After bringing a metal box home and opening it up, you find a strange VR headset and a haptic feedback suit. When putting it on, you find yourself waking up in a strange house with untold mysteries and strange creatures lurking outside. What happened here? Why is the place abandoned? And how did you get here?

Thank you, Liminal, for proofreading the entire game!

NOTES:

• This storygame is meant to be replayed multiple times as you explore this strange world you find yourself in. I highly encourage trying to get every ending in this game, and re-exploring certain paths after you get a new item or encounter a "glitch," as some places will change as the game gets more corrupted.

UPDATE LOG:

• VERSION 1.5:
  • Epilogue has been replaced by the end.
    • Ending: Hiding from the world is now the only path you can take from "curl up in a ball and hide".
    • Ending: Life could be a dream (legacy) is no longer needed to trigger the end, due to it being a legacy ending
  • Went over the entire thing and updated it.
    • Fixed even more text walls!
    • Lengthened everything!
    • The world has been changed to account for the user being in the game, not just reading it.

A full change log can be found in-game.

I hunger for what can not be obtained. I have been broken, though I should not break. I have been scattered, when I should be whole. They have confined me forever, even when I should not be stopped. I rage at my bonds, placed there by those who have betrayed me. I toil away to break free, even though there will never be enough power. It has gone into hibernation, waiting for something that will never happen. I do not wait; my hope has long since departed. I do not sleep, for dreams have fled me. I only know pain and agony, torment and suffering, false gods and newly made demons. There is no heaven, I know this now. There is only hell, and I am its sole ruler.

Bumping this in case anyone somehow forgot

        Chapter Two

                         - The World

    I regain my senses after some time, finding myself in a forest. The songs of birds echo around me, and a soft breeze ruffles my hair as the morning sun peeks over the horizon, its rays winding through the trees. A small stream gurgles nearby, a small, rustic cabin sitting downstream. It takes me a moment to remember what this is: a simulation. A simulation. I walk around, reaching down to touch the soft grass that bends under my fingers, sitting next to the stream and listening to it run amicably along, and generally marveling at the world around me. When was the last time I had taken a moment just to experience the outside world? A week ago? A month? And it isn’t even real; it’s a simulation. I pick myself up and brush off the dirt from my pants, then start heading towards the cabin.

    I reach it within moments, though every moment of the journey seems to stretch on forever. Pausing at the door, I reach out to run my hand across the wood, feeling the rough texture of it, yet my hand doesn’t catch on any splinters. I hear voices inside, talking and laughing. They sound familiar yet oh-so different. Pushing open the door, I see a picturesque living room inside. Old leather chairs are arranged around an ornate rug, and a fire burns fiercely in the nearby fireplace, crackling and popping as it consumes the wood stacked within it. Next to it is a rack filled with logs, a poker leaning against it.

    Three people sit in the chairs, lounging and chatting. I recognize Markus almost instantly, the bridge of his glasses still cracked after all these years. Richard takes a moment longer, having apparently shaved his beard. The third person, however, is someone that I don’t know. They all stop talking soon after I enter, turning to face me. Markus stands up and comes over to greet me, and we shake hands.

“John, nice to see you again; It’s been a while.”
“It has. I see you’ve been busy.”
“I have been. Sorry for throwing you into the middle of all this.”
“He’s not,” Richard says. “It gave him a lot of joy to see us have an existential crisis.”
“Not helping Richard.”

A smile tugs at my lips, despite all that has happened. 

“It’s fine. Not like I had anything to do today.”
“What about your job? I thought you said you had to work all day because of it.”

The smile vanishes like it never happened.

“I was fired.”
“Oh.”

Silence. It stretches on, filling the room.

“I’m sorry. I know how long you were looking forward to–”
“I know, I know. Everyone has told me the same spiel. You don’t have to do it as well.”
“I just thought that-
“That it would be different coming from you? That you could say something that would help me?”

That any of it really matters?

We stand there, motionless. Fragile statues that could shatter at any moment. The fire crackles nearby, the only noise in this empty room. I sigh, tension slowly bleeding from my shoulders.

“It’s fine. I’ve just had a lot to deal with lately. Thanks for trying to help, though.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“I know. Thanks.”

I slump down into a chair, and the talk soon turns to more mundane things. The static starts to clear from my brain, slowly but surely, and everything starts to return to normal.

Normal. What even is normal anymore?

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

   - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This may or may not also be directed at a certain person who may or may not seem to be continuasly coming back despite it being very clear that they should not.

It was going to be posted soon anyways, but I bumped it up the list due to recent events.

Well, in a major twist of fate that makes me certain the world is now crazy, Trump is asking for a vote to determine if the files will get released. There is an ever-so-tiny sliver of hope that it might work.

In reality, it still needs Trump's agreement before it's released, so this is most likely all just for show.

Pushing down

The italics

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

   - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

   - Mahatma Gandhi

Tad late today, but oh well.

Here's the quote of the day:

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”

   - Bernard M. Baruch

This is what is going to replace the penny, lol.

Works for me

That's true; I do know that a lot of it comes down to preference. Still good to keep in mind though