Flux CYOA

Flux is a Create Your Own Adventure written by Silvercross. It began on August 17th, 2011. The story takes place in the year 2202, when YOU wake up in a strange cell with the ability to travel back to the start of the day with the press of a button. Choices made lead YOU down the path to solving the mystery.

You wake up.

Your eyes are heavy and your body aches all over. You struggle to make sense of your surroundings. You’re not on a bed, and it’s very dark. These are the only things you can tell for sure. For some reason, there is a vague sense of familiarity with your location. As you ponder it, you’re overcome with a sudden sense of dread; an intense feeling that something is wrong.

You sit up, allowing your still tired eyes to adjust to the darkness. You feel around your body and discover that you’ve been lying on a concrete floor. It’s cold and rather damp. You hear the sound of dripping water, and decided that maybe the floor isn’t the best place to be. You attempt to stand, but your legs are weak. You’re quickly back on the floor. Before you can attempt to stand again, the room is illuminated by an an intense light. Your eyes sting as they adjust. The stinging in your eyes is quickly overcome by the sinking of your stomach. You’re in some sort of prison cell.

You quickly scan the cell. In front of you, a metal door with a slat at eye level and footsteps heading away from your location on the other side. In the back right corner of the cell, there is a hole in the ground that smells faintly of excrement. On the left wall, a concrete slab that serves as a bed. Above the bed are the words “Try Again”, sloppily written in what looks like blood. Behind you, on the back wall, is a barred window just above eye level. You hear voices outside of the window.

A) Investigate the metal door. B) Investigate the hole in the floor. C) Investigate the bed. D) Investigate the window.

You walk over to the window. It’s a little too high for you to look out of comfortably. Looking up, you can see that it’s dark outside, and the sky is very cloudy, almost smokey. You decide to pull yourself up to get a better idea of what's outside. Still in a weakened state, you grab the bars of the window and are only able to pull yourself up long enough to see that you appear to be in an urban area. You can see the tops of buildings, what looks to be water, and a very bright, area off in the distance with much taller buildings. You also hear voices coming from the street below.

You drop back down to the floor of the cell. You attempt to shout out the window for help.

"Hello!? Can you hear me out there? I need you to call the police!"

The voices outside stop for a moment. Then the laughter starts. The voices cackle and howl as if it's the funniest thing they've ever heard. You come to the conclusion that you aren't going to accomplish much from the window, but you take note of what you've learned.

A) Investigate the metal door. B) Investigate the hole in the floor. C) Investigate the bed.

Despite its purpose seeming obvious, you walk over to the hole in the floor and are not surprised to see that yes, it’s a toilet. Feeling you have nothing to lose, you look down inside anyway. Feces. Lots of feces.

"Well, I don't know what I was expecting." you say to yourself. As you being to turn away from the hole, something inside of it catches your eye. You can't quite make out what the object is, but it appears to be a white (and also brown) folded piece of paper. You think to yourself that it's probably just garbage, but you never know.

Remembering that you have nothing to lose, you lay down on your stomach next to the hole and reach your hand down inside. The stench is overwhelming, but you soldier on. You reach your hand down into the hole blindly grasping for the paper. Unfortunately, it's quite deep down the hole, and your hand can't quite reach it. There's no way you'd be able to reach it without using something to assist you. You get up from the hole, smelly and defeated.

A) Investigate the metal door B) Investigate the bed

You walk over to the bed. There’s no pillow, no blanket, nothing. Just a cold, hard slab of concrete sticking out from the wall. You stand in front of it for a moment, looking at the words “Try again” written on the cinderblock wall. “Well that’s not cryptic at all.” you mumble sarcastically. The words look like they’re written in blood. “Is this some kind of test!?” you scream. “Why am I here?!”. No answer.

Your legs still weak and your adrenaline starting to build, you get the urge to lie down for a moment. You look around the bed for anything to make it more comfortable. As you check under the slab, you notice a small wooden box pushed all the way against the wall. You get down on your knees and pull the box out, and then sit down on the cold concrete slab to examine its contents. On top of the box, the word “Supplies” is written. The box itself looks very old and is covered in dust. You blow some of the dust away and open the box slowly, hoping for any kind of answer. Inside the box is a small notebook and a pen, but more interestingly there some kind of electronic device. You find this very strange, but you find it stranger that the device only has one large button in the center of it and nothing else.

Immediately and without regard to your own safety, you press the button. Nothing. It was worth a shot though. You put the device in your pocket for now.

