Our self-written Choose Your Own Adventure, "You're Going to Die", advances through the perils of everyday life, my friends! Here's what happend on our initial installment:
It’s another boring day at your stupid office. You spent most of the morning catching up on all the Internet you missed while sleeping and now you’re behind. Your stomach is growling because the banana you bought had a weird brown lump on it. You know you should get back to work, but you also know that you’re hungry and don’t care about your job at all.
What do you do?
- SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.
- CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.
You were then challenged to come up with the results of each of those two actions. One had to end in death, and the other in something that would continue the adventure with two additional choices. All of the entries were fantastic, truly. I had a super hard time deciding which to go with, but ultimately I thought Imp had the best combination of writing, the "CYOA Spirit", humor, and possibility for continuing adventure. So here's what happened:
CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.
At the top of your email list is the following missive: “Due to repaving of the street bordering the company parking lot, all employees must make alternative parking arrangements this week. Park in the lot at your own risk – damages to vehicles may occur.” Holy crap! You just got your car detailed last weekend! You rush out to the parking lot and see a bunch of guys with jackhammers tearing up the street. Pebbles and rocks are flying all over the place, including into the parking lot. And your car will be right in the line of fire in seconds! You begin to run to your vehicle and are promptly run over and killed instantly by your boss, who’s moving her own car. Your office adventure is, sadly, over.SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.
You open your desk drawer and, underneath a stack of sexual harassment zero-toleration handbooks and porn magazines, find a bag of beef jerky. The brand name is “Jack’s Links” …which doesn’t sound quite right, buy hey, beggars can’t be choosers and you need something to lay down on top of that scary-looking banana you ate earlier. You rip open the bag and dig in. Hey, this stuff isn’t half bad! Kind of an odd color for beef jerky, but it’s really quite delicious. You get through about two thirds of the bag when you pull out a piece that’s got a tattoo of a heart and anchor on it.Do you:
A. Scream and run away in horror, or
B. Shrug and continue eating.
So here's how it works, folks. In the comments below, write up each of the possible results. One (your choice) should end in death, while the other should produce a continuation with two possible choices at the end of it.
Have fun!
A. You shrug and continue eating. Branding cattle–why is THAT humane?
Oh, yeah, tough hide-duh, they make leather out of it, don’t they? A clattering noise–something small just fell out of the bag. HEY! There’s MONEY in here! 3 quarters and a penny. With the change in your pocket–
Your phone rings just as you’d swear a blinking light from somewhere stops blinking–oh, it might be the boss.
“Hello, TPS Department, may I help you?” Last night I answered the phone AT HOME this way–so embarrassing. . .
“I AM TAURON! You have randomly received my wrath! I am giving you mad people disease! You will suffer the following symp–”
You hang up. As much fun as listening to some prank caller might be, especially if you could claim you were tracing the call to try to scare THEM, you have enough change for a soda or a snack now. Or maybe you could CLAIM that’s where you’re going and sneak down to the cafeteria. Your credit card is good and the stairs by the vending machines are usually empty. The walk might actually be a nice break in routine. Do you: head to the vending machines or the cafeteria?
B: you scream and run away in horror at the idea you’ve been eating a person’s skin. Your panic takes you across the row of cubicles, into that office marked Book Bindery that looked even more dull than yours. What’s this? The receptionist doesn’t look human. Horns? You work across from the Bovine Devil? In your panic, you don’t process what you’re seeing and get a sleeve caught in a loud piece of equipment. As you are pulled in and ground up, you see to your left a large stack of empty Jack Link’s packages. Your death is painful and quick.
Scream and run away in horror
Oh God, oh God, OH F****** GOD! You drop the bag in shock, scattering pieces of dead meat all over the floor, while you fall out of your chair in your frantic attempt to get away. You then tear down the hallway screaming bloody murder, which in all likelihood is what put the sick bag of “Jack’s Links” into your desk drawer in the first place. As you round the corner, you come face to face with someone from human resources. Seeing the look of panic on your face, she asks you what the hell happened to you.
“Dead guy… jerky…” you reply in between gasps, before adding, “HANNIBLE LECTOR! I’VE TURNED INTO HANNIBLE LECTOR!”, at the top of your voice.
