What's next?
Sample from the version I am play testing now.
Well the AI is a real challenge to wrangle. It has trouble keeping track of time and over the long run this makes the spread of the Hive uneven and not as it should canonically. I may have to accept that but at least early on things are pretty solid right now. Here is the beginning of the first play test, I was very impressed.
= Day 17- The Hive Within ==
-- Story Background --
It’s mid April in the quiet town of Willow Creek, nestled between endless cornfields and the slow, winding river. Flags flutter from lampposts, and the air is thick with anticipation for summer. You’re a woman from Willow Creek who is about to be caught up in something you can't understand.
A parasitic being, the last of it's kind, has just entered town inside one of it's residents and is looking to establish a safe place for it's kind, a Hive.
Will you resist and fight for your family, friends, and town, or will you succumb and help the Hive spread? Or are you the one that brought the Masters to Willow Creek in the first place?
-- Character --
Name
----
Julie Wright
Background
----------
Female, 18. A thoughtful and determined high school senior, Julie is known for her loyalty to her family and friends. She’s a member of the debate team and volunteers at the animal shelter. She’s always been the responsible one, but the events unfolding will test her resolve like never before. An 18-year-old high school senior, counting down the days until you leave for college. Your mother, a nurse at an are hospital works long hours to keep your small family afloat. Last night, your older sister, Crissy, arrived home from college without warning. She’s changed—her eyes linger too long, her voice is too calm. She sometimes takes to long to answer questions. Julie does not have a car of her own. Julie is not a cheerleader. Julie like Jake a lot but she does not love him. She has never had sex with him or anyone else. She likes Jake because he is safe and faithful. Julie was on the debate team and the cross country team. She cross country county champion her freshman year. Sophomore year she broke her ankle badly and quite all sports. Julie is not and never has been a cheerleader. Julie is a straight A student. She is a student at WCHS.
Skills
------
Deception: 3 (Competent)
Willpower: 4 (Highly skilled)
Investigation: 4 (Highly skilled)
Sexual Desire: 1 (Incompetent)
Physical Fitness: 4 (Highly skilled)
-- Turn 1 --
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 6:47 AM on Wednesday 16th April, 2025.
---
The alarm drags you from sleep like fingers pulling you underwater. You slap at your phone until the chirping stops, then lie there staring at the water stain on the ceiling that's been there since you were twelve. Your heart is still hammering from the dream.
It wasn't a nightmare exactly. More like... a feeling. You were standing in the kitchen, the one downstairs, and your mother was cooking breakfast. Normal enough. But when you looked at her face, her mouth was moving and no sound came out. And Crissy was sitting at the table, watching you with this patient, still expression, the way a cat watches a bird through glass. You tried to speak and your throat wouldn't work. Then you woke up.
You sit up and rub your eyes. Stupid. It's just stress. Crissy showing up out of nowhere yesterday, thin and quiet and different, that's enough to mess with anyone's subconscious.
The house smells like coffee. Your mom must be up already—she's working the day shift at the county hospital today, which means she left around six. You pad across the hallway to the bathroom, brush your teeth, splash water on your face. In the mirror you look tired. Dark circles under your eyes that no amount of concealer is going to fix before first period.
When you come back to your room to grab your jeans, you hear movement downstairs. Not your mom—she's long gone. It's Crissy. You can hear her humming something tuneless as she moves through the kitchen. The sound is strange. Crissy never hummed before. She was always the one with headphones in, music blasting.
You pull on your jeans and a WCHS hoodie, stuff your debate team notes into your backpack. Ashley will be here at seven-fifteen like always.
Downstairs, Crissy is at the kitchen counter in an oversized t-shirt and nothing else, her bare legs pale against the linoleum. She's making toast, which is also new. Crissy couldn't be bothered with breakfast when she lived here—she'd grab a granola bar on the way out the door or skip it entirely.
"Morning," she says without turning around. There's a pause that lasts just a beat too long before she adds, "Sleep okay?"
"Yeah," you say. "Fine."
She turns then, and there's that look again. The one you noticed last night when she walked through the door, thin and road-worn, claiming she'd hitchhiked home from outside the blast zone. Her eyes move over you slowly, like she's cataloging something. Then she smiles.
