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The girl runs.
Her bare feet pound against the uneven ground, roots and tangled swamp grass rising out of the ground to pull her back down, down, down. But she won’t let them, won’t let them take her, won’t let them do this. No, she didn’t do anything wrong.
She just wanted to live.. Is that so bad? Is that so wrong? She didn’t want to die here—not for them. Not for that thing.
So she runs, and keeps running.
Her heart beats against her ribcage, threatening to jump out of her chest like the rabbits that scatter through the underbrush around her, rustling the leaves. Like the foxes that run alongside her, fleeing, just like she is. She doesn’t turn around, but she doesn’t have to know that they’re following her.
That //it’s// following her.
Shadows dance within shadows here, far from the stretching, wide-planed moors of her home, where you can see as far as the horizon, every little rock and weed and sheep. Here, the forest rises and tangles around her like decaying gods, limbs of bark and vines stretching out towards her, clawing at her clothes and hair. Tear her apart, little by little, bleed her dry to feed them. She can feel their hunger, the desperation with which they’ll gnaw of her bones if she lets them catch her.
Not tonight.
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
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<<link '<div class="choice-item">Not ever.</div>' '2'>><</link>>
</div><</nobr>>She takes a sharp right, branches tearing through her white nightdress. She can feel her own blood seep through her clothes, dripping on the ground behind her, leaving a trail for them to follow.
But maybe, just maybe, she can outrun them.
The moon follows her as she runs, breathless, panting, chest heaving. The air is sharp as it enters her lungs, singing her throat. Dry tears well in her eyes, and she feels the sobs she’s holding back in the bottom of her chest.
//Just run, faster, faster, fast—//
“SÍLE!”
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
<!-- wrapping this bit in a nobr tag helps avoid weird spacing -->
<<link '<div class="choice-item">//Fuck.//</div>' '3'>><</link>>
</div><</nobr>><!-- story interface stuff goes here -->
<div id="container">
<div id="header">
<span id="header-text" onclick="toggle(this)"></span> <div class="menutoggle"><span id="zero" onclick="toggle(this)"><i class="fa fa-ellipsis-v" aria-hidden="true"></i> </span> <span id="one" style="bottom:-180px;">
<div class="menu-flex">
</div>
</span></div>
</div>
<div id="story">
<div id="passages">
<!-- actual game content appears in here -->
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- im v bad at javascript dont judge me too hard -->
<script>function toggle() {
var x = document.getElementById("one");
if (!x.style.bottom ||x.style.bottom === '-180px') {
x.style.bottom = '0px';
} else {
x.style.bottom = '-180px';
}
}
$("#story").click(function() {
var x = document.getElementById("one");
if (x.style.bottom == '0px') {
x.style.bottom = '-180px';
}
});
$("#one").click(function(event) {
event.stopPropagation();
});
</script><!-- storyinterface doesn't let you code variables in, so this is how u cheat the system -->
<<replace ".menu-flex">><<include "menu-flex">><</replace>>
<<replace "#header-text">><<include "header-text">><</replace>><!-- a little script to boop longer passages back up to the top when going to new pages -->
<script>var myDiv = document.getElementById('passages');
myDiv.scrollTop = 0;</script><<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>00</b> go back</div>'>><<run Engine.backward()>><</link>>
<<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>01</b> profile</div>' 'profile'>><</link>>
<<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>02</b> saves</div>'>><<script>>UI.saves()<</script>><</link>>The Haunting of Killoch / $gamechapteryou could probably move this to a separate .tw file if u dont want it to be in this bit
[[link test|testpassage]]a passage for testing the """$return""" function! it returns you to the last visited passage that isn't tagged with 'noreturn', whereas the general back button in the menu simply navigates through all visited passages. helps you avoid getting stuck in a loop!
<<link "return to game" $return>><</link>><<set $gamechapter = "The Catalyst">>//No, no, no. Please.//
Síle urges her legs forward, driving her faster. Her muscles ache, burning with exhaustion and terrified gasps escape her lips despite every instinct in her body demanding she be silent. Silent like the prey she is. Just play dead.
Play dead and the predator might leave.
“You can’t run from this, Síle!” she hears him shout again, his voice like a whip against her skin. “This is your destiny!”
They’re getting closer, she knows that. Can hear their thundering feet behind her, trailing her like bloodhounds, chasing her scent through the woods. Síle doesn’t have much time and that realisation makes her stomach lurch, wave after wave of nausea threatening to topple her.
But she keeps running. No matter the scratches, no matter the blood, no matter the exhaustion.
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
<!-- wrapping this bit in a nobr tag helps avoid weird spacing -->
<<link '<div class="choice-item">Síle wants to live.</div>' '4'>><</link>>
</div><</nobr>>So she pushes her burning muscles, her aching bones, pushes them with all adrenaline that rushes through her veins. Síle pushes and pushes herself. She can’t let them get her, she can’t…
Her foot hooks around something in the dirt, her ankle jolts with a cruel twist, and for a moment she is weightless.
