Cartman pulled the collar of Stan's shirt to see his burnt neck.

"It doesn't look that bad. I can't even see the bone."

"It's still a third degree burn. Believe me, it hurts as hell." Stan replied. "Don't touch it!"

"How come you don't have any?" Cartman turned his head towards Kenny.

The blond, walking with his hands inside his pockets, did not open his mouth. He just shrugged quickly and looked up at the cloudless sky. A warm wind blew; it would have been much better if it had been cooler.

"I'd sue the hell of out them if I were you."

"Our parents are taking care of that already." Kyle mentioned.

"I'm very thankful to be alive." Stan nodded.

"Me too." Kyle agreed, and Kenny nodded.

"Yeah. You're a bunch of lucky mofos. When I saw you shaking like this and then lying on the ground, I thought I'd have to buy wreath in bulk."

"I would have never thought you'd care so much about us." Kyle smirked.

Their conversation was briefly interrupted by an ominous apparition. Sat in the shade of a tree by Henrietta's house, the four goths seemed to be doing nothing but smoke and sweat (who else would be stupid enough to wear those black outfits in summer?), yet, when the four boys appeared, their eyes followed them. There was something not very nice about the way they looked at them. Stan had the feeling that they were looking at him specially. They completely looked like ravens, some kind of black, predator birds ready to pounce. Stan, Kenny, Kyle and Cartman couldn't help feeling extremely relieved when they left them behind.

"There you got four guys who would have been pretty happy to bury you." Cartman pointed at them with a movement of his head.

"And you dated her in high school?" Kyle had always wanted to ask this to Kenny.

"Uh-uh! I didn't exactly date her! We just made out! And I did it with a lot of girls! It was a party! Token's party, remember? It's just that...the lights were out. We all did crazy things that night." Kenny defended himself.

"Oh, yeah, I remember."

"When Token's parents came and found you in their bed with Sophie Jones." Stan remembered.

"Token's parents saw a lot of shit that night." Kenny nodded.

"Now that was a party." Cartman grinned. "Yeah, you were giving girls syphilis and shit, Kyle and I were drinking from the bottle...Guess that's why he's a PRO member now."

Kyle punched Cartman's arm with a little smile, although he didn't find funny what he did at that party—he was right, after what happened, he had taken the determination of never tasting alcohol again.

"...Stan was getting handsy with Wendy, Timmy had the b-Ouch!"

Kyle punched Cartman again, then pointed at Stan discreetly. How upset he looked, his good mood dropping.

"Look, Stan, we can't help you until you tell us what happened exactly!" Cartman complained to him.

"I don't want to talk about it. Sorry, guys." Stan replied.

Kenny frowned at Cartman. Now that they were starting to have a nice time together, he had to ruin everything with his big mouth.

"I earned three hundred dollars the other night," he said, "let's go get something to eat. I'll pay."

"It was about time you paid some time." Cartman smirked. Well, now he knew that they didn't break his face for nothing.

Ouch...It looked pretty bad...Were those treatments prescribed at the hospital really working? Would he have those scars for the rest of his life?

Butters couldn't stand looking at himself in the mirror in his underwear. He didn't like those marks at all. He wanted no reminders of that horrible night in which he almost died. He sometimes wished he had never come across the gang.

Mr. Stotch came into the bathroom without knocking at the door first. As always, since Butters reach that age in which many boys started to smoke and consume drugs.

"Don't touch the tissues."

"No, dad. I didn't touch them."

"You'd better not. You don't want it to get infected, do you?"

"Of course not."

Mr. Stotch sighed, looking at himself in the mirror too, to see the white hairs that were spreading all over his hair.

"Didn't you see that the attraction was in a bad state?" Butters started to tremble. The time of worry was over. He was back at home. There was no escape.

"No, of course I didn't. None of us thought there could be something wrong with it."

"You didn't get some kind of burnt smell? Didn't you see if it moved weirdly?"

"No. I was talking to my friends, I didn't..."

"You could have died. You should have been more cautious."

"Yeah..."

"I hope this serves as a lesson for you."

"Yes, I will never lay a foot on an attraction."

