You go home to nurse your bruises. You have failed to find the Fountain of Youth.\n\n\nOr [[have you?|choice 2]]

Behind the door, a long hallway stretches in front of you. Dim florescent lights flicker overhead, buzzing sadly to themselves. \n\nThe hallway is impossibly long, too long, you think, for the tiny building that houses it. Several doors line the hall on either side. You try the first door on the left, but it's locked. \n\n\nThe first door on the right is marked [["Broom Closet."|choice 1aBiI]] \n\nThe [[next door on the left|choice 1aBiII]] has a light coming from underneath it. \n\nThe [[door at the end of the hall|choice 1aBiIII]] is marked "Dr. Shiftler's Office."

You did not reach your goal of eternal youth, possibly because you turned into a monster and got stuck in your neighbor's time machine.\n\nWill we see you again in another time period?\n\nPerhaps...

As you open the door, you see a young woman, bound, gagged, sitting in a chair. \n\nA single, bare lightbulb (incandescent, no less--you haven't seen one of those for years) lights the stark room. \n\n\nDo you run out of the building and [[call the police|choice 1aAiI]] or [[remove the gag and untie her|choice 1aAiI end]]?

You follow the woman into a long hallway. As you walk toward a red door ahead on the right, a groaning man stumbles out of a room on the left. \n\nYou turn to stare at the man, but the puffy-haired woman grabs your shoulder and yanks you toward the red door. She shoves you inside; you hear a click as the door is locked.\n\nThe room is set up like a doctor's office. You sit down on the examination chair, think better of it, and move to one of the chairs against the wall.\n\nAfter a short time, a door slides silently open on the wall behind the examination chair. You hadn't noticed the door there before because it was hidden behind an oversized poster of the human endocrine system. \n\nThe woman with the puffy hair, now dressed in a lab coat, steps into the room. \n\nShe is holding a hypodermic needle. She darts toward you.\n\nEverything goes black.\n\n...\n\n\nYou awake in a different room, larger, darker. \n\nWhen your eyes come into focus, you see that you are not alone. Several groaning people are chained to cots. You quickly realize that you, too, are chained to a cot, and that you, too, are groaning.\n\nYou live the rest of your few miserable days as a test subject for Advanced Medical Research Laboratories.\n\n\n\n\n[[....|end 5]]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

You hobble over to the door and haltingly open it, clutching your walker for support. A delivery person hands you a box and dashes back to a plain, brown van parked in the street. \n\nYou make your way into the kitchen for a knife to open the box. You put the box on the kitchen table and reach for the knife by the sink. As you sit down at the table to begin cutting open the box, you glance at the television and notice the news is reporting a major FBI bust. \n\nYou strain to hear what the reporter is saying. \n\nShe is standing in front of a seedy tan building in a run-down area of town, but you only make out a few words.\n \n "...pharmaceuticals...unauthorized testing...several deaths..."\n\nYou hack through the tough tape on the box and open the flaps. A small, squat bottle lies in a nest of shredded paper. It is white with the words "Dr. Shiftler's Fast-Acting Fountains of Youth Mira-Q-Drug" printed in plain black letters on the front. \n\nThe ingredient list is printed in tiny letters on the back. You can't make it out.\n\nYou dig a little further into the package and find a hand-written slip of paper. "Take three pills a day with a full glass of water. May cause drowsiness, so don't drive anything. Though you're probably too old to possess a valid driver's license, anyway." \n\n\nDo you [[take three pills|choice 2aBiI]] or wait until you've [[gotten the heart medication|choice 2aA]] from under your recliner and taken that?\n

\n\nNot bad, but you didn't achieve your goal of eternal youth.

As you enter, woman with puffy brown hair jumps up from her chair at the reception desk. \n\n "Excuse me," she barks, "but you need to leave, now!"\n\n "W-why?" you stutter.\n\n "You're not allowed to search the premises without a warrant. No warrant, no search. Now until you've got a warrant in your hand, where I can see it, you are certainly not allowed in our laboratories," the woman snaps, advancing toward you and pressing you against the entrance.\n\n "But I'm here for the study," you say, pulling the tattered ad from your jeans pocket and waving it in the lady's face.\n\n "Oh," she says. "Well, in that case, come right this way."\n\nShe starts toward a door marked "Subjects Only."\n\n "Isn't there any paperwork I need to fill out first?" you say. "Release forms, disclosure papers?"\n\n "No, no," she says airily. "Not necessary for this sort of medical trial." \n\n\nDo you follow the receptionist through the [["Subjects Only" door|choice 1bBiI]] or leave to check out that [[back-alley doctor|closed]]?

