Choose Your Own Adventure - Part 2. $5 Reward.

You take a deep breath. Spores - perhaps poisonous, definitely smelly, invade your throat and lungs and fall all the way into your tummy. You might poo your pants. You scream at the friend-shaped block of moldy cheese, in one bellow.

“HELLO! CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME! I AM STUCK AND SCARED AND A LITTLE BABY!”

You didn’t think your voice would sound like that. Or that you’d only be able to use exclamation marks in your speech.

David Cheeseman doesn’t respond. But his spores activate your tummy, it rumbles and growls, and just like that, yep. You’ve absolutely crapped your trousers. Completely filled them. This doesn’t bother you as much as it should, which is another point of curiosity.

You waddle across the room and try the door again. How are you going to get out of here? It’s even more locked than before. Which is strange because you’d think ‘being locked’ would be a binary state, either it is locked or it isn’t, but here it is, slightly more locked than before.

Then, a groaning. From the table with the lights on it, the moldy cheese is emitting a noise. Then, louder, and louder, the groan rises. You fall to the ground. Your filled-up-with-turd-pants squish on the carpet.

The groaning turns to a voice. It’s the voice of your father. Or maybe it’s the voice of your second grade music teacher, the one who you’d learn years later didn’t actually leave working at the school because his wife was having a baby, because in fact he never had a wife. He left his job as the music teacher because he wanted to pursue his true passion - making explosives from pig feces. He’d be busted by the FBI a decade later, during your senior year of high school. It was the talk of the town.

Basically, the voice is deep, unrelenting, and reminds you of home.

“You have a choice. We all have choices. Yours is simple. Or perhaps complicated. It will be hard to say in the moment, but soon all will be clear. Or hazy. What will you make of it? Your choice?”

You try to think of an answer. Then - you feel the floor drop beneath you. You fall - into something like water, but slowly, so your head isn’t sinking, but all around you is a deep hole of inky darkness, David Cheeseman growing farther and farther away.

“All will be clear! Perhaps.”

Then, there is nothing.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

Nothing. For a while.

Just darkness.

Yep. Really, pretty boring at this point.

Time passes. An hour, three minutes, a year, four presidential terms. Who’s to say? Nothing really happens. You’re just chilling.

Nothing.

You think about starting a band called Mister Me And The Great Nothing.

Nah, you get too much stage fright. Plus, you hate music.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

oh crap there’s LIGHT!

Light everywhere. Fluorescent white blinds you. You look to your left, orange stripes. To your right, small green trees. Below you - green, red, and yellow orbs. You inspect yourself. You can hardly move your neck - but you’re orange as well. Ribbed. A few leaves sprout from your forehead.

You’re a carrot.

Cold mist spews from a spout above you.

You’re in a grocery store, in the produce section. You’re a five inch long carrot, wedged between the carrots, broccoli, and bell pepper sections. Giants with massive metal carts stroll in front of you. Stop, then continue.

“Psst.” A carrot whispers at you. “Psst. Buddy. You’re in no man’s land. Not gonna be good for you. Not like that. Not good for you. Come over here. COME ON!”

“Hello there,” a head of broccoli says. “Hey. Hey. What’s up. Hey.”

A few of the bell peppers simply make farting noises.

What will you do?