#BlogBattle 56: Indiscriminate

genre: fantasy/mystery/suspense

There are one or two small liptrips but otherwise here’s a silly recording of the story! 

The lights were bright, blinding her, but the sound of the crowd cheering drown out all her insecurities. She shielded her eyes with one hand and waved to the audience with the other.

Brigitte had been a spectator of this show her whole life and had found great amusement in its outcome. Every contestant had always been so precise about their choices, attempting to use some method, some calculation, some algorithm to pick the winning door.

Brigitte had seen contestant after contestant choose based off some arbitrary process of elimination using the silliest markers. She couldn’t understand how anyone could imagine that the color of a sticker on the door or the wrinkling of the carpet could indicate which door would lead to the grand prize.

Some had won amazing prizes, but most had not. Brigitte planned to be a winner by making her choice as indiscriminate as possible. Randomness was the chorus of her life and it had been by random chance she’d been chosen to participate on Choose that Door. Or so that was what she was told.

“Ladies and gentleman! What a show we have for you today! Now, let’s meet our contestant. Brigitte Dorsman, come on over!”

Brigitte tingled all over and jogged on to center stage to stand beside Rolf Rolferson, the rotund, red-faced host of the show. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against the soft blubber of his side, giving her a good squeeze.

“Well, Brigitte, you are the next contestant on,” he paused and held the microphone toward the audience.

The undulating crowd yelled in unison, “Choooose that Doooor!”

Rolf swiveled the microphone back to himself and released his biting grip on Brigitte. “Ms. Dorsman, you will have three doors to choose from. Behind one door is the coveted prize, an all-expense paid trip to the tropical island of Bermaduah, a secret hideaway where you’ll be treated like a princess and forget all your worries. Behind another door is a mop and bucket, but beware as this becomes your life-long career. And the third door . . . it is back!”

The crowd gasped and Brigitte knew what that meant. There was one door that came back indiscriminately and carried a sinister history. It was so rare Brigitte hadn’t even considered that she could end up with the blackness. She shuddered as the gasp of the spectators turned to a low hiss, representing the sound emanating from that door whenever an unlucky contestant opened it.

“Yes, that’s right, folks. It’s the prize of all prizes, the horror of all horrors, Dark Hollow! If, Ms. Dorsman, my dear Brigitte, you should so choose the door concealing Dark Hollow you will walk through never to be seen or heard from again! Choose wisely. Choose carefully,” he said with a sinister grin stretching his pudgy cheeks wide.

He backed away from her in slow motion as the shadows of the side of the stage morphed his odd face into something much more grotesque and dare she think it, evil.

Brigitte realized her mouth was wide open and promptly shut it, slamming her teeth against each other and making her ears ring. She rotated to face the three innocuous doors lining the stage, each one magnified by its own spotlight.

The first was red and displayed the numeral one in fancy script. The second was blue with the number two written like a digital clock face. The third was green with the number three written in Roman numerals.

Nothing about any of them drew her, and Brigitte was only sure of one thing: she could live like a princess on an island or even be a maid all her life and be happy, but she could not walk into the Dark Hollow and live. She crossed her fingers, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath then spun around like a ballerina on one toe.

When she came to land, again facing the doors, her hand was outstretched with her finger pointing, indiscriminate in her choice, toward the third door. She heard the crowd cheer wildly before she felt compelled to open her eyes a crack.

Rolf Rolferson glided back on to the stage, his graceful movements belying his husky stature, and he sneered at her in a way that made her blood run cold. What did the host know? Please be the mop, she begged in her mind, please be the mop. I’d be happy mopping forever.

He turned toward the audience and in a sickly sweet voice said, “Brigitte has chosen. But, folks, what has she won? If it was you, my friends, would you–”

The mass of people bellowed, “Choose that Door!”

“Yes, would you Choose that Door?”

They answered en masse with a resounding “NO!”

He faced Brigitte. “Oh, Ms. Dorsman, let’s hope the audience is wrong today! Your indiscriminate choice could lead to places you don’t want to go.”

Brigitte, proud of her randomness, squared her shoulders. She made a quick glare at Rolf Rolferson whose smile vanished from his face, and strode toward the green door with III printed in bold gold lettering on the front.

One more deep breath and she reached for the knob. She turned it and waited half a second to pull the door open. As soon as the edge of the door cleared the frame she heard it. The hiss. It was too late, the door continued to open of its own volition, and the shadow of the darkness seeped out onto the stage before her.

Brigitte couldn’t breath, but before she could back away, Rolf Rolferson was behind her and pushed her through the doorway. She heard herself scream, but his voice overshadowed even that.

“The audience is always right! Sorry, Brigitte! Better luck next time!”

His voice faded away as the hissing and her own screams grew louder. Her eyes were squeezed tight because it was less frightening than the consuming darkness.

All sound faded away, and something bright invaded the protection of her eyelids. If only she could muster up the courage to see what her indiscriminate choices had led her in to.