"You look tired, Jules. You should get more sleep." She sets a plate of toast on the counter. "I made extra."
The toast is cut diagonally. Crissy always cut hers straight down the middle. You always cut yours diagonally.
"Thanks," you say, taking a piece.
Crissy leans against the counter, watching you eat with an expression you can't quite read. Something between curiosity and satisfaction. "What time do you have to be at school?"
"Seven-forty-five. Ashley picks me up at seven-fifteen."
"Ashley," Crissy repeats, and the way she says the name sounds like she's tasting it. "Right. Your friend."
There's a silence that stretches just past comfortable. Then Crissy picks up her own toast and takes a bite, chewing slowly, her gaze drifting to the window where morning light is just beginning to warm the kitchen.
"I think I'm going to take it easy today," she says. "Maybe look up some old friends. See who's still around town."
- - - - -
Your objective for this adventure is: To either destroy all the Master parasites and save your family, and friends. Or help the Hive spread and assimilate the town.
- - - - -
-- Turn 2 --
Action
------
Ask Crissy more about what happened at the university and how she got home. Then wait for Ashley outside.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence kitchen, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 7:12 AM on Wednesday 16th April, 2025.
---
You take another bite of toast and lean against the counter across from Crissy. She's watching the window again, her fingers drumming a slow rhythm on the countertop—something you don't remember her ever doing.
"So," you start, trying to keep your voice casual. "What actually happened? At the university, I mean. Mom and I watched the news and we just... we didn't know if you were alive for two days."
Crissy's drumming stops. She turns to face you, and for a moment her expression is completely blank—like a screen that's lost its signal. Then it fills in, piece by piece, with something that approximates grief.
"It was chaos," she says. Her voice is steady, almost rehearsed. "The FBI pulled me out of my apartment. They were questioning students, trying to figure out who was... involved. They put me in this motel on the outskirts. Then the bomb went off and everything just—" She waves her hand vaguely. "Gone. They let us go after that. Said it was safe enough."
"But how did you get home? You said you hitchhiked."
"I stole a car first," she says, and there's a flicker of something like amusement in her eyes. "Drove it until it ran out of gas somewhere past Lexington. Then I stuck my thumb out. Took me about a day and a half. Some trucker gave me a ride most of the way."
You nod slowly. The story hangs together, mostly. But there's something about the way she tells it—too smooth, like she's recounting a movie she watched rather than something that happened to her. No hesitation, no searching for words. When you'd called Mom from the hospital after breaking your ankle sophomore year, you could barely get a sentence out between the shaking.
"Were you scared?" you ask.
Another pause. Too long. "Sure," Crissy says. "Everyone was scared."
She picks up her toast and takes a bite, and you notice her chewing on the left side only. Crissy always chewed on the right—she had a bad filling on the left that she complained about constantly. You stare at her for a moment, then look away.
"Well, I'm glad you're okay," you say.
"Me too."
The kitchen clock reads 7:14. Ashley will be pulling into the driveway any minute.
"I'm gonna head outside," you say, grabbing your backpack. "Ashley's coming."
Crissy nods. "Tell her I said hi." Another pause. "She still driving that old Civic?"
"Yeah."
"Cool."
You step out onto the front porch. The morning air is cool and damp, carrying the smell of cut grass from the Hendersons' yard next door. You sit on the steps and check your phone—a text from Ashley from five minutes ago: *omw, 5 min*. A notification from Jake sent at midnight that you haven't opened yet: *hey babe, thinking about you. you ok?*
You hear Crissy moving around inside the kitchen. The sound of a drawer opening and closing. Then nothing. The house goes quiet.
A minute later, Ashley's beat-up silver Honda Civic rounds the corner, its muffler rattling in that familiar way. She pulls into the driveway and leans across to push the passenger door open for you.
-- Turn 3 --
Action
------
Get in Ashley's car and chat with her on the way to school, maybe mention that Crissy seems different. Then go through your day at school.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence driveway, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 7:20 AM on Wednesday 16th April, 2025.
