text: I went to the corner convenience store with a $20 bill in my pocket and an urge for some Doritos and a Snickers bar. Who knew that a single trip as insignificant as that would send me down a rabbit hole so deep I would spend years climbing out. There I stood, staring at the frosted over freezer door, the florescent tube inside flickering as they do, wondering why I was so mesmerized by it. I initially had my back to the door, trying to decide between Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese Doritos, when I felt something trying to pull my attention away from the blue and red bags on the shelf. At first, I figured it was just a case of ADHD mind games, but as I remained planted in position, still trying to make a simple decision that seemed harder than ever, that feeling kept tugging, yanking, trying to get me to move. I then realized what the feeling was; it wasn't something in my head, but something I know everyone has experienced at some point in their life. It was the feeling of someone staring at me. I looked up from the shelf, seeing nothing but a sea of other shelves, beyond which stood the front doors with the checkout to the left. The guy at the counter was staring up at a TV in the corner, facing away from me altogether, so it certainly seemed it couldn't have been him causing the feeling I was still experiencing. My peripheral told me there was nobody else around the small store but me, so I quickly spun on my heels to face whatever was behind me, only to find nothing but a wall of freezer cases. They were all mostly frosted over, but the one directly behind me was completely opaque, frost thick on the inside of the door, only letting through the tiny bit of light that was coming from the failing tube inside at the top of the door. It was also the only door that had a flickering light. Knowing there was no possible way that someone could have been standing between that freezer door and my body, I had a sudden shiver run up my spine. After the door swung closed behind me, making a soft thumping sound, the cold began to subside, as if it were nothing other than a fan blowing cold air just inside the door itself. I touched the frost on the inside of the door only to discover that it wasn't even real frost. It was like that stuff they spray on windows so you can't really see through them, only it was more realistic looking from the outside, like it had little crystals in it. I heard a banging noise somewhere in the distance, like that of a heavy metal door shutting. I wasn't sure exactly why there was some sort of hallway leading from what was supposed to be a freezer case, but nonetheless, I was in it and I surely wasn't turning back at that point. The curiosity got the best of me, as it tends to do. I was about to start walking down the hall, which turned a corner after a short distance, no way of seeing what was around the bend, when I heard footsteps coming toward me. I had a fight or flight moment, but then I froze and didn't know what to do. The steps were getting closer and closer, about to turn that corner and all I could feel was my heart attempting to beat its way clear out of my body. I would have sworn it sounded like two people walking in unison, until I realized that it wasn't two people. It was a women wearing heels. Click-clack, click-clack. I was on the verge of backing out, going through the door to avoid whoever was coming toward me, but again, my curiosity got to me. As she turned the corner, I felt like I was about to pass out from the...excitement? No, anxiety. I should have known the feeling well by that point, but there was so much going through my mind that I couldn't focus on just on thing, even what I was feeling. She led me down the hall, which seemed to go on for far longer than the building was wide, into a small room that had only two chairs in the center and a pot with some plant about three feet tall in one corner. She walked to one chair and motioned to the other for me to sit in. As soon as I sat down, the lights dimmed and a screen turned on, seemingly inside of the wall. The woman sat across from me, staring directly at me the entire time, while some short clips of events throughout my life played on the screen. I turned to her after a few clips and before I could even separate my lips, she pointed to the screen without saying a word. After some time, an amount I am completely unsure of as there was no clock, no window, and I was too scared at that point to even think about pulling my phone out of my pocket, the clips caught up to present day and then continued past, apparently showing me my future. I was glued to the screen at that point, watching things happen to me, around me, to my family, things that I never would have expected, but made perfect sense. I saw myself becoming the exact person I loathed. "You have an opportunity here. You can either take it or leave it, but you must decide now and now only. Once you make your choice, there's no going back, so I'll give you a few minutes to think it over." The woman stood up from the chair and walked to the door, opening it and walking out. There was a loud clunk from the other side of the door after it latched closed, leading me to believe I had been locked in. I sat there, too confused and anxious to think straight. The only thing I could concentrate on was the dimly glowing rectangle where the now defunct screen had previously shown me things that I endearingly remembered before turning to a future of shame. I knew in that moment that I couldn't let myself become the monster that she showed me. I wouldn't let it happen, no matter the consequences. Fate wouldn't keep its hold on me. As she walked to the door I hadn't noticed opposite the one we came in, she gestured for me to walk through. "Your choice is made once you step over the threshold. This is your last chance to turn back and follow the path as I showed you. Or you can have true free will, of course at a cost, but you already know that." I walked over and stood in front of the opening, which had a bright light on the other side blocking the view of whatever was there. I thought I was standing there for maybe a few seconds, but then she cleared her throat and said, "You've had plenty of time to choose. Now you must act." I took a step forward, placing one foot