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Readers of the classic “Choose Your Own Adventure” book Treasure of the Rio Grande have been growing exasperated that every single choice available to the reader inevitably leads to being buried alive, sources report.
The book reportedly contains a choice every few pages that allows the reader to flip to a different point in the book to continue the story. “The first time I read it, I got buried alive because the bad guy trapped me in a coffin that was then buried,” said Theresa Ryenski, who has read the book over a dozen times and is “starting to sense something’s fishy.” “So I went back to the other choice that I could have taken, and immediately I stepped in a big pit of quicksand. It just came out of nowhere and swallowed my character up. I wish there was a way to read this book without the story ending in dirt-filled suffocation.”
Other readers are noticing a similar phenomenon. Milton Pinkos told reporters that after being buried alive a number of times, he specifically decided not to explore the creepy old mine shaft for fear it would collapse and bury his character. “The other choice was ‘try to ford the river,’ which sounded like, at the very least, I’d drown. But instead of falling into the river and being swept away, I tripped on my way down the mountain to the riverbank and caused a landslide that buried me alive.”
“I just want to die in a slightly different way for once,” he finished.
Sources report that, in a concerning development, even the happy endings trap the reader under at least six feet of soil. The single path that lets the protagonist find the hidden treasure reportedly then time-jumps forward through 70 fulfilling and happy years until his or her deathbed, where a freak medical anomaly keeps the protagonist conscious even after his or her vital signs have ceased. “I got to that part and I couldn’t believe I got buried alive as an 85-year-old just because they thought I was dead,” said Ryenski. “Being buried alive is such a lame way to go.”
At press time, Ryenski was resolving to write a “way cooler” Choose Your Own Adventure book where every choice leads to being ejected into space.
