text: [Themes: Religious, Afterlife, Time Travel, moral choice, devil, moral dilemma, ethics]
  
  Fleeting glimpses of faces half-remembered in the gloom. Screams, the sound of squealing tires, a sudden thump, a sickening crunch and a violent jolt followed by a sense of weightlessness and disassociation. The last thing you remember is an overwhelming feeling of guilt and regret, forcing its way through the chaos that surrounds you and then there is...
  
  Your sight fails you. For that matter, you don't know if your eyes are opened or closed. Concepts like time and place have no meaning here. Your mind attempts to impose something, some order, some structure, upon the space in which you exist, and fails. There is only the void. For all you know, that is all there ever was.
  
  [Author's Note: You were born; you lived; you died. Not everyone gets a second chance to go back and change crucial decisions. You have been granted one and must go back to critical moral dilemmas; but do you change the course of your life, or daren't you?]
  
  > Inventory
  There is only Nothing.
  
  > wake up
  There is only Nothing.
  
  No, wait. There is ... something, moving in the darkness. It dances at the edge of your new-found vision, teasing you. You turn your head toward the shape, when your neck suddenly gives out and your head lolls backward. Blinding pain explodes from the back of your head.
  
  Your eyes flutter open...
  
  A small room, with circular walls and a floor of pale white stone. There are no apparent exits, other than a small slit of a window off to one side.
  
  An angelic-looking young man looks upon you with concern.
  
  Along the far wall opposite the window hangs a tapestry.
  
  The young man smiles.
  
  "Ah, you are all right. You had me worried, my friend," he says.
  
  > look at the man
  A face almost harsh in its perfection, with crystal-clear blue eyes half-covered by a flowing mane of gold. He wears a gown of white, about his neck is a silver pendant, and in his left hand he carries the long graceful curve of an ivory torch.
  
  > About yourself
  From what you can tell, you're as you've always been.
  
  The young man's smile suddenly fades and he sighs.
  
  "There is much we must speak of my friend," he says. He turns and points at the tapestry. "And there are choices which must be made."
  
  > ask the man about yourself
  "Ah, yes ... you have no memory of yourself." The young man pauses a moment. "You, lost traveler, are Timothy Hunter, recently a mortal, now dead. Because of your actions in life and what has just happened at the moment of your death, the fate of your soul is in doubt."
  
  "But here, I have not even introduced myself. Forgive me," he says, bowing with a flourish. "I am ... Morningstar."
  
  > Kiss man
  That would be pointless.
  
  Morningstar turns to the window and looks out it.
  
  > examine the window
  Approaching the opening, you realize it is hardly more than a slit in the wall. Peering through it, you see the night sky, brilliant with innumerable stars. Straining your vision, you can make out the landscape, far below, covered with trees. You are in a tower of some sort, in the center of a forest that goes on for as far as the eye can see.
  
  Running your hand against the wall you realize that it is not the stone you took it for. It is far too smooth, and feels warm to the touch. For a moment, the confused image of your hands running over piano keys runs through your mind. And then it hits you: you've felt this before. It's ivory. An ivory tower...
  
  > ask the man about death
  "What is there to say that you already do not know, Timothy? You are dead, and your soul is in jeopardy."
  
  > ask man about Morningstar
  "I am no one of consequence. All you need know is that I am your friend and guide, and I shall do all in my power to help you."
  
  > ask the man about the soul
  "What is there to say that you already do not know, Timothy? You are dead, and your soul is in jeopardy."
  
  He stares at you for a short while, his eyes shining in the near-darkness, then he seems to reach a decision and takes you by the hand.
  
  "Come Timothy," he says, leading you toward the tapestry. "There is much I must show you, and I fear there will be much you do not wish to see."
  
  > examine the tapestry
  A large, intricately woven tapestry which depicts three tableaus on three different panels.
  
  You stare at the swirling colors of the wall-hanging as Morningstar places the torch in his right hand while still clinging to your own, and then places his left upon the tapestry. His hand, pale as the ivory of the torch he carries, caresses the first panel, running up and down its length.
  
  "Come Timothy, your destiny, past, present, and future, awaits."
  
  > look at the first panel
  Upon the first panel is a scene of an elderly woman in a hospital, with a doctor looking sadly down upon her.
  
  > examine the second panel
  Upon the second panel is a scene of a middle-aged woman lying in a bed, with what appears to be her soul halfway in and half-way out of her body.
  
  The rumbling shakes you from your contemplation of the tapestry. At first, you can feel it more than hear it, but as the vibration of everything around you increases, so does the volume of the noise behind it. The room, the tapestry, the young man at your side, everything begins to sway and shake at the behest of the ferocious sound. You try to wrest your hands from Morningstar's and clamp them against your skull, anything to blot out the terrible song which fills your ears and shakes your bones, but he holds fast.
  
  Then, with a sudden forward rush, a universe of multi-colored threads leaps from the hanging, flooding your vision. They wrap themselves about you in a spinning dance that, combined with the noise, threatens to overwhelm your senses. Just when you think the din will drive you mad, there is a flash of light, again the sense of weightlessness, as if you have been separated from the rest of the world, and then, somehow, you are somewhere else...