Karen's funeral was a simple affair. The McCormick family didn't have a lot of money to spare on the living, let alone the dead. I spoke briefly, and Carol stood and spoke a few words before she dissolved into hacking sobs and Stuart stood up and helped her limp away.
Kenny didn't come.
000
I don't go to Cartman's. Whether it's out of guilt or because I simply hate him I don't know, but I run into his mother at the supermarket. She thanks me for being Eric's friend through it all, before she breaks down crying and I run away.
I lock myself in my room for the rest of the day.
000
I think Stan knows. He keeps staring at me, suspicious and uncomfortable, and he doesn't speak to me, I find it unfair, not like he's never shot anyone. Not like he stopped talking to cartman just because cartman killed someone.
God, South Park is fucked up.
000
My mother spends an entire dinner telling us what a blessing it is to have Mysterion gone. She says he was a terrible influence on us, and that they'll probably find him dead and chopped up in a dumpster somewhere, and it will be a harsh lesson to the rest of us.
She doesn't understand why I'm crying, and I don't tell her.
000
It was actually a few weeks before I saw him again. It was odd, walking around South Park and not running into him. Our town is so small, I've grown accustomed to seeing everyone in it on a nearly daily basis. But there was no orange parka, there was no purple cloak.
And then, quite suddenly, he was on the news again. Mysterion spotted in Denver. Mysterion spotted in Colorado Springs. Mysterion spotted in South Aurora. Every time I turned on the tv, he was somewhere else. There wasn't any pattern to it, though I tried to find one.
It was only when I brought it up to Stan that he mentioned that the list of cities he was seen in was in the same order as the bus list outbound from South Park.
So here I am, standing in the bus station with a few hundred dollars and a backpack full of clothes and toiletries, hands jittering nervously at my side, praying no one notices I should be in school. I worry about potential scholarships and my grades and my family, but I don't worry enough that I turn around and go home.
Westminster is next on the bus list. The ticket isn't expensive, and that surprises me, but I quell the trembling in my legs and step on the bus anyway.
000
I don't find out until I'm standing in the lobby of a 7 Days Inn that you have to be 21 to rent a hotel room. I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life and tell them so, but they still won't give me a room.
I'm near tears as I turn to leave, terrified and angry, when the girl sweeping in front of the elevators touches my arm gently and informs me that there's an all-night movie theatre a half mile down the road, and I can buy a ticket for $11.50 and no one will ask me to leave if I fall asleep. I thank her.
I've never done anything like this before. I've always had the safety net of my parents or my friends there- if I couldn't stay with family, there was stan and stan's family. Even without those, I had money and people who could lend me money- people to help me check into hotels and walk down dark streets unafraid.
I wonder if this was how Kenny usually felt on the frigid South Park nights that he couldn't go home.
000
I can't sleep past 6am, the loud black and white film with screaming heroines drags me into consciousness and I feel compelled to leave, but I have nowhere to go.
I wander aimlessly down the street for an hour or so before my backpack becomes too heavy and I dip into a McDonald's for breakfast. The cashier seems annoyed by my presence, but give me my egg mcmuffin once I've paid for it.
I spend a little too much time sitting in the booth eating it, and their glares make me uncomfortable enough to leave before they ask me too.
000
I try asking a few strangers if they've seen Mysterion, but they brush me off. The waitress at Denny's is kinder- I buy a coffee so I can get out of the cold and off of my tired feet. I ask her about Mysterion- I tell her he's a friend of mine and I need to find him. She hasn't heard anything, but she opens her phone and checks the local news for me. There's nothing, but she smiles and says, maybe tonight, as she refills my cup.
It tastes bitter and metallic, but it's better than the taste of blood in my mouth and bile at the back of my throat I get when I think about my mother's chastising voice, when I think about Stan's accusing eyes, when I think about Cartman's mother's sobs.
I hate coffee.
000
The street is cold, and it's dark, and my belly rumbles and begs me to go get food, but I think of how much I've already spent on bus tickets and coffee and egg mcmuffins and realize I need to budget carefully.
The city is strange and smelly at night- and unlike my quiet mountain town, there are no stars here. Just endless inky blackness that stretches out above me, mocking the colours in my life.
I don't know what I was thinking, coming here. This is the stupidest idea I've ever had. What makes me think I could possibly find him here? I don't even know he was coming here- it could have been a coincidence, maybe he's already been here and left, and even if he was here, this was a huge city, and-
And there he was.
I don't notice him until he was almost right up on me- out of his orange parka and in a grey hoodie with the hood down and his face clean and unbruised and unbroken I barely recognize him, but he recognizes me. He nearly falls on his face spinning around to bolt. But basketball is good for your legs and I am not the bookish diabetic weakling people tend to assume I am- it takes a few blocks, but I catch up with him, and when I manage to grab the fabric of his sweatshirt and yank him back, the fight goes out of him, and he just stops.
