This is in Butters' point of view.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Murder Suicide Shocks Little Town of South Park

Four young boys were killed yesterday as a result of a murder suicide. It appears that all four boys were having a sleep over at one Ms. Cartman's house who was out of town at the time. Not much is known at this point but apparently one Leopold Scotch came with a butcher knife and viciously murdered Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Eric Cartman before turning the knife upon himself. Their consequent mangled bodies were discovered by Ms. Cartman when she returned the following day.

When the boys' fellow classmates were questioned, they were just as shocked and confused as the rest of the town. One student, however, came forward anonymously and spoke to us about his friend Leopold, or "Butters". He told us exclusively that his friend had been deteriorating for a while and had several incidents before the final snap. When asked what kind of incidents, he mentioned several bouts of hysteria and delusions. He went on to explain that he knew why his friend had committed the atrocity, but he didn't understand why. He further explained that…

Continued on pg. A9

B/RO|K/EN RE/ALIT|Y

The first time I noticed something was wrong, I was talking to Kyle. We were in one of those few slow moments we get in this town, which I decided to take advantage of. Don't get me wrong, I love South Park. But sometimes with all the craziness that happens it's hard to keep up with school and friends.

I had been meaning to ask Kyle how his date went. I couldn't even remember her name. I just knew that they had gone out only a few days before the 'Imagination Incident' as everyone was calling it now a days. I hadn't had time to ask him before once again our little town was the epicenter of another catastrophe.

I asked him if he had fun and if he would go out with her again. The look he gave me was something I could never forget.

It wasn't sadness; it wasn't happiness; it wasn't glee or anger. It was nothing. In that moment his face had been completely blank, eyes staring at me but looking someplace far away. In that moment he had been an empty slate.

It was gone just as fast as it had come and the subject was quickly changed to school and the latest lessons. But I never forgot the terrifying sensation of staring at a familiar face that looked so alien.

His dead eyes haunted me in my dreams for days.

I was in denial at first. I kept on telling myself that it was a trick of the light and that I had just imagined it. After all, I had learned not too long ago how powerful our imagination was. But more specifically, mine.

I went this way for weeks. No one else seemed to notice anything off, not even his own parents. This solidified my belief that it had just been me being bad again. I was ready to slip back under the mask of complacency and ignore the incident entirely.

It was Cartman who made the next move. I never understood why everyone disliked him. Although he could be rude and standoffish I knew that deep down he was good. A fact that, apparently, only I could see.

I hadn't had much of a chance to talk to him one on one so I was delighted when we were paired in class for an assignment. The delight soon turned to something else entirely. This wasn't the Eric Cartman that was my friend, despite his sometimes loud complaints of otherwise.

It was a mockery of him. Everything about him was wrong, wrong, wrong. From the way he moved to the way he talked and yelled. His eyes lit up in all the wrong places and his face only seemed to have one emotion: anger. He had become a one dimensional character.

It was then that I had my first suspicions.

I was reluctant at first to go down that road and instead sat on the idea for a while. During that time, I watched them rigorously. The more I watched, the more despair I felt. There was a subtle wrongness about them as they carried on their day. As someone who was a part of their group, albeit a second choice, I could pick out differences in behavior or things they would never do before the Imagination Incident.

Their relationship with each other was strained and awkward. The three of them would walk together, but the friendship didn't seem to be there anymore. Kyle and Cartman still argued with each other, but no longer was there that camaraderie buried deep, deep down. There was only anger and hatred. Stan seemed to almost ignore Cartman, speaking to him only when his spews were too outrageous. Kyle and Stan would continuously alternate between being best buds to being indifferent as if they didn't understand how they were supposed to act around one another.

It was Stans' on again off again relationship with Wendy that cued me in. I talked to her after a particularly nasty break up and asked what was going on. She immediately filled me in, finding me no threat to her or her status.

The things she told me sent chills down my spine. She explained how their relationship had a sudden weird turn after the Imagination Incident. She had assumed he was just trying to understand the chaos that had happened and had given him some space. It had worked, or so she thought. He seemed to calm down and they started going out again.

