2 Days Left, Shattered Seas Trailer Finale, and Social Stretch Goal Incoming!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 12:44:38 PM

We're getting close, friends! There's only about 2 days left in the campaign! Welcome to all of our new backers, and thanks everyone for being here!

We'll start off this update with a new video from Rolling Solo: the final part of Adam's Deep Madness solo playthrough! It doesn't come out real well for the team, but Adam does end the video saying (albeit in a slightly condensed quote here), "The game is very, very cool. I've played a couple of these scenarios… and I can't wait to play more of them. If you're looking for a game that's going to constantly challenge you, then this is the game for you. It very much is a deceiving game, because when you first look at it you think Zombicide-ish. But it's such a better and way more well-made game in terms of strategy. If you're looking for a challenge for an experienced gamer, this is certainly something you can chew into." Thanks, Adam! We're thrilled you liked it! Here's the video:

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SHATTERED SEAS TRAILER FINALE

Now, you have all been very patient as we doled out the first chapter of Shattered Seas little by little, but today we're finally going to reach the end. That's right: this is likely the last look at Shattered Seas on this side of the campaign! If you missed part one, then go to http://bit.ly/ShatteredSeas1. If you missed part two, go to http://bit.ly/ShatteredSeas2. And, if you missed part three, you can find it at http://bit.ly/ShatteredSeas3. (If you haven't read/watched these, then the rest of this isn't going to make any sense.) This one is a little bit longer so that we could get the whole rest of the chapter into this update, so fair warning.

All right, let's finish this!

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“Who are you, priest?”

Something sharp was jabbing into the man’s side. He slowly raised his hands.

“There’s… something out there,” he said. “Something monstrous. We need to lock these doors right now, or we’re all going to die. Please, you must believe me.”

“You did not answer my question,” the woman said, her voice steel. “So, I will ask you one more time, priest. Who are you?”

The man blinked his eyes. Once. Twice. The question set his mind reeling like a tipsy merry-go-round. Who was he? “My name is Connor Durham,” he said slowly, the words bobbing to the surface of his consciousness syllable by syllable. “I’m a preacher from Ireland. Do – do you happen to know where we are?”

“You awoke in the ocean?” the woman said.

“Yes,” Connor said. “Yes! I bloody well woke up in the ocean!” He found that words were flowing easier now. More like they belonged to him and he knew how they functioned. “Now can we please get this door sealed before we both die!”

The blade retracted from Connor's back. “The door is immaterial. Follow me. Quickly.”

Turning around, Connor saw a lean Asian woman darting away from him, hugging the lobby’s wall. With one more tense, uncertain glance back at the doors, Connor followed her.

The woman wound through the shadows and then darted behind a counter. There was a door there, which she now opened after a final quick scan of the lobby. Connor followed her through the doorway, mimicking her look uneasily before closing the entry behind him.

They were in a corridor now with cherry wood walls and warm ambient lighting. Connor noticed a soft jazzy music playing through what he assumed were carefully concealed speakers. He frowned. Something about this hallway seemed off.

“Shouldn't this be a staff room?” he said. “It feels like this is a guest hall.”

The woman stole a look back at him. “The ways change from time to time. This one is here now.” Then she stopped in front of a door with a room number on it. Looking back and forth, she opened it and stepped through. Connor followed her – and found himself in another hallway.

“What in the bloody hell?” he said.

“This way, priest,” she said. “Before it changes again.”

They moved deeper into the labyrinthine hotel, until at last the girl stopped again. Opening another door, they stepped through it into the room beyond. It was a dimly lit space, probably larger than a suite. There were candles arrayed on various surfaces. And a man sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“You’re just in time, Mitsuko,” the man said, looking up at them. “The ways were about to change again. And who is our guest?”

“His name is Connor,” the woman, Mitsuko, said. “He was about to get himself killed.”

“Ah,” the man said, rising. His head was shaved, and it almost seemed he had the robes of a monk on underneath black tactical gear. He bowed to Connor, then extended his hand. “Welcome, Connor. I am Min Wang.”

Connor stared at the hand, momentarily confused. Then he reached out and clasped it. “Connor Durham,” Connor replied, shaking Min’s hand. He turned to Mitsuko. “Thank you for not letting me get myself killed,” he said to her.

The woman nodded. “You’re welcome,” she said.

“This is Mitsuko Takenaka,” Min said. “She’s not always the most talkative soul. Or the most trusting, at least to start.”

