Famine has been staying in the living room for the past 2 and half hours. He's restless, having moved constantly and having sat in every chair. It's been said that the quietest ones are usually the most dangerous, and normally that would be the case. This time though, he's been nervous rather than focused angry. He keeps moving around, as if he's being pestered by an invisible mosquito. If I don't listen to him, he's going to have a fairly bad time.

Me: So Sarvty, how's it going?

Famine: What do you think Pip? It's going quite fine. I just, I can't really shake the feeling that something's wrong with the room. There are too few chairs here. In case your parents come back, we're going to have a problem with seating arrangements. I'm freaking out man…

Nervously audible is his voice. He fidgets with the chair he's standing in front of, clutching onto it and tightening his grip on it. Oh crap, he might break it.

Me: Easy there Famine, don't break the chair. (I reach over and clutch his arm, gently setting his hands off of them.) Whatever you need, I'll get it for you. Oh, and don't call me Pip. Only War gets to call me Pip. We're the same height, remember?

Famine: A chair. We need another chair. There's 6 here, but we need 7.

Me: Sure. Let's go for a drive, just you and me. We'll take the Volkswagen Golf and leave.

Before we get to the garage, I signaled to Conquest to follow suit. Death and War get to stay at home undetected while we venture out to buy some new furniture. Those chairs of mine were fucking garbage anyways. They fuck up your back. I hate fucking chairs that aren't straight.

A red Volkswagen Golf with a dash cam recorder. Its small size complements the small amount of money my parents are willing to spend on things such as this. Their one motto is that entertainment takes a backseat to hard work. Hard work: Such as finding a job, studying hard for college, and finding someone to spend your life with. I haven't got a job at this point, my studies aren't as good, and I haven't been interested in finding a girlfriend yet. One thing has to happen at a time. I get in the driver's seat while Famine gets in the other front seat. I open the garage door and drive out. Conquest follows suit by jumping across rooftops.

We drive around on the freeway, not able to find a furniture store that suited our needs. However, the problem is not furniture. It does have something to do with it though. Did y'all honestly think we were going to have a furniture buying chapter?

Me: So I'm getting the impression that this furniture is representative of something you don't want to see. I'm getting the feeling you're projecting some past memory in the form of my shitty chairs. I understand that you're not the one to talk about your problems as quickly as you would want, so I took this car trip to get the time for me to know you.

Famine: Bingo. I'm guessing you could say those chairs are representative of some of my habits.

Me: What habits, exactly?

Famine: My eating habits.

Famine: Pip, have you ever done something so irrevocably shitty, so absolutely vile that you wanted to kill yourself afterwards to wipe the shame away? And have you ever wished you wanted to go back in time to do the situation over again?

Me: First, I said don't call me Pip. Second, yes. I have done a fair share of irrevocably shitty things. I've made my parents worry with the many lazy and irresponsible things I've done. I've lived my life hopelessly mediocre, drifting from passion to passion as if nothing could interest me. Nothing did interest me. It's just like, I couldn't really understand if there was anything that I could hold onto. I'm doing a real bad job of explaining this, and this seems really fucking unclear. To put it simply, I haven't found a real passion for something or something I really like, and I put up a front for myself to make it seem like I've got everything going good for myself. I've had many situations where I wanted to go back in time to fix it. I hated myself sometimes; hell, I even tried to kill myself with a butcher knife, I thought I was that damn worthless. But here I am, still living, still trying to find that purpose.

Famine: I see. Then I'm guessing you don't want to hear –

Me: Don't you fucking dare, Famine. I'm here to talk to you about the meaning of these chairs. We're going to keep driving until I solve that mystery. What do these chairs mean, Famine?

Famine: So you really want to know? Good.

At this point, we've driven around for a good half hour. We bought some new straight chairs and started to drive back home. I already called off Conquest as he said there was no chance of attack.

Famine: The irrevocably shitty thing I've done was that I was an incredibly selfish shit. Even more so than you think, more than what you've done. You talk about being lazy in school, not being able to find a part-time job yet. I'm not one-upping you when I say this, but I've committed an unspeakable sin. I killed my kingdom.

Me: OH SHIT!

I was so distracted from hearing him say the last part that I almost lose control of the car. It ends up spinning in circles and goes flying into the wilderness. I mentally yelled oh shit as well, which Famine took as a command to wither the trees we were about to spin into. After having a near-death experience, we got back to driving on the road. Out of the stories told today, Famine's was definitely the most shocking.

Me: See that? That's me right there; undependable and not very controlling.

