I'm just a little misguided, but my intentions are good.

Before I was a pussy who couldn't talk to women. Then I started watching Johnny Bravo. I learned everything I could from Johnny Bravo about how to court a woman. The following day I walked into class, and I caught the eyes of all the women in there. I got those tarts so damp that the humidity in the room increased. Fuck year. I was dressed in skin-tight leather so whenever I made sudden movements, you could hear whiplashes. I had a pompadour so large and phallic that it would get caught on the doorway if I didn't duck. It was gelled to be hard enough to be used as a weapon. I could literally headbutt a woman into orgasming with my hair. I was injected with enough steroids to buff up that I'm surprised my penis and testicles still legally existed.

I sit down, and all the women want to sit next to me. "Hang on, ladies, there's enough of me to go around," I say. That didn't stop them. Even the teacher couldn't keep her eyes off of me. She ordered all of the boys except me out of the classroom. I smiled. I knew what was going to happen. Except I didn't, and they all tied me down and force-fed me viagra and had sex marathons with me for 10 hours without stopping. Woman after woman after woman treated me like nothing more than an object, a plaything. I was exhausted, dehydrated, and my manhood was worked raw as I cried pitifully, covered in all manner of fluids and materials as they left me over night. My psychosis began to slowly slip into oblivion as I contemplated life. About how I wondered where everything went wrong. About how I was just mercilessly tortured for hours on end by those vile succubi. I eventually worked my wrists raw and bloody to get myself untied and escaped the classroom. The only thought that crossed my blank mind was "Shit, I feel sorry for the janitor when he comes in tomorrow morning."

I go home and sleep as if nothing had happened. I stood by my teaching of Johnny Bravo, but now this time for vengeance. When I left, I would drive by lone women on the streets. They would swoon over me. I would offer them a ride, and they willingly accepted. What happened I will not describe. You do not deserve to have that brought up on you. But those women, I learned they all couldn't be trusted. I would humiliate them, torture them, and eventually my psychosis slipped into murder. The first victim was a young brunette on the 28th. She had a nice smile. I cut her a nicer one.

Eventually I was having intercourse with a woman I picked up in my car. Eventually I started getting rougher, then I started crying profusely shouting why Mama doesn't see me as an adult, so I started strangling her there. I choked the life out of that bitch. I crushed her dainty throat with my pulsating muscles, my sunglasses showing no inflection. That girl only saw herself looking back in horror as I squeezed the last breathes of life from her. I stopped and started crying at what I had become. Then I realized, I realized that all my indignant fury was misplaced. The real man who was responsible for the monster that had been created... was Johnny Bravo. And by extension, Seth MacFarlane. I realized what I had to do. I was to kill Seth Macfarlane for what he's done. This went beyond what he did with the fourth season of Family Guy. This was personal.

Of course being lost in rage, I didn't know what Seth MacFarlane looked like, so when I flew to Connecticut, I started killing indiscriminately, hoping one of them would be him. Now I'm a convicted sex offender and serial killer who's murdered 23 people.

This is why cartoons are bad influences on children.

Fuck starving children, I can't find my car keys.

So I recall somebody at school in one of my classes that complained about being overweight a lot. It was irritating. Now don't get me wrong; if I was that fat, I would probably be complaining a lot, too. I'd be complaining about how I have to spend twice as much on airfare and my grocery bills. I'd complain about the fact that I smell like I have several rotting corpses of all my small animals that went missing hiding somewhere inside the gelatinous mass of flesh that at one point used to be identified as a human body. I would complain that many compact cars' shocks aren't designed with the "modern man" in mind anymore. I would complain about my inability to complain for long periods of time without becoming winded. Then I would have the courtesy to die and make the world a better place. It would probably make it smell better, too.

I also have a strong aversion to scrawny people who are anorexic or bulimic. In fact, I could probably say that I dislike them more than fat people. Most fat people are jolly, like Santa Claus. Santa Claus is nice, everybody likes Santa Claus. But if Santa Claus was light enough to be caught in a serious tailwind, then that wonderful imagery just really wouldn't mean as much. Sure, we would get twice as much toys since his fatass wouldn't be dampening his load, but it just wouldn't be the same. There are perfectly acceptable reasons for being severely underweight or overweight, like metabolism problems (Hi there). But the people who actually have the indecency to call things like this a disease are akin to rich people who willingly make themselves homeless and then complain about the rats chewing on their scrotums in their sleep and how their box doesn't have any insulation.

I know these are legitimate problems in America, and I know all of us might have loved ones or friends currently afflicted with these... problems. But take a second, and I really want you all to think about the implications here. Think long and hard. Think about how we're in a world where there are third-world countries plagued by famine, with people literally starving to death from lack of food. Then look at our country. There are people in our country, who are dying... BECAUSE THEY EAT TOO FUCKING MUCH. THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING BECAUSE THEY ARE DENYING THEMSELVES THE RIGHT TO EAT, TO ABSORB NUTRITION INTO THEIR SYSTEMS, THEY'RE KILLING THEMSELVES OVER IT. AND YOU WONDER WHY THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING HATES US. Of course the countries starving to death probably don't have any education,either, so they also probably think slavery still exists in America, which it does but we're now just using Latinos who volunteer for shitty pay instead. But that's besides the point.

I'd really like to go to some impoverished country in Africa (you won't have to go far) so I could sit down with the children, and try to explain this concept to them. Well, I would have to convince them that I'm not going to kidnap and sell them first, then I would try to explain this concept to them. For a group of people who are trying to get by on elephant piss and dirt everyday, they'll probably look at me like I've lost my fucking mind.

"Did you know? That in America, people can actually die from eating TOO much."
"You're lying, giant white man."
"No, I'm serious. People actually die because they have too much fat, and their bodies just give up and don't want to live anymore."
"...Well I guess that makes sense. I mean, if you can die from never eating, I guess you could die from overeating."
"If I could show you a Wal Mart, you would witness whole pods of people migrating through the store, eating while they walk."
"I don't see how they could eat that much, I barely have the strength to eat, even if I'm hungry. I had ONE whole loaf of bread today. I was even lucky enough to find a few beetles in it."
"Uh, that's disgusting."
"I'm getting so fat that I can't even see my ribs anymore."
"That's normal..."
"In fact, mama's going to cut back on my food because the other villagers are getting jealous, but I also think because she lost her washboard again and wants to use my chest."
"Too much information."

These are strictly first-world country problems. We have so much fucking food that we can actually take the time and figure out that eating too much food can inevitably kill you due to adverse side-effects. We actually have that luxury in our country to find this out. Most people are too busy fighting off the shakes and eating grass like cattle to study these kinds of things, but not us. I bet most people in Africa would think you're just making shit up if you tell them about obesity and overeating being a problem. How people would starve themselves out of some misbegotten notion that they're ugly if they eat too much. They would laugh you out of their houses made of feces and straw for actually thinking they would believe something like that.

You know what's worse, though? This is just the beginning. I mean who knows? Sleep might be next. In fact, there are even studies showing up that people are being put at a more serious medical risk from sleeping too much. Really, it's true. Our culture will hit a point where you will start hearing about people dying thanks to complications caused from sleeping too much. Because we have that kind of free time. There will be people running themselves into the ground, working 80 hours a week and getting 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night, and they won't say a word because they're working as hard as they can, otherwise they're going to be screwed. Then you'll find some douche complaining about how he has bedsores from sleeping too much and it's cutting into his quality time bonding with his new bong that's shaped like a penis.