You pop three pills in your mouth and swallow them with the glass of water that was sitting on the kitchen table. \n\nYou wait a few minutes. Nothing happens. You look down at the bottle. \n\n\nDo you [[take three more|choice 2aBiI one]] or [[keep waiting|choice 2aBiI two]]?

Are you [[young|choice 1]] or [[old|choice 2]]?

As you sit, waiting for the fast-acting pills to kick in and make you young again, you feel worse, not better.\n\nToo late, you realize you should have taken your heart medicine sooner.\n\n\n[[...|choice 2aAend]]

You inch around to the right side of the drum. On the way, your hand knocks against some sort of lever. \n\nThe shadowy machinery around you jumps to life, shrieking and grinding. A gigantic gear catches your shirt and jerks you into the inner workings of the machine.\n\n\n [[...|end]]\n\n

You throw your head back and try to drop three more pills into your shriveled mouth, not bothering to shake the pills into your hand first.\n\nAll the pills rush out of the bottle at once, filling your mouth. You think, "That's more like it," and swallow them all.\n \nYou feel very different very fast. \n\nYou notice your skin turning a rich shade of green, rippling with new muscles. It thickens and grows scales, and, as you stare at your hands, you realize they have grown long, evil talons. \n\nYou stand up, knocking over your kitchen table. You feel better than you ever have before. And you feel hungry, very hungry. \n\n\nYou remember that you have a [[plump, juicy neighbor|choice 2aBiI end]] next door.

"To the future!" you cry, creaking toward your neighbor's back room. Strange lights glow from inside the doorway. \n\n "Just sit down inside the metal pod," says your neighbor, whose name has slipped your mind, "and we'll send you to 2203."\n\n "Why that year?" you ask.\n\n "Why not?" you hear your neighbor say, followed by the loud click of a lever. Blinding blue lights envelop you.\n\n "Wait! Wait!" you screech.\n \n "Yes?" says your neighbor, clicking the lever again. The blue lights fade away.\n\n "Are you sure that's the best year?"\n\n "Well, I could send you further into the future if you like."\n\n\n\tDo you choose [[2203|choice 2bAiI]] or [[further into the future|choice 2bAiII]]?

You do not reach your goal of staying young forever...\n...not surprising considering you were poking around in an ill-lit, abandoned old factory...\n\n...with "caution" tape all around it. \n.\n.\n.\n.\nDid you not see the caution tape in your haste to hurl yourself into a place with more pit-falls per square inch than an evil genius lair?\n\n\nWell.\n\n

You choose to take your limber, lithe young body over to the back alley doctor.\n\nThe doctor's "office" is located in the seedy warehouse district of town, behind a repossessed car lot, behind a crumbling factory complex, next to L'Girls Cabaret. ("Since 1993!" the sign claims). \n\nAs you lock your trusty ten-speed to the nearest burnt-out light pole, you see one of l'girls digging through the dumpster behind the cabaret.\n\n\nWill you go over and [[talk with l'girl|choice 1aA]]?\n\nOr will you [[proceed|choice 1aB]] to the tiny, squat building with a hand-painted sign that reads, "Furry Friends Pet Care," which is what the friend of a friend said was the cover for the doctor's office.

You head over to the address listed in the ad.\n\nIt's in a run-down part of town, down a long alley behind a used-car lot full of guard dogs that lope along the barbed-wire fence, growling, hurling themselves at you, gnashing their fangs as you pass them. \n\nThe medical-study building sits beside an abandoned factory.\nAs you tie your trusty ten-speed to a burned-out light pole, you glimpse mouldering machinery through gashes in the corrugated metal of the factory building. \n\nYou can hear a faint whirring coming from inside the factory.\n \n\nDo you [[venture inside the factory|choice 1bA]] to see what's making that noise? \n\nOr do you [[proceed|choice 1bB]] to the medical study office?

You find the entrance, the door missing, and squeeze your fresh, young body underneath it. \n\nInside, your eyes take several moments to adjust to the gloom. The interior is a jumble of machinery shrouded in thick, dusty shadow. Sunlight grazes a few mounds of cogs and gears where it can reach through the holes in the factory shell. \n\n\nThe whirring seems to be coming from the darkest part of the factory, around the [[center|choice 1bAi]].

