The Insomniac

A Story by Eliah

Storyline to a video game

The Insomniac

Words right after menu: The human brain is an interesting thing. There is only a small bandwidth of light that the human nervous system keeps and a large bandwidth of darkness that it filters out and doesn’t use for seeing. This phenomenon differs at night. Since there is no light, the brain borrows from the bandwidth of darkness to see. Prolonged exposure to this, for example staying up for prolonged periods of time, result in the brain drawing larger and larger portions from the darkness. Until one night the darkness lures you in, and strikes.

Intro: You are Edward Fischbach. You are also an insomniac, you just can’t fall asleep. You have been suffering this condition for about 10 years. At about 11:30, you hear a noise that sounds like running from somewhere in the house. Since you are awake, you decide to investigate.

(This part is how the player should go through the game without any bugs or not knowing what to do, a.k.a the perfect player). You get out of bed. You go through the door. As you stand in the doorframe you see the vaguely outlined head and top half of a torso of a monster-like, shadowy figure walk down the stairs. You check all of your family’s bedrooms. Your sons, Bob and Wade and your wife, Molly are missing. As you run downstairs, you grab a shotgun and find shells. You notice the back door is open. You run out into the forest.

--------------------------------------------------------End of intro-------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------Part 1: City Outskirts----------------------------------------------------

Short video intro to part 1: While you are running through a forest, you slip, fall and hit your head on a rock. Everything gets blurry. You see a figure stagger, limping towards you. He is about 10 feet from you when you hear sudden abnormal shriek and see the figure contorting. Your head falls down. As you struggle to pick your head, you hear breathing behind you. You whip around you and see a shadowy outline with its mouth wide open, too wide to be human. You hear a very high pitched scream and all goes to darkness.

Beginning of playthrough part of part 1: You wake up in your house. “Phew, what a strange dream,” you say. You walk through the door. You walk out into a city. But it isn’t like any city you have seen. It is quiet, no, silent. Only the crickets are chirping. “I must be dreaming, this is the first time I slept in weeks. How is this even possible? Waking up in my room and walking out into a city! I better find my family soon.” You suddenly turn right at the sound of a pebble hitting the ground. You see the thing from the forest sneaking around. You see its head come around the corner, then go the other way. “I have to go find my family.” You say. You head out of the house. If you turn the other way from the creature, You say “Wait, I better see what’s over there.” You head in the direction the monster went. You round the corner and see your shotgun, fully loaded. “Hmm,” you say, “What’s this doing here?” You hear a loud, low, earth-shaking roar.

You look behind you and see a giant monster. You start running through the narrow city streets. Eventually you enter a short and narrow building. While the coast is clear, you make a run for it. About 15 steps in, the monster lands right in the middle. When you kill, it falls and the shockwave from the fall cracks a section the other side. As you walk towards it you see a shadow of a creature walk across it from one end to another (you will see just the outline, a vague feeling of form, but no more. Just the outline walking across the makeshift doorframe). You walk through the doorway.

--------------------------------------------------------End of part 1------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------Part two: The Dark Tower------------------------------------------------

Short video intro: Voice 1: The study on Insomniacs is going well. The Creatures don’t have enough control to move anything, but they are able to see them more clearly. Voice 2: And you’re sure this is safe? Voice 1: Of course. They aren’t able to interact with us. The bandwidth they are on is very different then what our senses can perceive. We will utilize them, keep control of them at all costs. Voice 2: You’re sure the government won’t storm this place? Voice 1: *in a sarcastic voice* Of course not, don’t you remember that all we research here is plants. Voice 2: Hehe. Right, plants.

