text: [Themes: Afterlife, Religious, Time Travel, moral dilemma, ethics, moral choice]
  
  > look around
  There is only Nothing.
  
  > wait for a while
  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.
  
  No, you were wrong...
  
  There is only Nothing.
  
  Timothy Hunter was born, he lived, he died.
  
  This was only natural, being mortal. The life he led was probably most unusual in its normalcy; his childhood so much so as to be mundane. Neither praised nor reviled, neither a leader nor an outcast, he was simply another face in the crowd. He went to school, he studied, he did well enough to get by. After graduation he found a job he was good at and paid well enough. He bought a little house and lived there, a bother to no one, and the days just flowed one into the other...
  
  In fact, the first event of any importance in his life was the death of his mother.
  
  She had been ill for quite a while, and during this time, Timothy was under a great deal of stress. His small, comfortable world fell apart around him as he realized that something had ended; an innocent part of his life where he had thought she would always be with him was over.
  
  The Thompson account had totally slipped his mind, and he had been frantically trying to finish it when he heard the news that she was dying. An hour they gave her at the most. Faced with the agonizing choice of being with her in her final moments on this earth, or helping the Thompson's from losing everything they had, he chose to go to City Hall to get the papers that were necessary signed.
  
  As quickly as he could, he rushed to his mother's side, only to realize it was to late. The guilt and self-loathing he felt for what he thought to be abandoning her were terrible. It took him a long time to realize that it was probably what his mother would have wanted him to do. He had stayed with her as much as he could when she was alive, had checked up on her at every opportunity, and the Thompsons had a great deal more to lose than she. He was very glad that he had a last opportunity to say farewell to her at the funeral. He knew she understood.
  
  The time after his mother's death was a lonely one for Timothy, perhaps because, for the first time, he realized he was truly alone. Then, he met Sarah, and everything changed. She was so loving, so full of life, so willing to drag him from the small, empty world he had built for himself. They complemented each other so well: her spontaneity to his structure, her boundless energy to his complacency. Their whirlwind romance caught him totally unawares, and when she accepted his proposal of marriage, he thought himself the happiest man on earth.
  
  Truly, their first five years together were the happiest time of his life. The experience of having his life so intricately tied to another was exhiliarating; he built his entire existence around her.
  
  Which is why her falling ill struck him so hard.
  
  It was agonizing for Timothy to see her wasting away. "Apentrylic Syndrome" they called it, a metabolic disorder carried in a recessive gene. There wasn't a cure, they told him, and they didn't think she'd last more than a year.
  
  They were wrong. For five years, Timothy watched his wife slowly rotting away from the inside. Her energy faded, her strength tapped away. The woman who had filled his life with motion and vitality now could barely lift her head to take the countless pills the doctors prescribed. But she never complained, she never once told him how much pain she was in, how tired she was. But Timothy knew just the same.
  
  After five years, it seemed as though it would never end. Not wishing to see her suffer further, not understanding why she had to continue such an agonized existence, he tried his best to help her. Putting her to sleep, he smothered her, praying that her death had been peaceful and painless. There was never any investigation of her death, the report said she died in her sleep.
  
  The guilt of Sarah's death on his hands was horrible for Timothy, especially in the face of a possible cure. Facing his fears and his guilt, Timothy forced himself to face his wife's suffering, to realize that he had helped her in the best way he knew how, and that he hoped she would understand why he had done it. When he found a final note among Sarah's possessions, he knew she had.
  
  The time after Sarah's death was much like it had been before his mother's; his life mundane, his existence centered around his work. But Timothy's experiences irrevocably changed him; he was no longer the same man. Timothy thought a great deal of his life, of what he'd seen and what he had done. It seemed so unfair that bad things happened again and again to good people. Some nights he would go driving, trying to ease his mind, trying to find an answer to a question he couldn't formulate.
  
  The night he died he had been driving for hours, hardly aware of the world around him. When the young girl came flailing into the middle of the street, it was too late to stop in time. Both of them were killed instantly.
  
  It turned out that the young woman had been arguing with her boyfriend, and in a struggle, had half been pushed, half pushed herself into the road.
  
  Timothy Hunter was born, he lived, he died. To say anything more would be futile speculation.
  
  > look at Tapestry
  A large, intricately woven tapestry which depicts three tableaus on three different panels.
  
  > examine the torch
  A torch made of pure ivory, with three silver rings up its length.
  
  "But here, I have not even introduced myself. Forgive me," he says, bowing with a flourish. "I am ... Morningstar."
  
  > examine the lucifer
  A voice in your ear remarks, "So educated."
  
  Morningstar looks away from you for a moment.
  
  "Know now, mortal, that your life is over. You no longer are counted among the living, but you are not yet among the dead. Know thyself, Timothy Hunter, and know that 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."
  
  > take the pendant
  Morningstar watches you reaching out for the pendant in shock. Just as you are about to take it, he grasps your hand in an iron grip.
  
  "What are you doing?" he whispers. He stares at the pendant for a moment, his face blank.
  
  "You can see this?" he whispers to you. You can only no dumbly. He suddenly recovers himself.
  
  "It is unimportant, Timothy. Pay attention to matters of more import."
  
  > Break pendant
  And what would that accomplish?
  
  > eat the pendant
  (first taking the Morningstar's silver pendant)
  "I told you that was unimportant, mortal," Morningstar growls. "Leave it be."