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It was interesting, you know. To watch the four of them. Hmm? Oh, you forgot, didn’t you? Four chapters in and you already forgot that it is I, Sam, who is telling you the story. Sam the skull, remember? Don’t stress about it. A talking skull is one of those things where it’s really novel at first, but then you kind of forget. I get it. No worries, reader.

But the four of them were all sitting there, around that table, arguing. There was a real different vibe about it, compared to the first day they sat there, which, really, was just yesterday. The first day, there was this panic. No one really wanted to say anything, in case they were wrong. They were sizing each other up. Dave was concerned about his tablet. Lydia wanted to establish herself as the cool, know-it-all, and Bill was only paying attention to be polite. But today, that was all gone. They had desensitised themselves to the concept that the town was going to be destroyed and, having spent at least three hours each of time contributing to the concept, they all felt like they were experts on it.

The truth was, none of them knew what was really going on. They had all missed the simple 15-minute delay for poor Joe. Joe should have gotten up by the time the four of them sat down, but he was still snoring. Which meant that Dory, who was across town waiting for him for lunch, was still waiting. She had never had to wait for Joe before; he usually was a real time-keeper. Her foot was beginning to tap the ground in annoyance. The clock had officially stopped at 12 the previous night, signaling the start of the end, and yet the four task force officials were busy arguing.

Bill kept bringing up the Aggressive Nibbling-Weed, which he was sure was the real culprit behind the end of the town. It was a good suggestion. One that Lydia, who despised all things green ever since the color went out of fashion two seasons prior, agreed on. Dave, on the other hand, was feeling a little put out. Nothing had happened on his three-hour watch, and he, the very master of note-taking, had very few notes.

Rammi kept saying it was the bread. Something was up with the flour. The truth was, he had actually fallen asleep on his watch. Being a baker, he had woken up early, and on a normal day, he would nap mid-morning so that he could get a few hours in before lunch. But that morning, he was on watch. So he watched. But then, well… his eyes closed, and the next minute he woke up to the sound of Lydia’s car backfiring. She was cursing and flipping other drivers off before she swung her hair into place and waddled over to where Rammi was.

Rammi, relieved of duty, went back to his baking, only to discover that his entire output tasted suspicious. To cover the tracks of his morning nap, he decided this was the information he would not only present, but present with passion.

And so the argument unfolded. The group was split down the middle: half wanted to figure out how to kill a potential man-eating plant, while the other two wanted to find out why the flour tasted funny. Could it be poison? Is that how the whole town would die? It couldn’t be a quick poison, else Rammi would have died, but maybe it was a slow one. Rammi insisted they go to the farms, outside the town.

Bill, a farmer himself, knew that there was nothing wrong with the farms; he would have heard about it. He wanted to kill the outrageous plant. He suggested they go to the royal sewers. There, they would find a salamander with freezing abilities. They could freeze the weed and then slice off the dangerous head and rip up the roots. Lydia enjoyed the idea of that. She definitely wanted to swing an axe. She could also spend an afternoon hanging out with Bill.

Bill was, indeed, covered in mud again. This time, it wasn’t the turnips’ fault. He had been busy, after his three-hour watch, in the garden, busy attending to the marigolds that were planted in between his vegetables to keep the bugs off. A butterfly, however, was attracted to the yellow and gold petals and so decided to fly by. But this was after the butterfly had spent a considerable amount of time dining on some fermented fruit.

Quite tiddly, the butterfly decided to fly to the marigold, despite the fact that it was intoxicated. Like most intoxicated things, attempting to fly, it smashed itself right into Bill’s face. The fluttering wings tickled Bill’s nose, which triggered a violent, full-body sneeze that slammed his face directly into the mud bed.

And so, he was muddy. Again.

But Lydia didn’t mind. She knew that under that mud-caked face was a man worthy of her time, and she was pleased with the idea of spending time with him. She, therefore, insisted that he was right. That it was indeed the weed that was going to be the death of the town.

So the four decided to divide into two. And this, dear reader, is where you must make your own decision. Is it the path of Bill you wish to follow, or Rammi? Of course, both are wrong. There really should be a third choice here, which is the correct one. But it’s later, and the writer of this tale wants to go to bed, so they’ve only bothered to create two options. Hopefully, somewhere along the way the writer will realise her mistake, and there will be some side quest that will save the town.

In the meantime, pick the route you want to read.