Chapter 14: Fiona Tells a Funny Joke

"Tel… Television?"

In the bevy of ridiculous circumstances that had happened since getting onto the island, this had to be the most ridiculous of them all.

"THAT'SSSSS RIGHT XAVIER, GALAXY CABLE TELEVISION TO BE SPECIFIC, THE PROGRAM YOU'RE ON IS CALLED "SILLY HUMANS" WHICH IS ON EVERY 2 DAYS ON CHANNEL 5."

As he said that, the TV screen in front of us flashed the image of hundreds of masked individuals sitting on benches on some unknown beach staring back at us.

"What the hell,"

In all honesty, I had run out of words at this point and my mind went blank.

"Where cameras?" Fiona asked.

"GOOD QUESTION FIONA. WE HAVE SATELLITES THAT TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVE FAR ABOVE WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE THEM. HERE TAKE A LOOK."

As he said that, the screen in front of us suddenly segmented into 4 sections that showed a zoomed in birds eye view of each of us.

"IT APPEARS PAULA IS TRYING TO RETRIEVE THE FRISBEE NOW STUCK ON A TREE."

"I feel violated…"

"HAHA, WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE OUR AUDIENCES' FANART."

"That's okay…"

"What show about?" Fiona asked.

"IT'S A SIMPLE PREMISE REALLY. WE WOODONS, THAT'S THE SPECIES NAME OF THOSE WHO ARE WATCHING YOU BY THE WAY AS TO US YOU'RE THE ALIENS, HAVE AUDIENCE MEMBERS THAT SUBMIT CHALLENGES EVERY 2 DAYS THAT WE GIVE TO YOU HUMANS AS THE "TRIALS" TO COMPLETE AT THE TRIAL CAVE. THE BEST ONE SUBMITTED AS JUDGED BY OUR PANEL GETS TO BE THE NEXT TRIAL. RATINGS ARE NUTS!"

"That… doesn't make any sense, what if we just didn't do your trials in the first place?"

"THAN WE REDUCE THE NUMBER OF FISH IN THE ARTIFICAL SEA SO YOU'LL BE FORCED TO COMPLETE THEM."

"What? You would have just been alright with us dying?"

"YES, IT WOULDN'T BE THE FIRST TIME. YOU SAW THE OTHER CAVE WITH THE PIRATES DIDN'T YOU?"

"Fair enough"

"NOW THAT YOU KNOW OUR SECRET, WE CAN COMPLETE THE LAST 3 TRIALS WITH FULL MENTION OF THE AUDIENCE."

"…"

"…"

For the next minute, Fiona and I just stared at speaker Ned talked from with no one in the room saying a word.

"IS… IS THAT ALL THE QUESTIONS YOU HAVE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE A LITTLE MORE SHOCKED?"

"Nah…" I said, "at this point just do whatever you want. Not like we have any real agency in a situation like this anyways."

"SIGH… THIS IS WHY YOU'RE CONSISTENTLY VOTED LEAST POPULAR IN THE POLLS XAVIER."

"What? What about Fiona, she doesn't even talk half the time."

"BUT BOOBS XAIVER,"

"Ahhh… so it's the same in every galaxy after all."

"ANYWAYS, THAT'S IRRELEVANT TO YOU GUYS RIGHT NOW. I WILL TELL YOU NOW WHAT THE CHALLENGE IS FOR TOMORROW."

"Yeah yeah whatever I don't care," I said lying down. I looked up at the ceiling of the cave that was probably artificial without a care in the world.

"WHAT ARE DOING, SHOULDN'T YOU BE OVERREACTING AND DOING YOUR STRAIGHT MAN ROUTINE XAVIER?"

"Nahhh… I'm over it," I said, "whatever challenge it'll be that's what it'll be."

"THAT'S OUT OF CHARACTER XAVIER… VERY BAD FOR RATINGS."

"Great…" I said continuing to lie there without a care in the world.

"FINE WHATEVER, STAFF, TAKE THESE TWO OUT OF THE CAVE WHILE THE NEXT TRIAL GETS PREPARED. WE'LL ANNOUNCE THE TRIAL TO THEM TOMORROW THEN."

As he said that, the masked aliens around us dragged me off the ground and escorted Fiona and me out of the room and the tunnel. As they did, they enclosed the wall leaving just the two of us at the first layer of the cave.

"Head back?" Fiona asked. As we looked out the cave however, we saw that it had already gotten quite dark.

"Nah…" I said yawning, "Let's just sleep here for the night, it's too dark."

"I have night vision."

"That's okay," I said lying down, "I mean who cares, this place is just some alien TV show anyways, we should just do whatever we want since it's all meaningless."