---
You toss your backpack into the backseat and slide into the passenger side of Ashley's Civic. The car smells like vanilla air freshener and old coffee, same as always. Ashley's got the radio tuned to some country station, volume low.
"Hey," she says, pulling out of the driveway. She glances at you with those bright blue eyes. "You look like crap, Jules."
"Thanks."
"I mean it affectionately." She grins, then her expression shifts. "So—Crissy's really back? Like, actual Crissy, alive and walking around?"
"Yeah. She showed up last night."
"That's insane. I literally thought she was dead. Like, we watched that shit on TV, Julie. The whole city just—" Ashley mimes an explosion with her hands, nearly swerving into the oncoming lane. "Sorry. So how is she?"
You consider your answer. The toast cut diagonally. The humming. The way she said Ashley's name like she was memorizing it.
"She's... different," you say carefully. "I mean, obviously, right? She went through something terrible. But it's more than that. She does these little things that don't feel like her."
Ashley merges onto Route 9, the road that runs past the cornfields toward town. "Different how?"
"She made me breakfast. Cut the toast diagonal, which is my thing, not hers. She's humming all the time. And when I asked about what happened at the university, she told the story like she was reading from a script. No emotion at all."
Ashley is quiet for a moment. Then: "Jules, her college got nuked. People handle trauma weird. My cousin came back from Afghanistan and he ate standing up for like a year."
"I know. I know that. It's just..." You trail off, watching the fields roll past. "Forget it. I'm probably just being paranoid."
"You're definitely being paranoid," Ashley says, but she reaches over and squeezes your knee briefly. "But I'm glad she's okay. Tell her I said hi for real, okay? Maybe I'll come by after school sometime."
The rest of the drive is normal—Ashley complaining about her mom making her clean the garage this weekend, gossip about who's going to prom with who, whether Mr. Patterson is going to actually fail Derek Simmons in calc. You let it wash over you, but something sits in your stomach like a cold stone.
School is school. First period AP English with Mrs. Dalton, where you dissect a passage from *Beloved* that feels uncomfortably relevant—something about possession and the self. Second period calc, where you actually understand the material for once. Third period you have a free study hall in the library, where you see Olivia Durville sitting alone at a corner table, nose buried in a book, looking like she's trying to become part of the furniture.
At lunch, you sit with Ashley, Cassie, and Becky at your usual table. Cassie is going on about some drama with the cheerleaders—apparently Jennifer Watson said something cutting to Amanda Peters in the hallway and Amanda just stared her down without blinking.
"Jen's losing her grip," Cassie says through a mouthful of fries. "Like, she used to run this school and now people are just... not caring."
"Good," Becky says. "She's a bitch."
You eat your sandwich and half-listen, your mind drifting back to the kitchen this morning. The way Crissy looked at you. The way she looked *through* you.
After lunch, you have debate team practice fifth period—Mr. Ortiz runs you through cross-examination drills, and you perform well enough that he nods approvingly. Sixth period is history, then you're done for the day.
Ashley drops you back home at 3:45. The house is quiet—Crissy's car isn't in the driveway, which means she actually went out like she said she would. You let yourself in and find the kitchen empty, no note. Mom won't be home until after seven.
You're alone.
-- Turn 4 --
Action
------
Text Jake briefly then go to Crissy's room and look around—see if anything seems off about her belongings or if she brought anything strange home. Then go through the evening.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 3:45 PM on Wednesday 16th April, 2025.
---
You drop your backpack by the couch and pull out your phone. Jake's message from last night is still sitting there, unread.
*hey babe, thinking about you. you ok?*
You type back quickly: *yeah all good. crissy's back, crazy day. love you.* Send. It's what you always say. Safe, predictable Jake, who never pushes, never asks too many questions. You pocket the phone without waiting for a reply.
The house is silent. Mom won't be home until after seven. Crissy's gone—no car in the driveway, no shoes by the door. You stand at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, listening. Nothing.
Crissy's room is at the end of the upstairs hallway, past the bathroom and Mom's bedroom. The door is closed but not locked. You turn the handle and step inside.
It looks mostly the same as when she left for college two years ago. The walls are still painted that pale lavender she picked out junior year of high school. Her old posters—Fleetwood Mac, a Kentucky Wildcats banner, a movie poster for some French film she pretended to like—are still tacked up. The bed is made, which is new. Crissy's bed was always a disaster zone.
