text: [Themes: Tales from Castle Balderstone, multiple protagonists, space, Comedy]
  
  > Look around
  Bright lights surround you on all sides. A giant camera is pointed at your face.
  
  Behind you is a low archway of painted canvas.
  
  Come on, we're wasting film.
  
  > enter the archway
  The dusty tunnel is mostly empty. A cool breeze issues from the stairway.
  
  At the far end of the tunnel is a low archway.
  
  > Go up
  A tenuous sliver of moonlight falls over the stairs.
  
  > Go up
  The temple is quiet.
  
  A narrow archway leads out to the main chamber.
  
  > Leave
  The sun is gone; the moon and stars shiver overhead.
  
  Roberto will be outside, waiting for you.
  
  > Go outside
  You emerge from the ruin, and Roberto rises to greet you.
  
  > hug roberto
  You walk over to Roberto—There is a flash of light on the hill, and a crack like thunder splits the air.
  
  Roberto crumples to the sand, a bullet in his chest.
  
  You run to him, kneel over him, cradle his head in your hands. His gaze is focused on the hill above.
  
  "Ramón?" he gasps. He draws his pistol, but it falls from his fingers.
  
  "Magdalena—mi prado de brisas frescas—" His eyes close.
  "Aim
  well, mi linda."
  
  > take the pistol
  You pick up Roberto's pistol.
  
  Something catches your eye—Something disappearing over the hill.
  
  > Kiss roberto
  You can only do that to something animate.
  
  > climb the hill
  You crawl up the hill—your dress snags on a cactus—your lantern
  goes
  out. You toss it behind you.
  
  When you reach the hilltop, you hold very still to search the valley below.
  
  A jaguar is running away, leaping like quicksilver over the rocks.
  
  > enter the valley
  Climbing down the rocks takes a long time. The jaguar sits calmly, waiting for you.
  
  The jaguar is a man, standing over the stream that cuts through the valley. He carries a rifle.
  
  He coughs violently, and blood spatters on the sand. He takes a second to recover.
  
  "Well?" he asks.
  
  > examine man
  He wears the bloody face of Ramón, but behind his mask are eyes of glittering obsidian. This is Tezcatlipoca, god of murder, embodiment of strife.
  
  He has nothing to say, and the desert is silent.
  
  > ask the god about Roberto
  He licks his bloody lips.
  
  "Magdalena," he says, smiling. "Doesn't your lover cry out for revenge? I am here, I have taken Roberto from you—Destroy me."
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You are carrying:
  a pistol
  a shard
  a blue dress (being worn)
  
  He looks up at the sky. "This is not going the way I had planned."
  
  He runs his hand through his hair and grimaces. "I had hoped something more interesting would happen."
  
  > cut the god with the shard
  Cutting him up would achieve little.
  
  "Tezcatlipoca grits his teeth in frustration. "This is embarrassing," he says.
  
  Then he approaches you, puts his hands on your shoulders. "Next time, you must be willing to kill—to murder me—to appease my bloodlust.
  Next
  time, Magdalena, you must be blind with hatred, ready to do anything to avenge Roberto. Will you do that? Will you be ready?"
  
  You nod.
  
  "Good. I look forward to it."
  
  The jaguar slithers down the creek, into the moonlight, leaving you alone in the desert night.
  
   On a scale of 1 to 10?
  
  > Shoot god
  You raise your gun. He smirks, and glances behind you, at the hilltop.
  
  You spin and see Magdalena raise her rifle. You try to scream—she fires—and you are Magdalena again.
  
  Roberto crumples to the sand, and the jaguar disappears into the desert night.
  
   On a scale of 1 to 10?
  
  > 6
  Okay. Noted.
  Okay. Noted.Now it is time for the next author to step forward and share the next of the evening's dreadful entertainments. It is oh
  my gosh it's Allison Chase.
  
  She is rapturous. She is heavenly. I mean, obviously I appreciate her as an author first and foremost. Allison Chase is unmatched in her literary command of suspense, anxiety, and trepidation. From page one to page six hundred forty-seven, she has the reader's amygdala wrapped around her little finger.
  
  But look at that little finger! Look at her hands, her willowy arms—Look at that neck. Oh, that neck. Allison Chase's neck.
  
  Around that impossible neck is a pendant. Does she always wear that pendant? Maybe she wears different pendants. Maybe I should give her a pendant, and then when she wore it, my pendant would be around
  Allison Chase's neck.
  
  "I happened upon this story while browsing through some old cabinets," she says. Her voice is like a church bell echoing across a field of fog. I close my eyes, the better to drink in that voice.
  
  "I found it utterly horrific. I wondered, what sort of sadistic monster could possibly have composed something so deliriously awful?" I open my eyes, so that I can look at her neck.
  
  "But when I turned back to the first page, the name I saw beneath the title..."
  
  I lean further forward. I have stopped breathing. I have completely forgotten that you, my guest, exist.
  
  "...was my own!"
  
  As far as I'm concerned there is no one else in the room. I am aware only of the lips of Allison Chase as she smiles wickedly, and begins to read...
  
  A tale of terror by Allison Chase
  
  The creature was monstrous to behold.
  
