[WP] You have the power to make fake things real. Toy guns are dangerous weapons in your hands, and stuffed animals become talkative best friends. Today you visit the statue of liberty for the first time.
*****
Adrenaline.
Or Epinephrine as some people liked to call it. I saw no reason for one thing to be referred do by two different names, but then the redundancy of most words in our dictionary was a topic that would 5ake days, if not months to completely dissect and address. That nonsense was the least of the concerns on my mind as I looked at the twelve people in the crown of the statue.
Adrenaline was the well-known flight or flight hormone. The hormone that kicked in when in life-or-death situations, just like when being shot at, when being chased down by a bear, or when being forced between choosing to slide down 150 feet to a variety of fates that could be awaiting you, including death, or remaining rooted to the spot and being killed either way.
There wasn't a single good option amongst those two, and I knew that already. The point wasn't making those people take risks, but to observe how their brains functioned. If I was in the situation, I would unhesitatingly slide down. There was a chance of coming out unscathed from sliding, while there was sure death waiting for me if I did not move. The worst case scenario if I slid was death, while there was no variation of outcomes if I stood at that spot.
I didn't see any reason to think about it, but I was interested in knowing how those people were thinking. Would they allow the irrational fear of possible injury would make them indecisive and transfixed to the spot until their window of death closed.
"Oh damn it!" One of the guards screamed, hopping unto the slide and accelerating down quickly. I laughed knowing what his fate was. I understood what he did; he'd hastily hopped on to throw aside Hus dears and the voices preventing him from taking the chance. It was a common and reasonable reaction, but there was just one problem. It was unwise to just do that, seeing as he would be combining so much velocity with such instability.
It was funny to me when he bounced off the slide at a point and fell with a scream to his death, bit the others were horrified, more unwilling to slide now than ever. But that would not do, since I wanted to be entertained. I did not fancy the idea of them staying there until the time ran out, so I got out some toy samurai.
"Let's make this fun, shall we?" I said, making them grow till they were life sized. "Maybe that man's death obscured your vision of the full picture, so let me make this clear: if you do not get on that slide within the next 12 mintues, the samurai will cut you into pieces, one finger at a time, then your limbs, and finally tear your liver and let you bleed out."
They went from being horrified by my strange ability to being terrified at the death I was describing. They became jittery, and then one woman got on the slide and slid down safely, rolling immediately she hit the ground. We could all see that she was still alive, and I laughed.
"Surviving depends on your technique. The first guy was a fool who-"
One guy, feeling enthusiastic, leaped unto the slide, and bounced of halfway to his death, as the others flinched and screams.
"- well, I didn't think I really need to explain further since you all saw what that man did and what it earned him. If you hop on to the slide trying to get it over with while you're pumped, they'll be scraping your pasted organs off the ground tomorrow. Easy does it."
A girl and a guy got on and slid down carefully. One of them got unstable close to the end and bounced off, but she landed okay save an injured leg - she was limping, so it was either a fractured or a sprained ankle.
"Voilà . Those guys seem to understand the assignment," I said, turning to the remaining seven people. "So what will it be? Will you take the risk and succeed, or be sliced and diced for your lack of liver?"
I enjoyed taunting them, and was sad when another two girls got on the slide and reached the ground safely. I was a twisted fellow, surely, but it felt better when they hit the turbulence, bevamee unstable, and whimpered loudly when they realized they were about to bounce off and die. That undescribable sound when their screams were cut off by an audible sickening crunch when their bodies hit the ground? Bliss.
There were five more people - four men and one girl. The four guys climbed on the slide.one after the other, hoping to move as a unti and avoid any casualties, while the woman stood there, swearing and crying. I knew that she wouldn't do it. She just couldn't do it, even if a hundred people did it and survived right before her eyes.
But she was failry lucky, because midway into the men's journey down, the slide shrunk back to its mini size and they screamed down to their deaths.
She flinched, sobbed a little, and then fixed me a dead, lost look. She had come to terms with her death, and I laughed.
Human tenacity.
"You live," I said, reducing the samurai to their toy size and making them walk towards me. "There is a courage in cowardice - the stupid courage that slowed you to choose being sliced to pieces ocer a painless fall."
She fainted from the shock.
*****
TO BE CONTINUED.
