After being rustled up, I couldn't sit still to rest or to lick my wounds. No. I knew I had to think of something and fast.
Like a big snail, I ignored the pain in my foot and began to think about our situation. I knew that the Spike-shelled snails were going to give us horrible demands, especially with 60 as their diplomat. 'They probably wanted to use their high and mighty position to put us into slavery or kick us off the branch. In any case. I'm as good as dead.' I thought. 'We need a plan. A good plan... We can't give them time to prepare... they are physically stronger than us due to their larger size. They also have better weapons and better protection because of their spiked shells... Then what should we do? They also have 11 and 7 captives. No way am I going to leave a snail behind.'
I started to think hard and tried to zone out everything else. 'I need to focus. No more distractions. I need to think about every possibility. I need to incorporate everything that I had learned in my 18 days of life and put it into a single plan.' I thought. "Think harder, think faster, think think think." It muttered to myself.
Slowly the world around me begun to dim. The soft muttering and the movement of my worried siblings around me started to fade out into the background. Soon, all I could hear was nothing but my own thoughts.
It was such a weird feeling. I felt like I would only be able to do this once in a long, long period of time so I quickly grasped my chance and used it to the utmost of my capability.
In this mental space, I thought about many plans. I thought about backup plans. I thought about backup plans to the backup plans. I thought about fighting them. I thought about taking members of their colony hostage. I thought about trying peace offerings once more. All of these thoughts passed through my head in a span of a few minutes as I went through hundreds of plans within my mind. My mind was running thirty or even a hundred times faster than before. It was surreal. Completely surreal.
...
While I was thinking about plans in my newly discovered mental world, my siblings had begun to discuss the whole situation amongst themselves.
"How could 60 betray us?" a snail asked.
"She must have had a reason." another snail answered.
"I think she just doesn't like our big brother." another snail added.
"Maybe she's the Spike-shelled leader's lover now...?"
"Or better yet... She is now the spiked shelled snails leader?"
Similar conversations spread throughout the colony until another snail brought up another issue. "What will happen to us now?" one asked.
"I don't know. It depends on their demands."
"Will they force us to leave?" another asked.
"They might." another snail answered with some certainty.
"No, they may kill us off. We eat leaves too. They might want to get rid of us to eat our leaf." one suggested.
"But why would they kill us? They could just force us to leave." another snail asked.
"Have you seen that shell 60? I overheard 60 say that it was Timmy. They ate Timmy!" proclaimed another snail.
...
And then it escalated.
"What if they really want to eat all of us. What if we are the food?"
"We are all going to be killed?"
...
And then it escalated even more.
"They'll force us off the branch!"
"We will be enslaved and be used as their toys!"
"They'll eat us alive just like what they did to Timmy."
"They'll dissect us and study our bodies."
They all started to shout out random things as they escalated the situation even further. Some snails even began sliding around the leaf in a panic.
...
Meanwhile, I was still making plans in my mental world. I'm sure some of my siblings approached me to asked me what I thought about the situation and what I thought we should do. I mean I was their leader after all. I should have had a plan or at least be able to calm them down a little. But I couldn't hear them. I had zoned out all my senses and all I could do was think.
In fact, I probably made our situation worse. I mumble to myself as I thought about my plans. Think about it. What if your leader ignored you and was mumbling a whole spew of words out loud like a demonic beast. The same leader who just stood there with two bullet hole like wounds that were bleeding and dripping blue blood. How would you react?
"Our big brother has gone insane!"
"He's bleeding and he isn't reacting!!!"
"HE HAS BLUE BLOOD! HE'S POSSESSED BY A DEMONIC BEAST!"
"Kill me now oh merciful heavens..."
"The Spiked-shelled snails can control demons!"
...
After a few minutes of intense thinking. Yes, it was a few minutes. I slowly came back to my senses. In that brief period of time, my siblings had begun to riot. I couldn't believe that in just a couple of minutes, over half of them had gone crazy.
"Sacrifice... Sacrifice..."
It was a chant. A chant was the first thing I could make out through all the chaos.
In the distance, a group of 4 snails had surrounded another group 2 snails and they had begun to circle around them. "Sacrifice them! Sacrifice them to the Spike-shells! Sacrifice them so we can live!" They shouted as they swirled around the two smaller snails in the centre. I watched as my scared siblings sunk into their shells to protect themselves.
