I had Jane keep her blindfold on for a few more minutes as Ali's body was taken into the forest and put into a prepared hole that was dug just yesterday. I didn't know nor didn't care how long she had known she would die for. Whatever the duration, it must have been devastating for the young girl.

We all die sometime, she just knew what time it would be. That is arguably worse than dying randomly.

Everything was cleaned and back to normal so I had Jane take off the cloth. She was perfectly fine, none the wiser about what had transpired. Ignorance is bliss. She looked just like all the other people in the village; just as happy, though they were not ignorant of the events. They saw this as a festival, a day to remember for the rest of the year until the next one.

We all sat at the tables and wooden bowels were passed down the table, filled with the stew. There were chunks of meat and vegetables sitting in a slightly thick red liquid. I guess that would be the blood that made it red. Nothing wrong with a little clinical vampirism on special occasions; though I tend not to eat a piece of the people I kill.

I wondered how similar the vegetables were on this planet. I already knew that fruit had similarities and differences, so the same probably extended to the other food groups. I grabbed my simplistic wooden spoon as took a spoonful. It was a bit difficult to eat since the spoon was so flat and wide, but it was genuinely delicious.

All the chunks were a perfect size and the liquid slid down my throat like ambrosia. It was the greatest stew I had ever eaten. Mr. Stomach was enjoying it immensely.

*Happy Digesting Gurgle*

After several months, you have finally gotten your proper meal; cutlery and everything.

The taste of iron was nowhere to be found in the mixture. I tried to use every little section of my tastebuds to find it, but I was unable to. They killed people yearly, and their cooking skills were heavenly.

Maybe I don't have to kill any of them.

Jane was happily eating her food while sitting next to me. Every bite was savored by her. She had been eating the barest of sustenance needed to survive since our quest began, so she was due a proper meal.

I realized something after my first few bites; if I came from a world where cooking was super-advanced, and this food tastes even better than that food, then did that mean to the people of this world, this food was beyond heavenly? It was a good thought to fill my time as I ate.

The other people were all talking about stories related to Ali. I assumed it was part of the 'keeping her memory alive' thing. They ranged from embarrassing, all the way to downright shameful. I cared not for the mindless banter and shallow storytellings; instead, I sought out the boy.

He was the only one not happy at the whole event. He hadn't even eaten any of the stew yet. He just sat at the edge of the table without anyone around him. I excused myself from where I was with Jane, allowing her to continue her conversation with the villager. She had made a connection with them in just 10 minutes; a social animal.

I took my wooden bowel over to the boy's table. He was clearly holding back tears; his face all puffy and red. I almost took pity on the kid, the girl was clearly important to him. Her loss was tearing him apart, physically ostracizing him from the rest of his village.

Don't form attachments; you'll never be hurt.

"Hey man, are you ok?"

The boy looked at me with anger and rage boiling just beneath the surface. It felt like he wanted to take a rock and bash my skull in. His body began to shake slightly and the tears he held back threatened to fall.

"My sister is dead, my grandfather personally killed her, my mother held her down, and everyone I knew and cared about is celebrating it. So you tell me how I am. Am I alright? Do I look 'ok' to you?"

Such hostility. Laughable though. I remember my unbridled rage phase, it passes quickly. You can only remain physically angry for so long until it needs to be transformed, for better or for worse.

I sat down across from him, taking a long slurp from my spoon. I was gonna enjoy this.

"So, you want me to answer your obviously rhetorical question?"

I watched his shaking intensify and he anger whispered, "Do you want me to hit you? I'll do it."

"Go ahead then; if that's what will help. Just know, I don't pull my punches either."

That seemed to simmer him down, just enough to start talking reasonably again, "Why are you even here. You and your friend aren't from this area, evident by your hair colors. What could you possibly be traveling towards when we are so close to the badlands."

"Buy me a drink first before asking my deepest and most personal questions. And the name of my inquisitor?"

"Alen."

"Alen? A-len? Got it, your new name is Allen. It's close enough."

Allen's anger flared up again, but I put my finger over his lips.

