If youâre just tuning in, our goal is to write our own Choose Your Own Adventure where every choice is twofold, with one leading to further adventure and the other to a gruesome death. Here were our choices from last week:
Oh, youâre going to tell daddy over my dead body! You spring into action, grabbing a handful of those cheap office pens, just in case you need to throw stuff at him. You begin to notice your age as you pant towards the brat, but youâll be damned if that stops you! You whip a pen at him, missing completely (unless you were actually aiming at Sue with the lazy eye from accounting, but you know you werenât).
He looks back to see if that was you, makes an obscene gesture, and picks up the pace. If you donât do something soon, youâll have to listen to your boss lecture you for 15 minutes about conducting yourself in the office! 15 friggin minutes!!! You take every pen in hand, and throw them with all your might. Nailed him!
He turns around again, probably to make some stupid remark, when he runs right past his dadâs office, and down a stairwell. You hear him make a large amount of shrieks and shrills, as any annoying child is prone to do when theyâre making a big deal out of some broken bones. Oh wait, this is bad! Now heâs going to tell his dad you made him fall! Unless he broke his mouth. Can you break a mouth? Youâre not sure, but you bet that kid just found out.
Do you:
A â Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth?
B â Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?
Such unchecked violence! At this rate we could be on cable. We had some great entries, seriously well written. I loved the Zombie approach from borntobealoser, but since we did such an adventure with "Zombocalypse Now", I thought we should try something different. Thus, we're going with logosgal's!
B â Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?
What luck! If you hurry, you can get to the boss before he even has a chance to notice the little bratâs shrieking! Without a second thought, you race to your bossâs doorway. You pause in the hallway to straighten your shirt and roll your eyes at the bossâs choice of music for the dayâsome sort of weird new-agey rhythmic clicking accompanied by random hisses and moans that would be sickeningly creepy if you hadnât heard some of the other crazy stuff the boss likes. You also notice that one of the pens you threw somehow managed to stick itself into the corkboard right above the safety memo from last week about not having projectiles in the office. You smirk at the irony as you dislodge the writing implement and tuck it into your shirt pocket. Do you look professional now, or what? The boss is sure to believe such a suave, sexy, on-the-ball specimen of professionalism over his own flesh and blood, right? You take one deep breath and step inside the office.âHey, boss, you wonât believe what that kid of yoursââ
The boss isnât at his desk.
âBoss?â
Puzzled, you look around. You could have sworn he hasnât left his office since that dumb staff meeting earlier, but heâs not at his desk, not at the window, not in the other chair, and generally not anywhere you would expect him to be if he were in his office. In fact, you donât see him at all.
Youâre about to turn around and leave when you notice that annoying creepy music again, getting louder and more agitated. It doesnât seem to be coming from his computer, or from the radio on his desk, or from the cassette player next to his desk (who still has a cassette player these days, anyway? you wonder). Maybe thatâs not music, after all?
You barely have time to come to this conclusion before you are proven right. With a thud, your bossâs head hits the floor next to the desk and rolls toward you. You see that his mouth is choked with foam and his complexion looks slightly greenish. Also the head isnât attached to anything.
You hear a stream of shouted obscenities and realize theyâre coming from you. You start to back out the door, but before you can take a step, a giant bug-thing rises from behind the desk, mandibles and scythe-like limbs dripping with blood and bits of the bossâs navy-blue designer suit. Shock roots you to the spot as it lunges towards you, and the last thing you feel is the cold, chitinous blade of the creatureâs front leg as it slices through your neck.
You are dead.
A â Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth?
Thatâs what an innocent person would do in this situation, right? Plus, if it isnât broken now, maybe you can find a way to rectify that before he has a chance to talk! You follow the boyâs path past his fatherâs office and to the top of the stairwell.
It is immediately apparent from the renewed shrieks and obscenities that come as soon as you are in sight that the kidâs mouth is not broken. In fact, heâs probably not very hurt at all; this stairwell is weird and the first flight only has like three steps.
You walk towards little Jimmy, hoping maybe the sight of your intimidating figure advancing towards him will shut him up for a few moments while you think of another plan of action. No such luck; if anything the shrieking just gets worse. How does such a little kid know that many swear words? you wonder for a moment, but then you remember who his father is.
When you get within reach of the kid, you grab him by the arm and pull him to his feet.
âShut up, kid! Save it for when youâre actually hurt!â you say as he struggles against your grip. You note with satisfaction that even if you couldnât keep up with the youngster when running, youâre still much stronger than he is.
He squirms and shrieks for a moment, but then he quiets down. His eyes grow big like heâs terrified of something, and a smaller, more genuine-sounding moan escapes from his lips.
âBehind you,â he whispers.
âYeah, right,â you laugh, âas if Iâd fall for that one!â
Jimmy wordlessly pulls against your grip again, this time with such sudden vigor that he at least succeeds in pulling you towards the other end of the landing.
âHolyââ
Your oath dies on your lips as you glance up and see what Jimmy was so scared of. Standing at the top of the stairwell is a gigantic bug-thing! Its silhouette fills the doorframe as it stands on two hind legs and waves four arms that end in scythe-like claws in the air. Its shiny black body is spattered in bloodâyou guess that of your poor dear officemates, given the shreds of cloth that are also sticking to it here and there. It kind of reminds you like a horrible, bipedal cockroach.
You stand there gaping at the impossible creature before you, and would probably continue to do so until the thing gobbled you up with those huge blood-soaked jaws, but as you think you catch a glimpse of another two or three similar creatures coming down the hall, something pulls at you.
Jimmy has now gathered his wits about him enough to have the sense to make for the exit. Since you havenât thought to let go, the viselike grip you have on his arm is pulling you along, too. Jimmy reaches the other end of the landing, and you shake yourself into awareness just in time to consciously think about not tripping as you dash down the stairs. You can hear the creature behind you, clicking and hissing like that weird music that was coming from the bossâs office when you were chasing Jimmy earlier. It occurs to you as Jimmy leads you down another flight of stairs that the weird music may not have been music after allâŚ
At least I donât have to worry about being lectured for fifteen minutes! you think.
Down another flight of stairs, and another, and another, you go, never letting go of Jimmyâs arm, always with the clicking and hissing bug-thing right behind. But all too soon, you find yourselves out of stairs! You only work on the third floor, after all.
With nowhere else to go, you shove the door to the lower level open, and you and Jimmy rush inside. Jimmy finds the knob that locks the door from this side, and you hear the beautiful melody of the tumblers sliding into place just half a second before you hear the thunk of the bug-thing running into the door.
Panting for breath, you lead Jimmy down the hall. Nobody works in the basement; itâs just a dimly-lit storage area for janitorsâ supplies and extra office stuff. The other stairwell is always locked and the elevator needs a key to get down here, so you should be relatively safe here. But just in case, you take Jimmy into one of the storage rooms, lock the door behind you, then plop down on an abandoned office chair, finally letting go of Jimmyâs arm.
âNow what?â Jimmy asks, rubbing the developing bruise shaped like your thumb.
Now what, indeedâŚ
A â Stay here. With the bossâs bratty kid. Hey, itâs better than getting eaten by one of those things!
B â Go exploring. You may be able to find something to defend yourself with, and, hey, if the kid âaccidentallyâ crosses paths with the monsters, extra bonus!
Now itâs your turn! Write up the results of Choice A (âStay hereâ) and Choice B (âGo exploringâ), with one ending in death and the other presenting us with two options from which to choose.
This is so much fun!
