Please read before the rest of the story: I got a review that apparently did not catch the vibe of the story and never heard about the Waifu Catalog. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it is essentially wish fulfillment for nerds.

Due to this aspect, it is inherently problematic when taken in without context. Yes, there can be some messed up stories derived from the idea. However, this will in no possible way be one of them.

From the entire construction of my main character, he abjectly hates people who mistreat anyone, women in particular. So, he will never partake in any of the more-fucked up aspects of the Catalog, such as but not including, mind control, sex slaves, non-con, and other shit like that.

Hell, if he encounters anyone who does this, he will promptly kill them in extremely violent methods, as demonstrated later in this chapter. To any reader who skims through this story and walks away with the idea that my main character does anything besides murder horrible people who deserve it, then I can safely say I am happy to see you go.

For those who wish to stay and see where the story will go from here, just expect genuine romance and gratuitous violence.

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Revision Note: I made a couple changes here and there to help produce more consistent characterization for the main character. I was really tired when I first wrote it, so I wrote him as a little too unstable and his emotions were really inconsistent across the story. However, I polished it up a bit so it should flow better.

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Hello to those that have read my works before or are finding me for the first time! I was feeling the Valentines Day blues until I remembered that many of you are probably feeling the same way. So, I figured there was no better solution for filling the hole in our hearts than with another polygamous fanfic based on the Waifu Catalog. So, here you go and enjoy!

Additional Note: Sorry for deleting the original listing for this story. There was just a couple of creepy reviews that I wanted to get rid of. My apologies if it messed with you finding my story for a bit.

Further note: I reposted this story yet again for the same reason. I hope you can all forgive me for wanting to get rid of yet another freaky review.

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Chapter 1: A Leap of Faith

"Are you sure you want to be meeting with this one?" the guard asks. "I can't say I know everything about the patients here, but most of them are here cause they are too fucked in the head to even understand what they did to get here. Then, there are the few like him."

"How is he any different?" the man being escorted asks.

"From what I can tell, he is the exact opposite," the guard replies. "He knows exactly what he did and he knew the entire time. The thing is, he doesn't care. The psycho even starts smiling whenever it gets brought up. It's like he is remembering some fond moment from when he was a kid."

"That doesn't seem too bad," the man says. "It seems like he shouldn't be too hard to guard at least."

"That's when he is normal," the guard responds. "99 percent of the time, he is the picture of sanity and stability. He is kind and considerate. He cracks jokes with the patients that are more in tune with reality. He even helps some of the orderlies when a patient gets a little riled up."

"And the other percent?" the man asks.

"That's when you see the reason he was sent here," the guard says with a shiver. "I saw him once be chatting it up with another patient and then switch in a heartbeat. He started gouging out the guy's eyes while the poor bastard was screaming his head off. One of the guards tried to get him off but he just turned around and started on the guard instead. Before anyone else could intervene, he snapped the guard's neck and crushed the patient's throat."

"How many did you need to take him down?" the other man inquires.

"That's the thing," the guard says. "He just let himself get subdued after that. It was like he finished what he was trying to do, so he was content with getting beaten up and bound up. We put him in isolation for a month after that. Can't say it did all that much. Whenever I saw him wrapped up in the straight jacket in his padded room, he always had this little smirk on his face. It was the look of a man who had everything going his way and not a care in the world. After that, he hasn't acted up or anything. It definitely helped that we have all been watching him like hawks and keeping him as separated as we can. Why are you even meeting with him?"

"Favor for an old friend," the man replies. "Said I would take his case if it ever came up. I honestly didn't see the harm in meeting. After all, it's not like he is every getting out of this place alive."

The guard was going to respond, but the words died in his mouth as he saw the expression on the man's face. After he had finished talking, he had this little grin playing at the corner of his mouth. It was as though he was amused about a joke that only he knew and only he could ever hope the understand. What was worse is the fact that it was not the first time he had seen that look. He had seen it countless times on the face of the patient they were going to see. It was then that he chose to stop talking to the man that he was escorting. He got the feeling the man was more like the patient than he felt comfortable believing.

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I sit in the metal chair of the visit room with my hands handcuffed to the table and my feet handcuffed to the legs of the chair. I honestly didn't mind all that much because I was just in my own little world wondering who was coming to talk with me.

Would it be a clever but inexperienced female FBI agent who needs the help of a clever and psychotic mental patient to solve a serial killer case which has stumped the entire bureau? She would bring me evidence and I would give cryptic lessons about the workings of the deranged mind. Eventually, I would manipulate the situation so she would have to transfer me to another facility where I could make my escape after giving her the last nudging assistance she needed to crack the case. Afterwards, it would be a game of cat and mouse as she hunted me down across the country. We would orbit each other for months, only occasionally meeting for steamy rendezvouses at motels for passionate hate sex. It would get to the point where she ended up pregnant and we run away together where no one can find us.

Or instead, a hard hitting female reporter who is looking for a headline scoop and heard whispers about me? She would try interviewing me to learn about my past. I would play hard to get, dropping subtle clues that she would stay up all night thinking about. As time goes on, she stops thinking about the story and her dreams are full of my sly smirk that leaves her hot and bothered when she wakes up. I slip beneath her guard and she stops trying to find the truth because she found love instead. She tries to change me for the better, but I slowly win her over to the side of the chaotic neutral. I break out during a violent rainstorm and track her down. We meet in a clash of intense emotions, lust and mutual affection leading to mind blowing intercourse all night long as the sound of torrential rain and echoing thunder covers up the creaking of the bed and the moans that fill the air. She ends up having to choose between the career of a reporter or the love of her life. She chooses love and we run away to live together until our dying days.

I was going to keep going for a while before I feel someone grab the back of my head and slam it down into the table. I have to shake the stars out of my eyes for a second before I can realize that it was the guard watching me currently.

