AN: The chapter has been incomplete for a long time, and I decided to let this fic lie in the Graveyard, as I cannot think about completing it as I got much better projects to work on.

Here's a spoiler alert: It basically was talking about America. A big metaphor about how America sucks, basically. But I think I was trying way too hard to be an edgy writer who tried to get across her point, and well, I was still learning back then. A Dragonfly's Heart and Wonderland were the next major works I made that bettered me as a writer, but there's some pieces I made like this one...that I just didn't think would be so good to revive.

I'm leaving it on for those who do enjoy it, but I don't think I want to work on it anymore. If you want to take on the challenge of writing it, be my guest. Just let me know of the results, because I would like to read.

I woke up, and I noticed how gray it was outside. Not much different from the usual Britain weather. Beauty and Reality were alike in that their weather system was also complete shit, and that it was always raining and cold and the chill keeps biting at your skin and it seems like it's going to snow at any moment, even if it was already summer. It's never hot and humid in Britain or in Beauty. It was always shit, with a rain cloud full of shit, and a storm that's going to splash absolutely fucking diarrhea on your car.

You think I'm angry? You think I'm angry because of what happened to Sonic? Don't be fucking ridiculous. I know a hat from your ass instantly, and your head is an ass. You think you can be a free thinker whenever an advertisement plays, that you're not going to buy that car or buy that food product, then before you know it you spend money on it anyways? And you say that this came from your "free will" and your "rational thinking decisions"? You're an asshole is what I was meaning to say. A selfish asshole who buys and buys and buys and consumes and consumes and consumes and doesn't stop, just keeps on feeding and breeding and exceeding and shitting out excess like a worm in a pile of dirt, and that's what you are, buddy. A worm, a measly pink wriggly worm that can breed by chopping the little fucker in half. Stupidity is something that spreads, with all of these ads and this media and the people we follow, isn't it about time we actually pay our teachers a little higher for the bullshit they go through, to teach a bunch of asinine children about the bullshit we caused and how not to cause it, but they don't listen and call your lecture boring and proceed to listen to their Nine Inch Nails CDs and their Fallout Boy or whatever the hell they listen to and scratch "Fuck yous" in the desk and swear all they want because their fucking school can't allow grown adults to swear and they have to have policemen in the cafeteria because the children of our nation are dumb enough to do stupid shit there and threaten to beat someone and throw chairs and start meaningless bullshit that doesn't mean a single goddamn thing in five years. What happened to some of the men we used to follow, who said the future of America was going to be better? What happened to The Beatles preaching about hope and love in their songs that were popular what seemed to be so long ago, and suddenly we end up with a shitty goddamn nation such as this, and the adults blame it on us, not on their own goddamn upbringing that made us this way. Am I rambling? Am I like my goddamn father, who used to ramble like this every single goddamn day who would say that the world was going to end and that we had to go to the basement and I had to shit in a bucket and somehow we're going to be saved by Jesus Christ, who just witnessed me having bloody fucking diarrhea after drinking from the rusty faucet because my father couldn't bother to get me a goddamn drink? My father is the worst, I can tell you so many fucking things about my father and it wouldn't make much of a goddamn difference. My father is a sick man, a sicker man than you and I, but at least we have one thing we agree with: the world is going to end, and I know that it deserves it. Not because of sinners or gays or Jews or anything like that, but because the world is so goddamn stupid that it's going to end in its own, ironic way. And half of America still can't find out exactly what the definition of irony is.

I was still drunk, and I was a raving mad lunatic, much like my father was.

I noticed Orwell getting up, preparing a simple breakfast, as he had boxer briefs on and no shirt, revealing his muscular torso, and his mustache seemed to be sagging with the morning grogginess as even the smell of fresh bacon wouldn't wake him up. I could see he had coffee on the counter, which was something that was proved to not cure hangovers, but I thought it might help anyways.

I don't remember how many beers I drank, but from the beer bottles collecting dust near the windowsill, I guessed about a mere 8.

My virgin tongue has discovered beer, and the very first time I tasted it, I became an alcoholic, much as I became an addict to cigarettes. Now it seemed like everyday, even if I had a hangover, I had to have a beer. After a coffee, of course.

