PROLOGUE - Chaos

DISCLAIMER-

I do not own these characters nor the Tiny Toons franchise. All credit to the characters used in this story goes to Warner Bros. Entertainment.

-Slight TW-

-Enjoy-

Chaos.

I sensed chaos as I tumbled down a never-ending chute. And as the darkness swallowed me whole I learned the true meaning of the life I lead.

I learned that nothing mattered.

I learned that the sun will rise and the moon will fall, but at the end of the day, one party will be pushed into oblivion while the other got to live out their days peacefully. Every time a flower blooms, a flower dies. The sweet perfume from the petals trickles down from a yellow cardigan and eventually finds its way to me. The cardigan might be in my room some days, and I hold it tight, clutching it to my chest as I doze off in what might be a vegetative state. I'm alive. I'm breathing. Yet, I can't move. I see clearly what's going on around me, yet everything is still a blur somehow. I know I cannot do anything about what I am seeing other than merely observe. And as I'm confined to my rickety wooden seat in society I begin to wish I was someone else.

I begin to wish I was someone else who would be held in the arms of the owner of the cardigan I hold so close to my heart. I begin to wish that I didn't lay down every night regretting my existence. But most importantly, I begin to wish that my heart would beat for me. In my mind, I shouldn't keep breathing for myself, but instead, I should be doing so for the one woman (other than my mother) that I've known all my life. The one woman I've known since she was only a girl. She was still a girl, and I still a boy, in a way, yet I wasn't supposed to be one in the eyes of my society in a year. I was supposed to be a man. A man who didn't cry or loathe himself or close his eyes and pretend he was floating in space. I felt so far away from being a man. I felt more like a boy instead. I experienced a puppy crush so severe that the concept of a puppy crush and the fact it was severe kept me right where I had always thought I'd be: stuck in the middle. Stuck between youth and manhood.

I found myself caught between wanting to break all morale I had ever acquired and stuck to the rules I had set for myself — that I wouldn't violate the owner of the cardigan's own set of values. She valued that she'd never see anyone else while dating another, and how she'd make sure she saved every last bit of her affections for somebody only I seemed to be comprehending would be passing by momentarily. She said all of this as she leaned into my arm, shoulder up against my side as she inched closer. I watched as her ears relaxed under the dim golden light of my table lamp as she settled into her spot. Why was that? Why must one talk about their supposed boundaries while disregarding them? It seemed so obscure to me, yet I enjoyed knowing that there was a risk. There was a roller coaster kind of rush that came on knowing that she'd break her own rules for me, all while denying that she didn't and never would. Maybe it stung hearing her deny it, but the high I got was sufficient for the time being.

Then I'd go back to being a corpse.

I often asked myself this question as if I was talking to someone else; 'have you ever been so in love that you'd do anything for that special someone?' As frequently as I asked myself this, I found myself answering it.

Her back beneath the sun radiated a sort of godliness that couldn't compare to the God that her parents praised with a beaded necklace in hand and a leather book in the other. She seemed so held down by the values of her cross-infested home, however, when we were together her eyes seemed to light up. Perhaps it was the rays beaming down on us that gave the illusion, but I was sure they grew to be a little bit brighter around me.

My eyes grew to be brighter around her.

She had this aura, you know? An aura that could be compared to that of the first day of Spring. She liked to weave flower crowns and tended to the garden in her backyard. She had a smile that forced the sunlight to come early. She had eyes as deep as the very earth itself. In all honesty, I would give my life to see such a sight every single day, and I almost do.

I've come to believe that I would fall on my sword for this girl… And yet it's true. I would. There's no doubt in my mind that I wouldn't.

She was like a painting in an exhibit. A marvelous one at that. She was framed in pure gold, and I, desperate for such beauty to be within my reach, was willing to pay any price for it, no matter what it was. Even if it costed my happiness, I'd be willing to let it all go for her. Every detail of this girl was simply perfect, and even her imperfections seemed to make her flawless as I lay my dulling eyes upon her— just like a work of art. And I can feel the dealer, the universe, stripping away every ounce of starlight in my soul day by day. But as long as I get to have someone that was the epitome of a Van Gogh painting, it was worth it.

Speaking of Van Gogh, didn't he get admitted into a mental hospital at some point in this life? Even then it didn't stop him from making art. Despite a mind going rotten, it still managed to create something so beautiful and so melancholy at the same time.

When I look back at his art, I can vividly remember the colors. Lines that weren't always quite the same color bunching together to make one big tree. It's fascinating to me.

It appears that every time I set my eyes upon the owner of the cardigan a filter is draped over the scene. A filter that then makes the entire world around her look as if Van Gogh had made it himself. It was so much more vibrant than the real world, and I marveled at the sight in all its glory. Even while I'm stuck in my own rotting mind I can make out something so gorgeous. Every frame that shifts as she smiles and turns to run across a grassy field flashes before my eyes in a haze. Her laughter is faint and echos in the hallways of my mind. All is peaceful until you remember Van Gogh tried to poison himself with his own paints. This girl is beautiful, and I begin to realize that behind all that beauty that I am witnessing and the art of her I've made in my mind, that I too am beginning to poison myself.

