A Well Needed Pilgrimage

"Now that we are a group," I break the silence. "It is time we need a leader." We have just started our walk toward the woods and I decided we need to have as many advantages as we can once we face down the unstable hermit and his yeswoman. I'm just gonna say yesman, it sounds better to say.

"I'm leading." MI claims. "Without me, I doubt you'll live."

"I could say the same thing." I told her. "Without me, you would be cut up by that dude with the knife. I think I would be a better leader because I am more rational."

MI was going to say something, but the woman with the bow interupts her. "I was the one who shot the arrow that saved Pak! I should have a say in this."

"You had to be presu-" MI tries to butt in, but I want to hear what the arrow lady wants to say.

"Before you say so," I point to the archer. "Can I get your name?"

"Archie Rilassare," She calmly answers with a bit of a grin. "As I was saying, we should have a vote on who should be leader. We should also talk about what the leader does."

"THE LEADER, fun fact, LEADS!" MI expresses frustration at Archie.

"We should have a vote, Archie." I ignore MI and agree with Archie. "Maybe it'll get Duday to speak up."

"What do you mean?" Duday asks.

"Nothing." I told him. "My idea is that everyone gets to vote for everyone once. You can vote for however many people you want, but you can only vote for them once. This is the superior way of voting."

"I'm not sure about this." MI refuses to be ignored. "We can have the simpler system of 'you have one vote'. It's quick and easy."

"Okay then." I prepare to state the flaws in this system. "What if everyone votes for themself."

"What if everyone votes for everyone?" MI asks back. That is actually a reasonable response.

"What about we just rate how much we want someone to leave on a scale from 1 to 4." Archie adds a 3rd option. "1 being your first choice and four being your last choice. We use our fingers to represent the numbers."

"I... can work with that..." MI mumbles. "I guess."

"Same here." I stop walking. "Alright, how much do you want Duday to lead?" I point to Duday so they know who he is. I give a 3, Archie gives a 4, MI gives a 2, and Duday gives a 4.

"Now Archie." I move on. I give a 2, Archie gives a 2, MI gives a 3, and Duday gives a 3.

"Now MI." I continued.

"Don't call me MI." MI interrupts.

"What should I call you then?" I ask. "Mfe Iwe? That's kinda long."

"Call me Boa then." MI says after thinking for a bit.

"OKAY." I recollect myself. "Now we move one to BOA. Vote now." I give a 4, Archie gives a 1. Duday gives a 2 and Boa gives a 1 (obviously).

"With the remaining options left for me, I'll do the math." I say, then promptly do the mental math.

The person with the lowest score will lead. Duday has 13, Archie has 10, Boa has 8, and I have 9... Wait, that would mean Boa won. That- that shouldn't be right.

"A-As I thought." I stutter a bit. "I won with 8 points. The person with the least points wins."

"Hate to break it to you," Duday calls out my lies. "But you suck at math. I did the math and Boa won."

"WOOOOOOOOOOO!" Boa runs in a circle with her arms in the air. "GET FUCKED!"

"Duday's right." Archie confirms.

"Alright." Boa calms down. "We've wasted too much time, let's continue on our path.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm kinda pissed. I would've made a better leader to be honest. Yeah, I would've also said to move forward, but do I- really think- Boa bad. Oh god, its-it happen en againi. J-just don't think.

"Eugh." I accidentally let out a grunt. Nobody car, car go fast. NO, focus, locus, smokus. No smoking, smoking bad, locing sad. I'm sad. That's bad.

"So your name is Duday." I hear the Archy say to the dubada.

"Yes," Duduy blunkly answered. "But that isn't important."

"Okay." La Ench sued. This his is mack my hed hurt!

I'm hate when his is happening. It repeats self and mack no sense. I'm got no hair wit hit!

"You look a bit confused." Boa intuputs mein thunkin. "I guess you're just a bit salty after taking that loss, eh?"

"I AM NOT!" I accidentally shouted at her. "I was just thinking about something." I guess my brain had to do a hard reset.

"Then tell me," Boa looks at me with her STUPID face. "What were you thinking about, Miss Philosopher?"

"I was just thinking about the difference between you and me." I give a comeback. "I know when to wait and you don't. I am a waiter, you are a doer."

"That's a good thing." Boa flips her hair in a sassy manner.

"For me, yeah." I explained. "I take my time, consider my options, and react in a way that would be the best for the situation. You do the first thing you think of and rush in head first."

