"ENGIE!"

"YOU MUST BE MOST CALM WHEN TALKING TO THE ANIMALS! I HOPE YOU ARE BETTER AT ICE-SKATING AND MAKING NESTS!" was the Captain's critique when I explained where and why I had left the "most precious shovel".

"DO YOU KNOW THE COST OF SHOVEL REPLACEMENT?!

I HAVE TO TAKE ON ANOTHER BUSINESS LOAN AND THE BANK MANAGER IS ALREADY GIVING ME DIRTY LOOKS AND NOT TALKING TO ME!" Captain had continued to rant.

If the Photoshop worm monster ate me instead of the shovel, I think Captain would be slightly less upset.

Was that even Photoshop? It seemed slightly bigger and longer. Can't be sure of anything these days. I'm afraid that someday I'll finally succumb to botulism or some sort of other poisoning and that will be the end.

I'll see something that's not there and fall off a cliff. Or slip into a snow crevice and slowly sink deeper and deeper... and nobody will find me or help me.

Brrr.

I find myself developing a severe paranoia of snow in addition to my severe hypochondria.

After my encounter with the shovel-chewing fiend, I started to throw rocks ahead of me and then walk only onto the spots where the rocks didn't sink into the snow.

You can never be sure that there isn't something horrible under there.

EVER.

Thank god my Chionophobia isn't anywhere like Snippy's. He seems calm on the surface, except some times.... Eeesh. Thankfully, he still hasn't recognized me as my mask is muffling my voice, so I started to talk more around him, lowering my guard.

"Why is your shovel all bent out of shape?" Charles asked me when I returned to base, after I had retrieved the thrice-damned and bitten shovel.

"Why must we end winter anyway?" I muttered, ignoring his questions.

"Captain might be onto something, now that I think about it. You do have to watch out for the snowflakes." Charles said. "They cannot be trusted!"

"What are they gonna do? Pick me up and carry me away to the North Pole?" I commented.

"I am serious!! I'm not crazy! I know it sounds crazy, but the snowflakes are planning to kill us all!"

He shouted, flapping his arms psychotically.

Snippy's mental condition worries me. I think Captain is only aggravating it with nonsensical demands.

I hope that Snippy doesn't stab me with a trowel, while my back is turned. What if he's extremely jealous of my shovel's size and what if it takes just another little snowflake to push him over the edge?

I recollected that one time he went completely bonkers when a large snowflake fell onto his lens. Freaking out, flailing and screaming, total full psychotic breakdown. Thank god Captain poured tea onto his mask as a distraction of sorts.

He even ranted afterwards about living snowflakes and how they planned to shatter his lenses, cut him up and drill into his head to sample his organic juices.

What if this snowflake-obsessed madman discovers, remembers who I am?

What if he suspects things? What if he already knows my real name and is waiting for the right moment to strike, to take revenge on his old boss for all the things I've done to him?

I'm afraid of Charles Snippy. So very afraid.

He always keeps glancing at that little Captain's heart cup like that thing is about to grow legs and walk off or something.

"Jeez. It's just a cup man, relax." I told him.

"No." he answered, "It is something abhorrent! Its motives are unclear! I don't know whether or not to trust it!" He began to postulate.

I think that Snippy's mental state is slowly sliding towards Captains. Talking to inanimate objects, inventing strange stories, shouting at nothing. Recently I overheard Snippy yelling:

"I'm ALIVE! WHAT? No! You did WHAT?! I'm alive, I don't care what it is you did!" Snippy screamed.

I looked through a crack in the wall at him. He was definitely having another episode. From the one sided conversation and his hand poses I deduced that he was talking to his imaginary-eldritch-friend.

"I am human! I just want to be normal!"

Snippy shouted:

"STOP ASKING!"

"TOO LATE?!"

"WOULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE MY SPINE ALONE!"

"PUT MY LIVER BACK!"

"STOP SLIDING MY ORGANS AROUND!"

"WHAT?!"

"DON'T DO THAT!"

"NO, I DON'T WANT TO EAT SKELETONS!"

"YES, I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF THEM JUST LYING AROUND!"

"I DON'T CARE HOW CONVENIENT IT IS TO HAVE SEVENTEEN APPENDAGES!"

I figured Snippy imagined that some monster kept offering him some kind of super-powers, including immortality and he was rejecting them.

When I was young, I often wished somebody offered me superpowers. Sigh.

I'd be like "Hells yeah, I'd like to be immortal and have the strength of 10". I always hated the novels in which characters chose to be human instead of accepting greatness. This was one of the reasons I've created Project Seven- to find someone who is truly great... even if lacking the human condition. I really should have known that a super with powers of luck would turn out to be a highly confused, carefree imbecile.

Was I wrong? Maybe.

Did I doom humanity by launching that search query?

Perhaps.

Now that the city is dead and my hopes and dreams lay shattered and radioactive, I've nothing to hang onto, except my own life. I must survive. I am afraid of death. Terribly afraid.

I must not give up. I must choke down another decade-old tuna can, no matter how foul it tastes.

...I'll still have a chance to survive, to avoid death's dark embrace as long as I stick close to Captain. As long as I am in Captain's general vicinity or on Captain's missions, as long as I am needed by Captain, everything will probably be fine.