You are standing by a tree
There are 3 paths.
One appears to go to a jungle,
one appears to go to a cave,
one appears to go to a beach,
you could try and climb the tree,
there is a nearby shop you could go in,
or you could do something else.
So what's its going to be?
Written by catprog on 01 April 2003
In the shop
There is a table with a sign saying
<strong>Free Sample:</strong>
Take one
On the table there is a fridge with a range of liquids. Also on the table are various magical trinkets including costumes. What would you like to take, or would you like to buy something?
Written by catprog on 10 April 2003
Other
You decide to get something else. But what?
Written by catprog on 13 December 2005
Play the VR Game
You find a pair of vr googles.
You put them on and you find yourself in a game, but which one?
Written by on 06 August 2005
Adventure Game
For a moment, you sit staring at the computer screen. The game loaded so quickly, that now you’re waiting in of an opening screen. The pixels quickly formulate themselves into the backdrop of an open field on all sides of you. The faintest motion of wind rustling the thick landscape of grasses ripples across your vision, but even as the distant landscape formats with the loading page, nothing but the field is there. You shift your head, turning your gaze within the virtual reality of the game to check to your sides, but find only more of the same rippling landscape there as well. The same, golden shade of grass sprouted up from the Earth on all four sides of your body.
Eyebrows knitting together, you try to figure out what is supposed to be happening. “There’s nothing here” you mutter, considering trying to remove the goggles you’d placed on until you notice a selection screen. “Choose your character” flashed as fading white letters in the distant backdrop of blue sky. You read it, though you’re not sure what character to select or even how to do that.
You eyes scanned over everything again, noticing that a sign had been added to the game off to the left, font sketched into its surface: “Random.”
Written by Picklessauce69 on 08 December 2015
Lion
Your nose crinkles with curiosity, eyeing the rest of the space of the field only to spot more signs scattered overtop of the grassy terrain. You start to stroll forward to the next closest one until you're close enough to spy the font over top of it: "Lion."
You take another step towards the sign reading "Lion." Your mind fills with the images of the king of the forest, the majestic maned beast. "I don't know what I'm going to have to do in this game or whatever, but being a lion... that seems badass enough?"
You shrug, hesitating another moment longer with the mental image of the rippling, golden orange fur of the mane sprouting all around a fierce muzzle, jaws huge and eyes inset and on alert. You see the wind rustling through that thick fur as you run, charging over a plain.
"Yeah, Lion-"
With your choice made, the entire field suddenly rippled with a change. The grass seems to flutter down the entire length of the clearing before you realize it wasn't the grass moving, but the entire pixelized base of the scene. Within moments, the entire landscape begins to change all around you.
You spin around, madly trying to spot some pattern or reason to the change, but before you've even gotten a good look at the rippling changes passing over the land, everything has already changed. The grass, it dawned on you, had only looked like it'd been moving because it changed the least. Rather than be dry, fall-time grass, the grass had merely morphed into the crisp, dried yellow of the African plains. Short, but top heavy spread out trees dappled the landscape. One, with its leaves dangling down within view, stood just to your side. The faint peeping sight of green showed beneath the longer, yellowed tendrils of grass to match the distant sight of bushes adding to the layered sight of the plains. You tip your head up, catching the sight of the top of the tree beside you, but then a pale blue sky stretches up above you.
Suddenly, a rustling noise yanks your attention away from mapping out the terrain. You jerk your eyes down from the sky, spotting two bright, green eyes staring out at your from through a tuft of grass. You feel a jolt at the sight, filling in the thick sight of mane surrounding the face you see staring up at you. The lion, the massive male is just staring up at you from down in the grass.
You shift, skittering off to the side slightly only to hear the distinct rustle of the grass as the lion moves forward, tracking after you. When you step, your body seems out of sync. Your gaze falls, a gasp escaping as you see your arms are not arms at all. Instead, you see thick, beefy legs rippled through with tight muscle tendons and layered beneath a layer of golden fur- just like the lion behind you.
