When Sigmund saw, he knew, he fled. Meat was back on the table, and it scared him.

He had already eaten some of it. The meat marked the end of times.

After consuming a mixture of bark and bitter herbs for two days, the appearance of this slightly rotten tasting protein rich substance set off every alarm in those who could connect the dots. Sigmund then came back after fleeing, he had grown hungry.

When the game ended, he started the construction of the automaton, discovering that theory was one thing, but that in practice things tended to grow more complicated.

Forking paths of electricity for one did not work like imagined, the current would merely move through one singular path of least resistance. This could be easily solved in one or another way - he just had to use the relais to close another circuit at the same time.

This would require several circuits and thus several connections to several electricity sources. Or it could merely do one thing really fast and change doing that thing, but make it lead up to another thing - multitasking itself would not be possible.

This again caused an upheaval of new challenges in the system, which had delayed his progress significantly. The only reason he still stayed was the rotten taste of the meat.

It was old meat, probably not recent meat, it was not dangerous yet.

So he stayed and kept tinkering. He tinkered until he heard a thumping wet noise.

When he saw the body, the blood, he abandoned his unborn automaton child and ran away.

What was quick at first, grew labored breaths, sweaty back and burning legs.

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Nontheless he ran, as if it were a bus behind him. Just like Chaden desired to keep playing, Sigmund desired to keep running, but his body did not comply - he slowed.

He walked, he walked and there was screaming and shouting and wet noises.

It had started to smell delicious, well seasoned meat on a grill. Sigmund stopped to catch breath. He would have to keep running or it would be him who was smelling so good, foreign teeth biting into what was his, silence after a shout, forever nothing.

Would it not be easier to accept it? What was all this struggle worth?

Even if he did not get eaten, would he even see the next ten years?

Could he not take an easier way, a faster way, a less ardurous path?

It was the pain of physical exhaustion, a pain that Sigmund was not used to, a pain that he could not simply ignore. A weak nerd would always cave if pressured to move too much.

Sigmund sat onto the ground, then he was laying there, pretending to be dead.

Only his chest rising and falling, a traitorous trait, was painfully obvious to see, but he did not care.

The shouting and butchering went on, violence was blooming like a red flower smelling roasted. Brothers fought, lovers betrayed each other, human became synonym with the feeling of satiation. This was the consequence of being constructed out of the things one had consumed, to be consumable oneself.

If there is nothing to eat, there is still something that is consumable as long there are people that percieve the nothing that there is to eat. If one can not ignore it, it becomes oneself.

Such is the ease at which we are to be replaced by our basic logical nature.