86 Episode 12-Nefarious Sloth (10)

[Song in paragraph comment]

"It seems chill for the most part."

After maxing out my Observation skills, that was my assessment. Wait, this was the Star Stream System, not Skyrim.

(It feels like I'm watching a slice of life anime.)

Marcus and I were sitting down in the grass, observing the younger version of him. It felt voyeuristic, like I was peeping into Marcus's inner world and scrutinizing his precious memories. He tried to keep a straight face, but he grew uncomfortable as time went on. Maybe he didn't want me to be here, or maybe it was the pain of retrospection. Looking at the past brings a sense of sorrow in all of us.

Younger Marcus and Angela were playing tag, running around the trees in the park. At intervals, they would take a break and talk, or do random kid things. I couldn't imagine what they were doing. I haven't been a kid in years.

I was in a weird point in my life. I wasn't as innocent as a child, but I wasn't as mature as an adult. It was like I was in flux, as if I could become anything I wanted, for better or worse.

(Should stop thinking about myself.)

I proposed that we go closer, but Marcus dissuaded me.

The two kids were splitting up and bid farewell. It seemed they were about to go home. I looked at the sky and saw the setting sun, and the approaching darkness.

(Alright, time to follow him.)

"Wait," Marcus said.

"Why? We have to follow the younger you."

"I have a feeling. We need to stay."

I kept silent and watched instead. When his counterpart stepped beyond the boundaries of this park, something happened. It was instantaneous.

The dreamscape warped, like a cracked-out kaleidoscope on Instagram filters. Eventually, everything relaxed and settled. I looked at the sky, and saw the sun peaking through the clouds. My breathing hitched.

(It's a new day. Either it restarted, or something else is gonna happen.)

"Look! There I am!"

Marcus pointed at his younger self, who was walking back into the park. Angela was waiting at the same bench, kicking her legs back and forth. I checked the landscape for changes, and there were: clouds were different, the tree leaves were another color, etc.

(This is a new memory. We're going to be trapped in this park until something happens.)

"This is like... some Groundhog Day type shit."

I cast a glance at Marcus. Dammit, I curse too much. I should refer to his memories more nicely.

"Some Groundhog Day shenanigans," I amended.

He didn't seem to hear me. He kept watching those two children, as if they weren't the past, his old memories... as if he wasn't one of those two kids.

(Maybe he's not the only one who lost their childhood, but didn't reach adulthood.)

Marcus got up and walked closer to them. The way he approached... his fists were clenched, and his footsteps were heavy.

"Oi, I thought we had to watch from afar!"

Damn, he had a wide gait. I had to half-run to catch up. When I did and looked at his face... well, I wish I didn't. Marcus's expression... it looked like he was on the verge of tears.

I looked away, trying to be respectful. As time went on, I felt more and more like an intruder.

***

"Flower crowns are lame!"

"No, they're not! You gotta learn to sit still."

"That's boooring!"

As we got closer, Marcus and I heard talking.

(I recognize this moment.)

It's when I fell through Marcus's psyche, before I came to this tangible dream world. Why did it feel like I knew something more back then, compared to now?

"We made flower crowns that day," Marcus said.

I turned to look at him, and his expression was sorrowful. He didn't look as if he was about to cry anymore, but there was a deep sadness etched in the lines of his face. He looked resigned. Marcus knelt down to look at the both of them, and I followed.

Something surprising happened. The memory began to fast forward.

Angela and young Marcus began to blur. They became indistinguishable, but it wasn't a staticky effect, like in old VCR media. They blurred and unfocused, like someone was looking at them with clouded eyes. Just like in a dream.

"They look great!"

The girl - Angela - became tangible again. She didn't look like a distorted memory. In her hands was a flower crown, made from white and yellow varieties. Perhaps those yellow ones were daisies. I didn't know flower language.

"Mine sucks," young Marcus pouted.

He held his flower crown, which wasn't as tightly woven. The way he pouted... this Marcus was truly a child - innocent, carefree in all aspects, wide-eyed and expectant. This Marcus wanted to see a beautiful world.

"No it doesn't!"

Angela's voice snapped me out of my sympathetic melancholy.

"Yes it does," young Marcus argued.

"Nuh-uh. It's great because you worked on it!"

To punctuate that fact, Angela smiled a big grin, showing all the little gaps in her teeth, the adult teeth pushing on the baby ones. Her expression carried no malice. I stared at her face, but instantly, briefly, it morphed into a face full of tears and pain.

"What the hell!?!"

I stood up, startled. The little girl's face returned to normal. I looked at the real Marcus, and he was crying now. His face wasn't contorted in a sob, and it wasn't red - the tears merely sprung from his eyes, like a physical reaction instead of an emotional one. He looked tired. Too tired to feel his sadness.

