(Nerds: The following is my section of the Choose Your Own Blogventure that I mentioned on Wednesday. In order to maximize your enjoyment, please go back and start with part one, here on NPW’s blog, and then follow along to your heart’s content. Warning: Failure to follow instructions means you are a moron.)

If there was one thing Emma was most certainly not in the mood for, it was continuing a conversation with this imaginary, miniature version of herself, much less obeying its commands. In a fit of annoyance, she grabbed angrily at the tiny creature. It was faster than Emma expected, however, and just as her fingers seemed certain to snare the creepy, talking Barbie doll, it broke for the door. The unexpected movement sent Emma toppling off the bed and onto the floor…

…Where she awoke with a start.

“Not again,” she thought. This was the fourth time in as many days that she had fallen out of bed whilst in the middle of a particularly nonsensical dream. As she laid on the floor, tangled in her sheets, ignoring the throbbing in her head, she attempted to recount the details. She had been twelve years old again. There was a talking doll of some kind. She was angry about something.

As she slowly regained consciousness, the details became murkier, and finally, the dream evaporated. She looked at the clock: 2:35 in the morning. Feh.

Too tired – and just as importantly, too annoyed – to move, Emma continued to lie on the floor, grateful that it was Saturday morning, which meant that she would not have to spend another day at the office feeling like a zombie. Her mind wandered to hordes of flesh-eating zombies, which then turned her mind to the thought of food. Her stomach grumbled.

And then Emma thought of orange Hostess cupcakes.

Figuring that it was better to be a sated insomniac than a hungry one, Emma threw on some jeans, a Red Sox t-shirt, and her favorite blue hoodie, grabbed her keys, and headed for the door to her apartment, her mind fixed on the Store 24 around the corner.

Outside the apartment building, her mood lifted slightly. There was something about a quiet summer night — or rather, summer morning – in the city that never failed to buoy her spirits. So what if money was stressing her out? A new job would come along soon. And what did it matter that her last boyfriend decided, after four years together, that he was gay? If he was happy, that was the important thing.

“Even if Hillary Clinton somehow manages to win the Democratic nomination,” Emma thought, “At least I’ll still live in a country where a girl can buy orange cupcakes in the middle of the night. God bless America.”

It was at that moment, just a few hundred feet from the door of Store 24 that she saw it.

The ghoulish figure shuffled slowly towards her, a sickening moan emanating from somewhere in its throat. Was that blood on the man’s shirt? Or just a ketchup stain?

“Maybe I shouldn’t have watched Dawn of the Dead just before going to bed,” Emma thought.

“Or maybe I’m about to be eaten.”

If you think Emma should take some sort of action against what is obviously an imminent zombie attack, click here.

If you think Emma should ignore the zombie-like figure and continue to the Store 24, click here.