Orwell smiled, the thin white smile that was hiding underneath a busy mustache like a fluffy caterpillar eating a piece of fruit. Then I'm reminded of The Hungry Caterpillar, the caterpillar that ate in so much excess that he became a beautiful butterfly. Of course that never happened in real life. You got the cocoon alright, but you became a full blown beautiful idiot. Or so from what my understanding was.

And in a few minutes, we got our bacon, but I noticed that Orwell was also slightly hungover from last night, and part of the bacon was burnt. Even if I felt sick and about to throw up any minute now, I ate anyways. Because I heard if you had nausea eating tend to help. As illogical as that advice sounded like.

I held my head, and it was throbbing, like my brain needed to be stabbed with an ice pick in order to stop the red hot pain. Orwell only sighed, held his head too, and said, "There's some aspirin in the cupboard if you want to take it. I might need a dose of the magic medicine myself. My head has been killing me for the past night."

"What…even happened last night? Do you remember? I remember we were playing cards, and I had a little too much to drink, and the TV had an announcement, but I think I turned it off. What was the president trying to say to us? God, I wished I could…"

"You said it was nothing important, so you turned it off. Even if the president's announcements are between life and death at times. Even if the entire nation seems to hate his guts, whenever he interrupts the TV to tell us something, it's usually something important, but nope, you said it was stupid, and turned it off."

"Did I really?" I said, incredulous. I continued to hold my stinging head as I opened up the pill bottle, full of yellow and red advertisements that told me I should also buy a sleeping aid and a painkiller and see a doctor about constant migraines somewhere near here that was a real professional (a real professional at being a sack of shit I said to myself), and I took the two small white pills and only hoped for the best. I was sure they wouldn't work, but it was either everything or nothing by that point.

"What's your president's name? Who is he like? And why does everyone hate him so much? Is there such a damn reason for it?"

"Usually, no. There isn't. But anyways, his name is Finitevius. Dr. Finitevius. To be honest, if the nation didn't hate him so much, we would certainly grow so much better than what we were already. The doc is a genius and knows what ails the common folk and how to solve it, and he says he will do everything he can to make everyone in Beauty happy, but hell, people say he's going to make them into slaves and kill the Christians and support gay rights, which the only one he's doing is supporting the gays. He's a brilliant man, and yet he continues to do his job, despite what people are thinking, because he wants to solve all our problems. And he has the best campaign I've ever seen. Serving free Crackola Cola and Mistro's Cheese, and playing the music I really love to get everyone associated with him. He knows the world is stupid, and he will use that to his advantage. They love the Crackola Cola and cheese; they can't get enough of it, those poor miserable bastards."

He lit another cigarette, the white stick fuming and burning a bright orange as he inhaled and then breathed out a gray blue stream of smoke like a concert to Nine Inch Nails or Fallout Boy or whoever I was talking about earlier. It probably didn't really matter, as long as you got the metaphor.

And looking at his cigarette, I wanted one too, and I bummed another one off him, fired yet another Red Cockatrice, but I had to admit it didn't taste as good as my Marlboros. My Marlboros had a more robust flavor, while these Cockatrices seem a little…cheap.

"Cheap, just the way Beauty likes to make them," he said, as if he read my exact initial thoughts. I wondered if this man was just like Finitevius, a genius like him, but he didn't seem like it, as he sat, slouched in his boxer briefs, with a beer on hand and a cigarette on his left.

"If Beauty didn't make everything cheap and washed out, then the whole entire nation would be bankrupt. All of it. All of our tax dollars would go to things we were planning on buying in the first place, cause hell, you can't imagine a life without cigarettes, a life without beer, a life without books and TV and movies and games and media in general, so we would be lost. But something tells me maybe the world would be better off that way, never knowing the path it's going to take, whether it's good or bad. It's going to be lost in the galaxy, in the stars, until it finds a red hot sun to come home to, and suddenly, we have light. And maybe one day, we'll be the same way, if we shut ourselves in darkness." He crushed his cigarette on his chair, creating a burn mark that seeped through the cheap leather. He obviously didn't care about his furniture very much. He knew it was garbage, so he might as well reduce it to garbage. He was either a genius or an idiot like the rest of them.

"And maybe if we did that, Jesus would consider us a planet without sin."