When you have little Allabar morbidly depressed because he's starving and his parents were killed by AIDS and fed to the rest of his tribe and they all got AIDS and died too, it's a tragedy. I mean, we know why he's depressed, HE'S ALONE AND EVERYBODY HAS AIDS. But then you have people in our society that get depressed because... well, no reason. We've taken the time to figure out that sometimes we just want to afflicted with severe mental illnesses and heavily medicated to stabilize us, while other countries have the luxury of writing them off as possessed and they let natural selection do its work. This is what I'm personally guilty of, suffering from severe clinical depression brought on at my fear of success and that my life is too wonderful for me to deserve it. Somebody's entire city just got wiped out by war and famine, and I'm stressing out because I can't find my antidepressants to subdue my severe, unprovoked moodswings. Because my country lets me get away with that and I have that kind of time on my hands. HUZZAH!

Welcome to the modern world, where we have so much excess of the necessities to live that we have the time to find out just how much of a good thing it takes to kill us.

Well, I've done worse for less.

Let's talk about obligations. The other day I had to suck dick for a parking spot. Now I know what you're saying; "Deo, how bad could parking be that you would have to resort to fellatio in order to find a secure spot?" Well, the parking frankly isn't that bad. But the only parking spaces available usually are in a vacant lot across the street from the college. This tends to be problematic for those days I'm running late because after I get parking, it alone takes me 5 minutes to walk to class. And those days are almost every day. I'm serious, it's becoming some sort of a problem when no matter how early I leave, by the hand of God's intervention I end up being late to class. Leave early? Traffic. Leave late when I know I'm going to be late? Roads are bare so I haul ass and don't end up being so late.

It's a cruel trick that the Keepers of the Streets keep pulling on me, and it's irritating. It's also irritating to my teacher whose badass beard and flat cap give me the impression that he's going to go Drunken Irish on my ass if I continue to be late. So I'm finding closer private places to park at the cost of some of my decency, if any is left. And the tasks have been getting worse, too. And if I told you any of them, you would probably turn off your computer and go for a very long walk so you can ponder how your hopes and expectations of human dignity have just been seriously called into question. Plus the doctors would be turning their heads in curiosity at why a man has burn tissue on the inside of his rectum. That's all for the sake of attempting to be early. You're welcome, Professor.

This made me recall that in our lives, we've all done something degrading, humiliating, or unpleasant in our lives to pay off a debt to somebody. We might've been in a desperate situation, or in most cases we probably lost a bet. And more often than not, they involve sexual favors. Even if you're straight and with a bunch of straight friends, it might be something sexual, or for a lack of a better description, completely gay. And none of you have to be gay to do it. If anything, forcing your manfriends to do sexual favors is as straight as an arrow because you're both consciously aware of how horribly unpleasant and humiliating it is. That's the point of losing a bet. Frank complained when he had to shove that carrot up his ass, but it didn't make him gay for doing it. He was just owning up to a bet. It made him gay that he ended up enjoying it, but you understand where I'm coming from. Obligations have and always will be a perpetual pain in our asses. Unless you like things in your ass like Frank. But I'm getting off on a tangent. Right, let's get into a narrative that seems to put this on display, which thankfully involves no dick-sucking. Well, at least to the best of my knowledge.

* * *

"I want you to get me a new one." she said.
"...A new 'what', exactly?" I was a bit anxious.
"One of those." There was a pause. My anxiety was well-founded.
"Oh good Christ, one of those."
"And it has to be a good one."
"......Do I really have to go through with this?"
"Yes."
"Can't I do something else?" I groaned.
"No."
"Oh come on, there has to be something, ANYTHING I can do besides that." I pleaded.
"Nope."
"Nothing else I can do comes to mind?"
"Nope.
"I'M PROBABLY NOT EVEN OLD ENOUGH TO PURCHASE SOMETHING LIKE THAT."
"Not my problem."
"MEN DON'T SHOP FOR THOSE KINDS OF THINGS."
"Not my problem."
"I HATE YOU SO MUCH."
"Not my problem."

So most of you might be wondering how I got into this particular situation. Or what the situation is. This girl I knew in High School enjoyed having sex. She had no shame about it; she liked to sleep around, and she enjoyed every bit of it. And people just sort of knew and accepted it. Nobody really condemned her for it because it wasn't really doing any harm to anyone. She was a connoisseur of the sensual arts, and that's all there was to it. I won't use the term "slut" because I always found it to be a double standard since when men like to whore themselves out, it's somehow alright or badass that he's scoring with so many hot bitches. He gets high fives down the hall whenever he talks about the new squeeze he just laid out, and no men, NONE look at him with contempt for enjoying himself. They look at him with contempt because he's getting laid and they're not. This perception is generally different for women, so out of equal respect, I won't call her a slut or a whore. She never helped a man cheat, and if she accidentally did, she would help his girlfriend kick his ass. She was just out to enjoy herself and didn't want to ruin anybody's love life in the process. It was a refreshing change of pace from all the women who were in fact cheating whores at the school.

Oh right, I guess I lied. I'm an equal opportunist, so I call plenty of men whores, as well. Fair? Alright, back to the story.

Again, she liked to sleep around but didn't give off that "slutty" vibe. She was definitely a bitch, though. Rude, is what she was. And a smartass to boot. But I think it was just a facade since she still managed to frequently do nice things. One thing in particular was helping me with my English homework every single day. Okay, so it was more than one time, but you get the point. What? I couldn't be bothered to do it. I was off indulging my own hobbies and pleasures of cutting school, getting drunk, and generally waking up in places I've never been to while regretting actions I can't remember doing. Although I assume it eventually hit the point where it probably got bothersome for her after the third or fourth week.

"This is getting really bothersome." she bluntly stated. I WAS RIGHT.
"I suppose so." I said. "Well, you don't have to keep doing it. I suppose I can actually start working again."
"Fair enough." she said. And that was it.

Except I didn't do my work. Whoops.

That pissed her off, so she did my work for me anyways. And she had the audacity to complain about it, too. What the fuck, I didn't ask for her to keep doing my homework. Goddamn, let me fail if you don't want to do my homework. That's what I was doing with my other classes. Was she going to help me in those, too? One of the reasons she told me to pick up the slack in my English classes other than her not having to do the work was that she apparently thought I had talent or something and said it would be a shame to see the only thing I'll probably ever be good at go to waste. Now I'm writing lewd stories about rape and substance abuse on internet forums. HA, SHE TURNED OUT TO BE FULL OF SHIT, DIDN'T SHE?
Eventually though, I couldn't motivate myself to do the work, but I still felt guilt-tripped by her adamant refusal to stop. So because of this, I eventually became her bitch in the "errand-boy" sense of the word to make myself feel like I was doing my fair share of the work. The requests generally weren't a problem for me to do; hell, they were easier than doing schoolwork. Until ONE particular request that put me in the current state of panic I was in now. I had to get one of THOSE. Apparently her old one stopped working. Now the first question I had:

"How the fuck does something like THAT stop working?"
Seriously. How does something like that stop working? What was she doing? Did the motor burn out from overuse? Knowing this girl, she probably had one big enough for the job of clubbing a fellow human being to death, so maybe an intruder tried to break into the house while she was having a moment with herself and that was the closest object at her disposal to use as a weapon. I hadn't a clue, but my morbid curiosity wanted to know the answer.

