‘Follow me!’ you command between your teeth, leading the others quickly towards the stairwell that rises up the wings.

Ajax is there, and on your way down you almost run into him. ‘You?’ he cries, incredulous.

But you’re not walking down the stairs, anymore – you’ve leapt on top of him, sending you both tumbling downstairs. This is very painful, stairs having sharp edges and Ajax being a heavy guy, so you prioritize covering your head as you go down. By the time you reach the bottom, you’ve momentarily forgotten why you got there, checking for any head trauma. Luckily, you’re fine, and Ajax is dead – hit his head on the railing on the way down, wrenching it sideways, etc. – so you and the gang can continue on your quest.

‘That was graceful,’ the woman of a certain age observes, picking you up.

‘You should see me on a dancefloor,’ you reply coyly.

‘You kill people?’ Twin #2 asks.

‘No,’ you clarify, ‘I slay.’

The woman of a certain age groans and rolls her eyes. ‘You are a terrible person.’

Now you’re in the wings, and the stage awaits. The question is, how do you approach it: do you go straight in for an all-out attack on Achitophel, or do you pretend to be a messenger for the spirit of Erich von Straussheim?

A) All-out attack on Achitophel.

B) Pretend to be a messenger for the spirit of Erich von Straussheim.

Suddenly, everyone gathered in the 2nd story garret – you, the middle-aged twins, and the woman of a certain age – hear a cry from downstairs.

‘Quick!’ the woman hisses, leading you through the next room (a dusty collection of show costumes) and onto the theatre’s rafters. She points down and whispers, ‘They’ve started.’

The theatre looks like a czarist palace flooded out when a dam retaining a reservoir filled with Arizona Iced Tea collapsed: the upholstery of the tiered seats have been eaten through by maggots, the incongruous Rococo molding caked in gold varnish (imported from a Medici estate thanks to a generous contribution by George Gordon O’Hoolahan himself), and the stage itself – large enough to stage Phantom of the Opera, even though the theatre department principally serves as a front for the school’s poaching of oil oligarchs (backdoor purchases for the performance rights of fictitious plays, seven-figure matinee seat prices, ‘Ibsen’).

Offstage, you recognize two old college friends whom you’ve fallen out of touch with since graduation, Ajax and Achitophel. Ajax sports a wild mane of red hair and looks like he just left a Korn concert (your older cousin listened to them, not you, you assure yourself – your inner monologue making that reference doesn’t make you old. Though they did appear in that one South Park episode). Achitophel, on the other hand, is wearing the same clothes you saw her in last – seemingly the entire Vineyard Vines Summer 2014 catalogue – though she’s also holding a massive two-handed Infinity Bludgeon. It is an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age: the adamantium handle is sixteen hands long, and laced with a criss-crossing inlay of silver which blossoms out like a mandala over the bludgeon itself, a heavy boulder famously dug up by the school’s founder, Erich von Straussheim, in The Year of Our Lord 1744.

Most alarming of all, however, is on the stage itself: a dozen alumni of varying ages – you spot a septuagenarian in there, surely – run in a circle on-stage to the atonal beat of a timpani drum, each wearing flesh-colored suits and featureless masks over their faces. In their center stands a naked young man caked in black oil and holding a silver shiv, waiting with grim fatality for… something.

You overhear Achitophel say, impatiently, ‘Where is Horus? We have the offering waiting for him.’

‘He’s upstairs, preparing the Bed’e’akiné for Urlu-Ketańa-Rå,’ Ajax answers, ‘we cannot rush our passage into the Shadow Realm, nor our summoning of von Straussheim.’

‘But do we have enough hosts?’ Achitophel insists, ‘Our friend was supposed to be here – it was foreseen in the Enla’ra.’

‘The what?’ Ajax asks.

‘Our undergrad alerted us to their coming, remember?’ Achitophel answered, ‘She told him of our theatre meeting, and he came here for us.’

‘Oh yes, of course, the Enla’ra,’ Ajax replied, though he is unmistakably anxious. ‘I’m gonna go upstairs and check on Horus, anyway.’

‘Fine. Go,’ Achitophel dismissed him, looking at the stage as he left. ‘I’ll oversee the offering.’

Then Ajax is heading upstairs, where he’ll no doubt discover Horus – the jock, presumably – dead, along with you and the others soon thereafter. You could wait where you are, and try to reason with Ajax when he arrives. Or, you could run down the stairs and try to waylay Ajax, taking him out along the way. Or, even more boldly, you and your comrades could jump off the rafters and onto the stage, attack Achitophel, and presumably take care of the other dancing alumni, as well. What will you do?

A) Wait for Ajax.

B) Waylay Ajax in the stairwell.

C) Jump down onto the stage and attack Achitophel

‘Yes, I do wanna hear the story,’ you reply.

