You walk away from you five-hour lecture. The day is nearing its end, but you feel the endless night starting to creep over your shoulder. You start to wonder about your future tasks, but the answer is already known to you. Pset. Potatoes. Phenolphthalein. The three P’s that persist through our pervasive history, yet you have been chosen to choose one these three choices. What will it be then?
> TO WORK ON YOUR PSET, TURN TO [[PAGE 42]]
> TO APPEASE YOUR STOMACH, TURN TO [[PAGE 175]]
> TO TEST WHETHER OR NOT YOU’RE A BASIC BITCH, TURN TO [[PAGE 372]]The Institvte yearns for you, and you heed its calling. You walk to the fifth floor of the Student Center where you will attempt your pset at the Athena Cluster. You try to print out your pset, but the printer is broken, or maybe just jammed.
A hooded figure is crouched in the furthest corner of the room, but it pays you no attention.
> TO APPROACH THE FIGURE, TURN TO [[PAGE 23]]
> TO FIX THE PRINTER, TURN TO [[PAGE 146]]
> TO GIVE UP ON YOUR PSET AND GO MAKE FOOD, TURN TO [[PAGE 617]], YOU LAZY FUCK.
Fret not, for you need not suffer any longer. The path of potatoes is a righteous one, and the gods commend you for your valiance. There is One, however, who seems to approve of your choice with great reverence, but He was cast from the heavens into the Charles. Hopefully, you will not encounter Him during your tasty journey.
You enter the kitchen to prepare your dinner.
> TO MAKE FRENCH FRIES, TURN TO [[PAGE 596]]
> TO EAT LEFTOVER DOMINOES, TURN TO [[PAGE 3.14]]Yes, you’re a basic bitch. We didn’t need phenolphthalein to know that.
> YOUR STORY HAS ENDED. TURN BACK TO [[PAGE 1]] TO TRY AGAIN.Your stomach prevailed over your willpower, and so you instead walk towards the fridge where your cold slices of anchovy pizza await you.
You will pay dearly for your mistake.
> TURN TO [[PAGE 521]]You open the fridge, almost drooling now at the thought of that leftover pizza… You stop abruptly, mouth agape. The fridge is empty, ravaged by scavengers, not even a long-expired carton of eggs in sight. You forgot to label your leftover food.
Devastated, you fall the floor. With no more motivation left, you stay there until you starve.
> YOUR STORY HAS ENDED. TURN BACK TO [[PAGE 1]] TO TRY AGAIN.You step on to the platform and begin circling around the pole, scanning the structure with your eyes. Following some primal instinct, you ascend the gleaming pole, its metallic surface cold against your skin. An eerie song begins to fill the air: you aren’t sure where it’s coming from, but its dissonant melody feels equal parts soothing and energizing. The song’s tempo begins to increase, gradually yet firmly, and you match its pace by circling faster. A frantic, frenzied dance. In a flurry of impulse, you start to unbutton your shirt. You are overcome with the urge to strip. You’ll never escape.
> YOUR STORY HAS ENDED. TURN BACK TO [[PAGE 1]] TO TRY AGAIN.You approach the figure with great caution. As you inch your way towards the mysterious specter, you hearken a moaning sound emanating from the shade. The wraith, or at least what you perceive it to be, ceases all noise, drowning the room in silence.
> TO UNCOVER THE FIGURE, TURN TO [[PAGE 411]]
> IF YOU’RE A SCAREDY CAT AND WANT TO GO BACK TO THE PRINTER, TURN TO [[PAGE 146]]
In one swift motion, you reach out and rip the figure’s hood away. You reveal a pale, frightened face, all sunken and gaunt, framed by a mess of unruly hair. A mere second of eye contact reveals a desolate determination behind those bloodshot eyes. The figure is mysterious no more: this frantic determination could only mean that they are a grad student frantically preparing for their thesis defense.
Mystery resolved. You mutter an apology and start to turn away from the grad student. You are startled as they reach out and ensnare your wrist in their clammy grasp. They begin stammering, their voice steeped in urgency yet no louder than a whisper. “Wait! Wait! I’ve worked it out. I… I’ve solved it. I’ve finally solved it!” Disgruntled, you shake your wrist free from their grip. The grad student continues to speak in a hushed, pointed tone. “No - don't go - you don't understand. I’ve solved it. It’s even publishable! Just… just stay. Just let me tell you. Please.” Their voice breaks as they finish imploring you and they immediately look away. They continue muttering to themself, now barely audible at all. “How long has it been? How many years? I have tasted the blood of time…”
> TO RETURN TO YOUR PSET PLANS AND FIX THE PRINTER, GO TO [[PAGE 146]]
> TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND WHAT THE GRAD STUDENT IS SAYING, GO TO [[PAGE 539]]Hoping that the printer jam doesn’t exist, you swipe your MIT ID twenty times to no avail.
> TO INSPECT THE PRINTER, TURN TO [[PAGE 212]]
> TO SWIPE YOUR ID AGAIN, TURN TO [[PAGE 452]]Oh well, you think you to yourself, as you turn your back on the broken printer and your broken dreams of getting A’s in your classes. You make the trek back to your dorm and head to the kitchen.