"Overuse." she said.
"Didn't see that coming."
"You aren't clever."
"I never said I was."
"But right, get it to me by next week."
"...Or what?"
"I'll cut yours off and fill it with rubber as a replacement."
"...That sounds unpleasant." I muttered, slightly shaken through the alcoholic haze. "Besides, I'm not well-endowed. That'd be a waste of your time."
"I was at the overhang outside the cafeteria when you were pantsed. Don't lie to me."
"...Shit, fine." Yes, I was pantsed in High School, because the mature High Schoolers so above childish pranks still did that. And it happened to be the day I was going commando because my deadbeat mother didn't do any laundry. It was one of the more embarrassing experiences in my life, especially since at that point in time I was terribly naive. This was before the internet generation started really catching on and kids weren't watching porn when they were FUCKING TEN. So I didn't know much about sex and hadn't a clue what being "well-endowed" really meant. She apparently did though, so the threat went through. Really, she couldn't be serious about that threat, right? But better question; where the Hell was I going to get something like that? Other than her, there was really no feasible source of information I could rely on in this situation. I mean, there's almost no realistic approach to any conversation where I could work this into the context of discussion.
But really, what was I to do? I pondered this as I stumbled home in the 110-degree heat with the humidity being drier than my mother after my father left. Actually, that's a terrible comparison. You'll understand why later, whether you want to or not. But it was arid, dead wind, and not a cloud in the sky. I was in jeans and three layers of clothing, and I wasn't sweating a drop. I was either completely resistant to heat or approaching a dangerous level of dehydration, but either way the barren conditions diluted my thoughts and made it impossible for me to form any kind of coherent thought on the way home. In fact, I ended up in the back alley parking lot of a movie theater and I couldn't remember how I got there. There was a homeless man in only boxers pissing behind a dumpster. Johnny the homeless man actually has no relevance to this particular story, I just felt that it was an observation worth noting. He was going to be dead soon. Again, nothing of relevance but another observation worth eventually noting. Now I don't know why I stumbled around in that alley. I actually considered asking Johnny the homeless man to find a sex shop and buy one for me if I did him a favor, but then the cycle of being indebted to other people would continue. And Johnny the homeless man was a crazy and sexually depraved. He had been arrested four times for indecent exposure that involved masturbating inside the Save Mart in the shopping center and asking women if they liked what they saw. They didn't, and neither did the children he asked, either. God forbid what this crazy homeless man would ask me to do if I sent him into a sex shop. He'd probably start working his crank and get thrown out before he bought what I needed. Or what I didn't need, I couldn't trust him with money. So I continued on my way home from school and I heard him wailing like a dog as I left. Okay, maybe he wasn't pissing behind the dumpster after all.

I get home, and I want to watch TV. The problem is that the TV downstairs has the terrifying premise that my mother comes down there on occasion to leave or go get more beer or to talk on the phone, and she's a tornado of drunken fury that destroys everything in her wake. My room on the other hand I share with my brother, and despite it being 3pm in the afternoon, he's asleep because he has work at 6pm until the wee hours of the morning. I actually of all places prefer to watch TV in my mom's room, because she usually doesn't go in there since the phone is downstairs and so is the refrigerator. She only goes into her room to sleep or for some reason or another. That particular afternoon, I found out what "some reason or another" was.
She was locked in her room blaring her music and I was downstairs, attempting to watch Conan since it came on CNBC in the afternoon and it was the only thing to watch at that time. I couldn't hear the TV because her music was fucking loud. Eventually though, I heard the music dim and noticed it was Friday; she was going to leave to the Bay Area for the weekend. Oh joy, time alone in the house without fear of death. She came downstairs, didn't say a word, and went out the door. I immediately got of the futon in the living room and went upstairs. It was uncomfortable as Hell. It felt like it had a corpse inside it and smelled like it, too. So I was all too eager to hurry upstairs and go watch TV in the master bedroom. I turned on the TV and situated myself on the bed and saw her car leave when I looked out the window. But when I sat there for a bit, I sensed something. Something terrible. Something to this day, if I sense it, I immediately retreat into that happy little place in my mind and start whimpering. It was a disturbance in the air that most kids learn to sense whenever SOMETHING was going on.
And what was worse was that I couldn't shake this gut feeling that something was wrong. It was like the sound of a faint ticking inside my head that couldn't be completely drowned out. And what made my stomach turn even more was when I realized that it wasn't in my head; it was an auditory ticking noise that could very be distinctly heard if there was silence in the room. And when I sat up, I listened to where that ticking was coming from. It sounded like a clock that had jammed. It was coming from a black bag in the corner of the room. In most cases, a black travel bag with the sound of ticking would be something that a Middle-eastern man at a airport would be carrying with him on board a plane, so needless to say I was cautious. Like a timid animal, I slowly got up and approached it, cautious scanning it, wondering what the noise was. I started breathing heavily as I got ready to peer inside of the bag, and with a final push through hesitation, I opened it and reached my hand inside of it.

"OH SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST DID I JUST GRAB OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD I CAN'T EVEN GET A GOOD GRIP ON IT AND IT SMELLS AND WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK FUCKING SHIT IS THIS AM I GOING TO GET A DISEASE AND OH LORD WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THI--"

I would've continued to revile in horror longer, but I passed out. That was pretty much all the energy that I could muster in that situation through shock. This was great that I was home alone at the time, because one couldn't possibly begin to imagine the compromising position I'd be in if one were to walk in on me, unconscious in the corner of the room, with one of THOSE in my hand. I mean, the possibilities would be endless as to what I was up to. But when I came to and realized what I was actually doing... I started screaming and yelling and crying and passing out again. This went on for two more times before I could accept the crux of the situation I was in. When I regained consciousness for the fourth time, I had a crude and brilliant idea, and decided to make a phone call.

"Hey you." I said.
"What?" she asked.
"You didn't say anything about where it needed to come from or any specifics like that, did you?" She decided to humor me.
"As long as it works and it isn't diseased, then sure, why the hell not?"
"Good, that's all I needed to know."

And that my friends, is how I channeled emotional trauma into a positive outlet by helping others in the most twisted and vile manner possible. I'm serious. She didn't care about where it came from. She bleached and desensitized it and said it was acceptable. The only qualm she had was the rather unimpressive size, but then I remembered that this would be what normal people preferred and her preferences would probably stretch to livestock eventually since anything that wasn't human would be the only thing substantially large enough to please her.

Of course I knew where it had come from, and I was glad to get such an insidious device out of my house. And due to how ashamed my family is of exploring those prospects, nobody would say a word about it ever. EVER. A man wouldn't ask his family "Hey hon, I seemed to have misplaced my Gemerald Stud, do you have any idea where it went?"

But right, the moral of this particular story is that whores are evil and will put you in compromising positions and make you learn more about yourself and those around you than you're comfortable knowing.

I had to burn the skin off the palm of my hand just to feel clean again. Christ.

The end.

It was the year 2042 and everybody in America was happy. They had no reason to be; America had virtually every single job outsourced to other countries and thus what was once a glorious nation was now being puppeteered by every powerful nation in the world. The world needed to be fixed, and America was now the tool to fix it. And the world had plenty of problems in 2042, especially in America. Most gasoline-powered cars had fallen out of use for extremely expensive electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles that were far too expensive for most people to own. This meant that few people had the option to commute to work, but of course this wasn't much of an issue anyway because of outsourcing and nobody was working.

So why was everybody so happy? Well, happy wasn't the right word. People simply stopped caring. Because thanks to the miracles of Universal Healthcare and the advancements in the fields of Brain Biology and such, everybody was diagnosed with one mental inconsistency or another that always led to trouble. But alas, no need to fear; now the mentally ill could have the government racing to diagnose and help them cope with their crippling imperfections, no matter how natural they might've been. From the moment that a child's mind started to rapidly develop at the age of three, they would undergo medical conditioning to help keep their unstable little minds functioning at a healthy level. By the time the child was ten, he was under enough mood stabilizers and mental inhibitors that they would sedate a large bull elephant in heat if it wasn't given time to build up a reasonable tolerance. The children growing up well through Elementary and High School carried around what looked like a bag of Skittles or Chex Mix, always making sure that they were never off of them for too long, lest they saw The End.

