HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

If you’re 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. Last week featured:

A. Continue honing your paper ball throwing skills.

As another wadded up paper ball bounces off the rim of the waste paper basket, you get the distinct feeling that someone is watching you. You shrug it off, however, and continue to crumple up your “important” meeting notes and show-off your skills to whomever is watching. Hopefully, it’s Angeline.

This time, the ball goes in! “Yes!” You shout while pumping your fist into the air, “200 points.”

“That’s the first one I’ve seen you sink,” Jimmy, the boss’s kid says.

Startled, you try to compose yourself. In your excitement, you had forgotten someone had been watching you. “Well,” you reply snarkily, “Maybe each basket is worth 200 points.”

“I’m telling my dad,” he retorts. Then runs off to your boss’s office.

Oh crap! This could ruin your day…well, more than your day. What if you got fired? What if you got fired! There’s always unemployment…

Do you…
A. Chase after Jimmy
or
B. Let Jimmy report you to his father?

We had five really fun entries, many thanks to Myro, Shookman, Gero, HerrD, and Renxin. I decided to go with The Shookman's take, partly because I think it lends itself well to the supernatural twist I'm asking for. First, here's how we would have died:

B – Let Jimmy report you to his father: So you were throwing some mildly important documents at a trash can to pass the time. Big deal, right? Screw that little devil spawn, you’re hungry again, and you would rather chase a burger with a soda than chase a brat with an attitude.

You sneak away to the kitchen, ready to eat something that will finally satisfy. You pop open the fridge. Sweet! Left over Chinese food! The note says, “PAUL’S. DO NOT EAT.” Ppphhhh, as if that ever stopped you any other time. Paul has a good taste in food, and if you don’t eat it, how are you going to make sure it doesn’t go to waste?

Following your half-assed logic, you start to chow down. You see Paul in the distance, who is clearly making his way towards you. Oh wow. He looks pissed. Well, no point in stopping now, right? You begin to shovel the food down as fast as possible, when you suddenly realize you’ve stopped breathing, which is odd, because Paul isn’t close enough to choke you yet. Panic sets in as you realize it’s the food, and the only person in the office certified to do CPR is… Paul.

He walks away, muttering how you deserve it, as you choke to death, alone, in the kitchen of the office. Just like your mom always said you would.

Your office adventure ends here.

Bummer! But goodness knows, I've wanted exactly that fate to befall a coworker before who helped himself to my lunch. And now, here's the continuation of our adventure:

A – Chase after Jimmy: Oh, you’re 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 you’ll 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 weren’t).

He looks back to see if that was you, makes an obscene gesture, and picks up the pace. If you don’t do something soon, you’ll 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 dad’s 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 they’re making a big deal out of some broken bones. Oh wait, this is bad! Now he’s going to tell his dad you made him fall! Unless he broke his mouth. Can you break a mouth? You’re not sure, but you bet that kid just found out.

Do you:
A – Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth?
B – Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?

Now it’s your turn, but with a twist: I want something "fantastical" to happen this week. You can introduce magic or spaceships or zombies or talking rabbits, but something not of this normal reality should appear in both your choices. With that in mind, write up the results of Choice A (“Check on the poor boy with the possibly broken mouth”) and Choice B (“Beat him to his dad, and make up a story about him screwing around?”), with one ending in death and the other presenting us with two options from which to choose.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!