The kitchen is a fucking mess. Dishes are piled in haphazard towers around the kitchen: this fortress of filthy crockery looms above you, casting shadows around the room. Every surface is covered with grime accumulated from the cooking of negligent hallmates. Stagnant water pools in the sinks, unidentifiable food scraps from many meals past stranded in their depths. And on the counter sits the most repulsive sight of all: a bowl of raw meat, stained a sickly green from eons of being left out to “defrost”, flies hovering around the decaying flesh like vultures ravaging a carcass.
> TO DO SOME DISHES LIKE A GOOD, UPSTANDING CITIZEN, TURN TO [[PAGE 109]]
> TO CHECK YOUR CUPBOARD FOR FOOD, TURN TO [[PAGE 281]];)You follow the voice down a meandering path, scattering potatoes as you go, like some trail of crumbs scattered by a more sinister Hansel and Gretel. You find yourself at a fork in your path: there is a door to your left and a door to your right.
The gentle crooning of the disembodied voice ends abruptly. In its place, a single command booms across the space: “CHOOSE.”
> TO ENTER THE LEFT ROOM, GO TO [[PAGE 243]]
> TO ENTER THE RIGHT ROOM, GO TO [[PAGE 318]]
You find yourself in a spacious room. Strange glyphs adorn the wall, forming abstract shapes in faded paint. Though the room is dimly lit, its contents seem to be emanating a faint glow as if lit by a blacklight. You see a door, painted an ominous shade of black. However, the centrepiece of the room stands out amongst the gloom: a gleaming metal pole stretches from the ceiling to a platform raised above the floor. The pole is made of some kind of lustrous material. It gives off a strangely inviting aura, inspiring a kind of elation and a yearning for movement in you. Perhaps you could spare a moment of your night to indulge this urge? You feel oddly inspired by the ethereal metal pole. Perhaps you’re even inspired enough to… dance?
> TO INSPECT THE POLE, TURN TO [[PAGE 16]]
> TO OPEN THE DOOR, TURN TO [[PAGE 323]]You enter the right door, and find yourself in a strange brick building. There are people everywhere, stretching further than you can see.
“Hi,” they chant in unison. “Welcome to Baker House.” They circle you, drawing nearer, drawing closer. You try to back out, but they’ve surrounded you from all angles - and where did the door go? How did you get here? How can you leave?!
The last words you hear feel like a cataclysmic murmur as the crowd closes in, still speaking in unison.
“Welcome to Baker. We’re the social dorm.”
> YOUR STORY HAS ENDED. TURN BACK TO [[PAGE 1]] TO TRY AGAIN.
You ease your way towards a sink and delicately remove a dish from one of the towers of crockery, taking care not to topple the precarious pile. Gagging slightly, you reach for a sponge and a spray bottle of dish soap, your humble defense against the filth. You scrub until the dish is sparkling and place it proudly in the drying rack before reaching for another item to clean. You turn back to the pile of dishes, but pause in mild surprise: could it possibly have... grown since you cleaned one of its ? Unsure, you take a second dish from the pile regardless and return to scrubbing and rinsing, placing it in the oddly vacant drying rack once clean. A little too disconcerted to look again, you grab another dish. Surely, if you just keep cleaning, you’ll make it through all the dishes eventually, right?
You scrub the dish clean, place it in the drying rack, and reach for another one. Rinse & repeat. RInse & repeat. Rinse & repent.
> YOUR STORY HAS ENDED. TURN BACK TO [[PAGE 1]] TO TRY AGAIN.You open up the printer only to find a dark void staring back at you. You reach your hand into the darkness, only to find that it isn’t a void: it’s some kind of sticky, viscous material. A scent of raspberries fills the air. You pull your hand away to find it covered in the dark substance, and inspect it closely. It’s literally jammed.
Well, your pset isn’t happening today, and the jam is making you hungry.
> TO GIVE UP ON YOUR PSET AND GO MAKE FOOD, TURN TO [[PAGE 617]]You swipe your MIT ID again, hoping the printer responds. It doesn’t.
> TO SWIPE YOUR ID AGAIN, TURN TO [[PAGE 304]]You take some potatoes from your overflowing cupboard and begin to search for cookware. The disarray is near impossible to navigate. As you pick through the debris, a disembodied voice begins to speak in a smooth, dulcet tone. “Come here, follow me. Just follow my voice. Just come.”
The burners won’t start. You can’t find any oil. A family of cockroaches scuttles across the kitchen countertop.
“Come here, come here...”
> TO GIVE UP ON FRENCH FRIES AND EAT LEFTOVER DOMINOES, TURN TO [[PAGE 3.14]]
> TO FOLLOW THE VOICE, TURN TO [[PAGE 72]]You turn away from the glistening pole and reach out to open the door. The door creaks open, revealing nothing but darkness.
