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You win, Kevin. Everything goes right. You and community radio prevail. And you are happier than ever. Desert Bluffs is a wonderful town, and you live happily in it.
Cecil’s voice echoed in Kevin’s head. He hadn’t forgotten the promising message his friend had left him with. It had been so sure, so absolute. He couldn’t help but put all his faith it it.
So why was everything going so wrong?
Lawrence Levine. Mayor Pablo Mitchell. Grandma Josephine. Everyone in the beautiful-- no, now abused-- town of Desert Bluffs was unrecognizable. Chilling smiles lurked in every corner, yet no one seemed to be happy. And their eyes. Kevin had never seen anything more repulsive, more horrifying, more empty. He didn’t like horrifying. Kevin was used to comfort. He was used to the familiar faces of his friends in the very superb town of Desert Bluffs. He was used to repetition, to patterns. These patterns, these constants in his life, he enjoyed them more than anything.
But nothing was constant about his life now.
He waited in his community radio station. He was the only one left, the only one that Strexcorp Synernists Inc. hadn’t changed yet. Cecil told him he won this battle, he knew there must be a way to defeat Strex still. There was still hope. There had to be. Cecil had said so. He would return home to his grandmother. She would smile, something she did so often, something that seemed so mundane and common. Something he hadn’t seen since she was changed.
Changed. It was something that had happened to everyone in Desert Bluffs. It was too kind of a word for something so gruesome. Strex, they did something to everyone. Something Kevin couldn’t figure out. It seemed like a terrifying process, the people that went through it weren’t people by the time they were finished with it. Their smiles grew wider, practically reaching their ears. No one seemed truly happy, though. They were just empty. Their eyes, once bright and filled with life, were empty and black.
Smile, Kevin, you’re going to win, he told himself. Deep down, he knew it couldn’t be true, but what did he have if not hope? Everyone needed happiness and hope, and the both of those seemed to be waning for him.
He gazed outside and recognized many people, but it was all wrong. This hollow, counterfeit town wasn’t the Desert Bluffs he knew. The Desert Bluffs he knew was gone.
There was no way of fixing that.
He forced a smile onto his face, he couldn’t be sad. That was exactly what Strex wanted, and it’ll be a cold day in Hell when he succumbs to their demands. He had to push away all the dark realizations.
He thought of Cecil and smiled. Their only conversation had lasted only a few minutes, but they had gotten along so well.
The room he sat in, the community radio station, was simplistically beautiful. Over the years of speaking in it, he’d grown to love it more and more. Paintings hung in the room, and everything was decorated to his liking. Soon, though, Strex would arrive and try to claim this station as their own. They would try to take what was rightfully his, what was rightfully the Bluffs’.
They wouldn’t stop at that, no. They would try to take his life.
Anger filled his senses, a feeling he wasn’t used to. Strex made him… it made him want to… stop smiling. He wanted to stop smiling really hard. He couldn’t let this happen.
Strex was close. He had to do something. He had a happy ending, he hoped, -- no, he knew . All he had to do was fight for it. Kevin had always supported small businesses over omnipresent governments, but Strex was somehow its own form of totalitarianism.
Kevin opened the door and stepped outside, standing between Strex and the building. It wasn’t just a building, he knew. It was the last remaining icon of the legendary Desert Bluffs he had once known. Be happy, Kevin, he reminded himself, you win. Desert Bluffs will rise again.
Strexcorp employees came closer, and with them came a brooding feeling, a terrible sensation. He didn’t like it. It wasn’t constant at all. Each employee was equally terrible, but in a different way.
A woman smiled broadly, sending shivers down Kevin’s spine. “Kevin, Kevin,” she chirped. “Your recalcitrant nature is quite unproductive,” she began, “you don’t want to be unproductive, now, do you?” Her cold eyes seemed calculating, as if Kevin was a problem that needed to be solved, and she was the one who knew how to solve it.
“I don’t care about being productive! I care about the well-being of this town and the people in it. This is my town, this is my community.” His anger was beginning to shine, or rather, burn, through, “you’ve destroyed it! You’ve taken the life and soul out of it.” His voice was a mixture of rage and pure emotion.
