Chapter 1: The Tide of Death

All the way back in 1966 Minnesota, there was a house with a younger man. This guy was trying to find a better job than the one he did have. He was a sixteen-year-old high-school dropout who was considered to be one of the true origins of an 'emo asshole'. The name of this man was Ken. He had felt like his older brother would be a total disaster to the world and was trying to find a way to keep him from leaving the house as often as he did.

His older brother was named Sam, and he was about three years older than Ken. The two of them have had a very bad relationship with each other and neither of them had been able to get along for much more than a week or two. Every time that they had tried to be nice to each other, it would be ruined right away. Ken was thinking about this as he was reading one of his history books. He hated going to school. But the one thing that could get behind was the history class. He had been reading a bunch of history related books when he had gotten the chance since he was a pretty curious person. One of the books that he had been reading was about a few presidents and the work that they had been doing during their time in office. Such as the term of William McKinley and the elections that he had been given against the relatively young, fierce, and outgoing William Jennings Bryan.

Ken was putting the book down after he had decided that he needed a little bit of a break from all of this reading and spacing out. There was also the fact that he had read this book like six or seven times already since he had 'forgotten' to return it when he dropped out in his sophomore year. Ken started to consider what else he should spend his time doing. He was dissatisfied with his very poor rating job. It was just at a gas station and the job was nothing if underwhelming. It only gave him the most basic of wages.

"Hey, Ken, what the fuck are you doing?" Sam asked when Ken was just staring at the ceiling in thought. As he was doing this, Sam had thought that Ken was being useless once again and that there would be a good chance to treat him like shit once again. Ken turned his chair around and saw that Sam was holding some drumsticks.

"What are you doing with those?" Ken asked. Sam considered his rebuttal. There was a valid reasoning behind all of this. Sam put the drumsticks onto the top of their dresser that was next to the door.

"No, I asked first, what are you doing?" Sam asked. Ken decided that maybe he should just answer his brother and get it over with. Then Sam would be able to just drop it and then he could go back to his own thing. At least it wasn't as bad as other times Sam tried to bullshit with him.

"Well, I was just reading some of my history books to memorize some facts. I'm not in school anymore man. I have to keep my mind sharp. But I don't think you really care at all. After all, the only thing you talk about is how I need to do something. Or get a hobby. At least I'm doing something right now." Ken said.

Sam decided to back down a bit. Sam did say he wanted Ken to get a hobby. He just didn't think it would be reading some boring books. Typical of his brother to choose something this lame.

"I thought you would get back into writing in your notebooks again like how you did in seventh grade. At least then you were working towards making some form of literature. You were writing your own story. Hey, I did send you that one notebook a couple of months ago. Why not go into that a little bit more?" Sam asked. Ken decided that he didn't want to tell Sam the truth. He had filled it up already and did so in about a month. Besides, Ken did not really want to write a biography or a lifelong story, but he felt like it should be something that he'd come back to every few years or so. He still hated admitting that his brother knew him better than he knew himself.

"Well, that was something that I did really enjoy doing back at the time that it happened. However, I don't really know if I can keep up writing and filling journals over and over again. I think that it was a good thing to do twice and it captured two parts of my life very well. But in the end, I don't think I would be able to do it for the rest of my life. Maybe in another few years from now, when I am like twenty or twenty-one, I will do another one. So that way I can see the difference in my life now to four to five years from now." Ken had said.

Sam decided that he didn't really want to argue with Ken. Even if he had thought that this was totally ridiculous. "Well, whatever works for you I guess. I would have done something else myself. But I mean, you are your own person, Ken. So go on and just do something that you think will work out your own way." Sam said and then when he said that, he walked off in a bit of a huff. Ken wondered idly how long it would be until Sam came back.

As he was thinking this, he was reflected of his time that he had to deal with Brad and their messed up plans for prom. There was something that was totally crazy albeit way more noteworthy than Joe and Matt's prom plans twenty years later. Ken then sort of thought that Brad and he could have been really good friends. They had only hung out two or three times since prom. But Ken had started to think that maybe that was for the better. Since he had only talked to Brad a couple of times, Ken figured they hadn't had time to ruin their first impressions of each other. And Ken would not want that to happen at all.