The squat medical office is dreary, brown, pebble-studded concrete, like many things built in the 1970s. The sign reads "A vanced Medi al esear h Laboritory" in crusty black letters that might or might not light up at night. \n\n\nYou [[go inside|choice 1bBi]].

\nYou did not reach your goal of staying young forever...\n\n...though your body probably assisted Dr. Shiftler's age-reversal research.

As you continue down, a new sound hits your ears. A low humming. \n\nYou reach the end of the ladder and find yourself in a dark passageway. It is lit by the same mysterious glow as the tunnel you just came from. \n\nYou see that the humming is coming from an old, rickety water fountain a few feet to your right. Beyond the water fountain is a blank wall, a dead-end. To your left the passageway continues. \n\nYou are thirsty, but the water fountain is covered in green and white slimy corrosion. \n\n\nDo you [[get a drink|choice 1bAiI two end1]] or [[go down the passageway|choice 1bAiI two end2]]?

As you approach the tiny pet care store that is the back-alley doctor's cover, you see it looks abandoned. It's been boarded up, and there is police tape all around it. \n\n\nDo you [[try to enter|no go]]?\n\nOr do you [[give up|choice 2]]?

The Fountain of Youth

You clomp through your living room and burst through the front door. Quickly, because you are hungry, you take a short-cut through your neighbor's petunia bed, ripping it to shreds with your spined feet.\n\nYour hulking bod smashes through the neighbor lady's front door. \n\nAs you clash your several-inch-long fangs at the tasty-looking middle-aged woman below you, she runs to her back room. \n\nYou follow her. In your haste to capture the tasty morsel, your bulky new body becomes lodged in a strange metal pod. \n\nYou hear a lever click. A maelstrom of blue light engulfs you. The room grows dim, then disappears. \n\n\n\t\t[[...|end 9]]\n\n

You pull the gag from her mouth and she sputters for a bit. \t\t\n\n "Please. Please untie me," she groans.\n\nAs you loosen the bonds, you notice something strange happening to her skin. She is turning green and scaley, growing bigger, muscles bulging. \n\nYou stop untying, but it is too late. \n\nThe monster breaks loose and lunges at you.\n\n\n\t[[...|end 1]]\n\n\n

You follow the doctor into the room. There is a young woman lying on a smooth, metal table. Her eyes are closed, and she has a discomfiting grimace frozen on her face. \n\nShe looks dead, in fact, but the doctor says, "I need you to help me move my young patient to the laboratory for, ah, further treatments."\n\nYou grasp her cold ankles and help the doctor hoist her up. You shudder. You're pretty sure she's dead. \n\n\nDo you [[leave immediately|choice1aBiI one end1]] or [[stay for treatment|choice 1aBiI one end2]]?

You toss three more pills down your gullet, not bothering to get up and pour yourself another glass of water first. \n\nYou wait a few minutes. You think you feel a little different, but you're not sure. \n\n\nDo you take [[three more pills|choice 2aBiI end?]] or [[keep waiting|choice 2aBiI two]]?

\n\n\nYou do not achieve eternal youth...\n\n...but it sure was nice of you to help out that captive!

With a broken vodka bottle, you knock some of the trash away from where the hand is. A very dead arm is attached to the hand. It appears to have several evil-looking needle jabs in it. \n\nYou decide not to poke around further. \n\n\nDo you [[call the police|choice 1aAiI]] or [[head toward the doctor's office|choice 1aB]]?

Ah, the bloom of youth wavers yet on your brow. \n\nFearful of the hoary frost of old age, you long for a "fountain of youth" that will maintain your limber joints and smooth skin forever. \n\n\nWill you go [[visit the back-alley doctor|choice 1a]] a friend of a friend told you about? \n\nOr will you sign up for the [[medical study|choice 1b]] advertised on a piece of newspaper you found on the ground the other day?

