Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Epilogue

PROLOGUE

They (nominative plural of third-person pronoun) say - lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Not true: park ranger Roy C. Sullivan of Virginia, USA, was struck seven times by lightning, from 1942 to 1977. He killed himself in 1983.
Also not true: more than twenty years ago now, the Edison family home was very nearly struck by a glowing purple meteor. After retrieving the thing, everyone in the place gradually went mad. The place was nicknamed 'Maniac Mansion' by the locals. Doctor Fred kidnapped one of them, the teenager Sandy, who was rescued by her college friends. The meteor was dispersed, the Edisons went sane again and everyone got on with their lives. The old place was converted into a motel and convention centre. They even made a computer game and TV series about the event.
Only once, you say? Well, watch what happens next.

It was a beautiful spring day. Clear as a whistle, the sky pale blue and milky white, the ground a freshly mowed green. All around the Edison house flowers thrived, butterflies flew, and the scent of nature was in the air.
Everywhere, that is, except for out the back. That was where the outlet for Doctor Fred Edison's patented Sludge-O-Matic� was. KEEP OUT, proclaimed a large metal sign by the Sludge-O-Matic� outlet. AREA CONTAMINATED WITH INDUSTRIAL WASTE. Foul, muddy brown water came out of a pipe in the basement, and sloshed into a passing stream. To one side, the stream was clear and blue - on the other, brown and bubbling. Here the grass was withered and decayed, the flowers were long dead, and the birds stayed well away.
But something was coming forward now. Two heads poked out surreptitiously from behind a tree trunk. One was green, the other was purple. Both were slimy and invertebrate. They reconnoitred the area, drew their heads back, then leapt forward toward the stream and the outlet.
A little description might be in order for those who have never seen one of Dr. Fred's tentacles. Imagine a dwarf inside a sleeping bag, a sleeping bag which tapers at the head to a narrow point. Now visualise a series of suckers, all down the front of the sleeping bag, so that the resulting creature looks like a swollen octopus tentacle. And that's nearly right, too.
Some other details. The tentacles have a mouth, eyes, even eyebrows, but no arms. No legs, either - the bottom of the tentacle is one large sucker, which has a tendency to stick to the ground.
Ssssllurrp-thunk, ssssllurrp-thunk, was the noise of the two tentacles leaping forward toward the stream. It wasn't often they got to go outside.
Purple Tentacle was in the lead. He was distinguishable from Green Tentacle not only by his complexion, but by a much larger and bushier eyebrow. And his voice, which was deep and serious compared to Green's younger, more enthusiastic voice.
Purple looked at the outlet. "Hmmm, I'm thirsty," he said, and leant forward.
Green looked worried. They shouldn't be out here, he knew it. Dr Fred would have a fit. "I don't think you should drink that," he said as Purple put his lips to the fetid water and slurped it in. "It looks bad for you."
Purple licked his lips. "Nonsense. It makes me feel great. Smarter. More aggressive." He leapt into a more open space. Green moved back slightly. "I feel like I could-"
Purple Tentacle struggled with himself. He writhed about, and Green heard bubbling, popping sounds come from the interior of Purple's chest. Green moved back further, trembling.
"Like I could-"
Purple tentacle's mouth opened enormously, and he roared. There were teeth in that roar. He shook himself from side to side, and to Green it seemed like Purple was growing slightly. His very skin shook, as pressures from within pounded it about.
"Like I could-"
Purple was nearly bent double, groaning. Suddenly, two folds of flesh on either side of his chest sprang out. Purple straightened up and looked at them, curiously.
He had arms. And that meant he could...
Purple drew himself up. Around him, the air grew cold. Clouds came from nowhere and lightning stabbed downward. Green cowered on the ground.
"TAKE ON THE WORLD!!" roared Purple.

The doorbell of a certain undergrad apartment rang.
Really, this apartment was no different to the many other undergrad apartments around. TV, couch facing TV, stereo, wooden floor, separate if tiny bedrooms etc. Occupied by three students, all who liked to interior decorate, the living room was a jumbled mess of three different personalities.
Posters of heavy metal bands, demonic skulls, and most of the CDs. That was Hoagie. No one, and certainly not his two roommates, seemed to know what Hoagie studied. Whether he studied at all was debatable - Hoagie was a short, but rotund guy who had unwashed black hair down to below his shoulders. He wore black T-shirts, exclusively, and they were always one size too small, so that between the belt of his pants and the bottom of the T-shirt was about an inch or two of bum crack. Hoagie wanted to be in a heavy metal band, or a roadie. He certainly had the right manners - that discarded pizza box on the floor with a few mouldy slices still inside was his. Oh, and the sock hanging from one blade of the ceiling fan.
Not quite at home with Hoagie's art sense were a row of formaldehyde jars on the bookshelf, and a grinning skull wearing a red fez and smoking a cigar. That was Laverne. Laverne was a pre-med student, with a keen - some would say obsessive - interest in anatomy. Whenever something needed dissecting, Laverne was the one to do it, and nearly always got top marks when she did. She never went anywhere without her trusty scalpel. She also never went anywhere unless she was wearing a red and white skirt, green sweater, med student ID tag, and a seriously out-of-whack grin on her face. When she did go somewhere, it was with a bounding, eager, knock-kneed gait that turned heads. She had a shock of wavy, unkempt blonde hair which extended outward in all directions from her head, like a corona eight inches wide. Perhaps it was nearly as unwashed as Hoagie's - they weren't so different, after all.
As uneasily as Laverne's possessions shared space with Hoagie's, they were even less happy about the computer desk in the corner and the Computer Fair poster on the wall. These were the work of senior Physics student Bernard Bernoulli, who was older than both of them. He never went anywhere unless he was wearing black shoes, black pants pulled up to his ribcage, a white shirt tucked into these pants (and the underpants), a solar calculator and a pen in the front pocket of the shirt. And, of course, glasses. Bernard was a bright, earnest but somewhat geeky guy who always tried to do right by everybody else.
Alone of the three, he had been to Maniac Mansion.
But it was Laverne who rushed to the front door when the doorbell rang that evening. She opened it, and was a little bemused to see a hamster standing there, holding a saliva-covered letter in its mouth and panting for breath.
"Look, Hoagie, it's a hamster!" she said to Hoagie, who was a little behind her. "Just what I need for dissection lab tomorrow!"
"I think I need that for the band, Laverne," said Hoagie. "You know, like we could bite its head off, or whatever."
Bernard rushed forward. "Hands off that hamster!" he said urgently.
"Friend of yours, Bernard?" asked Laverne.
Bernard crossed to the door. "He belongs to Weird Ed Edison - and it looks like he's brought us a note!" Bernard bent down and picked up the letter. He turned and kicked the door shut.
The hamster, outside, was a little miffed.
Bernard read, watched somewhat disinterestedly by Laverne and Hoagie. This is not going to be interesting, they thought.
"It's from my old friend, Green Tentacle!" exclaimed Bernard. "He says that Purple Tentacle's mutated into an insane genius-"
Hoagie whistled. Laverne's mouth fell open and her left eye throbbed. They started to pay close attention.
"-and Doctor Fred says he's going to kill them both!" Bernard was shocked by the terrible news. He folded the letter up and walked to the living room window.
Outside, stormy weather was brewing. Moonlight came through the shutters, casting a dramatic pattern of white and shadow on Bernard's body. He narrowed his eyes, staring roughly in the direction of the old Maniac Mansion place. "I thought I was free of Doctor Fred and those crazy Edisons forever. But now, I know that I must go..."
He looked up, at the moonlit sky. "Back to the Mansion!" Lightning struck again.

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