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I read this short story about 15 years ago, in some anthology, and the plot was:

Man lives in slums, gets selected for participation in game show, has no choice but to go on. (I think) they terrorize him with nasty spiders (he has a phobia) and to make them stop (and win a fantastic holiday(?)), he just has to press a button, but doing so will kill a stranger he can see on a screen. The stranger appears to be in some form of departure lounge.

He ends up doing it, and then we flash forward to later, where the man is about to go on the plane to his holiday. He suddenly realises that the departure lounge looks familiar, and just as he realises why, the next gameshow participant presses the button.

Does anyone recognise this plot? It's definitely not Button, Button.

Thanks in advance

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    Do give away the ending. You better your chances of getting an answer if you tell us everything you can remember about the story. By the way, there are at least 5 different sci-fi short stories with the title "Button, Button"; I guess you're referring to the Richard Matheson story with a similar premise. – user14111 May 29 '16 at 21:03

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