text: [Themes: Alien Visitation, aliens]
  
  > Look around
  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 strides angrily off to the south.
  
  > chop Dad with the axe
  I don't know how to chop Dad.
  
  Your dad's murmuring gets louder, you can hear snatches of it. "...need an axe ... where? ... Think!" His mumbles trail off again.
  
  > hit Dad with the axe
  You grapple with your father, who pushes who back with incredible strength. "What the hell was that for?"
  
  Your dad keeps running his hand over the tree with the initials carved in it, and muttering.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  Your dad's murmuring gets louder, you can hear snatches of it. "...need an axe ... where? ... Think!" His mumbles trail off again.
  
  > 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...
  
  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.
  
  > Go north
  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.
  
  You wander aimlessly for a while, but eventually the aliens give you other puzzles to work on. You do so listlessly, thinking back to the bizarre opportunity you had with your father, and wondering what you could have done differently. Eventually, you crawl into bed, tired and confused.
  
  When you awake the next morning, you feel a little odd. You sit up and rub your face, running your hands back over your head. Ah, that must be why you feel odd, they took the wires out last night. You yawn, stretch, and blink to clear your eyes.
  
  Click.
  
  In a total of 543 turns, you have achieved a score of 160 points out of a possible 200. You also received 15 bonus points.
  
  You may restore a saved game, start over, quit, or undo the current command.
  
  > About yourself
  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. Your dad strides angrily off to the south.
  
  > feel the wires
  Without a mirror, it's really difficult to examine them. Just from touch, all four wires are about a quarter-inch thick, and they seamlessly attach to your attach to your skull.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You have a hoe and a bucket. The bucket seems to contain some water.
  
  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.
  
  > hit alien
  It feels dangerous to go after the alien with nothing but your bare hands, but you go for it anyway. The element of surprise is on your side, at least: the alien is completely focused on your father. As you close the final few steps to the alien, it sees you out of the corner of its eye and reflexively jerks its arm. The metal prod grazes your temple and sends a jolt of electricity through your body, hurling you to the ground, momentarily as helpless as a newborn.
  
  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.
  
  > feel the wires
  The guards have your arms firmly pinioned to your sides.
  
  Through the pain and confusion, your mind relives that instant of striking the alien over and over. Was there really an alien there to hit? If you were hallucinating, isn't it possible that what you saw as an alien was just an ordinary person? The possibilities of what you may have done start to sink in. When your dad went on his shooting spree in the restaurant ten years ago, was he seeing people, or alien faces conjured up by his own fevered imagination?
  
  Maybe Juniper Hill is where you belong-- you and your father.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are empty-handed.
  
  You close the last twenty feet to the gate. The guard on your right releases your arm to go talk to the gate-keeper. The other guard clamps down painfully on your left arm. The scene around you seems to blur; is it just your eyes tearing up from the pain? You feel an all-too-familiar tingling sensation along your scalp, and the world comes into focus again.
  
  > hit the guard
  You flail with your free arm at the one guard still holding you, but to no avail. Even one-handed, his grip is stronger than your arm, leaving his other hand free to rebuff your attacks and get some good jabs in of his own. The other guard glances over, unconcerned.
  
  The guard continues conferring with the gate-keeper for a moment.
  
  > feel the wires
  Without a mirror, it's really difficult to examine them. Just from touch, all four wires are about a quarter-inch thick, and they seamlessly attach to your attach to your skull.
  
  The gate-keeper pushes a button, and the heavy, wrought-iron fence is hydraulically pushed open. The guard returns to your side and grabs your arm again. They escort you across the plush lawn into the freshly whitewashed building. They force you into a small room where they wrestle you into a straight-jacket, and then they take you to a classic padded cell, and put you inside. Any doubts you may have had about the reality of your situation are quickly dispelled as you rub your face against the rough canvas padding on your walls. The cell is real.
  
  Real enough, anyway.
  
  In a total of 544 turns, you have achieved a score of 175 points out of a possible 200. You also received 15 bonus points.
  
  You may restore a saved game, start over, quit, or undo the current command.