Playthru part: You enter through the door. You see a sign that says “Linden Botanical Research Tower, the city’s tallest tower.” You see a note. You pick it up. It says “Due to recent electrical failures, the top 3 levels will be closed to all tourists. We will use this time to research how different plants survive under harsh conditions, so don’t be surprised to see a scientist walk up there. This will be locked under key, so don’t try to get in. Unfortunately, the walk of flowers, the bridge that spans from the top of the tower to another point in Linden city, and filled with rare botanical species, will be closed permanently. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will post monthly updates on the plant’s health next to the front desk.” “That’s good,” You say, “I can find a key and go up to the top levels. From there I can take the walk of flowers down to another part of the city.” You go next to the front desk. You see a note. It says “The plants are faring well. They were starting to die, but just seemed to revive themselves.” You then find a note behind the desk. It says “Old Man Fischbach is really gonna get it this time, he abused his power of being one of the chosen ones to wreak havok on the walk of flowers.Thankfully, nobody was hurt. Sometimes I wonder is Fischbach's son Edward also a chosen one?” “What?” You say “How do they know about me, I only have a degree in engineering, not botany. And more importantly, how are they talking about my dad. He passed away in 2008, and this note was written in 2014. It must be fake.” As soon as you get on the staircase, the door behind you brakes and out comes a monster. You shoot it until it dies. You sigh out of relief. After 3 more flights, a good amount of rock crashes from the stairs. After 2 more flights, you see a door labeled “Security Department”. “Now,” You say, “If there’s any place to find a key, it’s here.” You enter. It is very dark inside. On the cabinet next to the door you see a flashlight. “There,” You say, “That’s better. Much better.” You turn on the flashlight. You see about 12 monsters. They say in sync, "Hello, you have been expected. Then all the monsters turn towards you. They all charge at you at extremely fast speeds. They disappear when they get about 2 in. from your face. You fall down and sigh as you get back up. You go over to the table and find some empty handgun bullets. “Aw. Their empty. Where’s the blacksmith!” You find a door labeled key room, but it’s blocked up by rubble. “Hmm,” You say, “All I have to do is fill these bullets with some Astrolite and shoot it, and this wall of rubble will go to pieces. I need to find sodium beclenate and hydrophated nitrate-enriched bone meal. So the Chem classes paid off. (The character automatically model moves to a map on the side of the wall and picks it up.) So let’s see, both of those are fertilizers, so they’re in (a pause) here! In Plant Nutrition and Growth. I’m on level 10, and Nutrition & Growth is on (sigh) the 32nd level.

As you exit and go up a flight of stairs, a faint creaking begins to materialize. After 5 more flights it becomes more prominent. 2 more flights and you know it’s right above you. As you walk up the next flight you see a monster trying to rip open a door. You sneak past it. After 6 more flights, there is a huge window that overlooks Linden city. You here a war cry as a monster suddenly bursts through the window. You kill it. After 6 more flights, just when you reach the Plant Nutrition and Growth department, you hear two shrieks behind you. You see one monster running down the stairs, and one running up the stairs. You run through the door. As you walk in you see a monster bent over and eating from a can that says sodium beclenate, growing larger as it continues to do so. “Hey,” You shout, “I need that.” Upon doing that, the monster turns around. You kill it. You put the lid on the sodium beclenate and put it in your backpack. Then you round the corner. You see beds and beds of flowers arranged in rows. You see glowing signs around the room that have names of fertilizers on them. The one directly in front of you says hydrophated potassium. You walk up to it and there are bags that say hydrophated potassium-enriched bone meal. You pick one up and head out. You leave and go to the security department door. As you walk up to it, you hear a shrill hiss and a monster drops down from the ceiling in front of you. You kill it. You walk back in to the Security Department. You see a file labeled classified info. You open it up. It says “Shadowines (see end of document for reference) are being studied for one purpose or another. Rumor has it's part of a greater plot. Nobody knows, just a low-level rumor. [The ending shows a picture of a Shadowine]” “So that’s your name,” You say, “Shadowine. What was this building really used for?” You go to the inventory and combine the bone meal and the sodium beclenate and create Astrolite. Then you combine the bullets with the Astrolite and create explosive bullets. You place the bullets by the rubble and shoot it. It sends rubble flying everywhere.