By law, everybody had to stay medicated constantly because of The End. The End was the only drawback to being under all these medications. It was a terrifying prospect that was ambiguous that nobody really knew about, but it always led to death. Well, "terrifying" wasn't the right word since everybody was too emotionally numb to feel fear, but it was something to be weary of since a case of deadness certainly impeded on one's right to live. So The End manifested itself in a variety of ways through the years. Most believed that it was the Government sending agents out to punish people who weren't deemed mentally suitable to function in society since they weren't on their medications

Some people thought otherwise, though. Some people thought The End was a tool used by an urban legend. A tool that the infamous "Johnny The Murderer" used to kill people, because he was sharp. He could tell when people weren't on their mood stabilizers and mental inhibitors. He lived long before the Universal Mood Stabilization Program was put into effect, and knew how people acted when they were imperfect minds. And thus being the brutish thug he was, he took advantage of them in their splintered and horrible state of mind by robbing them, raping them, killing them, or some combination of the three to his liking. Nobody knew if he was still killing or if he was long dead because when Johnny The Murderer started killing and when The End started killing was never entirely clear. But both were enough to make people certain to keep on their medications to avoid either or.

Except Marcus Bogart. He was a rambunctious young teenager who often had to be forced and restrained by his parents to take his medication. For you see, Marcus was a particularly volatile child growing up; his mind was splintered in many places that made him loony and unstable. He's currently one of the most heavily-sedated teenagers at his High School just so they can keep him under control, but for his freshman and sophomore year they had to keep upping his dosage so he wouldn't snap and try to set the school on fire again because he thought it was a more effective way of cleaning the halls out.

"It's a more effective way of cleaning the halls out." he said while sweeping the halls. He was on detention duty for taking his medication a half hour late during class.

"There won't be any halls left, Marcus." one the pudgy students assisting him stated in a sluggish and unenthusiastic manner. His name was Charlie.

"Well I don't feel like going to school anymore, so it makes sense."

"You have to go to school, Marcus. School will help you get smarter in life."

"I'm smart enough."

"Do you know what The End is?" he asked.

"Why would I want to?"

"Because it's something you don't know. And it's something to be conscious of since it's capable of killing you. Maybe you should learn what The End is." This almost took a bit of the smug arrogance out of Marcus's voice.

"...But nobody's learned what The End was and lived to tell about it." he said apprehensively.

"Well if you're so big and tough, what makes you think that you can't?" As big and tough and smart as Marcus was, he was also simple-minded and easily tricked like an oaf.

"Well fuck you then, I guess I'll figure out what The End is, then." That was all it took. Really, it was. He continued to sweep in silence for the rest of the day, muttering unintelligible insults that were best left incoherent for virgin ears. When the third bell rang, it meant it was time for all students to take their medications, with staff nearby watching the students. They especially kept an eye on Marcus Bogart, who liked to abstain from doing so whenever he could to irritate the staff.

"Have you taken your inhibitors yet, Marcus?" one of the hall monitors asked him.

"No sir I have not."

"And why is that?"

"Because I want to see The End." There were collective gasps throughout the hallway from what they heard. Strained, tired and vaguely interested gasps.

"Marcus you foolish child, why would you want that?" Even when shocked, the hall monitor's voice had a benign ring to it.

"Because I don't know what it is, and I want to know," was his honest response.

"Marcus, that's ridiculous. Take your medication now." He tried to sound threatening, but he didn't.

"No." And with a shove, he knocked the hall monitor out of the way and raced through the halls. In most situations relevant to the past, a child would easily be caught if he tried escaping from school. Marcus was strong and powerful, and his stamina and energy wasn't influenced strongly by the emotional suppressors he was frequently on. The faculty of the school was, much to his benefit as they stumbled and yelled and tripped over themselves like drunk tired dogs trying to catch the young man.

When he finally made it outside, he was panting and wheezing from exhaustion. He was shaking and trembling a bit, slightly smug after escaping the school.

"I knew they couldn't catch me." But now he didn't know what to do with himself, he breathed heavily from overworking his body under the effects of the inhibitors, and he eventually slumped over and passed out.

"Is he awake? Good, it looks like he's coming to." Marcus opened his eyes and he was in the woods outside the school. A disheveled man stood above him. He was dirty, unshaven, and looked as if he only owned the set of clothes he was currently wearing. He had two or three similar degenerates lurking around Marcus as they watched him regain consciousness.

"...Where am I?" Marcus inquired.

"In the middle of the woods, where the fuck does it look like we are?" the old man's voice had a sarcastic vulgar rust in his throat. "Are you feeling better yet?" Marcus sat up and shook himself off. He was a bit paranoid and nervous.

"Who are you and why am I here?" he asked.

"That's just rude. You passed out and I saved you from being captured by the school staff. Show some damn gratitude."

"Why?"

"...You want to see it, don't you?" the old man asked. Marcus grew a bit defensive.

"......See what?"

"I can see it in your eyes. Their control on you is weakening, isn't it?" Marcus paused for a second. His heart immediately started racing. He began to panic.

"Y-y-you're Jo--"

"Johnny's my name."

"Y-you're going to kill me, aren't you?" His fear began to swell.

"Who knows, I might. I've killed a lot of people. Can't say that another kid would make much of a difference, eh?" Marcus immediately tried getting to his feet to run, but he was trembling so violently that he collapsed to the ground. He could do nothing but stare at Marcus with terrified eyes.

"P-please don't kill me, I'm just a kid..." he meekly replied.

"You have no idea what's going on, do you? Look at you, kid. You're shaking so much that you'll piss your pants."

"K-K-KEEP AWAY!" he yelled as he backed up against a tree. But Johnny was right, because Marcus soiled himself there on the spot, something the tree probably didn't enjoy. Johnny started laughing with a twisted grin on his face.

"It's all foreign to you, ain't it?" Johnny asked him, leaning in. Marcus regressed. "You ain't never felt something like this before, have you? You're so giddy that you can hardly control yourself." Marcus's face was going pale as he hyperventilated more. He couldn't speak anymore.

"But it's normal, you know? It's pretty shocking, but it's normal. I ain't been on that shit for decades, but now I'm normal."

"I-I-I don't want to be normal," Marcus choked out.

"Yeah, you probably won't. You'll probably die, kid." Marcus's heart went into a panic as he saw Johnny pull out a gun and point it at him.

"Kid, here's what you want to see. If you can see this and beat it, then maybe you're one of the few that can help us shake this whole globalized funk off." Marcus's mind started racing with emotions as he stared down at the gun barrel. But as he caught that, he started to smile, and he started to laugh a bit in epiphany. Johnny smiled back.

"Yeah, that's what I like to see." He pulled the trigger, and as soon as Marcus heard that loud click, his heart seized up and he slumped to the ground, and his life was no longer his own. Johnny sighed.

"Well shit, there's the end of another one." One of his assistants came up behind him.

"Guess he wasn't good enough either, boss."

"Guess not. Let's go home and wait for another one to get loose and see if he can survive it, too."

Johnathon Morris's shadow.

Today was another lonely morning for Johnathon Morris to wake up and get ready for work. It was early. Very early. So very early that the sun had yet to rise. But his job as a computer engineer and teacher at the local community college had a morning class, and driving there is out of the question when one does not possess an automobile. So Johnathon had to catch the Subway to work every day. The first one that left in the bleak hours of the morning, of all things. So he had to wake himself up, pull himself to get ready, and depart to the station in the chilly fall air so he could catch it. The walk from his apartment complex to the subway station was cold and refreshing for him; he had a smoke and not a soul was on the street. It was quiet and peaceful for his head, something he needed. But every morning when he got his coffee and made his way into the first cart on the station, he hoped to be alone. But always there like a ghost haunting the train, that familiar woman stood in the same cart with him. She would almost always initiate conversation with him, only to flounder through it, attempting to end the discussion as quickly as possible.

