Chapter Three:

All That I Know Is Pain...

They said death was a natural part of life, an inevitable conclusion to a journey that could not be avoided. Death was said to be the end, the point of no return, even as many said it was the beginning of a new adventure.

But to gain immortality, to live forever, and never die, was mostly considered scientifically impossible, even when some legends spoke of people who found a way to never die. Physical bodies were not immortal, but the soul, the life force of the living, could live forever in the next world.

For one to gain eternal life and remain in the mortal world, without ever dying, was a near rarity, especially in works of fiction.

As for those who gained eternal life, they either found peace... or an eternity of pain.

The world Kenny lived in was an odd place, just as it was real to him and everyone else he knew. He was just a regular boy, going to school, and spending time with the others, even when young Kenny dressed in that orange hoodie-sweater and when his voice was muffled when he spoke.

However, his life was far from ordinary, just as the world around the kids was far from normal.

During the most peculiar of days, whenever he was with Eric Cartman, Kyle, and the others, Kenny would find himself in perilous predicaments. Once, he'd been hit by a car, which could have easily been the end of him. And the one thing he heard before fainting was Kyle screaming, "OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED KENNY!"

Kenny's father told him of near-death experiences, an event in which someone would be on the verge of dying and glimpse the afterlife, but they would never quite die. Just as hints of bad luck followed him, good luck often visited Kenny whenever he nearly died.

From being attacked by a dog, to randomly exploding, Kenny was fortunate to wake up again and continue with his life. And then, everything he knew changed for him forever, all on one mundane day.

The boys were waiting for the bus, ready for another day of school, and standing in the snow, when some hooded figure and a green creature came by. Kyle, like Kenny, Stan, and Cartman, had never seen those individuals before. Those two were new here, that was for sure. It was as if they were aliens.

"Excuse me. We're looking for our way home." The green creature said to the boys.

"I didn't know you were bringing your mom to school today, Kyle." Cartman remarked sarcastically.

"HeY, oNlY I gEt To BuLlY ThIs GrEeN tUrD." The hooded one said in an odd-robotic voice.

Cartman laughed, "Dude, your towel talks!"

Kenny kept quiet, but one look at the odd fellow, and he knew it wasn't a towel. And in his years of knowing Cartman, the wide-eyed boy knew his friend wasn't much of a fighter, even as he had somewhat of a nasty personality. The hooded one retorted to Cartman's towel comment, calling him a "fatass" in return.

"DON'T CALL ME FAT, YOU STUPID TOWEL!" Cartman screamed.

"YoU'rE a ToWeL."

The hooded one grabbed Eric, pulled him aside, and the two began fighting, with the "fatass" Eric landing some blows to the "talking towel". Kenny watched from the sidelines while the green one and Kyle exchanged brief apologies, just before Eric punted the hooded creature back to his associate...

The creature declared he was going "back to 3D", then he grabbed his associate, and began screaming with hunched shoulders before a flash of light engulfed the duo. A second later, the two odd visitors were looking as though they had leaped out of a 3D cartoon.

"Wow, you look uglier than before." Cartman quipped.

In response, the entity in the odd cloak told Cartman to shut up, and slashed him with his sword. The next thing Kenny knew, Cartman's body was rippling, distorting, and shaking violently. He began to literally glitch out, and an agonized scream left his vocal cords; "Kenny, you gotta help me, man!"

Kenny voiced his reluctance to help, even as the hoodie muffled his voice, and that was when Cartman touched him. An instance later, Kenny was screaming as he felt himself distorting, twisting, and pulsating violently until the next thing he felt was his body combusting...

He exploded, and the world around him went dark as Kenny fell, into an infinite realm of nothingness, and the last thing he heard, the last words he heard one of his friends uttering, was the proclamation; "Oh my god, they killed Kenny! YOU BASTARDS!"

This was the end. He was dead, for real this time. There would be no waking up, with no family or friends waiting for him. Except, there was a catch;

No funeral.

And since this was true death, the question was; Would Kenny wake up in the peaceful bliss of Heaven, in the presence of God himself? Or would it be down into the deep depths of Hell itself for him, down into the dark depths of Hell where an eternity of nightmares awaited?

Wait. Scratch that last part. The way he died had been painful, more painful than everything that he'd experienced during the instances Kenny almost died, and he wasn't feeling nothing. He was feeling pain, pain beyond anything he felt, like every molecule in his body was being ripped apart over-and-over.

Kenny was already in Hell, and it was all around him.

And then, he heard a voice, a faint voice. But it wasn't the voice of God, or his angels, or anyone from the depths of Hell itself. It was a robotic voice, and didn't even speak to Kenny;

"Warning! TV Show gone overbudget!"

For a moment, Kenny saw a vision of his world, and his old friends. And he saw a TV set. The TV was on, and it was showing live images of Kenny's home... and he saw his friends writing in pain as their bodies shifted various forms. And then, the universe around them fizzled out, the screen turned to static, and the television set exploded.

The vision faded, and Kenny was alone in the void, with nothing but pain to accompany him. He drifted in the darkness, as eternity passed around him, and all he knew was never-ending pain.

And then, there was light, just like when the universe began all those millions of years before Kenny's time.

He wasn't in Hell. This was Limbo, a painful sort of Limbo. Kenny was dead, but part of him remained alive. Survival, a human's natural instinct when in danger. And with that pain, there came anger, with sadness that soon followed. The darkness around Kenny shifted a little, and a faint static noise filled his ears.

'So much pain. So much pain.'

Kenny drifted in the near-formless void, and atoms soon appeared around him. In moments, the light faded, but the tormented soul could see static everywhere. The static occasionally cut in and out, and the atoms swirled around Kenny. Something floated over his head, a broken TV, and the dead boy grimaced as he felt a sharp pain in his being.

'End this pain! End this pain!'

Perhaps he'd found eternal torment in the fate that had befallen him, and Kenny thought of what he'd heard, and what he'd seen. The world around him, his life, and his friends, none of it had been real. It had all been a TV show, watched by millions somewhere else...

...but Kenny remembered his past, his life, and the day he made friends for the first time. He remembered... nothing else. What was there to think fondly of, he was dead, and all there was for him was pain.

And he couldn't breathe. The dead didn't have lungs.

Anguish followed the pain, accompanied by strong senses of anger, and hunger. Kenny swam through the void, passing through layers of static upon static, and he saw himself for a moment, stained in blood with distorted black-and-orange static around himself. His once alive eye was filled with fuzz, and a hellish red light enveloped his vision for a moment.

Kenny peered through the static, seeing TVs everywhere, along with a countryside under a bright sky with people playing happily. They were free, while Kenny trapped in the unknown, trapped in a realm of pain.

He felt another wave of pain upon himself... followed by silence. His voice was absent. Kenny wanted to scream, to cry, and he had no voice.

This wasn't the afterlife. Was he truly dead?

More pain, more pain than ever before. Nobody loved him. Nobody cared for him. Kenny reached out, curiously peering into the nameless, mysterious realm for a means of ending his pain. And all he could think about was that green fish, and that hooded fellow.

Everything shifted around the entity once known as Kenny. He saw a swirling void full of more TVs, dark red lights, and ominous shadows full of static. The restless, deathless creature swam past a floating television set, causing it to flicker on, and he grimaced in pain again. He floated on, moving towards a red, static-y portal.

Pain, pain was here. Soon, pain would engulf the world beyond. Kenny pushed towards the portal, letting out a pain-filled groan that filled the void of eternity. Soon, the deathless entity would be upon the mortal plane, with pain for all to feel...