Since it's been a while since I posted any parts of this story, I decided I'd repost the finished parts before I post the ending. (<twitches, thinking of McCormick>)
I woke up with the worst headache in the history of the universe. Well, that's an exaggeration, but it still fucking hurt. I felt like I was in a forge, and someone had mistaken my skull for a piece of iron and was currently trying to work it into a horseshoe or whatever. Yes, it hurt *that much*. I cautiously opened one eye a slit, trying to figure out (a) where I was, (b) whether the act of opening my eyes would hurt, and (c) what the flying fuck had just happened. "Well, the hooded wonder's finally awake." Aha, that was Lenni. At least there was something bright about my immediate situation. Maybe she knew what had happened. If she did, I'd have to add it to my long list of great things about her. Incidentally, Lenni's my girlfriend. We met under strange circumstances, but that does not change the fact that she kicks ass. "Lenni," I asked, opening my eye a little further, "what in Hell happened?" "I'm not sure myself," she sighed. Great. Oh well, everyone has their off days. I opened my eye all the way, opening the other eye while I was at it, and tried to turn my head to see if I could see where Lenni was. My headache immediately protested to this, very painfully, so I decided it was wiser to keep still. The headache had apparently taken exception to my attempt at moving, and was therefore trying to become a backache, legache, assache, and everywhere-else-ache. Just what I didn't need - a headache that aspired to greater things. Actually, though, aside from the stabbing pain (being me, though, I'm used to pain - I mean *really* used to it), something else was bothering me. Damn that headache, it was interfering with my thinking, so I couldn't pin it down...at least, not immediately... "Why do I feel dead?" I groaned in what I hoped was Lenni's general direction. "That's an easy one," she said calmly. "Tell me." "You *are* dead." Fuck the headache. I sat bolt-upright, either rid of or just not noticing any pain. "Sayfuckingwhat??" I squeaked. "You're dead," Lenni repeated, from her position in a chair at the foot of whatever it was I was on. "Deceased. Expired. Extinct. Passed on. Checked out at the cosmic hotel." "Lenni," I said slowly, "I know what 'dead' means, you don't need to recite the thesaurus's entry for it. What I mean is, how can I be dead? I'm talking, I'm thinking, I had the worst fucking headache it is possible to have, doesn't this indicate that I'm alive?" "Kenny, Kenny, Kenny," she sighed. "Are you normally this unobservant?" Whoops, there's a little detail I forgot to mention. I'm Kenny McCormick. Yeah, *that* Kenny McCormick. The weird, hooded, immortal kid. But, getting back to the subject at hand.... "What do you mean?" "You didn't notice when you woke up that you weren't breathing?" I opened my mouth to tell her that with the headache I had woken up with, I don't think I'd've noticed if a train ran me over, but then it hit me. *Wasn't breathing?* I started to panic as I realized she was right - aside from the necessary air intake for talking, my lungs weren't working. Automatically, my right hand jumped up to my chest to test for a heartbeat. My panic increased as I realized my heart wasn't working, either. I felt my forehead. Cold as stone. Now I was terrified. I was physically dead, yet I could talk, think, and move. I started to remember last Halloween - South Park had been overrun with zombies, all thanks to me, the original. If what was happening now was a repeat of that, at least of the zombies, I decided I would just have to commit suicide. "What is--how can I--what--when--why--how could--" I couldn't even get a full sentence out. Now, normally, I'm pretty casual about death (except when it's imminent, then I panic) but waking up dead like this is enough to rattle even nerves of titanium. "Calm down, Kenny," Lenni advised. Oh, yeah Lenni. *REAL* good advice. Now give me some I can follow. "Calm down???" I shrieked. "I woke up fucking *dead*, and I'm supposed to calm down??" I took a deep breath - whoa, good sign. I'm breathing, this has to be a good thing. "Kenny, you can think, talk, etc., you seem to be okay, aside from the little detail that you're physically dead, and even that's not really in your way," she reasoned. I moaned, closed my eyes, and covered my face with my hands. I keep forgetting that there's a lot of things about my past I've never mentioned to her, ergo she knows less about me than I keep expecting her to. "Lenni...I never told you about what happened to me last Halloween, did I?" "Nope." "I woke up in the morgue after being killed by a space station that had broken orbit. I was physically dead then, too. The reason I woke up is because some dipshit spilled worsteshisher or however you pronounce that sauce into my embalming fluid, which somehow made me into a zombie." I removed my hands and opened my eyes, looking Lenni straight in the eye. "The first thing I did after getting off the table was bust down a door and bite the mortician and his assistant, infecting them with whatever you call the state of being a zombie." I paused, trying to remember the whole thing. "They started spreading the condition, and the end result was that because of me, nearly everyone in town became a zombie, and they all got hacked apart with chainsaws by Stan and Cartman before Kyle figured out that you had to kill the original zombie who was me in order to turn everyone else back to normal." I managed to say the whole run-on sentence without