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The Nightmare Room:A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Story by the Edison Tale Spinners You and your best friend Thomas are driving in your dad’s convertible Mustang, winding along the coastal highway that leads to the little town of Prosperity Cove. It is the first day of summer vacation. You and Thomas have decided to go to the beach to celebrate the end of your junior year of high school and to indulge in your favorite activity, sleuthing. At school, the other kids call you two Mulder and Scully, after the investigative pair on the old T.V. show, X-Files. Thomas has plans to go to college to study forensic science after you both graduate high school next year. He hopes to one day be a forensic detective. You have plans of your own: you want to be a paranormal investigator. You pull into the parking lot of the Prosperity Motel, where your parents booked two small hotel rooms for you to stay in over the weekend. You talk to the desk clerk who searches the ledger then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing any reservation here.” “Can we book one of your vacant rooms, then?” you ask him hopefully. “I’m afraid we’re all booked up. Try back tomorrow,” he says, closing the ledger. “Well, is there any other place in town that might have a room?” The desk clerk rubs his head. “Well….there is the old Shadowcliff House. Though I don’t know that I’d recommended it.” “What’s the Shadowcliff House?” Thomas asks. “It’s been around for as long as anyone can remember. It was first built for an old sea captain of merchant ships. Captain Crowley loved his house almost as much as he loved the sea. When his ship wrecked one stormy night off Prosperity Point, his wife tried to turn it into a boarding house for sailors. There was one room though, that no sailor ever wanted to stay in because it was rumored to be haunted.” You and Thomas exchange excited glances as the man continues with the peculiar tale. “Finally after too many terrifying reports of the haunted room, sailors stopped coming all together, not wanting to risk getting the haunted room by mistake. Eventually the house was abandoned, and sat vacant for years. But it was bought a few years ago by an out-of-towner who turned it into a hotel. You could try your luck there.”Your heart races with anticipation. The paranormal investigator in you leaps into action. “Let’s go!” you say. “With any luck we’ll get the haunted room.”But Thomas is a little more pragmatic. “Let’s talk to some more locals first and see what other dirt we can dig up on this haunted hotel room.”“Shall we Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide?” you ask Thomas. This is your favorite fall-back when the two of you have different ideas about what to do next.“Bring it! Best two out of three!” Thomas answers, and you face off. If you win Rock-Paper-Scissors and you try to get a room at the hotel, turn to page 3. If Thomas wins Rock-Paper-Scissors and you decide to do more research, turn to page 5. You win Rock-Paper-Scissors and you try to get a room at the hotel: (Cinco, Owen, Ashley, Shane)”Yes! Let’s drive up there.”Thomas frowns but gets in the car. You drive up the winding highway that leads to the Cliffs. At the hotel, You park the car and go inside. It looks closed but it’s unlocked. The air smells like mothballs and mildewed wood. The door closes behind you on its own.”Must be the wind,” Thomas says.You notice that there is an old man behind the reception desk. He says, “Would you like a room?”Before Thomas can answer, you blurted out, “We want the haunted one.”“Very well,” he says and he hands you the key to room 376.You walk up the stairs to the left of the desk. Room 376 is at the top of the stairs. As you open the door, you look behind you and see shadows fleeting quickly in the hall. Strange.When you enter the room you are surprised to find that everything in the room is white.”Mm…m..maybe we should get out of here,” Thomas says in a quivering voice.”Let’s check around first,” you reply. You yank him into the room and a deep grinding noise stops you in your tracks.“Cracky!!” you say in unison.It’s already 11 PM and you both decide it’s time to settle down for the night. The same grinding noise…You wake up in the middle of a nightmare about an ogre. The walls start to turn from white to red. You see something that looks suspiciously like an ogre, but it can’t be real! Wait, is that the smell of ogre breath? Oh no………Will you grab the baseball bat under the bed? Turn to page 6. Or, will you run? Turn to page 4.You decide to run.