You go through the now-opened doorway. You find a master key to all doors on the top 3 levels. You go out. You start up the staircase. You go up 15 flights. As you’re walking by the window, (The same window that the monster crashed through previously. It still has a hole in it.) a giant goliath of a monster comes crashing through the window and climbs up 1 flight. If you manage to kill the monster before you get to the top, then there are no problems the rest of the way. The monster tries either to eat you or throw you off the staircase. It doesn’t just stand in front of you either. It jumps, climbs, blocks you, or lets you run past it. It isn’t very agile, but not slow either. You walk to the top. You go through. You enter the first of the top 3 levels. As you enter there is a gate that says “Authorized personal only.” You enter the next room after the gate, unlike the rest of the building, this part of the building is very decrepit. You push a button on the wall. The doors start closing. Just as it is about to close a Shadowine runs through. As soon as it gets about 3 inches from your face, the gas turns on. As soon as that happen, the monster stops dead in its place, falls on the ground, and starts convulsing. As that happens, you say “this must be some sort of gas, one that doesn’t affect humans, but about 10 time as strong for them.” The doors unlock you see a box filled with gas grenades. You walk to a door with a keypad. “Hmm,” you say, “I need to go this way. Better find a key.” You explore the other rooms. You go into one room. You see a monster and kill it. This part of the building is shaped like an octagon. There are doorways to different rooms, all leading in a circle. You enter the next room. There are two monsters. You kill them. You go to the next room. When you walk halfway through the room, a monster bursts through the other door. You kill it. In the next room you find a piece of paper with 4 numbers on it. This number will be randomly generated. “This must be the combination.” You say. You go through the next few rooms. They will each have a few monsters. When you get back to the front of the room, you put in the code. The door opens to a staircase. You go up one. About halfway up the stairs you find a file labeled classified info. You open it. It says “The team has doubts about Dr. Evan C. Linden (the founder of Linden City, Linden Botanical Research Tower, and the Shadowines, though the latter is not known by the public.). We don’t think he plans to take over the world with us all together. I know this sounds crazy, but I think he is working for someone. I can just imagine the Dr. taking orders. Also, after we told him that Shadowines could live for over 1,000 years, he had a dark look on his face. We don’t yet know what his plan is, but we know he has one.” You go up the stairs. When you walk out into the 2nd level, the door closes behind you. If you enter the pin code again, it won’t work. “Well,” You say, “Better go and find another code.” You do what you did on the previous level, go around, find some bullets and maybe 1 “botanical healing compound”, kill monsters, find the pin code, and go up the next flight of stairs.

As you enter the next level, the very first room you see is labeled Dr. Evan C. Linden. You enter it. There are crude drawings of Shadowines on every wall of the room. In the middle of the room, there is a Shadowine feasting on a corpse. You kill it. Upon closer inspection, there is a nametag on the person that says Sky D. Minecraft. “Poor Sky,” you say. “He was assigned to be a guard, and these b******s killed him. But what went on with Dr. Linden? He must have been mad.” You leave the room. You walk around again, but there are no monsters. There are about 3 “botanical healing compounds”, 3 hand gun clips, and 10 shells. You enter the pin code. You walk up the stairs and go through the door.

---------------------------------------------------End of part 2-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part 3: The Walk of Shadows-----------------------------------------------

Short video intro to part 3: [note: all voices for video intros will be different unless written otherwise.] (You hear screams of pain). Voice 1: Marvelous! Just marvelous! Fischbach must hold some sort of key to the other bandwidth. Write down the results of this test Vanoss. Voice 2: Already ahead of you Jack. By the way, how is your septic eye doing? Voice 1: Good. Thanks for asking. Voice on intercom: This is an emergency. Immediately evacuate the building. Fischbach in a groaning voice: I told you they would come… told you that you can’t control them. Now they’ll kill us... kill the whole city. I know this for sure. They… they told me that. (With more energy now). I’ll see you in hell mother fuckers. Voice 1: Shut up. (You hear something being hit against something else.) Voice 1: That’ll cure his insomnia, some anesthesia. Voice 2: Agreed. That’ll teach him. Now, let’s get out of here. Voice 1: Good point, let’s go.

Playthru part of part 3: You exit out into the rooftop. “Wow,” You say, “This building is higher than my days of smoking pot as a teenager, hehe.” You turn to a big metal bridge. “Oh, that must be the walk of flowers.” As you walk towards it, you find a blowtorch on the ground. You walk on the bridge. About 30 steps in, 2 Shadowines climb up the sides. You kill them. There will be many more Shadowines, in order to make this part lengthier but they aren't going to be mentioned. Later, you see a wide circular area. When you walk about 5 steps in, a giant Shadowine lands in the middle. While doing so, it breaks some of the metal off the two sides of the circular area. You blowtorch them and the monster falls. You see a building on the bridge [this means the bridge goes through the building] that is small. You open the door. There is a desk with a classified info file on it. As you’re picking it up, something hits you in the head. You drop the file and fall on the ground. You see a mix between a Shadowine and a human standing over you. You say, “Who are you.” “My name,” The creature replies, “is Dr. Linden. Welcome. All I can say now is this, remember the key. You will later come to undertand.” Everything goes dark.

