Chapter Text
Wow, what a wonderful way to start the week.
The feeling of sudden weightlessness which overtook Kenny was almost comfortable. Almost. The sharp, unbearable pain of a bullet to the brain immediately begins to fade, offering some sort of comfort. He opens his eyes, and sees a familiar sight; his own lifeless corpse, blood and brain matter splattered across the snow. His friends were gathered around, horror across their faces.
“Oh my god, he killed Kenny!” Stan.
“You bastards!” Kyle.
If gambling was legal in Colorado, he would bet on those two lines each and every time. It was like clockwork; Kenny dies of some horrific accident, Stan and Kyle read their lines as rehearsed, and the gang moves on.
And Kenny is left to his weightlessness. He’s figured he’s a ghost of some sort; well, that’s the only way he can think of it. He’s weightless, though he can’t fly. This is tragic, because maybe then it would make the whole process worth going through. No, all he does is sit and watch his friends, who go on to continue on with whatever quest they’re doing at the moment. He’s honestly lost track at this point.
Sometimes, it’s worth it for him to follow them around, that way so he stays clued in on their latest shenanigans. Others, like today, he decides to take a walk. South Park is peaceful from time to time, especially safe from social interaction. Adjusting the parka over his face(even though it didn’t really matter, nobody could see him anyways), he walks down the main street. The various people seem to either naturally avoid him or even phase through him as he walks, but Kenny doesn’t mind. He enjoys it, really.
It’s been like this as long as he can remember, really. They all blur together, his deaths, but he will never forget the first time he died. It was at the bus stop with his friends, just like any day. They were bantering about something at the bus stop, but then suddenly something launched him into the street, where he proceeded to be run over by a police car. In the fleeting moments before his death, he was petrified and faced with the most excruciating pain he’d felt up to that moment. It’s quite difficult to explain how it feels to have your entire body crushed by a car unless one has experienced it. It’s even more difficult to explain the feeling when you blink afterward and find yourself standing next to your own dismembered body. The first time it happened, Kenny will be the first to admit he lost it. Screaming, crying, begging for somebody, anybody, to be able to give him an explanation. The crippling loneliness when he realized his friends weren’t even aware of his situation, just saying the two lines he had grown to despise.
“Oh my god, they’ve killed Kenny!” Stan.
“You bastards!” Kyle.
He followed them around for hours, begging for them to be able to hear him, before finally accepting his fate. He had found himself at home shortly after, in his room. His family had been unaware of his presence, however, this wasn’t the best judge of his situation. They were regularly unaware of his presence. He had laid down in his bed, his head spinning and his thoughts racing. Would he be like this forever? Was this the afterlife? Was everything he had thought about death until this point a lie?
He had laid there for hours, panicking.
Until he woke up.
Kenny jolted up to his alarm clock, the regular sounds of his parents fighting filling the quiet air. He had thought it was a dream at first, and the relief had washed over him. He got up and got ready for the day as if nothing had ever happened to him.
Then it happened again.
A bullet to the brain, which was followed by his head being impaled on a flagstaff. That took the cake for the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced. It even beat the car. He immediately ended up by his corpse again, hearing Kyle’s yell.
“Oh my god, you’ve killed Kenny! You bastards!”
This was, in certain terms, the beginning of the end.
Every. Single. Day.
Every single day, Kenny found himself dying in some horrific way, followed by those two lines that drilled into his head. Each day that happened, Kenny’s sense of apathy grew. It was horrible at first, the excruciating pain, the moment of panic, the desperate attempts to get his friends to acknowledge his spirit. The worst part, though?
They never remembered his deaths.
He had brought it up, once. At the bus stop, after a particularly brutal death, Kenny had come to the bus stop shaken.
“You alright, man?” Kyle had asked, pausing his previous conversation with Stan.
“Um, after yesterday, as okay as I can be.” Kenny’s reply came, words muffled as usual from the orange parka covering his mouth.
“What do you mean, yesterday? What happened?” Kyle looked confused at the prospect of anything other than a normal day.
“What do you mean what happened? You cut me in half because I turned into a zombie!” Kenny had shouted, thinking his friend was just playing a joke.
“What the fuck kinda bullshit is that, Kenny?” Kyle had stared at him, and Kenny’s outburst had drawn the attention of Stan and Cartman.
“You don’t remember?”
“No, man! Why would I cut you in half?? How would I cut you in half?” Kyle exclaimed, looking at Kenny as if he was insane.
“It must have been a fuckin’ dream, never mind.” Kenny muttered, deciding it was best to just end the conversation.
“Kenny, did you take some of your parent’s meth last night or some shit?” Cartman’s annoying drawl interrupted the conversation. “Stealing is for Jews, Kenny, you’re not a Jew.”
“Shut the fuck up, fat ass!” Kyle’s short reply had come immediately after.
The conversation previous had died, leaving Kenny with a sense of loneliness he had come to terms with over time.
As of current, Kenny had learned to accept this life of his. It offered a new level of carelessness that had always been a part of his life, but now it was amplified. Technically, there were zero long-term consequences to his actions. It would just be a lonely afternoon until he woke up the next day.
His aloof attitude had carried him far, and as he walked down the South Park streets, he was comfortable with his loneliness.
“Oh, well, hey there, Ken!”
The sound of the voice had Kenny stop dead in his tracks. He turned to the source of the voice.
“…You can see me?” Kenny’s muffled voice says, shock replacing his usual cocky tone of voice.
“Uh, why wouldn’t I be able to?”
“Because I’m dead.”
“…you’re what?”