You open the notebook, again looking for answers. The pages look browned and aged, as though the notebook had been in the box for years. The first page reads “Thank you for participating in the Flux project. If you have any questions or concerns, or feel that your life may be in danger, please press the “Assistance” button on the wall next to the door. Thank you.”

“Flux project?” You put the small notebook in your back pocket and the pen into your other front pocket. You feel a small piece of paper inside your pocket.

A) Investigate the metal door B) Investigate the “Assistance” button C) Investigate the piece of paper in your pocket D) Other (please specify)

As you place the pen into your pocket, you feel a piece of paper. You remove a folded paper from your front pocket. The paper is slightly wet from you lying on the wet floor, and you can barely make out any of the information.

5_80 H__to_ S_

You have no idea what the missing information is. Laying down on the wet ground ran most of the ink. You write down what you could read in your much dryer notebook.

A) Investigate the metal door B) Investigate the “Assistance” button C) Other (please specify)

You decide that you should probably check out the “Assistance” button that the notebook mentioned. On a small panel to the right of metal door is a white button with some small dots underneath it. It’s unlabeled, but you assume it’s the button you’re looking for. You press it.

Nothing happens. You press it again. Nothing.

You look around for any other buttons that you might have missed, but there’s nothing there. Just the white button with an intercom. You start to feel like your only hope for answers has vanished when you hear footsteps. The footsteps get louder as they approach the door. You wait eagerly for some sort of contact with this mystery person. But the footsteps simply stop in front of your door and that’s that.

“Hello? Can you hear me?.” There’s no response. “Goddamnit, answer me!”

“You have to hold the button when you talk.” a girls voice crackles over the intercom.

You seem a little shocked by the response. Nonetheless, you hold the button down. “Uh *ahem*, where am I? What am I doing here?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you. It’s in the rules.” the voice responds. You’d think she sounded cute if you weren’t so angry and confused.

“Rules? Listen, will you at least escort me to a shower or something? I had a little accident with the... uh... hole.” you explain to the voice.

The slat in the metal door opens, and you quickly rush over to look out of it. You catch a brief glimpse of the eye of the girl through the small opening. She starts to cough as she catches your scent. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding. You smell awful.”

“See, I need some help.”

The intercom crackles for a moment, before the voice finally responds, “Okay, just a moment. I’m gonna escort you to a place where you can get cleaned up. Don’t try anything okay? I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

The lock on the metal door beeps, and the door inches open.

A) Ram the door and make a run for it. B) Let the door open and attack the girl. C) Wait until the escort begins to try to escape. D) Allow the girl to escort you to get cleaned up.

This may be your best opportunity to escape, but you decide to wait it out and see if you can get some answers. The door opens slowly, and you see a very cautious young woman dressed in baggy clothes standing before you. Her short, dark red hair looks as dirty as her outfit. You take your first step out of the cell and take a look at your surroundings. It definitely doesn’t look like a prison, but more like a run down office building. Doors line the hallway to the left, and a window with a metal grate on it is directly to your right, behind the girl. She smiles at you, and points a pistol in your direction.

“Don’t act like you’re surprised to see this. Let’s go.” she motions with the pistol for you to start walking.

As you walk, you pay close attention to your surroundings. You walk past a door that reads SUPPLIES, and take a mental note of it’s location. You also walk past what appear to be 2 other cells based on the large metal doors.

You start with the small talk, hoping to get to know your captor better.

“So, do you have a name?” you ask.

“Yes, but that’s for me to know, and you to not find out. This is strictly business and nothing more. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.” she replies.

Another door: DR. LEONARD

“Business? So someone hired you to keep me here. Figures, I wouldn’t expect someone like you to be the kidnapping type.”

“Just shut up and keep walking.” she pushes the pistol into your lower back. “We’re almost there.” Whoever this girl was, she probably wasn’t going to be a good source of information.

The building you’re in seems to be in a general state of disrepair. Peeling paint, dripping pipes, dim lights. A real dump. Strange for an office building. You spot a door that reads ARMORY on the front of it. Definitely interesting. Maybe this was a prison afterall.

The girl leads you through a large set of double doors, and into what looks like an operating room. The room looks like it hasn’t been used in a long time, and you pray that you’re not scheduled for an operation any time soon. In the corner of the room is decontamination shower. There are no other doors.

“There, go. But don’t try anything. I’ll be just outside the room making a quick phone call. And remember who has the gun.” She waves the pistol in your face.

Well, she wasn’t lying. You stink, and she brought you to a place to get cleaned up.

