29Dying fucking sucked.
He couldn't remember much from the last time he died but this time? It fucking sucked. He sort if hoped when he got up there (or down there seemed a but more likely but he was staying positive) there would be like a survey for him to take.
Yeah, dying sucks. Please fix that. Maybe add a welcome wagon or something.
Love, Tweek Tweak
Instead of a welcome wagon, he was greeted with white floors and white walls. He sat himself down and looked himself over. He was human again but that was to be expected. He'd read the last Harry Potter. Death generally fixed shit that needed fixing. He wrapped his arms around himself and squirmed. He was a bit oversensitive after walking around with dead senses for a good two weeks. Every touch seemed like a cold hand on his skin, every breath stretched his skin and lungs to the brim.
"That should go away soon."
He looked up and blinked. "Mom?" He launched himself forward and buried his face in her neck, squeezing tightly. Her hair tickled his nose and he sniffed, feeling tears prickle the corners of his eyes. "Momma."
"God," she said simply. "Not Mom. But you can call me Mom if you'd like." He pulled away and flushed.
"I thought you-"
"Forsake you? Forgot you? Another F word, perhaps?" She-he-God tssked. "No. I was always watching over you."
"Then why did this happen?" he asked. "I never asked to be brought back. I never asked to become a monster." He burrowed back into his mother, holy deity or not. "I'm going to hell now, aren't I?" he murmured. "Because I hurt all those people."
She rubbed a tiny hand over his hair and down his back, squeezing his side gently.
Like his mother always did. "Poor Tweek," she murmured. "My poor, dear Tweek. I was there you know. I'm there every time, all at once, creating new people. It's hard to do, but I love it. I love you. I love how you are all the same, and all so different. A bit of your mother here, a bit of your father their, and their mothers and fathers and so on and so on. I picked your blond hair and made it as wild as your imagination, and gave you green eyes to match your favorite color, and a sharp, quick mind to think your way out of trouble. I molded you not in my image but who you were. Because I knew you before you knew yourself.
I am not a cruel God. Nor am I a great one. I cannot deny that I have made mistakes. And I regret them. But you, Tweek Tweak, you were not a mistake. No matter what, you did nothing wrong." She pulled away and kissed him gently on the forehead.
"So what's gonna happen to me?" He asked.
She smiled.
Tweek Tweak exploded. Kenny screamed in a very manly way, as bits and pieces of zombie flew everywhere.
"Jesus Christ, dude!" Kyle wailed. Shelly's screaming could be heard from inside the car.
"Are you all seeing what I'm seeing?" Token asked, pressing his face against the glass in a way that might be comical if the situations weren't so dire.
Zombies were collapsing, falling to their knees and spasming before growing still.
Shelly continued to scream. Damien tapped on the glass from his perch on top of the vehicle. "It's safe to come out now," he said. "Pussies."
They clambered out. "What happened to them?" Stan asked.
The antichrist shrugged. "Tweek finished what he needed to do. Now everything's back to normal."
"That's it?" Kyle asked, voice reaching a frightening pitch. "That's it? I'm sorry?! All this trouble over I'm fucking sorry!?"
"Seems like," he said, pulling something out of his pocket. He tossed it up and caught it gently with his fingertips.
"What's that?" Kenny asked, trying to examine it.
"This," Damien said, holding it out. "Is your saving grace. Craig Tucker's right behind you." Stan whirled around just as two long arms made to wrap around his neck. Craig snarled as he was pushed back.
"I'll kill you, Marsh!" he screamed as Token wrapped him in a tight bear hug. "I swear I will!"
"Calm down!" Clyde said, taking his face in his hands. "Craig, Craig! Craig, I need you to look at me." He did, with murderous intent in his eyes, but at least he fell silent. The shorter boy resisted the urge to squeeze his cheeks into a fish face and continued, "Tweek went on his own," he said seriously. "He didn't want to be here anymore. He stayed for you, Craig and he hated it. You have to leave him be."
"No," he moaned, letting his head drop. "No, he wouldn't do that. He promised he would stay with me. We promised."
