Author's note: Again, I will remind you before it happens that there will be some extremely graphic material coming up. I've decided that it will involve rape, because it is an important part of the story line. It took me awhile to make this choice, but I feel it is the best for this story. If the idea of rape or child molestation is too much for you to handle, please leave immediately. Thank you.
In this chapter, I've given Clyde's little sister a name, since she was left unnamed by the creators of South Park. I do not claim to own this character or any of the others. Her name is going to be Tonya. Craig's father, previously unnamed, is Pete. His mother, Rosa. (Although his mother's name isn't used in this chapter.)
Besides that, I appreciate the reviews and messages I've recieved from this story so far. Keep up the encouragement!
It had been a few days since we moved to South Park. It was now August, before school started, and I was starting to enjoy myself. I had spent some time alone in my room and set everything up the way I liked it. Strangely I kept wanting to put items in the places I remembered them being before, maybe to make my memories more real. I just had this craving, this need, to make my memories real, to have some sort of closure. I was having a hard time understanding why it was that I needed closure, why I had this urge to recreate and repeat things I remembered. I just had this unsettling, sick sort of sad feeling. Something was wrong.
I sat in my room, looking out my window at the street. I did this all day yesterday and the day before, writing while I looked out. I noticed a few kids that appeared to be my age outside, a few of them looked at my house or paused as they walked by, talking to their friends. One or two of them I felt that I had seen before, but it had been five years since I lived here, so I couldn't be sure. After awhile, I saw a car pull up and a small family, two parents, a boy my age and a small girl hop out of the car. I got a little anxious, we hadn't had any visitors yet and I wasn't quite as settled as I'd liked to have been. It was happened whether I was ready or not, and I knew I would be involved in the welcoming. I started down the hall before my name was even called and by the time I got to the stairs, I could hear my mothers voice. I looked down the staircase and saw her hugging the other woman.
"Oh Betsy, it's been so long." I heard my mother say. They must have known this family before we left.
"Roger." My dad nodded and shook the man's hand.
"Pete." The man I now knew as Roger returned, a smile on his face, grabbing my father's handwith both hands and giving him a soft pat on the shoulder.
"Craig, come on down." She said, looking up the stairs at me. She must have heard my footsteps.
I walked down the stairs, examining the four of them. The boy my age had brown hair and wore a red sweater. The girl who appeared to be about fifteen had light brown hair
and wore a pink coat and jeans. I got to the bottom of the stairs and paused. They all looked at me, as if waiting for me to say something.
"Hello, I- um. I'm Craig?" I said, more of a question, because they looked to be expecting something from me.
I held out my hand to the boy my age and he has this disappointed frown on his face, but he took my hand and shook at strongly.
"I'm Clyde, we used to be best friends.." He said with a sort of sad and uncomfortable tone.
"I'm sorry, I just don't remember.." I found it odd that I didn't remember him if we were best friends when I remembered so many other things. I felt like I had never seen this guy before in my life. I did feel bad though, and I wanted to put his discomfort at ease, "But I would like to get to know you and maybe be friends."
A small smile formed on his face and he nodded, then stepped back to where he stood before, next to the girl who I assumed was his sister. There was a few moments of awkward silence and we all stood there looking at each other.
"Well, I made some caserol if you're interested, you're welcome to stay and visit as long as you'd like." My mother said, trying to fill the gap between conversations.
"Oh, we'd love to! This will give us a chance to catch up on some lost time. Absolutely." The woman said, looking back at her family for approval, they all nodded.
We all made our way into the kitchen and sat at the table, my mother lagged behind and talked to the other woman for a few minutes. The kitchen still looked wrong to me. We now had striped cutains and a metal and glass table that was mch bigger than the one I remembered. I suppose my mom and dad had gotten better jobs since and had furthered their education. I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed by it, but I was sure the annoyance would eventually pass. My mother and Betsy entered the room after a few minutes and sat at the table.
"The caserole still has a few minutes left, but theres a pitcher of water on the table and some buns, you can help yourself." My mom said politely. I guess she had planned for company and just hadn't told me.
After a few minutes of uninteresting chit-chat my mother got up and took the caserole out of the oven. I noticed something about Clyde and the small girl I now knew as Tonya made me uncomfortable. They seemed a lot closer than I could imagine a brother and sister being. Then again, I was an only child, so I guess I wouldn't know. I ended up just blowing it off, even though it made me uneasy. Throughout dinner we talked about a lot of things. We talked about a girl who used to live in South Park disappearing the year we moved and my parents admitted they hadn't mentioned it to me. They didn't figure I'd remember anyway. I got the feeling from their tones that they were keeping something from me, but I didn't figure it was too significant. They were probably just overreacting, which was normal.