Connor tried a smile. He seemed to remember that was something people did. But then he recalled the monsters, and his smile faded. “There are creatures outside,” he said. “We’re not safe here. We need to do something.”

“You are quite right we’re not safe here,” Min said. “Quite right. But the beasts you saw are not our only threat.”

“Where on earth are we?” Connor asked. “What the hell is going on?”

“I fear you have them reversed,” Min said. “We have somehow been brought to this place and trapped here, Connor. I have not ascertained where ‘here’ is yet, but the normal laws of nature do not seem to apply, regardless. All that we know has been turned on its head.”

A cold, unwelcome tingle shivered down Connor’s back. He saw the abominations rising from the surf. He remembered how his body had felt elastic: he realized that could have just as easily been him. “That’s madness,” Connor murmured.

“Precisely so,” Min said. “Welcome, Mr. Durham, to the very depths of madness.

--

That's it! I hope you've enjoyed the look into Shattered Seas. Now on to other stuff! Like, maybe, another social stretch goal?

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INCOMING SOCIAL STRETCH GOAL

We have one more social stretch goal incoming for you all! As you all probably know, the 48-hour mark is swiftly approaching, and we want this campaign to end with a bang! So, when the 48-hour bell officially hits, we're going to go off to the races. We'll post a post on Facebook, and if we can get 300 shares for it by the time the campaign ends then we will create monster card for the Weird Statue (likely with some input from you guys, like we're doing with Jon) and put it in every Deeper Terrors, Investigator and All-In pledge.

So what do you think, guys? Can we do it? (I think we can!)

I will post a tiny update when the post goes live with a link for you all. Then we're going to go out there and share it to every group, community, etc. that we can! I say let's finish this thing with a blowout!

Also, just as a reminder, on Tuesday we will have another live stream starting at 2pm PST as we count down the last few minutes of the campaign! We'll hang out, chat, I'll answer questions and show you some miniatures, and then we'll all celebrate as this campaign comes to a glorious, rousing close! It will be - well, you get the picture. ;)

Thanks again for being a part of this, everyone! I think the best days of this campaign are yet to come!

Ward's Visage, Novel in French, More Monstrum, and Collectors’ Art
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 11:12:41 AM

We're getting close, everyone! There's just over three days left before the end of this campaign! Thank you to all of our stalwart friends who have stuck with us from the start (or near to it), and welcome to all of our new friends!

Having said that, this campaign's not over - not by a long shot! And to prove it, we've got a bit of a whirlwind update for you today. First, for our French-speaking friends, we have some great news:

SHATTERED SEAS IN FRENCH

We've been looking for ways that we might be able to translate the novel into French in addition to German and Spanish, and we've also been looking to see if there was enough interest in it to make it happen. Well, we are very happy to now say we will be able to translate Shattered Seas into French! As with the German and Spanish versions, there will be an additional $5 charge for the translated version. But hopefully this will make our French-speaking friends' day a little bit brighter!

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WARD'S VISAGE

We're almost about to unlock Hannah's Visage, but I know a lot of you are ready to see a different beast - the Visage we initially unlocked in our voting contest. And so, without further ado, here's Ward Phillips.

We’ll save Ward’s story for another day, because this update is already kind of massive. But it will be coming. =) Having said that, we now have a special announcement for the collectors in our midst:

CHANG YUAN'S ART BOOK AND MONSTER CARDS

From the very introduction of the original campaign, one of the major draws to Deep Madness has always been its surreal, otherworldly art - especially the art of Chang Yuan. Chang's feverish, unsettling art served to set Deep Madness apart from many other games in the market, and left a permanent mark on Deep Madness. While much of Chang's art was featured previously in The Art of Deep Madness, today we would like to unveil a new art book dedicated solely to his work: The Art of Chang Yuan: Deep Madness + Chang's Universe. This book takes every piece that Chang created for DM to the next level, showing his creative process from concept to finished piece, including alternate versions of many works and a description as to his thoughts on the images and his process in creating them. The book doesn't end there, though: it then delves into Chang's Universe, a set of abstract pieces that explore everything from the universe’s genesis to life and death.

Here's Chang’s bio:

Chang Yuan is a concept artist and illustrator. Born in China, he currently lives in Beijing. He started his career working on video games and movies, becoming a well-known artist in these fields. He has created art and illustrations for projects like Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, ThreeKingdoms, and STARCORE. His work Sagus Cliffs at Dawn won the Silver Ennie award in 2017 for Best Art Cover.