"Kenny!" I say, panting, as I turned him around. He looks down, and away from me.
He still has his ratty black eyemask tied around his face. It looks particularly ridiculous next to his normal clothes. He mumbles something, quiet and unintelligable.
"What?" I asked, trying to guide his eyes back up to mine.
"I said," he sighs, and swats my hand from his arm, "Don't call me that name."
I blink, "Wha? But you are Kenny?" He shakes his head harder and looks up.
"I said, don't call me that name!" He hisses, and I notice people were starting to stare as they walked by.
"Okay, okay," I said, my hands up, palms out, defensively, "What should I call you then?" He tapsthe mask, and I nod..
"Okay. Mysterion?" I ask, hesitant, and he nods, shoulders dropping again. "Okay... okay. That's okay," I say.
"It's not okay," He says, shaking his head, "You shouldn't be here."
"K- Mysterion, I came to bring you home." I say, and he tenses back up.
"I don't have a home. South Park is not my home, South Park was never my home and it will never be my home again." He growls.
I raise my hands back up quickly, "No, no, okay, okay. It's okay. We're okay. I'm just here for you, then. Where are you staying?" I ask cautiously, and he shakes his head.
"Wherever I drop. It's not like it matters."
"Ken- Mysterion!" I cry, exasperated, "Your life matters!"
He just laughs. I frown at him and feel the hot tears prickle the back of my eyes again.
"No, no, I'm sorry," Mysterion says, but he's smiling now but it's weird and it makes me uncomfortable, "It's just funny. I'm only here until I get killed, at which point, I'm onto the next city. There's no point in settling anywhere."
"The immortal thing again?" I sigh, crestfallen.
He just keeps smiling.
000
He's been sleeping mostly on roofs and stairwells, but I tell him about the heated theatre and he follows me back that night. He has no money, so I pay for his ticket. I wonder how he's been eating.
We're the only ones there, and I almost expect him to just pick a seat and immediately go to sleep, ever efficient, but he doesn't. He sits next to me, in the dead center of the theatre, kicks his feet up on the chair in front of him, and he stares intently at whatever old black and white film is playing.
I'm too busy watching him, though.
I wonder if I should call my parents, and tell them where I am, or his parents, or Stan, or the police. I'm worried that even if I get him home, he'll just run again, and I won't find him this time. I wonder if I even want to go home.
To my surprise, after half an hour, he speaks.
"I am immortal, you know. You used to remember."
I stare at him.
"Ke... You're just going through a rough patch, man."
He sighs.
After a moment, he frowns, then leans over me to touch the scar on my neck, still bright, but less so.
"How did you get this?" he asks, intently.
I knit my brows together, thinking, confused by the murkiness of such a recent and important memory, "Cartman. He knocked me out with a pipe at school and tied me up in his basement."
"I was there." He said quietly, staring at me from behind his mask.
I nod, "Yeah... yeah, you were. You were there, and then, I guess I blacked out or something because you got out, and then you came back and kicked the shit out of him."
He nods, "I broke my skull on the floor, came back to life in my house, and ran all the way there. I barely made it in time. I didn't think you were going to make it."
I was startled by the bluntness of it. "I don't remember that part."
"I know."
I bite my lip, "You really believe your immortal, don't you?"
He nods slowly, looking back at the screen, but I can tell he's watching me.
"You know," he says quietly, "stranger things have happened. You used to believe me."
Staring at the screen, I could not recall watching him die, but I can remember, just barely, there, in the back of my mind, the faintest memory of a memory- remembering believing him. I don't even know if it's real, or if I just want it to be.
He leans back in the seat. "You used to love me, too."
I blushed at that and tensed up immediately. I did in fact remember that part.
"But I don't have time for mortals anymore," he continues, almost a whisper as he lays himself down on the seats, "I have too much to do. Too many people to save."
I pondered this. Post traumatic stress disorder? Not likely, he wasn't exhibiting the right symptoms.
I touch my chest, "I didn't stop loving you."
He doesn't answer.
"I don't believe you..." I started, and he tensed, "But I trust you." There was a pause, and he leaned back up on one arm to stare at me, as I tugged the zipper on my backpack, pulling out a dark green cape.
"If you can't be Kenny anymore," I whispered harshly, tugging the black facemask from the front pocket of my bag and onto my head, "Then I won't be Kyle."
He leaned up, silently, and kissed me. It was a light, delicate thing, an acknowledgement- not needy and strong like before. But it was there.
He pulled back and stared at me, grey petals of light from the movie reflecting on his face in a beautiful, familiar way.
The ocean may tug the sand of the beach away, eroding it, bit by bit, but the roots of the grass and flowers growing on it hold it together against the cold, unyielding waves.
Let me waste away with you.
fin
