Yesterday's Winning Vote:
Option 1 – Stay and listen at the door.

Though the rational part of your brain screams at you to run, the neural pathways responsible for curiosity were blown wide open by the umbrella cracking against your skull. You edge up against the door and press your ear against it to listen.

Nothing...

Nothing—no screams, no shouts, no *thrap* *thrap* *thrap*. There isn't even—breath? You exhale sharply—no sound. You follow a drop of water from a leaky pipe in the ceiling to the floor—silence. You're about to knock on a wall just to test one more source of sound when—

--you're in a room of blue, or, perhaps more accurately, you're in the middle of an endless expanse of sky blue. You take a few steps, but, with no frame of reference, it's impossible to know if you actually moved at all.

A sound from the left draws your attention: words. Voices from the same direction as your apartment door would have been. Your attention is specifically piqued when you identify one soprano as Sandy.

“This conversation is not for you,” you hear Sandy say amongst the other deeper, harsher voices.

A sharp poke in the ribs spins you around straight into the glare of Sandy's angry face. “You're a stupid man for staying, and you're even more stupid for listening.” In the background, you can still hear Sandy's voice after her lips have stopped moving.

“What are those other voices? Who are you talking to? You're not actually here are you?” your mouth fires out without asking your brain for permission.

“You can actually hear them? Awww, I thought you only cared about me.” Sandy sticks her lower lip out in a pout. “As for here...well, I'm always here. You, however, should be at the park.” Before you can blink, Sandy has stabbed the umbrellas through the middle of your chest. You can feel your heart make one last futile attempt at beating before the blue around you fades to black.

* * *

You come to with a pounding in your head. The incredible stiffness in your arms and legs makes it seem as you slept wrong for days.

“Hey, asshole.” You open your eyes to see a police officer tapping a billy club repeatedly against your skull. “Get up and get outta here before I arrest you—and get a shower!”

“Uhhhhhnnn...” you moan as you pull yourself off the bench and take a few uneasy steps down the closest path. Thick green grass is growing on all sides with large trees providing intermittent shade. You have the feeling you've been here before, but knowledge of what city you're even in escapes you.

You pull out your wallet and check the contents: two hundred dollars but no credit cards or ID of any kind. Your—

<“Up, up, up!”> a voice in your head shouts.