************Congratulations!************\n\n\n **********Totally Radical!**********\n\n\n *******Groovy!!!*******\n\n\n\n\n\n You find eternal youth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your neighbor, a hearty middle-aged woman in dirty overalls, opens the door and welcomes you in. \n\n "The time machine is finally finished!" she says. "You can go forward or backward in time."\n\n\nDo you choose to [[go forward in time|choice 2bAi]] to see if they have cured aging in the future? \n\nOr do you [[go to the past|choice 2bAii]] and try to find the legendary fountain of youth?\n

Alas, you fast approach mortality, with creaking joints and wrinkled, papery skin. You long for the days when your flesh was succulent, your cheeks rosy, your eyes clear and sharp. \n\nThe other day, you saw an ad on television for a new kind of medication, one that will reverse aging. \n\n\nDo you [[call the toll-free number|choice 2a]] you shakily wrote down on the napkin beside your recliner, or do you grab your walker and [[visit your next door neighbor|choice 2b]] to see if she is done building the time machine she has been working on?

\nYou died before you could reverse the ravages of time.

\n\nYou die before you can acheive eternal youth.\n\nOn the bright side, your body does keep a victim of the apocalypse alive a few more days.

\nWell, you did manage to find the Fountain of Youth, but you're also an eternal prisoner, so really, not the best outcome. \n\nI'd congratulate you for reaching your goal, but honestly, my heart wouldn't be in it.

\nYou failed to reach your goal of being young and beautiful forever. \n\nOn the plus side, you're not the only one.

Feeling your way around the left side of the drum, your hand bumps up against a knob. A small door grinds open in the drum. \n\nYou stoop down to look inside. You are looking into a faintly glowing vertical tunnel. There is a ladder inside, leading down into dark depths that you cannot penetrate, even with your sparkling, youthful eyes. \n\n\nDo you [[go down the ladder|choice 1bAiI one]], [[check the other side of the drum|choice 1bAiII]], or leave the factory and [[go to the medical study center|choice 1bB]]?

After you deposit the young woman on a long metal counter next to a gigantic sink, the silver-haired man turns to you. \n\n "Now," he says. "What did you want from me? My memory's not what it was."\n\n "Youth!" you say, "I'm looking for eternal youth!"\n\n "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the doctor sighs. "Eternal youth. Aren't we all on the hunt for that?"\n\nYou look at each other for a minute.\n\n "Now," he says, "What did you want from me? My memory's not what it used to be."\n\nYou explain again. Staring at you, expressionless, he grabs an empty beaker off the counter and hurls it across the room. It smashes on the far wall.\t\n\n "Do you think if I had found the secret to eternal youth, I would look like this?" he hisses.\n\nHe jabs you with a hypodermic needle. \n\nThe world fades to black.\n\n\n\n [[...|end 2]]\n\t\n\n

Trying to see into the shadows, you edge toward the center of the factory. The whirring thrums louder in your young, sensitive ears. \n\nFinally you bump up against a large metal drum. The whirring is coming from inside the drum. \n\n\nDo you [[go around the left side|choice 1bAiI]] to inspect the drum or [[go around the right side|choice 1bAiII]]?

You turn the knob. \n\nA man with long, silvery hair is bent over some boiling test tubes in a large laboratory. He wears a dingy white lab coat. \n\nHe looks up when you open the door. \n\n "Are you Dr. Shiftler?" you say.\n\nHe begins laughing. When he reaches the point where most people would stop, he continues, bigger and louder and harder.\n\nHis face is red, he's gripping his sides, and he continues shrieking with laughter more violently still.\n\nWhen you are sure he is going to faint from exertion, he stops. Not a gradual stop, but a very sudden one, as if guillotined. \n\nAnd all this time he has been staring you down like a cat watching a bird.\n\n "I need you to help me with something," he says. He has a voice like quicksilver, nothing like his harsh, acrid laugh.\n\n\nHe waves his hand toward a [[door|choice 1aBiI one]] behind him. "Come."\n

"To the past!" you crow.\n\n "Sit in the chair inside the pod," she says, waving toward a large metal structure in her back room.\n\nYou lower yourself into the seat. You hear the loud click of a lever, and red light pulses around you. Your neighbor's room fades away.\n\nThen you realize you're sitting on a tree stump in a beautiful wilderness. The air is fresher than any air you've ever breathed. In the distance, blue mountains rise, covered with virginal forests. Birds croon from the branches overhead.\n\nYou see a man in a conquistador outfit approaching. He points to a burble of water only a few feet ahead of you. \n\n "Agua de vida!" he says. Or some such Spanish thing.\n\nYou suspect he is telling you the water ahead is the Fountain of Youth, so you slowly rise from your stump and totter toward it. The man watches as you creakily get on your hands and knees to drink. \n\nBut before you can reach the water, the world begins to dim. \n\nYou topple to your side, realizing too late that you should have taken your heart medicine before now.\n\n\n[[...|end 6]]\n\n

Stuffing your flexible body through the tiny door, you grab the ladder and start climbing down. \n\nA wan glow surrounds you, though there is no apparent light source. \nThe whirring fades as you decend, and soon all you hear is your own breath.\n\nYou begin to panic. \n\n\nDo you [[climb back up|choice 1bB]], exit the factory, and head over to the medical study center? \n\nOr do you [[keep climbing down|choice 1bAiI two]]?

