text: [Themes: Mythological, Oxford, profanity, orpheus]
  
  > go east
  The silence of the hospital surrounds you like an itchy blanket.
  
  There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.
  
  This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
  
  > Go west
  A small, perfectly square, yellow-painted room, probably identical to all the others on this corridor. The carpet is a greyish-blue, only slightly stained. There is a pine-coloured wardrobe and bedside table, a single bed and a chair. There are signs of occupation - the black cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, books and a radio on the bedside table - but it's not the kind of room you can personalise. It is a transitory space. Above the bed, the wall is splashed with a grid of cards and postcards, twenty, thirty, forty of them maybe, pinned up there as bright as butterfly wings.
  
  You can see the Women's Corridor through the door to the east.
  
  On the narrow strip of a windowsill is a houseplant, another daub of colour.
  
  > examine cardigan
  An ankle-length black wool cardigan, thick and soft, the sort of garment you could curl up inside and feel comforted. You think it was a present from John. The smell of the Warneford and cigarette smoke clings to it.
  
  > examine the radio
  You thought it might help her pass the difficult, interminable hours. It didn't.
  
  > take the cardigan
  You don't want the cardigan. When her parents came to take everything that was left of her, you told yourself that people were not their things. You have to keep believing that because otherwise you'll have nothing.
  
  > Go north
  One of Celine's few friends (one to whom you have lost endless games of Scrabble) passes you with a nod and a greeting. "I'm very much looking forward to the coping with psychosis workshop tomorrow," he comments, with a look so wry and self-knowing you cannot help but laugh. He waves and vanishes into his room.
  
  There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.
  
  This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
  
  > Go west
  This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.
  
  Now you notice a set of doors at the back of the room have been flung wide open, drawing you like a beckoning finger, west, towards the shadow-smothered gardens.
  
  The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
  
  > Go west
  Somebody tried. Here there are the elements of a garden. Grass, although it is mainly mud. Banks of soil where perhaps flowers might grow. Squatting shrubs, hunched in upon themselves. And in silhouette the anorexic shapes of trees, stripped before the oncoming winter. Moonlight forms puddles here and there.
  
  The Sun room waits to the east.
  
  Celine is sitting on a stone bench.
  
  > look at Celine
  Celine is beautiful but not today. The monochrome palette of the Warneford has wrung her out. Her clothes are too black, her skin is too pale, her eyes too dark.
  
  > talk to Celine
  Celine smiles to see you, convincing gladness, desperate eyes. You exchange the usual greetings, the usual enquiries, and, as ever, she thanks you for coming to see her, as if it is a kind and wonderful thing and not a terrible strain for both of you. You tell her silly stories of the colour of the October leaves and how much you're looking forward to the blossom trees. She listens, and laughs, and pretends.
  
  > talk to Celine
  Celine is not feeling so good and will only tell you so if you press her. She has - quite literally - forgotten the way home, along with everything she learned on her art history course last term. She has forgotten the tombstone cake you made for Jess's birthday. She has forgotten Rick's parents are dead. She has forgotten the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It'll come back, you tell her, don't worry, and anyway we can watch it all over again - think how much fun that'll be. She listens, and laughs, and pretends.
  
  > talk to Celine
  Celine tells you her secrets, the ones she hasn't forgotten, the ones you wish she could forget, the ones she has forgotten you already know. You try to make it okay with your words. And Celine listens, and laughs, and pretends.
  
  > talk to Celine
  Suddenly you remember. It's time to go home. "Will you follow me?" you ask, and Celine nods. She seems only a little afraid.
  
  > talk to Celine
  "You will follow me, won't you?" you say again and Celine assures you she will.
  
  > Go east
  This is a primitive conservatory of sorts. It is by far the most attractive room in the Warneford, which reflects well on neither the Warneford nor the room. It has wicker chairs and, disconcertingly, there is white-sheeted hospital bed against one of the walls. The square, unbeautiful windows overlook the grounds and currently admit a spill of moonlight the colour of old milk.
  
  As you enter the sunroom from the gardens, your own footsteps sound on the floor but you hear no others. Perhaps Celine has not followed as promised she would.
  
  The Vaughan Thomas corridor lies to the east.
  
  > Go east
  There are soft felt pinboards on the wall, above a row of chairs. An over-stacked bookself shoved in the corner and a square table do nothing to break the monotony. The Warneford Hospital has a distinctive smell. It is the smell of a place that very consciously has no smell, underscored by a desperate edge of nicotine.
  
  You strain to hear even the slightest hint of movement but there is nothing, nothing at all. Perhaps you have been tricked. Yes, that seems very likely.
  
  This interminably greyish corridor meanders north, west and south. East would take you outside again, through the blue door.
  
  > Go east
  You look around for the nurse but then notice that the door seems to be standing very slightly ajar. You seize the opportunity and slip through
  Vaughan Thomas Exterior
  Vaughan Thomas Ward is another grey building. It has a bow-window which looks like an ill-at-ease addition to its uniformity. There is also an awkward, spindly tree guarding a nearby bench.
  
  The only thing that follows you now, it seems, is silence.
  
  The door that leads west into Vaughan Thomas has been painted blue. There is a doorbell next to it in industrial grey. The path leading to and from Vaughan Thomas lies to the east.
  
  > Go east
  The path sidles away down the side of the main building, taking you away from facades. Here, there are no country house lawns, no sandstone and classical pillars. There are patches of scrubby grass, borders that may perhaps bloom one spring, and scattered buildings that are too perfectly, facelessly functional to have anything of beauty or ugliness to them. There are jaunty painted signs to Cotswold House and Wintle Ward.
  
  Vaughan Thomas waits to the west, the Hospital Approach is to the east.
  
  > Go east
  Here on the Warneford lawn again you can see a streak of lightness at the eastern edge of the sky. Behind you, a smear of gold and grey, is the Warneford. Before you, to the northwest, the wrought iron gates, as tall as thistles to a child, inevitably sealed.
  
  > go northwest
  You can't, the gates bar your way, as insurmountable as death itself. All you can do now is turn around.
  
  > open the gates
  there will be no opening them. The metal tears at the skin of your hands and you send a chorus of clattering to the silent sky. They are securely sealed and there is no forcing them. You can't go back, you can't go through them. It's time to turn around.
  
  > turn around
  You turn around slowly, as you know you inevitably must. Celine is standing behind you, smiling. The rising sun gleams upon her hair and in her eyes, her cheeks flushed with the first light of dawn. The grass at her feet is a carpet of flowers and as you rush into her opening arms you find yourself clutching at nothing but a flurry of petals the colour of her lipstick.
  
  Marlborough Road looks exactly as it did when you left it, except it is greyish in the dawn. It seems you have been wandering all night long. Your house is dark and quiet behind its curtained windows, as if it has closed its eyes. The world waits at your back, the front door lies ahead, waiting for you to open it.
  
  > open the door
  As you reach out to the door handle, a flash of colour catches your eye. There is a flower petal stuck to your palm. Shaken free by your movement, it drifts to the ground, gleaming briefly in the gloom. The door swings open and you step inside, into neither emptiness nor cold, and your hand warm as if someone holds it still.
  
  Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT or UNDO the last command?