------------------------------------------------------End of Part 3--------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------Part 4: The Shadowy Hospital ---------------------------------------------

Video Intro to Part 4: Voice 1: Are you sure this hospital will cure my insomnia? Voice 2: Of course 'mam. In Linden City everything is bigger and better. This is the biggest hospital, with cures to many things. And if you believe in luck, this hospital is in Founder’s Square, where Dr. Linden, an insomniac himself, once lived. Voice 1: Does he still live there? Voice 2: Of course not. He died many years ago. I mean, it’s not like we live 1000’s of years, right? Now, let’s continue to your room.

Playthru Part of Part 4: You wake up in a hospital bed. To your side you find a classified info file (This one is different than the ones in the other parts of Linden City.) It says, “We are happy to see you. We get many patients with Insomnia and mild Schizophrenia. If you ever want to go out and see the world, we can try to arrange anything from going to the movies 18 miles away, or as close as Dr. Linden’s house across the street. Thank you for entrusting Linden Founder’s Square hospital with your care.” “Dr. Linden huh,” You say, “I would like to pay him a visit after what he did to me. I just have to get out of this hospital and cross the street. He might know where my family is.” You pick up all items you had previously from a table across from you. You exit the room. You also get another gas grenade. You enter into a long hallway that is dark but has hanging lights and rooms to each side. You walk forward, all the doors being locked. Soon you come across a person curled up in a ball by the wall. “Hello,” You shout, “I was stranded here too. Are you OK?” You see the person is mumbling something, so you come closer. He is saying “They watch us in our sleep. They watch us in our despair. They watch us from the darkness.” He says this over and over. You stomp your foot and turn around. You say “F*****g S**t! The one person here! God damned mental. Freaking psycho. God damned…”

You stop and turn around when you hear the crackling of electricity. The one light above you flickers. As it flickers a Shadowine appears next to the mental with its claws up. The hall turns pitch black. Then red emergency-style lights turn on. Where the mental patient was, there is now a lot of blood. “That’s just terrible” You say. You see something in the blood and pick it up. It is a picture of a lady. “H… how did a… a picture of my… my wife get h…here?” You stutter. You put the picture in your pocket (inventory) shakily. “Let’s hope it will bring me luck.” You say. You walk down the hallway. (*Intense gore alert*) You see a body of your wife stabbed in the chest. You walk on. You see your wife with a large circular hole in her stomach. In the hole there is handgun ammo. On the floor under the hole there are the words “Don’t look behind you”. If you look behind you, your wife’s head is hanging from a string directly behind you. You walk on. You see your wife ripped in half and shot through the head. “Why God, have you forsaken me.” Is written on the wall with blood. You walk on. You see your wife hammered to the ceiling. There are veins hanging from her like loose threads that were ripped right through her skin. Tied to a cluster of veins is a modern looking key. When you take it, the vanes tangle you up and trap you. You wake up next to the blood from the mental, the key and a note beside you. The note says “Come on, I am waiting, they are waiting, WE are waiting.” You pick up the key and go on. There are doors in the hall now. The doors have slits that you can look into, but are all locked. At the last door on the left, A Shadowine is standing in the back of the room. But suddenly runs up and screams. It then disappears. You exit through the final door. You walk down the steps and out through the lobby.

When you step outside, you hear screaming and see Shadowines dragging a girl away. You kill the Shadowines and save the girl. “It’s alright, it’s alright, their gone now.” you say. “What’s your name anyway?” “M…Mary. My name is Mary.” She stammers. My name is Mary. She is wearing a green blouse, and she has golden hair (based off the Mary from IB). “It’s all right now. Why don’t you come with me and we can find my family and get out of this wretched city.” You say. “O…Okay.” Says Mary. She gets up now and starts following you. “Now Mary, let’s go to Dr. Linden’s house, shall we?” You say. You go inside Dr. Linden’s house.