You turn to your land-line telephone and start punching its glow-in-the-dark, light-up buttons. You have trouble seeing these days, but luckily these buttons are the size of cow eyes.\n\nAs you dial the number, you knock over a pill bottle. Cursing, you remember that the pills are the ones you were supposed to take an hour ago for your heart. \n\n\nDo you [[stop dialing the phone number|choice 2aA]] to try dredging the pill bottle from under your recliner, or do you continue [[punching in numbers|choice 2aB]]?

After several attempts, you manage to heave your shuddering body out of the recliner and clutch your walker in one desiccated claw. You nearly topple over, but reach out for the other side of the walker in time.\n\n\nAfter several minutes of hard labor (walking), you make it to your next-door neighbor's house and [[rap|choice 2bA]] on the door with your bony knuckles.

Inside Dr. Shiftler's office are a mop, some brooms, a bucket, and several bottles of common household cleaner. \n\n\nYou close the door and head back to the [[other doors|choice 1aBi]].

You die without finding a cure for your old age.

As you approach l'girl, she notices you, skitters away from the dumpster, and disappears through the grimy back door of the cabaret. \n\nYou turn to the dumpster to see what she might have been looking for. \n\nYou see a jumble of bedraggled pink boas, used condoms, broken bottles, hypodermic needles, baby diapers, snack wrappers, and a hand. A [[HAND|hand]]!? \n\n\nDo you [[remove some of the trash|choice 1aAi]] to see what the hand might be attached to, or do you [[proceed|choice 1aB]] to the doctor's office?

You open the cracked glass door to Furry Friends Pet Care. A few filthy cans of cat food are scattered on stark shelves near the entrance. An empty glass box, encasing a hamster wheel, sits on a high shelf behind the cash register. \n\nThere is no one in sight. \n\n\nYou edge toward a door marked "Employees Only" and [[open|choice 1aBi]] it.

You press the round metal button of the water fountain. It looks like those fountains from the 70s, the ones that were still in your mother's workplace when you were a very small child. \n\nA stream of clear water shoots out of the water fountain. You bend down and take a sip. \n\nIt tastes cold and clean. You drink more. \n\nRefreshed, you straighten back up. \nAbove the water fountain you notice a sign hand-written on stained old scrap paper, taped to the wall. \n\nIt reads, "Fountain of Youth."\n\n\n[[...|end 3]]\n\n

The neighbor lady--what IS her name, anyway?--pulls the lever once more. Blue light whooshes up around you, and the room fades.\n\nYou are sitting on a burnt tree stump, a bare wasteland for as far as you can see in every direction. Admittedly, you can't see all that far with your age-bleared eyes.\n\nA skeletal person approaches. The person is too emaciated for you to tell if it is a woman or a man.\n\n "What happened to the world?" you ask.\n\nThe emaciated person does not seem surprised you asked the question. "A few years ago, a huge, scaley, green monster came out of nowhere and began destroying everything. The more it ate, the bigger it got, until it destroyed the whole world. It died of starvation once everything was gone, of course."\n\nYou screech with dismay at the terrible news. You topple over, realizing you should have taken your heart medicine before now.\n\nAs the world grows dim, you notice the skeletal person lunging at you with a large knife, probably to eat you. \n.\n.\n.\n.\nBut you don't really care at this point.\n\n\n[[...|end 7]]\n\n\n\n

You decide to skip the skeevy water fountain. Heading down the passageway, you hear footsteps behind you. \n\nYou turn.\n\nA young girl stops a few feet behind you.\n\n "I am the guardian of the Fountain of Youth," she says.\n\n "Really?" you say. "Can you tell me where it is?"\n\nShe shrugs back toward the water fountain. "That's it."\n\n "Can I have a drink from it?" you ask.\n\n "Of course."\n\nShe leads you over to the water fountain. You press the button and bend down for a drink. As you do, the guardian walks a few steps away.\n\nDrinking the cold, clear water, you hear the flick of a switch. A great roar rumbles above. Debris rain down from the exit tunnel.\n\n "What was that?" you squeak, leaving off drinking to look.\n\nYou notice she is taller than she seemed before you started drinking. Or you are shorter.\n\n "I've sealed the only way out," she says, calmly. "You will be my best friend forever, here beneath the world. We will be young together forever."\n\n\n[[...|end 4]]\n\n