  > examine creature
  His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was stringy and unctuous. His teeth were chipped and yellowed. His chin protruded like a bent nail.
  
  > examine the eyes
  Caked around his bloodshot eyes was a vile crust, of which minute crumbs had scattered over his clammy cheeks.
  
  > examine the hair
  Matted ropes of hair hung a tangled rat's nest over his ears and down his back.
  
  > examine the teeth
  Each of his teeth was a unique sculpture, chiseled by decades of decay. Each depicted its own tale of neglect—except for those mercifully veiled by his awful tongue.
  
  > look at the tongue
  His tongue hung from between his lips like a fat worm emerging from its slimy burrow.
  
  > examine the chin
  His bony, pointed chin seemed to dangle like a pendululm beneath his shriveled lips, or else to erupt like an escaped prisoner from his overstretched neck.
  
  > examine the lips
  His chapped lips hung open mutely, revealing discolored teeth and a lolling tongue.
  
  > look at the neck
  Every muscle in his neck stuck out like a pencil beneath his wretched skin, drawing his shoulders forward involuntarily, stretching out his back and chest like leather on a tanner's rack.
  
  > look at the belly
  Between his ribcage and pelvis was his sallow stomach, swelling and stretching whenever he managed to draw breath, shrinking and shriveling with each exhalation.
  
  > examine the pelvis
  His hips were set at a crazy angle, upsetting the trajectories of his spine and everything that radiated therefrom. The posture of his legs, though by no means recognizable as human, had in it nothing of animal grace.
  
  > examine the legs
  His grimy legs, interrupted by rickety knees, struggled to remain erect over his malformed ankles.
  
  > examine knees
  Well, his knees, like knots—obscene, ineffective, oblique—separated messily the halves of his legs: and really two different worlds, two different sexes, are not so different as were the two halves of his horrible, horrible legs.
  
  > examine the ankles
  Those objects which conjoined his feet to his legs were as shapely, as sturdy, and as wet as lumps of clay dredged from the bottom of a tainted creek.
  
  > look at the feet
  His feet were slick with moisture, and beneath his skin I saw greyish veins snaking toward his toes.
  
  > examine the toes
  Cracked toenails protruded from long, bony toes, and as he teetered under his own diseased bulk, his toes produced minute ripples in the puddle of fluid that surrounded him.
  
  > examine the puddle
  The fluid that pooled around the creature's feet was composed of the same liquid that had formed rivulets running down the entirety of his repulsive body, currents which began in the corners of his sickly, overstrained eyes—for the creature was standing in a puddle of his
  own
  tears.
  
  "
  
  "I'm impressed that you remember that far back!" Allison says, and now I get to nod and mutter modestly.
  
  She goes on: "Of course, all of us here are authors, and we know that not every word we put to paper is one that we earnestly believe. I have sworn no oath to Truth, but to Art, and in service to Art I readily will wield a true sentence in one hand and a falsehood in the other. Besides, as we all know, sometimes lies can tell us the truth of things too terrible to be broached by the prim and proper facts."
  
  There are murmurs of patient assent; all of this is obvious to us authors.
  
  "In writing 'Lights Out,' as is so often the case, it was my mission to terrify my reader. And so I wrote that love is only a chemical reaction: Not to teach the reader an uncomfortable truth, but because that sentence—the meaninglessness that wears that sentence as its hideous mask—is the scariest thing I can think of."
  
  I have goosebumps.
  
  "Thank you, Miss Chase," I say, and she thanks me, and the moderator thanks me, and I sit down. My knees are shaking.
  
  So anyway, how much did you like the story? On a scale of 1 to 10?
  
  > 5
  Okay. Noted.
  
  Okay. Noted.Awkward muttering fills the chamber. Everyone is wondering who the next author will be.
  
  The moderator rises and speaks: "With that, our evening is concluded." Well, that answers that question. "On behalf of the Balderstone estate, I would like to wish you all a wonderful year to come, and a safe trip home."
  
  "Hold on!" I say, and I jog up to the dais. The moderator is smart enough to get out of my way. I lean over the lectern and grin.
  
  "Some of you may know that I've brought a guest here tonight." I wave toward you, and everyone looks at you. "And, for each of the stories, I've been asking my guest to score the story, based on how good it is, or how much you enjoyed it. Which was it again?"
  
  You are unable to answer.
  
  "Anyway, I thought everybody might like to know the results. Each story got a score from 1 to 10. And... it looks like..."
  
  I quickly do some math in my head.
  
  I quickly do some math in my head."It looks like my guest's overall enjoyment of the evening amounted to 22 out of 40."
  
  The authors look you over. "Is that all?" someone asks. "Really?"
  
  "Hey, it's not that bad," I say. "Maybe my guest is just, you know."
  
  "Just what?"
  
  Oh dear. "Just, discerning?"
  
  The moderator decides this is a good time to step in.
  
  The moderator decides this is a good time to step in.Then there is a crash of thunder.
  
  crash of thunder.The fireplace is snuffed out—
  
  crash of thunder.The fireplace is snuffed out——And Castle
  Balderstone
  is plunged into darkness!
  cheapglulxe quit with exit status: 0