80K Twine Game

You wake up on what appears to be an ordinary day. Except when you look at your [[phone]] to check the time, it's 2 hours earlier than normal (if "normal" was 11 AM) and it's suspiciously quiet. You're still kinda tired, so you wonder if you should [[get back to sleep->sleep]] or [[get out of bed->room]] to see why everything's so quiet.

The current time is ''9:23 AM''. This used to be the time you would normally wake up, but due to recent events you don't really have any incentive to get up before most people would be at work. You look at your [[notifications]]

Eh, doesn't matter. You close your eyes and try to get those extra couple hours of sleep in... Good, peaceful sleep... Wait, what's that feeling? Like your... (text-style: "blur")[skin is getting torn off.] Before you know it, you end up becoming nothing more than a [[clean skeleton laying in bed->die]].

You get out of bed and decide to just do your daily routine early. Go the fridge, grab some bread, put that toast in the toaster... #"OH MY GOD HAVE YOU (text-style: "shudder")[*SEEN*] WHAT'S OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW?" One of your neighbors appears to be [[shouting]] outside in the hallway of your apartment building.

There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, just some [[social media]], [[text messages]], and an [[exclamation mark]], probably for some weather warning.

You scroll through the usual posts, but you're hearing a lot more about rodents than usual. Then you look at the very top of your screen and see: #CITY OF MICK-E BREAKING NEWS: (text-style: "shudder")[GIANT RAT INFESTATION] PLAGUES TOWN, KILLS OVER *ONE THOUSAND* OVERNIGHT! You're wondering if this is just some kind of delayed April Fools joke, and debate whether to just go back to [[sleep]] or [[investigate further->investigate]]

You see a message from one of your friends. Opening it: "Hey are you okay? Have you seen any GIANT RATS? My family just got in the car to leave town but they're seriously getting EVERYWHERE. Do you have a ride already?" The message was sent an hour ago. Consider, "Giant rats? Nah, that's ridiculous. I'm going back to [[sleep]]." Reply, [["I don't have a ride. I'm not sure what is going on, but if you're still in town could you pick me up?"->ride]] Reply, [["I can find my own way out of town. Thanks for the consideration though."->Leave home by yourself]] [[Investigate further->investigate]]

#EMERGENCY: GIANT RAT INFESTATION PLAGUES TOWN, KILLS OVER *ONE THOUSAND* OVERNIGHT! Looking at the warning, you can't tell if you're just dazed and dreaming or if there is legitimately a real infestation of (text-style:"shudder")[giant man-sized rats] in the city. You wonder if you should just go back to [[sleep]], [[gather]] your stuff before heading out, or stop wasting time and [[rush out]] already.

Doing a quick internet search, you see that every local news station site is, indeed, reporting on the (text-style: "shudder")[''GIANT RAT INFESTATION'']. You start to hear a light squeaking coming from outside your apartment building. Looking outside of your window, your worst fears seem to have [[come true]].

You send the reply to your friend. You start gathering your things, and a couple minutes later your phone buzzes and you check your messages again: "Stop doing whatever you are doing and get out of your building. Now. We only have a minute before we gotta go" You're not exactly sure if this rat infestation is gonna destroy the entire town or not, so you wonder if you should try to [[grab some very important items first->gather]] or follow your friend's directions and take what you have already and [[leave->rush out]] immediately

You spend too long debating which of the many important family heirlooms to bring with you before the city will probably get nuked. The squeaking gets *louder* and *''louder''*, and before you realize your mistake, the rats break in and you are eviscerated until (text-style:"blur")[nothing remains but the smelly stench of really big rodents.] ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You put on your best survival clothes and leave the building, finding your friend's car parked right in front, repeatedly honking at you. ''"What the hell took you so long?'' [[Get in]]."

As soon as you get out of your room, you find your neighbors conversing in the hallway about how to deal with the situation. You consider [[leaning in->lean in]] to their conversation, but your fear also drives you to ignore them and [[just go]]. You don't hear any squeaking from inside the building, so any way down is fine.