Free-falling, stopped in time, she watches the world around her, the moon peeking through the leaves above her head, the way that little critters climb over each other, scrambling to get out of her path, the wet shine of dew on each stem of grass at her feet.
And then the world rushes back at her, and she hits the ground, hard.
Her jaw cracks against the roots on the ground, snapping. Síle screams, her voice tearing through the noise of the forest. Pain explodes in her face, jolts of electricity shooting through her body. It’s like she’s on fire, like she’s burning from the inside. Everything else is just noise. She screams again, a screech of agony, something broken and animalistic and desperate, before pushing herself up from the ground. Violent sobs rack her spine. She’s doomed—her ankle twisted, her jaw broken, her pursuers right behind her.
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
<!-- wrapping this bit in a nobr tag helps avoid weird spacing -->
<<link '<div class="choice-item">But Síle wants to live.</div>' '5'>><</link>>
</div><</nobr>>So with shaky, trembling arms, she grasps at anything around her. Síle’s legs shake, knees buckling as she scrambles to her feet, sobbing. Her eyes are clouded from tears, but she doesn’t care. She keeps running, her left ankle dragging behind her.
“Síle!” he yells again, though without the languid conviction she heard earlier. This time she can hear the rage burning through him, the monster that’s always so close to the surface. “Síle, make no mistake, I will find you. Whether tonight or tomorrow, you will die.”
Síle stifles another sob, and keeps going.
Then, the sounds of the wind rushing through the trees picks up, gusts growing louder and stronger. It tousles her long hair, whipping her dress around her knees, and Síle's heart soars as the mouth of the forest begins to open up. She can see the moon clearly now, white light staining the open field ahead, shining down on the dozens of sheep and cows that lay peacefully behind sturdy fences.
//There! A house!//
If she could, Síle would smile. Instead, with new hope injected into her veins, she throws her whole body forward, rushing towards the freedom before her eyes.
She just needs to get close enough to the house, she just needs to get somebody to help her, to see what is happening, she just—
Something hits her in the back, a pebble or stone, she thinks.
And then Síle falls.
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
<!-- wrapping this bit in a nobr tag helps avoid weird spacing -->
<<link '<div class="choice-item">Down, down, down.</div>' '6'>><</link>>
</div><</nobr>>A cool feeling begins to spread through her lower back, as if she was slowly being submerged in an icy lake, further and further down it goes, until she can’t feel the pain in her left ankle anymore. In fact, she can’t feel anything below her waist at all.
“There you are,” he purrs, his voice like a chill along her spine. He sounds like he’s barely a few feet behind her. So close. //Too close.// “What a mess you’ve made of yourself, dear Síle.”
Síle lets out a strangled sob, desperation lurching in her heart. Her hands reach out in front of her, fingers digging into the dirt as she pulls herself along the ground. She drags herself along the dirt, mud and leaves coating her front, tears streaming down her face.
She was so close.
Not close enough.
She can hear him taking leisurely steps towards her, each closer than the last. But she doesn’t dare look behind. She keeps dragging herself forward, dragging herself toward freedom.
Closer, so that someone may hear her scream.
Closer, so that someone may care that she died.
But then he’s on her, his hand ghosting along the curve of her body, though she doesn’t feel it until his fingers are weaving into her tangled hair and he grips a fistful of it, forcing her head up.
He kneels beside her, though she refuses to look at him. Refuses to give him the satisfaction of her suffering, of all her pain, of the desperate urge still in her now to live. To survive.
Síle would do anything, and he knows it.
“Was it worth it?” his lips press against the shell of her ear, the chapped skin rough against hers, his voice gravelly and too loud.
When Síle doesn’t respond–because she can’t, because she broke her jaw, because her body is both too numb and too sore and all she wants is to go back to her bed, to go back and never have this be her end, be how it //all// ends–he yanks her head back harder, forcing her body into a painful position, making her whimper.
“You are pathetic,” he sneers, and she feels it.
In every bone, in every muscle, in every beat of her broken heart—she feels more animal than human. More monster than victim.
But that’s how it’s always been, how it always //will// be.
Unless someone stops it.
He raises his fist above her head, and Síle screams, her cries echoing across the empty moor ahead of her.
Let somebody hear her.
Let her death not be in vain.
<<nobr>><div class="choices">
<!-- wrapping this bit in a nobr tag helps avoid weird spacing -->
<<link '<div class="choice-item">Chapter One.</div>' '1.1'>><<set $gamechapter = "Chapter One">><</link>>
</div><</nobr>>This is the end of the demo. An update of Chapter One is coming soon.
Thank you for reading! Please leave any comments on the page on itch.io, or on my tumblr hauntingofkilloch.tumblr.com.