‘Ugh, fine,’ the Woman of a Certain Age sighs. ‘Let’s see… for starters, you might wanna pull out your Howard Zinn, and get caught up on the depredations wrought upon the local tribes by the colonial regimes which settled these lands in the sixteenth century. It was a fucked up time, defined by the forced subjugation of indigenous people, and our beloved school was founded and flourished in the same era, as an arm of the religion of the conquerors.’

‘But didn’t you say this Black Magic stuff wasn’t Judeo-Christian,’ you ask.

‘That’s correct,’ the Woman of a Certain Age says, ‘yet von Straussheim could never have surreptitiously pursued his more… arcane interests were it not for the superstructure of state-authorized Protestant power from which he drew not only monetary support, but also theological inspiration – the blood ritual being, of course, a quite literal interpretation of the Mass.’

‘This is some heady exposition, already,’ you confess, rubbing your head. ‘I completely sympathize with the plight of indigenous peoples, of course, and although I’ve peddled in black magic in the past that was long ago, and I’m a high-functioning, contributing member of society today, but nonetheless I don’t know if I need or want to hear this story.’

‘I’m almost done,’ the Woman of a Certain Age continues, ‘it’s quite simple, really. Von Straussheim converted the locals to Protestantism to maintain his sunny public image in the eyes of his fellow colonialists, but on the side he started sacrificing youth to the Shadow Realm.’

‘Though that didn’t start till he discovered oil,’ Twin #2 put in. ‘An important point.’

‘Quite right,’ the Woman of a Certain Age conceded, ‘Von Straussheim of course discovered oil and recognized its potential far ahead of his time, and that’s how he made the money which still supports the school today. But what people don’t know is that he originally used the oil for a completely different purpose.’

‘What was that?’ you ask, like a kid hearing a fireside story.

‘Von Straussheim regarded the oil as plumbed straight from the Shadow Realm,’ the Woman of a Certain Age explained. ‘And he used to lather it on his offerings before killing them. If an indigenous family had more than one son, they were forced to give up their 2nd born, or else he’d have his private army slay the entire village. It was a fucked up time.’

‘Yes it was,’ Twin #1 nods.

‘He continued that practice for the rest of his life, fancying himself a Warden of the Shadow Realm, longing for death to let him return to it,’ the Woman of a Certain Age said, letting her eyes trail away – with a certain flicker in them – before concluding, ‘which of course it did, when he was old and at peace in his bed. Yet so goes the justice, when you open an alternative history book.’

And everyone gathered around for the tale nodded solemnly, and thought long about their place within such structures of power, and it was all very didactic and well-intentioned, before a cry rang out and returned everyone to the matter at hand.

Cool story, huh? But let’s get back to the action.

You know how this game works: take out the master, and the puppets go ragdoll. So you charge straight for the jock, pushing aside one alumni to do so. As you advance, the jock takes a few steps backward, yet plants their feet, getting ready.

‘Vivikesh Ne’gulafal,’ the jock hisses, and for a second you expect your legs to go limp or pain to shoot through your nerves, but nothing happens. The jock seemed to expect something to happen, as well, which is why he’s shocked when you successfully deliver your foot to the bottom of his jaw in a powerful kick (yes, you still work legs once a week), knocking him out.

Once the jock falls to the floor, so do the puppets, just as you’d expected. Cautious, yet feeling unmistakably heroic, you rush over to one – a man in his 40s, you’d wager – and tear the tape off his mouth.

‘Damn it!’ he cries, wincing as he struggles with the ropes.

As you begin to undo the ropes, you adopt an apologetic tone. ‘I’m sorry, I’d heard the cry from outside and –’

‘And you figure’d you’d save the day, huh? I get it,’ he sighs, as you free him from the ropes, ‘but you’re a fool to come here. You don’t know the black magic they have at play here.’

‘He’s right,’ the older gent you just freed (?) adds, as he helps a woman of a certain age from her ropes. ‘We’re all hostages of history now, moving towards its one end – the manifestation of God.’

Rest assured, you’re thoroughly weirded out. ‘Hold on, what? I thought this was a – umm – a theatre reunion?’ You laugh, all too hollowly. ‘Is this, like, some sort of theatre trick?’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ the older woman sneers, ‘this isn’t a trick – this is real. Really real. Like, as real as real gets.’

You’re alarmed. ‘Really? What do you mean?’

Twin #1 turns to you. ‘The Board of Trustees dug up an Indian burial mound on school grounds to start fracking underneath it, they weren’t opposed when a group of alumni calling themselves The Nine promised funding if they could set up a so-called participatory theatre experience at the next reunion, and now the alumni are secretly enacting a blood ritual to resurrect the corpse of Erich von Straussheim himself.’

‘The school founder?’ you gasp. ‘They want to resurrect him? And, wait, he wasn’t Native American, was he?’

‘No, but he was buried with the local tribesmen,’ the woman of a certain age nods, ‘after a lifetime of religious proselytizing. But he wasn’t preaching some Judeo-Christian religion, as our school’s brochures attest…’

‘But what does this have to do with fracking, and blood magic?’ you ask, academically.

