<div class='narration'><div class='block w4 f125 fade-in de1s du2s' id='w4 f125 fade-in de1s du2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>Loading, please wait</p> </div></div></div> <p><div id="preload1" class="preload" style="display:none"></p> <p><img src="img/pico1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/pico2.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/abuelo1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/abuelo2.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/abuelo3.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/aguila.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/calavera.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/cielolimpio.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/sueloseco3.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/tiesto1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p></div></p> <p><div id="preload2" class="preload" style="display:none"></p> <p><img src="img/muro2.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/camion.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/tv.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/grifo2.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/fuente.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/arbolseco.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/puente2.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/padre1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/escombro.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/mano1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/arbolvivo.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p></div></p> <p><div id="preload3" class="preload" style="display:none"></p> <p><img src="img/muro3.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/alice.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/piedras1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/ruina1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/sueloseco1.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/casaquemada.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/manohierba.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/carretera.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/nochemuro.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p><img src="img/arroyo.png" height=0 width=0></p> <p></div></p> <script>new imagesLoaded( document.querySelector('body'), function( instance ) { console.log('all images are loaded');window.story.show('start')});</script><% s.historylist = [] %> <% s.turncount = 0 %> <% s.acepta = 0 %> <% s.rechaza = 0 %> <% s.evita = 0 %> <% s.totalreaccion = 0 %> <% s.explor = 0 %> <% s.savepoint = "" %> <% s.class="" %> <% if( Sniffr.os.name=="android" && Sniffr.browser.name=="chrome" ) { s.chrome = true } else { s.chrome = false } %> <p><img src="img/pseudavid.png" style="position:fixed; right:40px; bottom:40px"></p> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero f150 center' id='hero f150 center'><div class='block-content'> <p>The good people</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O only-portrait' id='--O only-portrait'><div class='block-content'> <p>**Please rotate your device.** It is recommended to play this story with your device in landscape (horizontal) mode. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O only-mobile' id='--O only-mobile'><div class='block-content'> <p>**You will play a simplified version in this device.** The story is playable, but a larger screen is necessary for illustrations and the full design.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Content warnings","warnings")</script><script>addOp( "Credits","credits")</script><script>if(window.storage.restore()) {addOp( "Load game","loading") }</script> <script>addOp( "Start","conduciendo_por_carretera")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center f125'>Content warnings </p> <p class='center'>· </p> <p class='center'>Relationship conflict. Climate change. Orphanhood. Swearing (rare). </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Main menu","start")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero top' id='hero top'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center f125'>Words and programming by Pseudavid </p> <p class='center f75'>· </p> <p class='center f75'>Pictures edited by Pseudavid from public domain images </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w3 bottom' id='w3 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center '>**Testers** </p> <p class='center'><a href="https://wei-yuan-lee.itch.io/">Wei Yuan Lee</a> | Ryan Tan | ProP </p> <p class='center'><a href="https://hanonondricek.wixsite.com/pyramidif">Hanon Ondricek</a> | <a href="https://felicitybanks.wordpress.com/">Felicity Banks</a> | Carmen </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4 bottom' id='w4 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center'>Great thanks to the amazing Twine community, including greyelf, Thomas Michael Edwards, Dan Cox and others for their consistent support to authors. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Main menu","start")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero f75' id='hero f75'><div class='block-content'> <p>[[Main menu->start]]</p> <p>[[1st scene middle->camino_por_donde]]</p> <p>[[2nd scene->pueblo observar inicio]]</p> <p>[[2nd scene end->pueblo silencio]]</p> <p>[[3rd scene->futuro inicio]]</p> <p>[[4th scene->vision inicio]]</p> <p>[[4th scene middle->vision calle escudo]]</p> <p>[[5th scene->cementerio entrar]]</p> <p>[[6th scene->final estoy suelo]]</p> <p>[[6th scene middle->final destello cementerio]]</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center'>Are you sure you want to continue where you left it? </p> <p class='center f150'>[[No->start]] </p> <p class='center f150'>[[Yes->loading-yes]] </p> </div></div></div><script>if(window.storage.ok()) { window.story.restore(window.storage.restore()) }</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI center fade-in de5s du2s f125' id='oI center fade-in de5s du2s f125'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm anxious to get there and see it.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Keep driving.","conduciendo_yo_conduzco","de5s du2s")</script><script>setBg( 'Ioo','img/pico1.png','text-focus-in du5s de1s')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o- left fade-in' id='o- left fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>We haven't seen any car since the detour.</p> <p>The landscape is <%= revealOp( "simple", "cielolimpio","cielolimpioimg") %>.</p> <p><span class='cielolimpio hid'>A clean <%= revealOp( "sky.", "picosrocosos","picosrocososimg") %> </span></p> <p><span class='picosrocosos hid'>Rocky <%= revealOp( "mountains.", "abajofondo","abajofondoimg") %> </span></p> <p><span class='center abajofondo hid'>And the dry <%= revealPass( "reservoir bed.", "ellalomira") %> </span></p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block -o left fade-in' id='-o left fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>I drive. Alice looks. She's still silent.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'wl4')</script> <script>addOp( "Make her talk.","conduciendo_preguntar_alice")</script><script>addOp( "Talk.","conduciendo_empezar_hablar")</script><script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","conduciendo_silencio")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/cielolimpio.png','fade-in')</script><script>clearBlock( 'wl4')</script> <script>setBg( 'wl4','img/pico2.png','fade-in')</script><script>clearBlock( 'wl4')</script> <script>setBg( 'wl4','img/sueloseco3.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o- narrow bottom' id='o- narrow bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Describe this place for me, please,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘As if you were writing it.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm not writing about this,’</span> she says. She sounds bored, the way she does when my questions have no value. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_pueblo_fascinante' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_pueblo_fascinante'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o- narrow bottom' id='o- narrow bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I think it was a good idea to take a detour and see this place,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘Have you noticed there are no cars here?’</span> </p> <p>She doesn't answer. She keeps tapping her hand to some rhythm she's playing in her head. Shall I insist?</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_pueblo_fascinante' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_pueblo_fascinante'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o narrow top' id='-o narrow top'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Don't you think this is fascinating?’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘A weird, lifeless place. It will disappear again soon.’</span> </p> <% if (passage.name == 'conduciendo_empezar_hablar') { %><p>Alice keeps tapping her hand.</p> <% } else { %><p>Alice keeps tapping her hand to some rhythm she's playing in her head.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","conduciendo_silencio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-- center' id='o-- center'><div class='block-content'> <p>I better stay silent.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero fade-in de2s' id='hero fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>That's a relief. I shouldn't do all these things just because I feel guilty about Alice.</p> <p>I look at the reservoir bed: a white and flat sheet, extending for several kilometres between mountains. </p> <p><span class='f125'>Without water for the first time in seventy years.</span></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O fade-in de2s' id='--O fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Yesterday you said your parents brought you here. What can you tell me about the place?’</span> Alice abruptly asks. </p> <p>I would shift in my seat if I weren't driving.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Cut short the conversation.","conduciendo_cortar_conversacion","de2s")</script><script>addOp( "Avoid the question.","conduciendo_esquivar_pregunta","de2s")</script><script>addOp( "Tell the truth.","conduciendo_contestar_verdad","de2s")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- center bottom' id='O-- center bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't want to talk,’</span> I answer. After a few moments, I make up an excuse. <span class='dialogue'>‘I don't want to miss the place.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_padre_pueblo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_padre_pueblo'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- center bottom' id='O-- center bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not now,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘Look at that incredible landscape! The bottom of the reservoir is white.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_padre_pueblo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_padre_pueblo'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- center bottom' id='O-- center bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not much,’</span> I admit. <span class='dialogue'>‘There was only water when I came. It's the first time the reservoir goes went since they built it.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_padre_pueblo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_padre_pueblo'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero center' id='hero center'><div class='block-content'> <p>Why am I so nervous today?</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘So your father never saw the village?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell the story.","conduciendo_contestar_detalles_padre_pueblo","de2s")</script><script>addOp( "Answer as briefly as possible.","conduciendo_contestar_padre_pueblo","de2s")</script><script>setBg( '--o','img/alice.png','fade-in de1s du2s')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o- center f150' id='-o- center f150'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘They flooded this place seventy years ago.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O center de2s fade-in' id='--O center de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘The story is that my grandfather was still single when he was forced to leave. A bit old to be single in that age, almost thirty. He went to the city, owning nothing. Got married, had a son. He missed the mountains and told my dad many tales. Later, dad told them to me.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You never met your grandfather,’</span> says Alice. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "No.","conduciendo_abuelo_desconocido","de2s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o- center f150' id='-o- center f150'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘They flooded this place seventy years ago.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O center de2s fade-in' id='--O center de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘My grandfather was single when he was forced to leave. My dad only knew the stories he told him. That's all.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You never met your grandfather,’</span> says Alice. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "No.","conduciendo_abuelo_desconocido","de2s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ooI narrow' id='ooI narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Just from pictures.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘And your grandma?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Didn't know her either, and she was from another place.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not knowing your family's place of origin isn't terrible,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘It happens to many of us.’</span> </p> <p>I find that disturbing, though I don't think that's what she intended. It happens often.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Io','img/abuelo3.png','fade-in')</script> <script>addOp( "Keep driving.","conduciendo_incomodo_seguir")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>The road, the peaks, the white earth at the reservoir's bottom. It looks all the same. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘The more I see of your country, the less I understand why you prefer to stay in mine,’</span> Alice says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( '-oo','img/carretera.png','fade-in')</script> <script>addOp( "Ask her to stop that.","conduciendo_alice_no_empieces")</script><script>addOp( "I don't understand that she doesn't understand.","conduciendo_alice_no_entiendo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI narrow' id='oI narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Don't start with that. Please.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘OK!’</span> </p> <p>Thank goodness.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_salir_despejado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_salir_despejado'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI narrow f125' id='oI narrow f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't understand that you don't understand,’</span> I answer. </p> <p>Alice just laughs softly.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'conduciendo_salir_despejado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['conduciendo_salir_despejado'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io de2s fade-in' id='Io de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>Leaving my hometown has made my mind clearer. The same as five years ago, when Mom and Dad died and I left. I changed my small, sleepy city for one of the five cities that every person in the planet has heard about.</p> <p>Each time I return to the sleepy city, I find it more forgotten, stale, foreign.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O de2s fade-in center bottom' id='--O de2s fade-in center bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I enjoyed last night with your friends,’</span> says Alice. </p> <p>Everything she says makes me uneasy. Not that it's new.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Be honest. Did she <em>really</em> enjoy it?","conduciendo_anoche_aburrida","de2s")</script><script>addOp( "Pretend everything seemed all right to me.","conduciendo_anoche_esquivar","de2s")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I thought you were bored. And I thought they were not... the best company,’</span> I say, wondering why I'm doing it. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Even I don't fit with them anymore,’</span> I say, calculating how much I can admit. <span class='dialogue'>‘I am estranged... I've turned my back on them.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It wasn't your decision,’</span> she says. Some of the tension dissipates. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Yes, but.","conduciendo_anoche_pero")</script><script>addOp( "Yes.","conduciendo_anoche_si")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I guess you're right,’</span> I say. Half truth. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Of course,’</span> she says, and chuckles. A lovely chuckle. </p> <p>I'm sure that my friends made her uneasy. They aren't good enough for her. Their buddy, back with a foreign girlfriend. Exotic.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Am I good *enough* for her?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Turn the wheel!","conduciendo_es_aqui")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I could have done more. I'm feeling,’</span> I say, and I make a pause, trying to find the perfect word, hesitant about my second language, <span class='dialogue'>‘rootless. And I think rootlessness is a problem.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not for me,’</span> she says, dryly. </p> <p>I'm sure that my friends made her uneasy. They aren't good enough for her. Their buddy, back with a foreign girlfriend. Exotic.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Am I good *enough* for her?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Turn the wheel!","conduciendo_es_aqui")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘That's good,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘But you couldn't speak to half of them without a translator!’</span> Thank God, I think. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘They knew you as a child. They told me stories no one else could.’</span> </p> <p>Is she insinuating anything? Playing along doesn't smooth things.</p> <p>Some days you just can't talk.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Turn the wheel!","conduciendo_es_aqui")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I think it's here,’</span> I say. </p> <p>It's just another track through the bushes, wide and very dusty. I turn left and we go down the track. I look <%= revealOp( "all around", "noveopueblo","conduciendo_op_parar") %>, looking for the village. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io hid noveopueblo' id='Io hid noveopueblo'><div class='block-content'> <p>The village is nowhere to be seen. Only white dust and a few dark shapes.</p> <p>The slope in front of us descends to the dry bottom of the reservoir, and then goes up again, uninterrupted, until a peak that is... one thousand metres above us, perhaps?</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Highest mountains in the country,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Impressive.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --o f150 noveopueblo center hid bottom de5s' id='--o f150 noveopueblo center hid bottom de5s'><div class='block-content'> <p>Suddenly all is white dust.</p> </div></div></div><script>addOp( "Stop the car.","conduciendo_umbral","de5s")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-- center' id='o-- center'><div class='block-content'> <p>We have crossed the usual level of the water.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero left' id='hero left'><div class='block-content'> <p>We get out of the car and I give the keys to Alice.</p> <p>Behind us there's some grass, gray earth, bushes, trees that cling to rocks. But right where we are, it's all dry and white, with the palest hint of yellow.</p> <p>It's high altitude, but it's mid morning already. It's a bit hot.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Point out that we are alone.","camino_paso_relacion")</script><script>setBg( 'ttt1','img/cielolimpio.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero left' id='hero left'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Stretching our legs feels great,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘Have you realized that we have never been like this?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘How?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Far from the city, in the middle of nature, alone.’</span> </p> <p>She gives me a sardonic grin.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Is it a new step in our relationship? What's next, moving in together?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Stop scaring me.","camino_no_cuente")</script><script>addOp( "Don't count on me.","camino_no_cuente")</script><script>addOp( "I hope not.","camino_no_cuente")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- bottom' id='O-- bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘No,’</span> I say. I'd like to add something sharp and original. I want her to remember my *no* every time she thinks of asking about living together. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt4 center de2s fade-in' id='ttt4 center de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p><p style="transform:rotate(1deg)">I hope not</p></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5 center de2s fade-in' id='ttt5 center de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p><p style="transform:rotate(-6deg)">**Don't count on me**</p></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt6 center f125 de2s fade-in' id='ttt6 center f125 de2s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p><p style="transform:rotate(18deg)">Stop scaring me!</p></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O top center de5s fade-in' id='--O top center de5s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>I can't come up with anything nearly good enough. </p> <p>Come on, I'm as surprising as *watching paint dry*.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look at the line between the normal earth and the dry earth.","camino_limite","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI ' id='oI '><div class='block-content'> <p>I look at the limit between both areas. Alice squats, she puts one hand on the white dust, and the other on the grass.</p> <p class='a f150'><span class='dialogue'>‘A threshold.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Even my hands look different colours,’</span> she says. </p> <p>She smiles. I feel like hugging her.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Ioo','img/manohierba.png','fade-in')</script> <script>addOp( "It's OK to let it pass.","camino_limite_nada")</script><script>addOp( "Hug her.","camino_limite_abrazar")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o- narrow bottom' id='o- narrow bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>I hug her. She squeezes me, just one second.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o- bottom narrow' id='o- bottom narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>I just smile back.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o top narrow' id='-o top narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>I have no idea of what's in her head.</p> <p>I look around and I suddenly recognize one of the dark shapes I had noticed. It's the burnt house. It leaves me breathless.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell Alice about the burnt house.","camino_quemada_explicar")</script><script>addOp( "Run towards the house, like when I was a kid.","camino_quemada_correr")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 bottom' id='w1 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘The house used to be the only one we could see above the water,’</span> I tell Alice. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's not a part of the village. It must have burnt before they built the reservoir.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada_torre' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada_torre'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 bottom' id='w1 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>I just run to the house. I did the same when I was a kid, I needed to see the only house one could see above the water.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada_torre' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada_torre'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w3 top' id='w3 top'><div class='block-content'> <p>It's as impressive as before: with four stories, almost a tower. The thick stone walls, with narrow windows, could stand for centuries to come.</p> <p>I have vivid <%= revealPass( "memories", "camino_quemada_recuerdo") %> of it.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Io','img/casaquemada.png','fade-in')</script><script>clearBlock( 'w1')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'w3')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'Io')</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='fade-in f125'>Its reflection on the water.</span></p> <p><span class='fade-in f125 de2s'>Dad threw a stone to break that reflection, but he fell short.</span></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='fade-in de5s'>Alice just walks on. She doesn't seem interested. Again?</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Walk on.","camino_quemada_pasar","de5s")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her not to miss it.","camino_quemada_pedir","de5s")</script><script>addOp( "Go inside.","camino_quemada_entrar","de5s")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>I go into the ruins. It must have been a dark and suffocating house, but now light spills through the blue square where the ceiling was a century ago. Inside, there's only parched earth and rough stones.</p> <p>I enjoy it quietly for a moment, then I go out.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada_sigo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada_sigo'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 ' id='w1 '><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Isn't this interesting?’</span> I ask. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's the most intact building we are going to see! It was never fully underwater.’</span> </p> <p>Alice makes a quick hand gesture and keeps walking, without looking at me. Well, I was only trying to help.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada_sigo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada_sigo'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 ' id='w1 '><div class='block-content'> <p>Better not to make her wait. I'll take a better look at the house when we come back to the car.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino_quemada_sigo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino_quemada_sigo'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w2' id='w2'><div class='block-content'> <p>I follow Alice. I hope the sunken village is behind the slope in front of us, but there is no path and no signs. Since we crossed that threshold, there's only dust. </p> <p>This is a strange place. I <%= revealPass( "listen", "caminoescucho") %>. I <%= revealPass( "look", "caminoobservo") %>.