------------------------------------------------------ End of Part 4 ------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------Part Five: Truth----------------------------------------------------------

Short video intro to Part Five: Voice 1: Donnie, I refuse to do this. This is inhumane. First poisoning the snitch Pew’s pie so he died, and now taking Fischbach, my friend? I refuse to do so! And you Harrison, you now this can’t happen! Voice 2: Dr. Linden, I tell you that you must listen to the Formula. The Formula knows everything. Voice 1: Very well, if we must. Send Eliah’s unit to him. Have Randy’s unit help. The old man’s an insomniac right? We might as well run some tests on him.

Playthru part of part 5: You walk into a large front hall. There are two staircases leading up stairs and a large desk in the front. You walk to the top of the stairs which lead to a center room, which is locked. You walk down the stairs and go to the room on the right. You then go to the room on the left. Right before you go inside, you hear a shrill scream. When you enter you see a blood trail leading up to a desk. On the desk there is a key. When you are about 5 steps away from the desk when a Shadowine flips the desk over. You kill the Shadowine and find the key. Beside the key there is a note. The note says “From the personal narrative of Dr. Evan C. Linden: We have found the one we are looking for. The only one who's mind is powerful enough to run the machine.” You walk up the stairs and into the room there (which was unlocked with the key that was just obtained).

There is a library with ladders leading to upper levels. There is a desk in the middle of the library with a note on it. The note says “From the personal narrative of Dr. Evan Linden. Yet again I put my insomnia to good use. All night I was drawing a picture of my daughter. I will have to ask my personal servant, Rappo, how it looks. I think there may be something in this. (The next page shows an animated, yet realistic drawing of Mary). When you put the note away, Mary is standing directly in front of you. “You know, don’t you?” She says. “I…I don’t know what you mean” You say. “Don’t lie to me” She says in a demonic voice, and then screams, “DON’T YOU LLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!” Mary transforms into a bloated and huge monster. She then transforms into a large and bloated version of your wife. She says “It’s just me! They’re tricking you! Please don’t hurt me!” “No,” You say, “You aren’t real! My wife has a nice smile!” She transforms back into the original bloated beast. You shoot her in the mouth until her upper lip bleeds. “My wife has beautiful hair!” You scream. You go up the ladder and shoot all the hair off her head. “My wife has gorgeous eyes!” You scream. You shoot her in the eyes. “And what I love most about her, is that she has a loving heart!” You scream. You climb up a ladder. You walk up to a ladder and press the use button, but instead of going down. You leap and long knife (from your inventory) the beast into the spot where a heart would normally be. The beast falls on you, and the world goes dark. A few seconds later, you hear the sound of a door opening. You open your eyes slowly. You are back in your room. It is morning out and your wife is standing in the doorway. “Wake up Edward,” She says, “I know you sleep little with your insomnia, so I let you sleep as long as I could before waking you for work. And by the way, you left your computer on and I saw you were looking at houses. Are we moving soon?” “Yes,” You say, “Were moving quite soon.”

--------------------------------------------------------End of part 5------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------Epilogue--------------------------------------------------------

(This part isn’t controlled by the player, but rather an animation) The screen says three months later. You walk into a house saying “Well everyone, welcome to our new home. Everyone go to their rooms and unpack.” You go up a set of stairs. Your wife calls from downstairs that she’ll be up in a minute. In your room, there is a locked door. “That’s strange,” You say, “They were supposed to leave everything unlocked. But it doesn’t matter, we’ll fix that later.” You open up your suitcase and find the key you found hanging from your wife’s veins. “How… How did this get here?” You stutter. You have a flashback of Linden saying remember the key. Shakily you pick it up and go to the closet and unlock it. When you open the door a Shadowine rushes out at you and stabs you in the chest. Then a man mixed with a Shadowine and two more Shadowines walk out. The man says “My name is Dr. Evan Linden. We don’t have much time to chat.” He turns to the Shadowines and says “Kill all of them, every one. Make it seem like Isaac Smith's doing. (He laughs). Everything is going as the Formula says. You die.

---------------------------------------------------------------End-----------------------------------------------------------