When he was done thinking about Brad and their prom adventures, Sam had shown back up in Ken's room. This confused Ken.

"I thought that you would have been out for a bit longer," Ken told Sam.

Sam chose to ignore Ken's statement. "So Ken, do you have anything that you are going to be able to do?" Sam asked just to fuck with Ken. Ken sighed and shook his head.

"I am going to be hanging with Susan. At least Susan and I will be doing something that is of worth. Susan and I have made so much progress in the last couple of months that I think she and I might go on to the next level soon," Sam said.

Ken was unsure what he meant by that. After all, it was no secret that Sam and Susan were having sex with how much Sam bragged about it and all that shit. That meant Ken must be talking about buying a ring. "Sam, are you actually thinking of... marrying Susan?" Ken asked. He was barely able to ask the question without feeling a sudden wave of every single emotion that he could remember having faced in his life. He tried to imagine what it would be like having Susan become his sister-in-law. He didn't hate Susan. In fact, he liked her more than he liked Sam most times. He was just not really sure how to take the sudden news.

"It's on the table now. I'm sure that once you get to see just how happy we are, you will work hard to support us however you can. Maybe if you start to prove yourself more, then I will think about inviting you to the wedding. But of course, you would have to earn it. Being my brother does not instantly mean that you get top treatment from me. Believe it or not," Sam told Ken.

Ken was still very happy that Sam was going to be making some great progress with Susan. But the more that Sam was a dick about it, the more that Ken did not want anything to go well for Sam anymore. Which he knew was mean and kind of petty, but that was how he felt.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't just hang out with Susan all the time and maybe do other things of actual merit in your life. You could use a hobby yourself that isn't just bragging about getting laid. Maybe you wouldn't be a total asshole then." Ken said.

Sam shook his head. He was trying to be nice to Ken for once and then he had ruined it without even trying to cooperate. "You need to stop being one yourself and maybe instead start to think about how I am making doing." Sam said and stomped off.

Ken was again alone to take that moment in. He knew that there might be a certain level of truth to what his brother accused. But it still sounded totally dickish when it came out of Sam. Sam had a way of always sounding a dick no matter how he tried to prove his point on literally anything. It could almost be another brag-worthy talent of his. That is if Sam was able to see how it had worked out so well.

Sam knew that the more he talked with Ken, the more that he would just get pissed off over his whiny little brother. He needed to grow up and it needed to happen real fucking quick. He had no idea when it would happen though was the thing that had scared the shit out of him so badly. Either way, Sam just had to leave the area to get some space.

Ken was thinking of how great it was going to be when Sam would finally break up with Susan. It would show Sam that he was not perfect and everything about the guy was a total and utter failure. Ken knew he'd be ready to laugh his ass of when it happens. Ken stood up and left his history book on the table since he'd thought that maybe Sam was actually right on that matter at least. He heard his mother's footsteps as she headed towards his room.

"Kevin, do you want to talk to me? Are you in an okay mood right now?" Ken's mother called. She was the only one who used his real name. Ken had told people to stop calling him Kevin after seventh grade, when he really started to change as a person and wanted something to reflect on it. But even since then, she would seemingly never give up on calling him Kevin.

"I was just having an argument with Sam. Sorry if we were being loud. I just thought to myself that I hoped he and Susan were going to break up eventually. It doesn't seem fair that Sam gets such great things to happen to him. But then Sam had told me that he was actually planning on proposing to Susan soon."

When Ken had told his mother that last little bit, she almost seemed on the verge of shedding tears. She thought that it would be great to have a daughter-in-law. She had always wanted a daughter and knew it was the closest she'd likely ever get. Especially with how rowdy Ken and Sam had turned out. But then again, she was just glad that she had kids at all.

