<<silently>>\n<<$keys = "checked">>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou feel along the keyring, counting each one off.\n\n"Hotel, office, shed, gym locker..."\n\nThey all seem to be there.\n\n<<if $lighter is "yes">>[[Use lighter|Lighter]]<<endif>>\n<<if $wallet is "no">>[[Keep searching|Pockets3]]<<endif>>\n[[Assess the situation|Plan]]
"Help! I'm trapped!"\n\n"Can anyone hear me? I'm stuck in this box!"\n\n"Hello? Can you hear me?"\n\nNo answer. \n\n[[Back|Fourth_Check]]
<<silently>>\n<<$wallet = "yes">>\n<<endsilently>>\nIn your front pocket, you find your wallet. It's battered and scuffed now, but you remember it when it was new, unwrapping it in bed on Christmas morning.\n\n<<if $lighter is "yes">>[[Use lighter|Lighter]]<<endif>>\n<<if $keys is "yes">>[[Check keys|Check_keys]]<<endif>>\n[[Assess the situation|Plan]]
<<silently>>\n<<$keys = "yes">>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nIn your back pocket, you find your keys.\n\n<<if $lighter == "yes">>[[Use lighter|Lighter]]<<endif>>\n[[Check keys|Check_keys]]\n[[Keep searching|Pockets3]]
You can't see how a broken lighter is going to help you here. \n\nFor a few moments, you hack at the lid of the box with it, hoping that it will find a weakness. It isn't the best tool for this - you don't think you have even marked it.\n\n[[Try something else|Plan]]\n[[Wait|Wait]]
You can see nothing.\n\n[[Assess the situation|First_Check]]\n\n<<silently>>\n<<$lid_pushed = "no">>\n<<endsilently>>
"Is anybody there? Where am I?"\n\nNo answer.\n\n[[Panic|Panic]]\n[[Think|Second_Check]]
Dimly, you are aware that it is getting harder to breathe. It doesn't really bother you.\n\nYou remember her laugh, the way she leant against you when she was tired, the noises she made in sleep.\n\n[[Remember|Remember2]]
"Where am I? Is anyone there?"\n\nYou call into the darkness, but panic overwhelms you, and you started screaming out the words. \n\n"Help! Get me out of here! Help me!"\n\nYou strike out at the darkness around you, your hands crashing into a wooden surface, not far in front of your face. You bash at it fruitlessly. \n\nWhen you finally stop yelling, you can hear the bloud pounding in your ears, your heartbeat hammering away between your ribs. \n\nNo other sound.\n\n[[Think|Third_Check]]
<<silently>>\n<<$lighter = "empty">>\n<<endsilently>>\nBy the lighter's flame, you get a better picture of your situation.\n\nThe wooden box is featureless, made of pine in a simple oblong shape. There are no hinges or handles that you can see.\n\n...\n\nWhile you are looking, the lighter's flame gutters and dies.\n\nYou try several times, but it won't relight - nothing but sparks.\n\nThe air in the box suddenly feels very close. \n\n[[Assess the situation|Plan]]\n
In the dark, you open your wallet, holding it against your chest. Your clumsy fingers fumbled inside it, looking for something - anything - that might be helpful.\n\nNothing appears. A handful of change, a few notes, a loyalty card for that waffle place (only one stamp left, you remind yourself pointlessly). \n\nYour fingers slide on the plastic film as you try to pull out her photograph. \n\nYou can't see it - can only feel the creases on the paper as you tug it slowly from the wallet. \n\n[[Remember|Photo]]
<<silently>>\n<<$lid_pushed = "yes">>\n<<endsilently>>\nThe box lid does not move. \n\n[[Back|Think_Escape]]
It's still dark - dark like it used to be in the dead of night, when you'd wake up to feel her snuggled up close to you, one arm flung across your body. \n\nThose were the best times, when it was just you and her, the whole world kept at bay by the bedroom curtains. \n\n[[Remember|Remember3]]
You try to ward off the hunber by picturing the massive meal you'll have the moment you get out of this. Scrambled eggs the way she always makes them, with crispy rashers of bacon.\n\nIt doesn't have the effect you wanted.\n\n[[Focus on escape|Think_Escape]]\n
