To Be or Not To Be

by Ryan North

“What the hell?” you ask.

  “You can’t kill me, as per the terms of our agreement,” Gertrude says. “But we never agreed that I couldn’t kill you.”

  You reach to draw your sword.

  “Now now, be careful with that!” Gertrude says. “You wouldn’t want to cut me! I could die from an infection!”

  » Put the sword back in its sheath «

  » Draw the sword anyway «

  * * *

  * * *

  You are King Hamlet. All of Denmark is under your command! Everything’s going so great for you!

  At present, you are in Norway, where just this afternoon you led Denmark’s forces to an astounding victory during which you PERSONALLY killed the Norwegian king. Stabbed him right through the head, you did. His eye popped out and rolled on the ground and then you stepped on it. Whoah! Your ass is bad! You are a badass!!

  You decide after a day of being good at fighting, you should have a nap. You’ve earned it! You settle down in an orchard for some nappy times. During your delightful rest, your brother pours some poison in your ear and you die.

  Surprise! You didn’t know poisons worked that way!

  Hah hah, wow! You’ve barely made one choice so far and you’re dead already. Way to go, champ!! You’re really good at books, huh? It’s just a stellar job you’re doing reading here, Chuckles.

  THE END

  Okay, FINE, I feel sorry for you. Here’s a choice that you can choose.

  » Become a ghost «

  » Do not become a ghost «

  * * *

  * * *

  Man, it’s awesome! And it’s SO COOL to be an underwater explorer who doesn’t need to breathe. I mean, it’s kinda hard to see things without a light source, but your ghostly body glows a little when you want it to, so it’s not bad.

  The pirate ship itself seems recently sunk. There are bodies trapped below-decks, and yeah, that’s unpleasant. The ocean bacteria haven’t really started decomposing them yet. Bodies, man. Being corporeal, man. I dunno.

  You find the treasure room, and it’s empty. It seems like this ship was attacked, raided, and then sunk. Somewhere up above your head, sailing on the surface of the great Ocean Atlantic, is a really tough pirate ship that’s just looking for treasure AND/OR trouble. Too bad you’re already dead, huh?

  But even if you were alive what does a ghost need with money anyway, so I guess this has kinda been a pointless but still awesome endeavour. You explored the ocean bottom and found a sunken ship! Don’t let anyone tell you that’s not awesome!

  Okay! After several more days of very slow travel that we just skipped over because it got boring, you’re back on Denmark’s shores!

  » Arrive in Denmark «

  » You know what? Go back and explore the ocean some more. The ocean rules. «

  * * *

  * * *

  Right! Because who better to know how to kill someone than someone who has recently been through that “getting killed to death” process themselves? You wait until Claudius is sleeping (NEXT TO YOUR BELOVED GERTRUDE FOR SOME REASON, HAH HAH, THAT’S WEIRD) then wake him up by tapping him on the forehead a bit.

  “Hey, it’s me!” you whisper. “Your brother! The one you murdered!!”

  “Aw crap,” Claudius whispers back. “Ghosts are real?”

  “Real pissed at you, anyway,” you reply. “Listen, I’ll cut to the chase: we are from a time where ‘an eye for an eye’ is considered to be a good thing to build a justice system around, so I am here to kill you.”

  “How?” Claudius asks, his eyes wide, terrified.

  “Aw geez, so many ways,” you say, counting them off on your fingers. “I could startle you and make you have a heart attack, but that takes time. I could throw a pot at your head until you die, but that lacks grace. Instead, check this out.”

  You move your ghost body so it’s floating right above Claudius. He stares at you, his eyes wide.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  “Way too late for THAT,” you reply. You lower yourself to him, face to face, and keep going. His face dominates your field of vision and then you’re inside his skull, inside the pink of his brain, his blood darkly obscuring your sight. You sink slowly deeper and deeper into him, lining up your ghost body with his regular body, until you are just about occupying exactly the same space.

  Then you make yourself corporeal.

  What happens next happens so quickly and with such force that it’s hard to describe, but “Claudius explodes everywhere” captures most of it. I mean, you’re fine, but man is this disgusting. Literally disgusting. Gertrude wakes up, dripping in gore, screaming.

  You, my friend, have achieved revenge.

  Still corporeal, you roll over onto your back and apologize to Gertrude. You explain over her screams what happened, and say that you hope she’ll be happy being married to a ghost.

  Gertrude stops screaming.

  “Um, while you were gone I kinda...married Claudius,” she admits. “But I never stopped loving you!”

  » Understand that, just as you can have more than one good friend at a time, the human heart is capable of loving more than one person at a time and be cool about it «

  » Get upset that she married your brother «

  * * *

  * * *

  “Hooray!” Gertrude says, hugging you. She’s covered in your brother’s guts, but it’s still a nice moment.

