The Place

(set: $name to (prompt: "Her name is","name")) $name is truly a gem. Lively, care free, and inately creative. Yup, the exact three phrases that I would use to describe her. She is always bored, looking for the next adventure and the next destination. Well, our friendship began in the [[weirdest]] way. Believe me, $name is like no other.

"Hi, this is the author. Although this is an interactive interface. Your choices do NOT matter. They really do not. Before you quit, I want you to understand why. I am a believer of absurdity, that our actions in the end have no meaninging in the interacting force between humans and universe. So whatever you do here, will not have an impact in the end. Choices lead you to different paths, but in the end, it's to a place where we share the common ground. But hey, life is about enjoying the journey, right? I hope you enjoy the choices being made along the way. "

(set: $meet to (confirm: "Are you sure you want to know about how we met?")) (if: $meet is false)[Well, let's jump back into stories of [[$name ->her]]] (if: $meet is true)[(set: $color to (prompt: "Sorry, one more question before we jump into the story. What's your favorite color? Just curious ;)","color")) Ok, enough anticipation. I was taking my clothes out of the dryer in the communal laundry room. As I was walking out with my whole basket piled with clothes (almost covering the heigh of my eyes so I could not see what was ahead of me clearly), $name had her small laundry pouch under her right arm walking in. "Hey, you, you dropped your underwear. Nice color! My favorite color is also $color." I immediately felt my cheeks turning warm out of embarrassement. "Thanks, but I don't think it's mine," I lied to avoid confronting her. Obviously, I did not turn back to look at her. "Interesting, you must be matching with someone's underwear, it looks the same as the one in your basket!" She picked up the underwear from the floor, "here you go, free underwear!" She then dropped it in my basket. It's so '$name', she's just like that, and that's exactly what I hate and like about her. I tried to remain polite while as a germophobic I hate having my clean clothes touch the dirty underwear from the floor. "Well, thank you for that free underwear. I don't think we've met, but what is your name?" "Call me [[$name->her]]. Bye, I gotta go now. See you around!" Yup, she never asked for my name.]

(set: $song to (prompt: "Before we learn more about her, what is your favorite song right now?","&burn by Billie Ellish")) $name is an only child. Her childhood was very rough. Lived through domestic violence and constant fights between her parents, she is so tired of life at home. When she thinks of home, it's just three people yelling at each other. She was always telling me how she felt like she lived in a cage during high school and middle school. She felt like she couldn't breathe. "Why can't my dad just treat me and respect me like a normal person? Like how he treats his friends?" She always rants about her dad. Music calms her down though. When she's upset, she puts on $song, which is her all-time favorite. She has longed for college, where no one knows her, where she can start fresh and meet amazing people. She did get into the same school I am in right now, and she enjoys being free from the traumatic domestic life. However, until[[...]]

(set: $happy to (prompt: "If you don't mind sharing, what is one thing you did that made you incredibly happy in the past week?","eg: eating ice cream")) No one expected this to happen.(hidden:)|truth>[ Before she realized,] (hover-style:(color:black))+(link:"Well")[(show:?truth)] She is put back to the envrionment where she desperatedly wanted to escape from. She is trying her best to react differently, though. She does not raise her voice when her dad starts yelling at her. She finds herself speaking less. Maybe silence is the best therapy? She thought. Often times, she likes $happy to lift up her mood. Maybe a bit too often, like once every three hours. The living room is often filled with silence with all members present. The silence can get awkward in the air, so she goes back to [[her room]] and play $song on loop.

(set: $meet to (confirm: "Do you want to take a tour of her room first?"))(set: $dream to (prompt: "My apologies in advance for being nosy, but what are your future aspirations or goals in the next two years in a couple words?","becoming a doctor")) (if: $meet is false)[That's cool. There's not much there anyways. Let's see what she does in [[her room->activities]]] (if: $meet is true)[ Good choice. Her room is tiny but rather empty. She does not like to keep many things in her room to avoid clusters. The things you can find though are quite interesting. She has a collection of maps, 1958 hand-colored map of Nova Scotia, 1988 print map of Japan... and some other interesting finds that she collected over the years from local art markets. She has a jar where she keep all her lucky cookies she collected from Chinese restaurant take-outs. She says collecting them is like collecting luck, and one day she will be overwhelmed with how lucky she will be to make her dream of $dream come true. I was expecting meeting her significant other, but no, she is not very optimistic on relationship stuff. She is now thinking of making the most out of her time by herself in the [[ room->activities]] ]

(set: $place to (prompt: "Before we jump into what she is doing, where is your next dream destination?","Paris")) She spends a lot of times in her room and only goes downstairs for food. I told you, she gets bored easily so she finds her ways to keep herself busy. Only $happy simply doesn't do it, she finds other ways. Her physical place is a boxed cage for her, but she feels safe in the her room where she can have the mental space to escape from her parents. She is slowly but surely getting back into her old habit of spending hours of time on //Youtube//, imagining where she can be right now. She spends hours watching travel and lifestyle vlogs, attemping to experience the life of someone else. There is still so much to see, so much to explore, and so much she [[does not know -> books]].

