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
Stop
You stop, peeking back to the male. Taking this as a sign, he approaches behind you. For a second, your regret not running away, but it's already too late and something inside of you is seeming to welcome the decision anyways.
A sudden, hot, almost sticky sensation spreads through your body. You find yourself, only half aware, have started to trot past the male, rubbing your flank into his before dropping into a lowered position.
Your body is acting on its own, running on imbued instinct while your mind is too busy reeling to act, so the male wanders close. His tongue laps over you again, tasting your readiness before he lunges himself upwards. Hard, sharp claws scrape at your sides as the male folds himself atop in a sudden, fast mating. His growling, snarls in your ear ring out through your mind. The quiet of the plains moments before were broken with a sudden cacophony of his snarling, growling and your own hissing responses. Mere seconds later, the male thrusts his teeth through the flesh of your neck, biting down before he empties himself inside of you.
"It's over... It's over..."
"ARGHHH!" A sudden, raking ripped through your insides.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!?"
Barbs.
You shudder, whimpering to yourself before you spot the rest of the pride approaching. One of whom is distinctly male and already bounding towards you...
*******
For days, the harsh and painful mating comes in constant waves from the males of the pride, however, the food is plentiful. You find the plains to be quiet as you drift into sleep each night. When your heat finally passes, the days become even more peaceful.
But the days become less peaceful when, seemingly all a sudden, there's a litter of your own cubs to care for. They require constant food supply. You're thrown into the effort of hunting. You charge onto the plains with the other females.
If mating had left you feeling helpless, hunting imbued you with a fierce quality, a power that was unparallelled. You prowl with the pride, quivering when things run at the sight of your family.
For the first time, you feel utter power every day.
Then, the cubs arrive and flood you with another sensation. Motherhood.
Their desperation for your presence, their dependance all give a warm, gooey feeling like the sun heating your back as you sleep. Life is good, quiet, and repetitive, but happy.
Then, one night, you don't drift into sleep as quickly. The hunt, that day, had ended too quickly to leave you winded.
"I'm still inside a game..."
You realize that these days, passing on the plains, were still within this false universe. "But, is it false?"
It all felt so real. The ache in your muscles after a hunt. The crunch of bones giving within your jaws. "How could those be fake? In a game?"
Yet, some part of you knew that it was within the game you'd entered, somehow was contained in a false universe you were trapped in.
You're left wondering whether this consideration is even worth it or if life here , as a lion, isn't the better option anyways.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 22 February 2016
Settle In
"No, why would I leave? This is perfect! I have power! I have a family." You scoff at the idea of it, falling back into the daily habit. The sun is warm during naps, blood spurts over your coat during hunts, cubs sleep against your side at night. All is well, until, one day you return from a brief walk to find one of the males pressing the single male cub down into the earth.
His teeth are barred, hovering over the cub's throat. You can see the small cub, the size of a puppy, trembling beneath its father's tight grip. You can see it thrash, throwing dust up into the air. The rest of the pride though doesn't respond at all, they merely continue with their activities, napping or wandering down to the nearby water hole. They show no sign of shock towards the father hunched with his weapon barred at the small cub.
"He means to kill it!" you cry out to yourself only. Your mind spins. The two conflicting parts of you cannot decide where you stand on this sudden issue! You know, looking around, this isn't abnormal. This is the protector of the pride, protecting his reign. There's nothing to question.
Yet your human instincts rail against this death even if you know it's normal. Within a moment, as this second hovers in question, do you let him kill the cub or fight back at who knows what cost?
Written by Picklessauce69 on 23 February 2016
Fight
"No! No way! I'm not watching him kill that cub! That baby!" You throw yourself forward towards the male. Your paws lift, claws extending out down towards the male's face. You throw him off. You can see the confusion, as you land with a loud thud on the dust beside him, he's baffled by this attack.
Confusion, however, does not slow his response. He lashes out. Claws swipe across your face, catching and tearing over the soft give of one eyeball. You see blood spurt across the ground with your opposite eye.
In a spinning tornado of pain, blinding pain you grab for the cub in your jaws, catching its scruff just as another blow clipps your tail, ripping off chunks of fur before your flee into the distant dusty edges of the horizon.
There, at the fringe of sight, you collapse over the child and wait, painfully, as your eye heals.
Though you survive the bleeding, your vision is skewed by the darkness on one side, forcing you to helplessly trail behind your pride, picking at their scraps and nursing the cub anxiously. Each night, you sleep with a wishful prayer that you'll both wake the next morning.
Day after day, the small child rises slower and slower until, finally, his eyes do not flicker back open.
Never again will you see the cloudy yellow of his eyes. You're collapsed beside him, eyeing the little lump of meat that was once your offspring. You sniff at the air, smelling the death around.
"Is that the smell of him... or the warning of my own?" you wonder, stomach demanding your attention.
You look again to the small body.
Your stomach growls.
"It... is... food?" You offer the idea to yourself, as though half joking. You try to swallow the idea, but it catches you each time, forcing you to grimace, yet your stomach is unwavering in its complaints.
You have to choose to eat his dead body in hopes of surviving a few more days, being able to find more food and recover or not and continue the search from your current state.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 27 February 2016
Eat him
With a tight jaw, you finally give a short nod. You plod closer, nuzzling the little flank once more before your jaws part and sharp teeth glint in the pale, fading moonlight before blood spurts out against the backdrop of light.
Shamefully, feeling remorse panging through your body, you eat.
The small body of the cub provides fuel for days of running, searching. You stumble onto a watering hole, drink eagerly and splash clumsily after a single fish surviving in the mere pond, but it continuously evades until a massive bird, talons glinting, swipes through the air and snatches away your single hope.
You stay at the water, waiting for another desperate creature to spring upon, however, as days pass and your energy fades, you realize you are the desperate creature.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 29 February 2016
The end (for now)