"What the hell was that for?" I ask with a grin. "Your wife not appreciate you getting rough in the bedroom so you are taking out on me?"

He responds by slamming my head against the table again. That hurt a little more. I'll be the first to admit. "You killed one of my friends," he says, his voice filled with equal measure hate and disgust. "Me and the boys are going to make your life as close to hell as we can manage. I wouldn't have let you out of your little room if your lawyer didn't want a meeting. I didn't see the harm though. With the blood on your hands, you are going to be here for a long time."

I don't even bother with a response. I am already too focused on what he said about a lawyer. Did he mean that chickenshit public defender who couldn't put together a sentence without a stutter? No, it couldn't be him. He was almost sobbing in relief when I was deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. There is nothing on Earth that could keep him on this case.

That means it is a new lawyer. Oh, it could be an uptight female lawyer who is coming here to try and do a retrial on my case because she is trying to change the justice system for the better. Her cynical sarcasm mixes with my bleak gallows humor to bring back a smile she didn't even know she still had.

That is about as far as I got before the visitor was brought to the room and I see that it is a dude. Yeah, all of those fantasies are useless now. Despite the crushing disappointment that it is a man, I can't ignore how oddly he is dressed.

He is wearing a brown suit, a green dress shirt and pocket square, and a very colorful tie. It was mainly bright blue and green with orange flower designs mixed in. It seems like the kind of design cobbled together in the sixties when a couple of hippies wanted to look formal.

The rest of the man wasn't as immediately conspicuous. He had sandy brown hair and a goatee that was more at place on a teenager trying to grow facial hair than a grown man. Oddly, even though it was clear that he was in his thirties at the least, he just gave off the energy that he was younger.

He just made his way to the other side of the table I was handcuffed to and set down his briefcase on the table before sitting down himself. He unlatched his briefcase and proceeded to pull out multiple files which he set out in a row before him. After he finished his prep work, he looked around and seemed to realize that the two guards were still in here.

"Can you two leave while we talk?" he asks. "Attorney-client privilege and all that. Like, I can just knock on the door when I am ready to go."

"Are you sure you want to do that, sir?" my guard says. "I wouldn't want him getting any ideas when we aren't watching him."

"Yes, I'm sure," he replies, with a casual wave of his hand. "Unless he can suddenly outperform Houdini himself, I think that I am safe."

"Your call," the guard says before giving a nod the one that brought the man in. They both leave the room until my guard peaks his head back in. "If he starts killing you, just gives us a holler." He laughs to himself before he finally shuts the door.

"Now, let's get to business," the man says. "I don't suppose you know who I am?"

"I heard you were my lawyer or something," I say. "I got to say, I was hoping you would have a little less dick and a lot more tits."

"Sorry, pal," he says with a chuckle. "I am a lawyer, though. Technically."

"That seems like bullshit for not a lawyer," I respond with a deadpan. "Why the hell are you even bothering to come to this nuthouse?"

"Your grandpa asked me to come and see what I could do to help you," he answers.

"I think Gramps was a little too slow with his legal moves from beyond the grave," I say. "He was dead before I ever got arrested, so how on Earth could he have called your goofy looking ass to help me?"

"You could call it his last request," the man says. "Anyway, that's enough about me. We are here to talk about you."

He picks up the first file in his line and flips it open before he begins to skim through it. "Shawn Peter Jones. Age: eighteen. Born at 8:31 p.m. on February 14, 1973 in Memorial Haven Hospital in upstate New York. Wow, Valentine's Day baby. Don't see those very much. Mother is Bridgette Jones, deceased. She died when you were 9 months old from a car crash. Father is listed as George Sadler, deceased from a drug overdose. He has a criminal record, but nothing that substantial. Multiple counts of possession, vandalism, public indecency, and one attempt to rob a convenience store with a rusty boxcutter which ended with him being arrested. Served 12 years and got out on good behavior. Dead in 24 hours with a needle in his arm. How could he have tricked your mother into liking him?" The guy across the table just has this look of confusion on his face.

"She was young and stupid," I reply. "She thought she could make him better, but you can't change someone who is just human garbage. Can you please move past my deadbeat sperm donor and get to the good parts?"

"Hey, don't get too naggy," he says. "We have plenty of time. Moving on, the last relative is your grandpa, Fred, who died of heart issues in the past year. All other family is either too distant to matter or dead before you came around. You were raised by your grandpa after your mother died. You grew up in Vermont for your formative years on a small property owned by Fred. He didn't work since he was able to live a comfortable life off the accrued profits from his success as a mystery novelist in his youth. You didn't care for mysteries as much and preferred stories involving Supes, including your personal favorite Soldier Boy. As you started to get older, Grandpa Fred noticed you needed to see a bit more of the world and make some more friends. That prompted your move to the Big Apple. You continued your introvert lifestyle for the most part through elementary and middle school with one notable exception, a boy named Ellis Conway. He was a textbook nerd who you took under your wing. You both got a friend and he was safe from his tormentors."

He saw the way my jaw tightened at the name from the slightly bigger grin on his face. "Finally worked," he says with a slight chuckle. "I didn't think I had your attention. I almost started to think I was a little rusty."

"You had my attention," I say. "Now, you have my annoyance."

"Let's keep going then," he says. "You were good friends with Ellis until you had to switch schools. This was primarily due to the school bullies disliking you interfering with their hunting grounds. They went to Daddy, Daddy went to the teachers, teachers made some stuff up, and your grandpa decided it would be better to head down south instead of fighting against the school. You move, the complaints are dropped, and you and Ellis keep in touch long distance."

