Thanatophobia
By Diana Moon Glampers
King of the Hill/Mortal Kombat
Disclaimer- I don't own this stuff. Any of it. At all.
Chapter I
I am the Walrus! Look Upon My Works Ye Mighty Ones, and Despair!
Bill got home from hard day cutting hair. Sometimes he thought that all the fun glory of his younger days weren't worth it for what happened before. Something secret about Bill was that he used to be a part of The Special Forces. He was enhanced with Walrus serum and had his body biologically enhanced to have more endurance, have more stamina, and survive longer in colder climates. Dale once had a theory that Bill was a secret government super soldier, until it was (falsely) debunked. Except it was all true and the government made false documents to "prove" that Bill was never in Special Forces and had no Walrus Serum in his blood.
Bill was a legend among Special Forces agents. He the man who trained Jackson "Jax" Briggs how to fight, before he had the metal arms. Bill had to quit his job training new recruits. He had become fat and miserable. He had psychological problems. He was having problems training his newest recruit, Sonya, because she reminded him of his wife in his failing marriage, Lenore. Eventually, Bill was removed from Special Forces and was regulated to his job that was used to cover up the fact that he was in Special Forces: An army barber.
Other than the fact that Bill trained Jax and Sonya, Bill knew absolutely nothing about their participation in the Mortal Kombat tournaments. He didn't know that through the years, they had fought Goro, Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, Quan Chi, and The Dragon King. He didn't know about their stays in Netherrealm, their deaths and return to Earth, and everything they had done. That was unfortunate. Bill always thought that they simply were sent into a mission back in the 90s and unceremoniously died. That was how Bill thought about everything that he touched: it withered and died and turned to crap.
Bill also kept a secret that only he knew. Inside him was a substance called anti-life. Most would think that the essence of anti-life would be death or destruction. Death is merely a part of it, namely the transitional period. Destruction is but a method of changing one form or matter to another. An example would be that setting a piece of paper on fire is not actually destroying anything. It is merely combining the paper with oxygen and changing its form into ash and smog.
No, the essence of anti-life is nothing. Think of it in mathematical terms, and you might understand. Think of life as a positive number and death as a negative number. So, if life is positive, and death is negative, then what is zero? The answer is anti-life. That's because positive and negative implies that something is there. Anti-life is nothing! No thing! Nothing!
That was what was inside Bill's body. Inside him was a steaming brew of anti-life, the fountain from which all of his depression and freakishness stemmed from. The question is how exactly did Bill get anti-lie inside of him? It all started when Bill was playing football with Hank and Dale in high school. Back then, Bill was a dashing, handsome, and very nice young man. He was like the kind of person Greek Gods would smite out of jealousy. Then, he met Lenore. She was like Helen of Troy, the face that launched one thousand ships. She was the beginning of the end, the point when his Yin and Yang shifted. With all the good things converging into Bill, there had to be balance. There is a divine law, a divine order, and a divine balance to the world. Simply put, Bill's good luck did not just run out. It imploded.
In terms of Yin and Yang, Bill's Yang, or his good energy, was so great that it had turned the Yin into but a tiny molecule in the vastness of space. Then, everything shifted once he met Lenore. She did terrible things to him, mistreated him, and made him feel like less of a man. Bill's Yin soon grew, causing his Yang to shrink into nothingness, leaving a huge hole of empty energy inside his soul. That was the anti-life. It was the essence of everything that made Bill sad and lonely and miserable.