To Be Selfish

The Crossroads

In a person's life, they will come across forks in the road, where they have to make a choice. These choices define who a person is and who they will become.

It's what separates you from one another.

Most people have to decide what career they want to take. Whether they want to marry the person they're with. If they want to take a job offer or move to a new city.

All of these are important choices. They could make or break a person's life. Determine if they will be happy or look back and regret.

Most people's choices don't involve choosing to sacrifice one's self to save a bunch of students that never liked them in the first place or to run away letting them all die.

Most people's choices don't end in death, at least not intentionally.

But of course, Lizzie couldn't be that lucky. She was at a crossroads. One that had three possible paths.

Yet not one had a happy ending.

She could leave. She could stay and die. Or she could stay and live.

Leaving would doom everyone she left behind. Josiemort would not accept this outcome. Who knows how many could die by her hand as a result. And Josie could end up hunting her down anyway.

Now for the last two. They were both the result of staying. She could die before she ever truly lived. Or she could win.

But somehow living was the worst possible option. To live was to kill Josie. She would rather murder her dad than be the cause of her twin's death.

That was not an option Lizzie could accept. It would ruin her if she lost Josie. Especially if it was her fault. This brought her to her biggest problem.

Could she really die, so that Josie could live? Was that something she was willing to do?

And even if it was, she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't win. Sure, her assumption was that she was weaker than her twin, but was she really willing to risk that not being true?

And Lizzie didn't want to die.

Don't get her wrong, she would never wish harm upon Josie, but if it came down to it, would her will to survive outlast her desire for her sister to live.

How does one measure that?

And that was what brought her to the only possible outcome that Lizzie could even think to do. Run.

Lizzie hated knowing that everyone would think she was weak. A coward that ran when things got tough. They weren't completely wrong but they didn't even attempt to put themselves in her shoes.

Her only options were dying or becoming a murder or leaving everything behind.

She knew without doubt that most of the people at the school would choose to run. Even if they didn't care that their 'twin' in this scenario would die, they would still be making a gamble.

Lizzie normally loved gambling. She just didn't love gambling with her life.

But even choosing the safe option wasn't safe. Josie would throw a tantrum at her absence that would involve killing everyone.

Then, she would come after her. Lizzie was confident in her magical ability to hide from Josie but she would eventually run out of magic to use.

She'd have nowhere to run and all of this would be for nothing. Josie would force her to do the merge and everyone would have died for no reason.

And it would be all her fault.

But why was it her responsibility to save everyone? Especially those that never treated her kindly. Who, even if she chose to stay and die, would laugh at her funeral.