"Fast forward a bit as you get situated down in Huntsville, Alabama," he says, skipping through a little bit. "You are now a junior in high school. You aren't as close with Ellis due to distance and time, but you still talk every now and then. By now you've made new friends, the Carter twins. Penny and Daniel Carter filled the hole left by Ellis and you spent much of your time hanging out with either of them. Your only other notable relationship was with the queen bee of the school, Maggie. You were the typical delinquent friend to the popular girl who needed to let down her walls with someone. Surprised to see that she was a supe though. I thought you hated all of them but Soldier Boy."

"Jury is still out on Solider Boy, but most supes are just people with way too much power and no respect for it," I say. "They think that because they were born with the ability to shoot lasers out of their ass that they can do whatever they want."

"But not her, right?" the man asks. My silence and gritting teeth are all the answer he needs. "Anyway, you kind of keep a crush going for her for a while. The problems start up soon though with Maggie's boyfriend, Brad. He was the star quarterback and homecoming king, so you know he was probably a jackass. However, him being a supe as well sealed the deal. He didn't like that you were a little too chummy with Maggie, so he tried to run you off more than a few times. You didn't take the hint, but he stopped after a bit. He just picked a different target than you. He started following around Penny and you could tell that it was going to end badly. So, you used your in with Maggie to force him away. This doesn't turn out well though.

"One night after a winning game, Brad got drunk with the team and did more than a little drugs," he says. "That combination gave him the idea to take what he wanted. Long story short, he found the Carters on their way out of a movie. By the time you got there, Daniel was almost dead from a crushed throat while Penny was already gone after Brad broke her legs and had his way with her."

The man can definitely tell how intense my desire to kill him is because he glances up at me before he casually waves me off. "Calm down," he says. "This is all in the past. Daniel is able to convey that it was Brad and this sets you off down a rabbit hole of blood soaked vengeance. You find the closest one of his football buddies and get him to tell you where Brad is by breaking a couple of his fingers. Then, you take a quick little trip to a hardware store where you buy all manner of goodies before getting on your merry way.

"By this point, Brad is just roaming the streets drugged out, drunk, and riding high about getting one over on you for trying to steal his girlfriend away. When he is crossing a street, he doesn't even realize there is a truck hurtling towards him until the last second before he is sent flying. Now, this doesn't kill him. He is pretty tough after all with being a supe. However, it does give him a bit of a concussion. You reinforce this notion by climbing out of said truck and proceeding to beat on his head like it is a drum with your newly purchased sledgehammer."

A vicious grin started to spread on my face as I imagine doing the same to the man. "I was planning on joining a country club," I say sarcastically. "I needed to work on my long game for golf and Brad was so eager to provide his assistance. Supe heads are notoriously durable after all. You really need to put your all into it if you want to get every ounce of torque out of your swing. The secret is the hips."

"Anyway, after your little mini-golf tournament with his skull, you started to break out the power tools," the man says. He picks up the second file to do some quick reading before continuing. "You used a generator in the back of your truck to power them up and you used titanium circular saw blades to cut through the skin and muscle on the back of his neck. Then, you powered up your air compressor which you used with your high-power nail gun to give his spinal cord a little tickle. You ended up paralyzing him from the neck down. That's not the easiest job. How did you end up getting past the bones of his spine? I would have expected those to protect his spinal cord."

"It is a simple matter of getting just the right angle between the vertebrae," I reply, trying to get to the end of this little session of story time. "It took more than a few tries, but it was worth it. Break a leg and he could be be back on his feet eventually. Take a leg and he might be able to get it replaced somehow. Take his ability to walk and he can never get it back. I thought it was fitting to take his most precious thing from him. You know the saying, an eye for an eye."

"You say his most precious thing, but there are also records that he was missing something else when they found him," the man says before he stops and gives me a look.

"Well, I didn't want to take the chance that he could reproduce somehow," I admit. "He should have been more cautious when he decided to try thinking with that head. Now, he doesn't have that problem anymore."

"This results in you getting arrested and a lot of fuss was about to kick up before it suddenly died down," the man continues. "This is heavily due to two factors. The first is your grandpa's connections. He had made a lot of friends in law enforcement in his youth and he pulled from that good will heavily. That helped ensure evidence did not disappear and that interrogations went by the book. This led to them being able to connect Brad to the deaths of your two friends. The exact method was due to fingerprints at the scene as well as by testing DNA traces present. It wouldn't have been possible if they didn't find Brad's... DNA source close to him.

"The second reason is that Vought, the company that manages supes and their careers, was growing tired of him. He had a problem with drugs and women that was becoming increasingly more of a hassle to cover up. Adding in the fact that he wasn't a standout in any capacity when it came to his powers, flight being his only power beyond the standard physical boost, this led them to agreeing to bury the whole incident as long as you were not there to keep it in people's memories. And thus, you were sent right on back to New York."

"Not like there was anything left for me anymore," I say with a grimace.

"Especially since Maggie stopped talking to you after you committed war crimes on her now ex-boyfriend," the man specifies. "Kind of stung being looked at like you were something inhuman, wasn't it?"

"Are you a lawyer or a therapist?" I ask with a growl.

"Neither!" he answers with a grin. "Also, either if I need to be. Back to the story, you find yourself back in New York. You try to reconnect with Ellis, but it turns out you were a little late. He had walked in front of a bus about a week before you showed up. You showed up just in time for the funeral. Closed casket, if you forgot."

"I didn't," I reply, my jaw starting to hurt from how hard my teeth are grinding together.

"After the taste of revenge you got from your time in Alabama, you are already decided on hunting down whichever bully broke Ellis down so far," the man describes. "It was fairly straight forward since you were enrolled in the same school that Ellis had been previously attending. Although it was a bit of a hassle that everyone's mouths seemed to clam up tighter than a nun's legs whenever Ellis was brought up. So, you had to go slow and steady. Your only clue about what happened was Ellis mentioning a girl briefly during your last talk over the phone.

