As you look at it, trying not to meet the building’s eyes, the autumn trees rustle silently in a breeze that shouldn’t exist. You see yourselves in the painting, arriving outside in your taxis. That can’t be right, can it? The front of the building fades, and now you’re watching your tiny selves carry your writing things to the Library. Was that really only a few hours ago? What is an hour, really? What is time? The picture changes and your tiny painted selves walk into a library. This library. Even as you think the word, it capitalises itself. Library. The lights in the painted Library go out, and the darkness spreads. It spreads out of the painting, creeping across the wall to the nearest floating candle, and the darkness consumes it. Tendrils of dark spreak in every direction.
| OPTION 1 | OPTION 2 | OPTION 3 | |||
| If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… | If you… | Then… |
| Choose to run to Technology to find a book on building construction in case it can give you a tip on how to use a card catalogue drawer, or a shelving trolley, as a battering ram to break down a wall that may or may not actually exist… | sprint to the nearest 600 (eg if your wordcount is 1,234 you would sprint to 1,600. if your wordcount is 1,653 then sprint to 2,600) | Choose to run to Arts & recreation to find a book on historical buildings, because Manderly was based on a real place! Perhaps there will be something that helps you to spot a secret door, or a hidden passage! Servants passages were a thing, right? | sprint to the nearest 700 (eg 1,234, sprint to 1,700. 1,845 to 2,800) | Choose to run to Philosophy and Psychology for a book on communicating with the supernatural (you knew you were coming to a gothic mansion. you did bring your pocket ouija board, right?) to have a chat with whatever entity is behind this and see if you can work something out… | sprint to the nearest 1,000 (eg, 1,234 goes to 2,000) |