In 2015 Doomworld had a collaborative megawad project called Mayhem 1500, for which I submitted Map 06: Castle Bathory, and also volunteered to write the intermission screens.
End of Chapter 1:
‘Don’t worry,’ Dr. Rubik had said.
‘It’s all perfectly safe. We just need
a volunteer to help calibrate the Cronus
Drive’s new OS. Just step in for 1500
cycles and we’re all done.’
‘How long is 1500 cycles?’ you’d asked.
The doc shrugged. ‘Eight seconds?’
‘What, you’re not sure?’
‘Look, you want your six grand or not?’
Eight seconds your ass. That was six
days, eight hundred demons, a thousand
gun-toting crazies, and one giant god-
damned vampire ago. Now you’re god-knows
how many centuries in the past, staring
at a river of lava that goes on forever,
wondering when one of these damn time
rifts will take you back home, to your
six grand and Dr. Rubik’s ass-whooping.
~o~
End of Chapter 2:
You remember a lot of important events
happening in the year 1500, like Portugal
discovering Brazil, and wolves going ex-
tinct in England. Add seven shit-tons
of demonic meatbabies to the extinct list,
Hot Junior High History Teacher. What was
her name? Miss Hanson? Miss Hershberger?
You think you see an old, crumbling fort-
ress in the distant marsh, hiding in the
mossy mountains. Maybe your ticket home
is there. Or shit-tons more monsters.
Can’t say this trip through time and
space has been boring, at least.
It’s dinnertime on present-day earth,
according to your useless watch.
~o~
End of Chapter 3:
Taking a smoke break on the ledge of the
old keep, tossing a demon skull into the
moat below, you chuckle and think of Toni,
your ex-girlfriend. Crazy bitch would be
all snark and smiles one minute, flinging
kitchenware at your head the next. This
timewarp’s mood swings make Toni look
like a well-adjusted saint.
Each time you go through a portal, the
locale gets weirder, more alien. You
aren’t even sure you’re on earth anymore.
Could that possibly mean you’re getting
closer to your goal? The return to Dr.
Rubik’s lab, where your next rent payment
awaits? Or are you just burrowing through
time and space, digging deeper and deeper
into Hell itself?
~o~
Ending
‘Look, you want your six grand or not?’,
says Dr. Rubik to your past self as you
step into his lab. All eyes are on you,
gun smoking, jumpsuit bathed in blood.
You don’t hesitate vaporizing the doc’s
head. The lab techies go next, then
the Cronus Drive, all while your past
self screams horrified obscenities.
Then…nothing happens. Preventing the
experiment SHOULD have undone the dis-
aster and sent you home…unless the
‘Drive merely stranded you in a new
and now very doomed timeline.
‘Fuck my life,’ your past and present
selves mutter, as security hauls you
both in for questioning.
~o~
Secret Level Found:
You found the secret level! Some-
thing about this place strikes you
with a powerful sense of deja vu.
It’s probably just your imagination.
~o~
Super Secret Level Found:
You found the super secret level!
Seriously, what’s wrong with you?
Was this megawad not hard enough
for you? Haven’t you learned your
lesson yet?
See a counselor, for god’s sake.
Mike's Toybox 