Despite being in such a rocky state of mind I still manage to make out dazzling shades of every color of the rainbow. Some will say that Van Gogh's finest and most optimistic paintings were made while in such a state of fear due to his surroundings in the hospital, and I can find myself comparing his situation to mine. Although very different, I've concluded that I am stuck wandering helplessly through lonely corridors. I am trapped within the asylum walls that are my very own mind. I am trembling in the corner as I feel every inch of who I once was shriveling away, yet in such a state of peril, I can manage something graceful and joyous. Being able to feast my eyes upon this masterpiece of a girl was the only thing keeping me sane these days.

Burying my face deeper into her fuzzy sweater, I blocked out nearly all the light around me. With my curtains closed and the rain pouring down outside there wasn't much light to be found in the first place, and it was just the way I preferred it. The lamp on my bedside table could have been on, but I chose not to touch it, for it was the same light that lit up the owner of the fuzzy sweater's face. The moment played on and on in my head like a badly wound cassette, and I hadn't gotten the energy to wind it properly myself. Static-like pen scribbles in jumbles upon a page filled my ears and I realized I may never see such a sight again, and the replay kept taunting me. I felt a stinging in my eye as I buried myself deeper into the cardigan. The sensation was like being stung by dozens of bees non-stop. And once again I was thrown into the very thing my world had always been:

Chaos.

My heart racing like a sports car I wondered if this is when I would finally die. I wondered if this is when I would give out, taking visuals of paintings and blurry memories with me. And along with my perishing, I would take the sensation of her hand brushing up against mine and her touch, so dainty and sweet it could give you a cavity, down as well. A touch I knew would never be mine— at least in the way I had desired it. It almost left me wondering about what would be written on my gravestone. What kind of story would I allow those around me to tell? In fact, would I even be the one allowing it? I wouldn't be able to speak or see anything. So, what I should be asking is: 'what story would those around me tell of me?' Would they include the part of my life where I fell head over heels for someone who was never even half aware of my longing for them, or would they tell the story that glamorized my opportunities to be featured in a magazine? Would they tell the part about my mother's struggles raising me, or would they tell the world that I had a perfect life everyone supposed I had? Would they even think to tell about how I am laying practically limp in my bed, unable to feel my face, or my skin against the sheets, or even the very bones that hold me together? Would they include how I am crumbling at my very foundation due to each emotional earthquake I experience with aftershocks more powerful than the last? Would they tell the part about how I can sense my heart is waiting for the right moment to explode in my chest, splattering across my very wounded soul? Would they? Or would they lie? I'm starting to think it might be the latter…

It's a bit odd to close your eyes when the only thing you can visualize is how shitty your life is or could be. It's not like I'm a total lost cause. I mean, I have an amazing mother and wonderful friends… and this… girl, yet, I still feel so empty. Through all these smiling faces I'm still tempted to dash through the crowd and throw myself down this black hole that I know I may never return from. I'll keep tumbling into the darkness and end up at the base of Griffith Park or something. Sometimes it feels like the only way is down. This entire time it's felt like I've only been going down with a few branches here and there to attempt to break my fall, but each time either of my limbs hit something new it only does more good than bad. Maybe if I tried grabbing for things myself it would get better. Maybe then I could save myself the pain and suffering. But it's impossible… Then what will happen? Once I hit the ground, the bottom of the barrel, what will I become? Will I be just another dead man who couldn't help himself, or will I be someone who struggled and thrashed about till the very end? Will I be known as the person who reached out for every rock and branch imaginable, no matter how frail each object appeared to be, in hopes of just making it out? Because, as far as I'm concerned, I'm no longer that person. Once my body slams against the base of the mountain, I'll be nothing. Nothing at all. I'll leave everything I've ever known behind. While knowing I could've done more, someway, somehow, I only kept falling, and that leads me to believe that was all I could do. Fall. Fall until I couldn't anymore.

Immersed in each shadowy corner of my mind I barely notice the soft knocking at my bedroom door, each echo against the wood becoming fainter as time went on. A woman's voice calling out my name could be made out, but all I could hear was my heart beating rapidly against my chest, threatening to break out of my ribcage like a criminal. It was pounding against the jail cell in my brain and my ears. Everything mixed in with the rampant rapping outside my room to the pounding in my ears to the flashing images in my head and to the static accompanying all the other terrifying sounds I could hear, became the soundtrack to the horror movie in my mind. In my nightmarish day-dream I hit the ground, and I experienced an epiphany so crude yet so familiar, and I found myself caught in the very thing I had never been able to escape.

Chaos.