3.0 Unfathomable Beginnings of Undistinguished Ends

unfathomable

1. incapable of being fathomed; immeasurable
2. incomprehensible

South Park is a location on a map that should, in reality, read "black hole". It's not unusual for Jesus to walk the streets along-side a transsexual, or war to outbreak at the drop of a hat. In a town that is a world upon itself, no one notices the fragality that is the minds and emotions of children until tragedy strikes.

The grey mists remind me of the dreary town with all its secrets. Fog hangs heavy over the cracked sidewalks jutted with weeds and dying grass creeping between the chasms of another life. The silence is almost eerie, as the sounds of my solitary footsteps echo into the unending emptiness, the chafting of expensive silken pants at each footstep almost deafening. It's not until shapes of abandoned houses break into view that I recognize the dreary town for what it is.

Purgatory is quite an interesting place, between the redeemed heavens above and the tortured desolation below. Here, those damnded to live eternity in Purgatory create their own semblance of either Hell or Heaven, depending on their state of existence. Some, eventually, will find their paths out, but some may never leave the maze that is their own mind. After fifteen months since the "accident", I hadn't expected there to be a dent in the pathway from this trecerous place, but by the predawn glow accompanying the greyness, I can tell progress has been made.

I follow a familiar path that I've walked before among the streets of the real town in Colorado, passed desolate houses, passed decaying trees blown bare in the midst of eternal winter, passed a rickety chain-link fence laced with the dead vines of a happier time. Pushing the gate open with a screeeeech I walk passed still swings of multiple colors, passed the slide slick with fog-dew, passed the benches attentice parents watch their children from, to a loan figure sitting solemnly at the base of a merry-go-round. Here, my one true love sits, staring out into the wasteland of his mind.

"If it weren't for you, none of this would have happened. Can't you just leave me alone?" comes the agonizing whisper, slowly accusing, nothing I had not expected.

A simple shrug is my answer. "I can leave you here, alone, forgotten, never to see the light of day, or I can help and lead you somewhere sweetness may find you."

"I'll find my own way. This is what I deserve."

I knew the answer before I started this journey. Here he is safe from everyone but himself. Here, he can dwell on what was, what could have been, what went wrong all those months ago, and all the months prior. Here, he can accept the fault. Instead of confronting the possibilities of being used, of being betrayed, of being loved beyond the point of sanity.

Of being hurt beyond what words could describe.

Of being killed.

But, my job in this story would not be complete without encouragement. "You will never find the peace you seek unless you see him again, and you never will, if you remain here, brooding at the spot you met so many years ago."

Grey eyes pierce through me, clouded with tears and emotion, eyes I know aren't grey, eyes I know are warm and loving. "No."

If "no" ever stopped me before, I would not be called the Bat king. The fog thickened as I reached out and encirclined small, frail wrists. A squeak of protests was elicited from my love as Technicolor ribbons danced in the hae, slowly pulsating towards my victim. He fought, and kicked, and cursed as the image of the abandoned playground melted from this reality and was replaced by thick, suffocating darkness, lit only by the edge of a steep cliff into nothingness. He looked afraid as the ribbons of the mind wrapped him like a lover's embrace at the edge of his Awareness and slowly pulled him under. I almost felt bad disturbin the rest and quietness of the grave.

Almost.

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem, my sweetness."

...

My second challenge to the story, twenty-eight months after the "accident", resided in the mind of my favorite lunatic. My last encounter had been in the washed whiteness of the sanitorium, where it was evident to anyone involved in the novel that the patient in question had ripped readily through his mind and was nothing but a lsot shell. But the doctorates on the case saw nothing but a sociopath that had snapped and withdrawn, nothing but a body to feed pills and watch carefully for an attempt at physical release.

I knew better. I could see the sparkle of inteeligence in those dull eyes, see the tension as he waited. I could see both sides; in reality, the rocking figure of a broken boy, curled hair hiding the guant face of someone refusing meals, long-sleeved patient uniform pulled tight over the self-inflicted scars drissling down his pale flesh. In his mind, he was caged behind words forming bars with no escape, words spoken, words told, words dancing together to create an enpasse.

You know I love you. You're right, who else do I have but you? What do you want from me? I need you to know I'm so deep in this there's no getting out. Prove it. Show me. I need you to need me the way I need you. I love you so much my insides hurt and flutter. I'm sorry. No, it wasn't easy for me. Why do you push me away then? I'm ashamed, and I wish I wasn't. Don't be sorry. Don't do this. P-please, p-p-please don't do this. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Bam. BAM. BAM.

The words melded, cycled, sometimes happier than others, sometimes, the constant fights pelting down on the prisoner locked behind the words. Here, he cowered, he fought, argued and pleaded to the people behind the voices of conversations long-ago spoken. Here, he barely registered me as I ran my hands over the humming of the voices and sliced through the constant cords.

"It's been two years since that day. When are you going to come out of this?"

Those clever, cocky eyes glanced in my direction, the face of a boy lost two years ago rather than the teenager he was growing into in reality. He pushed himself up, wobbly on his feet, and spit.

"You got me here. You told me what to do."

He still forgets that I wasn't pulling the trigger and blasting my friend's face away, that I wasn't the one speckled in blood and brain matter; how quaint. But this wasn't an argument I was willing to have with someone half-crazed. It took two years to find the fragmented pieces of this one's mind and put them together into something tangible, but now, he needed to follow the path back into sanity and place the remaining shards and fragments only he could. It was a journey that would leave him broken and exposed as emotions and reasons finally played out in the final chapter of this tale.

He curled in on himself as the words continued their battering. Rolling my eyes I waved the words back with counter whispers until each word that pounded on him evaporated and silence remained.

"So brown eyes, I'll hold you near, you're the only song I want to hear, melody softly soaring through my atmosphere."

He looked startled, embarrassed, lost at the whispered tune. "H-how?"

A smile flashing fangs. "I know everything. Now come. We have a long way to go to make it back to yourself."

I would be a liar if I said I was not surprised as he picked himself up and followed me without argument. I would be a liar if I said I did not want to push him into his death then and there, and lose him forever in the shallow hallows of his mind.

I would be a liar if I said this was the end.

A/N: There are 4 chapters left, and half of the 1st chapter of book 3 is complete. I can't believe this is almost done. Holy crapsicles. I'm outlining the final chapters, and hoping to bang them out and call Expo fini! It's been a ridiculously long jjourney, but we're getting there! Yay!