"Ah," Boa gives me a smug look. "You are calling yourself a Thinker, not a Waiter. A Waiter serves others food. Jokes aside, they are too anxious to do anything, and once shit hits the fan, they lie about elections."

"Either way," I grit my teeth. "Waiters know when something is dangerous and survive while Doers' recklessness will get themselves killed."

"Okay, okay." Boa's smile gets wiped off her face. "Think about it like this. A bridge is about to collapse. A Thinker would know to get off the bridge and jump toward the end of the bridge. A Doer would try to get to the end of the bridge instantly without any hesitation. A Waiter would waste their time and fall to their death."

"Maybe," I accept the idea. "But think about this. A 'Thinker', a Doer, and a Waiter walk up to a raggedy bridge. A Thinker would look at the bridge and know that it would fall if they stepped on it. The Waiter would also think about this as our Doer runs onto the bridge and it collapses."

"Well if I was on a collapsing bridge." Boa scoffs at me. "I would at least try to use you as a pillow to break my fall." Boa flips me off and walks off toward Archie. I used to be able to bear her and I should, but something about her is just ticking me.

Duday walks up to me. "Looks like you have some drama." He says, eating popcorn.

"Where did you get that?" I ask in confusion.

"What popcorn?" Duday tosses the bag into a nearby bush. I check the bush and the popcorn is gone.

"HOW!?" I check the bush over and over again. "Where did it go?!"

"The only thing that is leaving is your chance to take out the other 5 bas-" He doesn't answer. "Sorry '4' bastards."

"How do you know the number of-" I am more and more confused. "Wh-what?!"

"Lucky guess." Duday lies.

"Can you tell me how you got that bag of popcorn?" I ask again.

"I didn't have a bag of popcorn-" Duday repeats.

"I know you did." I reach for my sword. "Now tell me, how did you get the popcorn?"

"DEEZ!" He tosses his hands into the air. "It's just popcorn. Calm down."

"I AM CALM!" I calmly tell him, unsheathing my sword. "NOW TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT THE GODDAMN POPCORN OR I WILL STICK THIS BLADE WHERE THE SUN DOESN'T SHINE!"

"Okay." He raises his eyebrow. "I just thought about popcorn and it appeared in my hands."

"Bullshit." I called him out. "I think about stuff all the time and I never get anything."

"It requires focus." He explains. "Something I assume you lost."

I put back my blade. "Then you're gonna explain how to do it to me." I demand him. "If you don't, then I'll do something worse than killing you."

"Like what?" He scoffs.

"Do the others know about this?" I ask.

"Yeah." He blandly replies.

"Then I can just ask them." I start to walk off.

"NO!" Duday grabs my arm. "Okay, they might not."

"Knew it." I told him. "Now show me how to get... stuff, or I'll tell them you are hiding secrets."

"Okay," Duday scratches his head. "Close your eyes and think about something that you want. Something that you can hold."

I close my eyes. If I could have anything I could hold in my hands, it would be... Hmmm... That is a good question. I guess it would be a time travel device. Even better, a universe hopping device. If not, then I guess a bucket of shrimp could do.

"Have you thought about it?" Duday asks, interrupting my train of thought.

"Yeah," I confirm. "Now what's next?"

"Keep your eyes closed and hold out your hands." Duday instructs me. "Once you feel something in your hands, you can open your eyes."

I stick my hands out and wait, thinking about that sweet bucket of barbecued shrimp. I am really hungry now.

I hear Duday run away. If I don't get my shrimp in the next 5 minutes, I'm gonna kill him...

I just noticed how aggressive I've been. I'm not usually like this. I guess the stress is getting to me.

Finally, I feel something fall onto my hands. It is definitely not a bucket of shrimp because of its shape and I don't think universal time devices leak liquids, but I don't study that shit.

I open my eyes and see the decapitated head of some stranger... person. It is wearing what I can only identify as a wrestling mask. It is honestly kinda gross, but I don't want to be rude to the head.

Imagine if I had my head cut off and some random woman just held my head and stared at me in disgust. If anyone did that to me, it would hurt my pride... and maybe my head.

I softly put down the head, because it might be terrifying, but I don't think I would want someone to toss my head to the ground.

"What the fuck?!" I mutter the only thing I could think of as a reaction. The head is definitely dead. It's so gross, but I just... can't stop looking at it. I should just drop kick it.