"Time goes on and you slowly narrow your field of suspects," the man continues. "You knew it was a girl from the popular faction because they are the group that enjoys psychological manipulation the most. So, you watched and waited for any of them to start up another of their games. All it meant was that you had to be patient. In the process, someone new entered your orbit. A girl by the name of Vivian Tyler. She was drawn to you in the same way that Ellis was. She was shy and had trouble making friends and then caught sight of you. Someone who didn't have friends but didn't need them in the slightest. Someone who never hid themselves behind a facade and was happy with who they were. Someone who could be a missing piece in helping them to learn to be themselves. I guess she didn't know the real you after all."

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" I ask. What grates on me more than anything is that he has the nerve to talk about them like they were a fun read to pass the time. It made me almost tremble with the desire to shut his fucking mouth with my fists.

"Nope!" he replies. "Anyway, Vivian tries to get close to you, but she was just acting as an annoyance instead. You keep pushing her away, sometimes accompanied with threats in the hope she can take the hint and leave you alone. I mean, you had no interest in being distracted by a puppy who wanted your attention when you had better things to be doing. Despite all of this, she keeps on trying to get under your guard. She sits with you during lunch in the cafeteria. She studies with you in the library when you were completing homework. She offers to partner with you in classes whenever she got the chance. She even spends enough time over at your apartment that she started calling Fred 'Grandpa' too. Grudgingly, you begin to accept her as a feature in your life that you can't remove. Something akin to a stain in your favorite shirt that you just choose to live with."

"You had better shut the fuck up," I growl, my voice betraying my rage if my muscles straining against the restraints weren't enough of a clue.

"Time goes on and the school year is beginning to get pull to a close," the man says, setting the stage for the final part of the story. "Grandpa Fred passed away. You just pushed that to the side and kept on working. Vivian kept trying to get closer, but you stonewalled her enough that she became comfortable leaving you with the degree of separation. Prom season was starting and the whole school was abuzz with the news that the school's power couple had broken up. You didn't particularly care, but the girlfriend had been the last member of the popular clique that you hadn't ruled out yet. Her and her boyfriend were one of those on and off again relationships where they would break up every now and then before getting back together. You suspected that she might have had a chance to get at Ellis during one of the breakups, so you wanted to be watching her for when she slipped up and made a mistake.

"Vivian wanted to go to the prom with you, but you either ignored her hints about needing someone to take her or just suggested one of the other guys in her relative social standing," the man says. "You couldn't be bothered because your hunt was finally coming to a close. You couldn't afford to waste time on someone who didn't matter. Time was running out before the school let out for the summer and your suspects would all get away. So, you did what you always did. You relegated Vivian to the back burner. Even if you had the inclination to take her, you needed to be watching your target while she was out of school. It would give you a chance to catch her with her guard down.

"It turns out you didn't even need to bother with Vivian in the first place," the man says. "As luck would have it, she was asked out a couple of days before the dance. She asked you if you were okay with it, but your exact words were, 'Do want you want. It doesn't really matter to me who you are going with.' So, you spend the night watching the ex-girlfriend while Vivian is off at prom. The night turns out to be a bust because the girl didn't end up doing anything more exciting than painting her nails. Anyway, you pack up and head home to getting a good night's sleep so you could be bright eyed and bushy tailed for some Sunday surveillance.

"You spend the entire day either following her or watching through her penthouse apartment's windows from a nearby building's roof," the man says. "It seems that after prom her and her boy toy finally decided to get back together. They spent most of the day and ensuing night fucking each other to the point where you got tired of hearing their flesh clapping and dirty talk. The only reason that you didn't call it a night is because you got suspicious after they literally spent hours continuously joining. That's when you came to realize that they were almost definitely supes. There was an additional clue when the girl mentioned whoever the boyfriend had taken to prom. Something along the lines of saying that even a normal slut like his date couldn't take everything that her boyfriend was giving her. Then it was a lot of dirty talk about how much better she was and that he better not think about leaving her for a girl who couldn't take a pounding. It got tedious after a while, but you suffered through it in case they dropped any other nuggets of information. They were clearly good at keeping secrets since you didn't even know that they were supes despite being in tune with the school's rumor mill. They had managed to keep it completely under the radar without slip ups for years. They were only uncovered by the diligent investigation of a paranoid psycho like you.

"Moving on to the next day, you head to school and are so distracted by your inner thoughts that you don't even notice something until halfway through first period," the man says, building up for his big reveal. "You hadn't seen or heard from Vivian since Friday. Barely a day had gone by all school year without her contacting you in some capacity. She was literally at your side constantly for the month after your grandpa's death. So, finally, you decide to pay attention to the world around you. You finally hear the whispers. 'Did you hear about what happened prom night?' 'There was no way that a girl could be as innocent as she was pretending.' 'I always knew that she was a slut.' 'I heard that she let the entire football team take turns with her, even the towel boy.' 'Such a whore.' It took a minute to connect the dots but you figured out who they were talking about."

I do my best to lunge over the table at the man despite the copious amount of steel being used to prevent the motion. I didn't even feel how it dug into my flesh as I tried to break through the chains with the strength my fury gave me. Blood was pounding in my ears as I reach across the table to break his teeth in.

"Don't get so wound up," the man says, as though I was just a kid getting worked up about having to take turns at the playground. "As I was getting to before you so rudely interrupted, the girl in question was Vivian. You remember what the two supes were talking about yesterday. About the slut that he had taken to prom. About all of the fun that he had with her. You then decided to give a shit and started running to the apartment Vivian lived in. Her parents had been on a business trip, so she was alone. You tried calling, but she wasn't picking up the phone. So, you got a cab and gave him everything in your wallet to get to her address as fast as possible. He must have broken ten different traffic laws, but you got there in half the time."