"I can't believe that I am going to be a mother-in-law soon. I always liked Susan and think that she does a good job helping keep Sam calmed down. I think they have a really good connection, Ken. You shouldn't try and tell him that they are going to break up. Sam likes her and you should not try to ruin their happy moments," his mother said.

Ken shook his head before looking his mom straight in the eye. "Well, I'm sorry that your daughter in law will be married to one of the worst sons on the face of the planet. He's nothing but filth," Ken said.

She scowled before regaining her composure at the harsh words. Then she just looked at him as if he really did not get it at all. "You know what, maybe one day you will know what it's like to have kids. Maybe you'll understand the bond that grows with them and how much you want them to succeed in their lives. No matter what you like to admit, a kid is something that changes a person in ways that are completely unpredictable. I only hope once that happens to you that you start to grow into something else entirely." Ken's mother said.

Ken just stood up turned away from her to make sure that he wasn't looking at her.

"Maybe you are right. But I just don't get it right now. I feel like I can be critical of Sam when I feel that he has some major problems," Ken said. He turned around to see his mother again. She remained silent and left the room. Ken just sat down where he was thinking of getting ready to go to sleep.

He decided that he'd want to revisit some old experiences since he had not much else to do. Ken grabbed the second notebook that he had filled up. He started reading about the conversations that he and Brad had had as well as his encounters with that guy who had been in his Wayside life and had consequently ruined his life forever. He and Brad had got into a big conflict with that guy since he had ruined their Prom. It all ended with a huge fight, including a part with the police. Unlike in Wayside, where when they were let out they were practically heroes. Ken had thought that Brad and him should go on and hang out again. He could use a good friend right now. As much as Ken did not want to admit it, Sam was a little bit right on this whole thing.

"You know, maybe Sam is right in this case," Ken was saying under his breath. He shook his head as if he could not believe that he had actually said those words out of his mouth. He continued on reading the shit that he had written after he had dealt with Brad and Prom, such as trying to get done with his homework assignments as fast as he could. Soon enough, he had gotten more work in one week done than he had done in his first two years of high school. By the time the semester ended, it was his only semester in which he got a perfect five credit card. Every other semester before that point, he had failed at least one class before. Those classes and the credits that they had given him had finally brought him around to a 2.6 GPA for that semester, which was the highest that he had ever reached during high school. Not that he thought that this was necessarily going to be a turning point. But simply he was just too tired of school, and when there was finally a time that it had looked like he was actually making some real progress on this, it was thrown away. He didn't really have any good patience skills over this whole thing. But then with his drop out, he just needed to find a way to make his life good. At least better than working at a fucking gas station.

After a few minutes of Ken just sort of waiting around and doing nothing besides reading his old notebook, there was yet again another knock on his door. Ken turned around to see that his father was right there. He allowed his father to come into the room and then his father sat down on the bed a couple feet away from him. Ken wondered what type of rant he was going to be given from all of the arguments. Not that he really wanted to know. But he just knew that it was going to be coming.

"Are you going to talk to me about Sam and how we need to get along again? Because to be honest, I am tired of talking about Sam and thinking about him. I just want to be able to talk about something else for once," Ken said.

His father thought for a moment before replying. "You know, I was going to do that originally until you told me what you just said. So I will go along and respect your wishes for the time being. I will say something related to Sam for a quick moment and then I will switch back into a conversation that is not related to him at all. Anyway, there is something that I was originally going to be giving to Sam back in the day, but as time has passed on he is showing very obviously that he does not want this. I thought that maybe you would want to have this. Since you have a chance of getting into this field of career. And with that, here you go." His father said before he took something out from behind him to give to Ken.

"What is this? Why are you giving this to me?" Ken had asked when he had finally gotten to realize what he had been given. It was a police hat, and when he had seen this, he was wondering what his father was doing with it. He knew that this was what his father had done as a job and he had also known that he had had this as his first police hat. Which had made things even more strange for him.

