[Audience Choose Your Own Adventure] The Recluse Part VI (Final)
Part I・Part II ・Part III・Part IV・Part V
The audience has [long since] chosen 1: Call out to her. Don't spook her by creeping up.
"Sarah!" I realize I don't have any explanation prepared. To tell her why I'm tailing her, I would have to tell myself, and I can't...
With a sound like a hiss, she whirls to peer at me. "Following me again!" I sense some silent signal has been given, and then she's running for me. Knife in hand.
"Wait! Sarah, I--" The blade rips open my stomach. I fall to my knees, gasping...and realize that I feel no pain. None.
On further thought, I realize I have never felt any pain in this place. Only surprise, fear, and so on. But blood is still pouring out of me.
"Who were you talking to?" I find myself growing weak. "Who? Who's there! What is this place?! Come out--come out--" I repeat it over and over to the shadowy figure in the brush. The man from before. Come out, come out, come out, come out... Until I'm lying on my side. ...come out, come out, come out... My vision blurs.
"COME OUT! COME OUT!" The man's voice from before. A thunderous voice. I suddenly realize that I'm in a bright room. A hospital room. But something is strange...ah. I know. I can see everything. That is, I don't have a point of perspective. I don't have a pair of eyes. I'm seeing everything at once, from everywhere.
A thin little girl lying in the cot blinks, peers around. A red balloon is tied to the bedpost. A woman is weeping beside it. A man in black robes with a black hardcover book -- I can't make out the title, but it gives me an unpleasant feeling -- is telling the woman that the little girl is safe now. "It's out," he's saying. Out? It? I realize that the little girl is Sarah, only much weaker.
I begin to grow afraid. What's going on? What happened to my body? My me? I focus again on the man in black. He's big and strong. Not like the frail little Sarah. Not like myself, hiding in the woods under covers with my books and loneliness.
He'll make a perfect new home.
Congratulations! You have lost your home, but saved Sarah. Good luck with your new one!
Let me know if you have any questions, cuz there are some things that probably are confusing/vague.
Sorry @Rebelmeow + @the-alien, for taking so long again! Basically you guys chose the dying-type choice, but I guess it works out, depending on your perspective. Thanks for playing with me!
Glad you're back! I see now why you said, "Oh dear," when I chose that option in the name of survival. Oops!
Cool ending! I didn't see that coming at all.
I didn't either. This whole audience story thing was totally done on the fly each time, so I was pretty surprised too. XD