A/N: Hi everyone,
I just want to reiterate how much I love you. I've been putting everything I have into this and it's fucking amazing how y'all respond.
From day one, I've been printing the comments and taping them to the wall above my desk because it keeps me going.
Thank you 3
Love,
Kyle, Your Local Garbage Gay
Cartman walked along the empty roads of South Park, kicking up gravel, absorbing the humid July night. He gazed up at the sky. He'd forgotten stars. Forgotten how they looked. They were distant white circles - he could picture them - but hadn't seen them set against the black blanket of sky in eight years.
When he ripped the flannel from the cold arms of Craig Tucker, the boy's face was tilted up, as if trying to breathe in the stars one last time. But his pupils leaked. His teeth were dust.
No one else seemed to notice him. People drinking PBR in lawn chairs while moths flew around their porch lights stayed engrossed in conversation. A sickly looking teenager wasn't strange to witness here. Cartman wondered what he'd be like if he wasn't put away. The same as the rest of them… Sitting on fences and popping pills, drinking absinthe in an Arby's parking lot. He overheard someone talking about "the neighbor kid who ran over his dad with a tractor."
I'm not any better.
He stopped and stared at the stars again.
…
Kyle brought the rope over his shoulders and wrapped it loosely around his torso. It itched and poked through his shirt but he ignored it.
"Holy shit, what are you doing?" Ike stood in the doorway, holding a root beer.
"You know what I'm doing." He turned to look in the full-length mirror. A Polaroid of Stan at the state fair petting zoo was wedged into the gold frame. There was still a small crack at the top from when Kyle threw his Xbox controller.
Ike set the can on Kyle's dresser and circled around him like an inquisitive shark. "If you go into that sinkhole, who will pull you back up?"
"I was thinking Kenny."
"There's no way Kenny will let you do this."
"Well, it doesn't matter what Kenny will let me do or not do. He should have been here by now." Kyle slid the rope off his body, "If he's not here soon, I'm leaving."
"I thought he told you to stay here and wait for him."
Kyle glanced at his brother in the mirror, then to Stan's cupped palms, feeding a llama.
"I have to do this," he said.
Kyle sat on the foot of his bed and began coiling the rope.
"I could do it," Ike said, grabbing the end and mocking a pulling motion. "I could bring you back up."
"Absolutely not," Kyle said in a calm, yet authoritative tone that reminded Ike of their mother. He sat cross-legged in gray socks and jeans and a Butcher Babies tee-shirt, eyes never leaving the rope that looked like a snake twisted around his arms. His face was thinner. The violet was already fading from his hair. "You're staying here. I need to know that you're safe."
"I want to go with you, Kyle. I need to know you're safe, too."
Kyle stopped. He chewed his lip. "You're not old enough to understand…"
"I understand enough. Probably more than you."
"Ike. You do not understand how much it would kill me if something happened to you. That day you almost fell in… I don't think I've ever been so scared. I know that you know something fucked up is happening here, but things are about to get a lot worse."
Ike shifted his weight foot-to-foot. He looked down at Kyle's signature (Kyle Marsh, AKA "the brother") on his cast in blue ink. "Can you at least wait a little bit longer? Please?"
"I can…"
Ike stared at the floor, eyes traveling around the rope before looping back up to his brother. It stunk of gasoline. "Do you really think Stan is still alive?"
Kyle shook his head. "I don't know."
"What if you get down there and find him, but…"
"I don't want to think about after. I just need to see what happened to him."
…
During the spring, they had a small troop of art students come and teach them how to paint. The students were all alternative meat bags, plump with studio art dreams. Half of them quavered around the inmates and the other half acted like they were all best friends, high-fiving the delinquents with the energy of a camp counselor or step-parent desperate for approval. They were chaperoned by Miss Kathy. She would walk around in a sundress and jean vest, auburn hair piled on her head and frayed like a stray cat had kneaded its paws into it.
Cartman had seen plenty of paintings. He saw them in the library books. Captions described how colors changed with different points of light. They described the texture, begging him to reach into the glossy page and touch for himself.
Lazily slapping paint onto the stretched ivory canvas, he didn't care what burgundies mixed with violets or blues or grays. Color stopped mattering to him. He hoped she would pass by him and exclaim, "I love the abstract!" and keep moving.
But she didn't.
She pointed at the dripping swath of navy blue and said, "This is lazy. There's no mission behind it. This looks like the TJ Maxx art in my grandma's sewing room."
