Choose+your+own+adventure

__A Grim Experiance __ It was a rainy night and the street light in front of your window flickered itself out like it does every night at exactly 1:00a.m. You couldn’t sleep so you occupied yourself by watching each raindrop hit your window and slide down leaving a long trail of water. The rain made a calming pitter patter that usually helped you sleep but not tonight. As you sit at your window, you notice an owl sitting atop the streetlamp. The moon gave enough light for you to make out his sleek figure. You keep your eyes on the large white owl as he is staring into the distance. Trying to see what he is watching, you lean to your right-most of the corner of your window. Whatever it is, it’s too far out of sight. A long shadow stretched across the street from the lamp that sat in front of the house beside you. The shadow shortened and soon disappeared with a man drenched in rain at the end. The tall man was dressed in a hooded cloak and heavy boots. You watched closely as he headed to the dense forest across the street. A1) You try to go back to sleep. A2) You follow him to the forest. A3) You go back to sleep like nothing happened.

A1) You turn around trying to ignore the mysterious man. You climb into your bed and lay down, staring at your ceiling as if you were gazing at the stars. Paranoid, you began wondering what that man was doing in the pouring rain. You eventually fall asleep and look forward to the morning. You wake up the next morning everything is blurry as usual. You get out of bed and start to get ready for school. Heading downstairs knowing that breakfast is waiting for you, you hear your mom from downstairs letting you know that you have 7 minutes to get ready for school. You grab a slice of buttered toast and head out to the bus. You arrive at your school just like a normal day and walk to class. You take a seat in the empty home room and wait for the rest of your class to arrive. A kid walks in you have never noticed before he sits a few seats behind you you figure his is new. He keeps staring you and the ocwardness seems to grow as seconds go by. The silence is broken by a pencil rolling off our desk but instead of falling and hitting the floor it pauses in the air and levitates.You mind is blown you feel maybe your seeing things or just going crazy you quickly look at the new kid to see if he notices this to, he seems calm and relaxed like noting happend when you look back the pencil is on your desk as if it hadn`t even fell. You quickly ask the new kid if he saw that he said "Saw what?" he said with friend smile looking at me like I was just joking. Right then your best friends Julie walks in along with some other students in your homeroom they all notice the new kid and walk over to

A2) Deciding to follow the man into the forest, you slide your arms into your favorite sweater and quietly sneak downstairs in the complete darkness. You brace yourself for the cold rain as you open the front door and lift your hood over your head. The man has just disappeared into the shadows of the forest and you follow him from a distance. Going from tree to tree, you quietly hide from the man. You find yourself following him to a clearing of trees and brush. He raises his arm up and snaps his fingers loudly and a flame scorched up from a used fire pit. Each rain drop hit the fire with a hiss as if trying to fight it down to a pile of ash, but the flame burned too powerfully. The man turns in his paranoia of being watched and scans the forest. Before his eyes hit you, you manage to slam yourself against the back of a tree and escape his awareness of you. Watching closely, you observe the man performing some kind of witchcraft while reciting a much planned set of words in a unique language. Flame and Ice dance together as the man moves his arms like a band conductor. You carefully step to the side to peek around the tree further, and as you do you loudly step on a dead branch. Breaking the branch, you hold your breath knowing that he heard you. His enthusiasm for the magic dies out and the flames dim as he turns quickly to find you standing frozen in fear. You turn to begin running but he strikes you dead. You fall to the ground and every sense becomes dull.

B1) Wake up and venture off into the woods B2) Wake up and run back home

a3)You wake up the next day, take a shower, and prepare for your Saturday chores. As you go down stairs and slip on the yellow rubber gloves to do the dishes. You look into the abyss of the forest behind your house. You begin to remember the dream you had last night. You think to yourself, was it real or was it fake. You shrug off the feeling and you continue washing the dishes, but the more you ignore the feeling the more it urges you. So you slip your house shoes on and head into the woods. As you get deeper into the forest you see shed. As you cautiously enter the shed you see all kinds of voodoo, witch craft, spell book and magic potions. As you suddenly here the crumble of dead leaves behind you, you stop dead in your tracks. He sees you. As he runs towards you, you also run trying to escape but you’re too late. He hits you. When you wake up all you see is bright lights above you. You try to move but you can’t you look to your sides only to see that you are tied down to a bed. In the distance you hear something you look up again and see a Pendulum. You begin to scream no one hears you its too late. As you sit there for hours as the ropes cut into your flesh you begin to give up. and slowly minute by minute you get closer to you death. And as the Pendulum touches your flesh you scream for dear life as your blood splatters the walls.