Dinner went by pretty quickly, really. My parents did a lot of catching up and Clyde and I had some idle conversation. We actually had a lot in common. We liked the same kinds of music, the same videogames and other things kids our age did. He told me a lot of things we both liked we did when we were kids. He even mentioned that we both did a lot of stargazing through my telescope when I lived here, which had to be true, because I never mentioned owning a telescope. I felt a little left out, otherwise. Like I had just transferred from another planet. There were so many things I never knew. I never knew my mom was into Jazz, or that she tap-danced. I never knew my dad hunted and that he once earned a reward for donating deer meat to a food-for-kids organization. I never would have guess my parents were interesting at all, or that they did anything other than work. Besty talked to my mom about joining tap-dancing again, my mom agreed it would be a great idea. Things seemed like they were looking up. I was happy to see my parents so.. Calm. They never looked like they were having fun, it was almost as if they belonged here.
After we all said our goodbyes, I said goodnight to my parents and headed up to my room. I took a shower and went to bed, feeling quite peaceful.
I heard laughing, little girls laughing. I opened my eyes and I was in my bed, only I didn't feel quite like myself. I must have just woken up, I was groggy, the sun was bright, shining through my window. I lay there for a moment. I realized a few things were a little off. My room was how I remembered it from years before. There was a poster in front of my bed, an astronomy poster with the Orion constellation. I looked up at my ceiling to see that there were glow-in-the-dark stars and rocket ships. I sat up in my bed, still not completely awake. There was a blue rug on my floor that I didn't remember. My closet had a door. I looked down and saw that my blankets were blue with green stars, instead of my normal blue and gray plaid blankets.
I uncovered myself and saw that I wasn't wearing my normal pajama pants and t-shirt. I was wearing children's pajamas, speckled with stars and rocket ships. I got up from the bed, feeling a little dizzy and walked down the hall, which seemed unusually long, to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror to find that I was younger. Much younger. Twelve or thirteen-years-old. I had messy, short brown hair when mine was nearly ear-length now. I heard the laughter again and walked out of the bathroom and rushed down the stairs. I was unsettled by the laughter, because it sounded like it was coming from inside my own head. I ran to the kitchen by instinct and looked out the back window to see two girls. One was Tonya, who I had met the night before, and another girl who had long, strawberry-blonde hair. They were skipping rope, singing and laughing, their hair flowing in the sunlight. Their laughter burned my ears and made my head hurt. I closed my eyes tightly in an attempt to stop the aching, but when I opened them, the laughter stopped. The girls were gone. Suddenly I felt a hard burning in my hand and opened it quickly. I heard something drop to the floor. I looked down to see two hair bands.
My vision suddenly stopped, everything was black and I heard horrible, loud screaming. Shrill, desperate shrieks. I heard them being muffled, I heard a few thuds and
suddenly everything went quiet.
And what sounded seperately, was horrible, perverted whispering. Distortend and rushed, quiet whispering.
"Come on baby, you want to, I know you want to. Come on. Come on, don't fight, baby."
I woke up in a hot sweat, I felt so overheated, my head was beating with my pulse and I felt myself lean over the bed quickly. I couldn't breath, my chest was burning. I saw a light come on and my mom ran into the room.
"Craig? Craig, what's wrong?" My mom asked, hushed. She turned on a light, "My God, Craig, what's wrong with you?"
I opened my eyes and looked at her confused, then I looked at the floor and saw that I had thrown up. I shook my head.
"I'm-" My throat hurt so bad I couldn't talk. My mouth was dry. "Hot. Water."
She quickly went down the stairs and walked back in my room with a glass of water, which I drank within three seconds and set next to me on my nightstand. I brought my knees up to my chest and looked at her. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
"I'm-" I started.
"Do you need to go to the hospital, Craig?" She asked worriedly.
I shook my head, "No, I'm fine. I just had a bad dream. I got too hot. Just go back to bed."
She cleaned up the mess I had made, which I felt bad about, but let her. I would have helped, but I had this weak feeling in my legs. I had to assure her a few times that I was okay, but she eventually shut off my light and left. When she did, I closed my door and flipped the light back on, stood on my bed and examined my ceiling. When I looked closely, I could see a pattern of stars outlined in a light, off-white. This was real. I lie in bed for hours wondering what all of this meant. Needless to say, I lost a lot of sleep that night.