  I must say, you are doing really well, King Hamlet! Not only have you revenged yourself in record time, you’ve also reconciled with your widow. Nicely done!

  You reveal yourself to the royal court the next morning, and nobody’s happier to see you than your son, Hamlet Jr. Your reappearance as a ghost does cause a minor constitutional crisis when someone points out you might not be able to reassume the throne, but a quick flip through the constitution reveals that there’s nothing in the rules that say a ghost CAN’T be king! There’s actually a section that explicitly says that should this happen, the ghost assuming the throne would be totally neato. I’m serious; that’s what it says: “totally neato.”

  You’ve got yourself a pretty cool nation, Hamlet Sr.! You rule with your wife by your side for a really long time, and even get help solving national problems from the ghosts of history’s greatest rulers, many of whom become close personal friends.

  Your final score is 3400 megapoints and I’m really proud of you. Nicely done!!

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  You stroll into your family’s quarters. Your father is there, and your brother, Laertes, is there too. Looks like his trip to France was postponed when he discovered that ghosts are real, huh?

  “Dad,” you say, nodding to Polonius. “Bro,” you say, nodding to Laertes. “What is up?”

  You notice Polonius and Laertes both have their swords drawn and are advancing on you.

  “Now, simmer down, fellas,” you say. “We’re all family here, right? I’m sure if a ghost told you to murder me you’d come talk to me about it and not attack me outright, right?” Polonius’s response is to jab his sword at you. You parry it easily, sending his sword skittering across the room.

  “Really, Dad? Well Laertes, YOU’RE certainly not going to try to kill me, right?” Laertes’ response is to jab his sword at you too. It works just as well for him as it did for his father, and now both men face you, unarmed.

  “Well. Seems I have the advantage, guys. So! Let me ask you a question. Do you think I look like you? Because people always said they could see the family resemblance.”

  “No?” says Laertes, and you cut off his head in three quick strikes. It slides off his neck and onto to the floor.

  “Really?” you say to your dead brother. “Because I always thought when it came to me, you were a DEAD RINGER.”

  You turn to Polonius.

  “Imagine he worked as a bell ringer, then it’s even better,” you say.

  “These
aren’t very good one-liners,” he replies, “and I say this as your father. You need, I don’t know, an editor or something.”

  “I suppose I do need to make a few —” you begin, but are interrupted by Polonius.

  “Don’t say ‘cuts,’” he says.

  “CUTS!!!” you say, slicing Polonius up and killing him in the process.

  “It’s been a slice,” you say, “but now I must BLADE you adieu.”

  Polonius comes back to life long enough to say “THAT PUN IS OLDER THAN STALE BREAD. IT IS OLDER THAN THE DUST ON STALE BREAD, ACTUALLY, NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT” and then he’s dead again.

  Ouch. Sick burns on you, Ophelia! But he’s dead now, so whatever.

  If you’re going to kill everyone, there’s just one thing left to do, Ophelia!

  » Kill Gertrude «

  * * *

  * * *

  You find Gertrude in the royal court, alone.

  “Ophelia,” she says, greeting you cooly. “I see you’ve had a busy night. It appears I’m the only one left alive, and if I don’t miss my guess, you’re here to kill me too.”

  “Right on target,” you say.

  “Well. Do you care to make it interesting?” she asks. “Should you beat me at a game, then I will allow you to kill me. In fact, I’ll even kill myself. But if I win this game, then you will spare me my life.”

  “What’s the game?” you ask.

  “The game, dear Ophelia, is the game of kings.”

  You look at her blankly.

  “But queens can play it too. Also, there are horses in it.”

  You continue to look at her blankly.

  “I’m talking about chess.” she says.

  “Well...” you say, turning over the bloody sword in your hand. “I mean, I could just kill you with my sword.”

  “Of course,” she replies. “And you could go to your grave having never beaten a HEAD OF STATE at chess. Yeah, better not to have on your resumé that you beat someone at chess SO HARD that they KILLED THEMSELVES.”

  Gertrude’s sarcasm is pretty pointed, I gotta say. But how good are you at chess, Ophelia? You should probably factor that into your decision, as I honestly have no idea how good Gertrude is at it. My bad. I guess somehow I never really thought these ridiculous circumstances would happen?

  » Just kill Gertrude «

  » Play her game «

  * * *

  * * *

  You stab her right in the soft parts, and human bodies are pretty much all soft parts!!

  “Queen to DEATH SEVEN,” you say, thinking it sounds kinda chess-like. I mean — it kinda does? I guess?

  Gertrude dies, and that means you will never get to play a game of chess with a head of state, but on the other hand, it DOES mean you killed an entire town. That’s something, right? You didn’t even use a bomb or anything. You used your HANDS and SWORDS and FLEXIBLE SENSE OF MORALITY.