Beginning in 2013, Chang Yuan shifted his focus to pure experimental art, passing on many commercial projects. Then, at the end of 2015, he joined the Deep Madness project as a concept artist. Chang Yuan created 32 pieces of concept art for DM in 2016 and 2017. Since then, DM's illustrations have attracted several hundred thousand views to Chang Yuan's website: https://changyuan.zcool.com.cn/.

After DM, Chang Yuan went back to his artistic exploration: graph novels. Following his favorite artist Zdzisław Beksiński, Chang Yuan now points his brush to the ancient questions about the origin of the universe, life, and death. Chang Yuan's art is not relaxing, but we are all drawn to the dark, psychedelic style of his work. This art book includes all his work for DM and the first volume of Chang's Universe. Don't miss it.

The art book is available right now as an add-on for $29. It is 150 pages long and a premium-quality collector's item. However, we have one more surprise with this book. Originally every monster card in Deep Madness was going to feature one of Chang's unsettling surrealist paintings. However, in playtesting it was found to be too difficult to differentiate one monster from another at a quick glance, and so these were, regrettably, replaced with other art. (Though we love the new art as well. Don't get us wrong.) The original monster cards have never been available to backers - until now.

We are pleased to announce that Chang's 31 monster illustrations will now be available as a special collector's set of monster cards, using the original icons from the first campaign as well. These striking, oversized cards are gorgeous to look at and larger than the original monster cards (80x120mm). While these are not optimized for play (that's what the ones in the base game are for), these will add an additional element of dark beauty to your collection. These 31 cards are currently available for $10 by themselves. However, a pack of them will also be included at no cost with every copy of The Art of Chang Yuan: Deep Madness + Chang's Universe.

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If you'd like to add Chang's art book or the Chang Yuan monster cards to your pledge, then go to "Manage your pledge", followed by "Change your pledge." Next, add the amount of the add-on(s) that you'd like to your pledge and save your changes. We'll figure out what you ordered in the pledge manager later on.

But now, we have one other thing to show you today: pictures of Monstrum!

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MONSTRUM INSERTS RENDER

The following are a few renders of the inside of the Monstrum box. While these are not actual pictures of a prototype (we'll show those to you as soon as we can), hopefully these will give you a good idea of what the inside of the Monstrum box will look like.

Monstrum is our premium miniature storage box, and half of our Monstrum Profundum storage solution. Profundum will hopefully be unlocking very shortly as a stretch goal for the Deeper Terrors, Investigator and All-In pledge levels when we reach $666,666 and 6,666 backers, but Monstrum is available right now as an add-on for $45.

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Whew! That's it for this update! Also, my apologies that the next part of the Choose Your Own Terror story didn't come out yesterday. Life got in the way and prevented me from finishing it in time. However, it will definitely be out later today, so keep an eye out for it! Until next time, friends, have a great day!

Hannah and Translation Packs
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 11:08:10 AM

Well, you've gone and done it now! Jon is unlocked! That means that Evil Jon (or whatever its name ends up being) has officially become a "thing." Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas for the crafty feline. We'll be taking a look at them and fusing them into an ultimate evil cat monster. (Also, mad props to KS Huntress, who posted an incredible picture of a sphere-powered catnip-crazed Jon on Facebook. The story and ability ideas are great, too, but that picture was absolute gold. If you have joined the group, you can check it out at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=108985670115147&set=gm.2042419332448087&type=1&theater.)

Also, we should be getting the picture of Ward Phillips' Visage shortly, so hopefully we'll be able to give you a glimpse of him very soon. But, in the meantime, we promised you another stretch goal, didn't we? Well, you asked for it, so here you go! - right after this brief look at translation packs!

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TRANSLATION PACKS

Our translation packs are available in French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and they include replacements for every rulebook and necessary card. The translations have been praised for being very high quality, as are the cards and rulebooks themselves.  

They are divided into three different packs: one for the investigator pledge, one for Rise of Dagon, and one for The Oracle's Betrayal. The investigator pledge pack is $10, and the two expansions are $5 each.

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If you would like to add these to your pledge, then click the blue "Manage your pledge" button, followed by the "Change your pledge" button. Add the amount for the translation packs you would like, and then save your changes. We'll figure out what your additional money was for in the pledge manager after the campaign ends.

We have also committed to translating the novel Deep Madness: Shattered Seas into German and Spanish. There will be an extra $5 charge on top of the price of the novel for the translation. (So $30 if you're not getting the novel in a pledge level.) We are still evaluating if we can translate the novel into French.