over the threshold, at which point, the woman said, "So be it." As I lifted my other foot to step fully into the white space beyond, the woman started swinging the door closed behind me and as it was latching shut, the light dimmed and I was again standing in the convenience store, staring at the Doritos in the back aisle. The following days were spent considering that the whole thing was some weird hallucination that I had, but I hadn't done any drugs that would have caused that. It wasn't until I received a call from my work, the HR lady on the other side, explaining that I would need to come in later in the day to fill out paperwork for my severance, as I was being laid off. That was not in the visions that the woman showed me. Then, as I was driving to my newly obsolete job, my car made some truly awful noises before coming to a halt and bursting into flame in front of me. Again, not part of the visions. I ordered an Uber with the little money I had left in my account, signed the paperwork, and took another Uber home. When I got there, my apartment had an eviction notice on the door. Confused and a bit angry, I walked down to the office and inquired about the notice. I was told that my unit was deemed unfit for living due to a rotting water main. One more thing not shown in the visions. Was this the cost of my decision? Was there more? I had hit rock bottom, or so I thought. I was sleeping on a friend's couch, having literally nowhere else to go, considering I had no car and only the last paycheck I was given as a measly little severance. It was only a matter of a couple weeks before said friend decided that she no longer wanted me in her life, as I was a loser and didn't deserve her compassion. She gave me an old duffel bag that should have been thrown in the trash long ago and I packed up what little I had left. She had given me less than an hour to pack up and get out, which was easy enough, but still hurt nonetheless. That was absolute rock bottom for me. I had almost no money left, having given her half of what I had to contribute to food and utilities, but apparently that wasn't good enough. I had nowhere to go, nobody to call, given that my entire family had disowned me by that point. It became clear that free will had a higher cost than I ever would have imagined. Then I remembered, fate was blind to me. I had to force my hand in every way going forward, make my own choices to keep my life going. You'd be shocked at how easy it is to skate through life when fate has an eye on you, even when it feels like you're having to work hard at it. Trust me, having true free will is much more difficult. It took me a good minute to brush myself off and get back up, but once I did, there was no going back. I had found a shelter that was willing to give me a cot three nights a week, as they were over-booked and couldn't offer full-time residency. I took it, knowing it would only be temporary anyway. As I spent my day wandering the city, waiting for my cot to free up for the night, I started seeing signs for help wanted in all sorts of storefronts. I had heard there were a lot of places hiring, but I worked at a large corporation and never really cared or needed to notice the signs before. I walked into a book store that had one of those signs and filled out an application. I only had a cheap phone with a small amount of minutes left, so I had to avoid any calls to keep my minutes in case the store called for me. Within a few months, I was manager of that book store, was making good money, and was able to move into a small apartment nearby. A few months later, after making some adjustments to staff and changing some policies, I had that little book store attracting more people, a broader group of people, and it was making more than double the money on a monthly basis than it was a year prior. In return, the owner doubled my salary, which allowed me to move into a much nicer apartment a few blocks over. I was also making enough money that I started my own donated book library system that utilized old newspaper vending machines. People could take books for free and then drop them off when they were done, at any of the locations around the city. Or people could just drop off their used books any time. People began to donate money to a non-profit organization I had set up to maintain the library system, and the more I put into it myself, the more they would put in. An eye for an eye. Every single thing I did to better myself and the world around me ended up coming back to me ten fold. I was bringing in so much money between owning the book store and running the non-profit, that I was donating more than I could ever spend in a lifetime. I'm now one of the richest people in the world and no matter how much I give away, donate to causes, spend on ventures created purely to help people, the more I keep brining in. It's getting to the point where I can't find a bank or investment firm with enough FDIC coverage or manpower to deal with the level of money I'm cycling through. So give more. Then get more. And give even more. It's a vicious cycle. One day, for the sake of experimentation, I literally gave every cent I had to my name, billions of dollars, to a group of orphanages, and by the next day, I had checks flowing in that were more than double what I had given. I can't make it stop! I'm starting to think that the only way to end this is to just stop giving. Take the money and run. But that's exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place. I walked away from a life of riches, being one of those pathetic people who just hoards money and cares only about themself. But I'm at a point where I'm tired. I want to relax; it's just too much work to keep up with the ebb and flow. But I know that this is the person I chose to be. Am I sure I made the right choice in that weird room somewhere in the depths of...well, a place I don't even know exists for real? Yes. I am sure of it. I know the path that led me here was the path I chose to take, and I am truly grateful to be a better person because of it. But I can't keep up with it. It's a blessing and a curse. If only I could find that woman and ask her if it's possible to give this blessing to someone else. Although, would that just put it back on me even greater? I wouldn't want to find out.