There is a lump on the back of your head. You wince when you touch it, a spike of pain inside your skull. Your fingers come away slightly sticky. \n\n[[Back|Second_Check]]
Wherever you are, it is pitch black.\n\n[[Panic|Panic]]\n[[Call out|Call]]\n[[Think|Second_Check]]
The world is drifting away, but you don't mind.\n\nThis was always the happiest time - lying in the dark with her. Outside was never as good, never as simply happy, never as content. \n\nYour thumb rubs slowly back and forth over the scrap of paper clutched in your hand, in time with your slow breath. \n\nIt's better to be here. Nothing to worry about, in the darkness with her. \n\n[[Time passes|Box]]
You reach out with your arms, trying to work out where you are.\n\nYou are lying on your back in what appears to be a wooden box. A few inches in front of your nose is the top of it. You cannot stretch your arms out to the sides; the box is only a litle wider than your shoulders.\n\n[[Focus|Fourth_Check]]\n[[Push the lid|Push]]
<<if $lighter is "yes" and $keys == "no">> This is what you've got - a cheap lighter.\n\n[[Use lighter|Lighter2]]\n\n<<else if $lighter is "yes" and $keys != "no" and $wallet is "yes">>This is all you've got. A key ring, a cheap lighter, and your wallet - that won't be much help. All you use it for is holding money and photographs, and you don't have much money these days.\n\n[[Use lighter|Lighter2]]\n[[Use your keys|Use_keys]]\n[[Open wallet|Open_wallet]]\n\n<<else if $lighter is "empty" and $keys != "no" and $wallet is "yes">>This is all you've got. A key ring, a useless lighter, and your wallet - that won't be much help. All you use it for is holding money and photographs, and you don't have much money these days.\n\n[[Use your keys|Use_keys]]\n[[Open wallet|Open_wallet]]\n[[Use the lighter|Empty_lighter]]\n\n<<else if $lighter is "empty" and $keys == "no">> This is what you've got - a useless lighter.\n\n[[Use the lighter|Empty_lighter]]\n\n<<else if $lighter is "yes" and $keys != "no">>This is all you've got. A key ring, and a cheap lighter - not the tools you would have picked in this situation. \n\n[[Use lighter|Lighter2]]\n[[Use your keys|Use_keys]]\n\n<<else if $lighter is "empty" and $keys != "no">>This is all you've got. A key ring, and a useless lighter - not the tools you would have picked in this situation.\n\n[[Use your keys|Use_keys]]\n[[Use the lighter|Empty_lighter]]\n\n<<endif>>\n\n
You thumb the lighter's wheel, and a tiny flame springs into life.\n\n[[Examine surroundings|Lit area]]\n
Alive
In the darkness, you wait.\n\nTime passes.\n\n[[Wait|Wait2]]\n[[Struggle|Struggle]]
It is pitch-black in the box. \n\nThere is no sound.
It is pitch black.\n\nYou can hear your breathing - nothing else. You are lying on your back. It feels like you are on a wooden surface. \n\nYour [[head|Head_check]] hurts.\n\n[[Explore your surroundings|Explore]]
It's getting hard to breathe now - dragging the last of the air in the box into your starving lungs.\n\nAny movement you make will use up more air, diminishing your only precious resource. \n\n[[Wait|Wait3]]\n[[Struggle|Struggle2]]
Your breathing is very shallow, but still the loudest noise in the dark.\n\nYou find it hard to think of anything much - you don't really care how you ended up here, or how to get out. It doesn't matter - you need to concentrate on saving your air. Maybe someone will come, maybe they won't - you are doing the best you can.\n\nYou feel lightheaded, and welcome the feeling. If you black out, you might use even less air with each breath, living longer.\n\n[[Time passes|Box]]
Something seems to break inside you, and you go wild, clawing at the lid of the box.\n\nYou don't feel it when your nails tear, or when your fingers start bleeding. \n\nAll you feel is the panic rushing through you, and - briefly - a kind of wild joy as you feel that you are having an effect - deep grooves are appearing in the wood. \n\n[[Keep scrabbling|Scrabble]]\n
