A/N: Sorry for the slow update, guys! It took a while to write this, because I wanted to give you guys a nice, long, entertaining chapter. Enjoy!

At The Hospital

"OH MY GOD, STAN!" Sharon cried, her wide blue eyes making acquaintances with the bloody body of her severely injured son.

She briefly turned away from her battered child to gaze at the fair-haired nurse that had been monitoring him.

"Doctor, is my baby going to be okay?" She inquired, strangling a sob that had attempted to make its way up her throat.

"Well, he just had surgery to repair the bullet wound in his chest, but unfortunately, he's still in a deep coma..."

"But he's going to live...right?"

The nurse looked down at the floor and sighed. "There's no telling...he may never recover..."

"OH GOD, NO! STANLEY, YOU'VE GOT TO FIGHT!"

"Let's just wait it out, honey. Maybe Stan will make it through this..." Randy tried to reassure his wife.

Sharon exhaled gently, a vivid look of understanding painted across her face.

"Maybe you're right...I guess I was so worried about out son that I forgot about being optimistic...Maybe Stanley has a chance after all..."

"Don't worry, Mr. and Mrs. Marsh...We'll find out who did this to your son...I promise. In fact, a local Jewish couple is being questioned right now."

"Oh my God...T-the Broflovski's."

"Well, let's not jump to conclusions, Sharon. Maybe it's not them."

Sharon glared up at her husband with her tear-ridden sapphires. "Randy, they're the only Jewish couple in town! Who else could it be?" She cried, the miniscule streams of salty, forlorn droplets rapidly accumulating and transforming into clear blue waterfalls of hopeless sorrow.

"Just because they called 911 doesn't mean they killed him, you know..." Randy stated, exploring his wife's deep blue globes, desperately searching them for just the slightest wisp of hope, a tiny speck of understanding, something that would silence her cries and dry up her tears...But there was nothing but the lachrymose trails of anguish.

"I hope you're right..." She sniffled, her face as flushed and puffy as a blood-drenched blowfish.

I hope I am too, Randy thought to himself.

"Oh Gerald, I'm scared!" Sheila squealed, clutching on to her husband's wrists.

"Calm down, honey. Everything's gonna be all right." As Gerald stroked his wife's messy red beehive, the dreadful whining of hinges filled their ears, and a tall, broad man entered the room. He proceeded to seat himself directly in front of the Broflovski's.

"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Broflovski, my name is Officer James. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your case?"

"No, not at all." Gerald answered.
"Oh God, I'm so nervous!" Sheila cried.

"There's no reason to be nervous, Mrs..." The raven-haired officer hesitated for a bit, uncertain of the Jewish woman's name-addressment preferences.
"Sheila...and Gerald." She confirmed her standpoint.

"Well, Sheila, there's nothing to be afraid of, I'm just going to ask you a few simple questions."

The redheaded Jew responded with a nod.

"All-righty then, let's get started. Is Stan Marsh a close friend of yours?"
"Well, he's best friends with my son, but I don't actually know him that well." Gerald replied.
Just as the policeman opened his mouth to ask another question, a loud, upbeat ringtone filled the room. Sheila dived into her pocket and opened the noisy cellular device.

"Hello?" She asked casually.

"Momma, where is Kyle?" The voice of her eleven-year-old Canadian son domineered the earpiece.

"He said he was going over to Eric's house for a while. He still isn't back yet?"

"No."
"Huh. That's odd."
"Yeah."

"Did you try calling Eric's house?"
"You call."
"I'm busy, hon."
"But I don' like Cartman, mama."

"Alright, dear."

She hung up and dialed Liane's number.

After the fifth ring, she finally answered the phone.
"Hello?"
"Oh, hello, Ms. Cartman. I was wondering if Kyle was over there."

"Oh, yes, but I'm afraid I haven't seen your son for a few hours."
"Really? Where did he go?"
"Eric left me a note on the fridge that said he was going with your son to be an outdoorsman in the woods for a while."
"You don't say..."
"Oh, yes. My little poopsykins has a very active imagination."

"Right..."
"Yes, ma'am."

"So about that note... How long did they say they'd be gone?"
"About 22 years."

"WHAT WHAT WHAT?"

The eerie crickets of the forest chirped and whined incessantly. The blazing yellow fireball of daytime had recently made its final descent onto the horizon, and the invisible cloud of night began sweeping across the atmosphere, plaguing everything in its path with unsurpassably dark hues and shadows. Unfortunately, the vast astral luminosity did little to compensate for this; In fact, the mysterious brightness of most celestial bodies seemed to expire somewhere in the ionosphere, unable to cast their brilliant light onto the surface of the Earth. Thus, the teens' only nocturnal visibility was produced by the bouncing orange flame of their dainty little campfire.

All was quiet between the two males; The occasional glance surfaced every now and then, but words appeared to be avoiding their lips entirely. Finally, after several minutes of awkwardly depressing silence, the redhead spoke.

"We can't just hide out here forever, Cartman! They're gonna find us sooner or later!"

"Jesus, Kahl, will you just relax? You're acting like Tweek!"

"I'm sorry, dude...It's just...I'm having second thoughts about this."

"What?"

"I think-I think it was wrong of you to kill Stan..."

"What the hell are you talking about? He almost shot you, remember?"

"I know... but I still think that wasn't the right way for you to handle it."

"Well what the hell was I supposed to do, huh? Just stand there and let him kill me?"

"N-no, but I mean you could have called for help or something."

"No way, dude, then everyone would know about US."

He briefly gestured towards each other's groins to emphasize his point.

"Yes, but AT LEAST then they might've believed us!"

"What the hell makes you think they'd believe what happened? We've always HATED each other, Kahl, everyone in this God damn town knows that!"

"YES, but at least then we had a CHANCE. And now...now we don't have anything."

"Uhh...why?"

"Because we weren't RESPONSIBLE! Instead of staying there and doing the right thing, we just fucking RAN AWAY from the problem!"

"Yeah, so?"

"SO now they won't believe us even if we DO go back and tell them what happened!"

"Uhh..."

"You know what, Cartman? Forget it. I guess I forgot how fucking small-minded you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Kahl..."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO TO SLEEP, YOU FAT IGNORANT FUCK!"

Cartman stretched out on the soft green carpet of grass, moaning in contentment as he found a comfortable position.

As he lay there, he took great interest in the little makeshift bounty of reds and oranges, despite the fact that he had created it using materials as simple as sticks and stones. How the fire laughed and shrieked as it began to smother the last of the sticks; The moment would have struck others as dull and meaningless, but for Cartman, it was nothing shy of music to his ears. After a few moments of staring at the campfire, theoverweight boy finally shut his eyes. Almost immediately, his brain began to analyzethe ill-fated conversation with had Kyle meant when he called him "small-minded?"

He gritted his teeth in annoyance and dismissed the thought from his being, mumbling the words, "Fuck him, I don't care."

The thought came racing back to his mind one last time before his brain finally succumbed to the sovereignty of the nocturnally regnant sub-conscious. Cartman worshiped his precious dream land, for it was the keeper of all of his wildest fantasies, the nightly visions that carried him away from all of his problems, concerns, and nemeses. It was one of the only things that reminded him to keep going, despite the virtually atrocious adversities

life had so frequently and blatantly fired upon him...