"He stayed for as long as he could," he said mournfully. "But Tweek had to die, Craig. It was his time."
"And thanks to you," Kyle said bitterly, "half the town's dead."
"Not exactly, Jew-Boy," Damien said. "What part of 'saving grace' are you not quite getting?" he wriggled the button again, just to emphasize it. "This, my friend, is a reboot."
"What does it do?" Stan asked, eyeing it.
"Well, gee, it's a reboot button, I wonder? It turns everything back to normal, dipshit, what do you think it does? Everyone who died, the police, the water supply, it all goes back to normal." He noted their hungry expressions. "There's a catch though," he warned.
"Isn't there always?" Kenny mumbled.
Damien pointedly ignored him. "Show of hands, how many of you have seen Donnie Darko?" he snorted when no one made a move. "Losers. Anyway, here's the catch. Basically, this shit was meant to happen. It's destiny. And even if we reset it, it's just going to happen again. So, imagine time-slash-destiny as a long, long pipe. Sometimes it gets rusty and shit spills out, making the other pieces rust. You following?" he rolled his eyes. "Goddammit. Anyway, how do you fix a busted pipe? You replace the broken part. Tweek is the broken part so to fix it you need to-"
"Remove Tweek." Stan finished.
"Ding ding ding we have a winner!" he shouted, tossing an arm into the air.
"Remove Tweek?" Token asked around a mouthful of hair. "How would you do that?" Craig moaned again.
"Get rid of him. Wipe his slate and yours. Maybe replace him with some poor soul from purgatory to keep his parents happy."
"You can't do that!" Clyde shouted. "You can't just pretend that Tweek never existed!"
"Well, that's not your decision to make, Tubby. Tweek may be the rusty link but it there's another player in this." He turned to face Stan. "Your choice, man. Tweek's the effect but you're the cause, so it's your decision. Keep going or turn back?"
He stared at the button. Not red, like he expected all important buttons to be, but black. He swallowed hard.
He thought of all the pain, the damage, the lives lost.
And thought about how it was all his fault.
He reached out a hand.
"Wait."
He paused, pulled his arm back.
Kyle made an irritated noise.
Craig Tucker looked at them with sad, half lidded eyes. "Can you make it so I won't forget?" he asked. "I promise I'll behave. I just-I need him."
"Fine, fine, whatever." Damien waved him away. "Bleh, true love leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth."
"Do it, Stan." Kyle said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked at his friends and their resigned faces. He bit his lip and slowly-
Bring. Bring. Bring. Bring.
"Damn that test was killer." Clyde whined, stretching so his shirt rode up over his pleasingly plump tummy. Token smacked it jokingly and grinned.
"Nah, it's just cause you don't bother to study. What did you think, Craig?"
Their friend shrugged, not that they were surprised. Craig was usually very quiet and very sullen, acting as if there was always a great burden pressed upon his shoulders.
"First period down, eight more to go. Come on, guys, we can do this!" he chanted, tossing one arm over both of their shoulders. Craig blinked, a small sign of emotion but a fairly good one. He thought Clyde was being funny. "And then nine more periods and nine more periods and then senior year and bam! College and nothing but smooth sailing and hot women!"
"Pig." Token said, ducking away. "Let's just hurry up. I hear we have a new kid and I really want to catch a glimpse. We haven't had one since that Pip kid back in fourth, wasn't it?"
Clyde nodded slowly. Craig looked at his shoes. "Yeah, I think so," the former said. "Kinda weird, though. It's almost the middle of the year already. And who in their right minds would move to South Park? North Park's forty minutes away and waaaaay better. This town fucking sucks, dude. I feel sorry for the poor sap."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," came a very quiet voice. Craig stiffened, staring hard at his laces as his heart rate increased tenfold. He would not dare to hope. He would not. He would not. He would not.
He did.
He looked up.
The new kid, Clyde decided, looked nice enough, something to write home about if only for the novelty of a new student. . The new kid was short and very, very skinny, his green button down dipping low enough to display jutting collar bones as he tugged nervously at the hem. His jeans were oversized and well worn, a common sight in such a poor town, and his hair was messy and blond. His eyes though, were unlike any he had ever seen. They were huge for one, taking up a good deal of space, and a bright, exotic shade of green that seemed to shine and just know.
