Title: Born of Flame
Author: Lovable0Elf
Summary: When Kenny stops being visited by Death, he knows something is wrong.
Rating: T for now, may go up later
Warnings: Some swearing. May be SLASH (m/m relationship) later on: beware if that bothers you.
A/N: If I get enough reviews, I'll continue this, but if no one likes it enough to bother, don't count on it. I know that Kenny might seem a bit OOC in this first chapter, but it's more of a prologue and background chapter. His 'voice' isn't meant to shine through too much. This is based in the future, when the boys are about… 15 or 16, I guess.
Critique appreciated – I want to improve my writing. I know it's not great right now, and I'm hoping to improve upon it. But if you just want to give me a quick "I love this story" review, that's fine too. I do prefer, of course, to know what you love about it… but I just like to know I'm appreciated, so anything is fine.
My birth was a complicated one.
If you can call it a birth, anyway… I was more of a creation, really.
You see, even Death someday grows weary of his post and must find a way to give the blessing and the curse to a new host. But not just any old person will do.
Death is always delivering souls from their bodies down to the underworld – it's his job. Well, when he found characteristics that he liked in souls that he brought down, he would tear that soul apart and take parts that he wanted. The rest he let go down to Hell. (What it must be like, I wonder, to 'live' in Hell with a part of your soul forever missing…)
He gathered the parts of the souls in a magic-blown glass vial. After years of searching and collecting, he created a huge fire in the deepest part of hell – with Satan overlooking the process – and while the flame burned high, he stood atop a cliff that hung over the heat and he chanted. The chant itself I do not know… I understand very little of the process. While chanting, he took the bottle filled with enough pieces of soul to make a human being and held it above the fire.
He spoke. The words or their meaning, again, I have not been told. When he had finished speaking, he slashed the vial with his scythe and it shattered – the souls, bound by the magic of the scythe, were forced down into the midst of the flames…
The fire formed into a high spiral twisting, burning heat, glowing blue for a few moments before crashing back down and turning back to its normal shade of orange again. The flames twirled and danced, I'm told, like carefree playing children… and then they stopped. All was dark and silent…
Until I began to cry.
I was lying just in the middle of where the fire used to be, naked and screaming as newborns will do. Death glided down to where I lay and picked me up in his bony grasp; almost immediately, I fell silent and looked up at him with big blue eyes.
He could not keep me in Hell, he decided. I needed to be raised by people of good value and mortality, so I could learn from the humans themselves just what life and death is all about. He brought me up to Earth in the dead of night and brought me to a small mountain town.
"This will be a good place," he is said to have whispered to my sleeping form. "You will enjoy a normal life amongst the humans, with a family that can care for you until it is your time to take over. I will see you soon."
He delivered me to the house that I now know as my own. My adopted parents, whom I have come to love dearly, took me in with open arms when they read the note attached to my overly large orange parka.
Kenneth needs a loving family to take care of him until Death is ready to bring him home. Please, give him the love of a family, and take care of him in every way you can.
And that they did.
As it turns out, Death is not as strong as one would think. For though I was only a baby, he desired to see me, his creation, again. As an immortal being of Hell, he can only travel to Earth when he is called and to where the dying person happens to be. There was really only one option.
He killed me.
After he had visited with me, he delivered me back – this, I have been explained, is something he can do with me because I was born from him. The magic in his scythe that he used to "create" me gives me the underdeveloped power of death itself.
My return brought great surprise and glee to my new family – surely my heart had been stopped for the past two hours? How, then, was I alive now?
Those answers have not been answered to them. Over time, I think they finally decided that it really doesn't matter… it has simply become a fact of life, so to speak. Every week or so, I die. Within a day, usually, I come back… sometimes we visit longer, Death and I.
We have become quite close, you see. He has become just as much of a father to me as my McCormick dad has, if not more so. We get along very well, and he loves to hear of my adventures on Earth, just as I love to listen to his stories of how I was created and delivered to my Earth family and all about his own voyages to and from Hell.
What goes on when I die is a secret that I have been bound to keep. I have never felt the urge to tell anyone, not even a little bit. No one has ever asked me. I suppose it has something to do with the fucked up things that happen every single day in South Park… one more whacked up routine isn't going to change much of anything, right?
And so my life has been since Death dropped me off with my family. I made three great friends, some not so great friends, and a few enemies as well. My family doesn't take great care of me, but they love me, and I feel that it's enough. I see Death often.
Or, I used to.
Suddenly, just over three weeks ago, he stopped calling to me. I began to worry after the second week… he had mentioned that something had not been feeling right for months.
"Kenneth, I fear something is not right," he had said through his own hood. I like watching him talk – his skeletal head never moves much and the only time he moves his jaw is to clack angrily when he's in a mood. "Indeed, I have been feeling for months that there is an imbalance. In more recent days, the sensation has increased to the point at which I now stand… I am afraid, little one."
He said little else on the subject. Now I wish I had prodded him for more information… I have no clue as to what I should do next. But I want, no, I yearn, to tell someone, anyone, about the situation. I can't, I remind myself for what must be the millionth time. I promised that I would never tell a living soul.
"But I think," I murmur to the dead, dry old leaf in my hand, "that this is an extreme circumstance. I can't do anything on my own… I need help."
And so it is help that I now seek.
A/N: If you want more, you'll have to review. If not, then obviously you won't want to review. Heh. But really, if you don't like it… please tell me why so I can improve, yes?