Sleeping through a ratpocalypse wasn't really the smartest idea. Oh well, at least you weren't conscious throughout most of it. Better to die in sleep than die awake, right? ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You ignore the possibility of your toast getting stale as you open your door and look outside in the hallway. Your neighbors are huddled together talking about (text-style: "shudder")[giant rats] for some reason. You [[lean in]] to their conversation.

You listen closely to the conversation and are filled in by your neighbors about what's going on. It turns out there's an invasion of some utterly (text-style: "shudder")[''*HUGE*'' rats] throughout the entire city, and nobody here knows why. Your group debates whether they should [[hole up]] in the apartment building and or [[escape together]] out of the city.

You're dealing with (text-style: "shudder")[giant rats] here, so you and your neighbors figure out how to divide up resources. Thankfully, one of your neighbors has a ''*machine gun*'', but *only* one. They ask if you want to [[take it]] or if [[someone else]] should handle it.

Everyone equips whatever clothes and makeshift weapons they can find in a couple minutes, and then wonder if they should take the [[elevator]] or the [[stairs]] to get down.

You take the gun, and your neighbors move a bunch of furniture and build a small fort covering the area from the elevator all the way to the stairs in case they need to move up. The squeaking in the distance gets (text-style: "rumble")[louder], and soon enough the (text-style: "shudder")[rats] have *[[arrived]]*.

You don't need a gun because obviously kitchen knives are useful enough. Except when the rats come around and you get overwhelmed and are unable to easily deal with the many, of them that eventually chew you up into little bits, satisfying their stomachs for a bit before moving on and trying to massacre the rest of the town. Oof. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You have an absolutely *epic* battle against the army of (text-style: "shudder")[rats], slowly being pushed back until you get to the roof of the building. As you move up, several (text-style: "shudder")[rats] get in your way, but they are no match for the pure power of a well-made gun... by your knowledge, anyway. (text-style: "rumble")[*RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT*] *Click. Bling. Cha-ching.* (text-style: "rumble")[*RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT*] With each bullet, another one [[drops]].

You all ride the elevator down, but it slowly stops before reaching the first floor of the building, and you hear a *crunch* just outside of the elevator. You can immediately tell the rodent menace has arrived more quickly than you thought. You can also hear them going above the elevator. You're essentially trapped inside, but your group still debates what they should do next: "We could try [[opening the top]] and moving out that way?" "We can press the button to [[force open]] the elevator door." "Or we can try staying here and [[wait]] for someone to rescue us."

Stairs may require manpower and aren't a protective shell against a bunch of deadly giant rodents, but if there's a bunch you can at least hop down the set of stairs while also pretending you're a sick parkour master. You get to the bottom floor and [[Open the front door of the building->Open the door]]

You open the top, but rats end up coming in and you can't do anything to stop them before they devour everyone in the small elevator. Everyone dies. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

A couple of your neighbors force open the elevator door, leaving just big enough of an opening to get through. However, you can tell there's already some (text-style: "shudder")[rats] in the hallway, so you and two other neighbors get out as soon as they can. Unfortunately, the last neighbor wasn't so lucky, as rats started to swarm over him as he attempted to leave the elevator. There isn't really any way to go but forward, so the three of you proceed on, trying your best to move through the wave of rats in the hallway and get to the door. [[Open the door]]

You wait seemingly forever in the elevator. Thankfully the weather is relatively cool so you aren't gonna burn to death, and thanks to modern ventilation technology you won't run out of clean oxygen either. The only thing really limiting you is your stomach... You wonder how exactly a bunch of giant rats invaded the town in the first place. There isn't any evil pharmaceutical companies based nearby (as far as you know), and the city's sewers are known for being pretty clean. Well, you'll have plenty of time to think about it (text-style: "blur")[as you slowly wait] (text-style: "blurrier")[for rescue..........] [[Restart->HUB]]

Now, there's a lot of rats. Like a *lot* of rats. But you and your remaining neighbors can get through this. You trudge through to the [[parking lot]].

