Suicide Therapy

"Are you all right?" Felina asks.

You lie face-down in a crumpled pile of boxes. "Go 'way," you mumble. Felina sighs.

"Look, I don't know what's gotten into you," she says, exasperated. "But whatever it is, maybe we can talk it out."

"What's there to talk about?"

"Why you're trying to kill yourself, for one thing," she says.

"Oh." You roll back over on your back and stare up at the sky. All the way out the horizon, you can see other staircase towers, going down into darkness with no end in sight. Next time I think I'll toss myself down there and see how long it takes me to hit something, you think. "That's easy enough to explain. Because...we're stuck on the Endless Staircase. Because it's a crappy interdimensional crossways between worlds. It's a shitty, boring place to be, and we could be here for minutes, or eons. Or forever. Time's fucking strange here."

"You sound like you've been here before."</p?

"I have. Many times. Like, more times than I can count. I was stuck here for half a million years once with nothing to do but watch C-Span." She stares at you in disbelief. "Over and over and over. At least killing myself gives me something to think rather than dreading doing it again. I hate C-Span. Besides, when you die here, you just respawn somewhere else on the Staircase at random. But at least it's something to do until the place lets you go somewhere else."

Feiina stares at you for a bit. She finally nods, and start digging around in one of the boxes. After a few seconds, she finds what she thinks she saw earlier--an explorer's pith helmet. "You said the place is infinite, right?" she says. "That means pretty much anything you can imagine is here somewhere." She puts the helmet on at a jaunty angle and mugs a little. "Look, I've got an idea. Instead of trying to off yourself in random ways as a protest, why don't you and me grab some supplies--there's these little caches everywhere, right? And we'll explore the staircase a little. We'll see what's really here." She digs some more and comes up with shorts, socks, knee-length hiking boots and a a shirt. She studies them, bemused. "I'm gonna shit bricks if these actually happen to be in my size."

"Better get some lube. This place has a way of doing just that."

"Yeah, well, since we're gonna be exploring the place, I might as well look the part, right?" You roll over and look at something interesting in the middle distance while she changes. "Taa-daa!" she exclaims, and you roll back over and sit up in the midst of your pile of boxes.

"Jungle Jane, I presume," you say, feeling a twinge of amusement for the first time in God only knows how long. She extends her arms and turns completely around. There was even a neat little hole back in the back of the shorts for her tail, you note with some bemusement.

1. Gather up some supplies, the Caretaker and anyone else who wants to come and go wandering. Let's see what's here.
2. ...many exciting adventures occur. How the hell did you miss all this before?
3. Jim Morrison runs by, slapping himself in the head with a box of salt and crying.
4. Before you two can go exploring, an interdimensional portal swallows you both up and spits you out somewhere...else.
5. A angry mob of feeder smurfs attacks.

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