Famine: It's fine. As I was saying, I killed my kingdom in a despicable manner. You see, my current eating habits originate from some eating habits I've had since I was a prince in the kingdom of Zanara. I was a gluttonous fuck, always eating away and picking whatever I wanted to eat. Everyone willingly gave me food, and I was ignorant. I was ignorant of the fact that it was during a season where there was a famine. All crops were dying, and the king ordered most of the food to be given to the royal family. There was nothing I could do. I could "talk" to my father, but he would not budge. Something about me being the "successor" and having to eat in order to survive and carry on the royal blood of the family. My mother had already died giving birth to me and I was the only heir, so I had no real power, no way to prevent people from starving. I was forbidden to give out any food, as at the moment of the part where I realized the enormity of the situation, I just received almost all of their supplies.

Famine: So I watched. I watched, and watched, and watched, and watched. I've killed so many people that day.

Me: There wasn't –

Famine: THERE WAS SO MUCH I COULD'VE DONE! I SHOULD'VE STOOD UP TO MY FATHER; I SHOULD'VE FOUGHT FOR MY SUBJECTS! Instead, I stood by as he maintained the order and allowed most of his people to starve to death.

Famine: You know how bad it got?

Me: How?

Famine: When I was visiting a farm next to the castle, I spotted a familiar subject. This was one that had cursed me out from the beginning of the ruling to a couple of days ago. I wondered what had happened to him. Then I saw the baby.

Famine: A baby so malnourished that it could bring a baby serial killer to tears. Skinny enough I could see its ribcage. Skinny face, skinny arms and legs, skinny chest, and it didn't have enough energy to cry. Think about that; not enough energy to even cry out in pain. All it can do is suffocating on its own suffering. It's an endless wall of torture pushing inwards until death. And I couldn't do shit. Not allowed to bring food outside the walls, as I get patted down in every single area just to see. (Yes, even the ones where you could get away with hiding food) I get observed by guards on every encounter outside the walls.

Famine: I held that baby's hands Pip. I held its almost lifeless hands in mine and faced the sins of my punishment. For being a selfish, cowardly piece of shit, I have to live with the sins of what I had done; for not standing up for these people, for not standing up to my father, for not taking matters into my own hands.

Me: Oh my god. No person should ever have to suffer through this, especially not a 12 year old kid.

Famine: I deserve it. For not being able to save these people I deserve to face these sins.

Famine: 3 years passed from that day. My father died peacefully in his sleep, the old piece of shit bastard. I was getting ready to hang myself with some rope I got from the stable. And the Gatekeeper showed up. He presented me the offer of being the Horseman Famine. Quite fitting, isn't it?

Famine: You know why I chose this role?

Me: To right your wrongs and make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else?

Famine: No. To be forever confronted by my sins as punishment for my inaction. It kills me to see the habits I still have left over. I have this predilection you've seen to want to eat many things; just another reminder of what I've fucking done. I take this role to punish myself for what I've done, and am constantly reminded of what I've done before by my habits: it drives me insane. The only thing that keeps my sanity together is the fact that I use this role as a Horseman to help others. That's why I can't stand it when Conquest talks about logistics. You're not going to care about logistics when your people are starving. I can't stand being forced to live while I see others dying of preventable causes.

Famine: The chairs were a way of projecting my problems outside of my mind. See, if I don't do that every once in a while, I'll go insane. You could say I got overly concerned we wouldn't have enough chairs, and would've gone crazy if we hadn't gotten new ones. I can't stand not having enough to help my friends.

For the first time, I have nothing to say. It's very grim, taking a role of the 4th Horseman as a way to inflict suffering on yourself, and constantly driving yourself insane by being reminded of the habits of your past. We drive back home in silence, with me being unable to comprehend how to start working towards answering this problem.

We say nothing further as we close the garage door and walk inside. Famine walks past the trio, sitting down in his normal chair to stare at the wall. Death casts a questioning look, and I shake my head at her. No success. It's going to take a lot more than a talk and a couple of self-help therapy to help Sarvty's state of being. He's perfectly normal on the outside. You wouldn't be able to tell he had this kind of past. But inside is a depressed kid inflicting self-punishment onto him as a way to atone for past sins. We'll have to help each other as a group.

War is the final Horseman to talk to. Something tells me that we'll need to do this tomorrow. I was going to take him out for some target practice in the backyard, but it's already 8 pm. I tell the rest of the Horsemen to go to sleep as I go upstairs and lie down in my bed.

Do robots dream of electric sheep? No; 4 Horsemen dream of their past and try to undergo these roles to help themselves or punish themselves. I dreamt of my uncertain and scary future, unable to see how I was going to solve my current problems.