The Choice: Part Three The screams reverberate around the air, shattering silence to nothing. I slowly start to back away, ears ringing from the awful crescendo. The worst part of it all is that I can't find where the screams are coming from, they seem to just surround me like a massive python, coiling in circles, tighter, tighter. Staggering backwards, I try to find a way out of this nightmare. Shudders run the entire mass of my back, then stop entirely. I've bumped into something. A thousand terrible scenarios fill my head, A man with burns across his face and no eyes laughing madly, a person holding me at gun point, a desiccated corpse hanging from a willow tree. All these things are horrible, but none could be further from the truth. I turn, to find I've bumped into someone who isn't there, something that isn't there; and all at once I know my wall out of this hell. I close my eyes, then open them. The basement is filled to the brim with the stench of damp. It's unpleasant, but rather comforting when compared to the smell of rot in the field. Around me others scream in a trance, none of their eyes are open; they have failed. I hear footsteps approaching the door. We hear they're screams every year, the ones who didn't choose, but I didn't choose, we hear they're screams every year, the ones who choose, the ones who failed. Quick as I can, I dart around the room, rousing everyone I can, desperate to save them from the icy claws of death. Hissing fills the room, I'm running out of time! I can't breathe, the hissing is stronger, the hissing is louder! I fall backwards into nothingness, into oblivion, wondering where I will end up.