(Cinco/Owen)“Run!!” you scream, as you shake Thomas out of a deep slumber. “Huh??” he exclaims.“Just RUN!!” you scream at him as you charge toward the door. It is locked. Under pressure, you decide to kick the door down. As you are running you expect to see the ogre. Nothing. Weird. You go back to the room and decide to poke your foot in. The walls begin to turn red again. Jerking your foot back you decide not to touch that room again anytime soon. Thomas disagrees. He suggests that you two spend one more night in the room.If you say “Yes”, turn to page 10.If you say “No”, turn to page 8.Thomas wins the rock, paper, scissors. (Corey, Tyler, Tessa, Celia) You agree that it might be too dangerous to go straight to the hotel room. You spend the rest of the day asking local townsmen about the hotel. They all say they’ve only heard stories from friends. All except for one.You walk up to this man’s porch. You ask him, ”Did you know anything about the haunted hotel room?”He takes a deep breath… Seconds of silence. You’re anticipation grows for his answer. In a frail weak voice he says, “Yes, I have the memories. I was the last one to stay there before it happened.”He takes a deep breath, which you realize is his last.”We should investigate his house,” you shout.“No!” Says Thomas. “It’s wrong.””Come on,” you say, “he’s dead.”“No, “ Thomas answers, “I think we should look at the city records.”If you think they should look at the city records, go to page 7.If you think they should investigate the man’s house, go to page 12.You grab the baseball bat under the bed.(Ashley/ Shane)You look under the bed and see a baseball bat. “Why is this here?” you think in confusion. You look in the distance to seeing the ogre walking toward you, still a blur but getting clearer. You think about charging toward it, but you feel it might charge toward you! Just as you think of that, he starts running toward you. Scared, you start swinging the bat even though he is still 10 feet away. Second by second he picks up speed like an airplane taking off from the airport. You make a swing and strike his leg. It doesn’t help; it just makes him angrier. You tried to run, your legs are moving, but you are not going anywhere.If you scream for help, go to page 13.If you try running again, go to page 14.You think they should look at the city records:(Tyler/ Corey)Thomas and you start walking to the city records. You go in and look under the Scary Section. You find out that there were a lot of screams from the Shadowcliff House. You ask the clerk, who is also an old man, about it. He also knows nothing. While he was thinking about it, he also died right then and there.“There seems to be a lot of old people dying in this town,” says Thomas.You say, “We should go to the hotel.” Thomas objects, “We should spend one more night where we are at.You do Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide.If you win, go to the hotel and turn to page 15.If Thomas wins, stay put and go to page 24.You say “No”.(Owen)You say no. You shut the door. It makes a loud clicking noise as it shuts. You start walking down the hall. You notice that Thomas is not following behind you. You turn around and you see Thomas staring at the wall. “Come on,” you exclaim.“No, get over here,” he says. “I found something!”You walk over, shaking your head. “This is a waste of time,” you say.Thomas shakes his head, “Look!”He starts to pull on the wall. The section of wall he’s pulling on comes off, revealing a small tunnel. “This must have something to do with the ogre!” you say. “Come on,” you say as you enter the tunnel. Everything goes black. You keep going. Eventually, you reach a room tall enough to stand up in. You look around. There’s two doors, but you suspect that when you go in they will lock. We should go through that one,” Thomas says.“No,” you say, “that way is the right one.” You point to the left door.You do Rock, Paper, Scissors and you win! You walk over to the door but there’s no handle. “There’s no handle,” you say.Thomas points to a little notch in the door. You walk over and pull on the notch in the door and a section of the door gives way revealing another small tunnel just like the last one.“What have we to lose?” you say as you enter the tunnel.“Our lives,” Thomas says.