In the Belly of the Beast :: Choose Your Own Adventure

[Sanara]

[> Keep moving. There’s no point in exploring...]

You decide to move on, leaving behind the boxes and horizontal bars. After all, what could they be good for if not to simply get even more lost! You start at a trot, ignoring the ever growing water at your right-paw side. The concrete is dry where you step and that’s all that matters! But after a time you hear a growing roar that you simply can’t ignore any longer!

The roar is coming from up ahead, as as you splash your way towards the end of the pipe, you realize just how much the water has grown! If you stood still it would cover your paws up to the elbow! Sure, you were a kitten of short stature, but to you, it could mean danger! So you don’t stop and keep moving until you’re flopping out of the pipe and into a huge room filled with open-ended pipes! High above your head looks to be an uncovered manhole letting in a dim half light! You go to look around but are unable to for a familiar shape is emerging from the pipe opening in front of you!

Out flies Twig! She recognizes your soggy bed-ragged form instantly, and is quite surprised to see how soaked you are despite your devotion to staying away from water! You’re thrilled to see her too! Just... not so much the three cats that are coming out after her, with huge smiles on their faces at seeing their prey together in one easy to snatch location...

[> Game Over.]

[Sanara]

[> Rush into the next area...]

You’re forced to move on thanks to the growing waters. They move rabidly in the direction you run, making it fairly easy to run with the dark, murky currents. Strangely, up ahead you hear a soft ‘husshhh’ of moving water, but it’s no surprise, until it becomes a growing roar that you simply can’t ignore any longer!

As as you splash your way towards the end of the pipe, you realize just how much the water has grown! If you stood still it would cover your paws up to the shoulder! Sure, you were a kitten of short stature, but to you, it could mean danger! So you don’t stop and keep moving until you’re flopping out of the pipe and into a huge room filled with open-ended pipes! High above your head looks to be an uncovered manhole letting in a dim half light! You go to look around but are unable to for a familiar shape is emerging from the pipe opening in front of you!

Out flies Twig! She recognizes your soggy bed-ragged form instantly, and is quite surprised to see how soaked you are despite your devotion to staying away from water! You’re thrilled to see her too! Just... not so much the three cats that are coming out after her, with huge smiles on their faces at seeing their prey together in one easy to snatch location...

[> Game Over.]

[Sanara]

[> Leap over the flooded trench to get to the horizontal bars...]

You turn away from the wooden boxes to face the flooded trench. The horizontal bars across the way stare back at you, ready to take on your weight. A small smile comes to your maw as you back up and prepare yourself to take the leap!

You crouch, wiggling your butt to set your feet in the right position, and you take off! Dashing towards the murky waters, you spring and take off through the stench-strewn air. Just as your feet hit the other side, you only then begin to realize your huge mistake! Your front paws find purchase on the edge of the trench that came up to your elbows with water. Unfortunately your back end wasn’t so lucky.

Your tail end splashes into the usual trench-area and you set your claws in the concrete at the edge you’re holding to. Almost instantly the current grabs you, and rips your claws free. You begin your decent down the pipe, but are unsure you’ll make it to the end as your head begins to dip under into the darkness...

[> Game Over.]

[Sanara]

[> Push the heavier boxes into the trench, then the lighter...]

As if you have been given a message from the Rat Goddess herself, an aides springs into your head! With the water ever rising, you begin the struggle to push the heavier boxes into the trench. The area the water has already taken has become slick with sludge, and with each box you push in you notice the immediate displacement of the water now surging around it. You have to work fast before you flood all the walkways!

After a few long and treacherous moments, you begin to shift the lighter boxes over, and notice just how much the water is actually helping you with your task! If these boxes were any lighter, they would be floating, and you now realize that your trick will work! When you shove the lighter boxes into the heavier ones already in the water, they are out of the water just enough to avoid floating away! In no time at all, you have created a bridge across the ever widening canal!

With a great leap, you jump onto your cat-made bridge and land squarely on the other side with water that reaches up to your elbows! Of course, you’re darn right proud of yourself as you scuttle over to the horizontal bars. They look quite rusted and overused by two-legger paws, but after all that work, who wouldn’t climb to the top!?

[> Climb the bars...]

[Sanara]

[> Climb the bars...]

You decide to climb! You’re very careful at first, hooking hour front paws to the bars and then the bottom paws resting on them to give you support to reach the next one! You need a bit of practice now that you’re a bit off balance because of your lost whiskers on one side, but you quickly get the hang of it and ascend up wards! It’s strange but as you move you swear that you can see things getting lighter?