The strange woman with the terrible smile and coal eyes simply laughed. It was a hollow sound that expressed no happiness whatsoever.
It wasn’t a laugh at all. It grated on Kevin’s ears.
“I’m Lauren, Kevin. Lauren Mallard,” she replied, completely ignoring what Kevin had said. “Why are you so upset? Sadness leads to laziness, and being lazy isn’t productive. We here at Strexcorp want everyone to reach their full productive potential! Isn’t that great?”
“What are you doing to these people? They aren’t the same. They’re… they’re empty !” Kevin’s passionate voice echoed in the silent town. This utterance clearly upset the Strexcorp workers, who began stepping closer to him.
“Boy, I do dislike it when people dislike Strexcorp,” Lauren tsked. “Don’t you dislike it, Daniel? So many people could become so productive, yet laziness overcomes them. Isn’t it upsetting?”
“ Very upsetting,” a man, Daniel, confirms.
“Very upsetting,” Lauren repeated. At this point, it was clear to Kevin that they were taking absolutely nothing that he said into consideration, or even bothering to answer his questions. “Kevin, you’re going to have to move. We can show you the power of the Smiling God, oh, I’m sure you’ll love it!”
“ No! ” Kevin exclaimed, bracing himself for a fight. “Desert Bluffs is a beautiful community, it used to be filled with beautiful, wonderful people. Until you came in and destroyed it, tore it apart and removed its soul!”
“Kevin, soon you’ll see. We made Desert Bluffs so much better. Didn’t we, Daniel?”
“We sure did.”
“Just trust the Smiling God and you’ll work hard, too. That would be so very good! Yay!” Lauren grinned, her voice still annoyingly high-pitched. “So, we’re giving you an opportunity to move and allow us to buy the radio station. Isn’t that nice of us? Not everyone gets such a generous offer!”
Kevin stood in silence, filled with resilience, showing no sign of moving.
“Oh, you party pooper, you! Tsk, tsk. It does make me want to… stop smiling when things like this happen. Daniel, please punish this lazypants,” Lauren huffed, crossing her arms.
Kevin braced himself. This was it, this was the battle Cecil promised that he would win. He knew he would win. He had to win.
Strexcorp charged at him.
You win, Kevin.
He began to charge back and suddenly realized how terrified he was. One person up against dozens. But… he was supposed to win. He would win.
Everything goes right.
He saw Strexcorp pull out knives and other weapons he couldn’t identify. They were indescribable. Terrible. Ghastly.
You and community radio prevail.
He didn’t feel it right away. The adrenaline had kicked in, but all he could see was blood. Gruesome, gruesome blood. It was everywhere. Blackness crept into his vision as he flung himself at everyone.
And you are happier than ever.
What was he doing? He was unarmed, going against dozens of Strexcorp representatives armed with these… these torture weapons. He clawed at them, incapable of thinking of anything else to do.
Blood. So much blood.
Desert Bluffs is a wonderful town, and you live happily in it.
All at once, he felt the pain. What was once sheer pressure had transcended into indescribable agony. He hadn’t realized he was screaming. He hadn’t realized his face was stricken with tears. He crumbled, surrounded by blood, surrounded by his victorious enemy.
How could this have happened? Cecil said he won... why hadn’t he won? What had he done wrong to deserve this reality? He thought he did everything right, everything perfectly. He rebelled against Strex, he fought valiantly.
So why was he surrounded by his own blood?
Strexcorp entered the community radio station. Kevin couldn’t even stand. He had deep injuries that he knew would never heal.
All at once, he was dizzy. He couldn’t feel anything, yet at the same time his entire body screamed in torment. He felt… detached, as if he were drifting away. Two hands began to grip him as his vision was engulfed by darkness. For a short while… or, perhaps, a long while. Whiles are quite different to comprehend, it was nothing but darkness. Void.
Brightness.
All at once, everything was bright. Blinding. The light was everywhere. It was… beautiful.
