text: > Look around
  You look around again. The carriage is small and is practically empty. On the floor in front of you is a sea of dead wasps - there's not a live one to be found. You look over at your only living companion, tied up and leaning against the wall opposite you. Your eyes meet, and you try to convey sympathy, and you try to read sympathy from his, but that wouldn't do either of you any good even if you could
  hide the fear. The light flickers off for a second, sending you temporarily into darkness.
  
  > examine the wasps
  Disgustingly, there are about a hundred dead things on the floor - concentrated in the centre of the carriage - bobbing up and down with the train's movement in a grotesque dance. They're bigger than wasps, and they're red, with menacing needles for stinging. It's a good thing they're all dead.
  
  > examine man
  You look over at your only companion. He's looking as battered as you feel, with disheveled black hair, a grimy face and crumpled clothes, dusty and discoloured. He's not agitated, or nervous, but you can just about see a forlorn, almost despairing expression if you catch his eyes at the right moment. Something about him is familiar, but you're damned if you know what it is.
  
  [ To switch perspective, use the BE command. ]
  
  > About yourself
  Your legs are tied together at the ankles, shins and thighs with thick ropes that really seem to bite into your skin. In the dark light you can't tell if you're wearing blue jeans or black ones - you think black - but either way they're very dusty. Further ropes bind your upper and lower arms, and you can feel your dry skin and lips where the gag is stuck over them.
  
  Panic is setting in. Breathing getting heavy, blood pumping faster and faster. Thoughts and possibilities, each more frightening than the last, are starting to bombard you, and frankly, you'd rather die and be free of it forever. Each dread is coming at you, like a spectre from the air that wants to wrap its cold hands around your brain and banish you to a place of endless torment.
  
  > think
  For a moment, everything is blank. Tabula rasa. You could be anyone - a terrorist, a psychopath, a drug addict, a prostitute, a mugger. But then memories flood in all at once, as if you'd asked to borrow a lighter and got your house set on fire instead. You're Helen Wright. You can picture the faces of your mum and dad and your older sister Mary in your house in London; you can see the bright white walls of that house - everything white and pristine, like a hospital; you can see yourself playing with dolls at the foot of your bed; you can see yourself telling Mary to leave you alone; you see the park, you're on the swings, you're down the slide, you're on your own, playing with the playground grass; you're at school, you're scribbling in your book, you're the last one out of the classroom, and the first one in. You're eight years old, and the memories are still coming...
  
  > think
  Faster and faster, your memories are coming back, and you can't keep up with them. Then, suddenly, they stop. The last one is just an ordinary day on the London Underground and you're going to lectures. How did you get from there to here? That can't be the end - that can't have been the last thing that happened. Unless perhaps some random madman came along, beat you up and locked you in here. But who would want to kidnap you? There's nothing special about you - far from it.
  
  > remember
  There aren't any particular memories going through your head at the moment. [ You can REMEMBER things. If you see something in bold
  print in the description of a memory, then you can use the remember command with that too. ]
  
  > think
  You know who you are now: Helen Wright, just another horrible person. Your memories have come back, though apparently not all of them.
  
  There's a sudden clanging noise, and the room flashes momentarily red. Your heart rate goes up. Something's happening. The red light keeps flashing in a regular cycle, and two small vents opens on the wall, just little circular holes. There's the sound of rushing air, and you fear what might come out of those dark tubes. You feel a certain warmth in the air as it hits you, and a vile, acrid smell. It's certainly not the ventilation. Then the flashing light suddenly stops, the vent covers slide back into place, and the train rumbles on along as though nothing happened at all.
  
  > be the the man
  Carriage (as Ross)
  When you look around again, the most striking thing is the floor: dozens of dead insects are scattered around it, and you can't see a single living one. What does that mean? That you've been here for ages? Or is there a fly trap? You try not to dwell on it, and look around the whole carriage. It's not big, and it doesn't take long to realise that there's nothing else here, except the other captive and the flickering light. The shadows are deep, oppressive. The noise of the train's movement is a dull but constant clanking. The air is stale.
  
