This is an interactive story that I wrote on Twitter, I wrote it unplanned based on suggestions and votes from Twitter followers.

It was written and posted as is, only stopping briefly for a spelling check.

Writing is usually so far removed in time from it being written to it being read, I just wondered how it would work trying to minimise that time.

That and we are all currently cooped up due to Corona Virus, so I thought that it might be an interesting distraction

So here it is, as was posted on Twitter, but in one big lump.

Twitter Interactive Story

by @trevypoos 25th March 2020

“I Saw Her Standing There.” Suggested by @AlanC_62

Peering into the darkness, I could just see her standing there. Her outline was indistinct against the greyness of the stone walls and the light mist.

It was one of those nights where everything seemed to stand still, even the wind was giving everything a bit of space.

I looked again and she was gone.

Around me are large stone terraced buildings, imposing like a slightly strange Aunt who you only see once a year. Distant and seemingly unknowable.

Should I follow her? Would that not seem a bit, well, creepy?

The question was: ‘What direction should this story go in?”

Follow her. 0%
Investigate the street 100%
Something else 0%

Choice: “Investigate the Street”

Mystery style suggested by @GinslingerLeeds

As dark as it was, I could just make out something in the closest garden to me. They were all small gardens, neat and politely pruned.

As dark as it was, I could just make out something in the closest garden to me. They were all small gardens, neat and politely pruned.

This was clearly a well off area, but the flaking paint on the end house wall demonstrated a time when this area was probably less affluent.

Painted and maintained spiked iron fences designated the lines between the properties, each house distinct and different, but also very much the same.

I moved tentatively forward to the garden near me, peering over the cast iron fence I can just make out a shape.

Gasping and holding my mouth, I reel back in shock.

The questions was: “What has the character seen?”

A body 20%
A ritual of some sort 60%
Some horrifying photo 20%

Choice: “A ritual of some sort.”

Disbelievingly I edged back forwards, hoping that what I thought that I had seen was wrong. It was just me being nervous, maybe a bit suggestible?

Of course, it was.

Slowly looking into the garden, which was no bigger than the average bathroom, there was the corpse of an animal.

Well, bits of the corpse of an animal. Oddly it seemed that this was not a body that had been strewn and left by a predator in flight.

It was placed around a chalk drawing.

There were some markings around it that while I did not understand what they said, it tugged at my subconscious.

What kind of animal was it? I wanted to look away, but I just could not seem to manage it.

It was like daytime TV, I knew that I shouldn’t look but I couldn’t help myself.

I realised, with a strange swirling feeling in my stomach, that it was not merely one animal.

It was several.

The head seemed to be a fox, the other parts were difficult to judge. Some different furs made it obvious that their previous owner had been cats, dogs or smaller mammals. There were even bits of birds feet and a small cache of feathers.

All liberally sprayed with blood. Oddly there was no blood anywhere else in the garden. That meant that they had surely been killed and dismembered somewhere else.

And deliberately placed here, in this haphazard pattern.

Why?

The question was: “Why?”

Revenge 0%
An invocation 100%
Something else 0%

Choice: “An Invocation”

There was a smell, not just what you would expect from recently killed animals.

Not that I had any idea what that would smell like, I shudder if I have to cut up filleted chicken breasts.

There was a deep smell, slightly like smouldering ashes, with a hint of rotten eggs. Sulphurous, a word that came spiralling back to me from a chemistry lab many years ago.

I looked around desperately for someone to share this with, what could I do?

There was no one, the woman I thought that I had spotted was long gone.

It was too late at night to knock on the house’s door, wasn’t it? How could I explain what I had found without looking like I was involved?

I could call the police.

My train of thought was then delayed at the next station as a loud rumbling noise started.

The kind of noise you feel in the pit of your stomach. It gradually got louder and louder, adding in a cracking noise.

Light and sound threw itself out of the chalk markings, belching into the sky. Convulsing with the clouds making a fiery light show in the clouds.

Falling, I started to wonder why no one else had heard this, why were none of the curtains opening?

The question is: “What happens next?”

Something appears 20%
Taken somewhere else. 20%
We learn something else 60%

Choice: ‘We learn something else.”

As I rolled over and over into space, all I could see in every direction was a light purple background. It looked like liquid soap and oil on water, moving in patterns. It was almost beautiful, I would have appreciated it more had I not been tumbling through it.

