Page 72 - NS 2024
P. 72

 were gagged. Peter whimpered as he saw the face of his sister in the same position as before, but now unable to cry out for help. Even through the distance they were from one another, Peter saw the glisten of tears on her cheeks.
“Please,” Peter said pathetically, looking to the corner of the booth where two walls met. “Please, I’ll do anything you want just don’t hurt her. She’s all I have left.” Peter’s pleas were met with a pensive moment of silence, and the sound of the nearing trolley made his heart rattle violently in his chest. “Please, I’ll do anything you want.”
“I want you to choose, Peter.” The voice said sternly. A helpless tear escaped down his cheek as Peter turned to face the tracks once more. He looked at the faces of the three other people, gagged, tied, and lying on the tracks, their eyes pleading and confused; possibly the same ones from before. Peter didn’t know for sure. Peter didn’t get a chance to look at them before they were shredded by the trolley’s unforgiving wheels. Closing his eyes, he swallowed a mouthful of vomit that came up at the memory, and opened them to look at the people on the track, the people he would have to kill once more to save his sister. Peter didn’t recognize these people, and he sighed with stifled relief.
“How incredibly interesting,” The voice said again. The trolley car was now within sight and Peter’s hand was still shaking, but he moved with more conviction this time. He rested his hand on the lever’s stone handle, hesitating for just a moment before pulling the lever and switching the trolley’s direction, sending the vehicle speeding towards the three strangers. Peter tried to turn around, he didn’t want to watch three simultaneous and violent deaths again, but when Peter tried to turn, he found himself paralyzed.
“You made the decision to kill them, the least you could do is watch what you’ve done.” The voice said in Peter’s ear, as if it was standing right behind him—though he knew if he could turn around to face the source of the voice there would be nothing where there should be something. “I think you owe them that much, don’t you, Peter?” He tried everything in his power to move and turn away from the incoming catastrophe, but Peter found he couldn’t even so much as close his eyes.
It was over just as quickly as it was before, but the image was burned into Peter’s memory for good. Peter felt whatever power this creature had over his body slip away, but he remained just as rigid.
“Shall we go again?” The creature asked rather rhetorically. Peter didn’t react, but even if he tried he would not be able to move faster than the hidden being. Suddenly, Peter looked to the tracks to find everything back as it was before, but this time something was different. He could still hear the screech of the trolley’s wheels on the tracks, but this time there were three bodies on the trolley’s current path and only one on the divergent tracks.
“Don’t worry, Peter. Your sister is safe.” The being said in an attempt to soothe their experimentee in vain. “This decision should be much easier, if my assumptions about you prove correct.” Peter had lost the ability to speak; every time he tried to speak he was ambushed by the image of the violent carnage he had caused. When he looked to the tracks in search of a recognizable face, he found none. Peter looked on, unmoving and unspeaking, as the people tied up on the track in imminent danger squirmed and writhed trying to escape their imminent doom. He simply closed his eyes, pushing another tear down his cheek, and did not move as the sound of the trolley’s destruction came and went.
“Why are you doing this?” Peter asked, his eyes still closed and his hands no longer


























































































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