  » Look around «

  * * *

  * * *

  You look around. Silence. The sun is coming up, and you can hear the birds chirping, and scattered throughout town are the bodies of the people you used to know. Gertrude. Rosencrantz. Even that guy who was always hanging around at the coffee shop but whose name you forgot. You killed him too, real quick, when you remembered him just now, because best not to take any chances, right?

  You go to the royal court and sit on the throne, not because you want to be a regent, but because it is a very comfortable chair. Days turn into weeks, and you tend to spend a lot of time there, thinking. Not much else to do, right?

  That’s where you are later, lost in thought when Fortinbras (crown prince of Norway) bursts through the door, along with some ambassadors. “Hey guys, nobody showed up to meet my boat so I thought I’d — oh my gosh, what happened here?” Fortinbras says.

  “Hey Fortinbras,” you say. “Have you ever met a ghost who promised you great things in the afterlife if you try to kill me?”

  “No,” he says, and in a lightning-fast motion, you stab him in the throat.

  “Let’s keep it that way,” you say.

  The ambassadors look at you in shock, and then they look at their own bodies in shock, because they are in shock after you cut off their heads from their bodies.

  Congratulations, Ophelia! You’ve killed everyone in this story. I mean it, I am literally totally out of characters for you to kill. This wasn’t where I expected the story to go, but it was extremely badass and it was a lot of fun seeing you take care of business like that.

  You live a long (albeit kinda lonely) life, and though you are initially pestered by the ghosts of everyone you totally murdered, there’s not much they can do once you start sleeping with the light on.

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  You move the piece to intercept, but Gertrude ignores it and instead moves diagonally to take your castle. Darn it, I should’ve noticed that!

  You totally should’ve noticed that too!!

  “Qe5h8,” Gertrude writes, and MAN you wish you knew what those letters and numbers meant. And now you’re down two pieces, and one of them was a good one!

  It’s hard to recover from this loss, but to your credit, you actually do alright! As the game goes on, you fight valiantly, but eventually your pieces are reduced to your king and a single pawn. Not too great, Ophelia. Gertrude’s down to her king too, but she’s got TWO pawns backing her king up. Here’s the board.

  Be careful: there’s no way to win at chess if you’re down to just your king. That one pawn you’ve got is worth its weight in gold, and losing it will absolutely cost you victory.

  There are three moves you can make here. What do you do?

  » Move the pawn ahead two squares (g4) «

  » Move the pawn ahead one square (g3) «

  » Move the king back a square (Kh3) «

  * * *

  * * *

  You jump your pawn ahead two spaces, putting it right in the attacking square of Gertrude’s pawn. She takes it (h5xg4) and you’re down to just your king.

  I’m sorry, Ophelia. Like I said, there’s no way to win at chess with just your king.

  But.

  But you can TIE with just your king, and that’s exactly what you’ve done! Snatching Gertrude’s victory right from her hands, you’ve tricked her into a position where she’s left you no legal move for your only piece: your king. Since it’s your turn but you can’t move, the game’s over. You don’t win, but neither does she! This is what they call...

  » Stalemate «

  * * *

  * * *

  “I can still defend myself,” you say, and with a quick swipe of your blade, you send her short-swords skittering to the ground. She calmly turns from you, picks them up, and begins attacking you with them again.

  You knock them to the floor again.

  She picks them up and attacks you again.

  Days later, you are drinking a cup of coffee with one hand while warding off her strikes with your other hand. It’s how you do everything these days. Gertrude attacks you constantly, so while you’re doing stuff with your dominant hand, you’re constantly defending yourself with your free, non-dominant hand.

  As the years go by, you end up with one super muscley arm. And in the end...isn’t that the most we all can hope for?

  THE END

  P.S. The ghosts of everyone you killed think this whole situation is “pretty weird,” but whatevs, you live life by your own rules.

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  You choose nonexistence over being able to float and having spooky powers. It wasn’t even a good one, but it is the last decision you ever make.

  UNTIL YOU PLAY THIS BOOK AGAIN, THAT IS!!

  THE END

  P.S. I hope you do play this book again, because there is more to it than dying like an ultrachump in the first two turns, I PROMISE.

  * * *

  » Restar
t? «

  * * *

  Good news! The afterlife exists, and it’s full of ghosts! You know this because you’re now one of them. You get to spend all your time slamming doors, rattling chains, and telling on the person who killed you!

  But here’s the thing: I, the author, told you, the reader, that your brother poured poison in your ear while you napped. But you, as Hamlet Sr., have no idea how you died! You slept through the whole thing. So you need to figure out who killed you if you’re going to revenge yourself on your murderer, assuming you even WERE murdered. Because remember that for all you know, you could’ve died of a heart attack!

  This is an example of dramatic irony, only since we’re in the second person, it’s an amazing example of an entirely new species of dramatic irony, something I’m going to call Second Person Pronoun-Paradoxical Auto-Dramatic Irony. You are now aware of information that you’re not aware of.