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block -O caminoescucho fade-in f125' id='-O caminoescucho fade-in f125'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stand still to listen. No noises. No birds, no insects, no wind shaking grass or leaves. This landscape doesn't breathe.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'caminoobservo')</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'caminoobservo') == true) { addOp( "Keep going.","camino_por_donde","fade-in")}</script><script>clearBlock( 'caminopolvo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O caminoobservo fade-in f125' id='-O caminoobservo fade-in f125'><div class='block-content'> <p>Look at those mountains. It's such a high altitude. </p> <p>I find it unbelievable that my ancestors stayed here until 1950, when my grandfather had to leave because of the reservoir. What kind of lives did they live then? I can't imagine.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'caminoescucho')</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'caminoescucho') == true) { addOp( "Keep going.","camino_por_donde","fade-in")}</script><script>clearBlock( 'caminopolvo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I just keep going.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you know the way?’</span> Alice asks. Always doubting me. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Point in the best-looking direction.","cam_donde_prob")</script><script>addOp( "Admit I'm not sure.","cam_donde_no")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 bottom' id='w1 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>I point towards a ridge, not far, that could be hiding the village from us.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cam_facil' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cam_facil'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 bottom' id='w1 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not really. Down.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cam_facil' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cam_facil'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w3' id='w3'><div class='block-content'> <p>Walking is easy. The water years have erased the smaller features of the ground. But there's a lot of dust and cracks because of the last months of drought. </p> <p>I kick the ground and a small column of dust rises. Alice laughs, but I feel a hint of contempt in her laughter.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Play with Alice.","cam_jugar")</script><script>addOp( "Just walk.","cam no jugar")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/sueloseco1.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-- left narrow bottom' id='o-- left narrow bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>Let's play a little. I leap towards her. She jumps away and makes a "no" gesture with her finger, laughing like crazy.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino pajaro' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino pajaro'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-- left narrow bottom' id='o-- left narrow bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>We keep walking and I think if bringing Alice in this trip was a mistake.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino pajaro' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino pajaro'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o- left narrow' id='-o- left narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice points at the <%= revealOp( "sky", "pajarogrande","pajarograndeop") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block pajarogrande hid --o left narrow top' id='pajarogrande hid --o left narrow top'><div class='block-content'> <p>It must be a really big bird to fly so high.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Well, at least we are not totally alone,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Hey,’</span> says Alice, <span class='dialogue'>‘I understand if you want to leave.’</span> </p> <p>Oh come on. Does she think I'm so impressionable?</p> </div></div></div><script>setBg( 'ttt3','img/aguila.png','fade-in')</script> <script>addOp( "Tell her I have no reason to be nervous.","camino nervioso")</script><script>addOp( "Laugh her question off.","camino pregunta")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why would I be disturbed?’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘You think I'm fragile like a china vase.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not at all,’</span> she says. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm not going to discover anything transcendental. Nobody I knew is buried there.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino deformacion' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino deformacion'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>I make the effort of joking. I don't really feel like it.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Well, fortunately one of us is an adult. You'll have to take my hand or I won't dare going on.’</span> </p> <p>She looks upset. The joke must have sounded more sour than I intended.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'camino deformacion' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['camino deformacion'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io' id='Io'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Places like this really get into people's heads,’</span> she says, and she shrugs. </p> <p class='d'>I point my finger at her. <span class='dialogue'>‘Professional deformation.’</span> </p> <p>Alice laughs.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Laugh.","camino deformacion risa")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We laugh together. Of course she knows it's a professional deformation! She's always selling. All our generation is always selling. It's our sentence. Being twenty something and already sure we'll be worried about money all our fucking lives.</p> <p>And having to think we are lucky because at least we have jobs.</p> <p>So she has to sell the idea that travel is transcendental and life changing. And worry about making money even during her holidays, like the interview she's doing tomorrow in the coastal city we're headed for.</p> <script>addOp( "Keep walking.","camino final")</script><% s.piocount = 0 %> <div class='narration'><div class='block oI narrow' id='oI narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>All of a sudden...</p> <p>The stones.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Is this it?’</span> asks Alice. </p> <p>It has to be.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "houses", "piocasas") %>.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "stream", "pioarroyo") %>.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "trees", "pioarboles") %>.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "size", "piopequeñez") %>.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "water line", "piolineagua") %>.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --o bottom center pioprisa' id='--o bottom center pioprisa'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let's move!’</span> says Alice. <span class='dialogue'>‘Are you standing still all day?’</span> </p> <p>What's the hurry?</p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'pioarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarboles')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piopequeñez')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piolineagua')</script> <script>window.story.state.piocount = window.story.state.piocount+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in piocasas' id='Io fade-in piocasas'><div class='block-content'> <p>Most houses in these mountain villages don't dare rise higher than two floors; a few narrow windows in thick stone walls; a slightly sloping roof covered with black slate. Houses that seem to grow in the ground, more like moss than like trees.</p> <p>But here, most houses haven't left a skeleton, not even a ghost. A few are still standing (more or less). Very few. The others are just rubble.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pioprisa')</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 3 ) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pioprisa' )) }</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 4 ) { addOp( 'Alice motions for me to go on.','pueblo inicial decepcion');clearBlock('oI') } </script><script>clearBlock( 'piocasas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarboles')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piopequeñez')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piolineagua')</script> <script>window.story.state.piocount = window.story.state.piocount+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in pioarroyo' id='Io fade-in pioarroyo'><div class='block-content'> <p>In old times, a stream left a deep furrow between the mountains, now a deep, dry scar. The village grew on one side, perched on the mountainside. </p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pioprisa')</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 3 ) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pioprisa' )) }</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 4 ) { addOp( 'Alice motions for me to go on.','pueblo inicial decepcion');clearBlock('oI') } </script><script>clearBlock( 'piocasas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piopequeñez')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piolineagua')</script> <script>window.story.state.piocount = window.story.state.piocount+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in pioarboles' id='Io fade-in pioarboles'><div class='block-content'> <p>There are trees: seventy year old skeletons. White and thin, exactly like bones.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pioprisa')</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 3 ) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pioprisa' )) }</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 4 ) { addOp( 'Alice motions for me to go on.','pueblo inicial decepcion');clearBlock('oI') } </script><script>clearBlock( 'piocasas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarboles')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piolineagua')</script> <script>window.story.state.piocount = window.story.state.piocount+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in piopequeñez' id='Io fade-in piopequeñez'><div class='block-content'> <p>The village wasn't big. Too far, too high, too cold. It wasn't big enough to have two churches, because there's only one, at the other end, and a handful of houses, and a bridge, and all together less than forty buildings.</p> <p>Each morning I share the bus with more people than the population this place had.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pioprisa')</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 3 ) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pioprisa' )) }</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 4 ) { addOp( 'Alice motions for me to go on.','pueblo inicial decepcion');clearBlock('oI') } </script><script>clearBlock( 'piocasas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pioarboles')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'piopequeñez')</script> <script>window.story.state.piocount = window.story.state.piocount+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in piolineagua' id='Io fade-in piolineagua'><div class='block-content'> <p>On the mountain, there is a line so clear that it feels like a painting. Above the line, green intense and dark, brown: earth, plants, living, moving things. Ecosystems: one eats the other. Below the line, a desert. Water came, and after just two years of drought, water went, and nothing remains except a white-yellow desert where nothing moves, nothing eats, nothing gets eaten.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pioprisa')</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 3 ) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pioprisa' )) }</script> <script>if( window.story.state.piocount == 4 ) { addOp( 'Alice motions for me to go on.','pueblo inicial decepcion');clearBlock('oI') } </script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let's keep moving,’</span> says Alice, pulling my hand. <span class='dialogue'>‘Disappointed?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "I'm not disappointed.","pueblo inicial no decepcionado")</script><script>addOp( "Why would I be?","pueblo inicial por que decep")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O- ' id='O- '><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I knew, but I couldn't imagine,’</span> I say, and after a moment I add: 'But I'm not disappointed.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo inicial osos' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo inicial osos'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't understand why you're assuming that I'm disappointed,’</span> I say. She snorts. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo inicial osos' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo inicial osos'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O' id='-O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm not,’</span> she says, and she keeps walking. <span class='dialogue'>‘What animals live in these mountains?’</span> I tell her about bears. She memorizes it, perhaps for an article. </p> <p>Her main job is writing travel articles about uninteresting places. Authentic places, she often says, one of her signature sarcastic remarks. For the poor, she adds, now sarcasm-less.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Start taking pictures,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "She should take her own pictures.","pueblo hazlas tu misma")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Take them yourself,’</span> I say. I just want to contradict her. <span class='dialogue'>‘You know what you need better than me.’</span> </p> <p>She walks away.</p> <p>At last, I get to the first ruins of the village.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look carefully.","pueblo observar inicio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block wl1' id='wl1'><div class='block-content'> <p>The village was very small, embedded in a difficult location. I can see through all of it because few ruins preserve walls higher than one metre.</p> <p>There were two major streets: one at the bottom, following the stream, and a parallel one higher on the mountainside, with curves and bends following the slopes. Both converge here and on the other end of the village, where I see the remains of the church and the cemetery. Just three hundred metres from here, downhill.</p> <p>So tiny. What if it still existed and I had to bring Alice here to meet my relatives? It would be so embarrassing that even thinking of it makes me cringe.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'w4','img/ruina1.png','fade-in du2s')</script> <script>addOp( "Take the top street.","pueblo calle alta")</script><script>addOp( "Take the bottom street.","pueblo calle baja")</script><script>window.story.state.callebaja = 0</script><script>window.story.state.pueblobajoarbol = true</script><script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = false</script><script>window.story.state.puntoretorno = "pueblo alta hub"</script><script>window.story.state.puebloalta = 0</script><script>window.story.state.explor = 0</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>I walk into the top street. First thing I find is a collapsed wall up to my waist. It's made of flat stone pieces that don't look cut for this: irregular, all different in size and stone type. And yet, it used to stand much taller. How?</p> <p>I move one of the stones from the top: there's no cement putting them together. It must weigh more than five kilos and it's one of the smaller ones.</p> <p>This stone did not move a milimetre for a century or more, <span class='ita'>until I came.</span></p> <p>Nothing but <%= revealPass( "stones", "puebloaltapiedras") %>. Not a <%= revealPass( "plant", "puebloaltaplantas") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Io','img/muro3.png','muro3')</script> <script>window.story.state.callescount = 0</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io narrow f125 fade-in puebloaltapiedras' id='Io narrow f125 fade-in puebloaltapiedras'><div class='block-content'> <p>The wall is surrounded by heaps of fallen stone, like leaves around a tree. Every wall, every ruin here must have tonnes of stone. Where did it come from? How hard was it to bring it here only with oxen and donkeys?</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'muro3')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'puebloaltaplantas')</script> <script>window.story.state.callescount = window.story.state.callescount+1</script> <script>if(window.story.state.callescount == 2) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] ); }</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io narrow f125 fade-in puebloaltaplantas' id='Io narrow f125 fade-in puebloaltaplantas'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘No plants,’</span> I say out loud. <span class='dialogue'>‘Grass grows anywhere. Green shoots grow out of every crack in every stone wall. Except here.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'muro3')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'puebloaltapiedras')</script> <script>window.story.state.callescount = window.story.state.callescount+1</script> <script>if(window.story.state.callescount == 2) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.puebloalta == 0) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo alta hub 1' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo alta hub 1'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.puebloalta == 1) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo alta hub 3' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo alta hub 3'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.puebloalta > 1) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo alta hub 4' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo alta hub 4'] ); }</script><script>addOp( "Go to the bottom street.","pueblo bajar")</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo amasijo') == false) { addOp( "A large field of rubble.","pueblo amasijo","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo escuela') == false) { addOp( "The walls of a large building.","pueblo escuela","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo escalera') == false) { addOp( "A staircase.","pueblo escalera","normal")}</script><script>window.story.state.puebloalta = window.story.state.puebloalta+1</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I descend to the old stream bank.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja'] );</script><% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'pueblo calle alta')) { %><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I go up to the street higher on the mountainside.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo alta hub' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo alta hub'] );</script> <% } else { %><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle alta' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle alta'] );</script> <% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm in the middle of the street. This used to be the centre of village life. Now, from here I can appreciate all that water erosion has achieved, and it's a lot.</p> <% if (window.story.state.explor == 2) { %><p>I'm way too nervous today. Everytime I look carefully at anything, I get lost in my thoughts and end up disturbed. Perhaps I should pay less attention.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O center' id='--O center'><div class='block-content'> <p>Back in the middle of the street. I close my eyes and try to imagine the village in the past. I know other villages in this area, I should be able to imagine! But no image comes to mind.</p> <% if (window.story.state.explor == 2) { %><p>I'm way too nervous today. Everytime I look carefully at anything, I get lost in my thoughts and end up disturbed. Perhaps I should pay less attention.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O center' id='--O center'><div class='block-content'> <p>Back in the middle of the street. </p> <% if (window.story.state.explor == 2) { %><p>I'm way too nervous today. Everytime I look carefully at anything, I get lost in my thoughts and end up disturbed. Perhaps I should pay less attention.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block ooI' id='ooI'><div class='block-content'> <p>There's a water fountain here. It's the most intact object I've seen so far. It's just a stone block with a curved, dark metal spout, but both pieces, despite erosion and corrosion, are still attached. Surely it only took two or three people to make this, and nature couldn't unmake it in seventy years.</p> <p>Behind the fountain there's a <%= revealOp( "wide area", "amasijo","puebloamasijoconversa") %><span class='hid amasijo'>, the size of several houses, where nothing is still standing, not a wall, not a structure, nothing taller than twenty centimetres, but the ground is covered in stones everywhere. </span></p> <p><span class='hid amasijo'>This is the most lifelike thing I've seen here. Stones appear everywhere like plants. Did the water knock everything down and then shake it? Such force is scary.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'IIo','img/fuente.png','fade-in')</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>I go into the large building. Walls are a bit taller than me, with quite big windows.</p> <p>An object in a corner draws my attention. I can try getting close, but there are stones everywhere and I could stumble.</p> <p>Now that I think of it, it's of <span class='ita'>utmost</span> importance that I remember as much as I can. I have to look carefully and take mental notes. Because this place won't exist in my future.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w3 top f125' id='w3 top f125'><div class='block-content'> <p>This happens only once. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","pueblo escuela salir flash")</script><script>addOp( "Get close to it.","pueblo escuela acercarme")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/escombro.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI fade-in top' id='oI fade-in top'><div class='block-content'> <p>As head towards the street, I get a sudden flashback.</p> <p>Dad phoned me some months before he died, when I was already abroad. I was irritable and wanted to cut the conversation short, stop his intrusion. </p> <p>He told me he'd seen a dry water reservoir in the news, a lost village come to light. <span class='ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘This stuff is going to keep happening,’</span></span> he repeated. <span class='ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘If that ever happens to your grandfather's village you must go there and visit. Seriously.’</span> </span> </p> <p>He kept talking about the huge vacuum in our personal histories that the flooded village meant, but I wasn't paying any attention.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","pueblo escuela salir")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/padre1.png','fade-in')</script><script>window.story.state.explor = window.story.state.explor+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero escuelaacercarme' id='hero escuelaacercarme'><div class='block-content'> <p>Maddeningly slow, I reach the corner without breaking any bone. </p> <p>The object is quite big, rectangular and dark. Of course it is what it seems. My heart leaps and I don't know why.</p> <p>It's a school blackboard. So this is a classroom. If any of my ancestors went to school, this is where they came.</p> <p>A sudden <%= revealPass( "flashback", "puebloescuelaflash") %>.</p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'escuelaacercarme')</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block oI fade-in top' id='oI fade-in top'><div class='block-content'> <p>Dad phoned me some months before he died, when I was already abroad. I was irritable and wanted to cut the conversation short, stop his intrusion. </p> <p>He told me he'd seen a dry water reservoir in the news, a lost village come to light. <span class='ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘This stuff is going to keep happening,’</span></span> he repeated. <span class='ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘If that ever happens to your grandfather's village you must go there and visit. Seriously.’</span> </span> </p> <p>He kept talking about the huge vacuum in our personal histories that the flooded village meant, but I wasn't paying any attention.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","pueblo escuela salir")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/padre1.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I get out of the building. I see Alice nearby. I may tell her about my memory.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","pueblo escuela recuerdo no contar")</script><script>addOp( "Tell it to Alice.","pueblo escuela recuerdo contar")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice listens with attention while I recollect my phone call with my father.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘A vacuum in your personal history. He seemed quite fixated on the past, your dad.’</span> </p> <p>He was. All his life, he was worried about my grandfather's secrets. I wonder what they were.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘If you really think a lot about the past, is it impossible that you also have your eyes set on the future?’</span> It did seem impossible for him. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Only if the past means nostalgia. <span class='ita'>Or...</span> guilt.’</span> </p> <p>I look around and I remember the last few days, and how returning to my country makes me feel.</p> <p>At least, not nostalgic.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-' id='o-'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice doesn't really know much about my parents. She could misinterpret many things. I'll tell her another day.</p> <p>My father was quite fixated on the past, I don't know why. All his life, he was worried about my grandfather's secrets. I wonder what they were.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>The walls around have fallen down and it's impossible to imagine how the house used to be, but a staircase is still standing, up to the first floor. There is so little left around it that I can easily imagine that the staircase used to be in the middle of the street, from nowhere to nowhere.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't climb the staircase, it could crumble.","pueblo escalera no subir")</script><script>addOp( "Climb the stairs.","pueblo escalera subir")</script><script>window.story.state.explor = window.story.state.explor+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I test the first step: it feels stable, so I climb. How did they build such a thing, that can stand after so many years underwater? The step third shakes! But I test it carefully and climb without problem.