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Three people, all different and unique, yet similar in certain ways, walked together. The oldest, Clown, had an air of danger about him. Despite his soft voice, he could kill in an instant and loved to cause bloodshed and chaos.
The middle one, Leo, was cunning and clever, and he loved to play pranks. He also enjoyed causing chaos, but more of the mischievous type. He usually watched from the sides, waiting for the perfect time to trap and trick the people around them.
The third and youngest, Minute, was loyal and tried to protect those around him. He liked to joke around as well, but he would help defend his friends without a doubt, and would even give his life for them. He tried to keep everyone around him alive, even when he knew he would fail.
They were walking together, on the side of the road. Clown noticed a trail that led off the road, into the field. He pointed it out to the others, and they changed direction, heading along the little trail. Minute paused next to a small bush with red berries, watching in awe as the glistening red drops reflected the sunlight.
“Wow…” he breathed, noticing how the wind swayed the branches.
Clown watched from behind him. As soon as he got a good look at the bush, he rolled his eyes. “Those berries are poisonous,” he said flatly, already turning away.
He pointedly glanced at the dead bird lying underneath the bush. Minute made a disgruntled sound. “I know, but can’t I at least enjoy how cool it looks?”
“You could play some nasty pranks with those,” Leo mused. “Put some in somebody’s food, and they’d get a pretty bad stomach ache.”
Minute sighed, and got up again, brushing off his pants as he walked after Clown. Leo stayed a moment longer, watching the other two leave and sneakily grabbing a couple of berries.
They walked down the path, occasionally stopping to look at some flora or fauna that interested them. Leo flicked the little red berries at the others, trying to annoy them. Clown finally snapped, growling at him to stop it, or he would do something very violent. Leo gleefully ignored him, knowing that Clown wouldn’t hurt him. If he wasn’t such close friends with him, he would probably have been terrified.
Minute managed to keep his cool, sometimes flicking the berries back at Leo. But eventually, they both ran out of berries and caught up to Clown, who was several paces ahead of them.
Clown suddenly stopped walking, making Minute run right into him. Minute pressed a hand to his nose, glaring at him.
“Why’d you just stop in the middle of the path?”
Clown pointed up ahead at the creature blocking his path. Leo leaned to the side behind him, trying to see what he was pointing at. A little bunny blocked their way, definitely a baby. It was so small it could fit one hand, and it was limping as it shuffled across the path.
Minute crouched down next to it, tilting his head to try to see what was wrong with it. “Let’s take it back to our house.”
Leo balked. “Why the heck would we do that?”
“That’s stupid,” Clown muttered.
“C’mon, guys! We have to take care of it. It’s hurt, it needs help.”
“Why would we help it? It’s clearly already going to die. We’d only drag out its death. I say we kill it right now,” Clown calmly reached for the hilt of his sword.
Leo, surprisingly, walked in front to block his path. Clown sighed. “Leo, get out of the way,” he sounded tired.
“Let’s just not do anything. Let nature run its course. If it dies, it dies. If it lives, it lives. We don’t interfere.”
Clown eyed the injured bunny. “That’s boring. And I already know it’s gonna die, so why wouldn’t we kill it instead of some other predator?
“Why do you guys want it to die?” Minute protested. “It deserves to live! We should help it.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Leo said flatly. “Well, it might, but it has to earn living, like every other creature. If it lives, then it deserves to live. If it doesn’t, then it dies. Helping it out or just killing it would make no sense. The whole point of survival of the fittest is that only the fit survive.”
“Okay, but it’s going to die no matter what,” Clown argued. “Either from blood loss or a predator or something else. Starvation, maybe? My point is, it’s definitely gonna die, but here we can kill it so it doesn’t have to suffer through a long, slow death.”
“Why are you two arguing about this?” Minute said. “We could save a life here! I don’t care about survival of the fittest or whatever, why would you not help someone who’s suffering? The bunny is suffering, so we should help it. Do you lack basic human kindness?”
“Yes!” Clown said defensively. “It’s a wild animal, not a person. But I wouldn't help a person either. If they can’t help themself, then they don’t deserve my help.”
“That just sounds super backward, but I agree,” Leo said.
“Yeah, if someone comes to me asking for help, I'd just kill them. That would solve all their problems. No more thinking, no more worrying, no more people wailing about how unfair life is. Perfect.”
“Not what I meant,” Leo muttered. “I mean I'd just tell them to help themself, but I wouldn't deliberately try to kill them. That’s just mean. I wouldn’t kill the bunny, just leave it alone. It’s a wild animal, Minute.”
