Chapter 2: I Can't Say Goodbye
The coming night was cold and barren as the winds picked up outside, stripping the leaves from the trees. From his room, the rain made sounds like gunfire, sending hell onto the little dormitory. Pip no longer felt anxious or excited, or anything really. His gut ached like an open wound, and now all of his soul was spilling from the hole in his stomach. He was empty. Time no longer felt slowed or worrisome, it only felt missing. Pip never fell asleep that night, even as the rain sang through the hours. He was too afraid to close his eyes. He knew that as soon as he did, a dream worse than the last would surface. He would allow no more bad omens-not today at least.
So, the morning came slowly, and then not at all. The clouds from the night before stayed glued to the sky, oozing rain through the breaks in the shadows. They tinted the sky a dark and smothering gray, making the air sickly and tired. But all this felt so far away to the blonde boy, trapped inside himself. He could only think about Damien, and why he had said goodbye that horrible morning.
Damien padded his thumbs against his hands as he sat slumped over in his seat, and heaved a sigh. He wasn't used to being told what to do. This whole week had been a joke that was too cruel to be funny. The space in his heart wrenched and ached with weight over the things he had said to Pip the day before. He hated himself for making the boy cry. Still, no anger he held for himself could match how completely he hated his father: Lucifer. This whole mess was his fault, of this Damien was certain. After all, his sigil was plastered in red on the letter he received after he had met Pip. As he sat, he pulled the letter from his pocket and read it over for the thirteenth time.
"Damien Thorn," the letter said simply. "We have told you time and time again of your duties on earth as the antichrist." Damien frowned deeply as his eyes scanned the dark black words. "This certainly does not include fraternization with mortals," the letter continued. "We have been given word that you have recently engaged in far more interaction than is required with a human boy by the name of Phillip Pirrup." Damien hated that his father knew all this; that he watched his every move. "If this sort of misconduct does not desist immediately, then we will have no qualms with killing the boy, and see to it that he is damned to hell for all time." At the bottom of the letter was his father's signature, alongside that of three other high ranking officers from the underworld. Damien balled up the parchment in his hand as the edges grew black, then orange. Before long, the letter was nothing but ashes in his hand. The black haired boy scowled before shaking his hand loose of the heated dust. He wasn't going to sit by this time. He asked for so little from the world, he wasn't about to let his father take away the one promising thing he had. Besides, he was still the antichrist. Nothing was going to stand in his way-not even this. With that, Damien left the small apartment his father had gifted him and set out into the Colorado cold.
He wasn't exactly sure how, but he knew he had to see Pip again. He couldn't stand to let the things he had said to the boy be his last. Still, he had to be careful. His father was a pompous man, but the underworld officials would not send such a warning so lightly. If they caught him meeting Pip in person again, they would keep to their word. Pip seemed too sweet of a boy to be sent to Hell, even if it meant he'd get to see him again. No, he certainly couldn't have that. That being said, the antichrist was currently at a loss for a plan-or even a place to start for that matter. He knew Pip lived on the university grounds, but he wasn't entirely sure as to where. Even if he did find him, it would be impossible to meet in person.
Damien folded his arms to his chest as he began the trek from his apartment into South Park proper. The sharp afternoon air buzzed like locusts through his fingers as the sun cried above, muffled by the clouds. Away from the comfort of his bedroom, the air was sharp enough to wound. Still, the demon boy found that any sort of weather was better than the fires of hell; the underworld always felt baked and full, like the air had been mixed with rock from the sun. After a moment of grumbling he simply shrugged, figuring this was probably intentional. As he walked, the cracked snow beneath him melted slowly, mixing into a dark black water onto the pavement. It was troublesome that the boy stayed so hot, but it was never enough for the average citizen of South Park to notice. Besides, it seemed that not many were eager enough to approach him, let alone engage in conversation. This cast Damien as a simple shadow on the ground, slinking into town like the foreigner he was. He had lived here for nearly all his life, but he could never truly call it home. He supposed he never really had a reason to, anyways. It felt like his life was a reality tv show, constantly stocked by low ambitions and people he hated. But Pip was an outsider too. The blonde boy knew what it was like to be discarded from birth, and how it felt to be alone for so long. It was only fitting that the two would grow close, considering they began so alike. Even so, Damien had one-upped the younger boy since before he was born, unable to tell him anything of his past or family. The antichrist simply hoped that part would come with time.
South Park seemed dead as Damien passed by empty building after building. Apparently the storm from yesterday had sent everyone running home like it was Armageddon. It would take more than rain however to scare away the black haired boy. He would be the first to know if the world was ending, after all. Besides, an empty town made for better thinking space. Without so much as a clue as to where he was actually headed, Damien walked slow and tired deeper into the town. He ultimately decided that although predictable, he should probably begin at the library.
