**Labyrinth**
Labyrinth is a game about finding a way out.
[[Play]]
<script>$('tw-story').addClass('no-navigation')</script>Whatever happens, just remember that you chose this. (set: $Apple to "No")
[[Continue->Garden1]]You wake up in a garden. You're not sure how you got here, but you're not complaining. It's a beautiful place.
The air is fresh and pleasant to breathe, and you hear the simple melodies of birds singing soft love songs. You bask in the glow of the sun as it gently warms your skin; you wonder that there is no harsh glare to hurt your eyes.
The babbling of a distant stream makes you feel at peace. The smell of flowers is sweet and ever-present.
[[Continue->Garden2]]You look around. The garden is wide, bordered by tall hedges on four sides. All the flowers and trees create a rainbow of colors. You've never seen anything so incredible in your life.
All sorts of fruit hang from all sorts of bushes, and they all look ripe and juicy. Tall, friendly trees offer shade from the sun. The grass is as soft as feathers when you lie in it.
[[Explore->Garden3]]You feel as though you could stay in the garden forever. But it's not home, and you can't help but shake the feeling that there's something else out there.
You decide to search for a way out, and walk to the edges of the garden. Following along the hedge wall, you eventually find a narrower path, also walled by tall hedges. *It's like a maze,* you think.
[[Go forwards->Fork]]
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Give up->Apple Give up Garden]](if: $Apple is "No")[[Give up->Give up]] You walk forwards along the hedged path. You haven't been walking long before you come to a fork. Till now all the hedges you've seen have been a solid green, but to the left you see red roses growing along the hedge, and white roses growing along the right.
[[Go left->Red Roses]]
[[Go right->White Roses]]
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Give up->Apple Give up Garden]](if: $Apple is "No")[[Give up->Give up]] You decide to follow the path with the red roses. The further you walk, the more roses you see growing, until the walls become solid red. The smell of the flowers that, in the garden was so pleasant, grows to the point that the cloying sweetness nearly overwhelms you.
You press on, struggling to breathe. The walls are growing narrower. The roses edge closer to you, till their thorns start to scrape and scratch at your skin. The blood drawn from you matches the color of the roses.
Eventually you squeeze into the next room.
[[Continue->Tree Room1]] You turn right, and follow the hedges with white roses. The flowers are beautiful, but you're not interested in admiring them at the moment. As you make your way down the corridor, the wind picks up, blowing harder, and then harder, as if trying to push you backwards.
You power through, only to find that the ground beneath your feet has started to incline upwards, as though you were climbing a hill. The wind almost knocks you over a few times as you struggle forward, and each step up the increasingly steep hill takes more out of you.
[[Go back->Fork]]
[[Continue->Bed]]You make it to the top of the slope, and the wind quiets down. When you look behind you, you see no incline whatsoever; the ground behind you is totally flat. Still, you feel exhausted.
You're in a small hedge-room, at the center of which is a bundle of white rose bushes in the shape of a bed. The petals look warm and soft, and you're so, so tired. You lay down and close your eyes and drift off to sleep.
Your dreams are sweet and soft. You wake up in an entirely unfamiliar place, covered in cuts from the thorns you didn't see.
[[Continue->Tree Room1]]You find yourself in another space bounded by hedge-walls on four sides. In the center of the room is a huge tree.
Its trunk is thick and wide as an ancient pillar, and its branches stretch four or five storeys high. Your eyes are drawn to its top, where leaves in all of fall's colors are fanned out against the blue sky. In your peripheral vision you see the tree's twisted, gnarled roots that reach and grab their way in and out of the ground, and the piles of rotten apples decaying on them.
You hardly notice the ground, because your rapt attention is held by a single branch.
[[Continue->Tree Room2]]The branch seems to reach to you, offering up the single red apple dangling from it. You'll have to make some effort to take it. It bounces back and forth in the wind, temptingly.
You can no longer hear the birds singing in the garden, and the breeze has become chilly and bites your skin.
[[Explore the rest of the room->Tree Room3]]
(if: $Apple is "No")[[Take the apple and eat it->Apple]]The rest of the tree-room is relatively simple. The hedge-walls form a square shape, with exiting hallways in each of the four walls. Behind you is the way you came in; or is it?
[[Exit forwards->Fall]]
[[Exit left->Fog1]]
[[Exit right->Noise]]
(if: $Apple is "No")[[Go back?->Tree Room2]]
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Give up->Apple Give up]](if: $Apple is "No")[[Give up->Give up]] You find your way back to the garden. *Why leave?* you think. You have everything you could want right here. It's a perfect and beautiful place. So you stay.
