Recap and Recreation

by Terrence Orson

You wanna know a secret? About me? Well, here it is. It's how I'm related to the user Marches45. Remember him? Yeah, he left back in January and asked me to take over the account. Here's the story of how it all happened. Be warned, though. It might shock you.

1. Chapter One: Recap

Recap And Recreation

By

Terrence Orson

Chapter One: Recap

I

Sitting in the black bean bag chair in my bedroom, I leaned back and read one of the early cantos of the book my Honors Lit. teacher had assigned me to read, Dante's Inferno. I could understand most of the translation since I had read some plays by Shakespeare in the past, such as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet. Since The Inferno had end notes connected to allusions I didn't completely comprehend, I kept my middle finger turned to the back for easier page turning.

I started feeling a little chilly, understandable since it was January, so I got up and grabbed my robe, which was sitting on my bed. I could have turned on the heat, but I didn't want to needlessly expend the energy. My robe was closer than the thermostat. Pshh! I'm kidding. I'd rather use the least costly method of warming myself up. I went back to the book and continued along until I was finished with the canto.

Along with my book, I held my phone in my hand, using it to take notes on what I read. Most of my classmates and I could agree that Henry W. Longfellow's translation could be challenging to follow given the language style it had, so these notes, which I had been suggested to do, helped me to better understand it. They'd likely prove to be quite useful to study if my teacher ever gave me and the class an oral quiz on our reading comprehension—the "Fantastic Five."

As soon as I finished, I put the book back in my book bag and got out of the room. I got the necessary stuff done, so now, it was time for more personal matters.

II

I got on the computer, opened up Safari, and typed in the URL address. In a few seconds spent waiting for it to load, I was on the website—FanFiction . Net, where people created stories based on what they wanted to happen to the characters in their favorite movies, TV shows, books, and such. Clicking on Cartoon with the trackpad, three long columns greeted me, a list of all cartoons that had stories made about them. I noticed that they weren't in alphabetical order, something I had gotten used to since having first stumbled upon the site before I was even a teenager.

I sighed, thinking, Oh, great. The archives are listed out of order; now, I have to do some unnecessary clicking. Crap. I scrolled through the seemingly disorganized list and noticed that the number next to each cartoon, the number of fan made stories for each, went in descending numerical order. I couldn't help but wonder why the site admins put everything in order of popularity when the previous method might be easier to search through. Fortunately, I knew how many stories the archive I was looking for was said to have.

I scrolled back up to the top of the page and looked for the 900s. There it was. The Amazing World of Gumball. I clicked on the link and came to the 25 most recently updated stories. I went to the bottom of the first page of the list, taking note of the authors and stories, and then went back to the top. Opening a new tab, I logged into my account and stared at the orange username, holding my closed hands in front of my mouth. Marches45.

In my mind, that was probably the oddest username anyone could come up with, and the only name that would be any more so would result from taking the "45" off of it. Then, my name would be a musical genre. Weird. I went back to the other tab, and the recent developments in this archive's history came to the forefront of my mind.

III

At a time when I was trying to better myself at writing, shortly after the new school year had begun, the time when my mind became chaotic with all the stuff crammed into it, like my grades, homework, marching band, and such, all the users in the Gumball archive got a shocking surprise. On September 2, a new story that would soon rise in popularity/infamy due to its controversial nature had been published: The Amazing World of Gumball: Fan Fiction Reviews (the title has since changed, just so you know). Obviously, my and many others' initial reactions weren't positive, considering that the author, Henry Peters, or FFCriticReviewer, had made a surprise entrance with insults to say in his first review; then, after a few days passed, this "project/"anthology had blended into normalcy somewhat.

The attitudes expressed on the archive split many users apart. Some lent their support for Henry and his team of writers and critics—EvelioandZgroup, Jamie Skyland, Bryce Avila, Penelope Peterson, and Cooper McCarthy (the latter two would gain recognition in October), others were seemingly neutral, while the rest were in staunch opposition, believing that critics weren't needed on the archive. One such author was the one whom Henry had reviewed first, Agent BM. This feud became a FanFiction Cold War/Critic War that lasted for nearly the rest of 2013, heightening the scales when an anonymous review cursed me and some others out following Henry's claim of departure, but it finally seemed to meet its end when a pivotal seven-chapter story within the reviews set the stage for a new era—another return to normalcy, but not quite.

IV

I went into the Document Manager and took a look at the stories I had gotten the ideas to make. I seriously didn't like what was going on. I started these projects with the hope of proving to everyone, and to myself once again, more that I could do it, that I could repeatedly be successful with writing stories and be one of the best writers of the Gumball FanFiction Archive. With these stories in their present state, I felt like I was actually lacking. I had the potential, but it was difficult for me to reach. I felt like my one good story that I had written was just a fluke and nothing more.

