> Message a friend?

That's a good idea, actually.
You are supposed to be playing this game pretty soon, so you'd better make sure your friends are all on the same page. Or that any of them are ready in the first place.

You drop your bag onto the floor and walk over to your desk, sit in the somewhat-uncomfortable office chair. Using your foot, you turn the computer on.
It's old. You can almost hear it coughing and sputtering amongst the fans whirring. Poor thing. As soon as you manage to get a job, you are going to upgrade her.

You type in your password - tinaWATKINS2909 - and reveal your desktop.



It's filled with various programs, such as Pesterchum, and the Psyche browser. A few games, .~ATH and .^cake files are scattered across the screen, too. Behind it all is a photo you took of the nearby floodplains last week.

You'd love nothing more than to mess about with all these random files til ad nauseam, but your friend just sent you a pester. Maybe later?

You open pesterchum and set your status to chipper, before checking which of your many (four) friends have pestered you. Unsurprisingly, or even expectantly, it's groovyTomcat [GT]. He's always one to talk your ear off.
You click to open his message.

You stand from your desk and stretch. You better go get that chicken out to defrost before your sister is home. She'll be pissed if you don't.
Well, no. She won't be pissed, actually. She'll be disappointed, which is worse.

You exit your room again, navigating your way back down the cluttered hallway and down the stairs. Facing you from the base of the stairs is the open doorway into the kitchen. A shadow looms over the room.

A distinct feeling of *something* tickles at the back of your neck, though you can't place what it is. A warning? A sign? It doesn't say.

You try to take a step forward, but something in you prevents it from happening. Curious. This hasn't happened to you before.

Hairs stand on the back of your neck.

You sit on the floor and pull out your deck of tarot cards. Your spare one, of course. The main deck is in your room.
You set your intention - your question; What is going on?

You pull a card, and flip it.
Two of Swords, reversed.
A card that, in this situation, is as good as being told "I dunno". It represents things like confusion and having two shitty choices. Which is really unhelpful.

You sigh, and put your deck back. Your brows furrowed, you stand.
Slowly, carefully, and surely, you sneak the short distance to the kitchen. You peer into the unviewed half of the kitchen via the open doorway to see...
...Nothing.

Less than nothing. Despite being no more empty than usual, the room feels unnervingly still. Like a calm before the storm.

You walk into the kitchen, keeping your footsteps light. The shadows seem to dance in the corners of your eyes, mockingly. They disappear upon observation.
Rude.

You successfully make it past the kitchen mountain. It was once an island, but it's covered in so much paperwork it's more mountainous in nature.
Actually, it would still be an island, wouldn't it? Lots of mountains are also islands.

Nevermind that, you need to focus! This is a serious matter!
Defrosting the chicken, that is.

You make it to the ancient chest freezer, hidden in the corner of the dim room. Opening it unveils scents indescribable. Various meats and microwave meals appear to be frozen to the sides in thick chunks of grey ice. Right in the centre, a plastic-wrapped whole chicken sits.

You grab it, rough ice chunks numbing your hands, and place it on the cluttered table.

Consider that chore completed. Time for a quick breather.