  You try to think about what happened. But nothing is coming. Literally, nothing. And who is that over there?
  
  Since it doesn't seem like anything is happening, you wonder if it might be OK to get some sleep.
  
  > remember
  Who are you? The question bounces around in your mind for a moment, with no answer forthcoming. But then it's as though someone opens a tap, and things start trickling back. Your name is Ross. You can see your flat in London, your mum and dad, arguing, doors slamming, crumpled pieces of paper on the floor. There's your brother, hitting and kicking you, and you trying to fight back. You can see yourself, six or seven years old, looking at a large rash, going to the hospital. But then the memories stop, and you feel drained. For God's sake, why is this so hard to remember? It's there, and it's coming back, but it's just so much effort to get it.
  
  As your mind begins to wake up, thoughts and possibilities start whirling around, bombarding and confusing you. Your limbs feel so stiff, but are slowly getting better.
  
  > About you
  It really is as bad as it feels. Your arms are bound to your sides with one rope that crosses your chest and one over the stomach, and both are hurting like hell as they dig into your skin through your shirt. You wouldn't rate your chances of being able to wriggle free, and you don't think you could even move anywhere: three more ropes are bound tightly around your ankles, shins and thighs. The worst thing, though, is the thick tape covering your mouth. If it ever does come off, it'll probably rip off your lips with it.
  
  > examine her
  She looks frightened, of course. Her eyes are wide and she's looking around everywhere, presumably trying to see a way out. There's something familiar about her, but you don't know what it is.
  She's quite tall. Very, very pale. Shoulder-length brown hair. You get the impression that it's only as tangled as it is because of the situation - knocked out, gagged, tied up and thrown into this place. You flinch just thinking about it. You hope this isn't your fault. You don't know why it would be.
  
  You're feeling quite sleepy.
  
  > Sleep
  You're not getting anywhere by being awake, so you don't think it will matter to try getting some sleep. It's hardly comfortable, but it isn't noisy - in fact it's far quieter than London. You push yourself over onto your side and shut your eyes.
  
  > wake
  The beast hisses. Something rips through you, wrenching out your soul, which floats through the vacuum of space to become part of the machine. There's the Earth, with a whirlwind of nature being sucked into one end of the machine, and there's a big tube running along the top of it, until it gets to the beast at the other end. The beast snarls. It wants more, and then more still, and then more and more, and the machine has to go faster and faster. It has your soul now too. You're being pulled in towards the machine, and you don't want to go there, you don't want to! The beast roars.
  
  Platform (as Ross)
  You're on a ledge jutting out from the machine, a metal platform. You get a real sense of the enormity of the machine from this perspective, as it stretches as far as you can see in both directions. The Earth and the beast themselves are just out of sight.
  
  There's an unusual archway in the east wall, which is doing something to the light so that you can't see through it.
  
  You're not going to sell yourself to the machine. You've got to get your soul back.
  
  > examine the ledge
  Platform (as Ross)
  You're on a ledge jutting out from the machine, a metal platform. You get a real sense of the enormity of the machine from this perspective, as it stretches as far as you can see in both directions. The Earth and the beast themselves are just out of sight.
  
  There's an unusual archway in the east wall, which is doing something to the light so that you can't see through it.
  
  > look at the archway
  The archway in the east wall is an unusual shape, and is distorting the light so much that you can't see through it. The edges are very clearly defined though, so that the whole thing looks a bit like a sticker.
  
  > examine the machine
  It's a monstrosity, groaning and clanking and humming as it tears away all the beauty from the Earth. The machine gets ever faster, to satisfy the growing hunger of the beast.
  
  > Peel sticker
  You feel around the edges of the arch, then peel it away, removing the way to the east. You now have a sickle.
  
  > examine sickle
  A dependable worker's tool. You got it by removing an arch from the wall.