Chapter 1
-I think I'm paranoid.-
The digital clock on the DVD player showed exactly four zeros, blinking lightly in the dark living room. The television was still on at this late hour, and played the repeat of an old documentary, the kind of stuff that comes on late at night, when everyone else was already sleeping. However, one person was definitely not sleeping. On the coffee brown leather couch that faced the screen sat a small boy with knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, looking quite pitiful. His whole frame was shaking and his coffee-brown eyes, which nearly matched the color of the couch he was seated on, and in a way with the whole room, where opened, never blinking, pupils wider than was normal. His gaze was fixed on the screen, while his thin, chapped lips moved, without making a sound.
Tweek Tweak couldn't sleep, again. If someone remembered the insomniac, slightly strange kid from years ago, they wouldn't think that this boy was actually the same person. Sure, he still had the blonde untamable hair that stuck up in every direction from all the times he tugged at it. But his face was thin, and one could even call it bony, as his cheek bones were clearly visible beneath his sickly looking pale skin. The dark rings under his eyes seemed to be permanent accessories, as the boy hadn't sleep in weeks.
Green button up shirts were too frustrating and turned into dark green and grey hoodies, too wide on the boys frame, but he didn't care. He was like a ghost that haunted the high school of South Park. Always trying to not be noticed, he sneaked through the hallways, never talking in class, always sitting at his friends table, listening, with his back stiff as he made no noise.
His home situation hadn't changed over the years, his parents still didn't care about him that much, and when they did they usually tended to make things worse. With time their business grew and so adding to their loveless attitude towards their son was their frequent absence, leaving the boy alone at home without anyone to look after him.
It was as if they were leading two different lives through all these years. There was only one event that made their lives connect again, even if it was just for a moment.
He remembered it like it was yesterday.
One year ago, Tweek had just turned sixteen, the guidance counselor demanded to talk to Tweek's parents, after another one of the boy's paranoid episodes which grew bad, causing him to jump out of a window, thus destroying it, and scaring his whole class. Of course Tweek told her that his parents were away again, thinking that, like every other counselor, the woman would be done with it. That wasn't the case though, because this one was new, fresh out of university and thought she could still change something. So after much pestering his parents finally had a private conference with the guidance counselor, without him. He sat in front of her office, tugging at his hair nervously, freaking out as he thought about all the things she would tell them, or worse, what she would suggest his parents do with him. Locking him up, or handing him over to a sadistic professor to experiment on, or even worse things crossed his mind, filling him with worry.
In the end it was nothing like that. His parents played the worried, helpless guardians and the counselor told them to make Tweek go to a psychiatrist and to give him medication for his problems, or he would have to leave the school. So with a smile they made him weekly appointments, got him medication prescribed and left again for their business trips, being as unapproachable as before.
And that was what led him to this situation, where he was sitting alone in front of a television, thoughts racing, as he starred unseeingly at the screen.