The Choice

I hold a contest on my T. Mason Gilbert Author Page on Facebook. To begin the contest, I ask people to write just one random sentence in the comments section of the post declaring the contest open for submissions.
The first ten people to submit a random sentence are the declared the ‘winners.’
I take the first ten sentences submitted and write a story containing those ten random sentences. This is the short story that I came up with from the fourth such contest and is entitled "The Choice." It is a contemporary fantasy with black humor.
The rules for the contest are pretty simple and they are:
i) An entrant must not have participated in a prior contest.
ii) The entry should be a sentence. But sentence fragments sometimes sneak in.
iii) I won’t change the order of the words or grammar but I may change or add some punctuation.
iv) It must be an original sentence of the entrant’s own creation.
v) By entering the contest the entrant releases all future rights to their sentence.
Here are the ten sentences submitted prior to the creation of “The Choice,” along with the names of the people who submitted them:

1. When the tide came in she saw a glimpse of his hand. – Susan Marie Norris
2. It's strange that what I thought mattered when I was young doesn't really matter at all. – Patricia Dietrich
3. They were like shiny little sequins all over the sky, and plopping down like pancakes on the plaza. – Julie Tabler
4. Have an easy peaceful day. – Opal Brown
5. Of all the days for me to be in a purple haze it had to be this one. – Morgan Carver
6. When she walked into the room she felt both anxious as well as excitement, accompanied by a tingling in her toes that went all the way up her spine. – Deena Stayner
7. When the panic struck, out of the blue, it awoke him from a dead sleep in a cold sweat. – David Jones
8. A girl once told me "loving you is heavier than heartbreak," and since then I felt it ironically altruistic to remain an isolated misanthrope. – Cory Scott McCormick
9. Unfortunately, the potential consequences were not part of the decision making process. – Robbin Cutler
10. I like my cheddar cheese like my women; sharp. – Roger Van Deusen
    I would like to thank all the people who offered up their sentences for the fourth Ten Random Sentences Contest. You will find the sentences in bold in the story. Enjoy!