Father of Beelzebub (Choose Your Own Adventure)

Path 4

You can't leave her to die. With your heart beat pounding in the back of your skull you take a scraping dry swallow and remove the board separating your den from the utility room, entering the shadowy open house. You look around the room for a weapon to defend yourself with. Box of dryer sheets, bucket of laundry detergent, pods of laundry detergent, and a vintage bottle of wine. Stuffing the burglar with a mouthful of poisonous cleaning chemicals might pacify him. But smacking him over the head with red wine would likely be more effective. You grab your makeshift glass club and quietly inch towards the source of the scream, the living room.

Your sweaty clammy hands and your nerves of cotton make it hard to keep a grip on your weapon. You step on a floor board and a loud creak escapes. Your eyes widen in fear and you hold your breath, standing perfectly still. What are you doing? This is crazy. Your flabby arms couldn't fight off a gang of toddlers and now you're trying to be some kind of hero? Doubt permeates your mind. You can't do this, this is suicide. Your breathing gets harder. You begin to hyperventilate.

You're going to die. You're going to get stabbed, or shot, or worse. Your panicked breathing gets louder. He's going to hear you. He's going to kill you. You feel a surge of adrenaline coursing through your veins, you haphazardly move towards the origin of the crashing sound.

You see an enormous scorching hole in the side of the house. Smoke floats around the ember ring, the smell of burning wood fills your nostrils. Your survival instinct kicks in and you steady your breathing. What the hell happened? The light red cinders of the rim cast a flickering shadow on the opposite wall. Then you notice it. A person shrouded in twilight clutching a crimson blood orb with both hands standing over your motionless grandma lying on the floor.

You hear faint whispering come from the orb wielding silhouette, they start off quiet but begin to grow in intensity. Louder and louder the voices begin to bounce around your head. A whisper, into a word, into a call, into a scream. Endless screams fill your mind, screams of pain, of anguish, of fear growing ever more concentrated. The magnitude of the screams overwhelm your senses. You begin to smell the screams, taste them, and even see them. Soon every molecule of your body is dedicated to the ravenous perpetual screaming. And yet... They fill you with a sense of warmth, of comfort.

The screams end. A grotesque gurgling cough ejects from your grandmother. The body on the floor contorts and shambles into a crooked stand. The figure leans into the standing corpse as if listening to something, but then quickly breaks away. They've noticed you.

"Are you the one?" A feminine voice questions you. "You must be. Don't move a muscle, let me see in to you."

*Stand perfectly still Proceed to Path 5

*Run! Proceed to Path 6

*Attack! Proceed to Path 7