Nothing special really.
So why was Craig looking at him so intently.
The blond blushed a pale pink against his white skin and held out a tiny hand. Craig stared at it and engulfed it with his larger one. Clyde nearly had a heart attack. Craig motherfucking Tucker was Craig motherfucking Tucker and Craig motherfucking Tucker never touched anyone. He barely tolerated Clyde and they had known each other since birth, basically.
Token thought this was fairly interesting and wondered if they were ever going to get to class.
"Craig Tucker," he said quietly, looking at him with a small glimmer of emotion not usually seen on Craig motherfucking Tucker.
"Tweek Tweak," he said. "My aunt and uncle own a coffee shop here."
"Do you like coffee?" he asked anxiously.
"Oh, yes, very much," he said plainly. "I like coffee and don't very much care for zombies." The two shared a secret, shy smile and began to walk, chatting amiably.
Clyde personally thought zombies were the shit but whatever.
Craig's life.
"So Craig and the new kid are getting on." Token said. "I don't think I've ever seen him this happy.'
"Yeah," Clyde said, feeling as if he was forgetting something very important. "Yeah, I guess."
HAPPY ENDINGS.
I WAS SO CLOSE THIS CLOSE - TO JUST HAVING CRAIG GO CRAZY AND COMMITTING SUICIDE BUT I DECIDED NAH, HAPPY ENDING CAUSE I LOVE Y'ALL AND SHIT. WHATEVS. MIGHT POST ALTERNATE ENDING LATER.
OH WHAT THE HELL
Craig Tucker as many knew, was a fairly sullen boy. He didn't say much, didn't do much and was most certainly never going to amount to much. Those who knew him before fourth grade him remembered him as fairly cynical but a good boy.
There was no rhyme or reason for his sudden attitude change.
His best and one of his only friends, Clyde, made sure to keep him as close as possible, pestering him for seats at his empty table and always sitting next to him on the rickety old bus home.
One day, he invited him and Token Black over to his house for a movie marathon. They started with Anchorman and worked their way down, each of them picking a movie. Craig picked Spirited Away and it was a true testament to their friend ship that they didn't tease him. Token picked Ferris Bueller's Day Off and managed a small smile out of his friend after repeating "Bueller...Bueller...Bueller..." in his best deadpan.
Clyde perused the movies before picking one out. "Alright, ladies, prepare to shit yourselves," he mocked, sitting back as the black and white movie slowly came to life.
"Aw, man, not this piece of shit." Token sighed.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's a classic."
Craig watched Night of The Living Dead quietly, with very large eyes. His breathing increased as the tale unfolded, until he was pressed against the furthest corner of the couch. He stood up as a zombie sank into a young woman and grabbed his sleeping bag.
"Craig?" Token asked.
"Where you going?" Clyde asked.
"Home."
"What?" he scrambled after his friend. "Wait! Don't leave! We can change the movie."
Craig looked over his shoulder. "It's not the movie," he said finally. Clyde stood in the doorway, wind nipping at his bare legs. His boxers did little to protect him and slowly, the taller and last boy pulled him away.
"It'll be fine," he soothed. "We'll catch him tomorrow."
"I can change the movie," he repeated, lost.
Token sat him down. "We'll catch him tomorrow."
But tomorrow never came.
It was plastered all over the news.
LOCAL BOY COMMITS SUICIDE,
Inside look with the horrified campers that found his body.
Clyde never thought of Craig putting a bullet in his brain with his mother's shotgun or why he had chosen to kill himself at a camping site that he had never been to, despite all the questions the police asked him.
Instead he thought of how this was all his fault and how he could have prevented it if he had just changed the damned movie.
"It's too bad about Craig," Token said. "Fourth grade, man, something happened. I don't know what it was and it's stupid, but something in that damned year changed him. There was nothing we could do."
"Yeah," Clyde said, feeling as if he was forgetting something very important. "Yeah, I guess."