“Clown, you’re crazy. I just don’t understand why you would kill it!” Minute said.
“Yeah, you’re not making any sense,” Leo agreed. “Actually, that would definitely fit with your ‘I don't care, I hate everyone and everything’ personality, so it kinda does make sense. But still, don’t kill it!”
Minute nodded sagely. “Listen to Leo. He sort of knows what he’s talking about.”
“Sort of!?” Leo said indignantly.
“Well, you’re right about not killing it, but we do need to help it.”
“No we don’t! We don’t do anything! Why is this so hard to understand!?”
Minute pointed at the bunny, still struggling to limp across the road. “It’s in pain! Are you just going to sit by and let another living creature be in pain when you could help it? You’re heartless, Clown!”
“I wasn’t even part of that section of this conversation!” Clown snapped.
“Now you are,” Leo said. “And you are heartless. Don’t try to deny it, you’re said so yourself.”
“Okay, look. This is getting totally off topic here-” Clown tried to reel in the conversation.
“Yeah, it is.” Leo said loudly, pointedly glaring at Minute, who glared back. “Wow, I wonder who we have to blame…”
“Rude! And not useful! We need to catch the bunny and help it!”
“I still think we should kill it to end its suffering.”
“We should leave it alone so nature can run its course; it's a wild animal.”
“Fuck you,” Clown said, grabbing his scythe. The other two moved in front again, blocking his path.
“Clown, you need to chill,” Minute advised.
Clown scoffed. “I need to chill? You need to chill, it’s just a dumb bunny.”
“So? Would you kill a random person that had no effect on the world? Wait, don’t answer that, I know you would.”
Leo laughed. “Yeah, I think he actually did that once, right?”
Clown glared at him. “I was cleaning up your mess, actually. I told you covering the mayor’s car in paper using superglue was a terrible prank, and you didn’t listen. And so there was a… unfortunate accident, one that I had nothing to do with whatsoever.”
“You killed a mayor!?” Minute squawked.
“No, no. Just his bodyguard. When the mayor saw that, he ran away before I could. Too bad, really.”
“We’re off topic again. Back to the ‘dumb bunny’, let’s just leave. Keep walking, pretend we never saw it,” Leo suggested.
Minute pointed angrily at where the bunny had been. “Really? You’d just leave it bleeding out like that?”
Clown raised his eyebrows, trying to hide the amusement on his face. “Hate to break it to you, Kitten, but there’s no bunny.”
“What?” Minute and Leo glanced down, and they both realized that while they’d been arguing, the bunny had hobbled away.
Minute walked around the place where the bunny had been, searching for it. “Where’d it go? Come back, we’re gonna help you! Oh, and Clown…” Minute looked over his shoulder at him. “Don’t ever call me Kitten again,” His voice was cold, and his eyes were like chips of ice.
Clown gave a lazy shrug. “Well, looks like I missed my chance to commit murder today. Whatever, I guess.”
Minute kept searching for a couple more seconds, before giving up. “Yeah, okay. It’s fine, hopefully it’ll be okay without our help.”
“You’re help,” Leo corrected. “‘Cuz you know neither of us would have helped you handle a wild animal. You’d be interfering with nature.”
“It would have died anyway,” Clown mumbled, already continuing to walk along the path.
Minute glanced around, and then shrugged. “Maybe not. But I guess we’ll never know now, because somebody was arguing so much that we didn’t see it leave.” he scowled at Leo.
“Hey, what did I do?” Leo asked.
“You’re the one who got us all angry with each other.”
“No! That was Clown!”
“You both started it!”
“Don’t take the blame off yourself, Minute,” Clown said. “We all did it. We’re all disagreeable little rats.”
“I’m not a rat,” Leo huffed. “I’m much too sophisticated!”
Minute rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, act all high and mighty, even though yesterday you were going up to random people and telling them poop pick-up lines. Super sophisticated.”
“I don’t like sarcasm,” Leo proclaimed, grabbing Minute’s head and ruffling his hair, deliberately messing it up so it fell into his eyes, something Minute hated.
Minute bit Leo’s ear in retaliation.
“See?” Clown said haughtily. “Disagreeable little rats.”
Leo threw a rock at his head, missing by inches.
They kept walking, the bunny already forgotten as each one tried their hardest to kill the others. Or at least convince the other two to have a battle to the death. (Which didn’t take much convincing, if we’re being honest.)