"I remember... well, not everything," he said slowly. "But enough. I think I know why Fenris sent me here."

Just like that, Marcus stood up, hands in his pockets. He towered over me, but he was looking straight ahead, like he wasn't in front of me. I wanted to grab him, remind him I was here, but that didn't feel right. I looked at him, silently until I realized something.

(Wait, how does he have pockets?)

His outfit changed... I didn't notice it, but it changed when we fell into this landscape. Before Fenris sent us here, he was in a white dress shirt. Now Marcus was wearing the leather jacket he had in the real world. He looked more and more like his corporeal self.

The landscape warped again, and it became a world of moving pictures and memories. We were watching every memory like a film reel.

Every single one was happy: Marcus and Angela running in the rain, Marcus and Angela buying ice cream on a sunny Summer day, Marcus and Angela playing in the snow.

(Not matter how miserable someone is, they must have some happy memories that they cherish.)

No matter what those memories could be. Sadly, everything must end, good and bad.

"I don't want to look..."

Marcus closed his eyes and clenched his fists. It was a face of... anguish?

(It's hard to read his expression.)

[Fragment of the 4th Wall is repressing your empathy.]

(What? What the hell?)

Why have I never seen that message before? What the hell does that mean?

(Fraggy? What is this?)

Because it would hurt too much to live in the moment? To not only understand, but feel?

(I've been repressing my empathy since the beginning of these scenarios.)

I've left my mother to die. I killed people indiscriminately. I toyed with people before I killed them, and I used others. All because I didn't have that special word that started with the letter "E."

(Empathy.)

(Fraggy... if you can hear me... don't necessarily deactivate, but at least let me feel this moment.)

I looked at Marcus.

(So that he isn't alone.)

Perhaps I was imagining it, but I heard an [Al ri ght] emerge from the depths of my mind.

(Thank you.)

Eventually, Marcus's happy memories came to an end, and his journey of stress and anxiety began. Thanks to Fenris, he would now relive that moment.

"Hey."

I stepped next to him and looked into his tear-riddled eyes.

"I'm here. So if you need some support, I gotcha."

Although, Marcus wouldn't be alone. He smiled through the sadness and said, "Thanks, Ethan."

***

Marcus Santiago was sitting on a specific bench, waiting at the park. It was a special bench, his bench, the one he shared with his best and only friend in the world: Angela.

Fraggy was narrating. As if to reflect this youthful story, they used simple language.

He kicked his legs aimlessly, back and forth. The young boy was in a bubble; it reflected his happiness, and it was formed from a lye that cleansed his soul of all mental ailments.

(Okay, Fraggy must've heard me because they brought out that metaphor. F you too, bro.)

He waited.

"Where is she?" Young Marcus whined.

And waited.

"Is she not coming?"

And waited.

"Angela!?!"

Marcus Santiago didn't understand why she wasn't here with him, so he wandered through the park. He thought if he called out to her, she'd appear like a fairy. He thought if he screamed Angela's name long enough, it'd summon her like magic. It always worked. He knew it did. He watched that PBS show called Electric Company, and they were always screaming for each other to gather. If it worked on TV, then it should work in real life, right?

"Angela?!!? Where are you?!?"

He did this for over an hour. He walked around the park, searched behind every tree, every slide, and every sidewalk. Adults looked at him with worry but they never approached. Perhaps they were too afraid to help. Perhaps they thought his plight was trivial, since he was a little kid.

A small problem to an adult is a world-ending event to a child.

Marcus stopped for a moment and sat on the grass. He looked around, still looking for her.

(I don't want to leave without finding her yet.)

That's what he thought. So he spent another hour searching for her, but he stopped shouting her name. Eventually, it dawned on him that she wouldn't come. He'd have to find her.

(I think I know where she is.)

So he left the safety of the park and began wandering the dangerous city. It is unknown how he found her house. Perhaps Angela described it to him. Even so, he was an intelligent young man for finding it.

He knocked on the door, hoping she'd answer. No one did. He knocked again. The door eventually opened, and a stern looking woman was the one who answered.

"Hello," young Marcus said meekly.

"Who are you?" The woman asked with an edge in her voice.

"I'm Angela's friend. My name is Marcus!"

Marcus didn't go to school often, but he learned enough to introduce himself by saying his name. The woman didn't take to him kindly. She seemed angry now.

"Were you the one that hit my daughter?!"

"What?"

"Don't 'what me?!'"

The woman's hand shot forward and wrapped around Marcus's tiny arm like a claw.

