NOVEL WEB Backstory part 3
[2330 Words]
This chapter is written, Proof read and edited by me, Your only god and savior
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"Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down."
-Ray Bradbury
La was currently experiencing a sever bout of classic existential crisis.
In this new world there were these things called cartoons that children watched for entertainment. Danielle seemed to really enjoy watching them so La was forced to do so as well.
The goal for most of these cartoons was telling interesting stories while sometimes trying to teach the target audience of these cartoons Aka children, Simple but important lessons like not steal or hurting people or animals etc.
La thought that it was an ingenious way of teaching children morals, Though Danielle seemed to struggle with most of those lessons questioning why it was wrong to hurt others or why it was bad to steal, After all if he profited from the act and no one found out about it then why would it matter.
La wasn't having an existential crisis due to Danielle's morals or lack there of however.
The reason for La's existential dread is due to one of the cartoons Danielle had started watching along with the other kids.
A cartoon called Avatar the last Airbender.
It's story is set in a world with four countries, The earth kingdom, Fire nation, Water tribes and the air nomads.
The people from those countries could each bend one of the four elements with the only person capable of bending all four elements being the avatar.
The story follows The current avatar called Aang who needs to master all four elements in a year so as to stop an ongoing one hundred year long war being waged by the fire nation against the rest of the world in order to conquer it.
A show that teaches valuable life lessons to children through impactful stories, And the source of La's existential crisis.
The world shown by the show was eerily similar to La's world, The animals, The spirits, The nations the people, The bending it was all basically that same.
Danielle eagerly watched every new episode that came out on a weekly basis. And with each new episode he grew more and more fascinated by the world and it's story but he was most interested in the main character Aang.
He couldn't wrap his head around why someone would act so selflessly all the time and why they would help strangers without asking for any incentive. He wanted to find out why Aang spent so much time trying to master the four elements just to help people.
La currently couldn't care less about Danielle's character development, He was trying to find any reason possible to refute the possibility that he came from a damn cartoon made for children but with every new episode Danielle watches the more similarities La finds between his world and the one depicted in the show.
His feelings of existential dread peaked on the final two episodes of the first season when both he and Tui were shown and when Tui was killed by Admiral Zhao.
La felt a cluster of emotions flood and overwhelm him, Helplessness at only being able to watch from here as Tui got murdered and at being stuck living the life of someone else for who knows how long, Anxiousness to return to his home.
Was he even real? Was everything about him predetermined by an unseen writer? Did he even have his own free will or was he just a puppet used only as a device for the writer to say whatever he wanted? Was everything predetermined? Already decided?
The father of all names had once told him that there were probably a countless amount of strange worlds out there.
The question is, Was this a world that just so happened to have a cartoon that showed his world and his self exactly the same through simple coincidence? Or was this a world where seemingly normal weak normal humans could create entire worlds just by writing or thinking about them?
Was the La he saw on the screen him or was he another La? If not and if he is a different La then did he have a free will of his own or was he also a figment of some other humans imagination.
Were Danielle and the world and people around him real or were they just a product of some shadowy writer's imagination? If this writer existed were they also made up by someone else?
Was the reason for his existence just to entertain someone? To be a clown that can keep them company and make them laugh.
Were the hundreds of thousands of years of his life just words on paper? A mere few paragraphs? Was anyone actually someone? Were people just imagined by other people who were imagined by some other people that were also imagine by people who in turn were imagined by someone?
How many layers were there? How deep did it go?
La soon realized that he didn't give a shit, Promptly throwing away all questions about whether he was real or not to a corner that he is to never visit again for the sake of preserving his sanity. And so he continued his days observing Danielle like usual.
Danielle seemed to have found his calling as he started to drown himself in anything he was even a tiny bit curious about which was basically everything.
Danielle also started cutting his hair in a buzz cut never letting it grow past that. Most of the care takers just simply thought that he just wanted to look more like a boy as he was mistaken as part of the opposite gender more than often.
La knew however that it wasn't something so innocent, A constant and unfiltered stream of Danielle's thought flowed into his mind at all times, Only slowing down when he was asleep but never stopping.
La knew Danielle was just sharpening his blade. He was preparing to kill someone. Danielle had read about the unique trails humans leave behind that might get him caught: Finger prints, Hair, Blood, Foot prints.
There were a multitude of things that could get Danielle caught, Cameras, Eye witnesses and many other variables.
He needed to eliminate as many of these variables as possible. His hair was one, However he needed to make the transition natural and avoid drawing attention, If he cut his hair and someone dies a few days later someone might link it up to him.
Next up he needed to select a victim. La thought that Danielle would make the kids who antagonized him into his victims after all no matter how meticulous Danielle tried to be in his planing he was still a human and a young and inexperienced one at that.
The most logical targets for him would be those whom had wronged him, A subconscious choice to avoid feeling guilt.
But that's just how humans are, If they believe that they are justified then they are willing to commit the cruelest acts against even their own kind.