“What a happy thought Mr. Grouch,” you reply.The tunnel is the exact same as the last. You come to another room as big as the last but this one has a bunch of computers in a row. You walk over and you hear a faint grunt. You turn around and see the man at the desk run up to you with a knife.Everything goes black.THE ENDBy OwenYou say “Yes”.(Cinco)“Sure,” you reply and start to walk up the stairs and open the door. It makes a loud creaking noise. As you slump on the bed you realize that part of the corner of the wall is still a faint red, a chill runs up your spine. You groan and regret your decision.Thomas comes in the room and tells you to come with him.“I just got in here,” you whine.“Come with me,” he repeats in a stern voice.You get up and walk out the door. “Okay, what do you want to show me?”“I found something,” Thomas replies. He leads you down the stairs and walks through halls you have not yet explored, then proceeds to stop at a bookshelf and pull out a green, leather-bound book.“Whoa,” you mutter as a shiny red button is revealed. “Sh..should we press it?” Thomas asks. “No,” you say with some firmness. “I haven’t eaten in over 24 hours. Let’s get some grub first.”Thomas leads you across town to a restaurant called “Chachi’s Comfort Food.” You decide to order the homemade mac n’ cheese. “Darn,” you say a little too loudly, “that was good!”“Come again any time!” the worker shouts cheerfully.When you arrive back at the hotel and start to walk up the stairs, the owner gives you the evil eye. You ignore him and go to you room. “At least the bed is comfortable,” Thomas says unhappily.For the first time since the event, you wonder in that was a real ogre. Probably not, your brain tells you automatically. “No,” you say out loud. “I’m going to sleep in that bed and get to the bottom of this mess, whether common sense says otherwise or not!”You get into the bed, thinking deeply about what could happen. A deep sleep falls upon you…..Dream: (blue light and gray walls…a screen…what does it show? It is zoomed in on that book…people are walking by it….is it that hotel manager? He takes out the book as no one is looking…he presses the button before a section of the shelf gives way…he walks out of sight)You wake up suddenly. “I’m pressing that button!!”Thomas comes with you. As you arrive at the bookshelf he pulls out the green book for you. Eyes closed, you press the button. Your body goes limp.You shoot up in the bed at your house to the sound of your mother’s voice. “Are you okay?”It was all a nightmare about a room. THE NIGHTMARE ROOM.The Endby CincoYou think they should investigate the man’s house.(Tessa, Celia)“Oh my gosh!” says Thomas, “Let’s get out of here!”“Don’t you want to find out what happened?” you say.”Fine “ says Thomas.You walk in and see dead flowers in a vase. You keep walking. You see a sink full of dirty dishes. ”He doesn’t take care of his house,“ you comment.You walk into the bedroom and see a picture of a beautiful woman.You assume it is his wife, but there is something wrong with the picture. She looks almost possessed. “Impossible,” you think.Thomas keeps walking. He comes across another picture of the same woman holding something you can’t quite make out but you think it is a key. You stare at it as hard as you can. You make out the number 376. You look up. The faces are horrified, like they just had a flashback of something terrifying. You pick up the picture to examine it more carefully. You feel a note on the back. You turn the picture over and take the note off. It’s a waiver. It says: “WARNING. We are not responsible for you or your safety in this hotel room. Please sign here.”It was signed.You pocket it. You keep walking and go up another set of stairs. Now you are in the attic. You come across some boxes that say: DO NOT OPEN. DANGEROUS!Despite the warning, you open the box. There is a single item in the box. You gasp. It is the key from the picture! You take it out. You look around. There is a small door to your left, and a chest to your right. Thomas says, “We should investigate the chest! I bet that is what the key goes to.”“No!” you say. “That door looks suspicious, I want to check that out!”If you investigate the chest, turn to page 20.If you check out the door, turn to page 22.You scream for help.