Fiona looked at me blankly before lying down next to me.

"Ok"

I awoke the next day to a foot on top of my face.

"Oh hi Paula,"

"Ahhh you're awake Xavier!" Melanie said next to her, "see Paula, my instincts never fail!"

"I don't know why I ever doubted you," she said taking her foot off my face and beginning to kick my sides instead.

"Oiiii dipshit wake up, it's time for the trial."

"Ok…" I said softly standing up from my spot.

"What's up with you?" Paula asked as I did not bother to even look at them, "shouldn't you be all like 'Paula wtf is wrong with you' or something like that?"

"Nah that's okay," I said as I stood up and simply looked out into the distance on the outside of the cave, "you're whatever."

"What the…what did you guys even do last night?"

As she said that, Fiona who still had her maple syrup from the night before, did a quick swig.

"So basically Melanie, Paula, last night we stumbled upon those wooden mask people that Paula mentioned before and…"

"Wooooahhhhhhhhhhhhh slow down toots what the hell. That's more words in one breath than you've said in like 2 weeks. What's with the personality change?"

"Gahhhhh, I can't believe this whole time Melanie and Xavier haven't explained this even once to you. Basically Paula, I'm an android made in a lab. But like, I can only talk fast like this when I drink maple syrup. Yeah okay, that's about it. Where was I again? Oh yeah, basically it turns out those wooden mask people that took you hostage Paula were actually aliens the whole time. And we're on some gameshow or some shit I don't know they didn't explain it very well. Oh and they have cameras on us at all times."

"WHAT?" Melanie gasped looking back and forth with a paranoid expression, "like at all times all times? Like… they observe me even at night?"

"Yeah probably! They know exactly what you do at night Melanie. There must be more in the caves or something otherwise I don't know how they observe us in the trials and Xavier and I yesterday but whatever, details schmetails. After finding that out yesterday, I'm pretty sure Xavier had some sort of existential crisis and now he's in his existential dread mode knowing that his struggles this past month here on the island was just part of some gameshow by extraterrestrial beings. That's probably why he's so depressed right now honestly, that's my best guess at least. I don't know don't ask me, we don't watch gameshows in Canada."

"I mean… that's quite a bit to take in," Paula said.

The 3 of them conversed for a while longer but at that point I had tuned out the conversation. In truth, Fiona had been right on the money. This really is just all a big game by some greater beings isn't it? We struggled through so much just for their entertainment? And worse of all, I'm last place in the popularity polls?

"Hey now…" Melanie said putting a hand on my shoulder, "it's not so bad is it?"

"Nah it's not," I said, "but like its meaningless isn't it?"

"It's not! We made a lot of memories here you know, even if it was all staged by someone else. You had fun still didn't you?"

"I guess,"

"And plus, I hate to be rational one here but if the fish supply is going to decrease if we don't do the trials, that means we have to try at them anyways right?"

"Yeah… we do,"

Sighing, I got up and began to walk towards the trial cave. As I did, I heard the 3 girls behind me conversing together again.

"Paula, this is probably your fault too! Why are you so mean to him?"

"He didn't seem too mad about it before! How was I supposed to know we were secretly being watched by aliens on a gameshow and that would create an existential crisis? I'm pretty sure that has more to do with it."

"No more calling him dipshit you hear! Or I'm not clearing your records when we get out of here."

"What? You called him that too."

"Yeah, but I do it affectionately,"

"Also yeah… now that I mention it, I do remember there being less masked people on the island after I left my prison hut. Maybe they went into a portal back then too."

"What! Why didn't you mention that before?"

"I don't know, I didn't expect them to randomly show up again. And to be aliens no less, guess my paranoia was right yesterday after all!"

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"WELCOME BACK TO THE CAVE, PRESS THE BUTTON TO… HEY WHAT'S UP WITH XAVIER, WHY DOES HE LOOK ALL DEPRESSED RIGHT NOW?"

"Because Ned!" Melanie said, "You dropped a bomb out of nowhere yesterday on how we're on some Alien TV show without us knowing. That's like… slavery but worse! Pool Xavier's been having an existential crisis all day!"

"AH WELL BOOHOOOOO, I WANTED TO BE A DOCTOR BUT DO I COMPLAIN ABOUT DOING MY JOB AS A GAMESHOW HOST?"

"What? You're clearly an AI."

"AI'S HAVE DREAMS TOO YOU KNOW. I WAS PROGRAMMED TO SAY THAT."

"Wait I thought you said you were magical," Paula said.

"WHAT… HOW DO YOU STILL BEL… I MEAN YES I AM MAGICAL PAULA, AND I CAN STILL DELIVER YOU A PET DRAGON IF YOU COMPLETE THE TRIALS."