"I thought that there was a chance that you might want to be in the job. I just thought that it would be really nice of me to offer it to you. And with that, I thought that even if nothing else, you would at least like having it as a visual piece. So I guess that if you want to wear it or become a police officer, then I am glad for you." His father had explained and then he put his hand on Ken's shoulder.

"Are you doing it soon? Retiring I mean," Ken asked. His father nodded - he was pretty old after all. At the age of seventy seven years old, he was by far the oldest parent at the graduation for Sam.

"There comes a point in which you have to throw the towel in eventually. So I think that with it coming soon, I need to start considering passing it onto somebody else in the family. That is if you actually have an interest in the career," his father said.

Ken considered what his father had been saying for a moment before nodding a little bit. He thought that he had understood what his father had said. But he still was not really one hundred percent certain what this meant for him. "Well, I will think about it at the very least. If you want me to become a cop, I might as well work towards it for the time being. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. At some point, I might find something that I like more. But unless I do, I can always fall back on this." Ken said and then he was hoping that his father would find this to be a fair idea.

"Well, you know, just whatever works for you is what matters. I won't bother you too much about it unless you start to follow something that is clearly not your dream or goal," Ken's father said. Ken's father looked at Ken a little bit, wondering what his son was thinking at that moment. But it didn't really matter since his father stood up and headed out of the room.

Ken then shook his head. Ken had wondered just how many more interruptions he was going to have to deal with in the next hour. He was seriously getting tired of people always coming in and talking to him and acting like what they need to say to him is just totally worth getting in his way all the fucking time. Ken just laid down on his bed and decided that he was going to try and take a little bit of a nap.

Ken closed his eyes and found himself having a dream about Wayside. He was thinking about what things would have been like had he not been forced out of the place. Well, to be fair, he was never really forced to go down there. But he did leave the place and completely against his own ambitions. Once he had gotten really involved in the dream, he started to have a bunch of terrible thoughts to it all. He dreamt about getting killed off by some sort of snake-like creature. Which was really confusing at that moment. Like the snake creature literally had nothing to do with Wayside or anything like that. He dreamt about the walls starting to close in on him and his friends, nearly killing the entire classroom before Todd came in to save the day. That was when Ken had woken up all of a sudden and then a few seconds after he had done so, he looked around and saw that his room was just like normal. He put his hand up to his head and rubbed his temples, trying to clear the terrifying thoughts, but was interrupted by a knock of the door.

Ken sat right up right away and he walked out to the front of the house. His parents had beaten him there, but he still did want to see what had happened. His mother had opened the door and then his father stood up next to them both. Then Ken was right behind his father. "What are you doing here?"

Ken's mother had asked this very question when she had seen the police officer there. That was exactly the type of people that had always made Ken's parents scared. Since his father was a police officer, it had meant that there was a terrible event that needed to be worked out and that his father would have to go out of his free time to go and help. That or Ken and Sam had done something wrong, and since Sam had usually never done anything wrong, it always was Ken who had done something. In fact, they had taken that into consideration when Ken's mother had looked directly at Ken and was giving him a 'what did you do' look on her face.

"I have some very bad news for you. Your son Sam was found dead near the football field. The death had come to us about twenty minutes ago. We made sure to come down here as soon as possible. We're waiting for results from forensics. But there was a gun found on the scene. I'm afraid that leaves it at either a suicide or a murder. I'm very sorry for your loss," the police officer had said.

Ken's mother had pretty much stopped hearing anything that was going on as she started to walk away.

"My wife will not be able to handle this very well. I think I might have to take a couple weeks off myself. I'll call the office soon," said Ken's father, the officer nodded in understanding.

Ken's father closed the door behind the police officer. Ken just slowly walked back into his room. Neither of his parents forced him to do something else. They all had their own ways to grieve. Ken was thinking a little bit about Susan and then when he thought about Susan, he had come to his own choice that he needed to see her and speak to her immediately. It was not really all that hard of a choice and he knew that it was a terrible thing to have to tell her. But honestly it was better for her to know that way than just having her find out on the news or the paper. He remembered a year or so ago when there was a school student that had died and all that was shown of their death was a fucking news paper article. Ken knew this was something that would really break her, and having it be done in person would be way better than this.