</p> <p>As in most ancient houses, steps are very high. Now I have a bit of perspective on my surroundings. </p> <p>In the fourth step, an acute pain pinches my hip and I fall on my knees.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Wait.","pueblo escalera esperar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>It really hurts. I wait. I take a good look at the landscape from up here. </p> <p>And all I see is stripped of its physical substance. Nearby walls and stones look like worn-out sandpaper, and the further ones just like pencil lines. Bone-like trees, scattered around, have lost their whispering voices. And the dry bed is just the same white from any angle, under any light.</p> <p>I could stay here, like an ancient mystic on a column at the edge of the desert, trying to stop time. I guess it wouldn't be that hard. Until water returned.</p> <p>The pain lasts a minute. Then I climb down slowly.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( '-O','img/arroyo.png','')</script> <script>addOp( "Go on.","pueblo alta hub")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think about climbing the stairs, but no, oh boy, no. Don't be a reckless brute for nothing. Specially if Alice is seeing it.</p> <p>I turn my back.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go on.","pueblo alta hub")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ooI narrow' id='ooI narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>There's a water fountain here. It's the most intact object I've seen so far. It's just a stone block with a curved, dark metal spout, but both pieces, despite erosion and corrosion, are still attached.</p> <p>I suddenly notice that I'm unconsciously leaning down to drink! How silly.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't be silly.","pueblo fuente no agacharme")</script><script>addOp( "Lean down.","pueblo fuente agacharme")</script><script>setBg( 'IIo','img/fuente.png','fade-in')</script><script>window.story.state.explor = window.story.state.explor+1</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Why not? I'll see if they were shorter. I put my mouth next to the spout and try to imagine the water.</p> <p>I take another look at the fountain. Surely it only took two or three people to make this, and nature couldn't unmake it in seventy years.</p> <p>At least some of the things we leave are stubborn.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4 bottom right f75' id='w4 bottom right f75'><div class='block-content'> <p>I wonder what my grandfather's secrets were. My father never knew, and it worried him all his life.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>It would be silly. Let's go see something more interesting.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><script>window.story.state.puntoretorno = "pueblo calle baja"</script><script>if(window.story.state.callebaja == 1) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja 1' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja 1'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.callebaja == 2) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja 2' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja 2'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.callebaja == 3) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja 3' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja 3'] ); }</script><script>if(window.story.state.callebaja > 3) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja 4' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja 4'] ); }</script><% s.callebaja = s.callebaja+1 %> <script>addOp( "Go to the top street.","pueblo subir")</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo bajo casas') == false) { addOp( "Look carefully at the houses.","pueblo bajo casas","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo bajo monumento') == false) { addOp( "A random monument.","pueblo bajo monumento","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo bajo puente') == false) { addOp( "Walk to the bridge.","pueblo bajo puente","normal")}</script><script>if( window.story.state.pueblobajoarbol == false) { addOp( "Look at a dead tree.","pueblo bajo arbol","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>In the lower part of the village the view is more impressive. There are two largely undamaged houses, and a stone bridge over the stream. Water has effaced the softer features of the ground and sharpened the deeper ones. The stream, that in its day was surely flanked by vegetation, is now a steep, unhealed incision.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Back in the bottom street. The ruins are less damaged here. I guess it's because these houses were richer and bigger.</p> <% if (window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial == true) { %><p>A dead tree draws my attention. A few are scattered across the landscape, but this is the first I see closely.</p> <script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = false</script><% }; %></div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Back in the bottom street. It's some time before noon and the sky is a flat solid blue, like a heat-releasing metal sheet. </p> <% if (window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial == true) { %><p>A dead tree draws my attention. A few are scattered across the landscape, but this is the first I see closely.</p> <script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = false</script><% }; %></div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'ttt1','img/cielolimpio.png','text-focus-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Back in the bottom street. </p> <% if (window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial == true) { %><p>A dead tree draws my attention. A few are scattered across the landscape, but this is the first I see closely.</p> <script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = false</script><% }; %></div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>These two houses, with their walls, their doors and windows, their lintels and windowsills, remind anglers and divers that, in their time, they were boxes for human beings.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Imagine the houses.","pueblo bajo imaginar casas")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Here, I can better imagine the village before the water.</p> <p>Houses pile up on the slope, leaning over the river as if they were going to overturn and roll down the mountainside.</p> <p>Roofs are made of black slate and they are too heavy.</p> <p>Balconies are supported by one-piece beams full of cracks, but they can resist for many decades.</p> <p>For some reason, I find it easier to imagine the village at night.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>There's a building that is nothing but a whole field of rubble, except for a corner where two walls meet. Both walls have collapsed less than two metres from the angle, but the corner is standing straight, up to the third floor. What's left looks like an obelisk, un unexpected memorial carved by water.</p> <p>I stand where the house stood, looking <%= revealOp( "up", "monumentoarriba","") %>. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io monumentoarriba hid' id='Io monumentoarriba hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think of the second floor, that's where living rooms and bedrooms used to be, the places to play and sleep. Perhaps, right above my head, women gave birth.</p> <p>Perhaps this was my family's house? I know nothing about it. It could be!</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O monumentoarriba hid' id='--O monumentoarriba hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>Then I suddenly find the thought terrifying. Irresponsible. Let's go somewhere else quick.</p> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><script>window.story.state.pueblobajoarbol = false</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I walk to the bridge. Six metres long, two metres high over the dry stream bed. They didn't have a great river up here.</p> <p>I look under the bridge. It looks almost new, as if stones were recently fitted in. The stone is hard and, when I scratch it, it doesn't shed dust. This may stand intact for hundreds of years.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go up.","pueblo subir puente")</script><script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = true</script><script>setBg( '-oo','img/puente2.png','fade-in')</script><% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'pueblo observacion huertos')) { %><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I climb out of the river bed on the other side, where there are remains of orchards and animal yards, and then cross the bridge back to the village. I see Alice between the walls and I wave hello.</p> </div></div></div> <% } else { %><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I climb out of the river bed on the other side. There are no houses on the other side, but there are a lot of enclosures, ruined but recognizable. I cross the bridge back to the village. I see Alice between the walls and I wave hello.</p> </div></div></div> <% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Is that safe?’</span> she cries. </p> <p>I start jumping. The bridge, of course, doesn't shake. Alice's face is far away, but it looks like she's telling me to fuck off.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <script>addOp( "Make a mock apology.","pueblo puente disculpa")</script><script>addOp( "Cross.","pueblo puente cruzar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Sorry!’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's true I should be more careful! I might break a nail!’</span> </p> <p>I don't see her reaction. I finish crossing the bridge back to the village.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I finish crossing the bridge back to the village. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo conversa' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo conversa'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>A dead tree draws my attention. A few are scattered across the landscape, but this is the first I see closely.</p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.puebloarbolinicial = false</script><script>window.story.state.pueblobajoarbol = true</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>The water years have removed an earth layer where the tree is standing, and part of the roots are exposed, stuck in the ground like twisted fingers.</p> <p>The water years have also erased the features in the bark, making it even more like a hand. I <%= revealPass( "look", "puebloarbolvista") %> closely and feel it with my <%= revealPass( "hand", "puebloarboltacto") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Io','img/arbolseco.png','arbolseco fade-in')</script><script>clearBlock( 'puebloarboltacto')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'arbolseco')</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 puebloarbolvista narrow' id='Io f125 puebloarbolvista narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>Marks, cracks, ridges, all are gone. The tree is white and smooth. It gives me a feeling like an sculpture in a museum. </p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'puebloarboltacto') == true) { addOp( "Move away.","pueblo bajo arbol alejarse","fade-in")}</script><script>clearBlock( 'puebloarbolvista')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'arbolseco')</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 puebloarboltacto narrow' id='Io f125 puebloarboltacto narrow'><div class='block-content'> <p>To the touch, the tree is smooth and very hard.</p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'puebloarbolvista') == true) { addOp( "Move away.","pueblo bajo arbol alejarse","fade-in")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I move away. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't like that tree,’</span> says Alice. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's easy to imagine how it used to be.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Answer teasingly.","pueblo bajo sarcasmo")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her what she means.","pueblo bajo quiere decir")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I love easy things. Complications are more your style.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Thank god it's only two more days until we come home.’</span> </p> <p>She's angry now. I guess I expected it for a fraction of a second right before I talked.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why do you dislike that?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It makes me think of death.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘To me it's just like seeing a ghost in a movie.’</span> </p> <p>Alice snorts and turns away. I keep walking.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo calle baja' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo calle baja'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI fade-in de2s' id='oI fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>I keep walking. At the end, downhill, the church and the cemetery. Alice walks on her own.</p> <p>There's a great silence. It prompts me to stand still and <%= revealPass( "listen", "pueblosilencioescucha") %>, <%= revealPass( "look", "pueblosilenciomira") %>, <%= revealPass( "smell", "pueblosilenciohuele") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look all around.","pueblo contexto","de2s")</script><script>addOp( "Keep walking.","pueblo casa entera","de2s")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in f125 pueblosilencioescucha' id='Io fade-in f125 pueblosilencioescucha'><div class='block-content'> <p>No sound but my footsteps. A dubious breeze blows intermitently, but there are no leaves, no grass to shake, only dust almost as intangible as air itself.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilenciomira')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilenciohuele')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in f125 pueblosilenciomira' id='Io fade-in f125 pueblosilenciomira'><div class='block-content'> <p>No insects. No birds. No cats or mice. Nothing buzzes, nothing moves. </p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilencioescucha')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilenciohuele')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in f125 pueblosilenciohuele' id='Io fade-in f125 pueblosilenciohuele'><div class='block-content'> <p>And the smells? There's nothing living here: fruits, dung, kitchens. Only that imperceptible dust: I don't know if it has a smell, but it makes me think of abandonment. </p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilencioescucha')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'pueblosilenciomira')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>The village feels at odds, no, at war with its context.</p> <p>The water line cutting through the mountainside and the white sheet covering the reservoir bed disturb my sense of scale: </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt4 center' id='ttt4 center'><div class='block-content'> <p>the ruins feel </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5 f75 center' id='ttt5 f75 center'><div class='block-content'> <p>incidental</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt6 center' id='ttt6 center'><div class='block-content'> <p> in the middle of this landscape.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4 right' id='w4 right'><div class='block-content'> <p>Like a second thought. </p> <p>Or a change in the weather.</p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo casa entera') == false) { addOp( "Keep walking.","pueblo casa entera","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo casa entera') == true) { addOp( "Go into the house.","pueblo casa entera entrar","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O- bottom f125' id='O- bottom f125'><div class='block-content'> <p>This landscape sequesters time. Time has no room to move ahead, because space (the air, the light, the white sheet passing for earth) is transparent but solid, like thick glass. Geometry in place of geology.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block -O top' id='-O top'><div class='block-content'> <p>Now I stand before the most intact <%= revealOp( "house", "miracasa","") %> in the village. </p> <p><span class='hid miracasa'>The façade is eroded but it stands. Gray stone, cut in straight blocks thirty centimetres high. Two floors, an arched door, four windows in each floor. I see the sky through the windows.</span></p> <p><span class='hid miracasa'>The threshold pulls me inside.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go into the house.","pueblo casa entera entrar")</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo contexto') == false) { addOp( "Look all around.","pueblo contexto","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero blur-out-expand f150 de5s du2s center' id='hero blur-out-expand f150 de5s du2s center'><div class='block-content'> <p>I cross</p> <p>the</p> <p>threshold</p> <p>and</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "...","futuro inicio","fade-in de5s")</script><script>addOp( "Go on.","pueblo conversa 2")</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo observacion huertos') == false) {story.show('pueblo observacion huertos')}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo padre cuentos') == false) {story.show('pueblo padre cuentos')}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo nube polvo') == false) {story.show('pueblo nube polvo')}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo gustar') == false) {story.show('pueblo gustar')}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo recuerdos') == false) {story.show('pueblo recuerdos')}</script><script>story.show('pueblo silencio')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What is that? What do you think?’</span> asks Alice, suddenly appearing next to me. She points at the other side of the stream. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","pueblo eso son huertos")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'pueblo bajo puente')) { %><p>She points at the bridge and the remains of walls on the other side.</p> <% } else { %><p>A little bridge crosses the dry stream bed. There are no houses on the other side but a lot of enclosures, in ruins but perfectly recognisable.</p> <% }; %><p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Orchards, animal yards. Not sure.’</span> </p> <p class='a '><span class='dialogue'>‘What do you *really* know about this place?’</span> </p> <p>What do I know? Dad had a bad memory and a strong imagination. He was born after the village was flooded and all he could tell me were my grandfather's stories,</p> <p class='f125'>recycled into a personal mythology </p> <p>always everchanging and inconsistent.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell her things I was told.","pueblo conversa me contaron")</script><script>addOp( "Admit I know very little.","pueblo conversa se poco")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘People used to fight over land,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘See those walls on the other side. Sometimes they didn't have a wall, just a simple stone to mark the limit between two fields. One morning, one of the owners thought that the stone had moved a couple of fingers... and one generation later the two families still wouldn't speak to each other.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘And your family?’</span> </p> <p>I remember one thing. I shouldn't tell her.</p> <p>My great-grandmother. The outcast.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Talk about my great-grandmother.","pueblo conversa bisabuela")</script><script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","pueblo conversa no bisabuela")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Very little. Remember my father was born after this place was flooded. His father told him some things... stories to scare children. My grandma eventually found out other things, and she told my mother.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Like what?’</span> </p> <p>Now I realize that I may have talked too much.</p> <p>My great-grandmother. The outcast.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Talk about my great-grandmother.","pueblo conversa bisabuela")</script><script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","pueblo conversa no bisabuela")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘People implied that something was wrong with my great-grandmother... I don't know more. My mother herself didn't know more.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>Alice sighs. <span class='dialogue'>‘When we come back I'll visit my parents a few days. I haven't seen them in a while,’</span> she says, and that's all. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Nothing really. Old people's hearsay that they thought was extremely important. You know.’</span> </p> <p>Alice sighs.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘When we come back I'll visit my parents a few days. I haven't seen them in a while,’</span> she says, and that's all. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero center' id='hero center'><div class='block-content'> <p>A memory comes to my mind.</p> <p>Dad, leaning over me. Gigantic. With that warm smell he always had. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "What did he say?","pueblo padre cuentos que")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero ' id='hero '><div class='block-content'> <p class='ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘You're lucky to live here in the city, because the mountains are full of spirits. Your granddad told me stories about them. The <span class='f125'>boo</span>, the <span class='f125'>apparitions</span>, the <span class='f125'>black wagon</span> of the dead... which flies. </p> <p class='ita'>Sometimes you find a <span class='f125'>devil</span> disguised as a goat... and then you would be lucky! Because he only laughs at you and plays a joke on you. </p> <p class='ita'>But what if you encounter the <span class='f125'>winged snake?</span> </p> <p class='ita'>The <span class='f125'>half face</span>, who only has one finger, one arm and one eye? Then you better run. And it can be worse...’</span> </p> <p>And then he whispered...</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f75 ita'><span class='dialogue'>‘...if you ever saw the good people, even running would be useless.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Forget it.","pueblo padres cuentos olvidar")</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I look far away. Kilometres of a totally dry reservoir down the valley. I expect to see something, but what I see is better described as nothing.</p> <p class='d'>Then, quite far down the valley, the wind raises dust. The cloud swells and erases the landscape for one second. <span class='dialogue'>‘What's that?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Only dust,’</span> Alice says. The cloud dissolves. <span class='dialogue'>‘I still don't understand that you prefer staying in my country to coming back here.' </p> <p>She doesn't get that every time she says this she makes me relive all the anger.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Is it only because of the memories? Everyone loves you here,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Try to explain. Patiently.","pueblo volver explicacion")</script><script>addOp( "Ha! Laugh. Just once.","pueblo volver ja")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Ha!’</span> </p> <p>If I had done what they asked, I would have never met her.</p> <p>And then there's the thing Alice told me just before sleeping last night. What my uncle told her when I wasn't there.</p> <p>What a damn bastard he can be. And Alice is happy because everyone speaks well of me.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What's that supposed to mean?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Explain.","pueblo volver explicacion")</script><% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'pueblo volver ja')) { %><% } else { %><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘They remind me that I left them. And you know what?’</span> I pause. </p> <p class='d f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘They were right.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I was abroad just eight months to study, I was alone, I didn't understand a word people said, it was the worst moment in my life, and when a lorry crushes my parents' car my best idea is playing expat or whatever.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you call that playing?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Silence.","pueblo juego no")</script><script>addOp( "Answer.","pueblo juego contestar")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- ' id='O-- '><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='ita'>They</span> called it playing. Exact words. But I don't tell her.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo juego no seguir' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo juego no seguir'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘<span class='ita'>They</span> called it playing. Exact words.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I shouldn't tell you your life story but... Have you thought you're still seeing them with the eyes of then? That five years ago they reproached you for leaving, but they have accepted it?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "I can't talk about this.","pueblo juego no seguir")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Staying silent is a reliable way of irritating her.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Good,’</span> says Alice. She walks away, and I hear her saying to herself, <span class='f75'><span class='dialogue'>‘Fuck!’</span></span> </p> <p>I feel guilty.</p> <p>Like all the time.</p> <p>I see Alice walk. This is new for me. I've always seen her in the city, surrounded by lots of people, or inside rooms.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Behold Alice.","pueblo juego contemplar alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice slides through empty space. Her way of moving reveals the best of her: confidence, generosity, humility.</p> <p>Unfathomable and transparent Alice.</p> <p>Guilt dissolves, but it remains there, like fog under the sun.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero center' id='hero center'><div class='block-content'> <p>I wonder what Alice is thinking.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask Alice if she likes this place.","pueblo gustar pregunta")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Are you enjoying this?’</span> I cry. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘A lot,’</span> she says. I can't see where she is. </p> <p>I guess it's true.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘How could I dislike it?’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's our first trip together! I could be with my friends or my sister in the most exciting cities in the world but I came here with you. One year working! To! Get! Here!’</span> </p> <p>Where did that come from?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "She's so not winning a sarcasm contest with me.","pueblo gustar sarcasmo")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her to be clear, without irony.","pueblo gustar clara")</script><script>addOp( "Remind her I didn't even ask her to come.","pueblo gustar obligada")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',2)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>She wants sarcasm? She'll have sarcasm.