Pip felt trapped in thick air, but standing still wasn't an option any more. He had been so patient for so very long-he couldn't let Damien slip away now. He couldn't be sure what the boy's intentions were, but he wasn't about to believe that Damien really felt this way. The two had made a connection on meeting, something that couldn't be broken by force of will alone. No, something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. So, Pip decided to do some digging. For the next few hours, the tired boy sat slumped in his desk chair, staring hard at the dulled fluorescence of his computer screen. He had tried searching the internet over looking for any trace of Damien's previous whereabouts, but something was amiss. Things didn't feel off, or out of place, just...missing. Forget a prior address, he couldn't find a shred of evidence saying Damien even existed. Pip knew he was a bit lacking in computer skills, but he never thought he could be this bad. Surely it couldn't be his fault? At first, the blonde boy was only a bit angry. It seemed foolish that there could be no trace of a person anywhere, that someone could live their whole life without ever leaving a mark behind. Soon after, however, he began to grow paranoid. Had this all been a feverish dream; some nightmare induced from eating too much before bed? Pip refused to believe this. He asked God what he had done to deserve something so horrible-to have something so wonderful in his life only to be pulled away moments later. Pip gripped the edge of his desk hard with white-knuckled resolve. He no longer felt confused or betrayed; it was high time he took action. Pip the cry baby was finally dead. The blonde boy brushed from the little dark room again, in search of his friend.
Damien paced the library in quiet frustration. On the desk beside him sat book over book on espionage tactics and methods of secrecy. It felt idiotic to be so wrapped up in a stuffy old library, reading such trash. He was trying to meet with his friend, not break into The Pentagon. Still, in the back of his mind, he knew the method behind it all. His father's generals were always watching, burning holes in the back of the antichrist's head. If anyone so much as heard him utter the name Pip, the boy would no doubt be killed on the spot. Damien's weight shifted as he scaled a small rusted stepladder, standing on his toes to retrieve a book from the highest shelf. To think, the antichrist should be reduced to such menial tasks all in the name of a human boy.
The black haired boy sat upright for a time in an old wooden library chair, reading. His eyes scanned from line to line nearly instantaneously, yet his attention was shattered to pieces each time he looked over a paragraph. Some god-awful noise was stirring just over the next row of shelves, stopping intermittently only to begin again moments later. To Damien, it was another obnoxious distraction keeping him from reaching Pip. This had to be silenced immediately. Damien rose from his chair quickly and moved over to the source of the noise. He could make out the sound more clearly now, as he furrowed his brow with frustration. He eventually spotted two boys arguing at the far end of the hall. Their accents were nearly as pronounced as Pip's, it seemed, albeit with a much harsher tone. The lighter-haired boy stood up in his chair as Damien approached, his hand still gripping a tuft of the other boys collar. The two seemed to be entirely oblivious to the fact that they were in a library.
"Excuse me," the thinner boy said flatly. "I don't believe this is any of your business." The darker haired boy scowled in agreement before returning his attention to their dispute.
"You don't seem to understand," Damien said. "Anything is my business if it fucks with my concentration." The antichrist's eyes flashed in little embers, singeing the air around the three. This time, the dark haired boy responded, still keeping his attention away from Damien.
"Qui est-ce?" The boy spat to the other. "Is 'e a friend of yours?" Damien watched as the boy stood to match the blonde.
"God, what makes you think I know?" the blonde boy asked. "By the looks of him, I assumed he was one of yours!"
"And just what is zat supposed to mean?" the cigarette smoke scented one retorted. For all their arguing, it seemed the two were rather involved with one another.
"I'm still here, idiots," Damien said loudly, interrupting them again. "I don't care about whatever the hell you're doing, but you need to make it quiet before I do it for you." The blonde boy scoffed at this, eyeing Damien up and down.
"You see this, de Lorne?" the British boy said. His grip on the other's dirty, dark green shirt loosened. "I believe this man thinks he's above our 'petty little squabble,' doesn't he?"
"I zink zat's a little obvious, beetch," Christophe replied to the other. The blonde boy grit his teeth in anger, ready to begin the quarrel anew. However, just as he spoke, a harsh, "Quiet!" rang into their ears. An old woman with graying wires of hair stood beside Damien, shocking the three to attention. With not a word more, they were removed from the South Park Public Library.
"Look at what you fuckwads did!" Damien shouted from the steps of the library. The two boys pouted in crossed-arm denial, refusing to look at the antichrist. The whole "incognito" thing was turning out very poorly so far.
"What we did?" Christophe mocked at Damien "Zis is your fault, tu connard! Gregory and I 'ad nearly settled till you came along." Gregory nodded this time, his hair unbearably brighter in the white Colorado air.
"Where am I supposed to go now?" Damien fumed. "Tell me one other place in this god-forsaken town where I can learn how to talk to someone without actually fucking talking to them!" Damien's chest was heaving, wrought with the thought losing Pip forever.
"That's it?" Gregory smirked. "That's what was so important?" Gregory asked with a laugh. "You wanted to know how to be sneaky?" Christophe chimed in. The two began laughing together, arm in arm.
"Fuck you, " Damien snapped. "This is life and death. If I get caught in any of this, the person I love is going to die." The black haired boy paused at his own words. Did he really love Pip? He had only known the boy a few days, it seemed so unlike him to grow so attached. No, he decided. It must have been a slip of the tongue. Damien never bought into that human "love at first sight" bullshit.
"Ooh là là!" Christophe joked. "It sounds like anger boy is in love!" The antichrist ignored the comment. "But, if it is secrecy you are after, I can already say zere is not a single book in zis podunk town on zee subject."
"Besides," Gregory added. "If you're looking for that sort of thing, there's quite a few options better than trifling little books." Gregory's smirk returned, painfully obvious. "I can think of one avenue in particular, if you're interested."
"I've seen enough of your shit already, thanks," Damien said. "Plus I'm pretty sure I don't need the help of some British asshole and his grimey French boyfriend."
"Excusez-moi?" Christophe shouted. "And who are you to deny our extremely generous offer?"
"I'm Damien Thorn, the antichrist."