Cartman dropped the paintbrush into the water cup. "This has no purpose for me."
"Then find a purpose. Don't be a scrub," she countered, then kept walking, silver bangles jingling off her olive wrist.
He clutched the wooden handle of the brush and stabbed the canvas where blue met violet, creating a sonorous pop. The other inmates and students looked up.
Miss Kathy only nodded and said, "Rad."
He did it again.
It was new for Cartman, to have someone pay attention to him, even if it was pretending. She probably just feels sorry for me.
He thought about her a lot. But he knew she went home every day to a boyfriend and a cat, never giving him a second thought.
For the last day of workshops, she gave them each, and an itemized, individualized list of things to work on until the next round of sessions. They were mostly things like "tighter brush strokes," "study composition," "cats can be blue," "practice perspective."
For Cartman, it was much different:
Get through the day
Eat right, or stop doing something
Light a fire
Stay awake
Wake up
Remember something
Forget about something
Get what they need
She didn't explain what any of it means or how he was supposed to do it. She only said it was advice given to her long ago, and she thought he could use it.
(get through the day)
How many days he took it one day at a time so they connected at the hands like a chain of paper people. He wasn't unfamiliar with paper friends.
(eat right or stop doing something)
He really didn't know what she meant by this. He could only eat what was slapped onto a plastic tray. The only thing he could stop was trying to understand what people mean when they tell him things.
(light a fire)
Orange was the color of the night, skin sizzling and screaming was the chorus that carried the song of disintegration. The last thing he saw was Kenny slumped to the floor in a bloody, mutilated heap before breaking through the wall and out into the woods.
(stay awake)
"Do I know you?" Craig had asked after Cartman greeted him.
Cartman undercut and punched him in the jaw, sending Craig to the ground. A pill bottle rolled into the ditch. The force of his head hitting the road made Craig bite off the top of his tongue. He spat it out.
"Ouch, Craig, ouch." Cartman bent down and snatched him by the shirt. Craig looked up at him with wide, confused eyes. Then the recognition set in.
"Cartman, you-"
Cartman punched him again, his nose crushing under the fist. Then his jaw broke, unhinged like a busted door. He choked on his own blood.
(wake up)
His mouth tasted of acid and blueberries.
(remember remember
remember something)
Mom wasn't home. He broke into his old room, expecting to see his bed made, the nightstand with a radio alarm clock, the Terence and Phillip poster puttied to the purple wall - but it was packed up as if a child never lived there at all. His headboard was coated in dust.
(forget forget
forget something)
She had made an effort to forget him.
Even in the closet, she had folded all his clothes into plastic tubs. Toys were in a box labeled "toys" and not "Eric's toys."
He couldn't look around anymore. The room didn't want him. He didn't want to want it.
He turned to leave when he kicked something across the floor.
The Outsiders, its yellowed pages beckoned him. By the glow of the moonlight, he flipped through pages of blue, dripping ink:
"GET WHAT THEY NEED GET WHAT THEY NEED GET WHAT THEY NEED YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS ERIC YOU KNOW THEY NEED TO DIE GET WHAT THEY NEED I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT ERIC."
He dropped the book and ran down to the kitchen. All the pictures of him that used to hang in the halls were gone.
Before he left, he glanced into the backyard. The shed had been demolished.
(GET WHAT THEY NEED)
He looked for something sharp.
…
Ike Broflovski, 13 years old, loved by everyone he met, decisive and intelligent, spread out over his brother's comforter like a sea star while Kyle watched out the window for Kenny.
He thought about Karen and placed his hand on the center of his belly. It hurt. His hand became frigid. He looked at his brother's shoulders and remembered being carried away from the theater.
Kyle watched the street, thinking of all the times he watched Stan's bedroom light turn off, and he'd pop out the front door and into the street. He'd wave. He waved because he knew Kyle was watching. He could smell oranges, the more he remembered. Every week Stan took an orange out of a brown paper bag and peeled it in class and Kyle wished he could shrink and abscond into that bag now, never to be seen again.
"You're grinding your teeth," Ike said.
"I'm just thinking."
"I can tell," Ike rolled off the bed. "I'll be right back."
"'Kay."
Ike walked out into the dark hallway. Gerald left for the bar awhile ago. Sheila was in bed, asleep. As he walked downstairs, he wiped tears with his good arm. He hated that he cried so much when he was tired. There hadn't been a text from Karen in several hours.