B1) You find yourself only unconscious and wake up just before daybreak. You are slightly dizzy as you gather yourself together and stand. It’s still raining and dark, but the sun just crawling over the hills kisses the world with enough light. You turn to see the clearing with the soaked pit of ashes and half burnt lumber. Not far from the clearing is a trail that leads to a very different part of the forest. You’re drawn to this. Curiously leading yourself into this obvious adventure, you brush random leaves and such off your sweater and comb your fingers through your hair. Walking through the narrow path you notice that as you go further each tree seems to have less and less leaves. The wind whispers through the bare branches as you reached a dead end to the trail. You sit in the muddy path, exhausted. You’re not normally exhausted from a short walk but you just pass it over. The rain eventually dropped into a light drizzle and the sun painted the half-lit world with bright shades of yellows and radiant oranges. You hear a very familiar sound from behind you and quickly turn to see the same snowy white owl from last night. He was sitting at the very top of an old cross that sat crookedly on a large hill.

C1) Check it out. C2) Forget it and run home.

B2) You run as fast as your legs can carry you and began walking just as the cold air catches you. You trudge the rest of the way home and walk in your house. Fortunately, your mother didn't wake to her alarm and didn’t notice you gone. You go through your day normally and never speak of what happened but still remember it vaguely.

C1) You cautiously approach the owl and he watches you as he sits on his perch. Climbing up the steep hill, you think of what your adventurous streak is getting you into. You reach the top of the hill and examine the cross. The bird rests silently as you read the letters in stone, "Here lies Paladin Devan Ormus. May you rise again as if a new life." Below the neatly pressed letters is a vine of roses that grew from the grave and curled in messy tangles around the cross. They were everything but pretty with a color as black as the rotten soil in which they had risen from. The stench of death suddenly filled your nose and you gag in disgust. Starting down the other side of the hill and eventually hitting flat ground you spot another hill. Straight ahead of you is a very horribly crafted door planted into the side of the smaller hill; it was made of panels of wood bound together with many strands of cheap rope. There were small gaps between each plank of wood and you could see a strong flicker, almost like there was a fire burning fiercely within the cavern. You discretely walk up to the entry way and peak through one of the smaller crevices of the door; you see nothing but a tiny candle burning and flickering beside a warped wooden chair. You look and wait patiently for something interesting to happen. Just as you began to turn away and walk home, another pair of eyes appeared on the other side of the gap which you spied through. Before you could even analyze what happened, you fell back into the mud and pushed yourself away from the door. The door swung open violently and a man dressed in a black hooded cloak and heavy leather boots stepped out with a splash of mud. He looked at you lying there pathetically and you stared back at him in fear. Within his hood was nothing but a skull and in place of eyes was a pair of swirling red eyes. He reached down and grabbed you by the neck. Your feet dangled as he carried you into his cave dwelling and slammed you against the wall where he left you cower in a small puddle of water. He sat in the wooden stool alongside the candle and ran his boney fingers over the blade of a knife. The contact between metal and pure bone made a rough scraping sound that forced you to twitch. As he watched you tremble in the corner of his small living space he let out an evil chuckle that echoed through his empty cave. He bit down on his knife and held it in his skinless jaw while reaching towards his robes at mid-torso. He ripped open a segment of his coat and revealed his skeletal body and one single key dangled from his smallest rib by a rusted chain. He pulled the key out and threw it at you; you close your eyes and hold your face in your hands. It landed not far from your feet. He dramatically pointed to an old wooden chest across the room and caused you to flinch. You immediately got the message and began crawling over to the box. With one last look at this grim man, you stuck the key in the skull shaped bolt and turned. A few clicks sounded from the chest at different tones and you began to lift it open. You didn't expect to see a small hourglass within the chest. Lifting the sand timer out of its resting place you read the neat plaque. Shockingly, it was your name and the grains in the glass were down to only a pinch of burgundy colored sand. As it came to the last grains of sand he approached you with his knife and held it to your throat while watching the last morsel fall through the narrow middle. Just as it did, he looked into your eyes almost sorrowfully and sliced your neck open. The last thing you saw was your terrifying reflection in the clean metal of the blade; you were nothing but a skeleton.

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">C2) You sigh and make your way home. As you're walking you turn around and notice a man dressed in a hooded cloak and heavy boots walking slowly behind you. You begin to expedite your pace and you turn around again to see if he's still there. He was speeding up just as you were. You begin running and eventually you reach the street in front of your house. You stop at your door step and watch him as he proceeds to follow you and cross the street. Just as he makes it half way across, a car speeds by and hits him but he vanishes into a plume of smoke and leaves nothing behind. You never speak of this to anyone and it remains only a vague memory. You go on with your life considering it a mere dream.