His words cause my mind to drift to that time months ago. Before I now it, it was like I was living it again.

"Vivian!" I shout as I pound on the door. "Open up! It's Shawn!"

I pause my knocking to listen to the other side. When I am met with silence again, I finally decide that enough is enough. I step back from the door before planting my left foot on the ground, rearing my right up, and sending it into the door besides the handle.

The door bursts open with a spray of wood chips as the frame of the door is torn apart by the kick's force. I rush in and start to look for Vivian throughout the apartment. As I walk closer to her bedroom, I catch a smell in the air. One I hadn't smelled with such intensity since my time with Brad.

The scent of copper lingered in the air and became denser with every step forward. I knew that there was only one reason that I would smell it to such a degree, but I try to lie to myself all the same. There's no way that there could be that much blood. I can barely keep walking as my feet feel like they were made of lead. My breaths come quicker and shallower as my chest tightens up and I begin to hyperventilate. My blood races at a fever pitch as the pounding of my heart echoes in my head.

I reach the door of her bathroom and my hand stops once it touches the doorknob. The sinking in my gut tells me the answer my mind doesn't want to accept. The answer that I can't accept. I steel my nerves and harden my grip. I don't get to chicken out, not right now.

With a twist of the handle, I push open the door. It glides over the bathroom tile without as much as a whisper. My mind couldn't process what I was seeing, so my eyes drop to the floor and try to make sense of it bit by bit.

A razor had fallen across the floor, dripping with red and turning the white floor the same hue. Then, I see Vivian's fingernails painted with that light shade of blue she loved to wear. It was her favorite color ever since I told her it matched her eyes. However, it was marred by the thin crimson trails that wound down her hand and collected on the tips of her fingers before pattering onto the floor.

Next, I see the cut. It was jagged across her wrist; the flesh was torn and the wound still gently wept tears of red. I couldn't bear to keep looking at the gash, so my eyes rose higher once more.

That's when I see her face. It was the first time I had ever seen Vivian not smiling with happiness or pouting about something I said. Her soft features were etched into a death mask of despair and emptiness that remained even after life had left her body.

I think that's what broke me.

In that one moment, I realize how much I actually cared. I always had, even if I didn't realize or accept it. Death and sorrow followed me like a shadow and I was afraid of what would happen since I knew I wasn't strong enough to step out of the dark.

Penny, Daniel, Ellis, and Gramps would have been happy if I could move on. I just couldn't bring myself to since the carnage had its own comfort to it. I didn't need to confront myself. I just needed to find a target and do everything in my power to eliminate it. So, I wrapped myself in death and darkness and tried to ignore the light trying to wiggle its way into my life.

As I look down at the last beacon of happiness that remained in my life now dark and cold, I can't help but understand how much she mattered to me.

I won't wake up in the morning with her knocking on my door so that she can hang out with me.

I will never taste those brownies she liked to bake for me again.

We would never see that Soldier Boy movie marathon that she had been planning to take me to. She had been so happy about scoring tickets and had been wearing me down into going with her.

I will never catch the scent of her shampoo as she tackles me in a hug.

I won't feel her weight on my shoulder as she falls asleep next to me while studying.

I will never hear her snorting laughter anymore.

I won't see her smile up at me when I respond to something she said.

I will never be able to tell her how I feel.

Never be able to let her in behind the walls I built around my heart.

I collapsed to my knees and pulled her out of the tub, uncaring of the bloody water splashing over the edge. I just clutched her like she was my lifeline.

I begged her not to leave. To come back to me.

I promised her anything. I would take her out on a date. I would watch every one of those terrible Soldier Boy movies with her from start to end. I would never leave her. I would even give up on my revenge.

As her body just grew colder, I prayed to any god that would listen, any spirit or devil with enough power to bring her back. I swore that I would do whatever I had to as long as they brought Vivian back. I offered my loyalty, my life, and my soul. I promised that I would spend eternity working off the debt if that is what it took. All I asked for was Vivian.

Alas, my begging went unheard and Vivian remained nothing but an empty shell.

At some point, I cleaned her up, drying off her body from the blood and water. After I finished, I carried her back to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed. Then, I pulled the chair from the desk and sat down next to the bed.

I didn't know what to do for once in my life, so I just watched Vivian for a minute. It was almost as though she was just asleep and would wake up any moment. So, I just tried to focus on engraving every detail of her face in my mind. To etch it so deeply in my memories that if I lived to one hundred, I would still remember her with crystal clarity.

My eye caught something sitting on her desk that I had ignored until this moment. There was a letter sitting under an illuminated lamp, the only source of light in the apartment that didn't fit in the moment.

As I look down at the envelope, I realize what it is. Vivian's goodbye. I almost turn away out of shame until I see the name written on the back.

Shawn Jones

Why, out of everyone she could have picked, would she pick me to say goodbye? Not her mom. Not her dad. No one from her family. Instead, she chose the person who ignored her, brushed her off on a daily basis, abandoned her when she needed them the most, and was too slow in the end. She chose me.

For a fleeting moment, I can't build up the courage to see what she wrote. What if she used her last words on this earth to curse at me for my failings and my flaws? What if she wished that she had never met me?

I didn't want to learn that she despised me to her last breath.

Despite my reluctance, I owed it to her to hear what her final message was. No matter what she wrote, I needed to read it. When I finally did, any part of me that wasn't already torn to shreds died immediately.

The last thing going through her mind before the end was an apology. She was apologizing to me, the person she should hate more than anything.

She said she was sorry that she couldn't help me after Gramps died. That she couldn't be the friend she knew I needed. That she couldn't bring my walls down. That she was so useless.

She didn't blame me for anything. She just blamed herself for being an annoyance. For only ever being in my way. She even said that she was happy she could finally stop burdening me. Her only regret was that she wasn't good enough to be worthy of being my friend.