"Dad, I will be heading on over to see Susan right now. I think that she needs to know about the news," Ken said. He started to mess around with the clothes in his room, thinking of what would be most appropriate to wear in a situation like this. He was not really sure why he was doing this. But damn if he didn't make sure that he would have some nice clothes on to talk to her.

"Well, if you think that you need to go on and do this, then so be it. I will not argue with you," Ken's father had said.

Ken found a brown coat and then he found a red shirt and some black pants. He closed the door for some privacy. Then he put his clothes on. Once he put the clothes on, he walked out of the room and then he looked over at his father. "I'll see you guys soon. I think I will be back in a couple of hours. If I'm not back by then, I'll call letting you know what's going on." Ken said and then he walked out of the house.

Once he was out of the house, his mother was crying and screaming at her husband to bring him back home or else she will run out there to go out and get him herself. His father had said that he needed to find his own way and that Ken knew what he was doing much more than people gave him credit for. "He will be fine tonight. I doubt that fate will be cruel enough to take both of our sons away from us on the same day. If that were the case, I would start to think that maybe we were terrible parents and that we had nearly deserved it," Ken's father said and shook his head. Then he hugged his wife tightly. Ken was now totally out of sight from their house. Ken was running since he wanted to make sure that he would be over at Susan's house as soon as possible and make sure that he would help her out as long and as much as he was able to.

Ken's father was getting ready to sit down when he saw something that looked like a light where it reasonably shouldn't be. He stood up and started to walk over to the basement of the house. The closer he got, the more he began to presume what was down there. Soon enough, Ken's father was downstairs and he was now in the middle of the basement. That was when he saw the man who had been out of his life for several decades. Ken's father thought that it was over with for good. But he knew right away that this was the man responsible for Sam's death.

"I was not expecting you to be here. Why have you not aged lately? Unless my math skills doubt me, you should be over a hundred years old," Ken's father said to the man in the purple jacket. The man looked to be in his thirties. In truth, he was even older than Ken's dad.

"Oh Bill, I thought that you would have a much better greeting than this to your old lost friend. I thought that maybe you would maybe even be a bit excited to see me once again. I wanted to give you this tape. I think that it will truly show you all of the great work that I have been able to do with your son. I truly had a lot of fun with that weak child. Your younger son is a much better boy. He's one that I think will truly help me out." The man in the purple jacket gave Bill the tape, although most people knew Bill by the alias Nigel, and then when Nigel looked back up again he saw that this guy was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Before Nigel went back up stairs, he walked up to the old and hidden television he had down there and put it in the more advanced VHS player. It was something that would not come along for decades still, but he had been around in a very advanced world and therefore had been able to get the true first copy of this machine. As he began watching the tape, he saw a large football field and he knew exactly what was going to happen. As if to show that what he was thinking was true. He saw Sam walk inside the field shown on screen, the man in the purple jacket walked forward to talk to him.

"So Sam, you have decided that you were going to show up after all. I am a little bit impressed that you had the balls to show your face," the guy in the purple jacket had said.

Sam was shaking in fear since he truly knew what was going to happen. "I was wanting to tell you that I don't want to do this anymore. I'm telling you that this project is over with forever. I never wanted to do this in the first place. I was an idiot to let you tell me what to do. But this is too far. I was able to tolerate it at first, but it ends now. Unlike my brother, I have honor," Sam had said. He turned away as if to leave the purple-clad man just then.

The man in the purple jacket laughed as his response. "Sadly, I will not take no for an answer." The guy in the purple jacket took out a gun and started shooting Sam in the back over and over until he was no longer moving. As if to rub it in the viewer's face, he kept shooting the boy with each step he took near the body. He shot him down again and again until he ran out of bullets. "Nobody ever turns down the king of the digital world." The man in the purple jacket said left the soccer field with the gun dropped next to Sam. As he was out of the football field, there was split second blink and you miss it flash of a figure in a red robe.