No. I'm gonna tell the group about this. I'm sure we'll be able to exile Duday. I have no proof of it, but I am pretty sure this is his doing.

I try walking back to the group, but I slow down as I see my background is changing. I kept walking and I ended up in a strange whie room with pillars and white leather seats. The floor is very clean.

I see 2 people walk into the room, so I sit down in one of the chairs. They don't seem to notice me. I get to see a closer look at the 2. One of them is wearing a formal suit and type. She is relatively normal height, has brown hair and eyes, and is wearing gloves. She is speed walking to catch up to the other person, looking very tired.

The other person is wearing some sort of... biker helmet? I can't tell. He is slightly taller than the woman, has a fluffy brown jacket that he didn't zip up, and under that he is wearing suit pants and what I can only assume is a suit shirt.

"That was a nice... 15 laps, yeah 15." The helmet man puffs out his chest, his helmet producing a light blue light from said helmet. "Now, what were you saying?"

"17, actually." The formal woman catches her breath, holds her hand out to block the bright light.

"I know," The man bloated with the color of his helmet changing to a darker purple color. "I'm not as lazy and stupid as you none choosen mortals."

"Apologies." The woman mutters, squinting her eyes at the light. "But I got news from the robot about Conflict."

"Nocilcft, Das," The man's helmet light turns off. "It's Nocilcft."

"No sniff, yeah." The woman, who I assume her name is Das, quickly responds. "Buster's head has been transported there. Are you okay?"

"What?" The man says in a low tone, the color of his helmet turning orange.

"Apparently, Buster's head was found by one of the contestants." Das explained to her. "Or whatever you call them. Look, do you still miss bus-"

"DON'T YOU EVEN SAY HIS NAME!" The man glaries down at Das, the color of the helmet changing to a bright red. "It must've been the fuckin- Look, I'll handle it myself. Don't you have political shit to do or something?"

"Not for a while-" Das answers.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" The man shouts back at Das, who seems only slightly unnerved. "I WILL TURN YOUR RETARDED BITCH ASS INSIDE OUT IF YOU DON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Das stands there and nods. She turns around and looks at me. I think I am going to die.

"Scheiße" Das whispers to herself. "Entschuldigung, aber Sie müssen von Ihrem Platz aufstehen."

I think she's speaking dutch. I learned a bit of dutch before and I should try talking to her.

"Ik spreek geen Spaans." I told her. That means I don't speak much dutch.

"Was?" She asks... I think.

"I speak english." I give up trying to speak dutch.

"Well can you get out of the-" Das pauses. "Wait a minute." She walks over to the man and tabs his shoulder. "Hey, Neon."

The man (who is Neon?) turns his head around without turning his body. "What is it, deutschbag?" He says in an unenthusiastic tone, turning off the helmet light.

Das points over toward me. "Aren't they from None clift?" She asks while starting to walk behind him.

"Uhhhhh..." Neon looks at me, changing his lights to a light brown color. "Your subpar brain is right. Hold on, I'll fix this."

Before I could ask, I was laying down in the woods. The same woods from early. Was... was I actually on some sort of psychedelic? Can't be, can it?

I look where the head was and it is no longer there. I also get a glimpse at my hands and it appears to be covered in some sort of red liquid. I don't want to say blood, because I've seen my own blood and it isn't that dark, but it might be blood.

I get up and walk back to where I remember the group was, but they weren't there. Did I move? What is going on? Either way, I at least have to find someone to ask these questions to. I decide to walk forward and I see 3 people.

"Pākiki, is that you?!" I hear someone who sounds like Boa shout. A person next to them covers the shouter's mouth.

"Yeah?" I shout back. "Boa?"

The group walks closer.

"Stop shouting." Archie tells us. She turns toward me and gives me a look of disgust. "Is... is that..." She tries to say something. "Are you covered in blood?"

I look at my arm this time and, yeah, that's definitely blood. "I think so."

"WHY!?" Archie asks.

"That time of the month again?" Boa jokes.

"HAHA." Archie fakes a laugh. "I'm gonna puke."

"I don't know." I say honestly. Then I look at Duday and he puts his finger over his mouth. "I was just walking and..." I'm about to lie, am I? "I just passed out."

"Well we don't have time for questions." Boa grabs Archie's arm. "We've got to go."

"Okay." I responded. I have a bad feeling about what might happen after this.

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