"We'll still do them because we have no choice!" Melanie declared, "Even a survival extraordinaire can't survive without sustenance."

"Whatever…" I said.

"ALRIGHT WELL FUNNILY ENOUGH, FOR THIS CHALLENGE YOU WON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TOO HIGH ENERGY. PRESS THE BUTTON AND STEP INSIDE."

"Whatever…" I said again pressing the button. As I did, the cave door opened revealing the usual tunnel behind the wall. The 4 of us walked across the tunnel to the usual room with a TV screen. This time, the text on the screen read, "TELL A FUNNY JOKE CHALLENGE."

"THIS ONE WAS SUBMITTED BY ONE OF OUR VIEWERS ALL THE WAY FROM THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY. THE POETRY CHALLENGE TOPPED THE CHARTS THIS WEEK SO THE PANEL PICKED SOMETHING SIMILAR FOR ALL OF YOU TO AWKWARDLY PERFORM ONE AT A TIME TODAY."

"Haha Xavier's life," Paula said.

"Paula!" Melanie said glaring at her, "Not the time."

"It's okay…" I said apathetically, "she's right."

"Nah Nah dip… I mean Xavier I'm just kidding," Paula said awkwardly.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THAT'S OUT OF CHARACTER PAULA, IT'S TERRIBLE FOR RATINGS."

"He's having a tough time; who cares about your ratings?!" Melanie said, "tell you what, I'll just go first to complete this challenge then."

As she said that, she got up to the front of the room to tell her joke.

"Where do fruits go on vacation?"

"…"

"…"

"I don't know where Melanie?" Paula asked.

"They go to Pear-is! Ba dum tis."

As she completed the joke and stared at us awkwardly, 30 seconds passed without anyone saying a word.

"Oh cause Pear!" Fiona said finally. Suddenly she started to burst out into laughter.

"I don't get it," Paula said.

"THE AUDIENCE GAVE THAT A 5/10 MELANIE."

"What's even the passing grade for this challenge?" Paula asked.

"OH YEAH ABOUT THAT… THOSE ARE ALL ACTUALLY ARBITRARY. IF YOUR VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS AND RATINGS ARE HIGH ENOUGH, IT PASSES YOU THE CHALLENGE."

"What? How is that… actually that's pretty standard for television."

"WE'RE STILL MAKING YOU COMPLETE THE SEGMENT HOWEVER. OKAY PAULA YOU'RE UP."

Paula slowly shuffled her way up to the front of the room and cleared her throat.

"Why does the government hate organized crime?"

"…"

"…"

"They don't like competition!"

"…"

"…"

The room went silent for about a minute.

"I did nothing wrong, it's the system that's corrupt thank you," Paula said walking back to us.

"THE AUDIENCE GAVE YOU A 3/10 PAULA FOR THAT ONE."

"What?!? I thought that joke was genius."

"YOU THINK EVERYTHING YOU DO IS GENIUS. OKAY XAVIER YOU'RE UP."

"Nah that's alright."

"WHAT? YOU HAVE TO XAVIER, OR ELSE YOU FAIL THE CHALLENGE. YOU WANT TO GET OFF THIS ISLAND DON'T YOU?"

"It's whatever…"

"Hey, don't make him do something he doesn't want to," Melanie said, "he's having a hard time and I need him to help me fish tomorrow!"

"THERE WON'T BE ANY FISH IF THIS KEEPS UP. BUT WHATEVER, FIONA YOU'RE UP."

As Fiona got up to take the stage, I didn't even bother listening to what joke she told. I simply went and sat by myself at the corner of the room and began to stare at the wall.

"What's even the point to any of this? Whether I pass or fail doesn't even matter."

As I thought that, behind me Melanie, Paula, and even Ned were cracking up hysterically.

"Hahahahaha what the hell toots, I didn't know you had those kinds of jokes in you."

"Yeah oh my god, I haven't laughed that hard in years."

"GOOD JOB FIONA, THE AUDIENCE GAVE THAT JOKE A 10/10. THAT'LL DEFINITELY BE GOOD ENOUGH TO PASS THIS WEEK."

As I turned around towards the 3 girls however, the laughter from their faces faded as they noticed the depressed mood I was still in.

"ALRIGHT NICE JOB, JUST 2 MORE TRIALS TO GO BEFORE WE GRANT YOU A WISH EACH. AT THIS RATE, WE MIGHT KEEP GOING IF YOUR VIEWERSHIP NUMBERS CONTINUE TO SPIKE. AS FOR YOUR MINI-PRIZE THIS WEEK YOU WILL RECEIVE…"

"Whatever…" I said walking out of the room before Ned finished his sentence.