You eat the fruit and sleep on the soft gentle grass day after day. You're not sure how much time has passed, but after what feels like only a few days, you notice the garden changing.
Some days the wind blows too hard and the sun never comes, leaving you freezing. Some days the sun shines too brightly and you overheat, and even the shade from the trees isn't enough to shield you from its anger. You notice the birds stop singing one day.
[[Continue->Give up 2]]You stretch your body up and grab the apple. It tastes so bitter that you cannot stand to take another bite. You let it fall to the ground.
The sky darkens. (set: $Apple to "Yes")
[[Explore the rest of the room->Tree Room3]]
[[Give up->Apple Give up]]You may no longer give up.
[[Explore the rest of the room->Tree Room3]] You exit forwards. You walk only for a short while, the identical hedges continuing on as far as you can see. It weighs on your mind.
You put your foot forwards for your next step, but nothing is there.
You fall.
[[Continue->Fall1]]You exit to the left. The sun disappears from the sky and darkness shrouds the maze. Your eyes adjust and you are able to keep making your way, but then a fog descends on the hallway, and you are unable to see even five feet in front of you.
You remember a trick you once read about finding your way in the dark, and reach out to one of the hedge-walls and keep your hand on it to guide you as you walk. You make some progress this way.
Until the wall disappears from under your hand. Frantic, you search for the hedge again, but no matter what direction you go you are unable to do anything but blindly stumble through the fog.
Your heart beats wildly in your chest.
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Continue->Fog2]](if: $Apple is "No")[[Continue->Fog1.1]] You exit to the right. Soon after you being walking the path, you hear a noise. It's static. At first it sounds distant, but it remains constant, and the further you walk the louder it gets.
You try to keep going, but eventually it gets so loud you're not sure if you can continue. It penetrates your mind, and even covering your ears with your hands does not block it out.
You try to scream, but the buzzing drowns you out. You collapse to the ground, paralyzed in pain.
[[Go back->Tree Room3]]
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Continue->Noise2]]The End.
[[Try again?->Beginning]]The fruit starts to rot, but you still eat it because there isn't anything else. The leaves fall from the trees. The grass dies. You are left totally alone in a brown, barren void.
Some days you try to find your way out of the garden again, but the exit has disappeared. Now every day feels like a lifetime.
You lay motionless on the ground, waiting for death to take you, but it never does.
[[The End.]]The noise ends. Still curled up on the ground, you vomit. Time passes.
The pain subsides, and you stand back up. Your vision is blurry and your head is ringing, so you rest against a hedge till you feel well enough to continue.
You walk forward. Finally, the hedges end, culminating in a downwards moving escalator. It is functional, and invites you down into whatever depths it reaches.
[[Go back->Tree Room3]]
[[Go down the escalator->Subway1]]You step on the escalator, and it takes you underground. You step off into a subway station.
Cheap, bright fluorescent lights illuminate every corner of the place. Except for you, the station is devoid of human life. All you can hear is a distant dripping of water, and the scuttling noises of bugs going about their lives.
The station is dirty and the air is heavy and thick.
[[Continue->Subway2]]You search the station for another exit or way out, but you aren't able to find anything. You hear a distant rattle, and then a loud horn, and finally a terrible screech as a train pulls into the station.
It stops and its doors open. No one else is on board, and you didn't see anyone or anything driving the train. It seems just as dirty and wet and well-lit inside the train as in the station.
[[Get on the train->Subway3]]
[[Go back to the tree-room->Tree Room3]] You step on board the train. Its sliding metal doors slam shut behind you.
The inside of your car is spacious, with plenty of seats. You find the least damp one and sit down as the train rushes forward underground. Out the window you see the brightly lit station go by and turn into a dark, endless tunnel.
The train picks up speed, hurtling forwards and rocking you in your seat. Your nose fills with the musty smell of the car. You wait.
The train continues. You start to fall asleep.
[[Continue->Subway4]]You are startled awake when the train's abrupt and immediate stop throws you from your seat and across the aisle. You hear the doors slide open, so you go to them and peer out.
The train has stopped in the middle of a tunnel, with nothing you can make out outside the car.
[[Go outside->Strange1]]
[[Wait->Subway5]]You step outside and into the tunnel. It's too dark for you to see anything, but you hear a human voice screaming in the distance.
