Chapter six: Something old

Kyle woke up freezing and with a splitting headache, it was hard to remember what had happened last night, everything in his head was fuzzy like a loud buzzing static was ringing in his ears, actually … It almost sounded like voices. Soon though he gave up on trying to focus on the sound and remembering what happened, what mattered now was figuring out what was going on, where was he?

Lifting his head felt like trying to smash a boulder to rubble by running headlong into it, futile and very very painful so Kyle just decided to stay laying down and do his best to observe his surroundings from the ground. The snow had melted in the morning sun but it wasn't enough to really warm him, or the ground, up much a few inches away from him he saw the sleeping face oh his super best friend and he couldn't help thinking "Why are we both laying on the ground?"

His first idea was that they had gotten drunk again and had sex … again, the hangover would explain part of his headache. However the idea was quickly dashed as he did remember not drinking all that much and the fact he was still fully clothed finally adding on his ass didn't hurt at all, just his throbbing head. Still he didn't have much to go on from where he was, and he couldn't easily get up either.

With a small sigh Kyle felt a wave of exhaustion coming over him and cursed himself, thinking he should get somewhere warmer but every time he tried to move his head at all it just send a hot spike between his eyes. Unable to move, both tired and frustrated Kyle slowly shut his eyes. Sleep overtook him rather peacefully, and as it did, Kyle could hear the soft breathing of Stan next to him, and the quiet crying of someone else close by, however his senses were overtaken by darkness quickly after.

However long passed, kyle didn't know, all he knew was that he wasn't cold anymore, well not as cold at least. He was looked around, the actions causing his head to burn and throb again, though noticeably less intense than before and memories were coming back to him, slowly but surely. He had been walking and talking with Stan, talking about love; the thought made Kyle's face burn which only aggravated his migraine more.

His feelings for his super best friend would have to wait, and he once again tried taking in his surroundings. The air smelled like air spray masking sanitizer and bleach and that was enough to tell him right where he was, no sooner had he figured it out that he felt something squeeze his hand.

"Oh thank goodness you're okay, Kyle, you and your brother had me worried sick" His mother said gently patting his hair, even this small action brought a wave of pain to his head but he did his best to ignore it to help sooth his mom. Wait was Ike in trouble too? Come to think of it, Stan had been out cold next to him as well, was he okay? Who all was hit by whatever happened to him, was south park hit by some kind of outbreak?

Kyle looked around with a little groan, he could only assume the room he was in was large, it seemed to hold a lot of beds with a lot of people with more people around them, all separated by sheets. Slowly he was able to force out enough words to get the rundown of what happened from his mother,

Everything had started going wrong when she got a call from Firkle's mother about Ike causing a scene and that she needed to come pick him up, when she got there though she was it was worse. Ike had been holding his head and screaming and he had a weird look in his eyes, at least until they started bleeding and he had to keep them closed; that was around the time she had tried to get ahold of Kyle as well to tell him what was happening. After multiple attempts at calling and texting she had decided to just find Kyle herself, lucky for them.

She found Stan and Kyle almost frozen to death laying out cold on the ground, Kenny looking like he had also gone through hell but was holding Butters close to him who looked like he had just seen thirty ghosts and finally she found Eric in a complete mess in his own tent. First calling the police to help get everyone to the hospital she then called everyones parents and since then they had all been in the room mostly unconscious.

When Kyle asked "mostly?" his mother explained sometimes someone would wake up and try and communicate like he was but after a bit they would all fall back asleep. No sooner had the words left her mouth then Kyle felt another wave of exhaustion hit him, the feeling was getting rather old and he wished he could just stay awake but the sweet bliss of not thinking or feeling his head anymore sounded like heaven.

Before his body forced him back under the veil of sleep and darkness Kyle was able to get a list of names of all the people in the hospital with him currently. Stan, Kenny, Butters, Eric, Ike, Wendy, Bebe, Red, Craig, Tweek, Clyde, Token, Nichole, Kevin, and all the goth kids. Of course for all Kyle knew there could be more that were hit, though for the life of him he had no idea why it happened or what it meant, with a sigh Kyle went back under, his final thought before doing so being "just another day in south park I guess"

An entire week passed before Kyle once again woke up, groaning and stretching gently in his hospital bed he felt … better, not great but he was okay. His head was no longer throbbing with every movement however he still wasn't feeling well enough physically to get up from his bed much longer than was required to go to the bathroom.