In the kitchen, Ike stood and listened to the dishwasher hum while he drank ice water. He turned on the back porch light and watched, through the sliding glass door, a stray cat rub itself up against the swing set.
Ike opened the door with his elbow and walked up to it.
"Kitty, kitty."
Startled, the cat jumped and sprinted to the side of the house. Ike sighed. He wanted a cat.
Behind him, he heard pattering. Maybe the cat crept into the house. Gerald would kick his ass if it did.
Ike slid the door closed behind him.
"Kitty?" Ike placed the glass in the sink and looked into the corners of the living room. He walked upstairs, scared that he would find Kyle holding up a feral cat away from his scrunched up face and yell, "Ike! Why the fuck did you let it inside?!"
A thump hit his mother's door as he passed it. He stopped.
Ike stepped back and lightly tapped the door.
"Mom, you okay?"
No answer.
He knocked harder. "Mom?"
Warmth spread under his toes. It made a squishing sound when he moved his feet. He reached back and turned on the hall light.
Chest rattling with battered breath, nose in-taking metallic air, he stared as blood flowed from underneath the door.
…
Finally, Kenny came running down the street, Karen wrapped around his back. Kyle studied his face against the wind, how his hair wrapped around it as he scaled the house and into the window that Kyle opened for him. Karen dropped to the floor. She was shaking.
"Oh shit, Karen, are you okay?" Kyle asked, watching her lean up against the dresser.
Karen nodded. "I will be."
"She has the same thing you had, but it's not…" Kenny took Kyle's shoulder and led him away, whispering. "It's not getting better. It's getting worse every hour. We have to-"
Karen coughed up blood. She let it dribble to her chin, too weak to wipe it away.
Kyle plucked up a tissue, got on one knee and wiped it for her.
"He has to die. It's the only way we can fix this," Kenny said. "He has to die. Tonight."
Kyle looked up. He took Kenny's hand. "We'll go back to the center. I just don't know how we'll break in."
Kenny sucked in his breath, eyes shining with a dismal knowing.
"What's wrong?"
Ike's cries crashed into the room. Kyle and Kenny rushed toward the door and out to where Ike was squatting in blood, arms over himself, crying. Transfixed on the blood,
(mothers blood)
Kyle froze.
Kenny turned the knob and peeked in. All he could see was Sheila's pale, freckled hand laid out on the floor, blood slithering underneath her wedding band.
Then movement. A shadow bumped into this line of vision.
Like a still-life portrait that was slowly coming into motion, fingers clawing through flaked paint, teeth jutting through plaster, Cartman swung around the door with a kitchen knife.
Kyle kicked Ike to the opposite end of the hall, but he could tell in an instant that Cartman's vision had tunneled to fit Kyle. Only Kyle. Kenny tried to grasp Kyle's shoulders to pull him out of the way, but Cartman was too fast.
What felt like a punch to the stomach overtook Kyle, until he saw the knife exit his body and sweep down to strike again. As soon as he realized he was being stabbed, a coldness racketed through his body. He couldn't breathe. He fell downstairs. He hit his head on the banister. His tailbone whacked the bottom step. He couldn't make out what Kenny was yelling.
(o well i guess this is how i go)
The front door opened. In Kyle's wavering vision, Gerald walked in and jolted when he saw Kyle on the floor, bleeding out. Cartman screamed something.
Dazed, Kyle propped himself on his elbows. He could vaguely hear his father muttering holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, as he dialed 911. Kenny was thrown down, landing at Kyle's feet, groaning. His eye was busted.
"Fucking finally," Cartman stepped down, holding the knife by his face. "This is it. You're fucking done."
Gerald recognized him - a familiar child's face decorated with the trauma of being a man, this person who now cornered his son just as he did several weeks ago.
Kyle stood against the wall, trembling. "F-Fuck you, Cartman! You're a coward!"
"I'm a coward? I'm not the one who has my back up against the wall." Cartman raised the knife again.
"Kyle!" Gerald jumped in between them. The blade drove deep in between his eyes.
"The fuck!" Cartman yelled. Kenny reared up and punched Cartman in the back of the neck. He fell and twitched violently on the carpet before going still.
Kyle sobbed, holding his maimed abdomen. He slid to the floor.
"Babe, babe, you're okay," Kenny crawled over. "You'll be okay."
"I'm going to die."