(Shane)You scream as loud as you can, nothing comes out. You try again but still nothing. Then something comes to you. You whisper as quiet as you can, it comes out ear-splittingly loud.Wow, you think to yourself, that loud scream seems to scare the ogre. You scream again and the ogre twitches in surprise and agony. Thomas bursts into the room, everything turns back to white.“What happened?” Thomas says.“Nothing,” you lie.You notice the ogre turn into a silver ball and float into a disc on the ceiling. You reach towards the disc and take it off the ceiling. It’s covering a hatch the exact size of the disc, just big enough for you and Thomas to fit through.It’s black, endless space full of floating silver balls!You decide to explore the silver balls. Go to page 17.You go out the (now unlocked) door. Go to page 18.You try running again.(Ashley)You try running again, still nothing is happening. The ogre is running faster, he’s getting closer and closer, you are getting scared. You’re paralyzed. He is standing in front of you. He jumps on you and stabs you with his sharp claws. You scream a blood-curdling scream and he stabs you again.If his nails dig into you more, turn to page 19. If you scream and someone comes to help, read on:You scream and Thomas comes running. He sees the ogre and takes out his pocketknife, stabs it, nothing happens so he tries again. Still, nothing happens. You can’t do anything about it…or can you! Thomas takes one more stab, this time it punctures his back. Thomas stabs and stabs until it’s dead. Then, all of a sudden he comes alive again. He starts attacking you but it’s too late.THE ENDby AshleyYou win, so you go to the hotel. (Tyler)Choose Door 1, read on.Choose Door 2, go to page 16.Door 1You go to a white room then you get knocked out then you wake up in a gym room. You see under the glass and under the glass are razors and needles and fire. You try to move but you’re chained up. You see in front of you two buttons. One says die and one says live. Then you see Thomas. He has his mouth tied up and he is chained up with flame thrower under him. You see a note that says, “if you press “Die” the glass under you will release and you will die, but if you press “Live” you will live, and Thomas will be burned.Choose :Live: You see Thomas burn. You cry. You wake up outside tied to a note that says “You monster”.You scream and pass out and wake up in a hospital and you hear a long beeeeeep.Die: You did the right choice. So now you walk though the door. When you are walking though the town you see a man coming out the door of the hotel. You see blood coming out of his red eyes and mouth. You walk to the desk and get the key. You lie down on the bed and close your eyes. You wake up and see two doors with one sound. You go through.Door 2You go inside door 2 and see a book. You read the book and it says this book is about us, we three demons are Torture, Sadness, and Nightmare.You run out of the hotel and you show the police. You show them and they don’t believe you and see the demons and you turn into a demon and you are the demon of Erg, but Thomas…THE ENDBy TylerYou decide to explore the silver balls. You enter the hatch with Thomas. You try jumping and your first jump you float in mid air. You push yourself through the darkness. You touch a ball and see your ogre nightmare.You go to another one and it shows you a nightmare you had about three years ago about a psycho killer breaking into your house. You see a blindingly bright figure about 100 ft. ahead and you glide over to it. It seems that it’s some type of core.Thankfully you bring your pocketknife everywhere. You cut a hole into the core. You and Thomas both let out a big scream as the light bursts out. Right before you closed your eyes you saw a split image of the cause of the blinding light. You make your way to where you saw it. You swing your knife in front of you, it hits something and you stab it.You hear a sizzle and open your eyes, the light is gone along with the silver balls. You make your way back to the room and everything isn’t white anymore, it’s normal.“Uh-oh”, Thomas says, “you lost your left eye.”“What? How? I felt nothing”, you say.