You run towards it, and you begin to hear a thudding noise too. You finally come to what must be a door, but it is hard to tell in the dark. You realize that the thudding is the person behind the door banging their fists against it.
"Hello? Hello?" you shout over the screaming.
It stops, and a hoarse voice croaks out "Help...me."
The sound of their voice makes you uncomfortable. Why should you let them out? What if something bad happens? There's no way they got down there by accident.
They chose this.
[[Go back to the train->Subway5]] You step on board the train. Its sliding metal doors slam shut behind you.
The train moves forward. It is brightly lit inside the car. Your nose is full of its musty smell.
[[Continue->Subway6]]The train continues forward. You sit patiently and silently until it slowly grinds to a full stop as it pulls into a station. This station is small and dimly lit.
You see a cement wall in front of the train. The tunnel ends here. The metal doors slide open, and you figure you might as well get off, because you won't be going anywhere else.
[[Continue->Subway7]]The station is dirty and makes you uncomfortable, so you don't waste any time in finding your way up. An escalator leads up out of the station, so you step on and let it take you where it will.
[[Continue->Hospital1]]You enter a large round room. The walls are immaculate. Sunlight filters in through a window on the ceiling far above you. You see a desk with a phone.
You stand in the middle of the room. On one side are boarded up windows and a boarded up door. Opposite the door, this room leads into a dark horizontal hallway.
[[Pry the boards open]]
[[Use the phone]]
[[Go left down the hallway->Hospital2]]
[[Go right down the hallway->Hospital1.1]]You try, and fail, to remove the boards nailed to the windows and door.
[[Go back->Hospital1]]You go to the phone, dial a number and pick it up. You are flooded with relief when it begins to ring.
*Brrring brrring.* You hear someone pick up. "Hello? Hello?" you ask. "Can you hear me?" No one answers. You hear only heavy breathing.
You are unsure what else to say or do. A voice speaks in a harsh whisper. "Don't...go," it says to you. "Don't leave me...PLEASE," it pleads.
You hang up the phone.
[[Go back->Hospital1]]The left hallway leads to an upwards staircase, which you take. You emerge in another hallway, one with flickering fluorescent lights overhead and lined with doors on either side.
The first door you stop to inspect has a metal placard with "Dr. Walls" engraved on it. The door is unlocked, so you enter and find a small square room with boarded windows, counters and cabinets, and an exame table.
Each successive room you investigate contains more of the same. You reach the end of the hallway and the final room.
[[Go back->Hospital1]]
[[Go inside->Hospital3]]You step down the right-hand corridor and walk a bit. You step on what appears to be a tile, but nothing is there. Your foot falls through, and then the rest of you follows.
[[Continue->Fall1]]You open the door, and it isn't a room. It's a balcony. You breathe the fresh air deeply and rush to the metal railing to get a better look.
You cough, because the air is full of smoke and you cannot see beyond the railing. The building has caught fire.
Being trapped inside a burning building gives you an idea. *Of course!* you think. *There's more than means of escape! I've just been thinking about it all wrong!*
Overcome with relief at the prospect of finally leaving for good, you step onto the railing and off the balcony. On your way down, the relief fades into regret.
[[The End.]]Through the fog, you begin to make out a flickering light. With no other guidance available, you walk towards it. It begins to dim.
You realize it is moving away from you, and you run. This is your only way out of here. The light seems to stay three steps ahead of you and you begin to lose sight of it.
As you near your limit, something grabs your foot, and you trip.
[[Continue->Fog3]]After hours of wandering through the fog, you find a stray hedge-wall. You've never been more relieved in your life. You follow the wall, and it leads you back to the tree-room.
[[Continue->Tree Room3]]You fall to the ground hard, and the wind is knocked out of you. You lay there in pain, trying to calm your erratic breathing and wild heart. The ground beneath you is wet and cold dirt.
You look up and find the fog has lifted. You're laying on a path in the middle of a dark, swamp-like forest. You still feel moisture in the air.
You hear noises from somewhere in the forest. They could be animals somewhere out there, or perhaps just the creaking of the trees.
[[Walk forwards->Forest1]]
[[Turn around and walk back->Forest1]]You take the dirt path through the forest for some time. The noises continue. You walk for what feels like hours as your feet and legs grow sore and tired.
You realize your surroundings look familiar. You have been here before. Though you have only moved forwards, the path has taken you in circles.