> TO ENTER THE DARKNESS, TURN TO [[PAGE 487]]
> TO TURN BACK TO THE POLE INSTEAD, TURN TO [[PAGE 16]]
You walk up to your cabinet, expertly navigating the kitchen’s chaotic mess. You open your cabinet to find it overflowing with potatoes. You can't quite remember how you ended up with a veritable mountain of spuds. Maybe Star Market had them on sale before closing down? Either way, your stash of potatoes just feels right - as if it were some great cosmic alignment for these tubers to have coincided in the particular patch of space that is your cabinet and the particular time of right now.
You reach out to grab a potato, drooling at the thought of making french fries, but pause as you look around at the kitchen’s state of dismay… You're hungry, but maybe you aren't hungry enough to venture into the mess? And there's always leftover Dominoes in the fridge…
> TO EAT LEFTOVER DOMINOES PIZZA, TURN TO [[PAGE 3.14]]
> TO MAKE FRENCH FRIES, TURN TO [[PAGE 596]]You swipe your MIT ID again, hoping the printer responds. It doesn’t.
> TO SWIPE YOUR ID AGAIN, TURN TO [[PAGE 452]]
Slowly, gingerly, you step into the darkness and the door swings shut behind you.
A tidal wave of dread slams into you the moment the door latches shut. You’ve never felt fear like this: never so sudden, so awfully absolute. The dread almost feels tangible, as if it were concrete flooding your lungs. Desperate, desolate, you collapse on the floor, gasping for air. What is this place? What dreadful things exist here? What wretched being could survive in this hellscape of suffering?
You try to turn back, but the door is gone. Maybe it’s obscured by darkness, or maybe the door itself has vanished: either seems possible in the sinister shadows which surround you. Helplessness reigns as you feel tears rush to your eyes. Wanting to feel anything but the desperation of your current state, you try to stand up, trembling under the weight of your fear. You inch your way forward, blindly grasping at your surroundings in the hopes of finding something, anything to break the uniform, oppression of the dark. Every step seems to take herculean effort. Every moment seems steeped its own sad end. Suddenly - as your mind hold tenuously on to its last vestiges of sanity - your hand encounters a doorknob. Choking back tears, you wrench the door open and throw yourself through its gaping maw.
> TURN TO [[PAGE 666]]You kneel next to the grad student and motion for them to continue talking. “Yes,” they mumble. “Thank you, thank you…” The grad student suddenly pulls out a blackboard, as if from nowhere, and begins writing and lecturing to you, a frenzied flurry of chalk and sleep deprivation.
“You see… in the mathematical realm, everything is relative. We must therefore choose (at random) a reference point. Let us take Satan, whose number is 666. Notice that the square of the absolute value of the square root of the expression [666/6+6+6] equals the number of non-punctuative symbols in our language. Using this number as a base for a translative number system, we see that Krotus (7.6 decimal) equals seven point O repeating. Krotus is therefore an infinite generator of circles, indeed the God of Circularity, from whom all things circular are generated. This means Krotus is the God of Donuts, Bagels, Roller Coasters, etc. From this we may deduce that those who follow Krotus do not reach Heaven (7) or Hell (6) but instead go around in circles forever somewhere in between. This is symbolized by the decimal point between 7 and 6. The decimal point is the ultimate degenerate-state circle reserved for permanence and immortality in which Krotus dwells, around which we as mortals swirl in circle after circle. Krotus is indeed the Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Center of the Ultraworld described by Orb!”
You stare blankly at the grad student, as they stare back at you, eyes wide and expectant. Several moments pass as your silent incredulity fills the room.
“Well...” the grad student says, clearly taken aback by your reaction. “Well, just, please be advised that this is only one possible explanation of why Krotus is 7.6. I do not know for sure why Krotus is 7.6. There’s always uncertainty in work like this… Isn’t there...?”
You sigh. You were hoping for something like pset hints, not this nonsense. You turn back to the jammed printer, though you notice your stomach beginning to growl.
> TO FIX THE PRINTER, TURN TO [[PAGE 146]]
> TO GIVE UP ON YOUR PSET AND GO MAKE FOOD, TURN TO [[PAGE 617]], YOU LAZY FUCK.Everything is quiet. Everything is still. And everything is suffering. You drop to your knees in horror, left with only one fearful thought.
What is suffering
if there is no one left to suffer?
#RESLEEPENING.
##THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 28.
##THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN AT 10.
##BEDTIME STARTS AT MIDNIGHT.
Host: amman. Monitors: alm, fllarena.Oops.
> GO TO [[PAGE 80]]
↶↷You walk away from you five-hour lecture. The day is nearing its end, but you feel the endless night starting to creep over your shoulder. You start to wonder about your future tasks, but the answer is already known to you. Pset. Potatoes. Phenolphthalein. The three P’s that persist through our pervasive history, yet you have been chosen to choose one these three choices. What will it be then?
> TO WORK ON YOUR PSET, TURN TO PAGE 42
> TO APPEASE YOUR STOMACH, TURN TO PAGE 175
> TO TEST WHETHER OR NOT YOU’RE A BASIC BITCH, TURN TO PAGE 372