“Well, sometimes things are like that”, Thomas says.After that you think of things differently and get some new attention. But you and Thomas definitely have something to remember.THE ENDby ShaneYou go out the (now unlocked) door.You and Thomas run out the door. Once you get out you see shadows own the hall again. But now they are on both ends of the hall and multiplied by ten! They dash towards you and scream spookily, “don’t leave us! Don’t leave us!” You guys start sprinting but you’re surrounded. Their closing in on you, the last thing you hear is “Don’t leeeeeeeaaaaa…” Everything goes black.THE ENDby ShaneHis nails dig into you more, instead.His nails dig into you more. You kick at him and he falls to the floor. You can move all of a sudden. You figured out you were paralyzed with fear.You start jumping on the ogre and he lets out a sound that sounds like a dying donkey. The ogre lays there not moving. You realize you killed him. You climb into bed but you can’t fall asleep after what just happened. After about an hour you doze off.You wake up the next morning to find Thomas lying next to you. You lay on the bed thinking about last night. About two hours later Thomas wakes up and you go downstairs to check out.“Sleep well?” the man at the desk asks. “Egh” you reply. You will never forget last night. EVER.THE ENDby AshleyYou investigate the chest:(Tessa)“Fine! We’ll open the chest,” you say mockingly. You try the key in the lock; it fits perfectly. You open it slowly just to annoy Thomas.He yells, “Hurry up with it!!” and you laugh under your breath. You look inside, purposefully blocking Thomas’ view and you gasp. It is 40-50 items you assume had been on the boat that belonged to the captain, from a compass to a radio transmitter. There’s one thing that catches your eye, though: a leather journal. You pick it up, with Thomas peering over your shoulder, and you open it.The pages are yellowed; it must be old. There’s a date at the top of the page. You remember faintly the motel clerk’s words:“ The date the boat crashed was March 23rd, 1942.”You can’t believe it! This entry was written on the day of the wreck! It says:I just got radioed in. My youngest son died tonight in his room. He was murdered. The murderer broke the window. I’ll take care of it when I get home. We are going through some rough waves right now, I’m sure it doesn’t mean much. I wonder what she…The entry trails off. “That’s all?!” Thomas says.“No there’s another entry on the same day,” you say.“So, why did you stop?” he says, obviously annoyed.You start giggling. “I wanted to see how much you would squirm.”Thomas looks stern. “Just read,” he says, gesturing to the journal. You continue:I hope that my kids don’t miss me. I’ll miss them all: Lilly, Lisa, Billy, Joey, Charlie, Max, Mark, Ben, Chris, Julian, and, most of all, Auggie. He is so happy and fun loving. He was going to be a sailor.“It’s done!’ you say in disbelief. Thomas looks at you. He says, “I know you’re joking.”“I’m not!” you say, almost not believing it yourself. You say, “I’m done with this town! I say, let’s get out of it!”“I agree,” Thomas says.You both go to the hotel parking lot and get in your dad’s Mustang. As Thomas drives away you see a sign you didn’t notice before. It says: Welcome to Prosperity Cove, home of the biggest pranking town ever! You gasp. “So it was all just a prank!” You see some people by the sign waving; the hotel desk clerk, the old man, all the people you talked to.You wave back. THE ENDby TessaYou check out the door:(Celia)“C’mon! I’ll bet that door leads to the haunted hotel room!” you say.“No! That place is dangerous!” says Thomas. “You can go, but I’ll just stay behind.”“No, you’re coming, I need you!”You drag him over, unlock the door, and step in. It’s a tiny, narrow hall. Thomas is so entranced he forgets all about exploring the chest. You see a flickering light at the end of the hall. You are so excited you start to run. This is a real adventure! You get to the end of the hall. There is a little room there, and in it is a desk. You go inside and open the desk drawer. Just your luck! You find a map; of what, you don’t know, but you assume it is of the halls in the hotel. But you know the destination. It says very clearly in bold letters: THE NIGHTMARE ROOM. So, the haunted hotel room has a name. You see a tiny number next to the name of the room: 376. The hotel room’s number is 376! Your key says 376! You start out, hoping the way isn’t very long. You are too anxious to walk for 20 minutes. Luckily, you get there 10 minutes later. There’s a staircase. You go up the stairs and through the trap door, and suddenly you are in beautiful sunlight. You are standing outside right in front of the hotel! You are nervous but you decide to enter. There is no technology, but you remember this is a really old place. “Hello,” you say. You think up a quick plan and tell the clerk, “ We checked in already, we have our key.”