You can hear your harsh breathing and your heartbeat - nothing else. You are lying on your back. It feels like you are on a wooden surface. \n\nIn front of you is another wooden surface. Punching it doesn't have any effect.\n\nYour [[head|Head_check]] hurts.\n\n[[Explore your surroundings|Explore]]
<<silently>>\n<<$pockets_1 = "yes">>\n<<$lighter = "yes">>\n<<endsilently>>\n\nYou search your pockets, moving your arms awkwardly in the confined space.\n\nIn your jacket pocket, you find a lighter. No cigarettes - you thought you had a few left, but the pack is empty. \n\n[[Keep searching|Pockets2]]\n[[Use the lighter|Lighter]]
Peritract
<<silently>>\n<<$lid_pushed = "yes">>\n<<endsilently>>\nThe box lid does not move. \n\n[[Focus|Fourth_Check]]
You rack your brains, trying to think of how you got here, and how you can get out.\n\n[[Focus on how you got here|Think_Predicament]]\n[[Focus on escape|Think_Escape]]
You run your hands down your body, checking your clothing. \n\nJeans, a t-shirt, a light jacket. Relatively standard for you. You don't know what colour anything is, but these feel like your clothes.\n\nYou wiggle your toes - you don't seem to be wearing shoes or socks. \n\n[[Back|Fourth_Check]]
The last thing you remember is breakfast - you went to that new waffle place near the hospital. Their waffles are really good, oozing with syrup and topped with whipped cream. \n\nShe was there, for the first time in ages. You didn't speak - it didn't seem like the time or the place. It was good to see her. \n\nYour stomach rumbles. Breakfast feels like a long time ago.\n\n[[Think about food|Food]]\n[[Focus on escape|Think_Escape]]
You thumb the lighter's wheel, and a tiny flame springs into life.\n\n[[Examine surroundings|Lit area2]]\n
<<silently>>\n<<$lighter = "empty">>\n<<endsilently>>\nBy the lighter's flame, you get a better picture of your situation.\n\nThe wooden box is featureless, made of pine in a simple oblong shape. There are no hinges or handles that you can see.\n\n...\n\nWhile you are looking, the lighter's flame gutters and dies.\n\nYou try several times, but it won't relight - nothing but sparks.\n\nThe air in the box suddenly feels very close. \n\n<<if $keys != "no">>[[Check your pockets again|Pockets2]]\n<<else if $wallet == "no">>[[Check your pockets again|Pockets3]]\n<<endif>>\n[[Assess the situation|Plan]]\n
You hold the key ring in your fist, the keys facing outwards between your knuckles. Again and again, you punch at the lid of the box, trying to crash through it. \n\nThe keys don't work that well - they twist in your hand when they hit the wood, leaving only shallow scrapes and hurting your fingers.\n\n[[Try something else|Plan]]\n[[Wait]]\n
You giggle to yourself as you tear at the wood above you, cracked and bleeding hands tearing out splinters. \n\nYou are so close - surely this next gouge will break through, will let in the air you need?\n\n[[Time passes|Box]]
In the photograph, she's smiling. Like she used to.\n\nHer hair was short when it was taken, and she didn't have the laughter lines round her eyes.\n\n[[Remember]]
You try to use your other senses to understand your predicament.\n\nYou can't see anything. You can't hear anything.\n\nYou can hear your own breathing.\n\nIt is warm in the box, with no draft. You can smell something sharp and coppery, very faintly. You can smell pinewood. \n\nYou can feel the [[clothes|Clothes]] you are wearing, and hear a faint rustle when you move.\n\nThere should be something else, you remember, but you don't know what it is.\n\n[[Push the lid|Push]]\n[[Call for help|Call2]]\n[[Think|Think]]
You can't just wait here - you have to do something.\n\nYou pound and kick at the lid, as well as you are able, screaming yourself hoarse.\n\nNothing changes. No one comes. Your hands hurt a little. \n\n[[Wait|Wait2]]\n[[Struggle|Struggle2]]
<<if $lid_pushed == "yes">> The lid clearly isn't going to open on its own. You need to find something to help you.\n\n[[Check your pockets|Pockets]]\n\n<<else>>You decide to try the obvious: opening the box.\n\n[[Open the box|Push2]]\n<<endif>>