"Tell me the truth!! Did you hit my daughter!?!"

"No! No!!"

Marcus was on the verge of crying. He got the right house. It seemed as if Angela lived here. This woman seemed to be his best friend's mother, although her hair was brown while Angela's was red. He just didn't understand her anger.

Mustering his strength, powered by fear, he tore from this woman's grasp and ran away. She screamed his name, screamed how her husband would find him, and how Marcus would regret ever meeting their daughter. This was the last thing he heard from her.

"Boys go to hell for hitting girls!!"

As he ran away from that house, from that mean woman who couldn't possibly be Angela's mother - how, she was so cruel to him while Angela was so nice? - he ran through the park and back to his home, tears streaming down his face.

That one sentence echoed through his mind.

"Boys go to hell for hitting girls." Perhaps meant as a ward to prevent children from acting out, but it was embarrassing and childish to be said by an adult. Sadly, the mature adults children need in life sometimes don't exist.

It didn't make sense to Marcus. He never hit anyone in his life. He was too timid, too kind. All he wanted was to be happy. Again, he never hit anyone in his life.

Well, not yet.

***

Marcus was back to where he came from. In that dingy trailer park, or whatever it was. He walked past the dingy 'homes,' the cigarette riddled dirt, the puddles mixed with spit, and the overflowing trash, consisting of takeout, cheap meals, and beer cans.

He was finally 'home.' He was afraid. Afraid of what he was accused of, what he might've done, who would come for him. Marcus knew that when you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. Who was Angela's father? Would he come with a vengeance? The young boy's life was bad enough. He couldn't imagine it becoming even worse.

He stepped inside his 'home.' It was dim, but he sensed his presence. His dad was there: Adler Santiago. The man was watching TV, flicking through the channels. Adler's eyes barely flicked to the boy's direction, but he said, "Food's in the microwave. I made some pizza."

Marcus nodded. He went into their small kitchen, opened the microwave door, and pulled a slice of pizza from the whole pie. It was cheap; the bread, the tomato sauce, and the cheese. Cubed pepperoni decorated it.

This is what Marcus frequently ate in his short life. It was the same diet for his younger brother too.

(Where is he?)

Marcus's younger brother went to school sometimes, but Marcus wanted him to stay there longer. The elder brother liked school, but he wasn't smart like the other kids. He didn't have money to buy lunch, not like them, so he opted to stay home and eat snacks or frozen meals.

(So that's why...)

That's why Marcus wanted his younger brother to go to school. School made you smart, and being smart is good. Marcus didn't know what it was like, since he was stupid. He didn't know what it really meant, but that's how adults treated him.

Marcus wanted his younger brother to be smarter than him. 'Smart,' 'stupid,' these were the frequent terms used around him, that seeped into his mind, knocking and careening inside.

Although, he was so much more than that.

(Enough of the narration. Show me what happens next.)

Someone entered the kitchen. They were a bit smaller than Marcus. It was his younger brother.

"Pizza?"

Marcus grunted in affirmation.

"Take one."

His younger brother did.

Marcus looked at his brother and asked, "Where have you been?"

Marcus could no longer attain a formal education. His mind no longer grew like others, slowly acquiring and building knowledge within a classroom. He lived by experience, and if his book smarts no longer grew sharper, his instincts would.

Marcus had a feeling his younger brother did not go to school today. Maybe it was the way they carried themselves. Or perhaps it was merely an older brother's intuition.

[Or the bloody marks on their fists.]

(They were in a fight,) Marcus thought.

["Just hanging around," his younger brother answered.]

Marcus angrily crinkled his pizza, bending the hard crust until the edges pierced his hands. Crumbs fell away along with Marcus's patience.

Marcus sacrificed a lot so Jake could be in school. Marcus gave his sibling enough money to buy lunch, and Marcus only went enough times to hold attendance, but never learned anything from his teachers. They didn't bother after a certain point, and left Marcus by the wayside. So, Marcus tried to learn by himself, and give all his knowledge to his younger sibling.

So, to know his brother was skipping school, but also getting into fights... that angered Marcus to his breaking point.

"Tell me the truth, now," the eldest asked angrily.

Reluctantly, his younger brother did, and this constant hiding angered Marcus. Doing something he never did before, he threatened his younger brother. Once the tale was told, Marcus's patience finally broke.

***

There father wasn't very involved in their lives. He worked, and he heated up food when they needed it. Sometimes he'd let his friends watch his kids. They weren't good influences, and the father was the same. He once said, "You can get any girl as long as you're strong enough."

Perhaps he meant that strength would equal confidence, and confidence would lead to attraction. But Adler Santiago left it at that, and his sons interpreted it as they willed.

