Choose Your Own Adventure II
27 Feb 2019Today’s prompt: “Choose how you will die.”
Page 187
You awake, your head throbbing, your chest constricted, your arms chafing. You open your eyes. You are tied to a chair in a basement lit only by a bare bulb, rope burns spreading across your biceps. You are surrounded by members of the Brotherhood of the Beast, their faces streaked berry red, muddy brown and chalky white.
The man directly in front of you – clearly the leader – is flanked by a man and a woman loaded for bear with weapons blunt, pointy and incendiary. “Nyarlathotep demands a sacrifice,” he says. “Choose how you will die.”
What’ll it be?
Asphyxiation. Turn to page 192.
Beheading. Turn to page 191.
Blood loss. Turn to page 195.
Blown to smithereens. Turn to page 188.
Bludgeoning. Turn to page 196.
Cancer. Turn to page 199.
Embarrassment. Turn to page 194.
En fuego. Turn to page 189.
Impalement. Turn to page 190.
Old age. Turn to page 198.
Poison. Turn to page 197.
Quietly, in your sleep. Turn to page 193.
Page 188
“Do you have a demolitions expert?” you say. “Because I want to be blown up.”
“We have two,” the leader says. He motions to two men in the circle. One crams a gag into your mouth. Together, they grab your chair and hoist you upstairs. Other cult members hurry ahead to hold the door open or follow the leader outside in a procession. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the man and woman who had been standing next to the leader. They are gathering what appear to be bombmaking materials from a weapons cache in a corner of the basement.
The cultists fold down the back seat of a Suburban and toss you in, chair and all. The back door closes, several cult members pile in, and you all drive out to the desert.
An old man in the Brotherhood draws a pentagram in the dirt with the toe of his boot. Your chair is dragged to the center of it, and the man and woman with the bombmaking equipment get to work.
“I like using all green wires, so nobody ever knows what to cut first,” the man says with a wry grin. The woman is already wiring up the detonator and shooing away cultists who are standing too close.
An old woman hands out ear plugs to the assembled crowd. At last, the man and woman finish assembling the bomb and join the other cultists out of blast range.
“Great Nyarlathotep,” the leader shouts. “We gather today to offer you a sacrifice in the form of a really rad explosion.” He nods, and the female demolitions expert detonates the bomb.
Over the next several weeks, crows feast on the little bits of you splattered over the landscape.
Page 189
“I want to go out in flames,” you say.
The leader motions to two men in the group. One of them stuffs a gag in your mouth, and the two of them hoist your chair up and cart you upstairs. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the man and woman who were standing next to the leader walk to a corner of the basement and pick up two gas cans.
The cultists fold down the back seat of a Suburban and toss you in, chair and all. The back door closes, several cult members pile in, and you all drive out to the desert.
An old man in the Brotherhood draws a pentagram in the dirt with the toe of his boot. Your chair is dragged to the center of it, and the man and woman with the gas cans get to work dousing you.
“Great Nyarlathotep,” the leader shouts. “We gather today to offer you a sacrifice in the form of a really rad fireball.” He nods, and the man and woman each strike a match and toss them into your lap.
You went out in a blaze of … well, you went out in a blaze.
Page 190
“I want to be impaled,” you say.
The leader nods to the woman on his left. She walks to a corner where a finely-crafted spear is leaning against the wall. She holds it level with the ground and crouches low. A pause. A breath. And then she runs straight for you.
The spear point buries itself in your chest and tunnels through, splintering the wood of the chair back as it passes through.
As you watch your blood ooze down your shirt, your chest shuddering with pain with every gasp of breath as you slowly, slowly die, you wish you’d been more specific. You wish you’d told them to go for the heart.
Page 191
“A quick death,” you say. “Beheading.”
The leader nods to the man on his right. He unsheathes a sword, and with one deft movement, cult members standing behind your right shoulder are sidestepping your head as it rolls along the floor out of the circle.
Page 192
“Asphyxiate me,” you say.
The leader nods to the man on his right. The man tips your chair over gently until the back is resting on the ground. He then walks to the corner where you see a whole cache of other weapons is stashed, and picks up a big pillow. He walks back to you and places the pillow on your face. It’s the dreamiest, featheriest, fluffiest pillow you’ve ever felt. As he presses down, you try to gasp a last breath, but there’s no air to be had. You die the dreamiest, featheriest, fluffiest death imaginable.
Page 193
“I’d like to go quietly, in my sleep,” you say.
“Pfff,” you hear dismissively from behind you.
“No, no, we can accommodate that,” the leader says. “First, the ‘quietly’ bit.” He nods to the woman to his left. “The vocal cords, if you would.”
She digs in a pouch strapped to her thigh and produces a scalpel. Twenty minutes later and, try as you might, you can’t scream.
“And now, the chloroform,” the leader says. The man to the leader’s right slaps a dampened cloth over your mouth and nose.
“How should we actually kill this one?” you hear the man say to the leader as you wink out.
“Dealer’s choice,” he responds. “Just make sure it happens before they wake up.”
Page 194
“I’d like to die of embarrassment,” you say.
