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
You sit under the tree
You sit under the tree.
Suddenly...
Written by catprog on 21 May 2003
A Blue Light
A blue light blocks everything else.
Written by catprog on 21 May 2003
Jungle
You notice that you are no longer under the tree. Instead it looks like you are in a jungle.
Also...
Written by catprog on 04 June 2003
You look around...
You get up and look around. You see a man in a half cloak, smoking cigarettes. He sighs and points up. There is a sign there. You see words pointing in each direction...
One says tiger...
One says bear...
One says lion...
One says 'Oh my!'...
One says shark...
One says lizard...
One says dog...
One says ???...
One says 'To Laboratory'...
And one says 'Your home'...
So... Which way?
Written by Another Author on 20 June 2008
Where's the Shark?
You thank the man, who gives no sign that he hears you, and walk down the path labeled "shark." It's... a path. As far as you can tell, it's exactly like all the others. There's no sign of any sharks. The jungle is dimly green and humid, and nothing bites you but mosquitoes.
The path doesn't go far before it ends. Actually, it doesn't end - you can see it continuing in the distance - but since the fifty-foot section in between is underneath a rather large river, it doesn't do you much good. No one has bothered to build a bridge. You walk to the edge of the water and look both ways, but you can't see a bridge upstream or downstream either. Maybe everyone who lives around here just likes to swim.
Written by Chrysalis on 13 June 2009
There's the Shark.
It's hard to tell through the dark water, but it looks like the river is fairly deep in the middle. You won't be able to just wade across. Fortunately, it's not that wide, so you strip down to your underwear and get ready to swim. The water is pleasantly warm as you wade into the shallows.
The current is strong, even by the banks, but the bed of the river is firm enough that you manage to keep your footing. The water is up to your waist when you feel someone pull your underwear down. You whirl around, ready to yell at whoever it is, and almost fall down as the elastic tangles around your ankles. It takes you a moment to regain your balance. <spanFullTF>When you do, you notice two things. First, there's no one else in the river with you; second, something below the water line feels... strange. Very strange.
You look behind you and almost lose your balance again. Instead of your familiar rear end, what you find is a long gray tail protruding from the end of your spine. It's quite thick - almost as wide as your torso - and connects to your back in a seamless curve. The only division is at the water line, where the strange gray skin meets the dry human skin above it. Whatever's going on obviously has something to do with the water. The tail is also quite heavy, and the current pulls hard on the pointed fin at the tip. The shape is easy to recognize; you have a full-sized shark's tail growing from your rear. It's no wonder you're having trouble keeping your balance. You try to move the new limb, flexing muscles you never had before, and the graceful sweep of the tail nearly knocks you over again.
The tail isn't the only change down below. Your legs are covered with the same gray skin, and you can't feel your toes. The skin between your legs is smooth, white, and completely featureless except for a single vertical slit. If there's still any male plumbing down there, it's nowhere you can see. It looks like you might not need your underwear anyway. There's certainly no way you could get it back on.
As if all this wasn't enough, the water seems to be rising. It creeps up to your stomach as you watch, and your navel flattens out into unbroken white skin. It's only when your tail touches the bottom that you realize the water isn't rising; your legs are shrinking. The transformation to shark might be slow, but it looks like it's going to go all the way. <spanFullTF><spanSumTF>You are changing into a shark.</spanSumTF>
Written by Chrysalis on 13 June 2009
Just Keep Swimming...
You decide to keep going. You're not going to turn around just because of an extra limb or two. Your estimation of the river's depth turns out to be correct, though, and you soon find yourself swimming against the current. The water drenches you from your head to your rapidly dwindling feet. <spanFullTF>By the time you're halfway across, your skin is gray and white all over. Your legs continue to shrink; eventually, kicking what's left of your feet accomplishes nothing, and you start swimming with powerful strokes of your tail instead. Your hair gradually falls out and drifts away on the current. Webbing grows between your fingers. Your ears flatten and become holes in the sides of your head, which widens into a broad, triangular shape. Your nose swells into a pointed snout. You can feel your teeth getting sharper.
When you finally reach the opposite bank, you're no longer what anyone would call human. You have to drag yourself out of the water with your arms. Your legs have become little more than unusually long fins on the sides of your tail, which sweeps in a smooth gray curve from your tailfin to your shoulders. Even your chest has flattened out, more fish than mammal now.
You lay there on your stomach. You'd rather sit, but you have nothing left to sit on, and rolling over would crush the dorsal fin you can feel on your back. The breeze is cold as the water dries on your skin. It's uncomfortable, especially on your neck, where it feels as if the air is blowing under your skin. You investigate with a hand and find the reason: open flaps of skin on both sides of your neck. You have gills now. Fortunately, they don't seem to affect your ability to breathe air.
You can't see your reflection in the rippling water, but you don't really need it. It's easy to tell what you look like: a shark with arms. If you're a merman<span class="female">id, you're a carnivorous one.
Well. You may have crossed the river, but it doesn't look like you can go any farther. There's no way you can walk anymore. You could crawl, but even the sand of the riverbank feels harsh against your belly. You don't want to think about dragging yourself over sticks and rocks. You could always go back to the river, of course - it has to go somewhere - but the changes only stopped when you left the water, and there's no telling how much farther they'll go if you get back into it. You're reluctant to lose your arms and lungs.
On the other hand, maybe you're finished now. You're still a mix of shark and human, but an elegant one; what you can see of yourself is sleek and graceful, a blend of fish and mammal that looks perfectly complete. There's no way to be sure what the water will do until you go back in it.
Wait a minute. You seem to remember seeing a beach nearby. That gives you a third option. The river water might be magical, or something, but the ocean certainly isn't; you've gone swimming in it plenty of times, and you never turned into a shark. Maybe the ocean dilutes the water too much, or maybe it's something about the salt - either way, if you could make it to the beach, you could go back to swimming without worrying about further changes. Getting there might be painful, but you know it can't be all that far. You barely walked for five minutes to get here.
Whatever you decide, you'd better do it quickly. Your skin is still drying out, and it's starting to get uncomfortable, especially around your sensitive gills. You'd rather not be out of the water for much longer.
Written by Chrysalis on 13 June 2009
The end (for now)