Your fear dissipates slightly at the realization that the lion must be following you because you're a lion. You glance back, still uncertain of it, but start to try and pad forward towards the glittering pool of a blue water up ahead.
At the edge, you look down to take in your reflection, ready to see your own thick, bushy main sprouting around the muzzle you envisioned, but suddenly, when you looked down at the water that's not what you saw. Instead, you saw only the squat shape of the elongated muzzle with flicking, half-circle ears atop your head. "W-what?" you muse, for a moment thinking you were something different entirely or perhaps young.
Suddenly, a rush of an alien sensation darts up your spine as something wet and warm swipes between your legs. Instantly, you feel a strange tingling and heat rush up through your gut. Your hips twitch and jump away while your gaze swings back, only to see the male had snuck up closer.
Your ears flicker, nose twitching madly at a sudden thick, distinct smell filling the air. You sniff once in the air with the plump nose you could now see in between crossed eyes, but the smell doesn't seem to be wafting through the clear air above you. You dip your chin, realizing with more of the short, little sniffles that the smell was coming from you!
"What is that?" you think, feeling another sharp lick of the male's rough tongue over, what you have now realized, were your lower lips. "I-I'm a female..."
"And that's a male..."
The pieces suddenly fall together. You look once more at the male behind you, who has opened his mouth while he sniffs at the air- trying to sense whether the female in front of him was ready to mate.
You jolt slightly. "Nuh uh! No!" Your feet suddenly shuffled forward, trying to find how to balance on four feet instead of two. Your feet, no paws, seem too big to be able to control, yet you manage to stumble into a pattern. A spot in the distance, a random rock amidst the grassy dust of the plain grabs your attention and you fall madly towards it. Your feet don't seem to keep pace with your body's demands, but you merely thrash your tail and fall into the pattern of the uncertain, jostling motion.
"What do I know about lion mating? Is it bad? Is it painful?" Your mind swirls with growing concern as the male stalks behind you, not quickly, but keeping you in short proximity. "W-what do I do? What do I do?"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 20 February 2016
Keep Running
"No way am letting that happen to me!" You thrust yourself faster into the run, but your feet are skipping and tripping beneath you. You can't seem to control all four legs, you've never had to coordinate so many limbs to move together as one unit.
"Unf... Unf...." you pant, peeking back over to see that the male seems confused by your darting and turns, plodding back towards something in the distance.
You squint, making out the shape of bodies in the distance. "Ah, he went back to the pack..."
"Meaning... I left the pride..."
******
You continue to wander through the broad expanse of the plains, darting from pond to pond and sleeping beneath shady trees when night falls. With each passing day, your body seems thinner and thinner, tireder and tireder...
Suddenly, after two full days, just as the sun begins to dip into the edges of the sky you notice movement in the distance, the shuffling motion of a herd of gazelles!
"Food!"
You creep closer to the herd, watching them graze over the surface of the plain, all staying in a tight clump. "Now, usually, lions hunt in packs..." You crouch into the grass, theorizing about how to do this.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 21 February 2016
Wait
"I have to wait, I'll watch for a straggler... It'll be easier that way..." You settle down against the dirt. Slowly, the bulb of orange sunlight sinks down lower in the sky until it wears the horizon as a belt and only a pale cast of its light covers the area where the gazelles are grazing.
Your eyes track the edges, tracing around the group as you wait for the line to waver when one breaks away. Your stomach growls . Impatience morphs into a creature itself that claws at your insides. Hunger and impatience begin to breed inside you, tumbling together with growls inside your gut. Darkness blankets everything.
The line wavers.
A single, scrawny and faintly stumbling gazelle has broken away from the grazing pack. You collect yourself, pushing energy down into your leaden legs so that your feet actually push down into the earth. Then, you rise into a full sprint. Launching yourself, you slam into the straggler with one paw lashing out. The instinct throws out your claws, though seconds after you feel your mind spin with the realization that claws had left your 'hands'.
