Okay, let's turn this excerpt into another Pedameo CYOA entry, with that dark, acidic humor of Desciclopédia:
Scene: "Signing a Contract with the Devil (without reading the fine print)"
You walk toward the bus stop, but fate (or the public transportation mafia) decides: the bus leaves in front of you. That's enough for you to conclude: "Fuck it, I'm going back."
Back at the Gorsky Manor reception, a nurse looks at you with pity, like someone who finds a homeless person trying to use the mall's Wi-Fi. It takes you a few minutes to explain that you're not a patient (the hardest part was convincing her that you don't use crack during business hours). Eventually, she calls out to Mr. Veiss—no real name, just Veiss, like a vampire bureaucrat from the IRS.
He drags you into a claustrophobic office, lit by a beige World War II-era computer. You're already expecting a contract, a pen, whatever, but the man pulls out a yellowed map from a manila envelope, like a drunken pirate explaining where he buried the bodies.
Calmly, he points out:
The areas where you'll work.
The areas you should never enter, "because we have fragile patients recovering."
Translation: if you go in there, you'll either die or become a patient.
You can already smell the putrid smell of trouble, but then Veiss drops the cherry on top:
"We won't waste time with payroll or bureaucracy. We pay in cash, twice a month."
In other words: 100% illegal. But you think: "Their problem. I'm just the werewolf gardener with an irregular CPF." And since money is money, he replies:
"Deal."
He hands you the winter chore list (basically "suffer in the cold and don't complain") and tells you to start tomorrow.
At night, the temperature plummets. But this time you have a plan: grab free newspapers, cut through an abandoned garden, climb over a rusty fence, and find a forgotten ranch house. There are no people, no squatters, just rats and echoes of despair. You dig dry wood under the porch, kick out a board, and hide inside.
Make a small fire with the newspapers. The smoke is suffocating, the heat doesn't warm you at all, but you wrap yourself in the dingy fleece and finally get a few hours of sleep.
Congratulations: you haven't frozen to death. Yet.
Next.
Do you want me to write the next step in CYOA-style, "1) Go back to work the next day; 2) Get out and look for another fight; 3) Investigate the forbidden areas because curiosity trumps survival"?