Not liking any of the options any better, and knowing that choosing nothing will only result in you watching your own father suffocate to death you choose the image of a dinosaur fossil with your eyes.
The icon flashes, the fades away. You stare at the screen praying that you can somehow save your father.
You watch as the same hands as before lift the wide-bodied armored fish ancestor from the ground and lift it out of view. For a few moments the screen goes black.
When if finally turns the bottom of the screen shows a large white bucket, filled with some kind of substance. The substance is grainy and brown in color, almost like dirt, but also liquid and viscous, as if its mud or brown paint with small tiny pebbles suspended in it. Hell, it could be chocolate as far you know.
Then from the top of the screen you see your father's flat armored head come into view. He's facing downward, being lowered into the vat of the mysterious substance. Like he's a fish fondue, the hand holding him by the tail dips him into the substance, then pulls him up completely coated in a thin semi-solid layer of the chocolate-like substance.
Carefully, as if to make sure to not damage the coating, the hands flip the fish over so you can see the underside of his head. Fingers wipe away the the coating along a couple ridges on either side, behind the mouth. You see several slotted opening along those ridges. Gills you realize. Thank god he can still breath.
He's flipped back over so you can now see the top of the head, this time the fingers wipe away the little bit covering the eyes on the top of his head. So that he can see.
For several moments you stare at the eyes on the screen, still able to sense intelligence underneath them.
Then once again the screen goes black.
Several agonizing moments later the screen turns back on, this time showing a terrarium filled with water. With a splash, the fish falls into the water. Turbulence and bubbles fill the screen. Finally, when it all settles you see your father at the bottom of the tank, still very much coated in the brown substance (except his eyes and gill slits). You watch him slowly skit along the bottom of the tank using his scaly arm flippers. You breath a moment's sigh of relief that even though you were forced to watch him turned into an ancient fish, at least he's still alive.
The camera keeps a track on him as he moves slowly exploring the tank.
You watch for several minutes waiting for something to change, or some other horrible choice to make, but the screen just stays fixed on the fish. Then you start noticing tiny bubbles forming out the outer layer of chocolate (or whatever the hell it is) covering his body. More and more bubbles form until they're all over his outer surface. He also seems to be moving around more slowly as if encumbered. A whole bunch of the bubbles float away as the fish jerks suddenly. To your horror you see that the coating has changed consistency. More rock-like. Like drying cement.
The horrible realization hits you that the brown stuff is some sort of plaster that cures in water. You watch as the fish, now looking almost like a living rock, thrashes its thick tail slowly, as its the only part of its body left strong enough to move. But soon even that movement ceases, as the coating fully solidifies, freezing his body in a distressed position, flippers pointing in different directions, body and tail curled to one side.
You stare at the motionless stone-like form of your father, as it falls slightly to the side, eyes facing your view. It reminds you of those casts of bodies in Pompeii. The ancient fish sits motionless on the bottom of the water stuck in a contorted posture, completely encased except for the eyes seeming to look right at you.
For several terrible more minutes your forced to stare at it. Your father has literally been transformed into a living fossil.
Mercifully the screen goes back.
However, a few moments later, a metallic sound signals the opening of a door to your room. The water filled terrarium containing the frozen fish is slid into the corner of the room, right next to the one containing the rats. You see that the males are still taking their turns having their way with the female. You also notice the terrariums are oriented such that the fish has a nice up front view of the flurry in the tank next door.
Please let this torture end, you think to yourself in despair, tears now welling in your eyes