are other things you have to do. The end of the year is a threshold. And like all thresholds, not all things make it across.]
  
  > About yourself
  Getting old, to be quite honest.
  
  > examine the wastebasket
  It's an ordinary wastebasket, a cylinder of black aluminum. But wrapped around it is a complex pattern in silver thread that makes your eyes defocus if you try to follow it.
  
  When midnight strikes, everything inside it will be destroyed. Even the magical things that are ordinarily hard to dispose of. Especially the magical things.
  
  Aleph          Before midnight               0/6
  
  All around the city now, parties are taking place. It's been a hell of a year, emphasis on hell.
  
  But tonight, there are other things you have to do. The end of the
  year is a threshold. And like all thresholds...
  
  All the units in this old building have been divided and subdivided until they're dangerously cramped. The apartment is much as you found it; a year is not so long, and you'll be gone soon.
  
  You can see an engraved wastebasket (empty), a cardboard box (empty),
  a desk (on which are a handkerchief, a tallow candle, the keener fragment, a goathorn piece, a shred of fabric, a broken propeller, a pint glass, and a trapped butterfly), and a chair here.
  
  (If you would like explicit guidance on how to play, type
  INSTRUCTIONS)
  
  > Examine box
  Just a cardboard box you salvaged from the bodega down the street. Using paint made from wormwood and lead, you've marked it with a sigil meant to keep its contents safe in transit.
  
  For packing in the things you want to keep.
  
  > examine the desk
  A cheap writing desk out of a flatpack. There's not even drawers.
  
  On the desk are a handkerchief, a tallow candle, the keener fragment,
  a goathorn piece, a shred of fabric, a broken propeller, a pint glass, and a trapped butterfly.
  
  > examine the wormwood
  (That thing is either not here, or you don't need to refer it over
  the course of the story.)
  
  > examine the chair
  You salvaged this one out of a bistro that was about to close.
  
  > get the chair
  That's fixed in place.
  
  > sit
  What do you want to sit on?
  
  > Chair
  You get onto the chair.
  
  > look at the handkerchief
  An ordinary grey pocket square. You keep it on hand; it's useful for handling things you'd rather not touch with bare skin.
  
  > examine the candle
  Made from tallow, with the dried optical nerve of a cow serving as the wick. It burns unevently with a purple-white flame; it does not smell great. The candle connects sight to memory and allows things to carry echoes of their history.
  
  > examine fragment
  It has no discernible physical shape. It's just a sullen, faded lump
  of hatred, held together by its own surface tension, still radiating horror.
  
  (You can TOUCH most things to learn more about them.)
  
  > look at piece
  A memento from twenty-odd years ago. Gods, it's been that
  long. Its divine power is certainly faded, but you still hold on
  to it for good luck. And, in all honesty, because gods have a bad
  habit of being reborn from their pieces.
  
  > touch the candle
  You don't want to disturb it while it's burning. For all you know, touching it might bring on a vision of the cow being slaughtered.
  
  > examine the fabric
  A torn shred of thick synthetic material that someone carefully scored into a pattern that resembles feathers, or maybe scales.
  
  > examine the propeller
  composite; taken from the remains of a destroyed police drone.
  
  > touch the fabric
  (first taking the shred of fabric)
  (first taking the handkerchief)
  You gingerly take the shred of fabric with the handkerchief.
  
  You grab hold of the shred of fabric with your bare hand, and your vision swims for a lingering instant...
  
  Vision: Rooftop, Sweltering
  Just after sunset, several stories up, still radiating the heat of the day. A streak of blood runs across the edge of the building.
  
  > examine the blood
  A curved, triangular splatter. Not a gunshot; a fist. But produced
  with abnormal force.
  
  > examine the building
  (That thing is either not here, or you don't need to refer it over
  the course of the story.)
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You are carrying:
  a shred of fabric (held with your bare hand)
  a handkerchief
  
  (Once you are done here, you can LET GO to return.)
  
  > Down
  You are in a phantom of the past, a congealed instant; you can only sense the world around you, or let go of a shred of fabric to escape.
  
  > Smell
  Garbage baking in the sun all the way down in street-level; the ozone promise of rain in the air.
  
  > Taste
  What do you want to taste?
  
  > let go
  You let go of the shred of fabric, and the vision fades around you.
  
  All the units in this old building have been divided and subdivided until they're dangerously cramped. The apartment is much as you found it; a year is not so long, and you'll be gone soon.
  
  You can see an engraved wastebasket (empty), a cardboard box (empty),
  a desk (on which are a shred of fabric, a tallow candle, the keener fragment, a goathorn piece, a broken propeller, a pint glass, and a trapped butterfly), and a chair here.
  
  > examine the glass
  Which do you mean, the pint glass or the trapped butterfly?
  
  > Pint
  A pint glass, the conical kind with a flared bulge towards the top. Faded lettering on the side spells out "Herrig's."
  
  > look at butterfly
  A viceroy butterfly, perpetually flying laps inside a glass torus. Breaking it out of its little time loop would have vast and far-reaching consequences, just like doing literally anything else.
  But figuring out what those consequences are for a given time and
  place is a daunting task of divination.
  
  > touch the butterfly
  (first taking the trapped butterfly)
  You gingerly take the trapped butterfly with the handkerchief.
  
  You grab hold of the trapped butterfly with your bare hand, and your vision swims for a lingering instant...
  
  Vision: Shop, Cramped
  The back door is still swinging where the shopkeeper went in to fetch something; the front door is caught closing as a customer walks away. The item in your hand remembers, particularly, this tiny instant of quiet between two doors slamming after an unwelcome visit, before everything went to hell.
  
  All around you, the shelves are filled with a panoply of bizarre artifacts.
  
  > look at the door
  (That thing is either not here, or you don't need to refer it over
  the course of the story.)
  
  > look at the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on an empty aquarium.
  
  > look at the aquarium
  Recently cleaned.
  
  > look at the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a caged crow.
  
  > examine the crow
  Asleeep in a brass cage.
  
  > examine the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on an empty bell jar.
  
  > examine the bell jar
  Marked as sold.
  
  > look at the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a Great
  War gas mask.
  
  > look at gas mask
  Mint condition.
  
  > look at the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a coal carving.
  
  > examine the carving
  The size of a human head and the shape of an inhuman head.
  
  > examine the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a bottle
  of faerie wine.
  
  > look at the faerie wine
  Curiously small and very, very old.
  
  > examine the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a collection of hands of glory.
  
  > look at the hands of the glory
  Mummified and dipped in wax.
  
  > look at the artifacts
  Your eyes roam over the shelf space, eventually settling on a caged crow.
  
  > get the hands
  You are in a phantom of the past, a congealed instant; you can only sense the world around you, or let go of a trapped butterfly to
  escape.
  
  > let go
  You let go of the trapped butterfly, and the vision fades around you.
  
  All the units in this old building have been divided and subdivided until they're dangerously cramped. The apartment is much as you found it; a year is not so long, and you'll be gone soon.
  
  You can see an engraved wastebasket (empty), a cardboard box (empty),
  a desk (on which are a trapped butterfly, a shred of fabric, a tallow candle, the keener fragment, a goathorn piece, a broken propeller, and a pint glass), and a chair here.