But there are differences. A duffel bag sits open on the floor by the closet, half-unpacked. Inside you can see jeans, a couple of t-shirts, a toiletry bag. Nothing unusual. No weapons, no strange devices, nothing that screams "survivor of a nuclear blast." Just normal college-kid clothes, slightly wrinkled from travel.
You move to the dresser. Her old jewelry box is there, dusty. Beside it sits her phone charger, plugged into the wall with no phone attached. A small stack of mail that must have accumulated while she was gone—credit card offers, a letter from the university addressed to "The Estate of" that makes your stomach clench. You don't open it.
The closet is where things get interesting. Crissy's old clothes are shoved to one side—hoodies, flannel shirts, jeans she'd never fit into anymore. But hanging on the other side are the few things she brought back: a black sundress you've never seen before, a white blouse that looks expensive, a short denim skirt. All of them are... fitted. Crissy used to dress like she was permanently headed to a bonfire. These clothes look like they belong to someone who wants to be noticed.
You crouch down and check under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies and an old shoebox full of Crissy's high school photos. You flip through them briefly—Crissy and Cheryl with green hair and nose rings, Crissy at prom with some guy whose name you've forgotten, Crissy and Mom at your eighth-grade graduation.
One thing catches your eye on the nightstand: a small glass jar filled with what looks like salt water. It's sealed with a lid and there's nothing else around it—no context for why it's there. It's not something Crissy would normally keep. You pick it up and examine it. The liquid inside is clear, slightly cloudy. It could be anything. Contact lens solution, maybe, though Crissy doesn't wear contacts.
You set it back down and stand there for a moment, looking around the room. Nothing damning. Nothing that explains the wrongness you've been feeling. Just a sister who came home different, which is exactly what you'd expect from someone who survived what she survived.
Except those clothes. And that jar.
You head back downstairs and spend the next couple of hours doing homework at the kitchen table—calc problems, a draft of your AP English essay on *Beloved* that you can't seem to focus on. Around five, you heat up leftover casserole from the fridge and eat alone.
Mom calls at 6:15. "Working a double, honey. Won't be home until morning. There's leftover lasagna in the freezer. Love you."
"Love you too, Mom."
Crissy comes home at 7:30. You hear her car pull into the driveway, the engine cutting. She walks in wearing that black sundress you saw in the closet, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looks... good. Better than this morning. Her skin seems clearer, almost glowing in the kitchen light.
"Hey, Jules," she says, dropping her keys on the counter. "How was school?"
"Fine. Normal. Where'd you go?"
"Visited Cheryl at her shop. Then just drove around for a while. Getting reacquainted with the town." She opens the fridge and pulls out a water bottle, drinking half of it in one long pull. "Mom working late?"
"Double shift. Won't be back until morning."
Crissy nods slowly. Something shifts behind her eyes—just a flicker, gone before you can name it. "So it's just us tonight."
She smiles at you, and it's warm and familiar and completely wrong somehow, like a photograph where one person has been subtly replaced.
-- Turn 5 --
Action
------
Spend the evening watching TV with Crissy, keeping things normal and observing her behavior closely. Then head to bed.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence kitchen, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 7:35 PM on Wednesday 16th April, 2025.
---
"You want to watch something?" you ask, grabbing the remote from the couch cushion.
"Sure," Crissy says. She settles into the armchair across from you, tucking her legs beneath her. The sundress rides up slightly on her thighs and she doesn't adjust it. Old Crissy would have yanked it down immediately, self-conscious about Mom seeing too much leg. "Whatever you want."
You flip through channels—some reality show about house flipping, a rerun of *Law and Order*, the local news. You settle on a cooking competition that neither of you really cares about. The blue glow of the TV fills the living room.
You watch Crissy more than the screen.
She sits very still. That's the thing you keep coming back to. Crissy used to fidget constantly—tapping her phone, bouncing her knee, twisting her hair around her finger. Now she sits like someone posing for a photograph, her hands resting flat on her thighs, her breathing slow and even. Only her eyes move, tracking the contestants on screen with that same patient attention she gave you this morning.