For The Faces of the Sphere and the Epic Monsters, however, there are no translation packs. That's because these expansions already contain every card you would need in all five languages right in the box! ;)

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HANNAH'S VISAGE

When we hit $630,000, we will unlock Hannah's Visage! All your cries for “Justice for Hannah” have been answered. … Right?

You might notice a few things about this image. The first is… This probably isn't what you were expecting at all. =D The thing is, in case you haven't noticed, we kind of delight in subverting expectations, and there are some very good reasons why Hannah's Visage looks like Slender Man's about to do some very evil things to that poor little Hannah doll.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR ORACLE'S BETRAYAL AND CHAPTER FOUR FOLLOW!

(Though if you have an art book then you probably already know.)

… Still here? Okay. Then here comes the shocker:

Hannah's not actually in Kadath. In fact, at the time of The Oracle’s Betrayal, she's been dead for quite a long time. Her father, Dr. William West, has twisted and distorted his mind so much that multiple personalities have started to manifest as he continues his horrific experiments in the depths of Kadath, and one of those personalities is formed from his memories of his dead daughter. (And, in Kadath, when you develop multiple personalities they tend to take on a life of their own. Sometimes even a body.) She is desperate for her father's love, but he responds only by banishing her to a nightmare realm that he has created full of abominable aberrations that feeds his own megalomania and growing power. Her only comfort comes from John Murdock, who steps in as her surrogate father and shields her in the nightmare world. But still she craves the affection of her true father - even if he is an inhuman monster.

--

Hannah is alone. She stumbles through the nightmare world that she has been condemned to, watching as half-formed people push up out of the ground of liquid meat before being sucked back into the depths. Clutching her teddy bear to her chest, she finds a nook carved into a hillside and tries to disappear, her knees pushed into her chest.

--

Dr. William West disconnects himself from the machine, feeling invigorated. This will work. He knows it will. Finally he will be able to best the sphere. Finally he'll be able to take mastery over it, and to become as a god on the earth. His power grows with every new soul he places into the mind-web.

"We're almost there," Dr. Clarence Branom whispers in his ear. "We just need a few more souls, and I think you'll be ready."

"I couldn't agree more, old friend," William says. "I'm glad to see you. Though I rather thought I had banished you with the others."

Branom smiles. "You need me, William," he says. "You know that. And so I returned to you."

"And how is Hannah?" William asks. "Have you seen her?"

Branom laughs. "You condemned her to hell!" he says. "Or at least the closest thing she'll ever see to it. How do you think she's doing?"

--

It's found her. Perhaps it could smell her, though Hannah notices it doesn't have a nose. Or perhaps it was her desire - her need - that drew it.

Hannah begins to cry as the abomination steps up to her, leaning down so that it can peer with its eyeless face into her hiding place. It is wearing a tattered lab coat, a stethoscope around its neck. Its fingers are long and sharp, just like its body.

"D-daddy?" Hannah whimpers. "Is that you?"

The monster doesn't reply. But of course it can't - it has no mouth. Its fingers, so like needles, reach in to Hannah, wrapping around her body like a test tube. Hannah doesn't even fight it.

Pulling the little girl out, the horror begins to remake her in its image.

--

William closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, exhaling it slowly, purposefully, as he thinks. Then he hears movement in the room with him. Opening his eyes again, he looks around.

"Clarence?" he says.

But Branom has left him. Instead, what he sees is something that makes him gasp. A tall, horrific man dressed in a tattered facsimile of William's own lab coat is ambling into the room. Its face is a pulp of raw flesh, its fingers eerily sharp. And in its hand it clutches an old, abused China doll. The doll's face is a spiderweb of cracks, its eyes sunken back into its head. With a chill, William realizes the broken doll is dressed in Hannah's clothes. In fact, its shattered face is eerily similar to Hannah's as well.

In an unwelcome flash, William's mind darts back to that night. The night of the accident.

With great effort, William climbs to his feet and shambles toward the apparition. Part of him is horrified, but part of him is also fascinated. Is this creature real? Is the doll? And, if the doll is real, could it possibly be more than it seems?

His shaking fingers reach out and touch the doll. "Wah, wah," it says. And then William realizes that the doll is actually crying. The tears are warm, and taste like salt.

"Fascinating," William mutters.

--

Well! That was cheerful, wasn't it? Just remember: you guys asked for this!