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Our refund policy is no refunds. Our customer complaint policy is no customer complaints. Our policy policy is making up new policies on the go.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘That was funny,’</span> she says, smiling. </p> <p>I don't get her tone. I don't have the slightest idea of what she's hiding under her opaque irony. Better ending this conversation here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>Not in the mood for sarcastic crap.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Care to explain that? An explanation I can understand without an instruction manual, thanks.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you have to be so literal?’</span> </p> <p>I don't get her tone. I don't have the slightest idea of what she's hiding under her opaque irony. Better ending this conversation here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>What right does she have to be so sarcastic?</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I didn't ask you to come in this trip. You asked me, and I warned you that perhaps you wouldn't like it.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Come on, don't be mad for such a silly thing.’</span> </p> <p>I don't get her tone. I don't have the slightest idea of what she's hiding under her opaque irony. Better ending this conversation here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I still can't see Alice, but her voice reaches me.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘How are you feeling?’</span> she asks, and there's a false note in her voice. </p> <p>I don't feel anything special.</p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.buclepensar = 0</script><script>addOp( "Tell her I'm fine.","pueblo recuerdos bien")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her the truth.","pueblo recuerdos verdad")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Fine!’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I like this so much.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You don't seem that enthralled,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘But you know, I've been in salt flats and they are less strange than this place. Just look.’</span> </p> <p>I look. What am I seeing? Everything is immobile. I feel cold. Just one second.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo bucle pensar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo bucle pensar'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't feel anything special,’</span> I admit. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You don't seem that enthralled,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘But you know, I've been in salt flats and they are less strange than this place. Just look.’</span> </p> <p>I look. What am I seeing? Everything is immobile. I feel cold. Just one second.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo bucle pensar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo bucle pensar'] );</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo pensar madre') == false) { addOp( "Think of Mom.","pueblo pensar madre","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo pensar padre') == false) { addOp( "Think of Dad.","pueblo pensar padre","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'pueblo pensar abuelo') == false) { addOp( "Think of my grandad.","pueblo pensar abuelo","normal")}</script><script>if(window.story.state.buclepensar == 2) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo pensar paisaje' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo pensar paisaje'] ); }</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think of Mom. She told me that Dad's mood swings were something from my grandad, and that my grandad could always make her uncomfortable. I got furious at my grandad's memory.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo bucle pensar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo bucle pensar'] );</script> <script>window.story.state.buclepensar = window.story.state.buclepensar+1</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think of Dad. The days, the weeks he got a taciturn mood. How that used to scare me as a kid. How I used to despise that when I got a bit older. <span class='f75'>(Less than ten years ago.)</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo bucle pensar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo bucle pensar'] );</script> <script>window.story.state.buclepensar = window.story.state.buclepensar+1</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think of my grandad, but that doesn't bring out any emotion.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'pueblo bucle pensar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['pueblo bucle pensar'] );</script> <script>window.story.state.buclepensar = window.story.state.buclepensar+1</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O' id='-O'><div class='block-content'> <p>I think all that and I try to tie it to the landscape around me.</p> <p>I get no ideas.</p> <p>I never knew anyone who had seen this landscape before the water years.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Think of the landscape.","pueblo pensar paisaje 2")</script><script>addOp( "Think of Alice.","pueblo pensar alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We emptied this landscape, we made it colourless and textureless. Abstract. Immaterial. On reflection, it's the weirdest place I've ever seen. But it moves me less than a beach or a museum.</p> <p>It's not even enough to evade the problem with Alice.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I need to stop trying to evade problem with Alice.</p> <p>But thinking of that crushes me. Because I can only imagine extremes. Either she likes everything about me, or we break up.</p> <p>Evasion is better.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( window.story.state.puntoretorno )) </script><script>window.story.state.class = 'futuro'</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI text-focus-in de2s du2s' id='oI text-focus-in de2s du2s'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='dialogue'>‘I'll let you see the flat at your own pace. But I have another visit in twenty minutes and if you want it we must get the deposit sorted.’</span></p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘OK,’</span> I say, and Alice says the same exactly at the same time and we laugh. Her face says there's something for us here. </p> <p>The real estate agent walks out.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let me take a look on my own,’</span> says Alice, and she goes into the kitchen. I <%= revealOp( "regard", "saloncontemplar","") %> the living room. </p> <p><span class='saloncontemplar hidden'>Its <%= revealPass( "light", "futuroluz") %>. The <%= revealPass( "furniture", "futuromuebles") %>. The <%= revealPass( "windows", "futuroventanas") %>.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.salonbucle = 0</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io futuroluz f125 fade-in' id='Io futuroluz f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>It's the fifth floor: nearby buildings don't block the sun too much.</p> <p>I breathe the warm light in. </p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'futuromuebles')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'futuroventanas')</script> <script>window.story.state.salonbucle = window.story.state.salonbucle+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.salonbucle == 3) { addOp( "The rent.","futuro alquiler","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io futuromuebles f125 fade-in' id='Io futuromuebles f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>Furniture is cheap, with faded colours, but acceptable. In this light, it feels like they have a sheen of age, as if they had actually had a life.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'futuroluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'futuroventanas')</script> <script>window.story.state.salonbucle = window.story.state.salonbucle+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.salonbucle == 3) { addOp( "The rent.","futuro alquiler","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io futuroventanas f125 fade-in' id='Io futuroventanas f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>Through the window, I see a street with simple but elegant buildings from the early 20th century. It's not the city centre, but not far.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'futuroluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'futuromuebles')</script> <script>window.story.state.salonbucle = window.story.state.salonbucle+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.salonbucle == 3) { addOp( "The rent.","futuro alquiler","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- f150 center' id='O-- f150 center'><div class='block-content'> <p>The rent. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block -O top' id='-O top'><div class='block-content'> <p>We can pay it, but we need to make sacrifices.</p> <p>Could we find something better if we waited longer? I can't stop thinking we could... cheaper at least.</p> <p>But we've seen more than forty flats in three months, and nothing is ever affordable. And whoever is coming in twenty minutes will surely take it.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go to the bathroom.","futuro aseo ir")</script><script>addOp( "Go to the bedroom.","futuro dormitorio ir")</script><script>addOp( "Make some numbers.","futuro calculos salon")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I get disheartened when I start thinking about figures. Let's take another look.</p> <p>When I'm about to enter the bathroom, I see the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> come into the living room on all fours.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro bicho en salon' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro bicho en salon'] );</script> <script>addOp( "I better go to the bathroom.","futuro aseo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I get disheartened when I start thinking about figures. Let's take another look.</p> <p>When I'm about to enter the bedroom, I see the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> come into the living room on all fours.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro bicho en salon' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro bicho en salon'] );</script> <script>addOp( "I better go to the bedroom.","futuro dormitorio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- ' id='O-- '><div class='block-content'> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> comes into the living room on all fours.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O top' id='--O top'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stand still and glance. The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> smells a low table and leaps onto it. It fixes its black eyes on me and laughs.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro calculos' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro calculos'] );</script> <script>addOp( "I better go to the bedroom.","futuro dormitorio")</script><script>addOp( "I better go to the bathroom.","futuro aseo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>We've assumed Alice will earn less than last year. Unsteady work, unpredictable rates. Infuriating directors, contradictory requirements. Time seeping, time fading. But if she made a little more money this year instead, the flat would be more affordable.</p> <p class='f75'>Of course, if they raise the price next year in line with everyone else, we'll have to move again. Like a thousand kilometres away from this damn rentier city. </p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stand still and glance. The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> smells a low table and leaps onto it. It fixes its black eyes on me and laughs.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>The bedroom is small and dark, the worst room in the flat. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I like reading in bed,’</span> I say. I won't be able to do that. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘I can feel thousands and thousands of little foods,’</span> says the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> from the door. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Keep ignoring it.","futuro dormitorio ignorar")</script><script>addOp( "Ask the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> to disappear.","futuro dormitorio desaparecer")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I ignore the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>, but it keeps talking anyway.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro dormitorio discurso' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro dormitorio discurso'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Please go away,’</span> I whisper. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro dormitorio discurso' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro dormitorio discurso'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Foods everywhere. Why was I scared of coming? So many foods to eat. A huge orchard of food. I could walk for a week and I wouldn't see all the food there is.’</span> </p> <p>I sit on the bed. When you are seeing a flat to rent, you need to check the mattresses. The mattresses and all the taps.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask Alice about the taps.","futuro dormitorio grifos")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice, have we opened all the taps?’</span> I ask. I don't hear any answer. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Since you brought me here I'm fat from all the little foods I've eaten,’</span> the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> says. <span class='dialogue'>‘I eat everyday. Why didn't I know that places like this existed? Food lets us survive. Food lets us take from the world and transform it into us. Food lets us learn. As I learnt from your great-grandmother.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>In the flat I'm renting now, I have to close the heater's valve if I want a hot shower. Let's go test all taps.</p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo') == false) { addOp( "Check the bathroom.","futuro aseo","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro calculos salon') == false) { addOp( "Make some numbers.","futuro calculos dorm","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver') == false) { addOp( "Return to the living room.","futuro salon volver","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver') == true && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo')) { addOp( 'Go to the kitchen.','futuro cocina','normal')}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We've made our calculations assuming that Alice will earn less than last year. Unsteady work. Not knowing exactly how much she will earn for a commission. Infuriating directors, contradictory requirements.</p> <p>Time seeping in a rollercoaster of demands. Time fading in a morass of inactivity.</p> <p>But it's true that's a pesimist assumption. If Alice made a little more money this year, the flat would be less costly for us.</p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo') == false) { addOp( "Check the bathroom.","futuro aseo","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver') == false) { addOp( "Return to the living room.","futuro salon volver","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver') == true && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo')) { addOp( 'Go to the kitchen.','futuro cocina','normal')}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice isn't in the bathroom. Still at the kitchen? It seems this flat provides space to live together without seeing each other.</p> <p>She will need that.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> follows me here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Open the tap.","futuro aseo abrir")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block wl3' id='wl3'><div class='block-content'> <p>I open the tap as much as possible, to check the water pressure. </p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> jumps, gets on two legs and rushes out of the bathroom.</p> <p class='t f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not the water!’</span> it cries. </p> <p>After a few moments, I hear its disturbed voice coming from the bedroom.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Listen.","futuro aseo escuchar")</script><script>addOp( "Ignore it.","futuro aseo ignorar")</script><script>setBg( 'IIo','img/grifo2.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘No more water years. Water won't reach here.’</span> </p> <p>Well, water does reach this tap pretty all right, and the shower too.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro aseo todo bien' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro aseo todo bien'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>Perhaps, if I just stopped paying any attention to it, it would rot. Become transparent. Shut up. Go away.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro aseo todo bien' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro aseo todo bien'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O' id='-O'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='dialogue'>‘Is everything fine?’</span> asks the agent from some other room.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Perfect!’</span> I answer. </p> <p>For this damn price, it should be, but nowadays not even such a price guarantees anything. And Alice has her unsteady job and I have my shit job and everyone is just the same.</p> <p class='f75'>Of course my manager has an office bigger than this living room, but there's no point to thinking of that now, is it? </p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver') == false) { addOp( "Return to the living room.","futuro salon volver","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro dormitorio') == false) { addOp( "Go to the bedroom.","futuro dormitorio","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro dormitorio') == true && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro salon volver')) { addOp( 'Go to the kitchen.','futuro cocina','normal')}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I jump into Alice in the living room.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm taking a look at that part,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘Just one moment, let me absorb it.’</span> </p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> enters, avoids Alice and gets to my side. It stands on two legs and speaks into my ear.</p> <p class='t f75'><span class='dialogue'>‘Remembering the water years makes me think of food.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro dormitorio') == true && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo')) { addOp( 'Go to the kitchen.','futuro cocina','normal')}</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro dormitorio') == false) { addOp( "Go to the bedroom.","futuro dormitorio","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'futuro aseo') == false) { addOp( "Check the bathroom.","futuro aseo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 bottom' id='w1 bottom'><div class='block-content'> <p>The kitchen is white and sunny. There's a small <%= revealPass( "TV", "futurotv") %>, switched on.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block w3 futurotv top' id='w3 futurotv top'><div class='block-content'> <p>The TV has no sound. Did Alice turn it on? The image is confusing, there are some white-bluish objects, apparently as big as buildings, that fall into water, causing huge waves.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'w4','img/tv.png','fade-in')</script> <script>addOp( "Try the taps.","futuro cocina grifo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>The taps have good pressure.</p> <p>We could live in a flat like this. I stop breathing for just a moment, and think. Will we have space to live separate? Walls and doors to hide? To avoid seeing her? To avoid being seen?</p> <p>Yes. We have.</p> <p class='f150'>At last. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell Alice I want to stay.","futuro quiero quedarme")</script><script>addOp( "Ask Alice what she thinks.","futuro alice piensa")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice,’</span> I call. </p> <p>She comes in. There's hope in her face, but also a concern she can't hide.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Tell me,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Mmmm... yeah? If we live in a shack we'll drive each other crazy.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro tugurio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro tugurio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice,’</span> I call. </p> <p>She comes in. There's hope in her face, but also a concern she can't hide. Something grips my chest and I kiss her. She is surprised, but we kiss for a long time. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell her what I hope.","futuro esperanza")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her what worries me.","futuro preocupacion")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Can we really afford it?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you want it?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Yes, and you want it more.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>She laughs. <span class='dialogue'>‘True. We will have to afford it. If we live in a shack we'll drive each other crazy.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro tugurio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro tugurio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Best place we've seen,’</span> I say, and Alice smiles, with that enormous smile that hides nothing. <span class='dialogue'>‘Better than most of our friends' places.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>She laughs. <span class='dialogue'>‘True. If we live in a shack we'll drive each other crazy.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro tugurio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro tugurio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Is that the first thought that comes to her mind? Interesting.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> comes in.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Kick it.","futuro patada")</script><script>addOp( "Ignore it.","futuro ignorar bicho")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I kick the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> in its side, quick and strong. Alice doesn't seem to notice. But I barely push the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> half a metre away.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro bicho final' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro bicho final'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>We link our arms and get closer to the window, to enjoy the light again.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'futuro bicho final' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['futuro bicho final'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='t'>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> stands on two legs and starts screaming. <span class='dialogue'>‘How come you have such a narrow space inside your heads? How come you can't bear the idea of waking up with an uneasiness stuck in your throat? Your head will be as big as what you put inside. The water years, only water in my head. I forgot about air and forgot about food. But water went away and my head got big again. What are you doing?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘We'll do whatever it takes to afford it,’</span> I say. Alice smiles and nods. </p> <p>The agent calls.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Leave.","futuro salida")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -o- blur-out-expand f150 de5s center' id='-o- blur-out-expand f150 de5s center'><div class='block-content'> <p>We get out</p> <p>through the</p> <p>door</p> <p>and</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "...","vision inicio","fade-in de5s")</script><script>window.story.state.class = ''</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>The dry stream is in front of me. I inhale air without smell, in a place without sounds other than a transparent breeze, in a brilliant and colourless land under a flat sky.</p> <p>It's like getting out of the world and entering a drawing.</p> <p>To my left, the street goes on until the church and the graveyard.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Where's Alice? I don't see Alice. I need her.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Sit down.","vision sentarme")</script><script>addOp( "Call Alice.","vision llamar alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I lean to sit on the ground...</p> <p>The world rolls over.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice? Where are you?’</span> I need her now. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Here.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>I see her not far away, sitting in the shadow of a more or less intact wall. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'm thinking. Whatever this place means, it's not what we believe.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get near Alice.","vision ir con alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice? Where are you?’</span> I need her now. </p> <p><span class='dialogue'>‘Here.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>I see her not far, sitting in the shadow of a more or less intact wall. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'm thinking. Whatever this place means, it's not what we believe.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get near Alice.","vision ir con alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- f125 center alicesentar' id='O-- f125 center alicesentar'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stagger until I sit by <%= revealOp( "her side", "alicedetalles","") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt4 center narrow alicedetalles hid' id='ttt4 center narrow alicedetalles hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>My head on her shoulder. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5 center narrow alicedetalles hid' id='ttt5 center narrow alicedetalles hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>Her hand briefly over mine. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt6 center narrow alicedetalles hid' id='ttt6 center narrow alicedetalles hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>Her warmth in the cool shade.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O f75 center alicedetalles hid' id='--O f75 center alicedetalles hid'><div class='block-content'> <%= revealOp( "Calm", "aliceconfusion","alicedetallesops") %>. </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O center aliceconfusion hid' id='--O center aliceconfusion hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm confused.</p> <p>Didn't they say that my grandad was mad too?