"Why are you always following me around?" he would ask, starting to get mildly bothered. A kind and stifled voice made its way through the checkered black and white scarf she adorned.

"I'm just going the same way you're going. Please pay it no heed." Her politeness was difficult to begrudge, even for somebody as young and embittered as Johnathon Morris.

"You say that," he began, "but every single day for the past three weeks you've been following me to work." He blew on his hands from the cold and massaged the glint on his finger before rubbing his hands together. "Seriously, you're always here when I get on, when I leave, and I never see you coming and going. It feels like I'm being stalked."

"Well rest assured, you're not." She brushed her chestnut bangs away from her soft eyes. An innocent glance passed through Johnathon Morris and he quivered a bit as he pulled up his brown and musky coat to reserve himself.

"...You're always looking at me." he refuted.

"That I am." her gentle voice affirmed, reflecting no regret or denial.

"Outright admitting it, huh? Seems a bit shameless, don't you think?"

"Not at all." Her curious angelic smirk didn't falter amidst the crude accusations Johnathon Morris made.

"Oh for the love of..." As soon as he arrived at his stop, he stopped for a bit and glanced at the woman. She was pretty. She dressed simply, but it allowed the attention to be focused more on her features than her attire. He paused for a bit. She let out a calm and sweet smile that made him flustered, so he left the cart to his job. And as 10 hours had passed, he returned to the subway. The carts weren't that crowded despite it being well into the evening. He eventually worked his way to the back where there was an empty cart. Or at least so he thought. He peered around. To the left, then to the right. Then back to the left of the carriage, and there she was, sitting casually in her seat eating ramen noodles from a local restaurant.

"Hello."

"WHY?" he shouted.

"Why what?" she calmly asked.

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HERE?"

"I did not ride this particular cart yesterday, I merely rode it today."

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FOLLOWING ME?"

"I believe I was here first." Johnathon Morris attempted to talk but he stuttered and stammered and blurted out tongues before articulating coherent thoughts again.

"I JUST LOOKED WHERE YOU WERE!" he proclaimed. "NOTHING WAS THERE! THEN I LOOKED BACK AGAIN, AND THERE YOU WERE!"

"You sound as if your mind is slipping." the woman responded, crossing her legs as she slurped her noodles. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't find words. They were lost, running around inside his head and he wasn't able to catch them through the myriad of other thoughts he was fighting his way through. He simply sighed and sat down in the seat opposite of her.

"Everywhere I go, fucking people there." he muttered. "Just some time to myself would be nice. That's all I ask for."

"You must really want to be alone." commented the woman as she continued to eat.

"Yeah, you can't possibly begin to imagine..." there was a snide tone to his voice. There was a long pause. "...You aren't going to leave, are you?"

"I believe I was here first." she reiterated. He shook his head and rested it on his palms as the lights of the subway tunnel flickered in through the windows.

"Good god, just sometimes..."

"God doesn't seem very good to you from the sounds of it." the woman replied.

"Oh... you have no idea."

"Not a religious man, I presume?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Any reason why?"

"None I'm willing to disclose." His cold disposition wouldn't budge. The woman's cool aura faltered a bit.

"That's a pity." A hint of disappointment that was present when she spoke was laced with a slightly condescending twist.

"God ain't done a damn thing for me, and for all I care he can keep it that way." A pious absence in his voice echoed throughout the train. "I'm doing just fine without him, thank you very much."

"You don't seem to be." She said. Johnathon's eyebrow twitched while a coy smirk crossed the young woman's face. She was perceptive.

"Well don't you think you know a lot?" his voice raised. He was getting angry. "So tell me what else you know, why don't you? If you're so damn slick." Her detached demeanor wasn't shaken as he stood up in front of her. She continued to eat her noodles as a long silence permeated the empty carriage, until she finally decided to speak.

"Is this not your stop?" she pointed with her spork at the door opening. It was his stop. Johnathon sighed a bit, and stormed out of the cart back to his empty home. He didn't sleep well that night. He had more misanthropic thoughts before finally losing himself to the night. This was the cycle that Johnathon had with his passenger virtually every single morning he got on the train. Just when his mood hit rock bottom and wanted to be alone, of all coincidences the friendly and gentle commuter started showing up. Her young voice never had ill intent, but it still served to pester Johnathon whenever he saw her during his morning travels and on his way back home. He seriously considered other means of transportation to avoid her, but the financial crunch he was in didn't permit any other alternatives. So he simply tried his best to avoid speaking to her whenever he could. And if she started talking, he would often have a snide quip at the ready to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

"Hey, it's my commuting buddy."

"Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you're here like always." he drearily muttered as he sipped his morning coffee and took his seat.

"You always seem to find your way to my cart. Is it not you perhaps who is seeking me out?"

"Don't flatter yourself." he drank more of his coffee as the glint on his hand caught a few sparse rays of the rising sun. In clear defiance of the 'No-Smoking' sign tacked on the wall of the rattling subway, he pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He then pulled out a sharpee and wrote 'Last Pack' on it in big bold letters.

"Those things will kill you." she pointed out.

"No shit, they will."

"Then why do you continue to smoke them?" she said as he lit a cigarette.

"Because it's one of the only legal and enjoyable ways of committing suicide that I can think of." he smugly remarked.

"That's a rather dark thought to have."

"I'm in a rather dark place to be having those kinds of thoughts."

"Ho hum, fair enough. But just because nobody else is in here doesn't mean you should be smoking."

"...You're a nosy woman, you know that?" Johnathon coldly remarked, inhaling from his cigarette and letting the smoke swirl inside his chest a bit before expelling it. "You're like my mother." She blushed despite his voice being riddled with venom.

"Oh, I'm flattered." she abashedly responded.

"I hated my mother." There was an unrelenting forwardness to his rude voice as he stood up and looked out the door, watching the morning scenery stream by.

".....Well, I'm still a bit flattered, though." was whispered under his breath.

"Hmm?" Johnathon turned around,and there she was, leaning in slightly towards him, remarkably close to his face while a hint of bliss was on her own, almost as if she was relieved.

"You remember me fairly well, don't you?" she continued leaning in, oh so careful not to touch him while her warm breath in the cold air was illuminated by the passing sunlight through the windows. His face began to flash with that sort of timid brightness and quickly turned away from her.

"You're always here, meandering around. It's not like I could forget. It'd be like forgetting a landmark." Smoke fizzed out of his nostrils as the brightness faded. The smoke went right through the woman without minding her in the slightest.

"Well, I'm just saying that's nice that you remember me, that's all." Her delicate cold hands began to slowly reach for his as he turned away again. The passing sun through the windows lit up the room and she caught the light on his hands and pulled herself away while she continued to talk.

"Being remembered is nice, isn't it?" she asked him.

"No, not really."

"Why not?"

"Like you." he spoke, continuing not to face her. "You're an irritating person who doesn't notice that I just want to be left alone. Remembering you isn't necessarily a good thing." She didn't mind the malicious intent behind his words much.

"Well I think your own fault for choosing to remember the bad things, is it not?" He didn't say anything. He didn't have anything to say. "I bet a lot of your problems would be solved if you can just choose to forget the bad things that happened and focus on the good things happening now."

"Are you a Jehovah’s Witness by any chance?" Johnathon sardonically asked. "I almost feel like you're trying to recruit me into a cult. All this talk about religion and remembrance and optimism. If I give any more time of the day, you'll probably bring up Jesus."

