Welcome to SNOWBOUND, a new interactive fiction story on Steemit.
Did you miss the first installment? Click here to find out what the hell is going on.
We return to our intrepid protagonist standing in the snow as gunfire rattles from some nearby trees.
>hide in a nearby barn, try to divine source of gunfire
Well, this is a compromising situation.
You're standing at the top of a large hill. Despite a few scattered holly bushes, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of cover. Several dozen yards away, at the bottom of the hill, is a small copse of trees. From somewhere within the trees, you can hear the unmistakable sounds of gunfire. Perhaps your ears are deceiving you, but it seems to be getting closer.
You should find somewhere to hide.
Looking about quickly, you spot a decrepit pile of wood and rusted nails that you can only assume was once a barn. You look between that distant tetanus-infested open sore of a building and a much closer and much friendlier holly bush. The holly is lush and green, alive and inviting in this cold abyss. The barn is a wallowing cesspit of death and decay. The holly serenades you with sweet, merry jingles and nostalgic sounds of happier times. The barn scrapes against your nerves like the haunting sound of an old regret. As the sound of gunfire draws closer, you realize you don't have time to deliberate.
You make a beeline for the barn.
In your enthusiasm, you throw yourself against the closed barn door, only to find that it isn't locked. You tumble to the ground, no doubt incurring several splinters in the process, and quickly scramble to close the door. You take a peek through the withered planks in the wall to see if you can tell what in the hell is going on out there, but your position doesn't offer much of a vantage point. You lean back against the wall with a huff as you catch your breath, then take stock of your surroundings.
Aside from some piles of scrap that you can only assume used to be machinery, there isn't much here. There is a hay bale loft above you, but the ladder to reach it looks as though it might crumble to dust if you so much as breathe on it. A pitchfork leans against the far wall, but just thinking about trying to handle the dry and splintered wooden handle makes your hands feel like they're going to bleed. A smaller hatch looks like it leads out the back of the barn. At least you have a means of escape, should it come to that.
Given the potentially life-threatening nature of the situation, you figure it would do you well to take your mind off things for a moment. You grab the Collection of Notes and flip to the second one.
"As I have meditated for this last week upon the new power I acquired from the stranger, as well as what information I was able to glean from his mind, I have come to a number of conclusions. First, I do not believe that his power, the power that now resides inside me, is for traveling to the record; rather, I believe it is meant for traveling through the record, using it as a sort of conduit. This idea seems radical even to me, but I am under the impression that the record extends beyond this universe. Indeed, I am positive that the stranger with whom I communed was not from this universe at all. I think -- no, I know that he used this power to travel here from his own universe, using the record as a channel.
The second conclusion I have come to is that traveling to the record should be possible for me. I am not completely clear on how this works as of yet, but it has something to do with the immateriality of the soul. If the record is truly a repository of information existing across universes, it cannot be what we understand as a physical place. Rather, I believe it must be composed entirely of existence reduced down to its purest form -- raw data. This has led me to a tangential conclusion: if the soul is able to travel to a place like this, I believe the soul itself, as something immaterial, must be of the same substance as the record. That is, the soul is nothing but information. In that case, in order to reach the record, my soul -- the data that makes up my being -- must be released from my body. I will have to kill myself.
The third conclusion I have come to is that simply traveling to the record will not avail me anything. From what I have gathered from the fragmented memories of the stranger, with no anchor to hold the soul in place, it will simply be ejected from the records upon reaching them. I believe that every soul makes some pass through the records on its way from this life to the next. It is likely that I would absorb some information in this way, but it would be useless to me if I could not bring it back to this world. That does not, however, preclude the possibility of using the record to travel between universes, as the stranger did. I am not entirely sure of this, but I believe that the soul, passing from one universe to another, will take on a new body, restoring it to life.
The final conclusion is a consequence of the aforementioned conclusions, and it is that passing from one universe to another will cause me to completely lose all memories I have of myself. While it is true that these memories are a form of data, and so should exist in the record, they are stored in the body, which must be left behind in order to enter the record. As such, if I travel from this universe to another, I will not remember who I am. I will likely also forget everything I have written here. However, there are two things that bear mentioning regarding this: first, I believe that a basic understanding of any power which resides in the soul, such as my ability to commune or my new-found ability to travel between universes, will persist; second, I believe there may be a way to maintain something akin to a physical presence in the record, which should both act as an anchor within the record and allow one to retain one's memories when passing through it. I am basing the second of these only on some broken and cluttered information that I believe the stranger received during his pass through the record, but I am confident enough in its accuracy that I am going to try and seek this power. To do so, I will have to enter the record, which means that I will have to travel to another universe and lose my identity. I may forget my mission once I have done so, but if a sufficient amount of information goes with my soul, I hope that I will be able to reason out all that I have written here once again and continue with my quest.
In the event that I am not successful, this journal will serve as a record of all I have learned and done. I have no doubt it will be taken as the ravings of a madman, but perhaps, if someone does find it, it will be of some use. I myself may stumble upon it again during my travels, in which case it may serve as a reminder of what I am trying to achieve. In any case, this will be my last entry, as I plan on entering the record to-morrow after some more meditation.
May God bless my endeavors and see that they are brought to fruition.
~March the 12th, 1728"
The more you read, the more fascinated you become. There is no doubt that this other person had the same ability to 「COMMUNE」 as you do, but there are more confusing things written here that you do not understand. The stranger in the notes seems to believe that passing between universes would cause a person amnesia. Thinking back, Death said something about that as well. Is that why you cannot remember who you are? Does that mean you also possess the ability to travel between universes?
You look inward, reflecting on the powers of your soul. An ability to travel between universes. Is it there, hiding somewhere deep within your unconscious?
No. You're quite sure that there is nothing like that. But there is something within the memories of the dead man you communed with. Something that was triggered by the words in the note. This so-called anchor, the ability to maintain a physical presence in the Akashik Records. This is a power that the other man had. A power that you now have. It was unconsciously triggered when you entered the Records before, but you have no doubt now that it is there.
Special Ability Recovered: 「INCORPORATE」
You still don't entirely understand this ability, but it seems to involve maintaining a physical body while passing in and out of the Records. That would explain how you were able to walk about the Records after returning from death, and how you were able to retain your memories after traveling here from the Nexus. But what are these powers? Why did Death speak of the dead man as another incarnation of yourself? There's still too much you don't know!
As you flip to the next note, hoping to find some more answers, a stranger with an oddly-familiar face bursts through the barn door, falling to the ground just as you did mere minutes ago. The two of you lock eyes for a moment in a mutual sense of shock. He scrambles to his feet and shuts the door, then looks down at you.
"Who are you?" he asks. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
You shrug, then motion towards the wall and ask what all the shooting was about.
"I don't know!" the stranger says in an exasperated whisper. "I was minding my own business, chopping some wood, when this group of kids came rushing over the hill with a bunch of guns. At first I thought it was a prank, but then they started shooting at me. One of them caught me in the arm with a bullet. All I could do was make a run for it. I think I lost them in the trees, but I'm sure they'll pick up the trail before too long."
Murderous children? Again? What the hell is going on? You hear some shouting from outside the barn and the stranger clicks his tongue in distress.
"Shit, I think they found my footprints. We can't stay here."
Between the rusted-out pitchfork on the wall and the small hatchet in the stranger's hand, your offensive capabilities are limited. You could make a run out the hatch at the back of the barn, but the snow would give away your tracks for sure. But given the option between running and fighting, it still seems as though the better idea is to run.
It seems as though you had better come up with a plan.