The passing of time for the duration of the journey felt quite skewed, as Pick felt hardly conscious or connected with the world around him. All that was constant was the pain underneath his shoulder blade, and the memory of why it was there replaying in his head over and over again. Everything was blurred and inconsistent, but the outcome was always the same and it left Pick in a sort of trance as he shuffled after this stranger. "I'm dead," was all he'd said since meeting the hermit, occasionally whispering it under his own breath like he was trying to remind himself. That was all that echo'd when he realized the old man had come to a stop, and his mind remained nearly blank as the hermit cackled for hours on end.

Pick hardly realized when the hermit had been begun speaking to him, but quickly got the point when the back of his knees were jabbed at. "Just- just find someone?" Pick questioned, sounding uneasy as the hermit responded with another, "Go on." 

Pick grimaced, looking around himself as he once more took in the real world. They were at the edge of a dead looking forest, and Pick nearly cracked at the thought that it might be the same forest he'd started at. "Find someone," he murmured, the stupidly simple command being all he had to go on as he marched into the forest. "Hello?" he called out, listening carefully as he walked further out of sight from the forest's edge. The only sound however was the light crunch of sandy soil underneath Pick's boots, and beginning to get paranoid he took his shovel in both hands just in case he'd need to use it. [i]"Why would you need to use it?"[/i] he asked himself, all to quickly reminded of his encounter with that horror living bellow. Worried that this forest was indeed the one from before, Pick's attention then became solely on the earth beneath him. Defensively he held his shovel pointed downward, eyes scanning for any hint of movement among the dead looking earth. All there was was silence though, and in that moment of uncertainty every negative emotion he'd been letting stew boiled to the surface.

Pick screamed, shouting at the forest around him like he could some how scare it off- scare all of this away. In his fit of anger he spun about, cursing as he slammed his shovel against the trees and shattered their brittle bark. The thick trunks crunched apart like twigs, there being no wood beneath the hollow shells though Pick hadn't noticed this until he swung hard enough to cleave one of the brittle trunks in two. His anger replaced by shock, Pick scrambled backwards as the tall shape began to crumble to bits, what part of the tree that stayed whole toppling over and crackling against it's brittle brethren. Pick was speechless, left staring at the mess he'd made for a good long while as the forest returned to silence. He soon came to his senses though, and one quick spin around revealed that he'd lost any sense of direction he'd once possessed. "Fuck," he muttered, his breathing having become heavy. In momentary defeat Pick threw has shovel against the ground and fell down with it, removing his helmet as he began running his other hand through his hair. Lost in the insanity of it all, Pick just sat and began to chuckle, forgetting even why he was in the forest. "Find someone," he managed to breath between fits of laughter, the words hardly having meaning at this point. 

"Find someone," he then repeated, his demeanor suddenly becoming far more serious as if someone had flipped a switch in his head. Now acting with an air of purpose, Pick put his helmet back atop his head and scooped up his shovel, choosing a direction and beginning to march. "Find someone," he muttered again, huffing as he pushed aside any dead shrubs and kicked away the fallen branches that got in his way.