"Shhhhh... according to my invisible watch, you should be grieving by now. Anger is like glue, it holds the cracks together, but the structure becomes weakened. The faster you fix the problem, the less glue you need. You catchin' my drift?"

Allen paused, maybe even thinking about my words, "Why do you care? So what if I'm angry?"

"I CARE because your anger is not real. It's anger to fill the void left behind by loss. Real anger, true and pure hatred, is something that is not forged overnight. It stews and boils inside of you until your insides turn black. Every action becomes infused with anger until it blinds you to the world. No one seems to understand you and no one cares enough to help. You are left alone to continue stewing in your rage until it boils over. You become the darkness, forever scarred, irreparably and irrecoverably changed in mind, body, and soul. In other words, your pitiful rage gives anger a bad rap."

Allen was at a loss for words, so I shoved more down his ear canals, "DEAL. WITH. YOUR. SHIT. Accept it and find peace, or submit to anger, either way, you are releasing control."

I took another spoonful of stew, slurping it slowly. The stew had miraculously remained warm even twenty minutes after it was poured. It was just as tasty as my first sip. The previous speech hadn't affected me in the slightest. The words flowed out of me like water; inevitably finding an outlet.

Allen stared into oblivion for a while and contemplated his life.

Good kid.

I picked out a tasty-looking potato bit and secretly fed it to Turtley in my bag. He snapped it up and gobbled it down. It was so adorable to watch. I rubbed his little head and continued to eat my food.

Life was going good right now. I had my turtle and soon-soon-to-be-turtle-empire, water, food, and whatever my relationship with Jane was. It was a punctuated moment of happiness in my life. I allowed myself to feel a bit of contentment.

---------

Uilo was sifting through her mountains of data when she was alerted to a branch inevitability. Two dozen viable futures in her data mountains evaporated from her mind as those realities no longer existed. The causal link was destroyed, and so was the data. This was great news, she would know for a fact what event was going to transpire. She quickly looked over it with hope, and it turned out that it wasn't what she expected.

"This is... not optimal. I should call in a few favors to change some things. And soon."

Uilo watched over the inevitable future event over and over again. Every smidge of data that she could glean from it was critical to the future outcome.

"The best thing to come out of this is that Mr. Murder Phsyco is creating more divergent paths. He is becoming harder and harder to predict. The final future has already become blurry around the edges; he is the key. Now, I just need him to believe that."

---------

I sat happily in my backpack. The spare clothes beneath me were like a warm pillow that gently rubbed my shell. My tiny head rested upon its soft surface.

It's good to be a turtle.

Max and Jane had brought him to more friends! I was a bit sad he had confined me to the bag, but I enjoyed watching all the people on the outside. There were a few minutes where I was unable to see whatever Max started to whisper worriedly about, but it must not have been super important, everyone was happy and eating stew. I even got a little potato piece.

Max had become best friends with Allen, I could tell immediately that they were the bestest buddies ever ever. I just knew it, something in my shell told me. It was a small tickle, right next to my heart.

I sat down rested easy knowing that my bestest friend had also made a bestest friend.

I wish everyone could be bestest friends with everyone.

Allen looked kind of sad though, like Max's words had dislodged something inside of him that was uncomfortable for him to deal with. I just wanted to give him a hug and tell him everything would be ok.

I wanted to jump out of this bag and grab his big face with my tiny turtle hands. I would stare into his eyes and say, 'Everything will be alright.' He would fall over himself with joy at the revelation that he would be fine.

But then again, turtles can't talk.

As I was daydreaming about the theoretical emotional connection, Allen broke out of his funk and looked at Max, "You are right."

Max smiled, "I'm always right. Except for when I'm not."

"Thank you. I... I haven't been able to talk with anyone. They would completely blacklist me. Talking against the forest rituals is basically asking for me to be sacrificed next. And the sad thing is, my mother wouldn't even be sad. She would accept it with a smile; having both of her children stripped away from her and murdered, all for this invisible force."

I watched Max just continue to nod while eating his food. He clearly wasn't listening.

"I just need to make them see. I need to make them realize how wrong they were; how we need to stop these rituals and find a new path forward, one not built on a foundation of blood stew."