needing to stop for breath. "If this is a repeat of the zombie part of that..." I shook my head. "No. I'm not gonna let it happen." There was a very long pause from Lenni. Finally, she broke the silence. "Kenny. Look around you. Notice there is no embalming fluid or worcestershire sauce in this room." "Yeah," I said cautiously. "And, check me on this, what do zombies eat?" "Human brains." "And how often do they get hungry for brains?" "From past experience, I'd say about every second that they're conscious." Lenni played her trump. "Are you hungry now?" "Nope, not at--" I stopped in mid-sentence, seeing the smirk on Lenni's face and realizing that she had just maneuvered me nicely into affirming that I wasn't a zombie. "Lenni, have you ever considered being a psychologist when you grow up?" I asked. "Right up there with physical therapist and mercenary," she said smugly. "Underground training. Comes in handy at the damndest times." "I'm starting to notice that." Out of habit, I sighed in relief (you're probably thinking, "When does *Kenny* sigh in *relief*?" Whenever I've just escaped death or a bad situation, that's when). Okay, I wasn't a zombie. This was a very good thing. If you're starting to think that the zombie incident left a bad impression on me, all I can say is "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!" Anyway, with that nagging little fear put to rest, I could think much better. "So, what undead creatures do we know of that I might be?" "Well," Lenni said, "there's vampires." I wasn't sure I liked that much more than zombies, but a quick check of my teeth confirmed that there were no fangs. "Nope," I reported. Lenni was quiet. "Hellooo, anyone home upstairs?" I asked. "I'm trying to think of anything else you might be. You're obviously not a zombie or vampire, and you can't be a ghost or an angel, and aside from that, I can't think of anything else." I thought for a few moments. "Maybe we should just forget about what's up with me and focus on more important things - like, where we are." "Good idea." She jumped off the chair and looked around the room. "We are currently in a blank room. There is a table in this room, which you are currently sitting on. There is a chair at one end of the table, which I was sitting on. The walls, floor, and ceiling are a dim yellow. There is a door in this room." I rolled my eyes. "Thank you for that detailed but 100% unnecessary explanation. I meant, are we still in South Park or what?" "I knew what you meant, I just wanted to be sarcastic and annoying." "You succeeded. C'mon, let's check out what's behind that door." I jumped off the table, and soon found out exactly how much of a mistake that was. My knees buckled the instant my feet touched ground, so I ended up hitting the floor facefirst. In keeping with my tradition of nonexistant good luck, the floor felt like concrete. For all I knew, it was. If anyone ever offered to let everyone in the world switch existances with whoever they wanted, I would bet a few of my lives that nobody would exactly be jumping to switch with me. "You okay?" a worried voice asked from right next to me. Somehow, I got the impression it had taken Lenni all of two seconds to get to my side. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just in a little pain." I glanced at Lenni's face as she helped me up, and it looked like she was all set to make some caustic remark. Actually, her face was deadpan, but her eyes, as usual, gave away her emotion. One thing I've noticed about us immortals (even though I'm speaking from limited experience, as in, two immortals, one being myself) is that we seem to have eyes you can read like a book. I didn't mention that Lenni is immortal like me, did I? Well, consider it mentioned. It's kinda nice when you have a tendency towards death to know that your girlfriend can be with you no matter what. Now, readers, if you'll compare that last statement to an ear of corn, you'll find striking similarities.... "Are you *sure* you're okay?" Lenni pressed, instead of the sarcastic comment I'm been expecting. "I'm fine," I assured her. "Aside from being dead, I'm fine." "Okay," she said a little bit skeptically, and removed her arms from where they had been - around my shoulders and holding one arm. My knees promptly gave out again. With lightning reflexes, she grabbed me again, preventing me from hurting myself again. "I get the feeling we have different ideas of 'fine'," she said drily. "Lean on me until you can walk." "Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on," I sang under my breath as we headed towards the door. Hey, what she said reminded me of the song. Sue me. I reached out and opened the door once we were near enough, partially because I wanted to salvage some pride (I do not take well to having to use someone as a crutch) and partially because both of Lenni's hands were occupied keeping me upright, and knowing Lenni, at the moment she'd rather hand over her head tied in ribbons to a cannibal than let go of me. Lenni doesn't usually fuss over me, knowing that if anything happens to me, I can survive (or if I don't, which is often, I'll just be back in a few days), so her behavior was a sign that she was probably nervous. And if she was nervous, something wasn't good about this situation, since it takes a lot to bother Lenni. (Discovering her immortality via gunfight bothered her, for example...) If she had been nervous before we had left the room, she became ten times so as soon as she saw the outside. Actually, she was more dumbfounded than nervous now. As in, she gaped at the landscape and