(set: $tokyo to (prompt: "Have you been to tokyo?","(yes or no, no capital letters)")) (if:$tokyo is "yes")[Perfect, join $name along to revisit the experience.] (if:$tokyo is "no")[Well, $name will show you around according to her route!] She feels the breeze of spring air brushing through the tip of her nose. Her lungs capacity expands, absorbing that volume of fresh air. Then, slowly decompressing to release the cardon dioxide, she gets the negative thoughts out of her mind. She's now in Tokyo, exactly like how she remembered it. She still cannot get her head around the transit network at Tokyo Station. She walks around the station, and finally finds an exit to [[get out]].

It was the Imperial Palace exit. Standing facing the Palace, she feels completely free and anomymous with the tall buildings aside. The streets are still so perfectly clean and spotless. She finds her way to Shinjuku, where everything became compact all at once. It is too much for her, so she steps aside and march on to find her way to Toyosu Fish Market, a popular touristy spot. Where is the next spot? In an environment where there is no strict rules for destination, she was completely free to explore and to decide. Where is the [[next destination]]?

(set: $next to (prompt: "If you are picking a lottery and you are among 20 people, which order would you like to go?","5th")) Before she has time to process everthing that just happend, she is back to her room, where she finds herself lying on her maps on the floor of her room. ''//Was it a dream? Is it a dream? Am I living in a dream?//'' $song starts to play in the background. Told you, she plays that song 24/7. Even I wonder how she does not get tired of the song. She is enchanted by the Tokyo experience, whether it was time travel, dream, or fantasy. She is still living in that moment of being somewhere else. Where is next? She is ready to put on her wings and [[fly]]. (set: $city to (a:"Paris","Beijing","London","Cape Town","Seattle","The Arctic","Seoul","Shanghai","Taipei","Mexico City","Bueno Aires","Berlin","Mumbai","Bangkok","Manila","Hong Kong","Iceland","Greenland","Norway","Vancouver")) It's (print: $next of $city) this time.

(set: $next2 to (prompt: "If you get to choose again for the lottery, which order would you like to go? Try sonething different","8th")) (set: $next3 to (prompt: "Third time now, which order would you like to go?","10th")) (set: $next4 to (prompt: "You actually have unlimited attempts, sorry for not telling you early, but this time, which order would you like to go?","12th")) She gets to go to (print: $next2 of $city), (print: $next3 of $city), and (print: $next4 of $city)... Or ''(live: 1s)[(either:"Paris","Beijing","London","Cape Town","Seattle","The Arctic","Seoul","Shanghai","Taipei","Mexico City","Bueno Aires","Berlin","Mumbai","Bangkok","Manila","Hong Kong","Iceland","Greenland","Norway","Vancouver")]'' She is out and about, fearless, and care-free as usual. The same ending scene repeats each time: she gets back to the same [[old place]]...

The eager inside her cannot wait. Why does she keep returning to the place? The boxed cage? Why is it such a repetitive cycle? She wants a different scene, a different life, a different realm, a different milieu... She bursts into tears. Out of frustration, she ran [out]<a| (click:?a)[out to [the field]<b|] (click:?b)[the field with [no borders]<c|] (click:?c)[[nothingness]<d|] (click:?d)[This place that is [[no place]]]

She looks around, there is no sign of life. She screams, No one could hear. $name thinks about all the things she loved, $song, $happy, $place, and herself $dream in the future. She anticipates to return to the same [old place]<end|. (click:?end)[(live:2s)[...] (live:3s)[...] (live:4s)[...] (live:5s)[She is still in [[this place]].]]

(set: $end to (prompt: "Where is the ideal place?","place")) $name, you know, $end might be good. But perhaps, that best place to be, to escape to, is our ***inner space***. And that, will take a long time to explore.

(set: $book to (prompt: "What is your favorite book?","Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami")) She picks up reading again, finding her space of sanity. $book is her favorite so far. She exercises in the contained space to keep her heart healthy. She is trying not to let herself sink into the rabbit hole of the mentality that physicality limiting imagination, but it is hard. She flips through the wide arrange of maps that she collected(if: $meet is false)[(Want to learn more about the maps? Maybe try touring [[her room]] this time?)]. Touching and feeling the ink on the dated maps, she relives her solo traveling experience as a backpacker in $place, walking the roads, feeling the earth. Without herself realizing[[...->imagine]]