A) Take a shower. B) Pretend to take a shower, and eavesdrop on her phone call. C) Attempt to escape the room. D) Other (Please specify) "D) Just wash your smelly arm off right quick and then eavesdrop"

Showering seems like a pretty good idea, since you do smell just the worst. You feel like cleaning your arm off should be good enough, even though you’re still totally covered in filth from lying down on the ground by the hole. You turn the shower on, and rinse off your toilet arm. You’ll still need to find a change of clothes if you really want to stop smelling like a disaster, but it you at least smell slightly better.

You leave the shower running to give the girl the impression that you’re still using it, while you sneak over to the door and crack it open slightly. You begin listening to the conversation in progress.

“-in one of the cells today. - I don’t know how he got in there. - I haven’t told him anything yet. He thinks he’s a prisoner. - Yes, but I don’t understand how this could happen. Wasn’t that project almost 30 years ago?- He’s showering right now. - Alright, I understand. I’ll take care of him.”

As you hear the phone call end, you run back to the shower and turn it off just as the girl enters the room again.

“Hmmm, I guess it would have been a good idea to get you some clean clothes.” she says to you from across the room.

“Okay.” You say, distracted as your mind still attempts to make sense of the conversation you heard. If I’m not a prisoner, why does she need a gun?

“Alright, let’s get you back to your cell.” she motions for you to follow her, and not knowing what else to do, you towards the door.

A) Follow the girl back to your cell. B) Create a commotion and try to overwhelm the girl C) Distract the girl and try to escape to: 1) Supply Room 2) Dr. Leonard’s office 3) Armory D) Other (please specify)

As you head for the door, you discreetly pick up a glass jar from one of the counters in the center of the room. When you finally get close to the girl, you throw the glass jar towards the opposite side of the room and shout “OH MY GOD THAT’S CRAZY!” The girl spins around at the noise and you lunge at her, shoving her into a wall. She hits hard and falls to the ground, the gun sliding away from her.

You burst through the double doors and run down the hall at full speed. Careening around the corner, you start looking for the door to the office you spotted earlier. You find it. DR. LEONARD. Under the name the title “Chief Technical Engineer” is displayed. You hear the girl open the double doors back in the operating room.

“Hey, what the **** are you doing?!” she shouts down the hallway. “You a******, I’m trying to help you!” You twist the knob on the door, praying that it’s not locked. It isn’t. You swiftly but quietly enter the room. You know you probably don’t have much time before the girl finds you. You lock the door behind you and turn on the light. It’s an office, but it’s mostly empty. There are filing cabinets, shelves, and an empty desk near the back of the room.

Your first order of business is to check the desk for anything that might clue you in to what’s going on, or what the Flux project that the girl and your notebook mentioned is. You find a note on the top of the desk with the number 1659 written on it. You slip the paper into your pocket. You move on to the desk drawers. The top drawer is empty, as is the second drawer. You hear the girl outside run past the door. You have to move quickly.

In the bottom drawer, you find some sort of battery. It looks like it fits into a small remote device. You remember the device in your pocket and decide that you could try the battery in it, but not right now.

You pocket the battery and find a calendar under it. You glance at the cover and are dumbfounded by what you see. The year on the calendar is 2172. It can’t be right. You stop to think how it could be possible, and you suddenly recall a memory. You remember being in this office. You remember talking to a man in here about a job. Being fresh out of college, you were excited to start making money, and especially excited to be working in the tech industry.

Before you can make sense of it all, you hear the girl banging on the door.

“I know you’re in there, open the door!” she shouts at you. You have no time to react rationally, so you get on your knees and hide under the desk. You hear gunshots as the girl shoots through the lock. The bullets hit the floor only a foot away from where you are. She kicks the door in.

“Where are you? I swear I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to explain things. Please.”

You say nothing. You can hear her starting to cry. “Please... Oh god I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

A) Say nothing and stay hidden. B) Give yourself up to the crying girl. C) Try placing the battery in the device and: 1) Press the button 2) Don’t press the button D) Other (please specify)

You can hear the girl still crying softly, sniffling occasionally. For close to a minute, she says nothing. Finally, she compose’s herself a bit. “Look, I know you’re in here. The door was locked and the light was on.” she says through her sniffles. You say nothing and stay hidden. There’s got to be a way out of here. You can hear her begin to shuffle around the dimly lit room in search of you.