You push past your neighbors, and head down the elevator and go out the front of the building. There's a slowly encroaching wave of giant rats ahead, but then you realize... You don't have a car, and the buses sure as hell aren't gonna be running right now. Before you can run back into the apartment building, the rats catch up to you as you die (text-style: "blur")[a tasty and painful death]. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You enter the car and talk to your friend's dad who has some pretty *wild* [[theories]] let me tell you... later #placeholder

Once you reach the parking lot, one of your neighbors says they should take their car since they have bunch of useful stuff in there. However, there's also the corpses of rotting motorcyclists laying right by a bunch of motorcycles that are in surprisingly good condition. So, how about it: [[Cars]] or [[motorcycles->sick motorcycles]]?

You're all packed together but you got more protection with the coverage of the car's steel hull. One of your neighbors packed in a bunch of guns for "hunting", including a flamethrower (grilled meat, *mmmmm*). You think it would be a really cool idea to stand on the trunk (it's a pick-up truck) and use it to [[burn them down]]. But you're not entirely sure how well that'll work in reality, so you consider just taking a... [[minigun]]?! instead.

You're fast, you're cool, and you and your new motor comrades flee the town in style. Hell yeah. <img src="https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/926e23b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2290x1202+0+60/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediadc.brightspotcdn.com%2F7b%2F40%2F11d9812e4b5d9b5df52b85c99396%2Fcover1.jpg" width="500" height="300" alt="sick motorcycles"> ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You think it would be an absolutely fire time to be using a flamethrower to quell the droves of deadly *GIANT RATS*. Unfortunately, you didn't consider that using a flamethrower while riding off of a pick-up truck still leaking a bit of oil would cause some sort of explosive train reaction. ''*KA-BOOOOOOOOOM*'' You ended up creating a pretty sick explosion that killed a bunch of the ''*GIANT RATS*'', but unfortunately you were taken with it. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You're not sure how this was obtained, but it doesn't really matter now as you're living the life of a hardened solider... except as a normal person with your neighbor's morally-ambiguously-obtained giant machine gun. But it works, and that's what matters. (text-style: "rumble")[*RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT*] You're able to escape town, but you might have to deal with some authorities later... ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

Turns out there's actually a big pharma company the next city over, but yours is slightly smaller so they might have been doing some nasty things to the creatures down under. Your friend's dad works at the local sewage plant, so even though he smells really bad he probably knows what he's talking about. He really wants to get to the [[source]] of the action, but you think that sounds ridiculous and you should just [[leave the city]] NOW.

You choose to believe the crackpot theories and head towards the local sewage plant. He also came prepared with several long sharp weapons and guns to stop any rodent that gets in your way. You successfully get through them all until you reach a conspicuous door labelled "''RAT LAB''". Your friend's dad just *WHACKS* that door handle right off and opens the door. It's time to save the day. There's a chemical literally labelled [[*Small Rodent Fixer-Upper*]]. But there's another one called [[*Economic Stimulation*]] which has you intrigued.

You decide not to waste any time fooling around because realistically, it's probably a good idea to leave the city as soon as possible. Someone else can deal with the rate menace. Not like the whole city is gonna be destroyed, right? ''THE END'' [[Restart-->HUB]]

All the rats have become normal-sized and don't feel like eating human flesh anymore, so you call it a day and prepare to enact some serious lawsuits against the people who were responsible for this mess. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

The rats get *even larger...* they're people-sized now... and can talk? They're actually pretty responsible as it turns out. You don't consider the consequences of having thousands of intelligent rats suddenly become full citizens of the nation, but it doesn't really matter because the problem is over and you got some sick (not literally) rodent friends too. Let the rat/human cooperative future begin. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

You successfully made it past the hordes. Unfortunately, your neighbors weren't so lucky. Thankfully one of them was really into hang-gliding, so you jump off of the building and fly outside of the town. As you see the increasingly large waves of rodents you feel quite somber about what the town has turned into. But you can't pay too much attention to that or else you could crash into a tree. So you move forward, glad that you're alive and well-armed enough to survive in the wilderness. ''THE END'' [[Restart->HUB]]

*There's a (text-style: "shudder")[''giant swarm''] of (text-style: "shudder")[''giant rats''] slowly moving towards your apartment building* <img src="https://images.pulseheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/rats.jpg" width="500" height="300" alt="Giant rat"> Well, damn. You're worried about the state of your friends, so you consider checking your [[text messages]] as well, or you are so afraid of not getting out in time that you choose to [[Leave home by yourself]]