"Spirituality doesn't necessarily have to be tied to religion." the woman politely refuted. "This is your stop, by the way. Enjoy your work." She almost began ushering him out the door, but with a simple grunt he acknowledged her and shuffled out to work on his own. Forgetting would do Johnathon Morris a lot of good. The thoughts in his head slowly began to shift throughout that day, though. The anger was slowly purged during his entire day at work, slowly being replaced with a bleak emptiness that was swallowing up the anger. When he got on the train, lo and behold he saw the woman sitting down in a cart by herself, her face dripping with liquid from the burger she was ingesting.

"...Classy." he muttered as he sat down across from her. Her face had a big smile on it despite it being slightly mauled by her meal.

"Did you not notice what you did just now?" her voice a bit giddy.

"What?" he submissively responded

"I didn't talk to you. You engaged me first in conversation."

"......Hmm." was the only noise that made its way through the haze in his throat.

"I think this is the first step towards us becoming friends."

"I don't want friends, I want to be left alone." There was a lack of sharpness in his voice.

"Well, you can't be alone forever." she remarked. "It's a bit childish to feel that way, no?"

"I'm a bit of a childish person."

"Oh I believe you are, absolutely. No doubt." She was eager to agree. That irritated him a bit. "But people aren't always alone, you know. And I doubt you were, either. But I suppose time changes those kinds of things, don't they?"

"Hmm."

"Of course it can fix those things as well." She paused a bit. "But I suppose you know all this. You're a childish person, but I don't believe you're a child." He didn't respond. The majority of the train ride was in silence. The woman knew not to say anything this time. She kept her voice to herself unless he was ready to speak. When they arrived at his stop, he stood up near the door and just stared out for a bit.

"There's always a lack of time, isn't there?" A smile briefly crossed her face.

"Never a lack of time, just an impatience for how slow it can be." He just nodded and walked off the subway cart back to his empty house. The emptiness that night was stronger than usual. He felt exposed even in his own home, almost as if a wall was knocked down to subject him to the elements. He shivered a bit in his large bed as he fell asleep. As he awoke, he shook himself off a bit, almost pulling himself out of his own head for a moment to breathe. He stretched and massaged his dim, lonely hands for a bit, and he pulled himself out of bed to get ready for work. When he left his house, he began his walk to the subway. He ran out of cigarettes and didn't have a smoke this walk. It was odd for him. When he got on the subway cart, there was the woman again, dressed warmly with her brown hair poured out onto her shoulders. The cart had a few people in it, but Johnathon settled down.

"Good morning." he coldly muttered, slightly irritated from the nicotine withdrawal.

"Good to see you're not smoking this morning." Her voice sounded encouraging. He grunted as he shivered from the cold a bit. "You seem to be in a slightly better mood than usual."

"I'm managing." responded Johnathon, sipping his coffee and holding it gently with his bare fingers.

"You know, for all the time that we've seen each other, I don't believe we've ever even mentioned our names yet."

"Probably because I was hoping that eventually you would've given up on me and left me alone, but that clearly didn't work." His snide quip was absent of his usual hostility. "Fine, I'll bite. Introduce yourself."

"My name's Anselma."

"Johnathon."

"So does this mean we're friends now?" she politely asked. He sneered a bit at the question.

"Liberal use of that word, but I'll humor you, Anselma." She smiled and stood up. The sunlight illuminating the window behind her gave her the appearance almost of a seraph as light bloomed behind her like wings.

"I'm grateful for your generosity, Johnathon," her sincere voice swelled with a subtle yet slightly mocking joy. "I believe we should celebrate."

"...I'm already regretting this." His dripping sarcasm attempted to hide a smile creeping up on his face. The cart made a stop as the doors swung open.

"Although I have to leave, ironically enough." she remarked. "This is my stop for today."

"Right then. I guess I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, Johnathon." She stepped off, the doors creaked shut, and the cart started moving again. It was peculiar with her absence on the train, even with the other people in the cart he felt alone. He didn't like it. Not liking it was refreshing for him.

"...I suppose she'll be around." He sighed and laughed a bit, curious as to what he might've just gotten himself into again.

Will I ever have children?

I've actually thought about this question a lot. I mean, me having kids is a scary-as-fuck prospect. First off, I never had the best examples of parents to learn off of. When a child starts to think of their mother and father less as parents and more as sentient beating machines fueled by alcohol, debt, and malice, he or she will probably have a skewed or misrepresented interpretation of what makes a family.

I imagine meeting my future wife already. It's the one time the sparse friends I have cope me out of my house to go to a party. I get drunk as my parents when they beat the shit out of each other, and don't remember a fucking thing the following morning when I wake up at home. I get out of bed and drag myself to a diner because I don't feel like making breakfast or getting dysentery from McDonalds. I feel like getting Dysentery from Denny's, so that's where I go. I walk in, hung over to Hell and back, and I sit myself down in a dingy, smelly booth. I feel like I'm going to vomit. But there's the cute Asian waitress coming to my booth, asking me what I want to have.

"Coffee," I say. "Immediately."
"Yessir!" Then she trots off and gets me a hottle of coffee. It's nice, because it makes me feel like I'm going to have a visitor to share it with. The waitress immediately notices my shirt.
"Ooh, I haven't played Golden Sun in a long time." Oh god, she's a gamer. Kick-ass. We make small talk as I get ready for my order. Despite the throbbing head, I couldn't be enjoying myself more. I thought to myself, "This seems like a girl I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life with." I would tip her and continue to show up to the Denny's, forgoing diarrhea every trip just to talk with her just to eventually work up the courage to ask her what she was doing Friday night. It was going to be magnificent.

Then a crazy bitch burst through the door and said that I knocked her up at the party last night and that she refuses to abort it. I CAN HEAR THE WEDDING BELLS ALREADY. Or that's the ringing in my ears from the hangover.

"What, I don't want to marry you. Abort it and go away, not my fault you let a drunk fuck you at the party."
"YOU RAPED ME!"
"...WHAT? No I didn't, don't fucking lie."
"YOU STABBED TWO PEOPLE AND SHIT ON THE COUNTER!"
"WHAT? I WOULD NEVER SHIT ON THE COUNTER!" The cute waitress was shying away from the explosive situation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MY ONE CHANCE AT TRUE LOVE IS DISAPPEARING. But as little choice as I had, this woman was going to be my wife. She wasn't ugly at least. Nice rack on her, but that might be what pregnancy does to a woman. We begrudgingly got married and moved into a dirty little apartment together. We hated each other at first. At first. But as it so turns out, we have the same general disgust with people as each other. She never wanted to leave the house, and the one night her friends dragged her out she was worried about getting date-raped or something.

...At the very least, I gave her something to hold over her friends for a long-ass time.

We named our first son Frank, after my grandfather that I never met and heard was an asshole. Frank seemed like an asshole's name. He was an asshole, too. As he grew older, he constantly mocked his father for dropping out of college and working at a paint-manufacturing plant while attempting to get his shitty pieces of writing published that nobody would ever want to read, the worthless little shit. You bet your ass that I drunkenly knocked him from room to room when I was bored. The snide bastard certainly had it coming. I came home one night upset and got into a fight with my wife again. She ended up raping me instead out of anger, and despite my feelings I certainly didn't have the pride to apologize to her for raping her because that was some scary shit. I wasn't going to apologize, she raped me. At least I wasn't aware of it. I immediately left home to go visit my friend to console me after what happened. She was a nice girl. We ended up sleeping together and having an affair for the entire week. When I got home Friday night, my wife told me she was pregnant with my rape child. I was horrified that she would birth a child born completely of malice, but she told me that unlike Frank it'll have a purpose to be alive other than simply being a tax write-off. I went and told my friend the horrible news, but then she told me that SHE was pregnant. ...Well, fuck.