Kevin got up, his previous pain had seemingly vanished. Any last trace of it had dissipated.
He was laying in the old, poorly decorated radio station. Could he have actually once thought that this bland old place was well-decorated? He felt his shirt, and to his absolute delight it was still covered in blood. Euphoric, rapturous blood. Wonderful, sublime blood. All of his suffering had been replaced with this… this ecstatic feeling. His body, although covered in blood and injuries, didn’t hurt him at all. If anything, it brought him great pleasure.
He wanted more of it.
He smiled, he was so happy, and realized it was an even wider grin than he could’ve ever mustered before. How absolutely delightful. He rose, the inhuman smile never leaving. He was so blissfully happy. He wanted more of the feeling.
He craved it.
And so, he sought it out. He let his instincts take over. It was relaxing. He had never felt more at peace, the utter serenity was something he had never experienced before.
Suddenly, blood was on his hands. The mellifluous sound of skin tearing filled his ears as he began to kill, and kill, and kill, and kill, and kill…
Whose blood was on his shirt? It was a mixture between his own and someone else’s. Who else? Whose dismembered hand was he holding? Kevin didn’t know. It was handy all the same. He didn’t care. He didn’t think. He was happy, deliriously happy, and it was wonderful. Everything was wonderful!
He decorated the workplace in blood, it was so old and boring before. Blood surrounded him, he loved it. It smelled so delightful, so delicious. He craved it like a drug, he craved this feeling. A throat was now in his hand, he didn’t know to whom it belonged to. But, honestly, did it matter? The feeling, the perpetual adrenaline that coursed through him as he lay waste to anything he wanted… anything he desired. For that’s what it was: an overwhelming desire. It just made him light up. He was an addict, and this was his addiction, and there was nothing wrong with it. At least, through his cold, dark eyes.
He was unaware of so much, and accepted that he was unaware of this all. Who were these people that he was killing? Why was he doing these terrible, terrible things? Why hadn’t he done these things before? He couldn’t remember. So he simply kept going. Why should he stop? The answers just didn’t make sense. All these questions were inconvenient, and Kevin sure didn’t appreciate inconveniences.
He practically waltzed with joy around the room, bloodlust dulling his sense of reason as he traced his fingers through some of the blood on the floor.
A hand grasped his shoulder, jolting him from his happy place. It was Lauren. A second passed, and the raging bloodlust subsided. No guilt burdened him. In fact, he felt better than ever. Better than he could remember being before. It was bliss, and the station looked great . It had been so plain before. Now, it dazzled! Hadn’t Cecil warned him about something? His memories seemed to escape him, after all, it was only the present that mattered.
Kevin had never seen something as beautiful as this. It was enough to make him giggle at what he had done. It was almost a sickening pride that he took in it. It was… also quite distracting. Lauren’s voice caught his attention, breaking his loving gaze with the dozens of mangled bodies.
“Kevin, how are you feeling?” Lauren inquired, causing his violent thoughts to abate once again.
He raised a hand to push some already-bloody hair out of his face, which only managed to get more blood on his features. It didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Better than ever, Lauren!” He beamed at the strewn and… quite brutally dismembered corpses around him. They just gave him such a bubbly feeling inside! Their lifeless smiles only made his own wider. “Oh, absolutely amazing!”
“Feeling great leads to maximum productivity, you know. It makes me happy to hear that you’re happy!” She stood several feet away from him, her shoes soaked in blood, but otherwise untouched.
“And it makes me happy to hear that you’re happy!” Minutes ago, Kevin would’ve strangled himself for using that tone he had so recently despised. Now, it just felt natural. Correct.
He thought of Cecil... what was it that Cecil said? That he lived happily in the end? Well, it looked like he was right! What could possibly be a happier ending than working hard and playing equally hard with Strexcorp? Nothing! Absolutely nothing could be better! He would have to show Cecil this feeling, too.
Everything was perfect. Productivity would be astounding with the entire town of Desert Bluffs working their hardest.
Yes, this ending was perfect.
Kevin smiled wider than he ever had before.
There was work to be done.