Choices

By: Neha Dacherla

I found this journal on the table I’m now sitting at, these may be my last words on Earth so I'll state them wisely. I don’t know how I got here, all I know is that someone captured me and put me to sleep with an antibiotic medicine. The dining room, it is elaborately designed with granite and neatly carved wood. My legs are cuffed to the chair I am sitting at, and they gagged me with a piece of cloth that I keep choking on. I wonder why they didn’t handcuff my hands.

 In front of me there is a beautiful, fragile golden hammer, it glistens as the sun peeks in from the curtain. Next to the hammer is a glass of what I think is water. The water is sitting in an intricate copper cup; the cup resembles something I remember seeing before. Then, for the first time I see a note that says to pick up one of the two objects.

I scream, yell all the questions that are now flooding my mind. Why did they choose me to come here? Who picked the objects that are now sitting in front of me? Why these objects? I want the answers now, but I can’t get them and now I know I have to pick one.

When you are given objects such as these, it’s hard to understand what difference it would make if you pick one or the other. So, I look at the water that is now tempting me, for I hadn’t had a sip of water and the thirst inside of me is overwhelming. Then again I don’t want to die because I drank something that I thought was water, but turned out to be poison. I look over at the golden hammer; I guess I’d have to pick the hammer over the cup of what seems to be water.

I touch the handle of the hammer with my pointer, and I hear a noise. It is coming down the stairs now, footsteps making a loud noise and disrupting the peaceful silence that once had control over me. Somebody is coming for me and whether they are here to rescue me or not, I have to hide this journal. I quickly hide the journal in a cabinet I am just able to reach; I turn to see they have arrived, the two people that I was least expecting to see. What are my parents doing here?