‘It’s a long story. Do you wanna hear it?’

A) Yes.

B) No.

You take out one puppet with a judo chop to the spleen, but when you try a roundhouse kick – your favorite move – on the next, she grabs your leg mid-air. Hopping around on one foot, you struggle to stay standing, but now both remaining puppets are forcing you back towards the window. Yes, you are going to get thrown out that window. Yes, you will hear the cackling of the jock as you fall towards the ground. And yes, when you fall on your back from the 2nd story window, you would have survived, were it not for the bolt of lightning which just so happened to strike you at the exact same moment you hit the ground.

Try again?
Credits

Let’s silence this mime, once and for all. Whipping the ninja star out of your pocket, you flick it through the air and into his eye. The mime stumbles backward and falls, dead on impact. Looking over his shoulder, the jock then returns your gaze, and laughs.

‘Idiot! Can’t you see that I’m the bad guy, here?’

You scoff at his self-appraisal. ‘I don’t know, I thought the mime might have been, like, controlling you, somehow – as if the mime were using you as a puppet…’

‘If anyone’s the puppet, it’s the mime – for the self is merely a pantomime, after all,’ the jock replies, ‘and I can do with my puppets whatever I like.’

With a snap of his fingers, the three bound and gagged alumni raise themselves up, shrug off their bindings, and advance towards you.

‘So be it,’ you say. Yes, it seems those Tae Kwon Do sessions will come in handy, after all. The only question is, how exactly to navigate this fight? Do you try to take out the puppets first, or go straight for the master?

A) The puppets.

B) The master.

Maybe these re-animated bodies are friendly, you tell yourself. And anyway, that mime seemed like a jerk, right?

Cautious, yet feeling unmistakably heroic, you rush over to a body – a man in his 50s, you’d wager – and tear the tape off his mouth.

‘Damn it!’ he cries, wincing as he struggles with the ropes.

As you begin to undo the ropes, you adopt an apologetic tone. ‘I’m sorry, I’d heard the cry from outside and –’

‘And you figure’d you’d save the day, huh? I get it,’ he sighs, as you free him from the ropes, ‘but you’re a fool to come here. You don’t know the black magic they’re conjuring.’

‘I got a glimpse of it just now, whatever the hell that puppet-show was,’ you snap back, helping another middle-aged gentleman from his bindings, ‘and shouldn’t you be a little more grateful, being freed from that… trance you were in?’

The man scoffs as he helps a woman of a certain age from her ropes. ‘Freed? You call this freedom?’ He laughs again. ‘I’ve never been free. And neither have you. And we’ve all come here to accept that fact.’

‘He’s right,’ the older gent you just freed (?) adds, picking up his bowler hat, ‘we’re all hostages of history now, moving towards its one end – the manifestation of God.’

Rest assured, you’re thoroughly weirded out. ‘Hold on, what? I thought this was a – umm – a theatre reunion?’ You laugh, all too hollowly. ‘Is this, like, some sort of theatre trick?’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ the older woman sneers, ‘this isn’t a trick – this is real. Really real. Like, as real as real gets.’

You’re alarmed. ‘Really? What do you mean?’

Twin #1 turns to you. ‘The Board of Trustees dug up an Indian burial mound on school grounds to start fracking underneath, they weren’t opposed when a group of alumni calling themselves The Nine promised funding if they could set up a so-called participatory theatre experience at the next reunion, and now the alumni are secretly enacting a blood ritual to resurrect the corpse of Erich von Straussheim himself.’

‘The school founder?’ you gasp. ‘They want to resurrect him? And, wait, he wasn’t Native American, was he?’

Before anyone can answer, a crowd of alumni wearing head-to-toe body suits that make them appear faceless bursts through the door, accompanied by the atonal thundering of timpani drums.

‘What the fuck is this!?’ you cry, as they fill the room and start dancing in a whirling, wordless maelstrom.

‘It’s the Edema Uru’nai!’ the Woman of a Certain Age screams, ‘Flee for your lives!’

And you watch in apoplectic horror as she flings herself out the window, with a bolt of lightning following closely thereafter which hits her at the same moment that she crashes on the ground, very thoroughly dead. Looking back, you see four of the faceless alumni tearing open the stomach of Twin #2 and throwing his entrails into the middle of the room, while Twin #1 – restrained by three other faceless alumni – struggles and watches helplessly.

‘Please! Eustace! No!’ he sobs, before getting knocked out by other alumni and dismembered, in turn.

Well, this went south pretty quickly. But you may be able to survive, yet. You could, after all, attempt to join the faceless alumni by eating the entrails of Twin #2, or you could jump out the window, and hope you survive the fall (and possible lightning strike). What do you do?

A) Eat the entrails of Twin #2.

B) Jump out the window.