When thinking about candidates to help satiate his curiosity one of the first potential targets that popped into Danielle's mind was unsurprisingly The three boys that pushed him, But as soon as that idea popped up he immediately shot it down.
They were children like him so although they would be easier to kill than adults, Their disappearance would cause a ruckus, He needed to pick someone who had no connection to him and who had no one who would care about their disappearance enough to report it or go looking for them.
La was very surprised by Danielle's thought process. Had he underestimated his intelligence or was Danielle simply strangely gifted in these sorts of things?
He did have a scary amount of talent when it came to reading people's characters and moods through simply using their facial expressions, Body movement and tones of voices.
But sadly in no actually meaningful ways that would help him have a basic sense of empathy or compassion for his fellow human beings.
Danielle spent the next 6 months reading, Researching and experimenting on anything that grabbed his attention while putting a constant effort into trying to observe humans and trying to understand them.
Many would say that he was so curious that it bordered on obsession, Nothing was off limits which meant that he often did things that would be very dangerous and even lacking in self preservation.
Burning himself to see how hot the fire was and how much it would hurt, Cutting himself to see how much it would hurt, How his blood would taste and how long it would take for the cut to heal, Then doing it all over again in a different place, Then doing it to someone else for comparison's sake.
Dripping candle wax on his skin, Stabbing himself with a pen, Eating insects, Burning insects, Eating burned insects, Crushing insects, Dismembering insects, Eating raw food, Eating expired food. The list goes on and on.
Of course the girl called Eva had tried to dissuade Danielle at almost every turn and explained to him why he shouldn't do those things, Him agreeing not to do it and then doing it anyway while her back was turned.
Danielle had also been enrolled in school, He did exceptionally well at it but didn't really like it much, Although he liked the praise of the teachers and being known as smart by his peers he didn't like the constant pointless and repetitive exercises, explanation and reminders that the teachers had to give.
Sometimes Danielle felt that everyone around him seemed to have dimentia. They couldn't even remember something that happened a few months prior.
After a few months Danielle found a suitable target for his less then legal social experiment.
A homeless old man who lived in an dirty alley. Danielle stalked him for 3 months straight in order to find out his schedule.
He didn't have much of a schedule, Scream at kids, Sleep whenever he felt like it and do random homeless man shit like begging or screaming.
There was an outlier however, Every week on Sunday, Homeless Joe would spend all the cash he had on a shit ton of beer and attempt to drink himself into non-existence in a forest near the city.
Homeless Joe was strangely consistent in the exact spot he would drink himself into a coma; A clearing in the forest with a giant old Oak tree in the middle of it.
A perfect spot. It checked all the right boxes. Danielle had a week to prepare the place so he stole a shovel from an abandoned shed and large gardening boots before sneaking out and stashing the shovel inside a hollow tree in the forest. And stashing the boots in a trash bin that no one used near the orphanage.
No one had used the shovel for many years so it was rusty and dirty. This along with the boots and some gloves was all the equipment Danielle would need.
Sunday eventually came along and Danielle sneaked out at night while everyone was asleep, He wore his normal shoes with the boots over them, That way he would leave large foot prints instead of his actual small ones.
Even after so much planing however Danielle still made an oversight, He was going to a forest at night but he had forgotten to get a flash light, Luckily Tui seemed to be on his side however as it was a full moon that night so it was well illuminated. He had two hours to do the deed and come back.
Danielle's heart was rapidly palpitating in anticipation as he moved through the empty streets while sticking to the shadows. He had waited half a year for this.
He found the hollow tree where he stashed his shovel and retrieved it. He walked towards the clearing as the the thrumming of his heart intensified. The silvery moon light illuminating his path.
He arrived at the well illuminated forest clearing and sprawled on his back he found homeless Joe, Unconscious and holding the love of his life in his hands.
Danielle silently approached him, Crushing the grass under his oversized rubber boots. Arriving Infront of homeless Joe, He felt a gripping tightness on his heart. He raised the shovel up high before swinging it down on the unconscious man's face with all his strength.
*Pang*
He smashed his face in, Flattening his nose and face as it started becoming bloody, That wasn't enough to kill the man however. He let out throaty gurgling sounds as he sluggishly brought his arm above his face.
Seeing him still alive Danielle swung the Shovel again and again, Completely flattening his face that was caked in blood and leaving an imprint of the bloody shovel on his face completely shoveling out his features.
After ten swings the man's movements stopped but Danielle kept swinging anyway, He wanted to make sure that the man was absolutely dead.
After who knows how many swings. Danielle stopped swinging as he held his knees and panted from the physical effort.
Danielle walked away from the crime scene. He had neither enough time or strength left to bury the body, He would just have to hope that no one stumbled upon it too soon.
He stashed the bloodied shovel back in the tree and after exiting the forest he took off the large boots and gloves throwing each piece in a random garbage bin around town and took the long way back to the orphanage, Quietly sneaking back in and going back to bed, Drifting off into sleep with the scenes of what he had done looping in his head.
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UwU I'm back baby! took me 12 hours to write this bitch cuz I kept getting distracted!