was completely unaware that she had lost her grip on me. Fortunately, my knees decided to be nice and let me stand up straight, and I thanked whatever controlled my luck for that. (Although, if my destiny is controlled by some cosmic force, I think I'll take a day off and do some serious complaining at the desk.) But as I looked out over the landscape, my stomach tried to do a barrel roll. Apparently, we were in some sort of battlefield. Bodies in various degrees of decomposition carpeted the ground, and there were also a few that were still living, but obviously badly injured. I felt a pang of sympathy for a couple bodies I noticed that were being eaten by rats, and then looked down. Lenni and I were *standing* on corpses. I became very queasy. "Oh, God," Lenni breathed from beside me. "What happened here?" "Just offhand, I'd say it was a battle," I said. Lenni didn't react to my sarcasm. "I wonder what they were battling over?" I shrugged. "I don't know, and at the moment I don't care. I just want to know where we are." "Where you are, is a nameless world torn by war," a female voice said from behind me. I turned, and nearly groaned aloud, recognizing the tallish, blonde, blue-eyed girl leaning casually against the wall of the small building Lenni and I had just left. "Who're you?" Lenni asked of the girl. "The psychotic girl who's writing this thing," I sighed. "Alyssa, exactly *what* is this thing you have with appearing in your stories?" Alyssa flashed a toothy grin at me. "Saves work on creating new characters." "Whatever. Can we go back to the story now?" "Sure." She disappeared. "She seems kind of...strange," Lenni said. "You don't know the half of it," I sighed again. Scanning the horizon, I started walking in a random direction. "Where you going?" Lenni called from behind me. "I have no idea," I told her matter-of-factly. "Coming?" "And I thought Alyssa seemed crazy," she sighed, catching up with me. I bit back a sarcastic retort and continued walking. Apparently, the two of us attracted some attention, as by the time we'd been walking for about seven minutes, we heard someone clearing his throat behind us. Sighing, I turned around again, to see a tall, very dangerous-looking man in leather armor. (*Leather* armor? Come on, dude, get some *protection*...) "What do you want?" Lenni asked, with a little too much attitude. The guy didn't seem to notice. "Our army in this war is growing weak. We need fresh fighters. We would appreciate it very much if you would enter." "So, basically you're drafting us?" I muttered. The man nodded. "Basically." - "Well, you have to admit, these are pretty sweet swords," Lenni commented, examining one of the swords in the armory. One of the great things about being a little kid is that people tend to want to be nice to you, and our sudden drafting wasn't an exception. Wellll, maybe the drafting itself was, but at least they were treating us pretty well afterwards - like giving us free run of the armor and weapons. And amazingly, they actually had some armor in our sizes. I was beginning to wonder if they drafted many kids into this thing. "And daggers, and maces, and every other little toy they've got in here," I replied, selecting a few throwing knives from the chest they were in (good thing I was wearing gauntlets at the moment, what genius had the idea to dump a bunch of bladed weapons into a chest and expect people to reach in??) "Think you've got enough weapons there, Kenny?" Lenni said sarcastically, noticing the various weapons I'd collected and had attached to my armor wherever there was room. In fact, I actually must have looked like I was wearing weapons for armor. "Hey, you know me, I die alot. I'd like to have some good defense heading into a war." "But that many?" Lenni asked, one eyebrow raised. "Besides, Kenny, remember you're already dead, it's not like you're real killable at the moment. Just stick with a sword or something." I shrugged and began removing the weapons, as well as the armor. "Okay. I don't like this armor, anyway. It itches." Lenni choked back a laugh. "How can you *tell*, under that parka?" I grinned and shrugged again, finding a leather belt and attaching my sword and several throwing knives to it. "Well, the Great Kenny hath saideth that the armor itcheth, therefore it itcheth." Lenni cracked up. "Kenny, you're something else, y'know?" "I try, I try." We had a pretty good time making jokes and generally goofing off until we were called out for battle. *That* was nothing to joke about. On the way to the battlefield, the whole army (which looked pretty shabby, and I was right, there were more children in it than just me and Lenni) got to march on a narrow path that was surrounded by corpses on either side, and had various bones strewn over it which made these really delightful crunching noises when we walked over them. Joy. "Great place for a morning stroll," Lenni muttered to me. I kicked away a rat that had decided to sample my foot. "Yeah, ain't it the best?" I muttered back. "So pretty you could just barf." "Any ideas for getting home?" "Unfortunately, nope." "Great, just great." The army trudged in an almost-silence for a while longer, and I was definitely beginning to want out. The rotting corpses everywhere, the bones, the *smell*, the look of the place (the trees had no leaves and were stained black and the sky was overcast), the rats that kept trying to see how the walking dead kid tasted, etc., etc., etc....when a kid who's more or less desensitized to death is getting queasy at the sight of it, you can probably figure something's not too good here.
Alyssa