There’s no where for you to go, and you can hear her getting closer. You're out of sight, but you aren't exactly well hidden. You desperately search for anything that can help you out of your situation, but it’s too late. She’s standing behind the desk.

She leans down and peeks her head under the desk. Your eyes meet. You’re horrified by her face. Blood streams down from the bridge of her nose and both of her eyes are black. She must have broken her nose when she hit the wall. Her eyes are red and glossy. Maybe she was crying, or maybe that’s the broken nose. She slowly points the gun at you and motions for you to get up.

You start to climb out from under the desk. The girl grabs your shirt and slams you against a wall. As you double over in pain, the girl grabs you buy the shoulders and knees in the face, hard. Blood begins to trickle down your forehead. “I was trying to be nice and help you out, but now I’m trying to figure out a reason why I shouldn’t just kill you.” She grabs you by the shirt again to stand you up and punches you you. Your teeth cut into your lip as her fist makes contact with your mouth. She grabs your shoulders again and tosses you into the center of the room. You wipe the blood from your face.

“You won’t kill me. You said it yourself that I’m not a prisoner. If you wanted to kill me you would have done it already.” you spit blood in her direction.

“Not a prisoner? What... oh you sneaky little a******. I knew you didn’t take a shower. What else did you hear?”

“Not much, just something about a project. That wouldn’t be the Flux project would it?” you spit more blood out of your mouth. “What is the Flux project?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Oh, you don’t know? Yet you knew enough to call someone and tell them you were going to ‘take care of me’? I don’t believe it.”

“Fine, don’t believe me. I don’t give a **** about what you think anymore.” she says very matter-of-factly.

“Well then you won't mind if I activate whatever this is.” You pull the small device and battery out of your pocket and insert the battery into the opening on the back. The device powers on and starts to glow. You hold it up for her to see.

“Wait no, don’t do that...” she pleads.

“Oh, what’s the matter? Are you scared?” Your thumb hovers over the button.

“You don’t understand...”

A) Press the button. B) Don’t press the button.

“What don’t I understand?” you ask, slowly moving your thumb away from the button.

“About Project Flux...” she says nervously.

You’re starting to get impatient. “Well, what is it then?”

“You. You’re Project Flux.”

You stare at her blankly for a moment, still not really understanding what she means by it.

“Or well, you were” she adds. “The project was shut down almost 30 years ago when...” You’re both startled by the ringing of her phone. She stops what she’s saying and answers it.

“30 years ago when what?!” you bark.

“Uh huh. Yes sir. I’ll be waiting. Goodbye.” the girls hangs up the phone and points the gun at you again. “Okay, you need to knock off all the crybaby **** and trust me for a second. We need to get you back into your cell right now or there’s going to be hell to pay.”

“If I go back and help you out, do you promise to answer all of my questions?” you ask, getting up from the floor.

“I’ll answer what I can, I promise.” She may be lying, but you don’t have a lot of choices at the moment. And if she isn’t lying, you don’t want to stick around and see what happens. “Come on, let’s go.”

“One last request.” you say, “Will you put the gun away?”

She lets out a short laugh. “No.”

You return to the cell, and step inside. The girl closes the door behind you. She opens the slat and speaks to you one last time. “Trust me.” she says, and closes the slat behind her.

Before you have a chance to believe her, you hear an older man’s voice from the hallway.

“What happened to your face? No matter, where is he?” the man asks.

“He’s in here.” the slat opens, and you see the eyes of an older man, his white eyebrows seemingly scowling at you. The slat closes again quickly. You sit down on the edge of the concrete bed and wait and listen.

“This is impossible. The project is over.” he says.

“I know sir, but -”

The man interrupts her. “He was gone! If the suits hear about this, it’ll be my ass. I can’t have this.” He sounds extremely agitated by your presence. You think back to what the girl told you. You are Project Flux. You also think about how you heard her mention that a project ended 30 years ago. Could she be talking about the same project? How can that be?

Your train of thought is interrupted by the argument in the hallway.

“Has he shifted yet?” the man asks.

“No sir. He doesn’t know what the device does.” the girl responds. You reach your hand into your pocket and feel the device with your fingers. “Shifted...?” You once again contemplate pressing the button.

“Excellent. Kill him.”

“What?!”

“You heard me. Kill him.”

“But sir...”

“Do your job Sarah or I will have your entire family out on the street by the end of the night.” His demands are met by silence. The silence turns to footsteps, and the footsteps to the sound of the metal door opening. You stand up from the bed and back yourself into the corner. Sarah enters the room with the pistol in her hand. You finally get a glimpse of the older gentleman as he stands behind her. She very slowly raises the pistol up in your direction. You can tell she is nervous. The gun is shaking in her hand. “I... I can’t do this.”