</p> </div></div></div><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision locura bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision locura bucle'] );</script> <script>clearBlock( 'alicesentar')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'alicedetalles')</script><script>addOp( "Better not talking or thinking about that.","vision olvidar locura")</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision contar locura') == false) { addOp( "Tell Alice.","vision contar locura","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision pensar locura') == false) { addOp( "Think about my grandfather's madness.","vision pensar locura","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I hadn't thought about that for years. My grandad was mad. That's what his daughter-in-law, Mom, believed. Not merely weird, not merely... out of place.</p> <p>He had moments of utter insanity.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision locura bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision locura bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5' id='ttt5'><div class='block-content'> <p>I tell it to Alice. Her look reveals pity. I guess.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘And you're telling me now?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I didn't remember before.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Because you're avoiding it.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision locura bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision locura bucle'] );</script><% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision contar locura')) { %><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I make a gesture to make it clear that I don't want to talk about this.</p> </div></div></div> <% } else { %><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I just shake my head. Forget about this.</p> </div></div></div> <% }; %><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision contar bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision contar bucle'] );</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision contar preguntar') == false) { addOp( "Ask Alice what she's thinking.","vision contar preguntar","normal")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision contar contar') == false) { addOp( "Tell Alice what has just happened.","vision contar contar","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>Would it relieve me telling Alice what has just happe...? </p> <p>But it isn't there. I don't remember it. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4' id='w4'><div class='block-content'> <p>Like a dream after waking up. The moment I stopped thinking about it</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>it&nbsp; sli p p e d &nbsp; t h r o u g h &nbsp;&nbsp; <span class='f75'>m y &nbsp;&nbsp; f&nbsp; i &nbsp; n&nbsp; g &nbsp; e &nbsp; r &nbsp; s &nbsp; .</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision contar bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision contar bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘What are you thinking of?’</span> I say. </p> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision contar contar')) { %><% } else { %><p>And as soon as I say it, I realize that I don't remember anymore what has just happened. </p> <p>Like a dream after waking up, the moment I stopped thinking about it&nbsp;</p> <p>it&nbsp; sli p p e d &nbsp; t h r o u g h &nbsp;&nbsp; <span class='f75'>m y &nbsp;&nbsp; f&nbsp; i &nbsp; n&nbsp; g &nbsp; e &nbsp; r &nbsp; s &nbsp; .</span></p> <% }; %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘How this place was when people still lived here.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4' id='w4'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Can you imagine it?’</span> </p> <p class='a'>She sighs. <span class='dialogue'>‘I would have to make it up. I don't know this culture. I'll only imagine stereotypes. But... yes. I can. Ask me something.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = ""</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision primera opciones iniciales' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision primera opciones iniciales'] );</script> <script>setBg( 'w2','img/abuelo2.png','')</script> <script>setBg( 'w3','img/alice.png','')</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision primera nada') == false) { addOp( "Don't ask.","vision primera nada","normal")}</script><script>addOp( "Houses.","vision primera casas")</script><script>addOp( "Trees.","vision primera arboles")</script><script>addOp( "Animals.","vision primera animales")</script><script>addOp( "People.","vision primera gente")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Describe people,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘I see a woman.’</span> </p> <p class='a'>Her voice is giving lower, slower notes. <span class='dialogue'>‘With a very simple dress, black and blue. It reaches the ground. She wears a scarf that covers all her hair.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you know who she is?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not yet,’</span> she says, and remains silent for a few <%= revealPass( "seconds", "visionmujermaterial") %>. </p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O f125' id='--O f125'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='flicker-in-1'>A woman materializes before us.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision primera observar mujer","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero visiontemblando f125 center ' id='hero visiontemblando f125 center '><div class='block-content'> <p>Flickering and trembling like a <%= revealOp( "candle flame", "visionprimera","visiontemblor") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero hid visionprimera' id='hero hid visionprimera'><div class='block-content'> <p>Suddenly there she is, casting her shadow over stones.</p> <p>A woman with a long black skirt, a dark blue apron, a scarf covering her head.</p> <p>She walks until disappearing behind the corner of the wall where we are sitting. I follow her with my eyes. Alice doesn't.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Describe animals,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘First, the smell. Animal smells everywhere, cow, sheep, donkey.’</span> </p> <p>I take a deep breath and notice a heavy, pungent smell.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘A donkey,’</span> she continues. <span class='dialogue'>‘With a heavy load. Deep, tired eyes, eyes of an ancient worker.’</span> She remains silent for a few <%= revealPass( "seconds", "visionburromaterial") %>. </p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O f125' id='--O f125'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='flicker-in-1'>A donkey materializes before us.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision primera observar animales","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI visiontemblando f125 center ' id='oI visiontemblando f125 center '><div class='block-content'> <p>Flickering and trembling like a <%= revealOp( "candle flame", "visionprimera","visiontemblor") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero hid visionprimera' id='hero hid visionprimera'><div class='block-content'> <p>Suddenly there it is, casting its shadow over stones.</p> <p>A donkey with gray coat, burdened with two sacks of potatoes. It stares at me.</p> <p>I hear its breathing. It's wearisome.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( 'Io','img/borrico.png','flicker-in-1')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Describe trees.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Look at that tree,’</span> she says, pointing at a dry trunk before us. <span class='dialogue'>‘Do you see it? You see that it's full of figs? It's lush. The hottest days, people take refuge in its shade because the sun can never go through its foliage. See it? Look.’</span> She remains silent for a few <%= revealPass( "seconds", "visionarbolmaterial") %>. </p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O f125' id='--O f125'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='flicker-in-1'>The trunk blinks and a living tree materializes.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision primera observar arboles","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero visiontemblando f125 center top' id='hero visiontemblando f125 center top'><div class='block-content'> <p>Flickering and trembling like a <%= revealOp( "candle flame", "visionprimera","visiontemblor") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero hid visionprimera' id='hero hid visionprimera'><div class='block-content'> <p>Suddenly there it is, casting its shadow over stones.</p> <p>A corner between two houses, a five metre tree in the middle, laden with fruit.</p> <p>Its thick foliage reaches from one wall to the other, and no sunlight passes through it.</p> </div></div></div> <script>setBg( '-O','img/arbolvivo.png','flicker-in-1')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Describe houses,’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Houses? What they call a house here wouldn't be a hut in other countries,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘To me they are like mushrooms on a hillside, squeezed together where the slope allows for it.’</span> She remains silent for a few <%= revealPass( "seconds", "visioncasamaterial") %>. </p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block --O f125' id='--O f125'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='flicker-in-1'>A house materializes before us.</span></p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision primera observar casas","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero visiontemblando f125 center ' id='hero visiontemblando f125 center '><div class='block-content'> <p>Flickering and trembling like a <%= revealOp( "candle flame", "visionprimera","visiontemblor") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero hid visionprimera' id='hero hid visionprimera'><div class='block-content'> <p>Suddenly there it is, casting its shadow over stones. Two floors of solid walls, doors and window frames painted white. The door is open: dishes tinkle inside. </p> </div></div></div><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision primera helado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision primera helado'] );</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visiontemblando')</script> <script>clearBlock( '-O')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'Io')</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't want you to describe anything,’</span> I say, and my voice sounds coarse, I don't know why. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You're so unbearable sometimes,’</span> she answers. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'm doing it anyway. Ask.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision primera opciones iniciales' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision primera opciones iniciales'] );</script><script>window.story.state.class = 'vision'</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>I feel I can't move.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What now?’</span> she asks. </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta = 1</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><script>window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta = window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta + 1</script><% if (window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta==3) { %><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda final' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda final'] );</script> <% } else { %><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, "vision primera nada") == false && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, "vision segunda nada") == false ) { addOp( "Don't ask.","vision segunda nada","normal")}</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision primera casas') == false && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision segunda casa') == false ) { addOp( 'Houses.','vision segunda casa','normal')}</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision primera arboles') == false && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision segunda arboles') == false ) { addOp( 'Trees.','vision segunda arboles','normal')}</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision primera animales') == false && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision segunda animales') == false ) { addOp( 'Animals.','vision segunda animales','normal')}</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision primera gente') == false && _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'vision segunda gente') == false ) { addOp( 'People.','vision segunda gente','normal')}</script> <% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘People' I mutter. Why? I'm not thinking. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I see a woman,’</span> says Alice, her voice giving lower, slower notes. <span class='dialogue'>‘With a very simple dress, black and blue. It reaches the ground. She wears a scarf that covers all her hair.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you know who she is?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not yet,’</span> she says, and stays silent for a few seconds. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f125'><span class='flicker-in-1'>A woman materializes before us.</span> </p> <p class='de5s fade-in hid'>A woman with a long black skirt, a dark blue apron, a scarf covering her head. </p> <p class='a de5s fade-in hid'><span class='dialogue'>‘More,’</span> says Alice. </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = "the woman"</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Animals,’</span> I say, very quietly. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘First, the smell. Animal smells everywhere, cow, sheep, donkey.’</span> </p> <p>I take a deep breath and notice a heavy, pungent smell.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘A donkey,’</span> she continues. <span class='dialogue'>‘With a heavy load. Deep, tired eyes, eyes of an ancient worker.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f125'><span class='flicker-in-1'>A donkey materializes before us.</span> </p> <p class='de5s fade-in hid'>A donkey with gray coat, burdened with two sacks of potatoes. It stares at me. </p> <p class='de5s fade-in hid'>I hear its breathing. It's wearisome. </p> <p class='a de5s fade-in hid'><span class='dialogue'>‘What next,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = "the donkey"</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>Not really thinking of anything, I vaguely gesture towards a dry trunk before us.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘That tree is full of figs,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's lush. The hottest days, people take refuge in its shade because the sun can never go through its foliage. See it? Look.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f125'><span class='flicker-in-1'>The trunk blinks and a tree appears.</span> </p> <p class='de5s fade-in hid'>A corner between two houses, a five metre tree in the middle, laden with fruit. Its thick foliage reaches from one wall to the other. There are two children sitting in its shade. </p> <p class='a de5s fade-in hid'><span class='dialogue'>‘Something else.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = "the tree"</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I gesture towards the walls.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What they call a house here wouldn't be a hut in other countries,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘To me they are like mushrooms on a hillside, squeezed together where the slope allows for it.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f125'><span class='flicker-in-1'>A house materializes before us.</span> </p> <p class='de5s fade-in hid'>Two floors of solid stone, doors and window frames painted white. The door is open: dishes tinkle inside. </p> <p class='a de5s fade-in hid'><span class='dialogue'>‘Something else.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = "the house"</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't want you to go on,’</span> I say, and my voice sounds coarse, I don't know why. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You're so unbearable sometimes,’</span> she answers. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'm doing it anyway. Ask.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta = window.story.state.visionbuclecuenta - 1</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision segunda opciones bucle' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision segunda opciones bucle'] );</script><script>addOp( "Close my eyes.","vision segunda ojos")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I close my eyes. Silence, like before. When I open them, everything is still there.</p> <p>There's nothing ghostly about <%= s.lastvision %>, nothing that suggests a mirage.</p> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision segunda gente')) { %><% } else { %><% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision primera gente')) { %><% } else { %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I see a woman,’</span> says Alice, her voice giving lower, slower notes. <span class='dialogue'>‘With a very simple dress, black and blue. It reaches the ground. She wears a scarf that covers all her hair.’</span> </p> <p><span class='flicker-in-1'>The woman</span> materializes before us, with a long black skirt, a dark blue apron, a scarf covering her head.</p> <p>She walks until disappearing behind the corner of the wall where we are sitting. I follow her with my eyes. Alice doesn't.</p> <script>window.story.state.lastvision = "the woman"</script><% }; %><% }; %></div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask Alice if she's seeing these things.","vision preguntar mismo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Are you seeing <%= s.lastvision %> for real?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What does 'for real' even mean? Seeing these things is my damn job.’</span> </p> <p class='d'>Perhaps I could insist. *Seeing them with your eyes, not your imagination.* But I'm terrified to ask. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her more details.","vision pedir detalles")</script><script>addOp( "Don't say anything.","vision seguir callado")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Tell me more details,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I want to know what you see.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision vamos ver mas' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision vamos ver mas'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stare at her, again terrified of saying anything.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision vamos ver mas' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision vamos ver mas'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let's go see more,’</span> she says. She stands up and offers her hand. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Take her hand.","vision mas levantarme")</script><script>addOp( "Don't get up.","vision mas sentado")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice helps me stand up. I try not to look. We walk to the corner where the woman disappeared.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘See this street,’</span> Alice says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision mirar calle")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I shake my head. Don't want to go. She walks away, almost jumping like a kid.</p> <p>Next to my hand, where the ground was dry cracked mud, I see grass and a daisy.</p> <p>I jump to my feet and run after her. She's standing still, just behind the corner.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘See this street,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","vision mirar calle")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>The street I've just walked through: a few rows of meaningless stones, on a ground so worn-out it looks like a blank page.</p> <p>Now: a living village.</p> <p>I see ten, twelve houses. I see their <%= revealPass( "doors", "visionpuertas") %>, their <%= revealPass( "windows", "visionventanas") %>, their <%= revealPass( "flower pots", "visionflores") %>, their <%= revealPass( "roofs", "visiontejados") %>, their <%= revealPass( "balconies", "visionterrazas") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = 0</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 fade-in visionpuertas' id='Io f125 fade-in visionpuertas'><div class='block-content'> <p>Doors painted old blue, old green.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionventanas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionflores')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visiontejados')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionterrazas')</script> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = window.story.state.mirarcallecount+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.mirarcallecount==5) { addOp( "Smell.","vision calle escudo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 fade-in visionventanas' id='Io f125 fade-in visionventanas'><div class='block-content'> <p>Windows with wooden shutters, in a very small opening. It's hard making a window in a stone wall.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpuertas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionflores')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visiontejados')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionterrazas')</script> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = window.story.state.mirarcallecount+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.mirarcallecount==5) { addOp( "Smell.","vision calle escudo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 fade-in visionflores' id='Io f125 fade-in visionflores'><div class='block-content'> <p>Flowers in windows, balconies and doors.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpuertas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionventanas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visiontejados')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionterrazas')</script> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = window.story.state.mirarcallecount+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.mirarcallecount==5) { addOp( "Smell.","vision calle escudo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 fade-in visiontejados' id='Io f125 fade-in visiontejados'><div class='block-content'> <p>Black slate on roofs. Smoke floating above.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpuertas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionventanas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionflores')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionterrazas')</script> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = window.story.state.mirarcallecount+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.mirarcallecount==5) { addOp( "Smell.","vision calle escudo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io f125 fade-in visionterrazas' id='Io f125 fade-in visionterrazas'><div class='block-content'> <p>Balconies protrude from the last floor, made of unpainted timber, with one-piece beams, each made from a whole tree trunk.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpuertas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionventanas')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionflores')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visiontejados')</script> <script>window.story.state.mirarcallecount = window.story.state.mirarcallecount+1</script><script>if( window.story.state.mirarcallecount==5) { addOp( "Smell.","vision calle escudo","normal")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>And what's that bad smell?</p> <p>On the closest wall, a coat of arms is carved. A legend is too worn-out to read.</p> <p>On the ground below, animal shit.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Sheep shit, sheep sheet. Everywhere sheep shit!’</span> hums Alice. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘This houses were already very old,’</span> she says. <span class='dialogue'>‘The people who left when they flooded the village hadn't seen the building of a new house in their lives.’</span> </p> <p>Before my eyes, the empty air <span class='flicker-in-1'>trembles and folds</span> and opens and there's a tree full of leaves rocked by the breeze.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Want to know this tree's story?’</span> she asks. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't care.","vision no arbol")</script><script>addOp( "Yes.","vision arbol")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I nod.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It's two months till the flood. He doesn't want this pear tree to end up as an underwater skeleton, so he gets out of home with his axe and cuts it.’</span> </p> <p>I hear a door opening nearby. A man is standing on the doorway, lighting a cigarette. An axe is leaning on the frame. His face is tanned and has deep wrinkles, but he's not really much older than myself.</p> <p>He snaps his fingers and throws the match by my feet. Then he looks at us. </p> <p>The cigarette falls off his mouth.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Run.","vision arbol escapar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't care about that tree,’</span> I say. </p> <p>Alice shrugs and lets out a malicious laugh. We walk into a side alley.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘How are you doing it?’</span> I ask. She laughs louder. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm a pro writer, man!’</span> </p> <p>Left and right, intact houses with open doors, the smell of stew, a smell I hadn't felt in *years*. Home's smell when I was a child.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What's in there?’</span> Alice says, and she goes into the closest house. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go after her.","vision casa entrar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I push Alice towards a side alley.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘How are you doing it?’</span> I ask. She laughs louder. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm a pro writer, man!’</span> </p> <p>Left and right, intact houses with open doors, the smell of stew, a smell I hadn't felt in *years*. Home's smell when I was a child.</p> <p>I hear the blows of the axe behind me. Each one shakes the whole world.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What's in there?’</span> Alice says, and she goes into the closest house. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go after her.","vision casa entrar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I enter after her. As I cross the threshold, darkness swallows me and I get dizzy. Windows are small in stone walls, and it's a summer noon outside.</p> <p class='d'><span class='f75'><span class='dialogue'>‘Dad,’</span></span> I whisper. Wait. Why? </p> <p>Because of the food smell.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Wait.","vision casa esperar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I wait, but my eyes don't adjust. I hear Alice walking.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","vision casa salir")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her to shut up.","vision casa callar")</script><script>addOp( "Ask more details.","vision casa detalles")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘What's this?