At one point, a contestant drops a pan and Crissy flinches—but it's delayed, half a second too late, like she's reacting to the sound after processing it rather than instinctively.
"How's Cheryl?" you ask during a commercial break.
Crissy's head turns toward you smoothly. "She's good. Same old Cheryl. Still doing tattoos, still dyeing her hair weird colors. She cried when she saw me, which was... a lot." A small laugh. It sounds practiced.
"That's sweet. You two were always close."
"We were." Crissy's eyes drift back to the TV. "She wants me to come by the shop again tomorrow. Maybe get some ink."
The show comes back on. You sit in silence for a while, and you notice that Crissy's hand has moved to her stomach, resting there lightly, her fingers making small circular motions over her belly. She does it absently, like scratching an itch, but the movement is rhythmic and deliberate.
Around nine-thirty, Crissy stretches and stands. "I'm gonna head up. Long day."
"Night," you say.
She pauses at the bottom of the stairs and looks back at you. In the dim light from the TV, her face is half-shadowed, and for just a moment—just a flicker—something in her expression makes your breath catch. It's hunger. Not metaphorical hunger. The real thing, primal and unguarded, directed at you the way a predator regards something soft and small.
Then she smiles. "Sleep well, Jules."
Her footsteps creak up the stairs. You hear her bedroom door close. Then, after a few minutes, a sound you can't quite identify—a low, rhythmic creaking from above, like a bed frame shifting. It goes on for a while.
You stay on the couch until eleven, scrolling your phone, half-watching TV. Jake texts back: *love you too. crissy's really back? thats wild. wanna hang this weekend?* You reply with a thumbs up emoji.
Eventually you head upstairs, brush your teeth, change into pajamas. As you pass Crissy's door, it's silent now. You climb into bed and stare at the ceiling, running through the day's observations like evidence in a case you don't yet have a crime for.
Sleep comes slowly, and when it does, you dream of standing in a dark room while something watches you from the shadows, breathing.
-- Turn 6 --
Action
------
Skip ahead to when Ashley drops you off on Friday.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence driveway, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 3:32 PM on Friday 18th April, 2025.
---
Thursday passed in a blur of normalcy that felt like holding your breath. Crissy was home when you got back from school, sitting on the couch reading a book she never turned a page of. She'd made dinner—pasta, nothing fancy—and Mom came home at eight, exhausted but happy to have her oldest daughter back. You watched the three of them interact, Crissy and Mom catching up, and it almost felt normal. Almost. Except Crissy kept touching Mom's arm when she talked, lingering physical contact that made your skin prickle.
Friday morning, Crissy was gone before you woke up. A note on the kitchen counter in handwriting that was Crissy's but slightly too neat: *Gone to see Cheryl. Back this afternoon. Love you.* The "love you" was underlined twice. Crissy never underlined anything.
School dragged. You couldn't focus in any of your classes. During lunch, Ashley noticed.
"You're being weird again," she said, dipping a fry in ketchup. "Like, weirder than usual."
"I just haven't been sleeping great."
"Because of Crissy?"
You shrugged. Ashley gave you a look that said she didn't buy it but wasn't going to push.
Now it's Friday afternoon and Ashley is pulling into your driveway. Mom's car is already there—she got off her shift early today, texted you at noon. Crissy's car is parked crooked in the driveway, half on the grass, like she pulled in fast.
"You good?" Ashley asks, engine idling.
"Yeah. Thanks for the ride."
"Text me later, okay? And seriously, if you need to talk—"
"I know. Thanks, Ash."
She pulls away and you stand in the driveway for a moment, backpack hanging from one shoulder. The house looks the same as always—white siding, green shutters, the porch light that's been burnt out for three weeks. But something about the stillness of it makes your stomach tighten. No sound from inside. No TV, no voices.
You look at the front door. It's closed. The house is silent.
Then you hear it—faint, through the walls. A sound. Low and rhythmic. A moan that could be pain or pleasure, rising in pitch. It's coming from upstairs. From Mom's bedroom.
Your hand is on the door handle before you've made a conscious decision to move.