She ended up giving birth a month later after my wife created that tool of vengeance, my daughter. My wife's daughter was Isabel. Don't know why, didn't care. That child did not exist to me. My friend's child was named Amelia after my first girlfriend. That initially didn't go over well, but we both figured it was a nice name and it might grace my second daughter with enormous breasts.

Eventually I get a divorce from my wife because she's pregnant again. She's pregnant after raping me again and having it backfire when I reverse-raped her. It was just a war of terrible, terrible rape that Frank and whatshername shouldn't bear witness to any longer. And I figured they got tired of me getting drunk and smacking the shit out of them. I get the divorce. I do this because then I end up having my friend and my other daughter move in. Life is strangely good. I begin to get a few pieces published, we have a stable marriage where I was drinking less and less. Then when she will take our daughter to daycare one day, they both will get into a car accident and die. This will hurt me beyond repair. And my ex-wife to make it worse will be glad. So one day I get drunk, I go to her house and meet her new boyfriend. I shoot him in the chest four times. I find my wife and kids and I drown them in the tub, then I shoot myself in the head. My brother posthumously gets this story and several others published after my death, and I become a national icon for breaking through in modern gothic fiction and memoir while he makes bank off of my talent.

The end.

Adelie's brother.

"Why are you so grumpy?" the girl asked.

"I'm not grumpy." the man said, his voice projecting nothing.

"You're clearly in a bad mood, tell me what's wrong."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"You're looking away, again." she tried looking him in the eye, but he wouldn't let her.

"This is beginning to get irritating."

"Then just tell me what's wrong."

"I said nothing's wrong."

"I can see it in your face, something's wrong."

"Thinking there's a problem when there isn't one will make one. Please, I'm fine."

"Hum." She let out a little pouting noise. Adelie could try all she wanted to; her stepbrother wasn't going to make a peep. His cold and empty eyes glared at the brown, faded door to his studio, nothing more. He hadn't been in there for weeks. He could not find anything to impel his interest to open the door and enter. This was not unexpected of him, though; he occasionally went through bouts of lazing about for weeks every once in a blue moon. Of course this was the beauty of his and Adelie's lifestyle; Adelie's parents were extremely rich, and thus the two had the ability to go about their leisure without a care in the world. The manor that they lived in was large and fenced off from the rest of the world. It stood tall and authoritatively above the countryside it rested on, an immense fortress of seclusion that pulled all attention on the modest plains to it. A few thin, winding roads through the grassy fields were all that went to and from the manor, giving its residents their solitary exit out of their home. Of course, not that they could actually leave and go about the world itself, anyway. Both siblings had hindrances that kept them shackled to where they lived. Adelie could never leave the house without a caretaker; her pale, sickly body forbade it. Most assumed that she wouldn't be alive much longer, a grim outlook that she had no trouble accepting. While a perturbing mindset it was, she was quite young, and young people haven't nearly lived enough to develop regrets.

The slow weathering of her faculties meant that any sort of moving about took a great deal of effort on her part, so she simply opted against it. Adelie spent most of her time at home reading many books, as an entire portion of the extravagant manor they lived in was dedicated to being her personal library. She was only fourteen years of age but had read hundreds upon hundreds of books in her short and simple life. None of them were particularly good, though; she enjoyed reading for the knowledge they gave her, not for the world they allowed her imagination to meander about in. Over her brief life she's amassed an intellect that was almost unprecedented. Her knowledge was her weapon, and her books were her bullets. But her aim wasn't exactly steady.

"If you told me what was wrong," said she, "I would do my best to help."

"I said nothing's wrong." he adamantly said. His tacit voice couldn't be shaken. This was how it always went between them. He was twenty-three years old, but looked much older. His disheveled and uneven beard gripped his face like a tumor, marring his face with age. He had beige dress pants and a wore an unironed white dress shirt that lacked a kind of liveliness and dampened his mood. His cold, brown eyes cast dark shadows underneath them, and lacked the softness that they usually had towards Adelie. He clearly hadn't slept well for a great while. In fact, the lazy bum hadn't done much of anything in a great while. He simply woke up at noon, went to the family's arboretum in the courtyard for eight hours, and then retreated to the room for the rest of his night, only to repeat the cycle ad-nauseum until he felt ready to work again. Adelie didn't like the Arboretum and thus didn't follow him in there, nor did she know what he did to occupy himself in the place. It was a great enough distance that she had to call a carriage to make it there. And nothing but vehement agitation awaited her there, as she possessed rather severe allergies and thus would be driven to madness whenever she decided to enter the place.

"Why not come into the library and read with me every once in a while? You would probably feel invigorated after reading a good book."

"Not partial to it." he responded. He slowly ate his breakfast as he continued to look directly ahead at nothing, acknowledging nobody.

"Everybody has to read, brother." she refuted. "It might give you the knowledge you need to get out of your rut."

"I decline." his droll voice reverberated. There was no hostility or irritation in his voice. His voice was empty; simply a response to his sister. He finished eating and stood up from the foyer table. "I take your leave." was all that left his mouth, and he went to the courtyard, no doubt to rot away in the Arboretum for several hours again. She always wondered what he did in there. She enjoyed talking to her brother and she enjoyed watching him work in his studio, but she had nobody to keep her company whenever he started acting like this. The young girl never saw her parents; they were always working and what have it as aristocrats. Her personal doctor never talked to her much, either. The housekeepers were polite and listened to her, but that was simply their job. And thus with nobody's company to enjoy, she would retreat to the library to occupy herself. But her books did not occupy her. She noticed her brother's mood was colder than usual. The distance he was putting between himself and her was far more than she was accustomed to. So one day, she decided to inquiry her maid about something.

"The arboretum?" the maid said.

"Yes. I want to visit brother there." Adelie politely demanded.

"Mistress, you know the greenhouse will only serve to irritate your fickle body." the maid advised. "I would advise against it."

"I did not ask for your opinion, I was simply making an order." she haughtily stated. " I am going to visit my brother there."

"I don't think I can permit it, mistress."

"I don't think you have that jurisdiction. Now get the carriage and take me there."

"......As you wish, mistress."

And that was all it took for young Adelie to get a carriage for to ride to the arboretum in the courtyard. She was in a ash-colored dress filled with volume, a sharp contrast to her petite frame with pale, colorless skin and her ice-blonde hair. She carried a parasol to shield her delicate skin from the sun, at least what little that managed to make its way through the clouds. A gray sky hung over the manor and its courtyard. The rich colors that normally seared themselves into wandering eyes were dulled and muddy from the dark overcast. It was a ten minute walk from the manor she dwelled in, too far for her frail, pale body to carry her. The ride there was not pleasant. She could do nothing but glance at her home as the carriage rolled towards the arboretum. The manor was a rustic, Victorian building awash in a bright white while a few spires climbed from the roof, checkered with blue shingles. It almost resembled a cathedral more than an actual building of residence. A long, brickwork wall surrounded it and the entirety of the courtyard grounds while the grandiose size of the manor and walls made the world around Adelie seem so small, undermining the expanse of land that the family seemed to own. The entirety of the courtyard was an empty green field that shimmered and swayed in the wind; there were a few sparse trees, but it was particularly barren aside from the stone-paved road that crept itself over the hills to an extensive garden sheltered by a glass fixture over it. It was quite large and normally would be a bright light on the horizon, but there were no rays of the sun to allow it to be so. When the carriage parked itself in front of the gate to the arboretum, Adelie told the driver to wait for her while she had a talk with her brother. As soon as she walked into the the gates, her senses were becoming immediately smothered by all the pollens and dusts that punctuated the air. Her eyes were sieged with washed-out colors that were dulled by the cloudy sky. The building looked and smelled of death to her. She couldn't stay for long. She saw her brother sitting at a table fixture near the center. His shoulders were slumped over. He did not move.