Though his time bedridden wasn't completely uneventful, some of the others were able to go before Kyle had even woken up, primarily the goth kids, Wendy, Bebe, Red, Token, and Kevin. And Stan, Eric, Kenny, Ike, and Clyde had even woken up as well, Clyde and Eric did not stay long however both going home the day they got up. Meanwhile Stan stuck around partly to stay there for Kyle's sake and because he still "felt pretty stiff" in his own words, though the doctors found nothing wrong with him.

Then again that also wasn't saying much, none of the doctors were able to find anything wrong with any of them from that start; all of them were a medical mystery. Of course, not to say they weren't unscathed nonetheless, worst of all seemed to be Ike. Every time the little canadien opened his eyes he said he started to get a horrible migraine and it reached the point that by the time Kyle woke up he had taken to keeping a few layers of gauze wrapped around his eyes at all time, having their mother help him around.

Kenny meanwhile, while he would check up on Kyle and Stan now and then spent a vast majority of his time by Butters side, gently holding the young blond's hand, stroking it with his thumb. Kyle would forever remember when Butters father had come in, furious with the boy for 'pretending' to sleep for so long, threatening to tell his corpse like son he was grounded only for Kenny to deck him in the face; he had not come back since.

Of course most of the time was just fine, being stuck in close proximity wasn't too bad, other people visited them, and the chatting never seemed to get stale. There were still times when it was bland though, the food wasn't great, there were still a few long stretches of silence when there was nothing left of a topic and a new one was yet to be found, However the worst time came when everyone awake was allowed to leave.

First of the problems that came as a surprise was Butters waking up, everybody was surprised and excited at first until he started to scream and cry, thrashing around madly in his bed until nurses were forced to come in and sedate him. It had been frightening and confusing, even more so when the realized the whole time Butters had only said, or more accurately screamed, one thing "I can feel, everything". Kenny explained to the doctors he had always been a bit sensitive to touch so maybe there was something wrong with his nerve endings; however Kyle did not stay around long enough to find out.

It wasn't quite how he thought it would be at first, being back home. For one, he now spent most of his time helping Ike around the house on his mother's request. After a few days though Kle discovered this seemed to only be an annoyance to both of them as Ike seemed to know perfectly well where he was going without ever using his eyes or even using his hands on the walls.

Other strange things were happening as well that Kyle just couldn't explain, mostly subtle of course, he had dropped a sandwich he had been making for Ike and reached for it quickly, the food didn't stop in mid air, but Kyle could have sworn it slowed down long enough for him to grab it. There was also when Stan had visited him, had one of his "numb mini episodes" where a part of his body would just seem to completely lose all feeling or go completely rigid. The incident caused Stan arm to fall onto a ruler, launching an eraser right at his forehead; though at the last moment it changed direction completely, shooting off to the right and breaking through his window.

After hours of questioning what had happened and getting nowhere, both Stan and Kyle gave up and trying to figure it out and Stan went home; and that was the worst part. Kyle had no idea what was going on, and he hated it, he wanted so badly to just understand what was happening and why it happened. Stan's body going temperamental on him, Ike's migraines with sight, Butters apparent complete insanity as no one, not even Kenny had been able to have any kind of meaningful conversation with him. Other smaller things bothered him too, Stan not hearing from Wendy since she left, Cartman not leaving his house at all since getting back, the goth kids seeming to have completely disappeared, among even more strange phenomena.

However the one thing that truly got Kyle scared was something he saw on the news a week after he had gotten back home, he had been feeling for awhile that day that something was off or wrong; and he was right. Trent, Trent Boyett, the same Trent Boyett Stan, Kenny, Cartman, and himself had wrongfully sent to juvy twice … Broke out of holding. What was truly shocking to Kyle was that he broke out in the most literal sense, the news showing live footage of the busted down walls as if the teen had blown them up from the inside somehow, though all witnesses said was that he had nothing on him but his required uniform and his bare fists.

Something was wrong, something was going on and it was strange even by the towns exaggerated standards of normal. A bunch of teenagers suddenly writhing in agony and being hospitalized only to have strange undefinable symptoms, everything Kyle had experienced first hand, and now people disappearing and an old grudge coming to probably kill him and his friends.

Something was definitely wrong, and Kyle was determined to find out what it was.