Hall of Infinite Doors
The room beyond you is black. Utterly black. But warmly so, as if the darkness is close and comforting, like it supports you. It presses in on you and you do not fight it. Slowly it takes away your consciousness...
Your name is Renee Marsh. You are sixteen years old and in high school. You're reasonably intelligent, decently creative, and very attractive, though you have to work constantly to keep in shape and due to a genetic predisposition toward weight gain must maintain a very strict, very sparse diet in order to avoid ballooning. Your mother stayed at home to look after you and your two older brothers, while your father manages a successful wine-and-spirits store downtown. Both of your brothers have left for college, one to take a degree in business, the other to start a degree in information technology only to drop out halfway, join a church, and move to Africa to do missionary work. Over your entire family hangs a palpable air of disappointment, as if the world for everyone else is a better place, but all it's done to them is let them down. Your mother has no friends and sees little of her relatives; your father had high dreams only to be doing at 53 the same thing he was doing at 23. It seems everyone in your family has been taught to expect disappointment, and so far, they've all been proven correct.
You, on the other hand, are determined to end this for you. You have the looks, brains, creativity and talent to do what you've always wanted to do in life: act. You have large green eyes and a pretty face, small breasts though an attractive ass, and much of your childhood, adolescence and teenage years were spent perfecting a presence, personality and sense of style others find unique and alluring. You've acted in community theater practically since you could talk, and you've always been comfortable with attention, being careful to have cultivated no secrets or habits which could cause potential embarassment. Even better, you've recently been accepted as one of the main cast members in a major play in your city. You have a boyfriend who's assured you he's going to be a business phantasmagoria, and all your friends want your life.
Then you missed your period. Then you began throwing up in the morning, even when you hadn't eaten anything for the past few days. Then you bought a pregnancy test which confirmed exactly what you feared: you're pregnant.
You're not exactly promiscuous, though you've had plenty of offers. In fact, for the past few months you've kept your sexual activity scrictly between yourself and your boyfriend, an astonishing feat of self-control, cosidering your slut friends. When you tell him, though, it terrifies him. He asks for some time to think about things, which you give him. Two days later, though, he still hasn't talked to you or contacted you at all, and when you try to get in touch with him, he breaks up with you through one of your mutual friends and tells you it would be best if you never talk to each other again.
This hurts like hell. You really thought he liked you - in fact, he was the only one so far who's seen you as anyone other than an object to be desired, envied or employed. In deep pain, you tell your mother about what's happened, only to have her freak out and immediately tell your father. Your mother is ashamed of you, and your father, though much calmer, tells you in no uncertain terms that, with your brothers' college expenses sitting on their shoulders, they just aren't capable of taking care of a new baby. This one's right on your shoulders.
You are Renee Marsh, sixteen years old, everything lined up perfect for you, and pregnant. You don't have many options. You could get an abortion; you know girls who have and they say it's not so big a deal. You could have the baby and give it up for adoption, though you worry about the effect it will have on your figure, the time it'll take away from your school and career, what people will say, and what will happen to the child. Or you could have the baby and raise it yourself, though you don't really know what you could do to provide for it, being young and never having even had a job before.
After spending the night having a good, therapeutic cry on your bed, you look into the waking city and decide...
Your name is Renee Marsh. You are sixteen years old and in high school. You're reasonably intelligent, decently creative, and very attractive, though you have to work constantly to keep in shape and due to a genetic predisposition toward weight gain must maintain a very strict, very sparse diet in order to avoid ballooning. Your mother stayed at home to look after you and your two older brothers, while your father manages a successful wine-and-spirits store downtown. Both of your brothers have left for college, one to take a degree in business, the other to start a degree in information technology only to drop out halfway, join a church, and move to Africa to do missionary work. Over your entire family hangs a palpable air of disappointment, as if the world for everyone else is a better place, but all it's done to them is let them down. Your mother has no friends and sees little of her relatives; your father had high dreams only to be doing at 53 the same thing he was doing at 23. It seems everyone in your family has been taught to expect disappointment, and so far, they've all been proven correct.
You, on the other hand, are determined to end this for you. You have the looks, brains, creativity and talent to do what you've always wanted to do in life: act. You have large green eyes and a pretty face, small breasts though an attractive ass, and much of your childhood, adolescence and teenage years were spent perfecting a presence, personality and sense of style others find unique and alluring. You've acted in community theater practically since you could talk, and you've always been comfortable with attention, being careful to have cultivated no secrets or habits which could cause potential embarassment. Even better, you've recently been accepted as one of the main cast members in a major play in your city. You have a boyfriend who's assured you he's going to be a business phantasmagoria, and all your friends want your life.
Then you missed your period. Then you began throwing up in the morning, even when you hadn't eaten anything for the past few days. Then you bought a pregnancy test which confirmed exactly what you feared: you're pregnant.
You're not exactly promiscuous, though you've had plenty of offers. In fact, for the past few months you've kept your sexual activity scrictly between yourself and your boyfriend, an astonishing feat of self-control, cosidering your slut friends. When you tell him, though, it terrifies him. He asks for some time to think about things, which you give him. Two days later, though, he still hasn't talked to you or contacted you at all, and when you try to get in touch with him, he breaks up with you through one of your mutual friends and tells you it would be best if you never talk to each other again.
This hurts like hell. You really thought he liked you - in fact, he was the only one so far who's seen you as anyone other than an object to be desired, envied or employed. In deep pain, you tell your mother about what's happened, only to have her freak out and immediately tell your father. Your mother is ashamed of you, and your father, though much calmer, tells you in no uncertain terms that, with your brothers' college expenses sitting on their shoulders, they just aren't capable of taking care of a new baby. This one's right on your shoulders.
You are Renee Marsh, sixteen years old, everything lined up perfect for you, and pregnant. You don't have many options. You could get an abortion; you know girls who have and they say it's not so big a deal. You could have the baby and give it up for adoption, though you worry about the effect it will have on your figure, the time it'll take away from your school and career, what people will say, and what will happen to the child. Or you could have the baby and raise it yourself, though you don't really know what you could do to provide for it, being young and never having even had a job before.
After spending the night having a good, therapeutic cry on your bed, you look into the waking city and decide...