You wake up in the middle of the forest at night, with no memory of how you got there.  All you have is a backpack full of Cheez-Its and other essential supplies, along your own wits to help you on your way.  As you explore this strange land, you'll find things you never knew could exist, (at least, not that you can remember).  You'll meet strange creatures, some friend, others not, and maybe, just maybe, recover your lost memories...

My (rather rushed), entry for the Lone Hero contest.  I'll be the first to admit that not all the endings will make you any sort of hero, lone or otherwise, (mainly the ones where you run away from just about every source of conflict, and/or die).  But if you're brave enough to do what you think is right, even though it may result in your untimely demise, you may just make yourself a hero yet.  In that light, I guess you could say you're a reluctant Lone Hero.  

While each route of this story can be understood to some degree on it's own, it is important to play every branch to fully understand the greater story that's being told.  I have no intention of revealing everything on the first play through, you'll have to take the time to explore everything to learn all it's secrets.

By the way, on the off chance that you find any glitches or bugs, please tell me.  I'd like to know so I can fix them.

Netflix and video games can only go so far when it comes to fighting boredom. Usually the comfort of your own home is more than enough to make you happy on the weekends, but lately something feels off. You've tried to rewatching The Office for the six or seventh time, but just couldn't get into it. After scrolling through your entire Steam library consisting of over five hundred games, you couldn't find a single one that looked worth playing. You're used to being relieved about coming home after a long day of work or school, but lately you've found yourself dreading the emptiness of your own home. There's no two ways around it, you're stuck in a rut, and it's going to take something major to break you out. Luckily, you have just the thing. Before you have a chance to change your mind, you call up your friend who lives across town and tell him to come over as soon as possible. It doesn't take much to convince him to join you on the ultimate Saturday bike ride.

But little do you know that biking can be a lot more dangerous than it looks. The trails are a hotbed for all manner of suspicious activity. You are about to stumble upon an underground subculture more complex and deadly than you could possibly have imagined. Today, you'll find out whether you're just another neckbeard with a cheap set of wheels or a true hero and adventurer.

The trails in the story are loosely based on the ones in my own town. Some of the weird and crazy things in this story are exaggerated or completely made up, but there were also some things I pulled directly from my own experience.  My town can be kinda strange sometimes.  I'll let you decide for yourself what you think is true and what isn't.

I started this story in late 2020 and worked on it on and off into 2021. Then I sorta stopped and forgot about it. But by that point, it already had enough substance to stand on its own, so I decided to come back to it recently and tie up a few loose ends so that the twenty-eight thousand words I'd already written for it wouldn't go to waste. The finished product turned out smaller than I initially planned, but I'm still reasonably happy with it. A bird in the hand is worth two, I suppose.

I like Ogre

Thanks! I've had it since I was a teenager. It's from Battleblock Theater.

1) Would you rather be forced to live with three random strangers who are replaced once every year, or never be able to share a home with anyone ever?

2) Would you rather be locked into spectator mode in real life (basically you're a ghost) or have your brain transferred to the internet so that you only exist as an online presence?

3) Would you rather have to wrestle with a monster made of sewage once per month, or wear unwashed secondhand clothes from homeless people for the rest of your life?

4) Would you rather know other people's futures, or your own?

5) Would you rather have a magical fairy that follows you around and loudly narrates your inner monologue to everyone around you, or have to perpetually take care of a slug that doesn't die of old age, but kills you if it gets further than 20 feet from you. 

1) Sing. I listen to music while driving sometimes.

2) Normally. No point being rich if you don't have friends.

3) Ten minutes. Less immediate practical value in the other option because I'd be dead by then.

4) That's a hard one. I would've said telepathy in the past, but I think I'd go crazy if I heard everyone's negative passing impressions of me. Besides,  telekinesis has a lot of potential.

5) Wonder Woman. 

6) Treehouse.

7) My friend can take the 100K. He probably needs it more than me.

lol

A valuable lesson in temperance. I feel very motivated.

I feel like this has been said by a disproportionate number of US presidents.

I suppose I'll make a response and see if anything has an interpretation for me.

1) A witch splitting a blood moon in half

2) A bear and a rabbit high-fiving. There's blood coming out of their knees and something spiritual hovering over their heads.

3) Two tigers crawling up a demon to escape from hell to the top of a mountain.

4) A Genie with red shoes at night

5) I'm with a lot of other people here. This one's a panda bear.

6) This one's either a planet or a gigantic pillbug all rolled up.

7) A boar-crab hybrid stabbed through with a sword like a spit. 

After typing these out, I think I need to go think about my life for a bit.

I'm gonna give an interpretation now that I have a moment. One pattern I notice right out of the gates is that each and every response here has at least one living thing in it. Not only that, but most of them actively doing something. There's a small narrative around each one that I think is pretty interesting. You're probably more prone to see things not just as individual events, but as patterns. In other words, you're able to see the forest for the trees. If you've ever taken the Myers-Briggs, you probably got Intuitive over Sensing, if you have any idea what that means. (The second letter of your personality type would've been N, not S). There's some fantastical imagery here, such as gnomes and a monk with magical powers. The tiny baby is interesting because it's a slightly absurd detail in the technical sense. It seems like something you would see in a post-modern painting. Even with the otherworldly details, though, there's something grounded about all of these. If these were all rolled into a fictional world, I would guess the setting would be lower magic. You might enjoy more grounded fiction, and you may believe that the real world still has some secrets it's keeping back. 

One other thing I think is interesting is the ambivalence of these interpretations. The man is reaching for a bat, but there's no mention of what he is going to do with it. He could be playing baseball, or he could be about to beat someone's head in. The bear is missing the top of its head, but the language here doesn't imply pain. The baby could be in peril, or it could just be hanging out there. Even the case of the monk, there's no sense that he's good or evil. This would imply that you see the world ambivalently. Perhaps you do your best not to judge the actions of others, or maybe you feel uncertain about what direction things are going. Or maybe it's something you simply don't think about much at all. Whatever the case, I think it's an interesting detail.

What are your thoughts?

Click the links. I messed up the image embedding, but those links will pull them up.