Max piped up once he suggested that, and spoke with a mouthful of stew, "Slow down there, bad idea. You've got here a classic --- he swallowed the soup --- case of a cult, people willing to do anything and give everything for the cause. There is no rationality in it, just pure brainwashing. You cannot sway them with logic. And all that makes me wonder, why are you now so against it. What changed with you? Where did the formula go wrong?"

Allen didn't seem to have an answer for that. There was just this little nibbling at the back of his mind. 'This is wrong.' It had been with him his entire life. He was always skeptical about the whole ritual and wondered why they never just stopped it.

"I guess I'm just built differently."

Max rolled his eyes, "Sure you are."

Allen started to talk more about the previous rituals, how his father had been selected the year after he was born, how his grandfather sacrificed his grandmother. He talked about how the ceremonial family has a greater skew in the selection process. He even told about how a small vial of stew was preserved indefinitely as a last memento of the person they gave up.

Gross.

Max seemed interested in the segway, "So what is in this stew anyway? I've had some amazing food before, but this is beyond exceptional."

Allen was casual about it, "This stew? The one with blood in it? I mean... it's just a recipe passed down from 13 generations ago."

"13? Are you sure you aren't pulling that number out of your ass?"

"Positive. Stew repository; remember? 340 years worth of glass vials with stew. 341 now..."

"The recipe?"

"Yeah, sorry. It's got some wild tubers, some mushrooms, some grains, some grasses, a bunch of spices that grow in the forest, and meat. Mammals and reptiles mostly, we aren't close enough to the sea for fish."

Max was interested. That was a ton of material, no wonder the stew had such a unique flavor. Mixing meats was always a surefire way to get a different flavor.

"Mammals and reptiles? How many meats are in here?"

"6."

"That's insane."

"Beleive me, it's six. They always prepare it the same way."

"What kinds?"

"Lupines, deer, foxes, rodents, snakes, and turtles."

I was startled in shock just a bit, but looked at Max. He was white as a sheet. His face was entirely drained of color and his voice turned raspy. It sounded like he used chalk as mouthwash.

"Are. You. Sure? Turtles?"

Allen looked to the side, remembering the exact recipe, "Yeah. I'm 100 percent sure. The forest here is lush. Even though they are mostly concentrated in the badlands, a few can be found roaming around these parts."

I watched Max lean across the table and grab Allen by his shirt. His hands were shaking and his eyes were filled with horror. He screamed at Allen, right in his face.

"I need a knife NOW!"

Allen was scared, Max changed way too quickly. Well, for outsiders. I watch him change at the drop of a hat.

Allen ran off to grab a steel knife. It was reminiscent of a chef's knife, but a bit longer. Max immediately grabbed the knife and plunged it into his stomach, ripping open the skin and letting his innards leak out. I was spinning in circles, trying to yell for him to stop. Alas, my unspoken words fell on no ears.

Max started pulling his intestines out like they were scarfs in a magic act, trying to find both ends of his digestive system. Blood was absolutely everywhere. He hadn't bothered to go somewhere far away, so he did it on the grass right next to the table. There were a few panicked screams as people saw what Max was doing.

I tried to climb out of the bag, but found little success. Max was bleeding out fast, his pendant not able to keep up with his pace of mutilation. He found the large intestines connection to the rectum and sliced it off. Next, he reached up inside his own sternum with the knife and cut his stomach off from his esophagus.

With what little strength he had left, he ran to the river and started to swallow mouthfuls and mouthfuls of water. The water went straight down his esophagus and right out of his body again through the uncapped tube.

Several people had already fainted from the scene. A man, completely mutilated by his own hand, running around and freaking out. Jane had already sprinted over and was trying to stop him, but it was of no use. Max was already done purging his system. Not a single scrap of the stew was left in his body.

The pendant glowed harder, trying to heal Max. I watched with bated breath as the sound on his stomach healed and at least stop his bleeding out. It would probably be an uphill battle for the internal bleeding, but I was relieved to see him still breathing.

This village is not going to have a good time when he wakes up. I only hope I can stop him.