Southtale Draft #1

Not many of the small little mountain town's inhabitants thought much about the mountains, despite it being a mountain town. Sure, weird shit came from that direction sometimes, but a lot of weird shit happened in Colorado. Honestly, at some point, you just got used to it. You could look deeper into it, certainly, but there was no guarantee you'd like what you found. One of many such legends was one of Mt. Ebott - one particular mountain that loomed on the edge of town that was probably seen as some kind of suicidal cult-ritual thing, and at any rate one girl had literally plummeted into there head first at some point, slammed her head on the ground, and died. Messily. And bloodily.

Or at least that was how Mr. Garrison was describing it.

"Now, children, if you don't want to end up like that little dead girl, you might wanna step away from that edge. But if you've got any suicidal rituals to complete, I can't advise you as your teacher to do it, so come back when I'm not on the job and see what you can do then." Those were the wise words of a teacher who had seen far, far too much. "Especially you, Eric." Whether that was 'please die' or 'keep away from that edge' remained to be seen, but nonetheless a certain group of five boys were peering over the ledge with wide eyes.

"G-Gosh, it is a long way down..." Butters was the first to speak up, taking a look down. It was pretty much pitch black, and unless you had a really sharp eye, you couldn't see something faintly yellow at the bottom. "I don't even wanna think about how that girl felt."

"She didn't feel for long, at least." Stan remarked, before realizing what he said, and then backpedaling a bit. "I guess that's reassuring?"

"...Yeah, it'd be worse if she were down there screamin' for help and no one ever went and saved her....'course, they couldn't, 'cause if they fell they'd die too..."

Cartman was the one who took one look down, smirked, and gently nudged Kyle, which got him a glare from the green-capped boy. "What? I didn't do anything, Kyle." He shrugged, the smirk on his face betraying him. "But you did inch a bit close to that edge. I thought Stan was the depressed suicidal one."

"Dude, fuck you." was Stan's prompt reply, before Kyle immediately nudged Cartman instead.

"KYLE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!" Whereas normally that would be said in a terrified, horrified voice...this one was instead a tattling voice that only got a sigh from their very bored teacher.

"Kyle, quit trying to murder your classmates."

"I am not!" Kyle protested...before Cartman nudged him towards the edge again. "He's the one doing it, you don't see that?! No one sees that?!"

"Mpphmpphmpphmppph." 'I see it, but who the hell listens to me, anyway?'

This whole 'attempted murder' thing had turned into a nudging fest, each time drifting closer and closer to the edge...before Kyle accidentally nudged him a bit too hard, and--

"Ow, that one actually fucking hurt, Jew, what are yo--" He felt the Earth below him giving way, and looked at Kyle in pure horror. "--Did you actually--" He began to fall. "OH, SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT--"

Kyle's eyes popped open wide in horror. "C-CARTMAN?!" He yelped, before stepping back, and falling flat onto his ass. "I didn't--he didn't--holy SHIT, dude!"

"Dude, you KILLED CARTMAN!" Stan yelped.

"MMPHMMPH!" 'You BASTARD!'

...And, of course, Kyle was the only one horrified by this development. Garrison looked at the edge, then at Kyle, and then at his student roster for attendance. "Well. That's one off the list. Considering who it was, I don't think they'll take it too badly, but this still might lead to charges...Kyle."

Kyle stared up in horror. "I didn't...he didn't...oh my god..." There, surprisingly, wasn't an aching silence. Everyone was going about things as if they were normal. And that was kind of a given, when the fact of the matter was that Eric Cartman was now dead, and that was basically as good as exorcising a demon to some of them, and the only ones who seemed remotely effected were Kyle, Stan, Kenny, and Butters. Though little did they know, of course, that he wasn't entirely dead...

He'd expected a loud crash, and then he'd be dead. If he was lucky. If he wasn't lucky, there'd be a lot of agonizing pain, but he wouldn't be dead yet. That'd be if he was lucky. If he wasn't lucky, there'd be a heavy dosage of agonizing pain before he died, complete with him cursing Kyle with his last breath. And the entire Jewish lineage, honestly, but he planned to do that on the day he died anyway. At least this time he could blame it all on Kyle and be perfectly in the right. The thought was almost reassuring, and perhaps the soft feeling he felt under his body was just embracing death, but...

Wait. What the fuck?

No, he wasn't dead. He could move, he wasn't dead. "Of course you're not dead." An unfamiliar voice got him to jump back when he was only barely sitting up. It was the voice of a girl floating beside him in a green shirt and brown pants, with a short brown haircut and big red eyes. "Because I saved your life." She spoke, pointing to herself proudly. "Me, and those." She pointed to what he was sitting on - a bed of yellow flowers. Buttercups, if he had to guess. He looked up at her in utter confusion, before lowing his expression to simply quirking a brow and speaking.

"Oh, yeah, you're the little dead girl, right?"

"Nice observation." She deadpanned, looking less than impressed. "And you'd be the little dead boy, if I hadn't saved your fat ass."

"Hey, fuck you, ghost bitch." Cartman snarled, getting up and dusting himself off. "At least it would've ended up with Kyle in jail for the rest of his life." He frowned, before speaking up again. "So why the hell did you save me? And...this looks ridiculously big to be just the mountain, and I've seen Hell before, and it sure isn't this."

"Alright, look." The girl raised her hands in a 'one-at-a-time' gesture. "First off, you're in the Underground. That's where all the monsters are kept behind a barrier. And me. There's this whole thing with a barrier where you can get seven human souls, become a god, yadda yadda, you get the picture. Your soul is the last one the monster king needs to become a god and basically throttle every human out there in existence. We don't want that. What we do want is to get me out, whatever it takes. And you're my catalyst. You're essentially immortal now, while we're going through this."

"Oh. Fun. Do I still feel the pain every time I die? Because if so, fuck you even harder and with a rake if possible."

"If you load a state fast enough, you don't."

"And just how do you do that? Do you just believe?" He half-felt like hoping for Butters to somehow feel depressed enough in his pathetic life to fall down here instead and handle this for him - it seemed like one of those problems where it would better be handled by a mind that had optimism and almost delusional cheeriness as opposed to someone who could discern things with a cynical eye. "Because the only thing I've believed in--"

"I can only believe in a world without monsters, alright?" The girl cut him off. "All I wish for is a world without monsters." She spoke, a strangely...familiar tone to her voice. Cartman's lip quirked for a moment, before forming up into a smile.

"I get the picture now."

"Do you? Do you really?"

"Yep."

"Then I suppose we have an agreement. Partners?"

"Partners."