Looking back at it now, I sort of want to laugh. I mean back then I was scared for my life, I was terrified. It was a horrifying ordeal, the tribe's coming of age ceremony. I've heard rumors, but no one is ever allowed to speak of it. And it changed people too, which, in some cases, was devastating. These bright young kids, some of them became a shells of who they once were. Their enthusiasm fell short and they lost the motivation to perform for the tribe. Some went into self-exile, and others attempted to rebel, albeit poorly.

Imagine it, choosing to go into self-exile at that age. There are stories of some who immediately left, and others let the feelings build until they could no longer move forward with the tribe.

It made and broke us, the young boys of the village. Sometimes, through the cracks it created in our mind, we were able to grow, but sometimes it left us defeated, no longer able to fight back.

That was the tribe. This is what they inflicted on themselves. Some say it was poorly manufactured tradition. But I thought differently. In this world, the one I was reborn into, it was necessary.

Anyways, I’m an Earthling… Or I was an Earthling… I transmigrated into this new world and was introduced to the tribe. And what I encountered here… It changed me forever…

I don’t think I’m the same innocent kid I was on Earth. Earth, it was a place of freedom, where the impossible could happen, and where dreams came true. But it was also a machine; a machine that broke you down in a different way. It’s like every path you chose in that place was a gamble, and if you trip once or missed one appointment, your life could change forever and you would be left in the dirt. And no one ever told you what was going on; people rarely stopped to help. It was lonely, that place; lonely and cold.

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But in some ways, it was also a wonderful place. It was a place where hope flourished. No matter how tough things were, or how harsh the reality, there were always some people… Trailblazers and dream-makers all of them, god bless their souls… They never stopped pushing. For a better world, a better life, whether it was for their grandchildren or their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

Truly, anything could of happened in that place.

But in the tribe…

In the tribe it was different. Some would call it ignorant, but after my journey, I’m unable to call it that. The tribe was connected in a very special way, to the divine. The divine provided everything for the tribe, and it taught them the deep secrets of the human mind; it taught them how the world was structured and how people should be structured. The tribe understood that people were fickle, so the rules governing them were like an iron fist, conformed upon by all who were accepted by the tribe. It could truly be seen as one unit, one organism, each person was an arm of the tribe. There was unity because the leaders understood what it was, that fickleness, that restlessness of the soul. The tribe simply gave that restlessness a direction, a function. The tribe's goal was fulfillment, for each arm of the tribe. It wanted the best for them, even in this world.

The tribe leaders would never admit it but the tribe was not governed by strength. At this part I actually want to laugh at. Just thinking about it, all those tough blood-baptized warriors, and the tribe wasn’t even governed by strength. No, the tribe was governed by something much more powerful. It was the divine that guided the tribe, but that’s not what brought the tribe together, that allowed us to function so efficiently. From the youngest children, to the sickest and most frail of us, we could feel it from the depths of our souls. What governed the tribe was love. Hah! Damn, I want to laugh so bad. It’s beautiful and terrible, but damn us if it wasn’t our reality.

As for what the divine intended for our tribe… That was our job to find out… That was our journey…