It was at this point I couldn't even read the letter anymore through the tears pouring out of my eyes. I push through it and see what she wrote at the end.

Being with you this year was the best time of my life. Even if you don't feel the same way, you are the best friend I ever had. No one has ever put up with me before, not even my family. So, I am happy I got the chance to fall in love with you.

Love,

Vivian

Anything resembling human left in me was dead at this point. There was nothing left that could bear the weight of my pain, so it collapsed into a fiery pit of burning suffering that I languished in. The only purpose left in my life was to share that pain with someone who deserved it. It was convenient that I had two people perfect for the job.

I slip the letter into my pocket and walk back to Vivian. I kiss her one last time on the forehead before I turn to leave. I almost reach the door before I feel I have to say something before I go.

"You always saw the man in me, Viv," I say. "You could always find it even when I looked in the mirror and all I could see was monster. Maybe you just saw what you wanted to see. Maybe you saw what was always there. Whatever the truth might be, the only thing left now is monster. So, wherever you are, please look away from what is about to happen. And please, forgive me for what I am about to do."

"At this point, the pieces had all lined up for you to understand what happened," the man describes, unraveling the story. "The two supes were high on their own power and wanted to have a little fun every now and then. So, they would break up and take turns with who would get to go out and find a toy for themselves. It had been the girlfriend's turn before and she had picked Ellis. She made him think that she was interested in him, dated him a little, and probably even slept with him. Afterwards, she got back with her boyfriend and destroyed Ellis through rumors and gossip spread throughout the rest of the school and online. The ridicule got to the point where he walked right into a bus to end it all. Afterwards, everyone did their best to forget that he existed and what happened. The evidence online was taken down and the tracks were scrubbed thoroughly so it was probably Vought. The reason nothing happened for a while is because Vought started to tighten their grip on younger supes causing messes after your little vendetta in Huntsville left a supe permanently paralyzed. So, they waited a full year before having their fun again. This time it was the boyfriend's turn. He picked Vivian for the same reason the girlfriend picked Ellis. She was a loner, she had a history of being bullied, and no one would really miss her when she was gone. They messed up on the last part since they were friends with the last person they would want to mess with. Anyway, the boyfriend did the same shit with Vivian on prom night. He treated her like garbage, made her feel like she was better off dead, and triggered the rumor mill by the time he was back together with his girl.

"They had been fairly cautious for a while since they didn't let anyone know they were supes," the man says. "They had preferred people who were consistently bullied so the ridicule wouldn't seem too out of place. The suicide ended up just seeming like the result of childish cruelty from an entire school over years. However, they miscalculated when they crossed you for the second time. So, you decided to fix that misconception with a little calculated violence that you spent a couple weeks preparing for. You called the police about Vivian's death, her parents came back, and there was a funeral and everything. The entire time you are deciding how exactly you are going to hurt the two supes as badly as possible, exceeding what you did in Huntsville but without giving them the sweet release of death.

"As time passed, you created the perfect opportunity," the man describes. "At first, you thought about kidnapping them and doing some good old fashioned torture. However, the logistics in finding supe-level restraints or chemical assistance was just too much of a hassle. You ended up choosing a more direct method instead. During a graduation party that they were attending in the suburbs, you planted explosives throughout their car and set them to detonate when the car started. It wasn't too hard to arrange. You just needed some ammonia fertilizer and some know-how from one of your grandpa's old reference books from when he was writing. The explosives were just the first step though. Once they got in and got blown out, they crawled out of the burning car and put out the flames covering them. They were only okay for a moment before you came in with cans of gasoline. They were too concussed by the explosion to put up much of a fight. You then proceeded to douse them both in gas before lighting a match and saying, and I quote, 'You should have known when you played with fire that you were going to get burned.' Following that snappy one liner, you dropped the match and set them both on fire. They survived with third degree burns so severe that they were virtually left with no unburned skin to use for skin grafts. Turns out that supe durability doesn't always carry over to fireproof.

"This little incident played out in front of over two dozen witnesses who promptly called the cops on you," the man says. "You were arrested, tried, and found to be criminally insane. So, you ended up here in the loony bin. Anything I missed?"

"Don't forget the pieces of shit I killed in here," I answer, my patience wearing thin. "The psycho fuck with a thing for killing kids and the guard who liked to take advantage of some of the female patients here. So are you finally going to explain who you are and why you are here or do you want to keep beating around the bush?"

"My bad," the man says. "My name is Norville Rogers, but you can call me Shaggy. Like I said earlier, I am an old friend of your grandpa."

"Shaggy was some stoner that Gramps hung out with back when he was my age," I say. "He even made a character in his books about him. There is no way that you could be the same guy. Not only should you be old as shit, but the guy died when he was like twenty."

"You aren't wrong," Shaggy admits. "Fred's friend Shaggy died back in the sixties. That doesn't mean that I can't be Shaggy too. After all, there are many worlds out there where there are countless variants of Shaggy living their lives, solving mysteries and eating to their heart's content."

"So, you're trying to tell me that you are some other Shaggy from some other world?" I ask. "Even if I believed that, why on earth are you in this world then?"

"Like I said, I was a friend of Fred's," Shaggy replies. "My Mystery Inc. died out a long time ago, so there was a time where I sought out companionship amongst the worlds of the multiverse. Even though he is not the same man as my Fred, he was still a good friend to me for decades."

"That doesn't explain what the point of you being here is," I say. "You come here and read me my life story, a version that no one should be able to know, and expect me to not wonder why an inter-dimensional hippie has decided to talk to me?"

"My reason for being here, Shawn, is to offer you a job," Shaggy says, the quirk of a smile playing at the edge of his lips. "You will realistically be in this mental hospital until you die of old age or some other affliction. Your grandpa wanted me to keep an eye out for you and help you if I could. So, I am offering you an out if you come and work for me at the Company."