"So this is what you do every day in and day out, is it?" she said. He almost seemed startled as he peered towards the voice addressing him.

"You should not be here." was all he said. He did not look at her.

"I want to know what's wrong, though. You've been moping about far longer than before."

"I said nothing was wrong." His empty voice reverberated.

"You are a liar." she asserted, a hint of impatience in her voice. "Nothing can hurt from telling me what's wrong." There was a long silence weaving its way through the arboretum, but her brother stopped it.

"...Nothing hurts." he said. "Therefore there's no problem." Adelie sighed. She was starting to sweat and cough a bit. She was becoming lightheaded.

"You should leave before you fall ill." he said.

"...Fine, you can rot in here for all I care." her tired voice muttered, slightly defeated. She managed to make her way out of the arboretum, her equilibrium trembling and swaying.

"...Milady?" the driver asked. Adelie stumbled and sat in her chair in the carriage.

"I'll be fine," she meekly declared. "Take me back to the manor."

"Yes, milady."

She did not converse with her brother for a good while after that. She was quite upset with his sad state of affairs and simply realized how futile it was for her to try to get any answer out of him. She was not speaking to her brother when they talked; her words went into him and was swallowed by his emptiness, and nothing she said could fill that void up. And the trip to the arboretum took a toll on her health; she was simply not capable of moving about too much. She retired to her library and continued to read more and more, tearing into encyclopedic texts and attempting to decipher anything that could be wrong. Eventually though, her curiosity made a decision for her that she normally abstained from.

She was in the foyer one morning, and there was the dull brown door to her brother's studio. The door he hadn't entered in well over a month, now. Adelie opened it and stepped inside. The curtains shielded the room from any light, so she pulled them open to illuminate the dark room. What she saw were canvases everywhere. They were propped against the walls and propped against more canvases. All of them filled with colors. Bright, incinerating colors that scorched Adelie's eyes just looking upon them. Large meshes of green, checked and spotted with reds and blues and yellows and violets. All of them seemed to express a bright inanition that radiated from her brother's spirit and weaved themselves into the paintings and walls.

"What are you doing in here?" she heard. It made her jump as if she was caught doing something unfitting of a young lady. She turned around and there was her brother. His eyes were fixated on her. It wasn't like his sister was what caught his attention, but almost as if he didn't want to look upon the studio.

"I... I just wanted to look at all your works, that is all." she stuttered. While not entirely true, it was partially true; anything that might tell her what was wrong with her brother was what led her into the room, but a nostalgic twinge was what caused her to linger.

"You shouldn't be in here." he said. She timidly nodded and shuffled out of the studio. He stood with the door open and hesitated a bit before he closed it. The next day, Adelie requested again to be taken to the arboretum. Both the housekeeper and carriage driver declined. Her health was delicate, far more than usual after the initial trip. She was upset, as would be expected. She went to bed that night in a hiss, unable to see her brother since he did not return home until long after she retired. When she awoke the following day, she got dressed in her usual wardrobe; her black ashy and bouncy dress, and her parasol. She wore slightly more resilient boots and she managed to leave the house that morning before her brother awoke. Against her better judgment, she decided to walk to the arboretum on her own. It was a ten-minute walk for a normal person of good health. It took forty for young Adelie, who frequently had to stop and breathe heavily and rest before continuing again another short distance. Her weak body was creaking and sputtering the entire way there, bringing her closer to death than most people would ever know in their lives. Yet she did not care for death. Her iron will was all that dragged that corse behind her to the arboretum. When she made her way in there, she was winded, exhausted, and her heart was racing. She was paler than usual and sweating a great deal as she trembled and rested on one of the benches in the lush garden. The air was both taxing to breathe yet refreshing all the same. After her body calmed down and managed to pull itself back from death, she managed to look about her surroundings.

"He really must've painted every inch of this place..." she said to herself. "He's probably run out of things to paint."

"I have." The voice made her jump again. There her brother was. "You should not be here." he said. "You could've killed yourself coming here." That coldness in his voice seemed to be slightly heated by anger this time. Not tremendous, spiteful anger, but almost a tiresome impatience and displeasure that projected more emotion than usual.

"I don't care if I die." she pouted, still clearly nauseated by her reckless behavior. "You shouldn't stop painting just because you've painted everything in here. Find something else to paint."

"That's not it."

"Then what is?" she asked, her condition being agitated by her temper.

"There's nothing going on."

"There clearly is, are you unhappy?" she asked. He paused for a second.

"No joy." was all that left his mouth.

"Why? Where has it gone?"

"I've painted it all out." he said.

"I told you, find something else to paint, then." she adamantly stated.

"You don't understand." he said. She paused for a bit. She didn't say anything. Despite her attempts to ask what was wrong and to search for a problem, perhaps she COULDN'T understand. But she still wanted to.

"I don't care what you paint, though. Just paint something. It's something you need to do." she said. She was starting to cry a bit. Her brother walked to her and picked her up.

"Let's head back." He said. There was a slight warmness to his voice. A familiar warmness. But Adelie couldn't stay conscious much longer. Her body gave up on her and almost gave up her ghost, but that iron will again weighed it down.

She awoke in her bed. The sun was rising. Her body still felt terrible, but the light coming in through her window warmed her body to life. She shook her sleepiness off and crawled out of bed. She made her way to the foyer, and there her brother was. She blinked and rubbed her eyes and almost couldn't believe what she saw. He was clean-shaven and his eyes had no shadows. He looked remarkably young again, almost like a child's face on a large frame. His clothes were still ragged, but he seemed to exude life again.

"Good morning, brother." she managed to choke out, still slightly lost for words.

"Good morning." was all he said as he finished dinner. His voice no longer had that hollowness that echoed throughout the room. He stood up and was walking towards his studio door. Adelie's face lit up.

"Can I come in and watch?" she eagerly asked.

"No." he said. She was surprised and a bit upset.

"Why?"

"This is something special. I'll show you it when I'm done." He said as he closed the door. While initially angry, it made her excited. She was looking forward to what he could've been painting. She shuffled off to the library and continued to read more to occupy herself while her brother worked. But her brother never left the studio, and he was usually in there long before she awoke. This went on for a week. Eventually she woke up, and heard yelling. She pulled herself out of bed to see what the problem was. The housekeepers were arguing, some were crying, and some simply didn't say anything while they stared at the studio doors that were open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Adelie demanded as she awoke.

"It was your stepbrother's appointment with some of the aristocrats from the neighboring city today." one of the housekeepers frantically explained. "He was supposed to start doing some leasing and insurance work today for your father's institution."

"I heard nothing of this." the young girl said.

"Well he wasn't working, so your father was going to force him into the family business or kick him out of the house for doing nothing day after day." the maid explained.

"So why all the commotion?" A few of the housekeepers grew silent. One of them was weeping a bit. "...No... don't tell me..." she immediately stumbled forward and raced into the studio.

"MILADY, NO!" But when she went in there, there her brother was, on the ground, the sigh of God that left his breath lingering in the room. Adelie didn't know what to say. She knelt towards his cold body, but there was a vague smile on his face as he lay there on the floor. She looked up and saw an enormous canvas propped against the wall. It was two canvases mounted next to each other to create a painting of gloom that covered the wall. It was a picture of a girl in a garden, sitting lifelessly next to a man with a gray overcast while it rained upon them. The entire color scheme of the painting was dark and muted. It was dark, depressing blotch of gray out of all the colorful paintings that adorned the room.

"What a tragic and horrific painting..." one of the housekeepers said. Adelie just stared at it, almost in awe.

"I think it's the most beautiful thing he's painted in this room." she said. As she looked at it. It was the only thing that existed to her that came from her brother. And it was the last. Time simply ran out, as precious as it was. She started to cry.