[[Turn and walk back->Forest1]]
[[Leave the path and enter the forest->Forest2]]You realize that you must leave the beaten path to get anywhere. You plunge headfirst into the wet, dark forest. Your feet get wet and sink as you step onto dense seeping moss.
Ducking to avoid low-hanging branches, you carefully make your way to avoid tripping again. The noises stop, leaving you with total silence.
You wander without direction. This may take some time.
[[Continue->Forest3]]Hours pass. If you were tired and sore before, now you are practically unconscious. When you again see the flickering light that led you through the fog, you suspect it might be a hallucination.
It is in the distance again, and your brain is so muddled that you can think of nothing else to do but stumble after it. You pick your way through the forest towards the light.
This time the light does not move, and you come to its source. You make out the shape of a small cottage through the darkness, with a single candle wavering in a small window next to a door.
The door is slightly ajar, and a warm inviting light glows inside. You enter.
[[Continue->Cottage]]It is a small, humble, one-room cottage. A lit fireplace casts a homely light and warms your frozen bones. A soft-looking bed is pushed up against the wall, with a floral blanket and a thick pillow.
You have half a mind to collapse on the bed, but the scent of a warm dinner draws your attention to a table near the fireplace. A place is set, with silverware and a bowl with stew.
You sit at the table, eager to fill your hungry belly. You stop short of devouring the meal when you catch your reflection in the dark liquid of the bowl. That's not you. What happened? Who **is** that?
[[Continue->Cottage2]]You stare into the murky waters of the stew so intently you fall in. It feels like diving head-first into a cold pool.
You are underwater. You open your eyes and see only water. You feel sand under your feet. Then, you start to drown.
Desperately you swim upwards before your lungs fill with water. Just when you can't take any more, you break the calm stillness of the water's surface with your body.
[[Continue->Grotto]]The air is full of the sound of your gasping breaths. You swim forward blindly until you hit a solid surface. You scrape your stomach on rock as you exit the water.
You're in a grotto, naturally carved from a dark stone and illuminated by blue-glowing coral. It's beautiful. Almost beautiful enough to make you forget everything that's happened to you.
The cave forks into two narrow passages, left and right. You remember making this decision before.
[[Go right->Grotto1.1]]
[[Go left->Grotto2]]You decide to take the passage to the right. You almost feel as though the wind should start blowing, but of course, you're underground.
The cavern itself shakes, as well as the ground beneath your feet. It is as though the earth itself does not want you to leave this place. The tunnel ahead and behind caves in, leaving you stuck, briefly, before a falling rock knocks you into a gentle sleep.
[[Continue->Garden1]]You are confident that the left passage will take you out of this place.
The labyrinth makes one final attempt to keep you as the ground shakes, and the tunnel begins to collapse around you.
You run. You will not let this place claim you.
A falling rock scrapes your back as you reach the cave's exit at the last moment.
You are outside.
You are free.
[[Continue->Good End]]With the labyrinth collapsed behind you, you take in your new surroundings. You are on a beach you've never been to before. You look out at the vast expanse of free ocean before you, listening as the waves gently crash against the shore.
You are relieved of course, but more than that you are uncertain. You don't know what the future will bring, but somehow, you are no longer afraid.
You smile as you walk down the beach. You chose this.
**The End.**The sensation is like when you're about to fall asleep and you jerk awake, only this time you don't land in your bed. You land in some kind of cave, underground, and on your own leg.
Your hear a crunch and you scream in pain. You have broken your leg.
[[Continue->Fall2]]As you hold your leg and cry, you wait a moment for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is no hole above where you might have fallen through. There is no light wherever you are now.
Can you see?
[[No->Dream1]]
(if: $Apple is "Yes")[[Yes->Underground1]]You can't see a thing, but you can feel that you're laying on cold, unforgiving cement.
You wait in the darkness for a long time, slipping in and out of pained, fitful sleep.
You have a dream.
[[Continue->Dream2]]You whimper as you look around the room. It looks like some kind of basement: cement walls and floor, though above you is only darkness. Metal pipes run the length of the walls, up into the darkness above.
You can make out a metal door near where you are now, but it's missing any sort of handle or doorknob.
[[Bang on the door and scream->Strange2]]
[[Give up->Apple Give Up 1]]You find yourself in another space bounded by hedge-walls on four sides. In the center of the room is a huge tree.