"Everyone sins Shadow. The planet would never be completely devoid of sin. It happens everywhere, in someone's thoughts, or in someone's actions. Hell, did you know that about every second, a hundred people sin, and there's another, and oops, there's another. Jesus can't make it up, even if he got crucified again. We would just sin, all over again, and there would be nothing we would learn from what he did. But that's not entirely the point of why he did that. He realizes everyone sins. And that's why there's praying for forgiveness. But some believe once you do that, you're free to do whatever the hell you want, all over again. But that's not it at all."

"Then what is it then?"

He looked at me in the face sternly, and then said, "Praying to God every time you had one bad thought in your head…that's fucking ridiculous. It's a crock of shit. Just live your life the best you can and not worry about that shit. There's only one life you live, this isn't a damn videogame where you have multiple lives every time you fuck up. Just press forward and do the best you can and if you fuck up, oh well. That's life. You should just try to be a good person and that's all anyone can ask for, really. You don't need all this other shit in religion, just read the Bible and realize you need to try to be a good person and not worry about that other stuff."

I had enough talk about religion for a while. It was starting to make my head hurt even more. That ice pick couldn't come fast enough.

"Let's go outside for some fresh air and you can tell me all about your friend, Sonic. And maybe I will unlock yet even more secrets for you to discover about Beauty when we have this talk. A meeting of the minds, you can say. But I think I should get a pair of decent slacks and a shirt before I go outside. I don't want people think I'm some hick like the south side of Beauty. Fuck those poor bastards. Fuck those poor bastards straight to Hell."

And then we left, to have a talk about Sonic, to have a talk about Beauty, and how much it was yet an escape, but yet a horrible realization once you came here, this wasn't much of an escape at all. I learned this from my meeting of our minds.

"So Sonic lived in a church, with his new father the pastor? And that his parents died a long time ago? That must be tough on the poor kid, but to have suddenly died like that, I can understand why you were so upset." I can still imagine him sitting there without a shirt on, just swallowing his beer down his gullet and doing nothing else but sitting outside and letting the sun roast him like a Thanksgiving turkey. I imagined him this way because Orwell seems to be the kind of guy to enjoy that kind of thing. There were some smart men who did. Ernest Hemingway possibly was one of them, and Orwell seemed to carry that kind of quality with him, to hunt and live basically a lazy and simple life, but yet carry the intelligence of some mistreated genius. His thick mustache seemed to ride up his nose as he thought about everything I told him, as he bobbed his head up and down gregariously. I simply looked at the locket and remembered the date, replaying it over and over again in my head. 1. 15. 1996. 1. 15. 1996. It was a date that I had to remember for the rest of my life, a date that was more tragic than anything else I've heard of or cared about in my old shed out 14 year old life, other than the date I was born. 8. 24. 1988. That was another date I had to remember too, a date that I thought would always live in infamy.

"In fact, I think I've seen your pastor around here. I think I even met him too. I can't remember his name now, because it's been a long time since he's been here. But we met. Yes. We met. And he wants this world to no longer be full of sin, but in order to do that; you need to make an apple pie."

"What?" I suddenly tuned him out when I looked at the locket, but now I just heard the words apple pie being used without a context, and I wasn't even sure at all what he was talking about now. But he simply grinned, his bleached white teeth pushing forth in my mind as the mustache crawled further into his nose, and he said, "Carl Sagan in your world. 'To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.' And wouldn't you know it; I tried to make an apple pie from scratch as soon as I heard that. And it's really damn hard and it came out looking like a big fat turd. Maybe to make such a perfect apple pie you really do need to create the universe. And to rid us all of our sins, you need to create an apple pie from scratch. And I'm sure your pastor can't do it. Priests have always been lousy cooks and lousy babysitters if you know what I mean."

And I suddenly remembered of my mother. And how she made a perfect apple pie every time I came back from school. Although it wasn't the time to mourn her again by remembering of that fond memory, I thought my mother must've created about a million universes, all of which were grazed with cinnamon and had the finest sauces of apples and were baked to perfection until we suddenly had a nice, warm universe for God to eat, if he even existed at all, by this point.

"So what are you planning to even do here? You're an outsider. You know nothing of our world, and you expect to come out of here alive. If you knew which way to get out of here was, then I would suggest you'd do that right now. Even if Sonic seems to be gone and lost."

"Are you kidding? If I ever came back, his father would kill me! And mine would too! They would kill me twice, stab me to death twice, make me drink until I'm stark raving mad again until I pass out twice, and either I come out of here with Sonic with me, or I never come back at all. Even if the pastor tries to find me here, I'll just run, far away, until he can't catch me. Somewhere too far away for anyone to reach.