I felt it was odd that it sounded like there should be a capital letter when he said the word company. However, I move past it and just try to get to the bottom of the offer. "What would my job be?" I ask warily.

"Same as for all Contractors," Shaggy says. "You would take on missions offered by clients, you would travel to different worlds to complete them or just explore, and you would make money based on your actions. There are sizable benefits that must be considered as well."

"There's more besides the whole adventuring across dimensions?" I am genuinely surprised that the whole multiversal shenanigans wouldn't be enough for most people.

"For one, the credits you earn can be exchanged into normal money," Shaggy says. "However, that is the boring option of what is available. You can also spend them on abilities like those possessed by the supes of this world. Then, there is the aspect that gets the most attention, the waifus."

"What the hell is a waifu?" I ask. I have been around the block a few times, but I have never heard that term before.

"Waifu is a blanket term used for fictional female characters that are commonly seen as attractive by those that read or watch the media that they appear in," Shaggy says in an annoyed and logical way. When he sees my blank look, he clarifies further. "They are chicks from comic books and anime that lonely nerds get off on imagining."

"What does that have to do with the job?" I am super confused by this point.

"Waifus are desirable women that exist across the multiverse," Shaggy explains. "Not only can you encounter them and bind them by being a member of the Company, but you can also purchase Company-made copies of any waifu previously discovered that include all of their abilities and memories. Bindings on waifus cause them to fall in love with you easier and they make it so that they are more comfortable with you having a harem."

"Woah, woah, woah!" I exclaim. "This is some weird sexual slavery company?!"

"Some parts of the company are more into that portion of the job, but you can operate as a Contractor without the ability to use bindings," Shaggy says. "The only way that any binding between you and a waifu would form is if she gave you a love confession or if there was some kind of reward through a mission. Even then, we could set it up so there is no brainwashing or anything."

"That doesn't change the whole issue about the sex slaves!" I repeat. "Why is that even a thing?"

"The Company exists primarily to give entertainment to our clients," Shaggy explains. "Some want you to alter worlds in a good way, others in a bad way, and a few just in weird ways. There are a countless number of Contractors spanning the range from saints to sinners and everything in between. While you can't change the fact that there will be Contractors hired by more malevolent parts of the Company, you can do your best to improve the multiverse one world at a time. Even more, I can help you cross paths with some of the worse contractors if you wanted."

"You could?" I ask. I immediately became intrigued. "I didn't realize you could do that."

"It is within my duties as your patron to be able to arrange altercations with darker Contractors by making challenges to their patron," Shaggy assures me. "Their patrons are the exact kind of people who would let their Contractors die in a fight if it is amusing. So, you could improve the good and destroy the bad. It seems right up your alley. If that's not enough, I even have a small signing bonus I can offer you."

"What could you give me that I could possibly want that I couldn't already get through being a Contractor?" I ask, unsure of what else he could pull out at this point.

"It's four things that I could give you," Shaggy says before holding up his hand and four balls of glimmering light sparked to light in the air above his palm. They lazily spun in a circle, wisps of energy flowing off of their surface before dispersing in the air.

"What are those?" I ask, gazing at the different colored orbs. They were each a unique color, with there being red, green, purple, and white. I didn't know what they were, but I could feel that they were important.

"The four souls you wanted to save more than anything," Shaggy replies. I am completely stunned as he continues to talk. "I made a deal with the angel that oversees the delivery of souls into the afterlife for this world and traded in a favor for being able to hold onto these four. If you join, you will be able to live out a long crazy life with your best buds once again."

"What's the catch?" I ask. There is the saying, 'If it's too good to be true, that's because it is.' There is always a cost when getting something this valuable.

"The first thing is that they will be reincarnated into new bodies without their memories," Shaggy explains, the souls disappearing with a flick of his hand. "They will still be them, but they will not remember their first lives at all. There will be traces that are etched into their behavior, but that will just be part of them."

"What's the next thing?" I ask.

"The second thing is that you will have to start out with zero credits for your starting world," Shaggy says. "You will not be able to start off with anything but your wits. You can't buy any abilities, any tools, or any help. Anything you can use is limited to what you can earn.

"The final thing is that you will have to discover your friends as you go," Shaggy says. "You'll meet them all eventually, but it will happen in its own time. So, do you want to join?"

Part of me wonders if I am making a deal with the devil by doing this. Nothing comes for free and this is probably going to cost a lot. However, it is a chance to fix my mistakes and ensure they don't happen again. "Where do I sign?" I ask.

Shaggy pulls out a contract from one of the files and places it in front of me along with a black pen. I don't even bother reading it before I scribble my name on the dotted line. There is nothing I could do if there was some hidden clause in the contract. Instead, I just agreed.

After I finish, Shaggy takes it back before packing it up along with his files. "I'll be on my way," he says, before tossing me a small card. "That will give you any instructions you need for getting out of here. I will be sending an associate of mine to help with the process, so there should be no issue on that front."

I look down at the blank card in my hand and turn it over to see there is nothing currently on it. As I was looking, Shaggy had made his way to the door of the room and was about to knock on it. However, before he does, he looks back at me and says, "Shawn. All great things require sacrifice. You never know until it's over. You just have to take a leap of faith. Remember that when the time comes."

With that last piece of cryptic advice, he knocks on the door to be escorted back out while I am left to my thoughts.

--

I wake up in the middle of the night to an unfamiliar sound outside of my isolation cell. That was the first clue something was different. The isolation cell is designed so that you can't hear anything outside. Despite this fact, the sound was definitely there and getting louder and closer as time went on. The closest thing that I could compare it to was nails clicking against the ground.