Its trunk is thick and wide as an ancient pillar, and its branches stretch four or five storeys high. Your eyes are drawn to its top, where leaves in all of fall's colors are fanned out against the blue sky. In your peripheral vision you see the trees' twisted, gnarled roots that reach and grab their way in and out of the ground, and the piles of rotten apples decaying on them.
You can no longer hear the birds singing in the garden, and the breeze has become chilly and bites your skin.
[[Continue->Dream3]]The tree's branches and roots begin to move in your direction. They grasp for you.
You freeze in fear as they twist and wrap around you, squeezing you tightly. The branch with the lone red apple moves towards you, dangling the fruit directly in front of your face.
You refuse to eat it, so while one branch wraps around your face to hold your mouth open, another wraps around the apple and forces it into your mouth.
You eat the apple. It tastes so bitter that you're desperate to spit it out, but the tree forces you to finish the entire fruit.
[[Continue->Dream4]]You wake up back on the cold cement floor. Your leg doesn't hurt anymore. You test it by standing, and find that it is no longer broken.
A dim light now illuminates the room from an open door, but it keeps changing and flickering, making it difficult to tell where you are.
[[Step through the door->Theater]]You step through the door and find yourself in a familiar place. You are in a movie theater. It is dark, but of course you can still recognize a movie theater in the dark: the red seats, the huge screen, the flicker from the projectionist's booth far above.
Some sort of black and white cartoon is playing onscreen.
[[Sit down and watch the film->Movie]]
[[Search for an exit->Theater1]]You sit and watch whatever this cartoon is. The seat is comfortable. You watch as a cartoon cat and dog chase each other around a house.
The dog chases the cat angrily and obligingly, till the cat outwits the dog and turns the tables, and so on. You only have to watch for a few minutes before you feel like you've seen all the film has to offer.
You don't want to watch anymore.
[[Search for an exit->Theater1]]
[[Keep watching]]You find a red curtain in the back of the theater, and you exit through it. You're in the lobby of a small movie theater, with an empty concession stand.
The lobby is littered with posters for movies in languages you can't read, with letters you don't recognize. You don't see an exit, only another theater similar to the one you just left.
[[Go to this new theater->Theater2]]
[[Go back and watch the film in the first theater->Movie]]You pass another red curtain to find a theater identical to the previous one, except screening a different film. You sit down to watch it. It's footage of a garden, one you instantly recognize.
You become engrossed in the screen and in nostalgia for when things were better and life was easier.
You could watch this forever.
[[Continue->Garden1]] You decide to stay and keep watching the cartoon. It's something to do, anyway, while you're trapped here.
The minutes become hours, hours become days as the mindless cartoon repeats itself ad nauseam. You can't complain. It's better than whatever else is out there, whatever other horrors this place would inflict on you.
It's one form of escape, isn't it? Even if it lasts an eternity?
[[The End.]] You crawl to the door and beat your fists against it as you scream. Each time you pound the door it sends vibrations through your whole body, agonizing your wounded leg.
You keep at it for what feels like hours. Your hands are bruised from hitting the door and your throat is raw and torn from screaming. You hear footsteps approach and redouble your efforts, screaming and pounding loud as you can now.
You hear a voice.
"Hello? Hello?" it says.
The sound of it makes you uncomfortable, but still you croak out a pathetic "Help...me."
You wait, and you hear the footsteps walking away.
[[Do nothing]]You may no longer give up.
[[Go back->Underground1]] You lie on the cold cement floor, defeated, and in terrible pain. You cry yourself to sleep and dream of the garden.
Why did you leave?
[[Continue->Underground2]]You wake up from your sleep on the hard cement floor. But your leg no longer hurts. In fact, it feels perfectly fine.
When you look around the room again, the door that had kept you trapped here is now open. You stand up and step outside into a subway tunnel.
You see the light of a train is in the distance. You walk in its direction, and find one of the cars has its doors open. The inside is spacious, with plenty of seats.
[[Get on->Subway5]]
[[Don't get on->Underground3]]You wait, and the train's doors close. It departs without you.
You begin wandering the dark subway tunnel. It is too dark for you to make anything out with certainty, but you can navigate easily enough.
Walking for so long in the dark and quiet, you begin to feel as though you're losing your mind. You begin a conversation with yourself to pass the time.
You find your own conversation so engrossing that you fail to notice you are no longer underground until you shut up.
You have wandered into a thick fog.
[[Continue->Fog2]] You may no longer give up.
[[Continue->Garden3]]