There’s no way to actually tell, but you’re sure that something above you might lead to the outside! But there also seem to be some relatively dry pipes to explore up here too. This pipe is strangely square and shoots off into an obvious darkness that only confirms the light coming from above. It’s rather large- about the size of a tom two-legger. You go to move when you suddenly remember the boxes that you used to get up here. If they were to wash away, there would be no way to carry on with finding your sister! What should you do!?

[> Climb upward...]
[> Crawl into the pipe and explore...]

[Sanara]

[> Climb upwards...]

It’s a struggle, but with a bit of fancy paw-work, you manage to climb further up to investigate the light coming from above. The walls around you are absolutely smooth. Covered pipes come and go, but finally you reach the top and find your way blocked by a metal obstacle! You give it a good shove, but no dice. The metal is just too heavy. After a few tries, you decide to shuffle back down and notice the pipe you looked into earlier...

[> Crawl into the pipe and explore...]
[> Climb all the way down...]

[Sanara]

Click to Continue

[Sanara]

[> Climb all the way down ...]

You decide there’s nothing left here for you, and descend back down the horizontal bars. It’s incredibly difficult to make your paws work the opposite way as climbing up, but you realize all too late that there is a problem. The pipe you were once standing comfortably in is now up to the bottom three bars in water. You go to step down- surprised by the chill in the water! You jump slightly and shake your foot behind you to knock the water off. There’s only one way to go from here...

[> Crawl into the pipe and explore...]

[Sanara]

[> Crawl into the pipe and explore...]

The pipe looms in front of you, hollow and dark. You can’t see the end, but you know it can’t be far... it’s a little unwelcoming, being much smaller than the corridor that is now flooded below you, but you’re sure a healthy two-legger tom could fit through here if prompted, so what was the hang up? Unless it was, of course, getting stuck halfway though... if it was blocked, what could you do? No way up, no way down. No way out...

You shake your head wildly, throwing those thoughts to the back of your mind. There is no other way, so it’s best just to keep going! Of course the thought sounds nice but doing it is an entirely different story...

You’re slow at first, hauling yourself over from the horizontal bars and inching along down the incredibly dry pipe. Well, more like a hole, now that you realize it’s more square than rounded... what would your ratty friends call this, you wonder. None of them are here to help, so you don’t know. You sigh, and command yourself to move forward. You leave the half light from the bars behind, only to turn a corner and begin walking towards a new half light.

Wait what?

You pick up the pace, almost as much in curiosity as it is excitement! The light grows brighter and brighter until, lo and behold, the hole opens up into a massive concrete room! You notice immediately that you are at the top of this room looking down, and the light provided comes from an open manhole with no lid. Next, you notice large openings in the wall signify open-ended pipes leading out into different areas of the sewage complex, and to places you’ve probably never been before. Immediately below your hole, you see a long pipe spanning from wall to wall, connecting two pipe-holes. At your feet is a bit of rubble- some simple stones of various size, and right beside you is another wheel-looking object jutting out from the wall. This one looks much better kept than the rusted wheel you dealt with earlier.

Below, on ground level, there is nothing but two half-moon pipes covered with bars. One looks completely in tact, but the other is broken near the bottom. The floor was wet with water, and you notice a pipe pouring with water! It was probably the one you escaped from moments before, and the random wooden crates only solidifies your belief. You lean forward to take a closer look, but stop short when a small sand-colored animal fell into room.

It’s Twig! You open your mouth to call out to them, but stop short when three other cats waltzed out from the pipe behind and smack her to the floor. You have to do something!

[> Yell down at the cats...]
[> Turn the wheel beside you...]
[> Throw the rocks at your feet...]

[Sanara]

[> Yell down at the cats...]

You tell down at the cats in a moment of pure bravery! And, as the cats look up to you Twig rolls back to her feet and makes a run for it! You’re on the edge as you watch her almost make it to the bars! Only to be tackled by the lead cat, and held against the ground with claws that force her to yell out. The leader, now looking up to Rat had a devilish grin.

“It’s nice to see you again, Rat! Please let my friends here help you down!” And just like that, the two cats that were with him hopped up into the crates and began scaling ledges that led up to your hole. It would only be a matter of time before they reached you. And then what would they do? Your mouth went dry and your legs began to quiver. They could shove you off and make you fall! Or grab you by the arm and break it as they haul you down! Or maybe even chase you to the flooded pipe and push you in the water!

Your knees were trembling by the time they reached you, and thankfully it didn’t take long to figure out what they planned to do to you. On the way down, you only wish Twig had gotten away...

[> Game Over.]