Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach
*************************************************************************************
Welcome to the world of the plastic beach…
*************************************************************************************
A hazy consciousness began to peek its way through his awareness. 2D blearily opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was standing at the window of his Beirut hotel room, watching drearily as the daily traffic screamed and honked its way through the crowded city below. But as he blinked slowly through the darkness, he wasn’t sure where he happened to have ended up.
For a brief moment, 2D felt panic rise in his chest. He feared that he’d gone blind, that his damaged eyes had finally given up and succumbed to the blood filling his pupils. However, as the seconds ticked by, a faint crack of light registered in his sluggish brain and he felt a rush of relief. Reaching toward the source of the light, his hand hit the silken wall in front of him before he gave it a gentle shove.
Dazzling sunlight hit 2D’s eyes, and he squinted hard into the blinding area around him, his limb stretching stiffly out from his body. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing wasn’t a hallucination.
The ground around him gleamed a florescent pink in the bright mid-afternoon light, and expanded beyond 2D’s distance of sight. He set down a shaky foot, pulling himself up out of what he realized was a large and rather ratty suitcase. Although a small part of him had expected the mysterious pink ground to be soft, the material felt hard and strangely hollow as he experimentally stomped on it, and he slowly realized why. Trash sat piled at his feet, containing everything from metal pipes and cans, to hunks of plastic, used syringes, to what appeared to be heaps and heaps of old clothes, all of which were the same neon color. He took a few steps forward and gasped as what lay behind the fields of pink came into his line of vision.
He was surrounded by a vast ocean.
2D felt the bottom of his stomach drop through his middle and bile start to rise up to his throat. Exactly where was he, and how far had he been taken from his apartment back in Lebanon? How had he gotten here? Would anyone realize he was gone? He hadn’t been in contact with much of anyone over the last several months. After Gorillaz had broken up for the second time, he hadn’t felt the same need to go out into the celebrity world and make his mark. Noodle’s death had sent him into a heavy lull of melancholia that left him with a sense of urgency to hide himself away from anyone that might try to ask about her disappearance, about Murdoc or Russel, and with his parents both having died during the Demon Days tour, he had rented out a small apartment where he was somewhat sure the band never got too popular. The last time he had really talked to anyone had been when Britt Ekland had given him a ring to ask if he wanted to attend one of her infamous Halloween parties, but he had quickly told her no and hung up the phone. The familiar buzz of anxiety overtook his senses and his vision started to swim. How was he going to get back? No one was even going to come looking for him. Just as the blood began to rush in his ears and his hearing started fade, a boisterous voice cut through the air.
“Ah, there’s the man of the hour! I told the post to leave you at the front door, but looks like they were raring to get back out to sea- not that I blame ‘em.”
2D would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was loud, rough from years of heavy smoking, and always had the sort of wild, dangerous edge to it that 2D found both enrapturing and terrifying. He could have picked it out of a crowd of thousands of people, and it was often the voice he heard when he thought about his life of fame. It was a voice he had hoped to never hear again.
2D turned shakily, not completely trusting himself to stay upright, to see the man walking toward him with a leisurely gait, arms spread wide as if he was about to embrace him.
Murdoc grinned down at him, a manic glint in his eyes. His smile was a snake-like, toothy grin and he gestured up at the huge building behind him, at which 2D let out an involuntary gasp when his gaze finally fell upon it.
“Stu, my boy- welcome to the world of Plastic Beach.”
*************************************************************************************