Our House
There are a few doors along this hallway. One has the aroma of pipe smoke wafting out of it. Behind the next door, you can hear bacon sizzling and pots and pans clanking. Behind the third door, you hear a shower running.
| Go into the study (1) |
You skitter into the study and see a man sitting behind a desk, smoking a pipe. "Gregor, is that you?" he asks, and then he sees you. He rises up from behind the desk, his cheeks turning red, grinding his teeth with barely-controlled rage.
"Now, Gregor," he says, "I've always tried to tolerate your rebellious ways. When you got your ear pierced, I didn't say anything. When you got the tattoo, I didn't say a single word. But now you've turned yourself into some kind of insect and -- well, it's just not natural. I think it's high time someone gave you a little discipline." And with that, he grabs an apple from a bowl full of fruit and throws it at you.
"Look, I don't even know who Gregor is, and I don't have any tattoos," you try to say, but it comes out *click click* *antennae wave*. The first apple bounces harmlessly off your carapace, but the second one hits you right where the plates join together, and gets stuck there.
You turn and scuttle out of the room. The pain in your back is intense and radiates outward. You lie back down on your bed, finding it difficult to breathe, feeling more and more tired.
By the time the clock strikes three, you breathe your last. The whole thing is very kafkaesque.
| Go into the kitchen(1) |
You slip through the door into the kitchen. There's a woman cooking breakfast on the stovetop, with her back to you. As the door clicks shut behind you, she turns, catches sight of you, and screams bloody murder. Well, not literally "bloody murder," it's more of an "AIEEEEEEE!"
Your cockroach instincts take over, and you try to skitter under the stove. Since you're a giant cockroach, all you succeed in doing is knocking the stove over, spilling the eggs and bacon and knocking the gas line out of the stove's back. The room quickly fills with foul-smelling fumes. And you skitter towards the window and try to open it.
Unfortunately, at that moment the man who was smoking a pipe in the study walks into the room, armed with an apple and looking quite upset. Things would really have gone badly for you if he hadn't noticed his pipe was out and struck a match to light it again.
Sure, the match ignites the gas and blows you to pieces, but at least you didn't get an apple stuck in your back. Try to look on the bright side, will you?
| Go into the bathroom(1) |
You slip into the bathroom, feeling as at-home as a cockroach can feel. The tile is nice and cool under your feet, and you sigh contentedly through your spiracles as you curl up under the sink.
You're almost asleep when you hear the shower turn off and the shower curtain pull back. You're certainly not almost asleep when the woman who was in the shower starts screaming her head off at the sight of you.
She hurls a loofah at you (well, at least it wasn't a pumice stone), and your cockroach instincts take over. You try to skitter down the toilet and into the sewer, but you've forgotten that you're a cockroach the size of a human, so you only succeed in getting your head wedged in the toilet bowl.
It takes a goodly long time, but you eventually drown. Hey, it beats getting an apple lodged in your back, right?
Occurs upon selecting "Explore the house" during A Meta-Metamorphosis.
References
- The "Go into the study" text is a reference to The Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". Later in the story, Gregor's father throws an apple at him, which is referenced in all three outcomes.
