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You emerge from the tunnel into darkness. It crowds around you for a better look.
Alternative wording
You emerge from the tunnel into a large hall. Darkness recoils from the white beam in your hand.
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Look around.
A glow traces the outline of a canopy over piles of rubble.
Voices raised into a tune. A guitar, strummed once. Laughter.
Light flickers with the singsong iridescence of open flame. Candles.
And distantly, as if in the walls, a drumbeat.
The Party lives on.
Overhead, something stirs. It has been waiting.
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End of this branch
THE PARTY LIVES ON.
Listen.
Two voices, low and comfortable. Fingers skim the strings of a guitar.
You see the shape of a canopy outlined in an orange glow.
You'll need your flashlight to compensate for your pathetic fleshy corneas.