Choose
“Wake up.”
The words shuffled through the darkness of her mind, tugging at her.
“Wake up.” Firm, persistent.
A trickle of light invaded her senses, growing into a blinding glare as her eyelids fluttered.
“Where… Where am I?” Myrah asked groggily, her eyes scanning the dull expanse of concrete that filled her field of vision. She tried to lift her hand, shield her eyes, but her wrist moved barely a centimeter. Glancing down she noticed the restraints pinning her in place; loops of metal around her arms, ankles, and pelvis. Trying to lift her head she felt another pressed across her throat.
“What the hell is this?” she growled making no attempt to conceal her anger, wrenching her arm and kicking out with her feet. The restraints rattled though held fast, her efforts futile.
“Subject conscious. Elevate and note commencement.”
There was a sudden jolt and Myrah felt the world around her shift, her body levered into an upright position. In front of her a man stood waiting. His appearance was nondescript, his clothing bland and unremarkable, his face neither handsome nor hideous; his most noteworthy feature was simply how overwhelmingly plain he was.
“What is this?” she repeated with a snarl, looking past him, searching for an exit, though finding nothing but more of the same dull concrete. “What have you done to me?”
“Question one,” the man announced with indifference, ignoring her queries. “A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who will not see it nor hear its approach, but will surely be killed by its impact. You are unable to notify them of the danger, though you can flip a switch and divert the trolley onto a separate track. This will however put a separate, sixth person, in the trolley’s path, who will also neither see nor hear its approach and will surely be killed. Do you flip the switch?”
Myrah stared at him, her blood boiling. “What the hell is this?” she yelled.
Her questioner gazed back at her. “Question one; do you require clarification? Do you flip