"I'm Wolverine!" you think in a burst, then, you stare down at the wriggling creature beneath you. It's toppled, bleeding at its side, but hasn't yet closed it's frightened eyes.
"I have to kill it." You lift that paw again, eyeing the glittering crimson on the tips of your claws. Then, with a final growl (of your stomach), you pound the claws through the flesh of your limp victim.
They still. You eat eagerly, sloppily.
With a full stomach, you finally find some comfort in sleep, and when you rise, you fall into the pattern with the gazelles again. Habit begins to form of following, skirting them over miles of plains until one falls back, a baby was born, one falls ill... Then, you strike. The glitter of the blood raining onto your pelt begins to bother you less and less.
"It's just like a butcher shop" you assure yourself, though the blood begins to itch after it dries. It nags at you, until that is, your stomach grows hungry and pesters you more. Soon, quickly, your hunger wins out sooner and sooner. The killing motion, the lunge, the chase- it becomes second nature.
One night, lying down with a plump stomach, you catch the twinkle of the stars with a thought: "I couldn't use a fork if I wanted to anymore..."
******
"What's that?" You shift at a sudden noise, spotting the fleeting blur of another pride, hunters- other females like you- spilling into the gazelle's herd. The creatures cry, scattering across the plains, but the females head straight for their target with a collective hiss of power.
You eye their fallen prey, a tall, healthy gazelle. Sure, it'd been slower, but its fur wasn't falling off in clumps, it wasn't a baby. You feel a pang of jealousy, and as your watch the herd flee into the distance from the disruption, the realization of oncoming hunger comes once again.
"Should I approach them? Try to join?" The smell of blood or meat wafts out from their group where the females feed eagerly, the rest of their pride coming out from behind the curve of the land and joining, feeding in order. Your nose sniffs, working over the smell.
"I could eat like that...." You gulp at the sight of the meat. The brilliant red.
"But, they might attack..."
Written by Picklessauce69 on 24 February 2016
Run
No way are you risking that. You turn, racing back in the opposite direction and leaving the pride and the hope for more food behind you. Once again, you find yourself wandering through the plains, hopping from water pool to water pool until you stumble upon a beauteous sight.
Blue, glittering water fills a massive dip in the dry earth. Trees sprout, providing shade, all around the edges. You race forward, reaching the edge of the water with an eagerly lapping tongue just as you hear a sudden roar from your side.
You freeze. Looking over, your eyes scale over the massive, bulging form of piled, gray meat. A rhino waded into the water. His feet appear like pillars shooting up from the water to the bulging underbelly of the creature.
Your stomach growls.
You eye its wrinkled face, the spiked growth of its horn, and the impatiently flicking motion of its tail.
"Can I take him down?"
You ponder the question, but you're interrupted by the nagging sensation of your stomach growling once again. "Do I have a choice?"
You shift back into the cover of the bushy leaves. Your eyes never leave your point of interest, your prey. The energy in your back legs is murmuring, charging for a pounce. You can feel every tendon, tired and straining in preparation. Your mouthparts open, flashing teeth and scenting the air before you leap forward.
For a second, you're suspended in the air with your confidence intact like a spear lunged at the beast. Then, you falter. It looks up at you, eyes beady set back into that hard, grey armor before it tips its head and aims the arched curve of its horn directly beneath your trajectory.
You see the moments flashing in bursts. Your life, before your eyes, became a mixture of time as a human and time as this lion's form. You see yourself, putting on the game's glasses, falling into this world. You see the dry plains spread out in front of you, with the sun bleeding down in its setting motion. You see a hot pizza, spread out in front of a flickering movie screen. You see a gazelle, ripped apart and glittering red.
You life, in those final moments, becomes a blend of human and lion before they merge into a singular emotion as you crash into the rhino.
Pain.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 28 February 2016
The end (for now)