"Good. Also, I'm not sure if those friends of you are very convenient. I can understand that you didn't notice but them? I'm thinking..." Mr. Stotch looked at his son, " that South Park is full of irresponsible people. I couldn't complain when you were a child because you had to socialize and there wasn't much to choose, but now that you are in college and can meet better people from outside, I don't think you should hang out with your old classmates."

"What's so bad about them?"

"Where do I begin with?" Was all Mr. Stotch said before leaving the bathroom to see if lunch was ready.

Butters sighed once he knew his father couldn't hear him. Of course he wouldn't want him to hang out with the old gang. After what happened...It was a pity, because he honestly liked them, all of them, even if they drank alcohol, had a very long amorous and criminal record, or never thought of getting higher education. But he didn't want to upset his father.

Good thing that summer holidays wouldn't last forever and then...then he would go back to college and focus on his studies. Just his studies.

Wendy had called Scott to meet her at her house at a time when there was no one else at home. When Scott finally rang, she breathed deeply and opened the door feeling ridiculously nervous. She didn't know why she was.

"Hi, Wendy."

"Hi, Scott, come in."

Scott stood there, looking quite uneasy. His body was bandaged, just like Wendy's. The part which had been in contact with the metal of the ride had been affected and probably would never look good again.

"Uh...Sit down."

"I'd rather not. The burns still hurt."

"Oh, alright...Do you want a snack or something?"

"Uhm, do you have fruit juice or something like that?"

"Let me check." Wendy walked to the fridge and came back shortly after with a bottle in her hands.

"We have orange juice. Don't worry, my mom's on a diet, so nothing in my fridge has sugar."

"Ah, perfect. Thank you so much."

They remained in silence, and it wasn't nice. The more time passed, the more awkward the two of them felt.

"So..." Scott tried to help her speak.

Wendy licked her lips.

"I'm really sorry about what happened to you. Dragging you to the ride of death..."

"You don't have to apologize, you couldn't know."

"Yeah, but...I'd like to apologize too about the kiss..."

"Now that's a different thing." Scott caressed the glass, raising his eyebrows.

"I guess you deserve to know what this is all about."

"Yep, it would be nice from you. And I'm dying to know what happened between you and Stan. I don't know, you seemed to be so well..."

"Yeah, I thought so too...That's why I asked him to move together."

"Oh...When?"

"Three months ago. We've been together since...I don't know when. It seemed like this time was going to be the definitive. I thought this time we were able to communicate, and nothing would go wrong..."

"And what did Stan say when you asked him?"

"...He said no."

"He said no? Why?"

"He didn't even tell me why. No matter how much I tried, he didn't even give me a reason. After that, he started ghosting. He never answered to my messages, and whenever our paths crossed, he tried to escape..."

Scott didn't reply. His face showed that he found that attitude extremely unpleasant.

"...And I don't know what I did wrong. Or if he has something against the idea. If he had, we could have talked about it, but...this? What's the point of all of this? I just...can't understand, and it hurts so much, because I think the real problem is me and..."

"Wendy..."

"Yes, of course, I'm not the problem. He is the problem. That was so fucked up and immature. And maybe I should be glad that this happened before-"

"Wendy...Are you...sure...the juice was sugar-free?"

Wendy fell silent. Scott wasn't affected by what she was telling him. He was having an attack.

She ran the fastest she had ever ran in her life to check the bottle. The label didn't say that it was sugar free, but that it contained 8% less sugar. SHIT!

"Oh, nonononononono! Scott! Scott, I'm so sorry! Y-You brought your insulin, right?!"

Scott nodded weakly and slid a hand inside of his pocket to grab it.

But the medicine sipped from his fingers. His hand touched his chest.

"I'm calling an ambulance, hold on!"

Wendy tried to grab her phone but her hands were trembling. What the hell was she thinking about when she read the label?!

Suddenly, when she looked at Scott again, her hands went rigid and the phone definitely fell to the floor. When he got closer, she drew back, tangling her feet and falling too. Too shocked to get up, scream or do something, she could just watch how Scott's muscles tensed, the seams of his shirt busted, his grunts deepened, unable to call anybody or even ask what the hell was going on.