[b]>Dress warm[/b] You struggle into a pair of jeans, a Heattech long sleeve top, and a down vest. Although the fabric of the shirt is thin, it traps heat more effectively than the bulky woolen sweaters you typically wear. You can always go back and add more overtop. Your vest has two side pockets. Your pants have four pockets in total, though small. If you want to carry anything at the moment, it'll probably have to be no bigger than your phone. A trip around the house, though, shouldn't need a lot of inventory... >

grab some food and extra batteries for the flashlight to toss in your pockets, then a notepad, pens, plastic tupperware, and a kitchen knife to put in the backpack. if you have it, a map of the local area would be nice, too.

[b]>Grab adventure supplies[/b] Whoa golly. You just went straight from numbing, freezing terror to survival prepper. That's not really a reaction you've ever had before. It's kind of interesting. It's a little weird. It doesn't quite feel like you, but it's a stronger, more dominant impulse than the indecision you usually struggle with, so... so better than nothing at all? Yeah, let's go with it. Um, okay then, let's see. Food. Raid the fridge, or look for less-delicious dry goods, like that awful protein granola stuff your mom buys at the organic supermarket (twelve kinds of seeds and dried fruit, gag)? You've got a couple strawberry breakfast bars in the front pocket of your backpack for classes, but those are more sugar than anything else, and just in case that wasn't enough, there's Halloween candy too, because it's the only reason why the holiday exists. Can we call this food? Batteries. How long are you going to be using the flashlight? Because if it's just around the house, you don't need adventure gear to scope two floors, an attic, and a basement. Sure, it's big, but it's not like, White House big. And if you're going outside, there should be streetlights. You've seen the streetlights. There's probably a battery-operated charging station around here, the kind you'd take out camping. If you can find that, that'd probably be ideal to charge up your phone. You know what would be more ideal though? If you could get the generator going and get power back to the house. But baby steps. You don't touch that thing, and you'd probably want to be able to google how to fix the thing instead of messing it up. Or if you could call someone to fix it. Assuming. Assuming your dad isn't here, or. Or anyone. Okay, yeah, really easy to jump to total abandonment without even-- without any indicators-- Notepad and pens. An easy addition to the backpack, because they're already in there, along with your Cognitive Psychology textbook. If you want to do adventure mode, you probably don't need the Cog Psych textbook. That's six pounds off your back right there, woo-hoo. Tupperware and cutlery. Wow, fancy. Where exactly are you going with this? Kitchen knife. For.... killing someone? Your brain leaps to self-defence, but at the same time, really, you're just thinking of those Japanese horror movie tropes. You almost don't want to go downstairs, really. What if someone has already gotten to the knives first? Et cetera. Et cetera. Just look at your irrational fears go! Map of the local area. Usually, you use your phone if you need to, but it's a small town, and again, you've lived here long enough to know where everything is. Even if you woke up one day and lost your sense of direction, there's historical tour maps all over the place and big friendly direction markers to places like the visitor's center, where you can get an advertisement-laden rendition of the sights-to-see. Visitor's center is obviously closed at this hour, and your phone is also out of commission. And that reeks of conspicuous 'horror movie' shlock, like, 'you definitely can't call out for help because we're going to build some stupid plot contrivance to generate a false sense of isolation'. At present time, after quibbling with yourself and dissecting out why you would even want to pick up certain things, you have a backpack in your hands filled with: -Legal pad -Black and blue ballpoint pens -Pads for your lady business -A pack of Kleenex -Hand sanitizer -Breakfast bars -Candy -Bandaids -Your backup power stick and backup cord (?!) -Headphones -Beanie in your school colours, complete with fluffy pom-pom You've removed everything else. Stuff like house keys and wallet go into your purse, if you want to 'equip' that too, but you're-- you really just want to figure out what's going on [i]here[/i]. (If you were going to run away, 2007 would have been a better year for that, when the music was swaggin' and the politics were friendlier. Huh. You can probably discount running away for Janice, unless she has another phone. That's ridiculously expensive to leave behind, tracking or not.) On-hand, you have a flashlight and your very dead phone. Downstairs is food, alcohol, the easily weaponized kitchen implements, and possibly a home intruder, if your fears are to be believed. Or your truant sister. Also an open door. This floor has... more swinging doors and more Shroedinger's family members, and more opportunities for you to welcome denial with friendly, open arms and just, you know. Not look? Is that still an option? > (Sorry to bug, but in the future, can we do commands with > in front of them so I can better differentiate what's discussion and what's action? Also, our protag is not knocking on anyone's commands, but might dismiss some of them as not the best options, or as a clearly silly option, according to their frame of reference. The more people get behind a command, the more the protag will respond to it!)