Was this all there was for me now? I started to be buffeted about on gusts of wind. Like a seagull crazily thrashing to stay level above an angry sea.

I slowed, like a rubber duck that has been dropped into water and has gone as far as it can before resurfacing.

I was not resurfacing. I was just slowing down, although how much was hard to gauge with having no reference points to latch onto.

In the distance, I presume it is in the distance anyway, is a dark shape.

It is quickly getting bigger.

Very, very quickly.

All of a sudden it is all I can see in any direction. A large mass of darkness, with highlights of tubes and facets being picked out by the ambient light as I get closer and closer to it.

I can feel it now, the pressure of the hard surface hurtling towards me.

I cover my eyes, certain that there must soon be an impact, one that I surely cannot survive.

The question was: “What happens next?”

Crash landing 83.3%
Death 16.7%
Something else (Suggest) 0%

Choice: “Crash landing”

For far too long there is nothing.

Then a splintering and shattering noise, pain thrashes through my body and mind.

I come to a stop and slowly open my eyes. I can hear the blood in my head, my jaw is throbbing. One of my trouser legs is gradually turning wet with a worrying looking red liquid.

I am, somehow, alive. Not well maybe, but alive.

The pain slowly ebbs away, but the panic does not.

I calm my breathing, trying not to think the worst, trying to work out my situation.

I am lying partially on my side, head resting against a small plant of some description. I can see, trees in the distance, but not trees like I am used to.

Pulling myself forward a little to see if I can make anything out the pain once again overwhelms me. I shout out in pain and fall onto my back.

A woman’s voice speaks to me, tells me to stay still. I try to ask her so many questions, but nothing comes out. I know I am panicking, but that is all I have right at this moment.

I open my eyes, and looking back at me is a woman I recognise. I saw her from a distance in the street, I am somehow absolutely sure that she is the same person, even though I barely saw her.

It makes some sort of sense that she would be involved, so I am going to cling to that being the truth for the moment.

As I lay there and she tends to me, there is no look of concern on her face. No real emotion at all. Then I let how she looks gradually trickle into my mind, I recognise the smell, I would recognise that aroma anywhere.

It can’t be her though, can it?

The choices here were:

Who is she?

My Mother.
My sister.
An ex-partner.
Me.

Choice: “Me.”

I must be dreaming, there is no logical way that I can be looking back into my own eyes, is there?

Maybe she is an identical twin that I never knew about.

Pausing for a moment, I reflect that it is far more likely that I am just going mad.

She speaks, and I don’t hear what she says, only the timbre of her voice. It is both relaxing and discomfiting.

Like a favourite piece of music, being played on banjoes and nails

She is definitely me, she looks like me, sounds like me, is dressed like me.

What is she, me, doing here?

‘You look a bit confused.” She says.

I am almost, inexplicably apoplectic with rage, and completely incomprehensible.

‘You probably have questions.”

I nod as best as I can. She looks deeply back into my eyes, clearly considering what to say and how much to tell me.

“You. Well us, we are special. We are different.” She stops, pausing to align her words the way Tetris pieces wait for the one last piece. She almost seems to have forgotten that I am here, dying in front of her.

‘Oh sorry. I forget that there is not much time, there is usually so much.”

It is probably for the best that I haven’t the breath to speak right now, as I could easily waste my last words on loud swearing, and that would not be a fitting epitaph.

“Right, yes. So the truth is that you are going to die, but you aren’t. I am not making a lot of sense am I?”

I have literally no idea what is expected of me at this point so just wait for the next inexplicable phrase.

“Okay, let’s try again. You are going to die, but you will live on through me. I am you, with everything that you have done up to this point held in my mind. To all intents and purposes, I am you. No one will ever notice the difference.”

I cannot help wondering if I am as annoyingly vague as her, and have to accept that I probably am.

“You have been called back, to the other side. You have outlived your usefulness so you are being replaced by me. When you go, my memory of all of this will be erased as yours was when you replaced your predecessor. Maybe I should leave myself some notes around…” She paused thinking.

“Maybe you could write a fucking script for the next us, to make this a bit easier on the one dying?” I shout, surprising both of us.

“Err yes. I am not sure that would be allowed.”

While she goes quiet again, I start to think about the things in my life that make no sense, that were clear pointers to me not being like everyone else, the feeling that I never quite belonged for instance. Or the fact that I stored my books in alphabetical order by author. That just makes no sense does it?

Deep breaths, she is about to say something else.

‘I…”

And it is dark, again.