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What do we have here? A big black iron box with hatches, rims, a tap... An old coal cook stove. Yes, to slowly cook big stews.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘How can you know that?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "They were exactly like that.","vision casa exacto")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block f150 full' id='f150 full'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘The unending toil. Women with their hair tied up, or very short. With a black dress and an apron, working from dawn to dusk. You need to bring water buckets home, peel the potatoes, crack the eggs, keep the stove hot, watch the pots, serve the dishes to the husband and the six kids, wash the dishes, scrub the floor, wash the clothes and the sheets, feed the chickens, pick the vegetables from the orchard.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "I don't know what to say.","vision casa no se")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I don't know what to say. Where's she getting all these details from?</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Children also did many of those things,’</span> I say, just to say something. I still can't see. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","vision casa salir")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice... I really don't want to go on with this.’</span> </p> <p>She laughs and keeps talking. She's starting to describe an old coal kitchen stove.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get out.","vision casa salir")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Not seeing anything infuriates me, so I leave Alice inside and return to the street.</p> <p>I see the stream that leaps and sings, and on the other side there are green orchards and a flock of sheep above and a couple of cows further and Alice cries:</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Look further up!’</span> and I'm afraid to go on with this. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her to stop.","vision camion para")</script><script>addOp( "Don't look.","vision camion no mira")</script><script>addOp( "Look.","vision camion mira")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I look.</p> <p>Further up, something is moving, very little and very far but suddenly I see it as if I had a telescope.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look carefully.","vision detalles camion")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I ignore Alice and turn away.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Look there I'm telling you! Damn!’</span> she cries. </p> <p>I turn back and look.</p> <p>Further up, something is moving, very little and very far but suddenly I see it as if I had a telescope.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look carefully.","vision detalles camion")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Don't want any more of this.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Look there I'm telling you! Damn!’</span> she cries. </p> <p>I look.</p> <p>Further up, something is moving, very little and very far but suddenly I see it as if I had a telescope.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look carefully.","vision detalles camion")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O fade-in de2s' id='-O fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>And it's a very old roofless lorry, carrying seven men with picks and shovels, faces blackened with soot and Alice says:</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Any miners in your family?’</span> </p> <p>And I don't really know but one of the men looked quite like me.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look away.","vision camion apartar")</script><script>setBg( 'o-','img/camion.png','text-focus-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I look away. A sudden flash from a balcony blinds me.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Just the sun, on a mirror,’</span> she says. </p> <p>Colours pulse like only real things do. Not like the bleached landscape before, hollow like a painting or a screen.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her if she's seeing it.","vision final")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero f125' id='hero f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Are you really seeing these things?’</span> I ask. <span class='dialogue'>‘I *am*. With my own open eyes.’</span> </p> <p>She laughs. I've no idea what that means.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm good.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Admit it.","vision final admitir")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I give up.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘You're the best writer in every crap travel website in the world.’</span> </p> <p>She laughs.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I've found the magic sentence.’</span> </p> <p>Her magic sentence theory: each place has an exact description, a word sequence that, if found, lets you discover all its secrets and its past. But you must never publish it.</p> <p>This means she's very happy with this visit.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her to stop.","vision final parar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1 center' id='w1 center'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘You found it. Can we stop now?’</span> </p> <p>And now there's <%= revealPass( "nothing", "visionfinalnada") %>. </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.class = ''</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w2 center fade-out du5s' id='w2 center fade-out du5s'><div class='block-content'> <p>Houses.</p> <p>Trees.</p> <p>Donkey dung.</p> <p>Flock of sheep. </p> <p>Dark hallways.</p> <p>Sunlit balconies.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w2 center de2s du5s fade-in' id='w2 center de2s du5s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>No houses.</p> <p>No trees.</p> <p>No donkey dung.</p> <p>No flock of sheep. </p> <p>No dark hallways.</p> <p>No sunlit balconies.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block -O de5s du2s fade-in center' id='-O de5s du2s fade-in center'><div class='block-content'> <p>I see the bleached trunks, the parched and cracked earth, the heaps of tones, the naked bed of the dry reservoir. I don't remember the things I was seeing a second ago.</p> <p>Something like wind drags my head and I collapse.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Try go get up on my own.","vision final levantar","de5s du2s fade-in")</script><script>addOp( "Ask for help.","vision final ayuda","de5s du2s fade-in")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice!’</span> I try to cry, but my voice is thin and quiet. Moments pass. I hesitate. </p> <p>Her hands pull me up with great strength.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What happened?’</span> she asks. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Lie.","vision final mentir")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her about the vision.","vision final vision")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I don't want to call Alice. I can sit up straight on my own, right? But I barely put my weight on my elbow and I've already failed, fallen back to the dusty ground.</p> <p>Alice pulls me up with great strength. I feel a bit ashamed.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What happened?’</span> she asks. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Lie.","vision final mentir")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her about the vision.","vision final vision")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>How can I tell her what I've seen?</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Your descriptions impressed me,’</span> I say, making her smile. <span class='dialogue'>‘I was transported to the past... I truly found myself there. I was overwhelmed.’</span> </p> <p>She looks bewildered.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘That's weird. Do you want to go back?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision final sigamos' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision final sigamos'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI f125' id='oI f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘It must have been the sun,’</span> I lie. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you want to go back?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision final sigamos' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision final sigamos'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io fade-in de2s' id='Io fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm fine. What do you want to do? Are you tired? Bored?’</span> I ask. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm fine too. There's not much left to see and this place may be underwater forever?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I wouldn't count on that.’</span> </p> <p>Alice takes my hand.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Walk.","vision hacia iglesia","fade-in de2s")</script><script>setBg( 'ttt8','img/mano1.png','fade-in de2s')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>We walk downhill together. In silence. Thankfully. I look at things again.</p> <p>The <%= revealPass( "stream", "visionarroyo") %>. The <%= revealPass( "stones", "visionpiedras") %>. The <%= revealPass( "light", "visionluz") %>. The <%= revealPass( "ground", "visionsuelo") %>. The <%= revealPass( "sky", "visioncielo") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Walk without looking at anything else.","vision iglesia fijarme nada")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block visionarroyo Io f125 fade-in' id='visionarroyo Io f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>To my right, the dry stream is little more than a line drawn with a pencil. My head is spinning.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpiedras')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionsuelo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visioncielo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block visionpiedras Io f125 fade-in' id='visionpiedras Io f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>To my left, rows of stones hardly suggest what used to be walls. I get a knot in my stomach.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionsuelo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visioncielo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block visionluz Io f125 fade-in' id='visionluz Io f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>And the light? The light doesn't pulse, doesn't bounce: it comes from all directions at a time. The light is dry, acid and objective. The light corrodes.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpiedras')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionsuelo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visioncielo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block visionsuelo Io f125 fade-in' id='visionsuelo Io f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>We tore off the earth's skin, the living and flexible skin, and underneath there's only bone left, soon to get dry and break.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpiedras')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visioncielo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block visioncielo Io f125 fade-in' id='visioncielo Io f125 fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>The sky is cloudless as before. A bird glides, very high. The sun has moved forward and now the earth is more brilliant, it hurts my eyes.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'visionarroyo')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionpiedras')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionluz')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'visionsuelo')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Better not to look at things. It doesn't do me any good. This place is guilt made landscape.</p> <p>But then, what? I don't have anything to say now. We keep walking.</p> <p>The landscape is annoying. There's no way these stones are going to mean anything to me.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>... unless I ask Alice to do that thing again.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't ask.","vision no pedir repeticion")</script><script>addOp( "Ask.","vision pedir repeticion")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice... What if I asked you to imagine the village again?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Man, I'm out of ideas.’</span> </p> <p>And that's it.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision llegar iglesia' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision llegar iglesia'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>My legs were shaking just a few minutes ago. I'm not asking anything.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘People who left this place were forgotten,’</span> I say, just to fill the silence. <span class='dialogue'>‘Governments didn't help them. My grandad lived in poverty for years.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision llegar iglesia' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision llegar iglesia'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O' id='-O'><div class='block-content'> <p>We get to the church. It's small and it must have been quite ugly even when intact. All churches are ugly in this area. The walls are still standing up, but not the arches, the vaults or the roof. How many water years will be needed to topple it completely?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go into the church.","vision entrar iglesia")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We go in. The water has left only the bare and colourless bones of the church. Anything that looked tasty was devoured by the water years ago.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘So, is this all?’</span> asks Alice. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘There's a graveyard behind.’</span> </p> <p>We go round the church and reach a very intact wall. There's nothing more beyond the graveyard, and I feel quite disappointed with all this. I want Alice to know.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't say a word.","vision no admitir decepcion")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her I'm disappointed.","vision admitir decepcion")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't think I've taken anything out of this visit,’</span> I say, feeling downhearted. </p> <p>Alice snorts.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Nothing. Just a walk in a landscape that could be in a Tanguy or a Kay Sage painting. And what about "you are the best"? What a shitty attitude you have today.’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Well, just know...’</span> I start saying impulsively. But I shut my mouth on time. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Know what? What exactly?’</span> </p> <p>If I say nothing, she'll get angry. If I admit what I think, she may get into a rage.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Admit it.","vision admitir verguenza")</script><script>addOp( "Say nothing.","vision no admitir verguenza")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm like this because I felt embarrassed yesterday,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I've been embarrassed the whole trip. Everything here is obsolete. They treat you like an exotic curiosity.’</span> </p> <p>She faces me. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You think I haven't complained because I just haven't noticed? Now you are being more patronizing than all of them. I can defend myself.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision alice a cementerio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision alice a cementerio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I stay silent. I am too wary of her. It's better to conceal it, even if I'm actually adding fuel to the fire.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision alice a cementerio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision alice a cementerio'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'evita',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p>I better keep my mouth shut. Why disappoint her?</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'vision alice a cementerio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['vision alice a cementerio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>I try to read Alice's face. Her eyes are burning. I don't understand. Doesn't she understand me? Possibilities, yet again, narrow.</p> <p>She walks to the graveyard's <%= revealOp( "door", "mirartapia","opmirartapia") %>. <span class='mirartapia hid'>The graveyard wall is the best preserved here, I can't see anything inside.</span></p> </div></div></div><script>addOp( "Enter the graveyard.","cementerio entrar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>Let's get this done. We'll leave and be by the sea in less than three hours.</p> <p>What can I find in this graveyard anyway. Tombstones will be eroded and probably scattered around. I go in and look <%= revealOp( "inside", "cementeriointerior","") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io cementeriointerior hid' id='Io cementeriointerior hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>The tombstones grow haphazardly like weeds. They are so worn-out they almost look like big pebbles. There's no trace of whatever was written or carved on them. Water has drowned <%= revealPass( "memory", "cementeriomemoria") %>.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block hero fade-in' id='hero fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>And the ones who were forced to leave and leave their dead here. How was it *for them?*</p> <p>Who am I to say. I haven't even returned to my parents' graves. My life, my generation's life, is different. We don't have that kind of relationship with our antecessors. I've been more times to foreign graveyards as a tourist, than to the ones where my own people are resting. Even counting today.</p> <p>I don't see Alice.</p> </div></div></div> <script>clearBlock( 'oI')</script> <script>clearBlock( 'Io')</script> <script>addOp( "Look for Alice.","cementerio buscar alice")</script><script>addOp( "Continue alone.","cementerio ir solo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I don't like this graveyard, I don't like this place, I admit it, and I prefer not being alone here. Let's get Alice out of here and get back on the road. I don't know why I brought her in the first place.</p> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision admitir decepcion')) { %><p>A Tanguy painting?</p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f150'>Alice screams. </p> <p>A scream so loud it had to burn her throat.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Find her.","cementerio grito buscar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I prefer moving on alone.</p> <p>If water has moved tombstones, how can I be sure I'm not stepping on tombs?</p> <p>I look at my feet. How dusty. Did we walk so much?</p> <p>The writing on tombstones is illegible. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look at the tombstones.","cementerio solo lapidas")</script><script>addOp( "Explore.","cementerio solo explorar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I can't tell different tombstone styles. Different sizes and colours, but every other difference has been eroded. Poetic justice. Isn't it morbid that someone as young as me is thinking of this. I don't know why I brought Alice in the first place.</p> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision admitir decepcion')) { %><p>A Tanguy painting?</p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f150'>Alice screams. </p> <p>A scream so loud it had to burn her throat.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Find her.","cementerio grito buscar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I raise my gaze from the tombstones. I look at the few remaining trees, pointing at the sky. So approppiate.</p> <% if (_.contains(s.historylist,'vision admitir decepcion')) { %><p>A Tanguy painting?</p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f150'>Alice screams. </p> <p>A scream so loud it had to burn her throat.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Find her.","cementerio grito buscar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt1 alicedetras' id='ttt1 alicedetras'><div class='block-content'> <p>To my right there's <%= revealOp( "another wall", "alicedetras","") %></p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt2 alicedetras hid' id='ttt2 alicedetras hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>and Alice is </p> <%= revealOp( "behind", "alicegrito","cementerioalicegrito") %>. </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt4 alicegrito hid right' id='ttt4 alicegrito hid right'><div class='block-content'> <p>The scream sounds so</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5 f150 center alicegrito hid de1s' id='ttt5 f150 center alicegrito hid de1s'><div class='block-content'> <p>BIG </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt6 alicegrito hid de2s' id='ttt6 alicegrito hid de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>it should tear </p> <p>the wall </p> <p>down. </p> <p>There's a <%= revealOp( "door", "alicemiedo","cementerioalicemiedo") %>.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt7 alicemiedo hid' id='ttt7 alicemiedo hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>I look at the door in the wall. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt8 f75 alicemiedo hid de1s' id='ttt8 f75 alicemiedo hid de1s'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm not going there. </p> <p>My feet won't walk there. </p> <p>Fear eats, chews and swallows me. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt9 alicemiedo hid de5s' id='ttt9 alicemiedo hid de5s'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f75'>But </p> <p>Alice. </p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'alicedetras')</script><script>clearBlock( 'alicegrito')</script> <script>addOp( "Overcome it.","cementerio grito sobreponerme","de5s")</script><script>window.story.state.class = 'noche'</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>You don't defeat fear with reasons. You defeat fear with actions. So I run to the other side of the wall.</p> <p>Everything goes dark.</p> <p>Alice looks at me. Looks shocked, but not hurt.</p> <p class='f150'>There's a <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> before her. </p> <p>It's sitting on a tombstone. It turns to me: it has a mocking face.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Take Alice and run.","cementerio x huir con alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oII' id='oII'><div class='block-content'> <p>I try to run, but its voice has glued me here. Alice is wriggling, but she's not moving her feet either.</p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘We always wake up so hungry,’</span> says the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>. It's perched on a tombstone, and the sky is dark and full of stars. </p> <p>Isn't it familiar? Dad. Telling the <%= revealOp( "stories", "padrehistorias","cementeriopadrehistorias") %> his father told him</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt2' id='ttt2'><div class='block-content'> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5' id='ttt5'><div class='block-content'> <p class='center padrehistorias hid f75'>snakes </p> <p class='center de2s padrehistorias hid f75'>the lord of the clouds </p> <p class='center de5s padrehistorias hid f75'>and the good people. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt8' id='ttt8'><div class='block-content'> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block IIo padrehistorias hid de5s du2s' id='IIo padrehistorias hid de5s du2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>But nothing as terrifying as the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>.</p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Sleeping so long is bad,’</span> it says. Its voice cracks crystal. </p> </div></div></div><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x bucle hablar correr' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x bucle hablar correr'] );</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'cementerio x correr') == false) { addOp( "Run.","cementerio x correr","de5s")}</script><script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'cementerio x hablar alice') == false) { addOp( "Talk to Alice.","cementerio x hablar alice","de5s")}</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I try to escape. My body does nothing at all.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x bucle hablar correr' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x bucle hablar correr'] );</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'cementerio x hablar alice') == true) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x dormido tanto' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x dormido tanto'] ); }</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice! Can you move?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Can't,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x bucle hablar correr' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x bucle hablar correr'] );</script> <script>if( _.contains( window.story.state.historylist, 'cementerio x correr') == true) { $('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x dormido tanto' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x dormido tanto'] ); }</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you know why I slept so long? I'm not understanding it. Sleeping years. And now wake up all is white and empty. Until you I hear nothing. It's like everything burnt by fire, but not. No taste of smoke. Fire is beautiful. I love painting suns and moons in cinder. But no fire here. It was something else. Do you know?’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Answer.","cementerio x dormido responder")</script><script>addOp( "Don't talk.","cementerio x dormido no responder")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I prefer not saying anything. The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> is not looking at us, but it is agitated, it trembles, it bends and it should break but it doesn't. It doesn't look like flesh and bones. I drown in terror.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Water!’</span> I cry. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x grita agua' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x grita agua'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Water,’</span> I plainly say. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio x grita agua' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio x grita agua'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O-' id='-O-'><div class='block-content'> <p><span class='dialogue'>‘Water?’</span> cries the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>. </p> <p>Its corrosive voice sounds, perhaps, sad. I close my eyes but I keep seeing it.