“Perfect,” the hotel keeper says in a drawling voice. “You may go to your room.” You walk down the hallway until you get to room 376. You pull out your key and unlock the door. In the room there’s a white bed, with white sheets. There is white carpet, and all the walls are white. The only thing that’s not white is the T.V. You flop down on the bed. You are tired and you decide to watch some T.V. for the rest of the day. Go to the next pageYou start to doze off. NO, you think to yourself. I can’t go to sleep. Something bad might happen to me. You start getting sleepier and sleepier, but you can’t let yourself fall asleep. Where’s Thomas when you need him you wonder. You answer your own question. Thomas was on the beach. He didn’t want any trouble so he didn’t come in to the hotel room with you. No matter what he said earlier, he wasn’t here to help you now. I should get out of this room and make myself more awake, but I’m so tired, you think to yourself.If you stay in and get some rest, turn to page 25.If you get out of the room, stay on this page .You decide you’d better get out and not let yourself doze off. You want to go meet Thomas on the beach and go swimming to help you brainstorm ways to find out what happened, why, and who did it. You tell Thomas about how you had gotten the feeling that if you fell asleep, something would happen. Together, you came up with a plan. You head back to the hotel, and go straight to your room. You plop down on the bed, close your eyes, and fake going to sleep. You stay like that for an hour, until you hear movement in the room.? You open your eyes, jump up, and duck down.? Under the bed there is a chain.? You grab the chain and turn around.? There is a man, well half a man skeleton.? You whip around and hit it with the chain.? He falls to the floor bleeding.? You gasp, “who are you?”? “Hotel Keeper” he says through moans of pain.? Then he goes limp.? He is dead.THE ENDby CeliaThomas wins; stay put.(Corey)Thomas wins and you go along, not very happy. When you go back to the camp you find out that your tent is gone. Thomas and you sleep a very sleepless night. There were a lot of groans from the Shadowcliff house and a very dark shadow fell over Thomas but you were too afraid to look to the left. You finally see the first shaft of daylight. You get out of your sleeping bag and realize that Thomas is gone. There are giant footsteps headed towards the Shadowcliff house.If you try to get the police turn to page 26.If you follow the tracks, stay on this page. You follow the tracks.You follow the tracks one at a time for about 45 minutes, by then you are jogging. Then a seagull passes over you and you look up and realize that a little white spot is flyi-SPLAT! You can’t see now! A group of pirates pick you up and you are sold into slavery in Norway.THE ENDYou stay in and get some rest:You’re just tired; you stay in. You can’t help but doze off. Soon you’ve fallen into a deep sleep. You dream you are running from the mysterious old man’s ghost. He’s chasing you with something in his hand; he is waving it in the air. You’re pretty sure it’s the key to the hotel room. Suddenly you’re out of breath and you stop to rest. The old man catches up to you. You realize what he is holding is not a key. It’s a…You let out an ear-piercing scream! Your eyes flicker open. You see a terrifying, bloody skeleton. You see it for less than a millisecond and then all the intense pain that you are suddenly feeling stops. And so does your heart. Forever. THE ENDby CeliaYou try to get the police:You pull out a flip-phone and call 9-1-1. The police answer quickly and say “What is it?” You explain and try to do the best you can. They come in thirty minutes.You start following the tracks on foot but the police interject. They have a dune buggy and you agree happily to ride with them. There is a seagull. He opens fire on the buggy. Luckily the buggy has a roof. The seagull flies lower and gets right next to the buggy. You get a good glimpse of it. It has an antenna and you hear the gears. Shoot the gull the squad opens fire and a lot of sparks fly and the gull goes down. The tracks lead to the ocean and behind a rock is a band of giant pirates. The police open fire and kill all of them. Thomas was cuffed. The police un-cuff him and you are the hero.THE ENDby Corey ................
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