"Sacrifice... Sacrifice..." they chanted.
That was not even the beginning. No. Soon I witnessed other snails wail about and bang their heads against the leaf yelling, "I'll think of something to save us." or "It's no use in living anymore... I don't want to be eaten." More things were happening in the distance, but I was too focused on what was happening in front of me to care.
I turned to one of my siblings and they suddenly yelled "DEMON!" and ran away.
It was complete chaos. Can you believe it? All this happened in just a few minutes. I wondered what my family was going to do in a dire situation without me.
...
The first thing I did was charge towards the group that was chanting. Instantly without any words, I rammed one of the snails that were chanting and broke their circle. I then grabbed the nearest snail with my foot. "Snap out of it!" I yelled in their face. "Sacrifice... Sacrifice..." they continued to chant. I didn't know what to do, so I did the only thing that seemed reasonable at the time. I gave his face a good slapping with my eyestalks. "Sacri...Wah...huh... Why me?" they cried out.
I ignored their cry and gave them another smack. "Huh, why are you slapping me...?" they asked. 'It's working...' I thought. I turned around and smacked some sense into another snail.
'It's been a long time since I got to beat up something.' It thought as I turned once more and wailed on a third snail. "I'll teach you who the real sacrifice is..." I said as I pounded on the fourth snail and turned my attention back to the first and began to smack them with my eyestalks once more.
After another round of slapping, one of them shouted, "Stop! Okay, no sacrifices... I'm sorry... I'm ... I'm calm now...". Instead of stopping, I gave that particular snail another slap with my foot. "What did you say?" I asked. "We won't sacri... sacrifice anyone..." they replied. I slapped them once more. "What did you say?" I asked once more. "No.. no more sacrifices.." They replied. And guess what? I slapped them all once more for good measure.
No. I didn't slap them because it was fun okay? I didn't slap them because it relieved my stress okay? I didn't slap them because I wanted to beat something up after I was beaten up that morning. Nope. Definitely not. I was a good snail. I had good intentions. It was to discipline them. I had to make an example or the other snails would understand their situations...
...
"Now that I have smacked your minds back into your heads, go and help me smack some sense into your other siblings. You know the crazy ones. Smack them hard. Smack them fast. Smack the crazy out of their heads!" I shouted as I slid towards another snail in the distance.
Soon the sounds wet objects hitting other wet objects filled the air.
Surprisingly, the wet mucous filled slaps were highly effective at calming them down and the one who was doing the slapping also felt their own stress decrease. It was a win-win situation. In fact, it was too good a situation. From that day forward, the act of slapping each other became a well-known gesture within my family. It also became a solution to most problems. Yup. It became a universal solution.
Got a headache? I'll slap it out. Got a wound? I'll slap some medicine on there for ya pal. Your grandma died last week? Don't worry, I'll slap you so hard that you'll forget about her and all your problems. Oh and maybe your name as well.
...
After a slapping interlude, my siblings had finally calmed down. Most of them were groaning and rubbing their faces with their feet as I gathered them into a group and began to address the situation.
"Hello, fellow snails. As you all know 60 has betrayed us. A few days ago, she had run away from our leaf to the Spike-shelled snails. I thought she was doing us a good. I thought she was trying to increase I relationship with the Spike-shelled snails. Instead, she was selfish. She ran away and join their colony and how she has convinced them to attack us instead. She will bring us demands from the Spike-shells that morning."
I looked around at our group at all the sad beaten little faces that stared back at me.
"But that doesn't mean we should give up. No, we will try harder. We will show them that WE should be the ones making the demands." I said.
"They were so big. Don't tell me we are going to fight them." one of my siblings complained. "Yeah, how?" others asked. This question had been on their minds from the beginning. How were we going to turn the situation around? The answer as my plan. The plan that I came up with during my moment of supercomputer-like thinking that I had earlier.
...
"Yes, we are going to fight them. But not directly. As you all know were are weaker, we are smaller and they have our brother and sister captive." I said. "Thus, we need fight them differently. We fight them with smarts and a little bit of trickery." I continued. "Now huddle together. I'm going to explain the plan. I need all of you. Don't worry if you haven't joined the defence team, we don't actually need to fight them head-on. The plan will begin this afternoon. We strike fast before they have any chance to react." I said.
...
After explaining the plan and going through it multiple times that morning, we put the plan into motion that afternoon.