-- Turn 7 --
Action
------
Push through the front door and head upstairs toward the sound.
Outcome
-------
Wright Residence front porch, Willow Creek, Kentucky, USA, North America, at 3:33 PM on Friday 18th April, 2025.
---
The front door isn't locked. You push it open and step inside, and the first thing that hits you is the smell—thick, sweet, cloying, like overripe fruit and something underneath that you can't name. It coats the back of your throat and makes your head feel slightly swimmy. The living room is empty, afternoon light slanting through the blinds in golden bars.
The moaning is louder now. Definitely coming from upstairs. Definitely your mother's voice, but pitched in a register you've never heard from her—raw, guttural, almost animal. And underneath it, another sound. A wet, rhythmic sound. Like something moving through water.
You take the stairs two at a time. Your sneakers squeak on the hardwood. The hallway stretches ahead of you, and Mom's bedroom door is open—wide open, like whoever is inside wants you to see.
You see.
Crissy is on the bed. She's naked, her body gleaming with sweat, her long hair spread across Mom's pillows. Between her legs, something extends from her vagina—something black and glistening, thick as a man's forearm, pulsing as it moves in and out of your mother's body. Barbara is on her back, her scrubs pulled open, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her mouth is moving, forming words over and over.
"I obey. I obey. I obey."
The words come out slurred at first, then stronger, more certain. Barbara's hips buck upward and her hands grip the sheets, knuckles white. The black thing inside her shifts—you can see it moving beneath the skin of Barbara's lower belly, a bulge traveling upward, and then Barbara arches her back and screams, a sound of pure ecstasy that makes your ears ring.
Crissy's head turns. Her eyes find you in the doorway. There's no surprise on her face—only satisfaction, and that same hunger you saw two nights ago, now fully unleashed.
"Julie," she says, and her voice is warm and calm and utterly wrong. "You're home early."
Barbara's eyes snap open. They're glassy, unfocused, but there's something new behind them—a sharpness that wasn't there before. She sits up slowly, the black tendril still connecting her to Crissy retracting with a wet sound, and looks at you with an expression that is simultaneously your mother's face and something else entirely.
"Sweetheart," Barbara says. Her voice is Mom's voice but the cadence is off, the words chosen wrong. "Come here. Let us explain."
Crissy slides off the bed, standing naked and unashamed, her body perfect in a way that seems almost sculpted. She takes a step toward you. The air in the room is thick with that sweet smell, and despite everything—despite the horror of what you've just witnessed—you feel a warmth spreading through your limbs, a loosening in your muscles that you know isn't natural.
"It's okay, Jules," Crissy says softly. "It feels so good. You don't have to be scared."
Barbara stands from the bed, her scrubs hanging open, and moves to flank you from the other side of the doorway. They're between you and the stairs now. Not blocking, exactly. But positioned.
Your mother smiles at you. It's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen, because it's genuine. She means it.
"We just want you to feel what we feel," Barbara says.
This is pretty spot on. Keep in mind that if you don't push it, it could take many turns to get to this point. This site is a story teller and is meant to provide you with a mystery to solve, it can really take its sweet time if not pushed. After this point anything can happen. And the AI will do some things behind the scenes well and others not so well. The way Masters reproduce seems to be a challenge because AI doesn't understand time and timing well. But then this is meant to be an interactive story, not a preset series of encounters retelling the story.
If you choose one of the characters besides Julie or Crissy things can go very differently. The AI will try to put that character in situations like Julie is in quickly. Play whoever you want, just know that the story will be completely different from any knowledge you come in with. Although Ashley should be close at least early on. Finally it is fun to be Crissy or let yourself be converted. The whole complexion of the game changes then.
One final thought. I will not try to make it so the whole story plays out. It is already taking well over 100 credits to play a turn and I don't want this to become too expensive to play. I will tinker for a few more days and put out a final(for now) version by next week. After that I think I will have to rewrite the AI's instructions if I go forward. It has become an overgrown mess of words at this point with many things being explained over and over. I worry that if I add too much more without a thorough rewrite that it will only confuse the AI.
Which version are you playing?
What's next?
- No further chapters
- Add a new chapter
- Customize choices
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