Figuring you can wait a little longer to take your heart medication, you finish dialing the number to the pharmaceutical company. A bored male voice answers the phone. \n\n "Advanced Medical Research Laboratories, 'We Put the Miracle in Cure,' how may I help you?"\n\nAfter asking the man to speak up and repeat what he just said, you tell him you want a shipment of Dr. Shiftler's Fast-Acting Fountains of Youth Mira-Q-Drug.\n\n "Yes, I can see why," the man says. He promises a one-month supply by express mail. \n\n "It should be there by tomorrow, sir or ma'am," he says.\n\n "Oh, is there anyway you could get it to me by today, young man?" you quaver into the phone.\n\n "Yes," he says, "but it will cost triple the express mail price."\n\n\nYou agree to pay the extra $100 shipping and hang up. [[The doorbell rings|choice 2aBi]].

You pull out your smartphone and dial 911. After you explain what you found, you hear a helicopter circling overhead. A SWAT team converges on the area and you are hustled away, just as you see several FBI vans pull up. \n\nIt turns out the back-alley doctor was experimenting on l'girls.\n\n\nDo you [[try the medical study|choice 1b]] you read about in that newspaper ad?\n\nOr do you [[give up|choice 2]]?

You slowly, painfully get on your hands and knees and try to see under the recliner. \n\nYou are not able to bend your neck down that far. Your neck is now stuck sideways, the top of your head resting against the floor.\n\nYou stick a withered claw under the recliner and feel around for the bottle. It must have rolled too far back. \n\nYou try to get back up into the chair, but you cannot raise yourself off your hands and knees. \n\nEventually you collapse from exhaustion. \n\n\nAs the world goes dim, you realize you are probably [[going to die|choice 2aAend]] without that dose of heart medication.

You duck under the crime scene tape and head toward the back of the building. A nasty-looking cop jumps from behind a dumpster. \n\n "Caught ya! Ya hooligan!" He or she grabs your collar and gives you a hearty shake. "What's the shady likes of you doing around a roped-off crime scene like this, ya puke-scum?"\n\nYou protest that you were just curious what happened to the business.\n\n "Shut down for bad stuff, my friend, BAD STUFF."\n\nYou press for more information, but the cop refuses to speak again, shoving you away from the scene. \n\n\n[[....|what next]]\n\n\n\n

You look closer. Sure enough, a hand. \n\nIt's not flesh-colored. Not living flesh, anyway. It's pale blue-gray. The nails are painted red. Not blood red, exactly; more of a coral red.\n\n\n\n[[back|choice 1aA]]

Friend of Danid

You hear a lever click; blue lights dance around your aged body. The room fades.\n\nYou are sitting on a bench, in the sun. A lush futuristic city stretches around you.\n\nA young, beautiful person sees you and gasps. "Oh, you must be terribly sick! Let me get you to the hospital at once!" \n\nThe person, too beautiful to tell whether it is a woman or a man, helps you onto a lightning-fast train that wisks you to a gleaming hospital.\tThe youthful, gorgeous doctors gape at your shriveled, old form. \n\n "Could it be," says one, "we have a patient here who is suffering from severe AGING?"\n \nAfter they consult among themselves, they gather round you and explain that everyone here gets free healthcare and free anti-aging medicine, and that they can't for the life of them understand how you had avoided all that.\n\n "Can you give me some of that anti-aging medicine?" you creak at the doctors.\n\n "We can, but it won't do any good. It's a preventative medicine. It can't reverse aging."\n\nA rending pain grips your chest. \n\nYou realize too late that you should have taken your heart medication before now. \n\nThe doctors manage to save you, and you live out the rest of your few years in a fantastically luxurious retirement facility, also free.\n\n\n[[...|end 8]]

After depositing the body in the laboratory, you quickly excuse yourself and race home.\n\n\nYou are so disquieted by what you saw that you give up your pursuit of eternal youth until you become quite [[old|choice 2]].