"No, you're not." He lifted Kyle's shirt. "He didn't get all the way through you." Kenny took off his jacket and wrapped the sleeves tightly around the wound. He wanted to freak out, seeing Kyle's blood on his hands. He knew if he freaked out, Kyle would freak out.
"Are you okay?" Kyle whispered.
"Ha, I'm fine." Kenny tried not to cry. "How do you feel? Do you feel hot? Sick?"
Kyle gazed over at his father's body. "...empty."
Kenny blinked hard.
"Okay, okay, come on." He lifted Kyle over Gerald. "We have to… we have to get the kids and you out of here."
"I wanted to stay with you," Kyle mumbled.
"You can't. Cartman might wake up soon."
They heard creaking upstairs, sounds of Ike and Karen jumping. They were crawling out the window.
"You should go with them," Kenny said. "The cops will be here any second."
"Please don't leave me."
"Kyle… you can do this. All you have to do is wait outside." He walked him to the door. "Just wait outside. I'll be there soon." He glared back at the unconscious Cartman. "You know what I have to do."
…
Sweat dripped down Kyle's back. Mosquitos bit his arms and legs. His ankles twisted, tripping downhill, feet bringing up clumps of mud. Arms around a wide tree trunk, he stopped and listened, but only heard crickets and his own breathing. His socks were wet.
Kenny told him to wait outside but something drew Kyle out. It was invisible and magnetic, the way the woods pulled him.
He hadn't found Karen and Ike yet.
Kyle kept pushing forward until he saw a familiar sign:
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE HIKING THE RIVER TRAIL
Rugged terrain - high degree of difficulty
4 miles in length - average time: 2 ½ hours
No cell phone service - tell someone where you're going
Numerous low areas - you will get muddy
Carry your own drinking water
Poison ivy grows along the trail
BE SAFE - HAVE FUN
He couldn't count how many times his parents told him "Be safe, have fun."
He winced.
(my parents)
He limped onto the trail.
In the distance, there was fire.
A small one - only a few people stood around it - motionless and staring.
He came closer, "Hey, can you help me?"
His stomach hurt like hell. Every step ripping him open again.
(why didnt i just fucking wait for an ambulance fuck fuck)
They didn't respond at first. Only one looked up. It was Craig Tucker. His jaw hung loose. It clacked as if he wanted to speak but only a low hum of "Ooooo" came out.
Kyle clung to a birch tree. An old man with his head angled from his neck looked at him next. Butters turned his shoulder, his face all bloodied lines like rivers on a map.
Heidi spoke, though her eye melted against her cheek: "Are you here to see him?"
Kyle's hands fall from the bark. He stepped forward.
"Stan's here? Where?"
With decrepit fingers, they pointed down to the fire.
"Step in," she said.
Hands curled around his arms.
His father's voice: "It's okay, Kyle. It's safe."
His mother's voice: "This way, you can be with us again. We love you so much."
(no)
They nudged him toward the glow-
(no no)
-almost falling in face first-
(NO NO)
Kyle twisted away, smacking into a tree. Embers followed. The forest was spinning. Hazily he saw the standing corpses like blurred silhouettes before falling down, biting dirt and pricked by sticks, tearing police tape and landing in the same pit Ike had fallen in. Whispering swelled around him. He was cemented down, being sucked in.
Kyle closed his eyes.
He was dreaming about walking in the dark again. In these dreams, he can't see anything but he can feel the black surrounding close in on him. His heartbeat thickly pounds in his chest until it bursts and coats the inside of his ribcage with clotted blood.
He chokes.
Tries to reach inside himself.
The stomach turns.
(its happening for real now)
Darkness closed in her wings and his breath was running out. He tried pushing himself further down, hoping to hit something but continually pushed earth between his fingers. He could only hold his breath for so long before an actual death dream would come and Stan wouldn't be there to wake him up.
His sock finally hit air. Cold dampness kissed his ankle. He wiggled it around, hoping to wedge himself free and drop so he could breathe again, depending on how far the drop was. He would either be able to breathe again or just break his neck.
Something pulled on his foot. Kyle panicked.
(o fuck o fuck fuck)
Whoever it was dragged him all the way out, and he fell the short distance in the dark, landing on packed dirt. He breathed deeply through his mouth. The air tasted sickly but it was better than no air. Kenny's jacket was still wrapped tightly around him. He rolled over on his side to see nothing. Raven black.
Something shifted by him.
"H-Hello?" Kyle choked out.
The person crawled to him, touched his arm with long fingernails.
A soft squeak: "Kyle?"
"...Stan?"