Your co-worker’s expression changes suddenly, and now she’s wearing some kind of a glassy grin. “Right, right,” she says, in an infuriatingly calm way, “I’ll call 911 for you, and we’ll get this thing all worked out.” She puts an arm around your shoulders and guides you into an unoccupied cubicle where she begins dialing the phone. But, oh crap, that’s not 911 she’s dialing! Jumping to the obvious conclusion that she’s calling some sort of psych-ward, do you:
A. Resume your mad dashing, or,
B. Snatch the phone away from her, protesting your sanity
Shrug and continue eating
You give the odd bit of jerky a cursory glance, before deciding that Phil and Larry from accounting are pulling another of their tricks on you. As you nosh down the tattooed jerky, you can’t help remembering the time they loosened all the joints in you chair so the thing fell to pieces when you sat in it, and the time they covered your keyboard with molasses, and the time that shall forever be remembered in office lore as “The Wasabi Incident”. No. You’re not falling for it this time. You finish off the bag, still a little peckish for the amount that was in there and head on down to tell those dickheads to knock it off.
You arrive in accounting and begin giving those two a piece of your mind, flourishing the bag as you do so. They look at you in stunned silence. After a few awkward seconds it dawns on you that for once in their miserable, skulking lives, they really and truly haven’t done anything. Upon this realization comes another even worse one: you just ate jerky made from a sailor. As the three of you call an ambulance and try to induce vomiting, you aspirate your own sick and are dead before the paramedics arrive.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but this whole project is one of my favorite things ever here.
Scream and run away in horror
As full comprehension dawns on you, you bolt up from your generic office wheely-chair, sending it flying backwards in to the cubicle behind yours.
“Hey! Watch it!” says Gabe, the associate data correlation specialist, turning around and giving you a dirty look.
“It’s People!” you scream in terror as you run for the door, horrified by your actions. “Jack’s Links is made out of PEOPLE!”
“Well of course it is!” shouts Gabe after you. But you can’t hear him in your blind (deaf?) panic as you charge out the front door of your office building.
“They’re making our food out of people!” You scream at the passers-by on the street. Then you notice it–the vendor’s cart across the street; the umbrella reads “Hot Dougs.” The billboard at the end of the block shows a smiling woman eating “Ray’s Roberto Chips”. The chalkboard in front of the cafe next door reads “Fresh Ground Cathee.” The sign in the deli window advertises “The City’s Best Reuben!”
This is too much. Your brain can’t handle it. You swoon and collapse to the sidewalk, and just as the darkness takes you, you see the pair of white shoes, and hear the voice above you say “Hey, this one looks tastey.”
Shrug and continue eating
You shrug, and continue eating. Unfortnately, your shuggers and your swallowers seem to have gotten out of sync, and the wad of partially masticated mystery meat lodges in your gullet. It takes a moment to realize that you are well and truly choking.
“_ _ _ _ _!” You scream silently, trying desperately to bottle the rising panic you are feeling. You pound our your desk, desperately hoping to attract someone’s attention. Gabe, the associate data correlation specialist who sits in the cubicle behind you, turns around and gives you a dirty look.
Somehow your brain manages to dredge up the international sign for choking that you were taught in eigth-grade health class as you gesture wildly at Gabe. He must have had the same high-quality public education as you, because his look of irritation turns to one of concern.
“Hey, are you ok?” he asks, removing his ear buds. “Are you choking?”
You nod vigorously, and Gabe moves behind you, wrapping his arms around your abdomen. You’d never noticed before, and maybe it’s just the oxygen deprivation, but Gabe is quite strong. Now that his muscular arms are enveloping you, you feel warm and secure in his embrace. You catch a wiff of his cologne, and close your eyes for a moment, savoring the feel of his broad chest against your back, your head nestled in the crook of his masculine neck.
Suddenly, with a violent heave, your reverie is broken, along with a couple of ribs, as the wad of mystery meat is forcefully ejected from your esophogus by Gabe’s Heimlich maneuver. It flies through the air and splats wettly against your computer screen, where it starts slowly oozing its way towards your desk.
“Are you ok?” Gabe asks again with twinkle in his periwinkle blue eyes. “I think you probably need to go to the hospital. I’m going to call 911.”
Do you:
A. Go to the hospital
B. Ask Gabe out to lunch
Oh man, I’m with you on this one! Just reading these entries is pure entertainment! 🙂
A. Scream and run away in horror:
How could you have eaten a person? And liked it? Are you becoming a zombie?
As you tear down the office corridor, you hardly realize that you crash into Ms. Potter, your boss’s red-headed secretary. Reeling from the collision, you dizzily slam into a window. Falling, you have just enough time to be thankful that your office is only on the second floor.