“Then you are of no use to me.” The old man reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pistol. He shoots Sarah in the back of the head, and she falls to the floor with a thud. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but you are just too much of a hassle to keep alive at this point my boy. It’s a shame this couldn’t have ended 30 years ago.” He points the gun at you.

You slide down the corner walls and onto the floor, your knees up to your chest. Sarah’s gun is only a few feet away from you, but will you be able to use it in time. With your hand still in your pocket, you bring out the glowing device and hold it up in front of you.

“How did you...”

A) Press the button. B) Reach for the gun. C) Do nothing.

With no other options, and not knowing what it will do, you press the button. In an instant, you lose control of your body. You feel as though it’s trying to tear itself away from you. All of the energy in the room feels like it's being sucked into your body. You try to scream, but the pain is too much. You black out.

---

You wake up.

Your eyes are heavy and your body aches all over. You struggle to make sense of your surroundings. You’re not on a bed, and it’s very dark. For some reason, there is a vague sense of familiarity with your location. Wait, you know where you are. You’re in the cell. But where is the old man? What just happened?

You sit up, allowing your still tired eyes to adjust to the darkness. You feel around your body and, as you suspected, you’re on the floor. It’s cold and rather damp. You hear the sound of dripping water, and decided that maybe the floor isn’t the best place to be. You attempt to stand, but you already know what’s going to happen. You’re quickly back on the floor. Suddenly, the room is illuminated by an an intense light. Your eyes sting as they try to adjust. The cell looks exactly the same as it did when you awoke earlier that.. day? Is it even the same day?

You see the metal door, the hole in the floor, the window, and the bed. You reach into your pockets to discover that all of the items you had on you previously are still there. The notepad, the pen, the papers. Even the device is still in your hand, though it’s no longer glowing. "This is impossible." you say to yourself.

You look at the words on the wall above the bed. "Try Again." You smile.

A) Investigate the metal door. B) Investigate the hole in the floor. C) Investigate the bed. D) Investigate the window.

You approach the metal door keeping you in your cell, finally taking the time to really look at it. Unfortunately, it’s just your run of the mill metal door, minus the advanced locking system. Combined with the thick cinderblock walls, there’s no way you’re getting out of this through normal means. You examine the locking system and notice a small metallic panel labeled “Manual Override” written in very tiny letters. You pull and pry with your fingers but it won’t budge.

You wipe some sweat from your brow, and notice blood. You feel for the cut on your forehead from the fight with Sarah. Yep, still there. Your injuries must have remained after pressing the button.

The thought of your fight with Sarah brings your attention to the intercom button to the right of the door. You think about Sarah and what she did for you, how she died trying to protect you. You wonder if you should use the intercom to call her. Maybe you can change things. Or maybe you should leave her be and look for another way out of your cell.

A) Press the button and call for Sarah. B) Investigate the hole in the floor. C) Investigate the bed. D) Investigate the window.

You decide the intercom can wait, you need make sense of your situation a bit more before you continue. You spy the bed out of the corner of your eye, and begin to wonder about the contents of the supply box underneath it. You bend over, grab the supply box and put it on the slab. You open it and are surprised to discover that the items seem to exist in the box while also existing in your pockets.

You look at the device in the box, and pull out the used device from your pocket. The glowing has stopped. You turn it over and see that there is now a small red light on the battery. “It must only have enough charge for once use.” you think to yourself. At least you know of another place to get a battery, but you’re not exactly in a rush to go through all of that again. You still need to find a way out of this cell; out of this building.

As you sit on the slab, you begin to think about the calendar you saw in the office. “Could it really be 2172?” You still have so many questions. You need to figure out who you are, and what you’re doing here. Letting out a sigh, you lean back, hitting your head hard against the cinderblock wall. You are surprised by the sound of cinderblock rubbing against cinderblock. You turn around and find yourself at eye level with the “Try Again” writing. You notice that the block it is written on has receded into the wall from when you hit your head against it. You try to pry the block out with your fingers but it’s of no use. You can’t get your fingers into a good enough position. You try pushing the block out the back, but after a few inches, it won’t move any further. Whatever’s behind it, you’re not getting to it. The block is now firmly stuck in place.

A) Press the button and call for Sarah. B) Investigate the hole in the floor. C) Investigate the window. D) Other (please specify)