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Water years. Sunken and forgotten,’</span> it says, and it gapes at us. <span class='dialogue'>‘You did whatever you could to forget me, but I return and I'm hungry. I need to think. But I have to eat before thinking.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Keep talking.","cementerio calor hablar")</script><script>addOp( "Say nothing.","cementerio calor nada")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not our fault,’</span> I say, barely raising my voice. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘If it's not my fault then it's your fault,’</span> thunders the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>. <span class='dialogue'>‘All is your fault. You can't think. You,’</span> it says, and it points directly at me, <span class='dialogue'>‘say hello to your great-grandmother.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio hola bisabuela' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio hola bisabuela'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>I say nothing.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> emits a sound not totally like a guffaw.</p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘You,’</span> it says, and it points directly at me, <span class='dialogue'>‘say hello to your great-grandmother.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'cementerio hola bisabuela' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['cementerio hola bisabuela'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w3' id='w3'><div class='block-content'> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> points its <%= revealOp( "cane", "calavera","cementeriobisabuelaop") %> to me. It's not simply a tree branch, it rolls around itself, forming a spiral.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io f150 calavera hid text-border center' id='Io f150 calavera hid text-border center'><div class='block-content'> <p>A skull is swinging on the cane's point.</p> </div></div></div><script>addOp( "This is too absurd to be possible.","cementerio bisabuela pregunta","fade-in")</script><script>setBg( 'Io','img/calavera.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block wl1' id='wl1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘My great-grandmother?’</span> </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you know she thought once? Only once in all her life but no one here had thought for years. She thought that this place was going to be underwater. She told everyone and they beat her.’</span> </p> <p>The skull trembles. It looks like laughter.</p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘I was the only one who understood her. And your grandfather, they called him crazy because he unknowingly helped me eat once.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "I don't believe it.","cementerio bisabuela no creo")</script><script>setBg( 'w4','img/abuelo2.png','fade-in')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘How do you know I'm his grandson.’</span> </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘You look so much like him.’</span> </p> <p>At times I half see the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> open and there's something on the other side, something that is also it but larger, </p> <p class='f150'>so much larger. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "I can't think.","cementerio bisabuela no pienso")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'>I can't think. <span class='dialogue'>‘We have to leave,’</span> says Alice. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘You can't leave me like this,’</span> says the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>. For a moment, I see it as an ill-treated animal, forgotten by its abuser. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘There's nothing we can do for you,’</span> Alice says, and I realize that she understands the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>, but I'm hearing it talk a language she doesn't speak. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘I need to eat.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘We have no food.’</span> </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘You are food. And there's more food where you come from.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Say that food will return here now that water is gone.","cementerio comida volvera")</script><script>addOp( "Say it's not true.","cementerio comida no")</script><script>addOp( "Admit that's right.","cementerio comida si")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Yes,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘That's where I should go,’</span> it says, and nothing else. Is it hesitating? Meditating? It's like seeing a jellyfish swim and wondering if it's in love. </p> <p>Run! That's all I want. I want to try. I can't do anything else.</p> <p>But what if Alice doesn't follow me?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> to let us go in exchange for taking it with us.","cementerio final oferta")</script><script>addOp( "Try to run.","cementerio final correr")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘No,’</span> I say. But I have nothing else to say. </p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> darts to me.</p> <p>And I can't move. Its head is close to mine and there's nothing but its eyes, its mouth, its warm breath.</p> <p>That's all. It moves back again.</p> <p class='t'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not true,’</span> it says. <span class='dialogue'>‘ I smell it. Lots of food where you come from.’</span> </p> <p>Run! That's all I want. I want to try. I can't do anything else.</p> <p>But what if Alice doesn't follow me?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> to let us go in exchange for taking it with us.","cementerio final oferta")</script><script>addOp( "Try to run.","cementerio final correr")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Now that water is gone, food will return,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘But if we don't return, they'll be scared and they won't come,’</span> says Alice.It says nothing else. Is it hesitating? Meditating? It's like seeing a jellyfish swim and wondering if it's in love. </p> <p>Run! That's all I want. I want to try. I can't do anything else.</p> <p>But what if Alice doesn't follow me?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> to let us go in exchange for taking it with us.","cementerio final oferta")</script><script>addOp( "Try to run.","cementerio final correr")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I can't resist. I need to run. I lift a foot, I jump, I turn...</p> <p>I'm still in the same place.</p> <p>Whatever keeps me still hasn't eased its grip.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> smiles. I don't know it that means something.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> to let us go in exchange for taking it with us.","cementerio final oferta")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero cementeriofinaloferta' id='hero cementeriofinaloferta'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘If you let us go, we can show you where to find food.’</span> </p> <p>A hoof rumbles on the ground. Alice has an anguished face. She has too many reasons to be terrified.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘We need to leave the village and take our car,’</span> I say, pointing to the path, <span class='dialogue'>‘there, and return to our home.’</span> </p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> looks in that direction, with its body tightened like a predator, or a machine.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Both of us need to go or we won't be able to show you where's food,’</span> Alice says. </p> <p class='t'>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> just stares. <span class='dialogue'>‘The good people won't let you.’</span> <%= revealOp( "I see it open its mouth.", "cementeriobocaabierta","cementerio final boca") %> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero cementeriobocaabierta hid' id='hero cementeriobocaabierta hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>Its mouth is open. Are those teeth or a whirlpool?</p> <p>It jumps and lands just before Alice.</p> <p>We both scream.</p> <p>From far it looked smaller than her, but now, next to her, she looks like a child.</p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'cementeriofinaloferta')</script> <script>addOp( "Do nothing and wait.","cementerio final nada")</script><script>addOp( "Try running again.","cementerio final escapar")</script><script>addOp( "Try to defend Alice.","cementerio final defender")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI ' id='oI '><div class='block-content'> <p>I have to dare. I have to run close to Alice and try to do something together, or lose together.</p> <p>But my feet still refuse to move. I can only <%= revealPass( "watch", "cementeriofinalfinal") %> as Alice falls to the ground.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block oI ' id='oI '><div class='block-content'> <p>I can't stay here. I can't *decide* to stay here. I have to run. Hope Alice is right. Run.</p> <p>But my feet still refuse to move. I can only <%= revealPass( "watch", "cementeriofinalfinal") %> as Alice falls to the ground.</p> </div></div></div><div class='narration'><div class='block oI ' id='oI '><div class='block-content'> <p>What if it's not attacking her? What if I enrage it?</p> <p>I better stand still and just <%= revealPass( "watch", "cementeriofinalfinal") %> as Alice falls to the ground.</p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'oI')</script> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io blur-out-expand de5s du2s' id='Io blur-out-expand de5s du2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>And then it is right before me</p> <p class='f125'>above me </p> <p class='f150'>around me </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "...","final estoy suelo","de5s")</script><script>window.story.state.class = ''</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero text-focus-in de5s du5s center f75' id='hero text-focus-in de5s du5s center f75'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm on the ground. Why? Can't hear a thing.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Open my eyes.","final abrir ojos","text-focus-in de5s du5s")</script><script>window.story.state.class = 'ocaso'</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='f75'>I remember the sunken village. The road. The city, the plane. The kiss. </p> <p class='d f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice!’</span> </p> <p class='a f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘Here,’</span> answers a trembling voice. </p> <p>The sky is turning purple. Alice is painstakingly getting up from the ground.</p> <p>What's this?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Remember.","final abrir recordar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block o-- center f150' id='o-- center f150'><div class='block-content'> <p>When I try to remember I crash. </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Something is not lined up with the rest of my memories.</p> <p>I know we are in the graveyard now. We visited the ruined church before that. But between those two moments... my memory is eroded, bleached and parched.</p> <p>Alice coughs.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask Alice how she is.","final alice como esta")</script><script>addOp( "Ask Alice if she remembers anything.","final alice recuerda algo")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘How are you feeling?’</span> I ask. </p> <p>Alice coughs. The setting sun outlines the ruins.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘This is nonsense. Night is coming already.’</span> </p> <p>My confusion is giving way to fear.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Try to reassure Alice.","final alice tranquilizar")</script><script>addOp( "Tell Alice to hurry up.","final alice apresurar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice, I don't remember why we're here. Why does it look like late evening already?’</span> </p> <p>Alice coughs. The setting sun outlines the ruins.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I can't understand,’</span> she says. </p> <p>My confusion is giving way to fear.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Try to reassure Alice.","final alice tranquilizar")</script><script>addOp( "Tell Alice to hurry up.","final alice apresurar")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘No reason to worry,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘Let's just walk calmly to the car.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final alice levantarse' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final alice levantarse'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-' id='O-'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice, can we get to the car as fast as we can? See how late it is.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final alice levantarse' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final alice levantarse'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice comes to my side and offers me her hand. She turns her back as soon as I'm standing up.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Everything with you is so hard,’</span> she mumbles. I don't know if she wanted me to hear. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Leave the graveyard.","final salir cementerio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I twist my feet when I walk, because it's darker and little rocks sink in the gravestones' shadows.</p> <p>I falter when I get out of the graveyard.</p> <p>Alice is waiting outside, looking at the ground.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her to hurry up.","final no mirar huellas")</script><script>addOp( "Look what she's looking at.","final mirar huellas")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Is there anything?’</span> I ask. She points at the ground. </p> <p class='f125'>There are animal tracks in the dry ground. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final huellas fuera cementerio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final huellas fuera cementerio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Leave that, sunlight won't last for long,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Fucking look there.’</span> </p> <p class='f125'>There are animal tracks in the dry ground. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final huellas fuera cementerio' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final huellas fuera cementerio'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w3' id='w3'><div class='block-content'> <p>Very well defined, very recent hoof prints. They start right out of the graveyard and continue towards the ruins.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do they remind you of anything?’</span> she asks. I feel something... vertigo of remembering. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "No, but I admit they unsettle me.","final huellas me inquietan")</script><script>addOp( "No.","final huellas recuerdan nada")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Nothing.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It's the same direction we are going,’</span> Alice notes. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell her to hurry up now.","final huellas increpar")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her softly to get a move on.","final huellas suave")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'>I shake my head. <span class='dialogue'>‘No idea what they are, but I admit they are disturbing.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It's the same direction we are going,’</span> Alice notes. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Tell her to hurry up now.","final huellas increpar")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her softly to get a move on.","final huellas suave")</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'rechaza',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘We can't stop now!’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘It's getting dark and we have a good way up till the car.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final emprender camino' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final emprender camino'] );</script><script>window.increaseVar( 'acepta',1)</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘We can't remain here another minute! Dammit! You've seen how late it is?’</span> </p> <p>I wanted to ask softly. But it came out like this.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final emprender camino' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final emprender camino'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We resume our path. Alice doesn't look upset at all.</p> <p>She leans down and takes a <%= revealOp( "stick", "cogerpalo","opemprendercamino") %>. <span class='cogerpalo hid'>It's long and straight, and it's twisted on itself. She uses it as a walking stick.</span></p> </div></div></div><script>addOp( "Look at the ruins.","final mirar ruinas")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block wl1' id='wl1'><div class='block-content'> <p>The ruins' character changes in the light of dusk.</p> <p>Now the dented walls, the thresholds with nothing on the other side, cast shadows thick enough for something to hide there and watch us, unseen.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Hey,’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Yes?","final alice pregunta actitud")</script><% s.rdoalice = "ambiguo";if( (s.acepta > s.rechaza) && (s.acepta > s.evita) ) { s.rdoalice = "acepta" };if( (s.rechaza > s.acepta) && (s.rechaza > s.evita) ) { s.rdoalice = "rechaza" };if( (s.evita > s.rechaza) && (s.evita > s.acepta) ) { s.rdoalice = "evita" };%><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Yes?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You are taking too long to think every time you talk today...’</span> she says. I don't know what to answer. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘And?’</span> </p> <% if (window.story.state.rdoalice == 'acepta') { %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You have said some things that scare me. I'm glad I've heard them, but they scare me,’</span> she says. </p> <p class='d'>I see she's honest. She does feel scared. My heart sinks. I don't want to be the cause for that. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm sorry,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I want you to tell me what I've said to make you feel like that. As soon as we get out of here. Please.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘OK,’</span> she says. </p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.rdoalice == 'rechaza') { %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘The more you say, the less I know. You've opened gaps instead of closing them.’</span> </p> <p>I don't really know what to say. Perhaps I've tried to keep some distance today, is that bad? But perhaps I've implied something else without meaning it. </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let's talk later,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'll try to understand how you're feeling.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘OK,’</span> she says. </p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.rdoalice == 'evita') { %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You have been copping out of everything I've said. Talking to you today has been like fishing with my bare hands.’</span> </p> <p>I feel as if two stone hands were pressing my temples.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.rdoalice == 'ambiguo') { %><p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm not sure yet of how to fit it all together. Feels like your mood has had a lot of wild changes.' </p> <p>I don't really know what to say. But I don't want to be a cause of worry for her.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Let's talk later,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘I'll try to understand how you're feeling.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘OK,’</span> she says. </p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Ask her not to talk about that now.","final actitud ahora")</script><script>addOp( "She's right, but tell her she's wrong.","final actitud injusta")</script><script>addOp( "Admit she's right.","final actitud razon")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I don't agree. You're being unfair and now it's not the moment.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why the hurry?’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Because it's getting dark!","final porque oscurece")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘You're right. I apologize. Can we talk about it any other time?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why the hurry?’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Because it's getting dark!","final porque oscurece")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Now is so not the moment to talk about this. We need to be out of here as quick as we can.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why the hurry?’</span> she says. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Because it's getting dark!","final porque oscurece")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Because this place is making us mad,’</span> I say. </p> <p>I cover my mouth with a hand.</p> <p>But Alice doesn't seem disturbed at all. It's as if she had already thought it.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Who are the good people?’</span> she asks. <span class='dialogue'>‘The name keeps returning to my head.’</span> </p> <p>I hear Dad's voice, telling me about them. And Mom's, telling me about him.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Answer.","final hablar buena gente")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her to keep walking.","final no hablar buena gente")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Why do you insist on talking about things at the worst possible time?’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘Answer,’</span></span> she says, in an indisputable tone. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Answer.","final hablar buena gente")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d center'><span class='dialogue'>‘It was an old superstition here,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='d center f125'><span class='dialogue'>‘The dead, coming to take a living one with them.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice nods. And, all of a sudden, it explodes.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘My grandfather believed in them. During his last months he said that the good people came out of the water at night to look for him.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘And now you'll tell me that your grandfather appeared outside one morning and nobody knew why he'd gone out, won't you?’</span> </p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘That's exactly what happened.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>Alice bursts into laughter. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Listen.","final escuchar eco risa")</script><script>addOp( "Ask her to stop.","final que pare risa")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice, please. Remember I'm talking about my family.’</span> </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You can't deny it's so funny!’</span> </p> <p>And I start laughing too.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go with it.","final dejarme risa")</script><script>addOp( "Try to stop.","final parar risa")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Laughter doesn't sound like it would in a normal place. It's overwhelming and minuscule. Dangerous and despicable. Like a venomous insect.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘You can't deny it's so funny!’</span> </p> <p>And I start laughing too.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go with it.","final dejarme risa")</script><script>addOp( "Try to stop.","final parar risa")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I try to stop, but it's like they're tickling me.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final agua no vuelve' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final agua no vuelve'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O--' id='O--'><div class='block-content'> <p>I laugh and laugh and laugh.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final agua no vuelve' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final agua no vuelve'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block -O' id='-O'><div class='block-content'> <p>You know something? Water is not ever coming back.</p> <p>It's such a good crack up.</p> <p>I don't stop until Alice does.</p> <p>We walk. We can't waste any more time. Blue is gone from the sky, and the edges of the shadows start to fade. Dusk is making everything soft.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "A flash.","final primer destello")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero ' id='hero '><div class='block-content'> <p>A memory flashes. The village before the flood, with its houses standing up, with slate roofs and painted doors.</p> <p>It feels like a memory, not a fantasy.</p> <p>It fades.</p> <p>...</p> <p>Is that a light?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look at the light.","final primera luz")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>It's a small white light, just in front of us, in the path that brought us to the village. Moving.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘What do you think that is?’</span> I ask. </p> <p>She takes a while to answer.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It looks big for a firefly, doesn't it? A person. With a flashlight?’</span> </p> <p>It's moving downwards.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Walk.","final caminar tras primera luz")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>We have to go on.</p> <p>Night is here, already starting to dissolve the day. When it's totally dark, there will be no light to see here: no moon, no villages in the distance, no car on the road.</p> <p>The light is closer now, and it has split into several lights, in a row.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Walk.","final subir tras primera luz")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I keep walking. Why am I so tired? It's not that steep.</p> <p class='f125'>The good people? A procession of souls dressed in white robes, each carrying a little torch. If they run into a living one, it's theirs to take. But why? To pay for sins, I guess. We all have sins. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "On second thought...","final pensandolo bien")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>On second thought, from their point of view, we all have the same sin: </p> <p class='f125'>Burying them. </p> <p>Relegating them to the past and denying any responsibility for the bad done to them.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘We got here long before noon,’</span> Alice says. <span class='dialogue'>‘Did we faint at the same time? Heatstroke?’</span> Her voice trembles. <span class='dialogue'>‘We have both gone crazy seeing this place.