You hit the pavement, painfully breaking your legs. A construction worker walks backward toward you. You moan as you hear a faint beeping.
“Park it over here, Johnny!” the worker yells.
Your eyes open just in time to see the wheel of a steamroller about to crush your face.
Unfortunately, your life as a zombie has come to an abrupt and sticky end. If only you’d taken a moment to read your email…
B. Shrug and continue eating:
A wistful smile tugs at the corners of your mouth. You remember a similar tattoo from your childhood…didn’t Popeye have that tattoo? Well, he was just a cartoon character, right? No one really gets tattoos like that these days. …Do they? Probably just a brand. Could cartoon characters be real? Wasn’t there a movie–
You suddenly realize that you really could use something to wash down this dried meat. You also need something to occupy your mind.
Do you:
Continue to ponder your meal predicament?
OR
Seek out a vending machine?
A: Scream and run away in horror:
“OH LAWD!” you scream, as your body bolts upright, and pieces of Jack’s Links fly in every direction. Before anybody can even ask you what’s wrong, you’re running around like a headless chicken. Just ahead of you is Jimmy, the boss’ annoying little brat. In your panic you randomly remember that it’s “bring your son to work day” here at the office. You decide that this piece of information isn’t very useful to you at a time like this, and continue your mad dash. Unfortunately, nobody told Jimmy that it wasn’t “bring your skateboard to work day”, and you end up putting your foot onto Jimmy’s discarded skateboard. Down the flight of stairs you fly, grinding down the hand railing. If you didn’t still have the taste of human in your mouth, this would be pretty cool. You end up in the main entrance to the building, and due to lack of control, you burst through the front doors. Out on the street, construction workers are laying down cement. “Huh, roadworks. I wish the boss had warned me, I’ve just had my car detailed.” you think to yourself as you continue speeding on Jimmy’s skateboard. Unable to stop, you speed past the barriers the workers have erected, and skid into the quick drying cement, and instantly become encased in rock. From the floor above, you can see that Jimmy has been filming the whole thing. It gets hard to breath, and in your dying breath, you sincerely hope he uploads the footage to Youtube. Your life, and adventure, end here.
B: Shrug and continue eating:
Meh. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t have a great taste in tattoos, but he did have a GREAT TASTE. You finish the bag off, and lick you fingers. You scrumple up the Jack’s Links packet into a ball, and proceed to throw it into the waste paper bin on the other side of the office. It runs along the ridge of the paper bin twice before finally falling in. Hey, this is great! You think you’ve just invented the latest sport: waste paper golf. You’re surprised nobody has ever done this before. God, you’re an absolute genius. You’re about to scrumple all of your important legal documents into balls to continue your newfound sport, when Angeline walks into the room and sits in her cubicle. You know Angeline is like, really into you, because she was totally checking you out at the last Christmas shindig. Well, either you, or the tall, handsome guy standing next to you. Nah, it was definitely you.
You’re now conflicted. Do you:
A: Continue honing your paper ball throwing skills.
OR
B: Walk over to Angeline, and give her your best pick up line.
A. Scream and run away in horror.
_______________________________________________________
You just ate smoked human flesh?! What the HELL MAN?! You get so freaked out by your cannibalistic snack, that you run out of your boring office cubicle; screaming like a madman as run down the corridor to the elevator. Your co-workers are instantly scared and spooked by your behavior. “JACK LINK’S IS PEOPLE!” You roar ferociously, as your co-workers turn on you; they gather in a large swarm to stop you as you attempt to make your way to the elevator. You try to out maneuver them, but there are too many. They pin you down to the ground, move you by brute force to your desk chair, and your boss personally tapes you down with industrial duct tape. Your stuck…. Like a dumbass.
“What the hell is going on?! WHY DID YOU DUCT TAPE ME TO THE CHAIR??!?!?!” The fear and panic, is easily visible in your face; as your voice booms across the office. They all menacingly glare at you; evil looks within their eyes.
“It’s rather simple (Your name), You ate something that wasn’t for you.” The Boss steps forward, the safety axe from the wall behind you, in his hands waiting to be swung. “Now we have to make more, to appease Sasquatch; thereby you will suffice for the ingredients to make more.”
