text: [Themes: mystery / thriller, serious]
  
  Hot flames attacked and you feet could not move fast enough. You hear him laughing...
  
  -40 Health! Critical!
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Burned!
  As you strike, you hear the copy cry in pain! He's been hit!
  
  -20 Health!
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Continue.
  With a cry that sounded like Julian's own, he striked, with violent flashes of orange and red.
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Burned! Critical!
  As you strike, you hear the copy cry in pain! He had been hit!
  
  -40! Critical!
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Continue.
  In rage, the copy sends out large waves of heat. You smile, as they do not effect you as hoped.
  
  -5 Health.
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Teamwork - Success!
  Danny has successfully hit the Copycat!
  
  -50! Critical!
  
  Health: 40
  
  > Continue.
  Health: 40
  
  Danny lowered his gun as the others watched in shock. The copycat stumbled and the fog vanished. Bana could see a messy head of hair, and eyes of deep blue. The younger man lying on the ground gasped in pain.
  
  "You're him..." The copy gasped, and curled in agony. "How could you do this...? Don't you understand...?"
  
  "No, kid, it's you who doesn't understand." Julian replied quietly. "Why?"
  
  "We're going to all die out. Can't you see that? The Labs will kill us all!" Bana's eyes widened, but by the time he went to ask the younger man anything, he was stone dead. He lowered his head.
  
  "I remember you... the boy in the opposite cell..."
  
  ...Colin...
  
  > Continue.
  Battle Three Results:
  
  Up one level!
  
  Gained Fog Lvl.1!
  
  Plus five money!
  
  Stats now:
  
  Health: 40
  
  Level: 4
  
  Money: 20
  
  > Continue.
  When Danny slowly came forward, he found Bana sitting on the floor in front of the bodies and Colin, shaking violently. The older man swallowed, with his gun held to his side. Little pops of fire--crackling like plastic wrap--was sounding off around the Zempaph. Red layers of heat was forming around Julian Moore like blankets.
  
  The others in the hospital watched from the door, a good distance away. Dan knew that they couldn't here them.
  
  "...Jxo...?" Danny questioned hesitantly, and was replied with by a flash of fire at his feet. Bana-Jxo was holding his head and sweating. Dan stepped back at the feeling of the fire. He remembered the Act.
  
  "...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to do it..." Bana whispered, and Dan caught it. He knew, too. He could tell by the fire and the way Bana seemed so familar. He remembered seeing Julian Moore--just a glimpse of his black outline in the middle of the burning city. At first, he was going to shoot the redhead.
  
  He needed to understand.
  
  "You can't control it?" Danny asked, caution in his voice. Julian Moore turned quickly, frightening Danny with a look that reminded him of the Devil himself.
  
  End Chapter Four: Protection
  
  > continue to Chapter Five.
  O Jenny is all wet, poor body,
  Jenny is seldom dry:
  She draggled all her petticoats,
  Coming through the rye!
  
  Coming through the rye, poor body,
  Coming through the rye,
  She draggled all her petticoats,
  Coming through the rye!
  
  Should a body meet a body
  Coming through the rye,
  Should a body kiss a body,
  Need a body cry?
  
  Should a body meet a body
  Coming through the glen,
  Should a body kiss a body,
  Need the world know?
  
  Should a body meet a body
  Coming through the grain,
  Should a body kiss a body,
  The thing is a body's own.
  
  Comin' Thro the Rye
  
  > Continue.
  I didn't even get a chance.
  
  As soon as I was born, my parents knew exactly what I was, and it scared them more than anything ever could. I didn't go to school. School? Hah... A joke. I stayed inside and with my growing abilities came more isolation and hate. Pity at first--of course, with a mother's ways--but nothing close to it afterward.
  
  You see that door? Go ahead.
  
  > enter the door.
  ...There is a hall filled with doors...
  
  See them? Open them. Remember.
  
  > Door #2: 'Insane'.
  Brain Alterations. That's what they called it. Fucking liars they are, too.
  
  When I was sent to the special place with the other few Zempaphs, we shared the same building as the criminally insane. Brain Alterations... They said that it would make the voices dissipate. No more uncontrollable impulses...
  
  They were wrong.
  
  "Get in the cell." the man in white said, though with more politeness that those words could have. Julian walked in, feeling his shaved head, feeling his heart beating like a drum of muscle and flesh. He crouched in the corner, turned away from the bars in front. Only 6 then, and without a place to truly live...
  
  "I want to go home...!" he cried, and sobbed. It was only when a older voice said through the brick wall to 'can it!' did he stop his sniffling and weeping. He looked up and uncurled from his balled position in the corner. The voice was next cell... "I'm not crazy," Julian said quickly. "I'm not. I just have other people living in my head. That's not crazy if they're really there, right?"
  
  "...Of course."
  
  There's a kid in your corner of the room... Talk to him?
  
  > Yes.
  Julian slowly crawled to the other boy--he looked like a smaller clone of Moore, with his shaved head and pale skin... With that same pale blue hospital clothes. He must've been in the exact same predicament... And as Julian came closer, he could hear the tiny boy crying.
  
  "Are you all right?" Julian asked, inching his body toward the sniffling child. The boy turned and revealed red dying his shirt--all pouring from his nose and mouth.
  