"And that 'somewhere too far away for anyone to reach' actually doesn't exist, Shadow," he said with a grave face.

"What the hell do you even mean? Of course it exists! Doesn't it exist for everyone?"

"No. It doesn't. Things don't work that way. Eventually you'll have to return, with Sonic in tow or not. We can't run away until our feet grow tired and bleed off our skin. We can't hide away in darkness where we ourselves can't see where we're going. Eventually, people will find you, and eventually, you'll have to return. Your father, you told me a little about him, I'd imagine he would have yet another breakdown to see you gone. And once your father has a breakdown, realizes that the only people in his life that actually mattered to him are gone, you know what's going to happen?"

"No."

"Bang."

He held his two fingers against his head, making a handgun, shooting an imaginary bullet in his head. But I knew we didn't have a gun in the house, else I would've held it against my head too, and would've died to not see my father shooting himself too.

"And then you're off to a foster home, which you say they tend to be terrible places, or you're going to be with the pastor, who will try to fill the empty void with you because Sonic is gone. Do you want that, at all? To live with a damn guy who probably molests children in his spare time. I'm pretty sure that pastor that comes here does that. All pastors do that to everyone, by God. And you hate religion more than anything. Is that true?"

I didn't even need to think about that. "Yes. So I should come back eventually…"

"No!" His face was red now, a violent shade of scarlet, and he looked up at me as he seemed to jump and shout and scream, "No! You need to leave this place now! It's not a good place for you, it's not a good place for me, it's not a good place for anyone in this damn world, and you might as well leave now. Sooner the better. Later the worst. Go back in your damn little hole and don't come back, if you know what's good for you."

"But Sonic! That's the main reason I need to stay here! I need to find Sonic again, wherever the hell he's at! He may as well be good as dead, but I think I can sense him being alive somewhere in this world, that I just need to deny he's dead and search for the helpless bastard. Wherever he's at, I need to find him! And I won't leave until I've done so!"

He paused, as the redness soon faded away underneath his skin, and he could only sit down again, once again being a somewhat decent human being. If he was even human, I for sure couldn't tell if everyone on Beauty was all humans or they were all a different species of humans. Ones that lived on advertising and loud TV shows and God wishing that this world didn't even exist.

"You find Sonic then, even if he is dead." He bowed his head, hiding his face, as if the effects of three beers were already getting to him. "But either way, you'll have to return sometime. I'm sorry if I lied to you about this world. It's as different from your world as different as white is to black. You leave my house and travel the city, asking for directions on where to go to next, and you get out of my house at once. I can't stand freeloaders, and I can't stand people who don't understand what consequences are, for living in a world that's the black to the white. The white is much better to live. It's not dirty, it's not full of sin, and it's not full of lies and deceit and stealing and killing and stupidity. How about I pack you some things you might need to find this bastard and you leave, right now, and never come back. It's the most I can do for people who are blind and can't see that white and black. Even the colorblind can. Black and white is all they see."

As different as white was to black, Orwell changed into a completely different person. He used to been friendly and sociable to someone who was now threatening me to leave the house and probably would get me to by chasing me with a double barrel shotgun. His moods seemed mercurial, and I also realized that people with bipolar also saw things completely in black and white, and I knew I possibly solved the puzzle in his cryptic words.

He handed me a bag full of supplies and food (which most of it was mostly meat, which I was expecting this from Orwell's hunting career), and as soon as I caught one last gleam of his eye, one last gleam of his teeth, one last gleam of his bushy mustache that always seemed to ride on his face, he slammed the door, locked it tight, and I was suddenly out in the gray cold outside world of Beauty, where people were now walking outside of the buildings and doing their usual business, not at all like people who once hid away from the darkness in fear of "monsters".

I looked at his dragon, Silfas, who continued to stand by his house with much focus and attentiveness as a mother guarding her young. I wonder how Orwell managed to control a dragon as beautiful and as mystic as Silfas, but maybe one day I would figure that out and meet Orwell again, the strange character who told me that if you could make an apple pie, you have the powers of God to make a universe.

And I thought about my mother again. Maybe she truly was God all along, who died for our sins. Died for all the sins my father and I have made in all these years.