You remember now. You work at Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Company, the bag you grabbed a few years ago was discontinued for the fact that it was made completely out of freshly dead people. You found it in the garbage, behind the building by pure luck. Now it’s gonna cost you everything… Your life rapidly flashes before your eyes, as the axe slowly comes down upon your head.
B. Shrug and continue eating.
——————————————————————-
This stuff is awesome, no matter if it’s made of people or not. You devour the bag voraciously in minutes. Cannibalism has never been so tasty… But it wasn’t enough, so you go through the last drawer you didn’t check… It’s a rather odd… You don’t remember this part of the desk being here yesterday. In fact, it’s down right suspicious; it doesn’t even match your desk or your cubicle’s color. So you open it….
Only to find a loaded Russian PB 9mm eight round silent pistol, two clips of ammunition for the pistol, A Fully loaded Carl Gustav ‘Swedish K’ M/45 Sub-machine gun; with a packed black and silver Nike gym bag beneath the guns and a letter addressed to you, on top of the Swedish K…. Holy Crap Batman! This stuff only happens to spies and action movie stars! Your a nobody from a small town; this might change everything. This is a crappy computer desk job, a change of pace could be for the best… I mean you have the physique, you work out daily; but you don’t know if your cut out for this. Regardless, you open the letter.
“Dear, (Your name)
You are a Top Russian Cold War Spy, six months ago; you were forcefully awakened out of cryogenics, kidnapped and brain-washed by the Americans. They are watching you, (Your name). My car is behind your office building, in the subway parking lot; it’s a black Jeep Liberty. If you don’t get out of there soon, the secret service are going to come for you and they will kill you. You must remember some of your training, it will come in handy. The Bag has the janitor’s hat and clothing, two more clips of ammunition for your Swedish K, a key card for the kitchen back door and the custodian’s office, a pair of sonar goggles, three EMP grenades, your trusty ballistic knife, a camera jammer, a first aid kit; and a snake camera attached to the PDA in the bottom right hand of the bag. Your best bet is to go out the back door, in the lunchroom kitchen on the first floor; if you were to go out the front, the metal detectors would give you away. Stick to the shadows, and get to the custodian’s office on level four; your friend Demetri will guide you on out from there.
Hurry back to me quickly (Your Name),
Your true love
Anna. XOXOXOXO”
This is crazy, your not a Russian spy. You can’t be. But then why would this happen to you? Your on the twenty seventh floor, this is going to be a challenge. There isn’t much time to decide, you peek up at the elevator opening…. And out walks three heavily build men, in black suits with government written all over them….. What do you do?
A. Follow Anna’s Orders, Go into James Bond mode and use the dark areas of the office to your advantage, and avoid those three men.
B. Screw Anna’s Orders, you have a Fully Loaded, Cocked and Ready Swedish K.. Go at those sonsofbitches guns a blazing and light them up!
Run screaming
“HOLY CRAP!!” you yell as you throw away the human “beef” jerky. You panic and run for the office door…only to slam into the inconvieniently low doorframe. Dazed. you stagger into the hallway…only to be hit by the hyperactive document courier’s cart making him release it, sending you flying down the hallway on top of a paper scattering cart, which is quickly gaining speed as it hurtles towards a starwell which the janitor just went through a second ago. You shoot through the doorway and down the stairs, careening past the startled janitor who was luckily on the other side of the stairs…only to smash into the janitors cart and more specifically a mop handle, which was perfectly placed to ram itself down your throat, crushing your windpipe and destroying several vertebrae on the way. Due to these, you are mercifully dead before it finally rips through the back of your neck, leaving a gaping wound you could stick your hand through. The end.
Continue eating
You’ve already eaten most of the bag, why stop now? You scarf down the rest of the delciuos jerky, only to find yourself even more hungry then before. You decide to visit the vending machines downstairs, but to do this you will ave to bypass your boss’ office. You know his door is always open, but you risk it anyway, tiptoeing past the open door in a highly uncoordinated fashion, even managng to knock over a metal bucket you surmise was left there by the incresingly forgetful janitor hours earlier. It makes a huge racket, and you steel yourself for the forthcoming tirade…
But after several boss-free seconds, you cautously look around the corner to see your boss passed out cold on his desk, a bottle of cheap vodka in one hand and his young, pretty, and equally inebriated secretary in the other. You gleefully snap several pictures with your cellphone…
What do yo do with the pictures?
1. Use them to blackmail your boss into a pay raise and good preformance review…
Or 2. Post them both online and on your monthy group newsletter you wrtie?