Marcus wasn't interested and didn't understand. His younger brother... was more prone to desire than most. It's sad, but not uncommon for children to be neglected. How many are doing drugs or dying in the streets?

The upper class see the impoverished class as a pathetic, divided entity only unified through their disgusting nature. After a certain point, they don't see them as people. That's how these children feel after a point, and they try to forget this dehumanization with vice.

Marcus never did that. He was lost enough in his own feelings, which told him one thing: 'You're a monster.' Throughout his life, he tried to prove that he's not. It's been very hard.

***

["Argh!!"]

Blood-splattered fists. Broken flesh, sore fingers, but the anger driving them to strike again and again. It's surprising how much raw emotion a child can feel. Children's hearts are pure, perfect receptacles for benevolence or malice.

Marcus Santiago knew negligence for the majority of his life. No one paid attention to him. No one truly cared. He only had one person to befriend and trust, and it was taken away from him. It was done by his own brother.

Memories and imagery began to flicker, and I felt disgusted.

(For the love of God, Fraggy, I don't need to see that.)

[Ca n't bl ock that. No t my con tr ol. Marcus's memories.]

Said memories continued.

"What did you do?! What did you do to Angela!?!"

Marcus's little brother wasn't stable. He was spoiled, volatile, and unsympathetic. Extremely selfish and self-centered. No one else's feelings mattered because his were the most important. That's how he saw himself and the world around him. That's what Marcus wanted to beat out of him.

"Hey?! What the hell is going on?!"

Perhaps in the first time in his life, Adler Santiago paid careful attention to his children. He got up from his chair, walking into the small kitchen. His eyes caught the blood on the linoleum floor, and his two sons in a brawl.

"Marcus?! What did Jake do?!"

(Jake Santiago. The sicko of the First Scenario, of Garfield High School. The younger brother of Marcus Santiago.)

I almost forgot, but wasn't Alicia in the same auditorium as him?

[P ay atten tion.]

"He tried to kiss my friend!!"

Younger Marcus's shrill voice shouted that out.

"What?" His Dad said.

"N-no I didn't!!"

"Liar!! You did! You tried to kiss Angela!!"

(Oh God, I remember what he's going to say next.)

"Then you hit her when she didn't want to!!"

After saying that, Marcus punched his brother again, and Adler finally went into action.

"Hey, hey, stop!!"

He yanked Jake from Marcus's grasp.

"Marcus, get out!!"

"But-"

"Now!!"

Marcus ran away, maybe to his room, or maybe to the outside. Maybe he ran all the way back to the park, to the place where everything had changed, and where nothing would be the same again.

***

"You don't steal someone else's girl, do you understand me?"

Adler Santiago said that to his youngest son. There was no comfort, no empathy. Only a cold hard rebuke, which cemented the young Jake's resentment. This moment was the defining point, for him and for Marcus, the one that changed their futures.

Like all experiences in life, it faded away into darkness, becoming the past, a memory, and then a mere moment, as equally as fleeting as light.

Then it was gone. The memory, the dreamscape. Marcus's inner paradise, and the island of Fenris. I could feel the destabilization of this inner world.

"And there we go. Now you know. What I done, and couldn't do."

The voice sounded disembodied, far-off, and depressed. It echoed through this darkness, as if coming from every direction. I looked around, trying to find its source.

"Marcus!! Marcus!! Where are you?!"

There wasn't a center point, not like George's memories. Where was he?

(I-)

What do I do?

(I have to understand him. How he feels and thinks about himself.)

I closed my eyes, and focused on my greatest abilities: dreaming and reading. I tried to sense the darkness, and where I could go.

"Woof!"

I opened my eyes. There it was again. The little wolf-pup from before. It feels like it's been months since I've seen it.

"Hey. You led me here, now you want to get me out, right?"

The wolf-pup wagged its tail and nodded.

"Thank you, but before we go, can we find my friend? He needs my help."

I thought about Max, Aliana, and Alicia. I thought about George who was waiting for me beyond Garfield High School. Would they help him too? Could I say, 'He needs our help?'

The wolf-pup tilted its head, as if questioning my words, but it conceded, and turned around. I followed as it scampered into the void. Memories flew by again, but they were drowned out and muffled, as if they weren't allowed to be louder, to be felt and remembered.

This wolf-pup and I ran past them until we reached our final destination. This area... it was the densest, wreathed in a tangible darkness constructed from negative emotion.

I placed my hand on one of these tendrils, and immediately recoiled. It was mired in resentment and hatred, but instead of branching out, it was aimed towards itself.

"Marcus is at the center."

He's trapped by his pain.