Maybe it was just my sense of self doubt talking, or maybe it was true.

Whenever I started a story, I would usually find some way to tear it apart to the point that it would not be able to be continued. I might run out of useable ideas, I'd find a plot hole that I would have a hard time filling, the message was unclear or nonexistent, or the plot was just incongruous. I hated it. What was so hard about writing something useful or meaningful? What? The answer eluded me. I knew I could get to a story that worked at some point, but I was getting impatient. When would it happen?

I opened a new document and went to write any ideas I would get. I concentrated, thinking about whatever original scenario I could that might happen in the universe of the show. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, relaxing as I thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought so hard, my head exploded. Wait a minute! That's it! Maybe something like that could work. Not with the exploding head, but something else dangerous. Mm. Yeah, that might do.

I jotted down the idea and clicked "Save." Five seconds later, my eyes widened, and I clenched my teeth in frustration. What the heck?! It didn't save! I typed it in again, hoping for a different result. Nope. Still no save.

What the hell is this? I thought. Since when does this happen? I sighed and gave it one last chance. I jotted my idea again and clicked "Save." Did it save? Yes…NOT. I sighed in exasperation.

Looks like I'll have to do this hard way. I stood up, grabbed the computer, and furiously yanked it up, violently disconnecting anything plugged into it. It shut itself off instantly. I took it to the front door, opened it, and chucked it out in the front yard as hard as I could. It made a terrible sound as it hit the ground, like broken parts and glass, but did I care? No. I went back inside and slammed the door. The impact it made shook the house, and the noise made me open my eyes. I blinked them and remembered where I was. I looked again at the document in front of me. Blank. The worst part was that now, I'd lost the idea.

Damn it! I thought as I tried to remind myself of what I'd been thinking. No luck.

"What is wrong with my head?" I groaned and asked myself as I let it fall back at the head of the swivel chair. Most times when I had dreams, I could remember what they were about. Some of those dreams that clung to my memory were rather disturbing. I remembered from fifth grade a dream where I was spending my last day of school. Not the last day of school, mine. Of course, I didn't remember every detail, but I got some of the important parts. For some odd reason, I had been on death row for an unknown crime. I was to die by hanging, something that frightened me. I don't think it was the quick and possibly painless method where my neck would get broken, which scared me enough; instead, it might have been the slow, painful style where I was garroted to death. I could remember the parts of my dreams that really stood out, but I guess my brain had decided that the idea I'd gotten wasn't so important.

V

Out of nowhere, I felt a small sensation of pain in my head. Grimacing slightly, my hand shot up towards where I felt the ache. I pressed a finger down on it, something I normally did when I got headaches. It was a futile gesture to alleviate it. The pain increased, and in response, I groaned uncomfortably. I tried to get my focus back to the FanFiction, but the pain was starting to become too much. It was spreading to my left eye, so I had to squint it to try blocking it out. It only persisted.

Fed up, I got up from the computer and went into the kitchen. I washed my hands because the keyboard was probably contaminated, and I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, thinking I might just be dehydrated, and poured it into a glass I'd gotten from the cupboard. I wasn't going to take a Tylenol or Ibuprofen pill because of the harm they could do to my liver at a later point in my life; instead, I drank the water, hesitating before swallowing some because of the temperature, along with my not really caring for its lack of taste.

I put the water in the sink and lied down on the couch in the living room. I pressed my head into the pillow because my headache had only seemed to worsen, and the pillow was soft. In no set interval, a massive amount of pain would sometimes take over and then recede. I cried out in shorts burst whenever it struck, and I writhed in agony as each spurt felt worst than the last. Suddenly, my stomach started to gurgle. I slowly stood up, clutching my head and pressing the sore spot with my finger, and went to the bathroom. Maybe that could relieve it. Did it? Oh, quite the opposite.

Somehow, no matter what I did to get rid of my headache, it only got worse. By now, as I walked to my bed to lie down, the pain had spread to my whole face. I fell on the carpet, writhing in agony and screaming for help even though I was the only one in the house. Pretty soon, my entire body was tingling. What kind of a headache was this? I'll tell you what kind: it wasn't. All I could think about was my suffering and how much longer I'd have to endure.

Suddenly, my head felt pain the likes of which it had never felt before. It was as if someone was stabbing me in the skull and through my brain. My screams became more and more violent as I was powerless to stop it until finally, I blacked out.