I pull out the card and glance at it. I was surprised when the guard hadn't taken it from me while being escorted back to my room. The only reason why is because Shaggy probably did something to it so that other people wouldn't notice it. An additional reason why I was led to that way of thinking is because the card now had faintly luminescent words scrawled across it.

Follow his lead.

I puzzle over that for a second before I hear the sound of my door unlatching and gently swinging out a little bit. "Ret's ro," a gruff voice says from behind the door before I hear the clicking sound starts back up again and continues down the hall outside.

Assuming the voice meant 'Let's go,' I get up and walk over to the door before pushing it open. As I step out into the hallway, I catch the slightest glimpse of a leg being pulled out of sight around the corner and the flash of what I thought was a tail. I just hurry after the clicking sound while checking the card and seeing that it is blank again.

I never get a good look at what is in front of me since it always stays just out of my view. The best I manage is a couple moments when I catch a hint of its form after it already finished the next turn or a view of its four-legged shadow for a second as it trailed behind the main body. Even when I ran after it, it maintained that level of separation. The creepiest part is that the speed of the nails clicking against the ground never changed, even when it had to cross a long hallway in a fraction of a second.

I kept an eye on the card the entire time in case there was any extra guidance I was supposed to be getting, but it was frustratingly blank. Pushing down a hint of annoyance, I just follow my guide up a stairwell for a few flights before I reach the top level and see who was leading me the entire time. When I actually confirm my suspicions, I was both relieved at being right and shocked at actually being right.

Sitting in front of me on the landing was a large Great Dane. He was primarily brown with black spots and was looking at me with intelligent black eyes. He had a turquoise collar around his neck with a turquoise and gold tag hanging off of it with the letters 'SD' inscribed into it. The dog was exactly as Grandpa described in all of his old mystery books. This was the companion of Shaggy and member of Mystery Inc., Scooby Doo.

"So, you are Scooby Doo?" I ask. "My gramps told me about you. From what he said, you were just about the greatest dog on the face of the earth."

The dog responds by breaking out into a canine grin before actually saying, "Red ras rice rike rhat." Then, as all giant taking dogs typically do, he runs away from me and towards the far wall of the stairwell. Right before hitting, the shadows on the surface seem to thicken and solidify before the dog passes through them like water. After he is through, the shadows return back to normal and I am alone in the stairwell.

That's going to take a second to process. I meet a taking dog that I thought was a fictional character, he says what I think is, 'Fred was nice like that', and then promptly runs through a shadow portal. I don't know what I thought would happen, but that was not it.

I glance once more at the card and read the new text which has appeared.

Go through the door and remember what I said.

After reading that, the card suddenly bursts in flames. In a burst of panic, I drop the card and it turns to ash before it even hits the ground. What was even the point of that?!

Steeling myself once more, I open the door to the stairwell and step outside. Looking around, I realize that the stairwell was for roof access since I am now on top of the hospital. Tilting my head up, I see the moon and stars for the first time in months. I take a deep breath and finally enjoy air without the stifling scent of antiseptics.

Walking forward and looking around, I see that there is nobody else up here but me. I wander all the way to the unprotected edge and see that I am fifteen stories above the ground. I forgot how high this hospital was. Then again, I did climb a lot of stairs. As I look down at the ground so far below me, I remember what Shaggy said about what to do when the time comes. He can't possibly be serious.

"A leap of faith, huh?" I ask to myself before I hear the sound of footsteps echoing up the stairwell behind me. I turn in time to see numerous security guards rushing out of the doorway and spreading out around me. Instead of rushing me all at once, they are keeping their distance. They are probably worried about being pushed off if they get within reach of me.

"So, Jones," I hear my usual guard say. He has this vicious grin on his face as steps to the front of the group, idly smacking his nightstick into his palm. "It seems like you have run out of places to run and hide. I guess that means that you will be coming back with us. Good try though. Most people never get out of our control and this is the first time someone has given us such an issue. How about you come on back with us and we can pay you back for the the hassle before throwing you down a hole so deep you'll never see light again?"

I give it a moment of serious thought. Option one: Go with them, get beaten, and spend the rest of my life in a cell with no freedom. Option two: I jump off of this building and hope that I am not actually crazy and imaging everything that led to this.

In all honesty, I think I'm going with option two.

"Since it's the last time I am going to see you guys, I wanted to tell you all something," I say, taking a few steps back. As I begin moving, the guards all tense up in preparation for whatever I am about to do. "You can all go suck a massive fucking dick."

I follow this up by flipping them all off before taking my final step back and falling over the edge of the building. I am treated to the utterly shocked look on the guards' faces, in particular their stupid leader, as I begin to plummet backwards and they leave my field of view.

As I fall and begin to accelerate, I take a moment to think about everything that led to this point. Grandpa, Ellis, Penny, Daniel, and Vivian. A thousand mistakes and a thousand things I should have done. I just hope Shaggy was serious when he said I can have a second chance.

I spend my last few seconds of this life as I prepare to have a very intimate meeting with the ground by looking up at the moon. Its light calms me down as I breathe my last as Shawn Jones. It was the perfect thing to see before it all went black.

--

There you have it folks! My completed first chapter of A Second Chance. Sorry it took so long to finally complete. I just needed some time to finish fleshing out his back story. I would have preferred to avoid the massive exposition dump, but I needed to finish his backstory before I could get into the main event.

For those who favorited and followed the first publishing of this story, you deserve an explanation about why I deleted it and published it again. This is because of the two creepy reviews from a guest. I didn't want a story so dear to my heart to have those as the first reviews, so I deleted and re-uploaded the story so that I could get rid of them.

Anyhow, let me know what you all think of the story. Drop a review to give some feedback or just favorite and follow so you can see when the next chapter drops. Hopefully, it won't take as long as the first.