Angstober Day 1

Instructions

Day 1: Wrong Choice The door closed as Jimmy stared. That nasty look Martyn had given him… At this point, it wasn’t unusual. He blamed the demigod for the Elven King’s pain. He wasn’t the only one, and Jimmy couldn’t fault him. It had been his choice, after all. Every time his eyes closed, the scene replayed. Lizzie’s breath being choked out of her, Scott clinging tight to Jimmy’s arm, and… and *Them*. They just stood there, like always, waiting for Their “Little Canary” to make a choice. And he’d played himself right into Their hands, as usual. The betrayal on Scott’s face that night… The betrayal he still *had*... It made Jimmy’s entire chest hollow to the point where it got hard to breathe if he stared long enough. He could have fought back–he *should* have! He could have made sure Scott knew that he chose Lizzie, not because he loved him less, but because-... Because he was *scared*. They’d been separated from each other so many times already, it seemed like an annual thing at this point. Jimmy thought he could handle it. But losing Lizzie again? *Permanently*? The thought struck him to his core. After every sacrifice she’d made for him – her sanity, her memories, her home – he couldn’t just tell her to die. And, of course, he hadn’t wanted to tell Scott the same… But in the heat of the moment, it had seemed like an almost *obvious* choice. The Watchers wanted Their winner. They wouldn’t have stopped until They had him. Why put him through the torture of seeing everyone around him die with the snap of a finger until he went past the point of insanity and just *gave in*? Why not just let him have the punishment without the pain of getting to it? Of course, what Jimmy hadn’t thought about was… was the eternity of non-stop torture. Looking back, it made sense that They wouldn’t just kill him. This was The Watchers, after all. But the thought hadn’t crossed his mind at *all*, like the fool he was. He’d figured it out far too late to avoid too much damage (about three years later), but he’d hoped that if he risked his life – his very existence – Scott could see that he hadn’t wanted to do it. But why would that work? Why would things just go back to normal? The rest of his life was about to be decided depending on just how delicately Jimmy could navigate his way around the millions of nails laid directly onto his path. And one wrong choice would change it forever.