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Artwork: ghost
40

Choose Your Own Adventure

Author: JGB '25
As seen in: Mutually Assured Destruction #

You are feeling awfully hungry today. What would you like to eat?

> A ham sandwich. Keep reading.

> A turkey sandwich. Skip to page 2.

 

You wake up in a dark room. Carefully keeping out of sight, you crawl to the window. It’s locked. Should you throw your weight against it and try to escape, or play it safe and look around for clues?

Who’s to say, really. You take a seat on the chair in the middle of the room. On the other side of the globe, a family is killed by a drunk driver. There is nothing you could’ve done to stop this.

All of a sudden, a bald man walks into the room. You can’t tell by looking at him, but he’s Russian. This will be important later. 

He presses play on a boombox and the room is filled with sounds of terrible, agonizing screams. You ask him to turn the music down. He does. Once it’s quiet, you can hear your wife and daughter calling out for help in the other room. You try to hold back tears.

You can’t. You’re crying now and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The bald man’s assistant wheels your wife and daughter into the room. Quick, are you picturing a male or female assistant? It doesn’t matter, but you should really reflect on the world you’re building here.

Chuckling, the bald man tells you that you must pay for the atrocities committed by the American empire. He’s never been, but he’s heard it’s bad. He hands you a gun, and says, “one of them must die.” You’ve never faced a choice like this before. Your wife in one chair, your daughter in the other, both pleading with you to save their lives. Who do you choose?

You shoot your wife. The bullet takes a crazy ricochet and kills your daughter too. The Russian man feels bad for you and lets you go home early.

A week later, you’re sitting on your porch enjoying a nice ham sandwich. Life is good.

 

Page 2

You wake up in a dark room. Carefully keeping out of sight, you crawl to the window. It’s locked. Should you throw your weight against it and try to escape, or play it safe and look around for clues?

Who’s to say, really. You take a seat on the chair in the middle of the room. On the other side of the globe, a family is killed by a drunk driver. There is nothing you could’ve done to stop this.

All of a sudden, a bald man walks into the room. You can’t tell by looking at him, but he’s Russian. This will be important later. 

He presses play on a boombox and the room is filled with sounds of terrible, agonizing screams. You ask him to turn the music down. He does. Once it’s quiet, you can hear your wife and daughter calling out for help in the other room. You try to hold back tears.

You can’t. You’re crying now and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The bald man’s assistant wheels your wife and daughter into the room. Quick, are you picturing a male or female assistant? It doesn’t matter, but you should really reflect on the world you’re building here.

Chuckling, the bald man tells you that you must pay for the atrocities committed by the American empire. He’s never been, but he’s heard it’s bad. He hands you a gun, and says, “one of them must die.” You’ve never faced a choice like this before. Your wife in one chair, your daughter in the other, both pleading with you to save their lives. Who do you choose?

You shoot your wife. The bullet takes a crazy ricochet and kills your daughter too. The Russian man feels bad for you and lets you go home early.

A week later, you’re sitting on your porch enjoying a nice turkey sandwich. Life is good.


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