Nigel saw the tape end that way and then he took the tape out and wrote with his pen one word: EVIDENCE! He knew that there was nothing he could do now and if it was leaked now, Nigel would be accused of being the murderer. Instead, he would buy his time. Justice for his older son would be done eventually. But he was an old man, and if there was one thing being old taught you, that was that patience is a virtue. He walked up and when he was in Ken and Sam's room, he put it in a small box next to Sam's bed so that if something happened to this house and it was looked into, that tape can be found and everybody would know Sam did not kill himself. This would be the last thing he would do in his long life of service to the world.

With all of this going down, Ken was running on his way over to Susan's house and it was raining just a bit as he was running there. The rain wasn't so bad at that point in time. He was more worried about reaching the other side of the town, which was where Susan lived. She was a little under an hour away even with him running for a good part of the time. But that was something that Ken had thought about for a little bit but did not let it ruin his idea of getting there. Helping Susan out was far more important than just sitting home and letting the seconds pass until Ken would reach Sam's age, or even higher. Which now would be able to become at least some form of a possibility.

He was thinking about a ton of stuff realted to Sam. He was thinking about all the times when he and Sam would get into fights and Sam would try and get Ken to change his ways even though Ken thought that he was already doing a good job setting up his own path. But then he was thinking about all the times when Sam would make threats with Ken about the stuff that he did in Wayside and how much he was going to threaten to tell his parents what he did during Wayside. Sam would threaten to tell them just how bad Ken really was and why they should be ashamed that they raised somebody like Ken. Some of the stuff that he said to Ken was truly crazy and overall vile.

After it had taken him a while, Ken was starting to think more of the good times that he had with Sam before he died. There were a few positive memories. While he hated Sam sometimes, he did feel like there were a couple of moments that he had that were worth it. Such as the time when Sam had taught him how to play with bubbles. Ken was about six years old at the time and when he had done that, he thought that the two were going to be great friends for life. That was before Sam had started to become very fucking hostile towards him every single day.

Then soon enough, there was the time when Ken was eight and Sam had convinced him that he would be able to go far in his dreams and ambitions. Ken had no idea what those were but the way that Sam had said it made him believe for a moment that maybe there was a truth to it and when there was that thought to him, he wanted to try even harder for Sam. He would lose that attitude after a few months and Sam would be even harder on him.

There was how Sam and Ken had started to be able to go on and try and get closer with each other during the time that Ken was at Wayside. Which was yet again another point in his life that things were going well for him. And all of that included Sam as well. Which was something that Ken was also missing about being in that place. But then as soon as Ken had left that school and he had gone down to a normal school for his eighth grade year, once again things had started to go back to him and Sam not getting along. They would start to get into fights every couple of weeks and Sam would say that he never truly supported the stuff that he did in Wayside. Sam was just glad that Ken was not busy being stupid and that he had actually supported him at the moment just to sort of help Ken get more done.

Then in his first couple of years of him being in high school, Ken and Sam had talked a bit about what Sam could do with Ken in terms of helping him out in highschool. Ken thought that this was a good idea that the two of them could get closer since Sam could help him with school work. And with helping him out at school then Ken could be able to learn the ups and downs of how things were in school. But this had only happened like three or four times per school year. Only when Ken had thought that he would really need the help of Sam.

"The more that I think about it, the more that I realize Sam and I didn't have all that many things in common in the end," Ken had said and then he sighed. This should have been a moment that he should have been really making Sam seem like the best person ever. But there was just no way that he could have done that without feeling like he was sort of lying to himself. Which he thought was even worse than being honest. After about half an hour or so of walking on his way to Susan's house, he was reaching her front yard and with each forwarding step on the way to the door, he was thinking about the best way to tell her. He was just hoping that Susan would not get angry that he did this. Ken just wanted to make things easier for her so that he could go home and put all this unpleasantness behind him for a while.