It was then that she noticed he had forgotten things both little and big. Apparently, he couldn't remember their first kiss, or first date. He couldn't remember what his first present to her was or why they broke up last time.

She broke up with him after she realized he had forgotten memories she considered precious. It didn't last long though, for they got back together the next day. After that she told me she felt like she was living in one of those soap operas. It seemed that every other day, Stan would think of some new way to create drama and break up.

I was only able to offer her a small comfort, too stunned in my revelations to do anything else. It occurred to me later while I was in the safety of my room, that the only knowledge I had of relationships were of my parents and those dramas on the television.

I tried to go to sleep, but it wouldn't claim me. I finally gave up half-way through the night and went to my desk. I carefully wrote down everything I had noticed wrong with their behaviors and possible explanations.

Only one explanation made sense.

But I wasn't ready to accept it.

I kept the list in a safe place in my desk and wrote down everything I saw or heard every night before I slept. It could be something as little as Stan eating the wrong food on certain days to deadpan stares when I asked them certain questions, specific question, from times that I wasn't around them.

And time and time again, it would lead to the same conclusion.

They weren't real.

I knew they were solid. They could get hurt or die. They could think and feel. They were real in all sense except one: they were imaginary. It was the only explanation.

When the nuke came through the portal to Imaginationland and wiped everything out, I remember darkness. There was a despondent feeling as I floated there, my body swept away with Imaginationland. My mind started to slow and I could feel pieces disappearing into the void. I couldn't remember how I had gotten in that infinite darkness or who I even was. The light saved me, piercing through and touching my existence. It was all I had needed to pull myself out of that darkness and into that world of light which I soon came to realize was what was left of Imaginationland.

I thought that if I recreated it, everything would be fine. That lion told me I could do it; that I had the power. I was so wrapped up with the idea of bringing everyone back (my friends) that I didn't stop and really think out what I was doing. I just brought them back.

But I didn't. Stan, Kyle, and Cartman were already dead. The only thing I could bring back was my idea of them. What I imagined them to be.

It explained everything. Their sudden change in behavior, how they reacted similarly sometimes to television shows I watch, and their inexplicit memory loss during all the times I wasn't around them.

Whenever I drilled them for information about certain events, they could always give me the outline that everyone knew. When it came down to specifics, they would give me that same dead look and change the conversation. It wasn't because they didn't want to tell me, it was because they couldn't. They only knew what I knew.

The thought in itself was terrifying. If they were imaginary, then what was I? I had been in the same blast as them. I remember the darkness all too well. Was I imaginary too? Did someone dream or think me up?

I wracked my brain for hours trying to think of anything off about my behavior or memories before I came to the conclusion that I couldn't know. How could I? If someone made me, how would I know that my actions were off? They would be the only ones I knew. It would make sense that Stan, Kyle, and Cartman wouldn't know they were imaginary. They were created that way.

Was I created too?

Nothing could soothe me, the question reverberating in my head without end. I went weeks walking around in a dreamlike state. Food tasted like ash in my mouth and water felt like acid. I refused to touch anyone, fearing that at any moment I would become intangible and fade back to that blackness.

And still, they walked around in my friends' lives as if nothing was wrong. They were a mockery of my friends. They were mocking me.

My grades started to slip and my parents started to yell more at me and at each other. I couldn't bring myself to care. What did grades mean to someone who was imaginary? I began spending more time in my room, thinking of ways to stop this; to make it right. It wasn't fair that my friends were replaced with fakes. That I am a fake. It wasn't fair to us and it wasn't fair to our friends and families.

And now here I am, standing in front of the mirror, staring at myself. My face is drawn, my sickly pale skin a contrast to the dark circles underneath my eyes. My body is bony and I can see my ribs starting to poke through skin and what's left of muscle.

My eyes though, they are determined, life having seeped into them once more. After weeks of depression, I had finally come to the only conclusion. There was only one way to fix this and I knew how now. It was simple really. I can't believe I didn't think of it before.

There is a soft knock that catches my attention and my eyes dart towards the door. My mothers' voice floats into my room, "hurry up Butters. We're leaving for Ms. Cartman's house in ten minutes."

My eyes drift back to the mirror and for the first time in a long time, I smiled.