That's it for this update. I'll try to have the next chapter in our little Choose Your Own Terror story later today as well, so stay tuned! Until next time, have a great day!

Profundum Showcase, Shattered Seas Pt 3, and #justiceforhannah?
over 5 years ago – Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 05:20:18 AM

Hey friends! Welcome to another day of Deep Madness! We've got more fun stuff coming up for you below. Let's get to it!

First of all, I had a little squeal of delight today upon seeing an unboxing of Deep Madness come across my feed from The Dice Tower! Zee Garcia seemed to like what he's seen so far, and he was properly grossed out by the monsters. =D

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There's also another video from Beasts of War that came out recently. This one's actually just a short clip from their last Weekender that we were featured in, but, hey, it's a video about us, so here it is. =)

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We're also still number one in the initial round of selections for Board Game Geek's Most Anticipated Game of 2019! Thanks so much for helping us with your votes, friends! If you haven't had a chance to vote yet, go to https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/248375/item/6539254#item6539254 and give Deep Madness a thumbs up!

Also, we're only around $3,000 away from unlocking Evil Jon! If you would still like to submit your ideas for what this card should contain, be sure to go to the update at http://bit.ly/Joncard and put them in the comments! Entries will be cut off when we hit the stretch goal.

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PROFUNDUM PICS

Today we'd also like to show you some more images from Profundum! We keep creeping closer to unlocking this box, and, while we're not there yet, we just got some pictures of the box which we couldn't keep to ourselves. There are pictures of the trays by themselves, of the trays loaded with components, and, finally, the picture of the box itself. Enjoy!

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SHATTERED SEAS SNIPPET

Next we thought we'd give you the third sample from the novel Shattered Seas. If you haven't read/listened to the first two parts, then you can find Part One at http://bit.ly/ShatteredSeas1 and Part Two at http://bit.ly/ShatteredSeas2. This won't make much sense if you haven't read those.

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The man howled. Scrambling to his feet, he forced his limbs to obey him as he ran up the beach for the forest in the distance. His mind was frozen by numbing shock, his heart hammering in abject terror. Behind him he still heard the shuffling, scuffling, slithering procession of the damned as they made way for the monstrous horror that followed.

Scruffy brush first greeted the man, followed by tough, squat vegetation that clung stubbornly to the ground. Next came long, waving grasses that whipped against his skin as he raced through them, followed by the first thin stragglers of trees that slowly clustered tighter together to form a sparse forest. The man didn’t pay heed to any of them. He just ran as if all of hell was seething at his heels.

The forest broke and the man saw a towering black skyscraper piercing the heavens in the distance. Clouds seemed to be swirling around its apex, but of course that was impossible. Behind him, the man heard the forest actually break.

The man’s limbs were obeying him better now than they had been, but the burning stitch in his side and the pulsing fire in his lungs told him he wouldn’t be able to keep that pace up for much longer. But then he heard a bellowing screech which shook the ground below him, and he stopped listening to the discomfort in his body.

The road leading up to the skyscraper was made of red cobblestones rather than pavement. Part of the man recognized that as odd (as was the radial roads that all fanned out from the skyscraper like spokes on a wheel), but the rest of him was focused solely on survival.

At last he reached the glass front doors of the building and jerked one open. Tumbling inside, he landed on the hard marble tiles within before turning to look for some way to lock or bar the door. Unfortunately, there was nothing at hand but a second set of glass doors. Pulling one open, he entered a pristine, elegantly decorated lobby.

“Hello?” he called, his voice cracking. “Is anyone here?”

There was no reply.

Hurriedly he turned to better scrutinize the doors. There had to be a way to lock them down. No one would design a skyscraper like this without a way to secure it –

“Who are you, priest?”

Something sharp was jabbing into the man’s side. He slowly raised his hands.

--

That's it for this little snippet. There's two more after this to finish off Chapter One, but if you feel like these are bogging down the updates then I'll put the last two into one final update which you can read or avoid at your discretion. Or, if you're happy with the frequency/length of these teasers, then I'll do two more. Let me know down in the comments.

(Also, I'm so glad you all have been enjoying the Choose Your Own Terror story! The comments sections on those have absolutely been on fire!)

But now, some of you have been wondering what the next stretch goal after Jon would be, and if there even would be one in-between Jon and Profundum. Well, it's looking like there will be one. And it's one that a lot of people have been asking for -

Wait, what? No, but that's not what we asked for at all! It's - Oh no… What have we done?!

