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What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?
What are you wondering? What do you know?
Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me?
When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
“Shh.”
Kenny breathed in sharply, eyes opening quickly. The stars glowed above him, all too familiar pinpoints of light shining down on his face. The feeling of dried sweat and old blood on the outside of his coat was routine by now, as was the feeling of icy wind breezing past his face.
He closed his eyes again, breathing in deeply. Carefully, slowly, he sat up, the pain that had once ripped through his body gone. He blinked out into the darkness, looking down at the few glowing lights of South Park at night.
Well. That was certainly different.
Kenny felt his skin crawl as he shivered in the night air, ripping off the torn and bloody parka anyways and curling up in a ball. His breath felt too hot against his coolness of his skin, his heart beating in his chest violently as though attempting to make up for the last seven hours.
In the distance, he could hear voices. Teenagers, people he likely knew, laughing and talking. Probably messing around over by the pond. The wind whipped around his body, making the hairs on the back of his arms stand up, whispers dancing across the midnight air and into his mind, freezing him further into his position as memories of his death began to slip back in.
There was no usual protocol for what happened when Kenny died; every time was different. One time he could be sitting in a cloud-like heaven, listening to the voices of his friends fade away into the distance as his body was left behind. Another, his skin could be burned for what would seem like days as his screams became the only sounds left. This time, though…
He had never experienced anything like it. Pure, cold, void. The darkness seemed to stretch on for eternity, his body weightless in the nothing. His eyes desperately searched for something to focus on, but he could see more with his eyes closed. Even when he looked down at his own hand he didn’t see anything, just the same endless abyss reaching out for what seemed like forever. When he screamed his throat burned, but the sound didn’t reach his ears, stopped by some unseen force.
Kenny took another shaky breath, rubbing at the hot tears on his face, his body suddenly shaking uncontrollably. He forced himself to take slower breaths, taking in the sweet night air. From a distance he could hear their laughter again. He closed his eyes and held onto the sound, taking comfort in the sound of his own breaths and feeling of the bumpy ground of the hill beneath him. After a moment the shivers stopped and his body stilled. He blew a final, slow breath out of his mouth before licking his cracked lips and running a hand through his hair, turning around to grab his coat from where he’d thrown it off.
His hand stilled over the parka as he finally noticed the shadows beside him, the ragged edge of a robe and long metal handle floating just an inch above the rocky ground.
Slowly, he looked up, heart beating faster into his chest.
He heard nothing when he fell.