[b]> Check parent's bedroom[/b] I'm loving this so far! ^^

[b]>Check parents's bedroom[/b] Oh boy. Your heart is back in your throat again. It's the uncertainty of what you'll find that makes you more uncomfortable. Once you know--- like, like you know Janice is gone, but you can at least postulate some reasons for it. Like pranks, like secret boyfriends, like some kind of late-night event with her classmates. Once you know something, it's okay, but it's the act of making yourself know, the act of 'finding out', when everything is possible, and everything is thus equally valid. You're not sure if you're most scared of dead bodies, but you can't discount anything. You creep down the hall toward the master bedroom with flashlight in hand, stocking feet making no noise at all, even when you should be getting creaks. You're trying to make creaks. You're trying to drown out the rasp of your own breath and the sound of your own heartbeat. You're trapped in your noises. Trapped in your head. The door is rocking gently in the wind, hinges silent though they were never silent before. The room is empty. Orderly. A neatly made bed, with fluffed, full pillows arranged almost hotel style. Slippers on each side of the bed. Robes hung up on the armoire. You scare yourself with your own reflection again, the harsh bounce of too-bright light off the mirror, then your pale face and dark eyes looking out haggardly, like a ghost. You break the silence with a mild expletive. There's no one around to hear it. Everything is in its place. The big soft Persian rug with all its colours and tassels lays smoothly and neatly. Your mother's bible sits diagonal to the corner of her nightstand, with her reading glasses atop it. Your father's water-glass has a thin crust of ice over it. The windows are open, and the big shutters on the outside of the house are flapping about in stronger breeze, but making no noise. >

Pinch yourself, make sure this [i]isn't[/i] a dream.

[b]> If it's not a dream, check for clues. Search through any cupboards/dresser drawers etc.[/b]

[b]>Pinch yourself[/b] You take one wrist between finger and thumb and give a hard, pinching twist. Only the sleeve saves you from what's known (inappropriately?) as an Indian burn. It hurts. Your eyes water. Your breath and face are momentarily warm with the pain. Nope. Still here. Still awake. Still painfully aware of how cold it is in here, open windows and all. [b]>Look for clues[/b] You search around the bedframe and the nightstands first, checking under the bed, its contents draped with skirting, then through the nightstands. Your mom's nightstand has a devotions book, cough drops, tissues, bookmarks, a sewing kit. Pretty normal stuff. Your dad's has five or six books on the Civil War, all with toilet paper bookmarks from where he last left off. There's a kinky kit under the bed, and you never want to see that again. Oh my god. Your mom's bible has been bookmarked to Isaiah, which is where they last left off in church services. Pretty boring stuff. Nothing important there, you think. Your dad's books are all marked to boring war strategy parts. Like medicine on the battlefield things, or capture and big single-name battles. It doesn't look like any of their clothing has been touched. The marriage chest at the foot of the bed holds sheets and towels, as well as a random DVD box for Friends, which is probably what they were watching in here. Your mom's work-station is neat, with various finished or in-progress vintage dolls, all of them staring out toward the bed with their big, shiny, unblinking eyes. The attached master bath has your dad's electric razor prepped up for the next day, your mom's makeup kit perched on the countertop. Her contact lenses are sitting in solution by the sink. There's a couple tissues with smudged lipstick, a couple makeup wipes in the trash. One of the crosses hanging over the claw-foot bathtub is just slightly askew. >

[b]>Go down to basement and search. Also, keep torch at hand in case something needs bashing.[/b]

[b]>Go down to the basement[/b] Is that really necessary? If the house has no power, then the basement is going to be cloaked in inky darkness. No streetlights, no starlight, no light glinting off the waters or from the boats. Just the dark of the underground. You know what's down there. There's a coat closet, the wine, an old player piano, meticulous boxes of ornaments for all the seasons (twice as many for Christmas as any other time of the year), but there is a wreath for every month, decorations for every holiday. The house has been in magazines. Your family keeps files and bills down here, along with panes of glass original to the house, and more religious-themed decorations that you're pretty sure no one out of a showroom actually displays in their home. There's bags of clothing intended for donation, boxes of clothing from the warmer winter months. There's sports equipment and a neglected model railroad track down there too. Any and all of that will leave strange, weird bruises on your body if you walk into it. It once was intended for a communal area, like the pristine living room upstairs. There was supposed to be a couch and a tv and better lighting. But you think with all the super-perfection going on throughout the rest of it, your mom really needed a junk room to have an imperfect (and livable) storage area. You sure you want to go down there? There's-- it's not like there's a lot of room down there to hide bodies. Why are you thinking about bodies? Why are you doing this to yourself? You haven't even left the second floor! >