Choose Your Own Terror 2
over 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 07:29:35 PM

And we're back for another round of Choose Your Own Terror! Man, that first one turned out to be a huge success. Way more than I anticipated, actually. We had 215 comments as of this writing, which is kind of crazy!

But what did we decide to do? Are we going to run for it like yellow-bellied (but much more intelligent) cowards, or are we going to stay and fight like a complete (but heroic) moron? Let's find out!

I will say, this was super close. But, having said that, my very unscientific counting method discovered the following:

• Approximately 102 of you said A - We should save her and fight, even if it turns us into a puddle of goo.
• Approximately 90 said B - We should turn and run like our butts are on fire.

Huh. I honestly didn't see that one coming. Okay. So let's stay and fight, I guess. 

Oh, a couple caveats: there is absolutely nothing campaign-related in this post. So if you're expecting something, you can stop reading now. And, also, if you haven't read part one yet, check it out at  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diemensiongames/deep-madness-second-printing/posts/2342489.

Now, onto the story!

PART TWO: OPTION A

You can’t just leave the woman to die. There’s no other choice. Pushing aside your own fears and every impulse in your body that’s telling you to run, you charge at the monstrosity. 

“What are you doing, you idiot!” Thomas yells, panic cracking his voice. 

You don’t listen. You can’t. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you just let her die. 

All you have is the utility knife you always carry with you. Pulling it out of your back pocket, you flick it open, its blade glowing a reassuring blue. The beast looks up at you – or at least you think it does. Somewhere there must be a mouth, because it makes a horrible, wet screeching noise. Letting out a scream, you stab at the thing over and over again. You feel its claws and tentacles tearing at you and whipping against your skin, trying to rip you to shreds. You feel blood welling from cuts as it rips your jumpsuit to shreds. The thing tumbles off the woman and rolls onto the ground. With a feral shout you keep stabbing at it, hoping to take it out with a hundred small incisions. Pain flares in your left arm. 

Suddenly Thomas is there, an axe in his hand. Where did he get an axe from? 

“Get out of the way!” Thomas bellows. You try to jump backward, straining against the pull of the tendrils as he swings the axe. He swings it again. And again. The flailing horror screams and then gurgles. Chunks of it fly off in the corridor as oily blood sprays. 

The thing stops moving, a twitching mess on the floor. And then it starts to melt, becoming nothing more than a viscous puddle. 

You stare in shock at the puddle bubbling and oozing across the ground before you. What –? How? 

“What the hell,” Thomas mumbles. “What the freaking hell.” 

The woman groans beside you. Slowly you turn toward her, your body numb from shock. Oh, yeah. The whole reason you decided to go all stupid hero and attack that thing.

“Are you all right?” you ask, forcing your body to move toward the woman. 

“I… I can’t move my legs,” she says. She swallows, tears welling in her eyes. 

“It’s going to be okay,” you say. “We’re going to get you help.” 

And that’s when you hear the shrieks from down the corridor. 

Those who have gathered around you turn, straining to spot where these new cries are coming from and what is causing them. Then they unanimously run in a panic, leaving you and Thomas alone with the woman. 

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Thomas says. “Come on!” 

“Please!” the woman cries. “Please don’t leave me!” 

“Her back’s probably broken,” Thomas says. “If we move her, we might make the damage worse. It could even kill her.” 

“Yeah, but she’ll definitely die if we leave her here!” you reply. 

Thomas grasps your shoulder. “She’ll just slow us down,” he whispers. “We’ve got to go.” 

“No,” she says. “No, please don’t leave me…” 

“We could stay and fight them,” you say. “Whatever’s coming. We killed one, maybe we can kill another one.” 

“Are you insane?” Thomas says. “For starters, how do you know there’s only one of them?” 

You feel conflicting emotions rising inside you once again. You could try moving the woman, but doing so could very well kill her and will certainly slow you down. You could run and leave her, but then you’ll be dooming her to certain death after having just risked your own life to save hers. Or you could choose the third option: you could stay and fight whatever’s coming down that corridor toward you, hoping to hold out for help. Last time you moved on instinct. This time you don’t have that luxury. 

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? 

Will you: 

A: Chance moving the woman and run with her? 

B: Leave her there and run without her? 

C: Stay and hold your ground, come what may? 

It's time to choose, folks! Will we leave her to her fate? Will we risk moving her? Or will we stay and fight? Let me know in the comments!