The leader nods to a woman in a blue robe with wide sleeves, her bronze cheeks painted with white wedges. She walks in front of you and gestures dramatically. And then the world goes all wibbly-wobbly.
Suddenly, you are a teenager again.
“Dad, you don’t have to drive me to school,” you say.
“Oh, kiddo, it’s no trouble at all,” he says, parking in front of the school and giving you an affectionate noogie and messing up your hair in the process.
“Dad,” you say. You look out the window. Oh no. Krystal saw the whole thing! Krystal, the most popular girl in the school! She smirks as she walks past.
You fumble the door open and bolt as fast as you can out of the car.
“Kiddo!” your dad says. He’s getting out of the driver’s seat. Oh no! His combover looks worse than usual today, and – crap, there’s a booger coming out of his nose!
Krystal and her posse start laughing.
“Gotta go, dad!” you rush away.
“But kiddo!” your dad says. “Watch out, your–”
You trip on the curb. You fall on the sidewalk. There’s a sound of ripping fabric, and then an eruption of laughter. You look up, you look back, and the jocks, the stoners, the nerds and the popular kids are all laughing at your split pants.
You literally die of embarrassment.
Page 195
“Blood loss,” you say.
The leader nods to the man and woman to his right and left. The man smiles, and the woman rubs her hands together and gives a little squeal of delight.
“Arts and crafts time!” they say in unison, high-fiving each other.
Each takes a dagger out of one of the scabbards hanging at their waists. They begin carving pictures on your arms and legs. The man starts carving leaf patterns, and then the face of a tiger peeking through. The woman carves a unicorn, and it’s honestly impressive with its flowing locks and muscular neck.
The blood drips slowly from every picture, and you gradually get a little woozy. But it’s taking forever.
The man is putting the finishing touches on a flaming skull with wings, and the woman is most of the way done with a koala nibbling eucalyptus, when the leader says, “Okay, kids, wrap it up.”
“All right, all right,” the woman says, finishing her picture before plunging her dagger straight into your heart.
Page 196
“Bludgeoning,” you say.
The leader nods to the man and woman to his right and left. The man smiles, and the woman rubs her hands together and gives a little squeal of delight.
“Human piñata time!” they say in unison, high-fiving each other.
A man behind you affixes two clamps to the back of your chair. The clamps are linked by a chain with a carabiner in the middle. You can see in your peripheral vision that the carabiner is attached to a thick rope fed through a system of pulleys. A couple of cult members grab the other end of the rope and hoist you and your chair into the air. They tie off the rope to a large metal ring sticking out of the concrete floor, leaving you suspended just slightly. They play around with raising and lowering you by tugging on the length of rope between the pulleys and the ring.
The man who was standing to the right of the leader has blindfolded the woman and handed her a baseball bat. He pushes her toward you, then spins her three times, and she staggers slightly to the left, but quickly recovers. She feels around with the bat a little bit until it clinks against one of the chair legs. Then she pulls the bat back, chokes up a bit on the handle, and swings.
Complete whiff. But she won’t make that mistake twice. She feels around with the bat again, this time making sure she knows where at least two chair legs are. She repositions herself, and swings again. Ahh! Right in the shin!
She swings again, and whacks you in the knee before taking off the blindfold and handing the bat to the man. She secures the blindfold around his eyes. After one missed swing when the cultists standing by the ring in the floor hoist you up too high, he hits you in the thigh and the side.
The leader motions to the people who have been moving you up and down to cut it out and leave you at a lower height. It’s the woman’s turn again. She hits the back of the chair once, but gets in a great kidney shot and hits you in the right shoulder.
The man is up again, and this time hits you in the right arm and upper chest with one blow. With his second hit, he gets you right in the head. And piñata time is over.
Page 197
“Make it poison,” you say.
The leader nods to a woman in blond braids with red curves painted over her cheeks. She ecstatically runs to a table and returns with a plate full of untouched cookies.
“What kind are they?” you ask.
“Poison!” she says. “And chocolate chip oatmeal.”
“You know,” you say, after swallowing a few bites, “I’ve always liked the texture oatmeal adds to a cookie. Too bad so many people just put raisins in them.”
“Yeah,” she says. “They’re so good with chocolate chips!”
“And poison!” you say, taking another bite.
“And poison!” she cheers you on.
Page 198
“I want to die of old age,” you say. Ha ha, got you there, you think.
“So be it,” the leader says. He nods to a man across the circle wearing a pale gray robe. The man in the gray robe strides in front of you, plants his feet, thrusts his arms out and starts doing jazz hands.
You start to laugh, and then you start to cough. You begin to feel weak. Your muscles feel atrophied against the ropes, and your skin slackens. A wisp of your hair in your peripheral vision whitens in a heartbeat. You age decades in the space of a TV commercial.
You die of old age, all right. But that’s not going to stop them from sacrificing you tonight.
Page 199
“I want to die of cancer,” you say, with a trace of smugness. Let’s see them kill you of that.
The leader nods to the woman on his left. “When’s your birthday?” he asks her.
“July 13,” she replies.
“So you’re a cancer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, hop to it,” the leader says. The woman grabs an axe leaning against a nearby wall. Her blow lands dead in the middle of your skull.