  "They did something to me," the boy yelled, terrified.
  
  ...There is a hall filled with doors...
  
  See them? Open them. Remember.
  
  > Door #5: 'Murderer'.
  It was only a few moments later that the Schzophrenia Morphi took full control.
  
  We killed the guards who killed Drew, killed the doctors who killed Jorge and Kayce, killed the snipers who killed Holly and Katie. Burned them all to the ground. It felt so good, seeing their bones melt. Seeing their flesh slowly cook and crisp.
  
  We loved it. Bathed in the evaporating blood. Rubbed the heat in our hair. A ballad of orangey licks of flame.
  
  It wasn't enough, was it? Yes, we lost our mind. Torched Chicago. Let it burn. Let it scream and bleed and burn like you and Drew and the place they kept you for so long. Taught them all a lesson.
  
  ...And hurt Tokio and Lisa because of it. I never meant to hurt and kill so many people. Just them, but I just couldn't keep that rage held any longer. I was confused. In pain. The world I'd lived in told me only the Zempaphs cared. No one else. Mom. The men in scrubs. The quack doctors. They were all humans--normal humans--
  
  And they hurt us all.
  
  End Chapter Five.
  
  > Continue.
  But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
  Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
  Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
  This isn't how it's really meant to be
  No it isn't how it's really meant to be
  
  -- Always on your Side
  
  Sheryl Crow & Sting
  
  > begin Chapter Six: Decisions, Decisions.
  They're all the same.
  
  No...
  
  "Bana-Jxo...?"
  
  Danny...
  
  All of them! Kill them now! See them grabbing you? Look! Look at the needles they're holding! They're so long.
  
  I can't.
  
  You can.
  
  I can't.
  
  Please...
  
  > kill him.
  Julian felt heat engulf his body, shaking his head. For a moment, there was a palpable film over his eyes, teeth gnashing violently. Danny pointed his gun at the red-haired man, shaking his head.
  
  "What are you doing, Bana-Jxo?"
  
  Bana-Jxo snapped out and the gun crackled, a bullet burrowing into Bana's fleshy shoulder. Danny aimed again, but it was not enough time to fire. Bana-Jxo grabbed Danny's face and held it down as the bright, red fire engulfed his head. He yelled out, his hand clasping Julian's, and suddenly, it made him remember Drew.
  
  Fire everywhere.
  
  Daniel's cries had hushed, but it was replaced with a higher, more feminine yell. Bana-Jxo's breath caught in his throat.
  
  Lisa.
  
  He couldn't control himself. It was taking over... taking control. Again... again like before. Nothing but flashing lights now, more of them ember-colored and bright... and warm.
  
  Bana-Jxo opened his eyes.
  
  Lisa was face-down, back covered with charred fabric and deep burns. Tokio was draped over her body, his own blackened and jaw slack in pain. Clarrise was leaned against the wall, yelling noiselessly at the sky. Clay was smeared down the asphalt, his skin blistered and melted.
  
  Bana-Jxo vomitted his breakfast, blood mixed in. His shoulder burned and ached, but his throat is what ailed him. He couldn't breathe. His hand frantically patted down the bullethole--started crying hysterically. He killed them all. He swore to himself he'd keep it bottled. He'd control it. He promised to protect them.
  
  "No.... Nonononono..."
  
  He wheezed, blood running down his chin in rivulets. His lung. Pierced by Danny. His body crumpled to the floor, his mind taken over by many faces. In the end, perhaps they'd never understand. Perhaps he'd never understand.
  
  Julian Moore dragged his body a little ways to Tokio and Lisa, head dropping on the ground limply. There, Bana-Jxo slowly died, alone, as it had always been.
  
  Maybe we're cursed... Maybe the world turned away from us and left us to handle it all on our own... And by the time help arrived, it was too late. Maybe it was all in vain. Maybe we were always destined to be murderers.
  
  > The end.
  Evalution:
  
  The really bad ending. The 1st ending. None of the plot has been unraveled.
  
  Hello!
  
  Ashlee (Ashen_Snake) here. Not many people do this in their endings, but I felt like it, so blarg. Just scroll down if you don't care. That's fine by me. :)
  
  I started this adventuregame in 2005, probably, when I was 13. I admit, the first year was off and on updates, monthly updates if anything. But I really sped it up more, because I really do love the story here and I wanted to show it to you. It was originally a novel I was working on, and when I joined myadventuregames and finished The Free Hand, I felt that it was the perfect novel to convert.
  
  Granted, only 30 pages of that said novel were finished.
  
  Anyhow, I really liked the character of Julian Moore/Bana-Jxo. I just wanted to make a character that was sweet and cruel, villainous and heroic, and all the while a suffering guy who just wanted to be normal. I also have a thing for disturbed characters, but who doesn't?
  
  What I really like about choose your own adventures is the freewill involved. In this CYOA, I was just hoping that that feeling of trying to choose your own path was really strong. You are sort of, in a sense, not controlling Julian, but telling him what to do, sort of like the voice in his head.
  
  By the way, this death is the only one where you don't discover the plot. So... you should probably replay it! XD
  
  See you guys around,
  
  Ashen_Snake