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "She mustn't speak like that.","final no dramatice")</script><script>addOp( "Soothe her, even though she's right.","final sitio desquiciante")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt1' id='ttt1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘This place is maddening,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘But we'll still arrive at the hotel at a decent time, and we'll reflect on this.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final olvidado ocho horas' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final olvidado ocho horas'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt1' id='ttt1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Don't be so dramatic.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final olvidado ocho horas' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final olvidado ocho horas'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt5 center' id='ttt5 center'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘We have forgotten eight hours!’</span> she cries. </p> <p>The lights make a sudden move.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt9 right' id='ttt9 right'><div class='block-content'> <p>I shiver. Alice walks past me fast.</p> <p>What anger in her cry. What a slap.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Defend myself.","final olvido defenderme")</script><script>addOp( "Tell her I regret what's happening.","final olvido lamento")</script><script>addOp( "Say nothing.","final olvido nada")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘And why would any of it be my fault?’</span> I ask. She doesn't answer. </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final olvido movimiento' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final olvido movimiento'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I'm sorry, Alice,’</span> I say, doubtfully. What else can I say, since I have done nothing, and I can fix nothing? </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final olvido movimiento' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final olvido movimiento'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>What good does speaking do?</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final olvido movimiento' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final olvido movimiento'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io' id='Io'><div class='block-content'> <p>I keep going. From here, the movement that the lights made when Alice cried was just a blink, but unambiguous. They are closer now: I count two rows, five lights each.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Another flash.","final segundo destello")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>Another memory comes to me. But it's incongruous too. Alice and I visiting a flat to rent, as if we wanted to live together. A hole that gave me unexplainable hopes.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block w4 fade-in de2s' id='w4 fade-in de2s'><div class='block-content'> <p>Nothing to hear except our footsteps. I'd like not walking alone. Darkness is beginning to kill shapes and colours. We'll be lucky if light lasts until the car.</p> <p>Then she stands still.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Come closer.","final segundas huellas","fade-in de2s")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>The same hoof prints as before, same direction as us. They start and stop suddenly, without further prints before or after.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘It looks like a lot happened while we lost eight hours of our lives,’</span> she says. </p> <p>Yet again, I have no answer to that.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Keep walking.","final seguir luces aprension")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>So we keep walking.</p> <p>Now I notice that each light trembles like fire, not a flashlight.</p> <p>They are at a human height. They are people, though I can't make them out yet. Anyway, we'll meet them in a couple of minutes at most.</p> <p>I look at them and a feeling of foreboding grows.</p> <p>I don't think. Just anxiety.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Watch myself.","final aprension observarme")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm breathing faster, tightening muscles, and I feel I'm losing control of my body. I've had this anxiety other times.</p> <p>It didn't end well. Didn't end on its own.</p> <p>Alice has never seen me like this.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Say nothing.","final alice no apartar")</script><script>addOp( "Ask Alice to move aside with me.","final pedir apartarnos")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I can't bear it, I need to tell her.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice,’</span> I whisper. <span class='dialogue'>‘I need to get out of the way for a moment. Please come and help me.’</span> </p> <p>She stands still.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘What? Now?’</span> she says, almost screaming. </p> <p>Dusk is almost over, but we are still visible, like embers under ashes.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Another flash.","final destello cementerio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I better not tell her anything. I look down, at least it doesn't get worse.</p> <p>Then she cries.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Hey!’</span> </p> <p>She's signaling with her hand.</p> <p>Dusk is almost over, but we are still visible, like embers under ashes.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Another flash.","final destello cementerio")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>…</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span>.</p> <p>The graveyard. My great-grandmother's skull. "You are food." </p> <p>Perhaps we will find the good people.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice!’</span> I whisper. A shadow veils her face when she looks. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Pull Alice.","final alice escondernos")</script><script>addOp( "Tell Alice.","final alice avisar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt1' id='ttt1'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘We need to hide,’</span> I whisper. <span class='dialogue'>‘They must not see us. Run! Remember the thing in the graveyard!’</span> </p> <p>She gasps, takes my hand and drags me.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final alice recuerdo todo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final alice recuerdo todo'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block ttt1' id='ttt1'><div class='block-content'> <p>I run to Alice, take her hand and drag her.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Don't say a word!’</span> I whisper. <span class='dialogue'>‘Remember the graveyard!’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final alice recuerdo todo' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final alice recuerdo todo'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero center ' id='hero center '><div class='block-content'> <p>There's a low but long wall. It's resisted water enough to be a hiding place. We stick to the wall and crouch, embraced and shaking.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block ttt9 de2s right' id='ttt9 de2s right'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘I remember everything,’</span> she says, emphasising *everything*. </p> </div></div></div> <script>window.story.state.finalesperamira = 0</script><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final op esperar mirar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final op esperar mirar'] );</script><script>window.story.state.finalesperamira = window.story.state.finalesperamira + 1</script> <% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira > 4) { %><script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final aparicion' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final aparicion'] );</script> <% } else { %><script>addOp( "Wait.","final muro esperar")</script><script>addOp( "Look.","final muro mirar")</script><% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block hero f125' id='hero f125'><div class='block-content'> <% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 1) { %><p>I want to look but I don't dare to. Alice says nothing, but she squeezes my hand, my arm, my shoulder. It's almost as if she has understood the same I have.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 2) { %><p>I resist the urge to look, but uncertainty and fear torture me. Alice takes my head and turns my face to herself. She makes an unquestionable negative gesture.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 3) { %><p>Lights begin to light things behind us. Colours look strange. Alice is very very still.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 4) { %><p>They have to be very close. Something inside me is collapsing, I don't feel Alice anymore. I try to flatten against the wall, and wait.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final op esperar mirar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final op esperar mirar'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 1) { %><p>I raise my head very slowly, looking upwards all the time, until reaching the edge of the wall.</p> <p>Both rows of lights keep going their way. If they saw us, no one is coming for us. At least I can see outlines below the torches, but they are too dark, with dubious shapes. The light they are carrying themselves seems to avoid them.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 2) { %><p>I'm terrified of peeping out and exposing myself again. But knowing nothing is unbearable.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 3) { %><p>Another look.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 4) { %><p>I look once again.</p> <% }; %><%= revealOp( "And...", "finalmuromirary","finalmuromirary") %> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io hid finalmuromirary du2s' id='Io hid finalmuromirary du2s'><div class='block-content'> <% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 1) { %><p>They aren't closer than when we ran. I lower my head quickly.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 2) { %><p>They are a bit closer, but moving forward very slowly. Torches don't sway with footsteps. I can't bear looking at them: I hide.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 3) { %><p>They are here. Just on the other side of the wall. Light from torches hits my face, perhaps there's a telltale sparkle in my eye, so I hide again.</p> <% }; %><% if (window.story.state.finalesperamira == 4) { %><p>They are about to surpass us. And follow their way? Where? I crouch and flatten against the wall.</p> <% }; %></div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'oI')</script> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final op esperar mirar' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final op esperar mirar'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block --O' id='--O'><div class='block-content'> <p>The first lights appear on our side of the wall, six metres away. They are turning half their backs, half their sides to us. But they walk forward, not seeming to see us. Other lights soon follow. Alice pulls me.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Don't look and hide now.","final no mirar buena gente")</script><script>addOp( "Look before hiding.","final mirar buena gente")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>They dress in white. The fire from the torch is white. White hands, arms and necks. Lunar hair.</p> <p>Their clothes are rags and very, very old: from a different century. But they are from here. Plowmen, shepherds and cooks. Who couldn't walk since the water came seventy years ago.</p> <p>Each of them is carrying a burden. A cross, a rock, a sack.</p> <p>The good people.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "A sudden memory.","final recuerdo repentino")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I turn my back to them.</p> <p>I only get a fleeting impression of white rags, skin as white and parched as the ground. A colour nothing living can have. And each of them is carrying a burden: a cross, a rock, a sack.</p> <p>The good people.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "A sudden memory.","final recuerdo repentino")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block O-- center' id='O-- center'><div class='block-content'> <p>A memory comes suddenly. But it can't be a memory.</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block -O- f150 center' id='-O- f150 center'><div class='block-content'> <p class='text-focus-in du5s'><span class='flicker-in-1'>These are the ones that my grandfather was afraid to meet and my great-grandmother met.</span> </p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block --O center' id='--O center'><div class='block-content'> <p class='de5s fade-in'>I cover my eyes with the hand that Alice is not holding. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "We crawl.","final arrastramos muro","de5s")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block w1' id='w1'><div class='block-content'> <p>We crawl. It's difficult to do while staying close to the wall, our only defense. Dry earth gets into my mouth and nose.</p> <p>We reach the wall's end, and pass to the other side while the last light is passing by the other end. In a few seconds we'll be in the dark again and the way to the car will be open for us.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Crouch and wait.","final encogerme esperar")</script><script>setBg( 'wl4','img/nochemuro.png','')</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I keep still, listening to my own breathing and caressing Alice's hand. Five seconds, ten seconds. Twenty.</p> <p>Dark.</p> <p>I raise my head so, so carefully. They keep walking down towards the church. Impassive.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Get away.","final salir de aqui")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block wl1' id='wl1'><div class='block-content'> <p>We start walking quickly. I guess we have twenty minutes before the remaining light from dusk disappears completely.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Will the <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> be waiting for us? To take it home?’</span> Alice whispers. </p> <p>I think so.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Say not now.","final no preguntar ahora")</script><script>addOp( "Say no.","final no nos espera")</script><script>addOp( "Say yes.","final si nos espera")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI f125' id='oI f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘I guess so,’</span> I say. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘We have to do something.’</span> </p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final terror disipado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final terror disipado'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI f125' id='oI f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘There's no reason to think that,’</span> I say. </p> <p>She doesn't react visibly.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final terror disipado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final terror disipado'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI f125' id='oI f125'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Not now,’</span> I say. </p> <p>She doesn't react visibly.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final terror disipado' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final terror disipado'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io' id='Io'><div class='block-content'> <p>But terror has faded. I'm confident now. There are only a few ruins in the half-light. We'll leave the village in a minute, then a path uphill, a bit downhill, up again, the burnt house and the car. </p> <p>Ten... no, five minutes.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Keep walking without distractions.","final salir no animar")</script><script>addOp( "Encourage Alice.","final salir animar alice")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Did you see we're already out of the village?’</span> I whisper. <span class='dialogue'>‘There's very little left.’</span> </p> <p>We go on.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> was... I don't know what it was. But the good people are like us. They are *us*. We write our history in the landscape for centuries and, when we read it, the good people appear. And they demand that we ask for forgiveness. But we are too proud.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Reach the end of the uphill path.","final cuesta arriba")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Better not talking. I don't know what she's seen, what she remembers, what she believes.</p> <p>We go on.</p> <p>The <span class='baffle'>ççççç</span> was... I don't know what it was. But the good people are like us. They are *us*. We write our history in the landscape for centuries and, when we read it, the good people appear. And they demand that we ask for forgiveness. But we are too proud.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Reach the end of the uphill path.","final cuesta arriba")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>This is the place where the path goes down again! We aren't visible from the village now. And look! That's the faint sparkle of the car. Less than five minutes.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Do you see something there?’</span> asks Alice. </p> <p>A dubious shape near the car trembles and fades. Or it wasn't there at all. A normal flaw of sight in the twilight.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Go on.","final seguir casa quemada")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>The burnt house, black and dense like nothing you ever see in a city.</p> <p>We go on.</p> <p>There's the water line, the limit between the dry and normal zones! Right there, a few <%= revealOp( "metres", "luzblanca","finalluzblanca") %> in front of us...</p> </div></div></div> <div class='narration'><div class='block Io luzblanca hid' id='Io luzblanca hid'><div class='block-content'> <p>White light surrounds us from left and right.</p> <p>So fierce it strips every crack in the dry ground.</p> </div></div></div><script>clearBlock( 'quemadanoche')</script> <script>addOp( "See the light.","final seguir nos adelantan")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>They overtake us and stand in our way, with their white flame torches and the heavy stones they carry and their dead eyes I can't look at.</p> <p>They stand in circle around us. They do nothing. No hurry. They're old.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice...’</span> I say. Trying to reassure myself with her name. I fix my eyes on her face. </p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Daniel!’</span> says Alice. </p> <p>A dull thud at my feet.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","final objeto metalico")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>There's a metallic thing on the ground. It's almost one metre long and looks very heavy. It could be a cross, but one of the arms is lost. </p> <p>I know what this means. It was in the stories.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘One must take it,’</span> I say. <span class='dialogue'>‘Share their burden... remember them... stay with them...’</span> </p> <p>The old people are mumbling something impossible to understand, but the tone sounds like a prayer.</p> <p>They are praying for me to join them, stay here forever. I feel a tremendous pressure in all my body.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Escape and let them take Alice.","final decido huir")</script><script>addOp( "Take the cross and stay.","final decido quedarme")</script><script>window.story.state.decisionfinal = false</script><script>story.show('final frase magica')</script><script>window.story.state.decisionfinal = true</script><script>story.show('final frase magica')</script><script>window.story.state.class = 'ocaso alicepov'</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero de5s fade-in' id='hero de5s fade-in'><div class='block-content'> <p>...</p> <p>I've found the magic sentence for this place:</p> <p>They lived centuries as if they feared that something would take them somewhere else forever.</p> <p>I know I should break down in terror. As Daniel has.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘Alice...’</span> Daniel says, and he stares at me. </p> <p class='a f150'><span class='dialogue'>‘Daniel!’</span> I say. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Look.","final alice mira gente","de5s fade-in")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Daniel's face is undone, barely recognizable. But I'm not terrified.</p> <p>The circle has closed around us, made of people with dead faces and unnatural fires. One of them comes forward and drops a something before Daniel. Perhaps a cross.</p> <p class='d'><span class='dialogue'>‘One must take it,’</span> he says. <span class='dialogue'>‘Share their burden... remember them... stay with them...’</span> </p> <p>The dead start chanting a litany.</p> <p>I know what I must do. It's so simple I want to laugh!</p> </div></div></div> <% if (window.story.state.decisionfinal == true) { %><script>addOp( "Act.","final daniel se queda")</script><% }; %><% if (window.story.state.decisionfinal == false) { %><script>addOp( "Act.","final daniel huye")</script><% }; %><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>But before I move, Daniel shakes, as if waking up. He kneels near the cross and starts caressing it with his fingertips.</p> <p>He's taking it. I know. He's staying.</p> <p>He prefers giving in to guilt than doing anything against it.</p> <p>He stares at me at last. Perhaps one of the dead has lent a face to him.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Save Daniel and leave together.","final alice salva daniel")</script><script>addOp( "Leave on my own.","final alice va sola")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>But before I move, Daniel runs to a gap in the circle.</p> <p>He doesn't even cry for me to follow.</p> <p>Not even that.</p> <p>But they cut him short and quickly stand on his way. He stops, looks in all directions looking for another escape, but there's none.</p> <p>He stares at me at last. Perhaps one of the dead has lent a face to him.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Save Daniel and leave together.","final alice salva daniel")</script><script>addOp( "Leave on my own.","final alice va sola")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I'm tempted to leave him here.</p> <p>Though I love him.</p> <p>But if a sacrifice is needed, the best victim is someone who feels guilty, isn't it?</p> <p>Perhaps my idea to save us won't work anyway.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Save Daniel and leave together.","final salvar daniel definitivo")</script><script>addOp( "Leave on my own.","final alice sola definitivo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>Daniel is so numb he doesn't know how to save himself. Why? Just because of the guilt?</p> <p>Or perhaps I'm the one who is wrong and my idea won't work anyway.</p> <p>Perhaps it would be safest to let him sacrifice himself.</p> <p>If a sacrifice is needed, the best victim is someone who feels guilty, isn't it?</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Save Daniel and leave together.","final salvar daniel definitivo")</script><script>addOp( "Leave on my own.","final alice sola definitivo")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘He'll share your burden,’</span> I say, and I start walking. </p> <p>The dead let me pass.</p> <p>Daniel says nothing and I don't look at him.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final coche sola' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final coche sola'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>But I can't leave him here.</p> <p>I look at the walking stick I've been using since the graveyard. It's another naked and bleached branch, but it's twisted on itself, making a spiral. It's a very strange object.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Break the stick.","final romper baston")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I ram the stick in the ground as hard as I can.</p> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘Please,’</span> I whisper. </p> <p>I deliver a kick. The stick gives in and splits in two.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Make my cross.","final hacer cruz")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I hold both pieces in the shape of a cross, like the one they tossed on the ground, like the ones some of them are carrying.</p> <p>Staring at the spirits, I go near Daniel.</p> <p>I kick away the metal cross they gave him.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Talk.","final cruz hablar")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p class='a'><span class='dialogue'>‘We can't share your burden. We have ours,’</span> I say. </p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "...","final gente desaparece")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block oI' id='oI'><div class='block-content'> <p>The spirits unceremoniously turn back and walk, disappearing downhill with their torches.</p> <p>It was *that* simple.</p> </div></div></div> <script>$('#passage').append(story.render( 'final coche daniel' ));window.story.state.historylist = _.union( window.story.state.historylist, ['final coche daniel'] );</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io' id='Io'><div class='block-content'> <p>I walk to the car. I hear Daniel's footsteps right away but we say nothing. There's a hurricane inside me and relief is only one of its parts.</p> <p>Something undefinable changes when we cross the water line. I realize I'm still holding the two sticks and I discard them. Careless.</p> <p>Our car is here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Open it.","final abrir coche daniel")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I take the key from my pocket and unlock the car. The headlights flicker and I think I see hoof prints under their light, but it's just a moment and who cares.</p> <p>I sit in the driver's seat. The light in the car is warm. Daniel gets in and sits at my side.</p> <p>I drive carefully to the road, and then drive carefully in the road too. They always say I drive too slowly, but I'm just very careful. One has to worry for what may happen.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "AN END","start")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block Io' id='Io'><div class='block-content'> <p>I walk to the car. There's a hurricane inside me.</p> <p>Something undefinable changes when we cross the water line. I realize I'm still holding the two sticks and I discard them. Careless.</p> <p>Our car is here.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "Open it.","final abrir coche sola")</script><div class='narration'><div class='block hero' id='hero'><div class='block-content'> <p>I take the key from my pocket and unlock the car. The headlights flicker and I think I see hoof prints under their light, but it's just a moment and who cares.</p> <p>I sit in the driver's seat. The light in the car is warm. </p> <p>I drive carefully to the road, and then drive carefully in the road too. They always say I drive too slowly, but I'm just very careful. One has to worry for what may happen.</p> </div></div></div> <script>addOp( "AN END","start")</script>