CYOA: Stars Beyond

THAT'S A DAMN GOOD QUESTION.
But not gonna be able to get back to the room on a mega-LSD trip anyway.
I'd say finding a way to temporarily incapacitate yourself so you can't do anything bad would be a good idea... if not for what doors are in here. This is the worst plan.
My solution would be pretty simple. Not the **** out and let Ace die. Hell, how do we know he even came this way? Maybe he's somewhere completely different? Maybe the door goes to the same place or maybe not and maybe this puzzle doesn't even affect the door? We never examined the door proper. Why can't we go find something really big and really smashy and just remove the box? Stupid books. Stupid chains. Can't make book armor.

GAH. Do whatever Mystic says. Ignore me.

...Yeah, no need to bother going that far... I sorta have to deal with the damn things pretty regularly, so I can deal. But still... Ugh.

Get the ball, boy, get the ball! Oh, who's a good moose? You are, yes you-
I'm going to go hug my dog.

Chains around an insane person usually means accidental strangling. What was in the previous room? Uh...Crow probably passed out from the thought of that many needles in one arm, so I imagine I'm on my own here.

So what do you do?

You mean go back down the acid chest?

You run over to the chest, hurriedly pull off your moose helmet, and flick your helmet back on with a tap at your wrist.

You pause as you look into the dark depths of the chest, and see a masked face.

You know it for the hallucination it is because you see the glowing purple symbols and eyes not in greyscale, but in vivid colour.
 
As you dive in, you suddenly realise what could happen if in your insanity you opened your helmet underwater... you mean under acid.

You have no time to do anything with this before tendrils of blackness fill your vision, and you lose your body in the terrifying abyss.

Your perspective changes, and you are in classroom. There are students all around you, but when you turn to look they are just silhouettes. A grey-haired old man with a drooping moustache is behind the desk, and typing something on a wafer-thin laptop. He stands up as a hologram of a complex molecular structure appears above you and spins rapidly. After a few hasty clicks as he bends down it slows.

"Anamnesis Anathema." He declares in a matter of fact tone of voice. "Developed in World War 3 by a branch of VERZET working in a secret bunker in Belgium. Their efforts helped NATO end the war three before they ever would have. And yet, until 2078, when the researchers were posthumously pardoned, they were considered traitors. Their lab, their estates, all seized by the government. Can anyone tell me why?"

A hand goes up beside you, and as you turn the silhouette of the person speaking, as well as the people around them are filled with colour. "They... used it to experiment on Tongisian officers." The boy says, eyes tilted to the floor. "It made them... scared, terrified, of what would happen if they didn't."

"Yes. This innocent little chemical," here the man gestures again to the giant rotating molecule. "Saved billions of lives. It was the perfect interrogation technique. All the fear and inevitable caving of torture, combined with forcing people to focus on their own memories instead of making them up."

Again, he sits down, and as he clicks, the hologram changes. Everything except the suspended man, with limbs shackled to a table with tubes in his arms, turns to inky blackness. His screams drive icy daggers into your chest, and you try to banish the memory.

You look down at your watch, suddenly visible, and become entranced by the shimmering silvery interlocking plates metal. As the lines of light coming off it twist and together, the metal beneath them becoming walls of a tunnel.

You are running, as you run, you notice that the arms pumping forwards and backwards are lined with cyan, not purple or green.

How many times have I played this game?

You stop suddenly, in a room that looks like a theatre, and see the pile of bodies. There are four.

The you from the present doesn't recognise the faces, but you obviously did here, because fall to your knees, and tears blur your vision. You blink rapidly to see clearly, and examine the corpses.

The murder weapon for two of them is obviously the axe buried in Number 6's chest, one seems to have had his throat punctured by an ice spike, while the last has no discernible injuries, however they could easily be hidden by the others' bodies.

You gingerly reach into the pile, and pull out a glass sphere. You see yourself inside it, along with everything else in the room. There are a number of buttons on the top, and you fiddle with them until you start moving backwards through the tunnel you came in through. After a while, you see 6 fall up from the floor, and she pulls the axe from her chest. After swinging it into 3's chest, 3 rises to her knees, and stands upright, clutching her hands over her eyes. She then puts them down by her sides, and 6 puts her axe back at her belt.

You press a button to pause it, and move the orb around, looking at different angles, to try and make sense of the events. You move your face right next to the orb, press play, and put it in slow motion. Number 6 seems to be consoling Number 3 – it finally hits you that Number 3 only seems to be about 10 – when she suddenly jerks upright. She clumsily fumbles with the axe at her belt, while swinging her head back and forth, and hacks Number 3 to death, then slams the axe in her own chest.

Having noticed something you haven't yet, your past self swipes on the orb, and zooms into the stage. There's a man in blue, the Number 11 of this group, in exactly the same position as Number 6. You rewind it a little, and press play again in slow motion. He mimes 6's actions, right up until the point where 6 slumps over, at which point he walks behind the curtains.

You drop the orb, which surprisingly doesn't shatter, grab the katana from your sheathe, and run towards the stage. "Aquarius!" you yell, eyes darting from side to side. "I know you're there! You murdered them you bucketflaker!" 

Number 11—Aquarius, walks onto the stage, hands behind his back. Now you can see him up close, you realise every glowing blue section of his suit has a white outline, and unlike every suit you've ever seen, his number is glowing. Apart from that, the first thing you notice is that his left arm is streaked with blood and bits of what look like meat, and you note with a grim satisfaction that the blood on his leg is his own. His face is pale and smooth, dark eyes partially obscured with long strands of matted black hair going in every direction. He has a casual expression on his face, although his lips are twitching upwards.

"You rang?" he replies casually. "What's this about a murder?"

"How could you!?" You snarl, pointing an accusatory finger. "Virgo loved her! YOU MADE HER KILL HER AND THEN HERSELF!"

"Me? Killing is one of my least favourite things to do! You wound me! ...Besides, I had already stopped controlling her by then. The suicide was entirely voluntary."

You run at him, about to leap on the stage, when all of a sudden he assumes your position, and stands upright. You find yourself doing the same, and you thrash the only part of your body you can still move: your head.

"Get off me! Face me like a man!"

"Have you managed to satisfy your win condition yet?" he asks, changing the subject.

"What?" you blurt out, caught off guard.

"Looter, right? You need to put three artefacts in treasure bags?"

Suddenly, it seems to hit your past self. "You mean... that's why you killed them? To win?"

"But of course. So, have you?"

"No! So you might as well kill me too!"

"Aha, my 'Lie of the Land' skill says otherwise. Tell you what, if you beg, I might let you live."

"You're a monster."

"Beg me."

He sits down on the stage, and dangles his legs on the floor. Your suit forces you to squat in the air. You both stay like that for about ten minutes. Past you is obviously in quite a bit of pain by that point, but still hasn't said anything, and neither has Aquarius. At this point, he sighs, and with a motion, he has you drawing your katana, and angling it at your chest.

"Last chance?"

A: Give in
B: NEVER!

"How's that possible? He can't even reach you!"