text: [Themes: Horror, based on songs]
  
  > go upwards
  I leaped from my perch atop the blood-streaked menhir, easily caught the moon-hole's rim and swung myself up and out.
  
  Dark shadows and bright moonlight; the little sounds and smells of freedom. From the hole leading down I thought I heard all those heads...the sleeping Deadfathers of my Longchildren... calling to me, please don't leave--
  
  > listen
  I thought I could hear those myriad heads quietly singing to me.
  
  > Go north
  The forest called to me. I walked toward the dark trees...
  
  --but after all, what more could I give out there? I led our race
  out of the darkness...isn't that the glow of city lights beyond the trees? I've done enough.
  
  I returned to the hole, and after a long last look at the trees, I climbed back down.
  
  > remove the head
  (the Ape's Head)
  No. This body could not withstand another transfer so soon.
  
  Not for a year...
  
  ...at least..
  
  > Yes
  --and I stumbled backward, my throat deeply slashed, my life's blood draining away as I fell into darkness--
  
  Track 11 of Apollo 18+20: The IF Tribute Album
  
  --dark...and light...and...red...
  
  ...so red...
  
  Shattered glass on polished marble; a spray of my reddest blood in a piercing shaft of moonlight. Beyond...I narrowed my eyes, straining to penetrate the darkness--
  
  ...busts...busted heads...heds on peds...headestals...
  
  Losing blood fast, I tried to make sense of--
  
  --rows upon rows of pale, lifeless, life-like busts of stately heads on fluted headestals, all different, yet oddly alike--
  
  > take King
  I moved to take the King's Head, but my legs gave way, and instead I tumbled to the floor, my skull striking something quite unyielding on the way down. My vision blurred and darkened--
  
  ...for the last time? I wondered...
  
  --and then my senses slowly surged back, like a drowning ocean wave receding. A dull thump...something hard and round had fallen into my hands.
  
  > put Ape on the headestal
  I put the head on a nearby column.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  I was empty-handed.
  
  > wear King
  (first taking the King's Head)
  I tried to reach the King's Head, but I did not have the strength to move from where I lay.
  
  > About yourself
  Searing pain, a red haze clouding my vision within and without: my throat slashed, my head nearly severed, I clung to life by the fraying cable of my will.
  
  > look at the busts
  The ranks of stately busts receded into the gloom in all directions. Those on the headestals nearest me appeared to depict the March of Progress: I had fallen against the headestal of a stern King. To the left of the King's resting place, I saw a famous Prime Minister, stately and opulent, and beyond her a modern Head of State...and to the right, a scarred and tattooed Witch's head, and on the headestal beyond that primitive wise woman...an ape, some antediluvian chieftain.
  
  The oddest thing, in a gallery of historical busts...all their eyes were closed.
  
  > Go upward
  I strained for the edge of the shattered skylight, but it was hopelessly beyond my reach.
  
  > wear your head
  (my original head)
  I was already wearing that.
  
  > Doff head
  (my original head)
  I put my hands to my throat. The cord holding my head to my body seemed but a thread. Little enough blood and air could cross that gulf...best to make a clean break--
  
  Then I can put myself on a pedestal, I thought with frantic
  amusment, and see about putting a tourniquet around my neck! Wait, what am I forgetting--
  
  --falling, tumbling--
  
  > Roll
  (the long shard of broken glass)
  Nothing obvious happened.
  
  > cut Ape
  Cutting that up would achieve little.
  
  > take the glass
  I picked up the largest shard of glass.
  
  > cut yourself
  I put the shard of glass to my throat. The cord holding my head to my body seemed but a thread. Little enough blood and air could cross that gulf...best to make a clean break--
  
  Then I can put myself on a pedestal, I thought with frantic
  amusment, and see about putting a tourniquet around my neck! Wait, what am I forgetting--
  
  --falling, tumbling--
  
  > wake king
  That seemed unnecessary.
  
  > take King
  I moved to take the King's Head, but my legs gave way, and instead I tumbled to the floor, my skull striking something quite unyielding on the way down. My vision blurred and darkened--
  
  ...for the last time? I wondered...
  
  --and then my senses slowly surged back, like a drowning ocean wave receding. A dull thump...something hard and round had fallen into my hands.
  
  > Inventory
  I was carrying an Ape's Head.
  
  > look at Ape
  The animal's face was creased with the unmistakable lines of wisdom and long duty: a sagacious sovereign from our race's distant, forgotten ancestry.
  
  > wear Ape
  I put on the Ape's Head.
  
  Somehow it seemed the right -- the only -- thing to do. I raised the pale head to my throat, nestled it in the gaping wound beside my own. At once I felt it seizing my flesh, drinking in my blood--
  
  --an instant of crazy double vision...looking myself in the eye, before my weakening eyes fluttered shut at last--
  
  --the old head falling like an autumn leaf, the blade barely needed, barely, barely--
  
  --done all I could...the New Ones come--
  
  A polished cave of the New Ones: silent tomb of living Deadfathers. Uncountable pale heads on little ivory menhirs. Blood and ice...no, glass...on the hard stone floor. A moon-hole above let in
  fresh forest air, too.
  
  The nearest menhir was streaked with blood where the stranger had fallen against it.
  
  > take Witch
  Taken.
  
  > check your inventory
  I was carrying a long shard of broken glass and a Witch's Head and the stranger's head.
  
  > examine Witch 's head
  It's Star Pupil, my little New One successor.
  
  > Attack witch
  Never!
  
  > take the heads
  They were hardly portable.
  
  > wear Witch 's head
  No. This body could not withstand another transfer so soon.
  
  Not for a year...
  
  ...at least..
  
  > check your inventory
  I was carrying a long shard of broken glass and a Head of State's Head, a Prime Minister's Head, a King's Head, a Witch's Head, and the stranger's head.