SIDE A | CHAPTER 6

Larry George

July 17th, 2015

Lights.

Camera.

Action!

The cheers of the crowd drowned everything else out. Lasers shot into the sky in all colors and assortments. On the stage was a single performer—a single talent that encapsulated the joy of all who stood in attendance.

Larry George stood tall on the stage with his guitar strapped over his shoulder. He was forty-nine years old and still carrying the most energy out of everyone at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He thrust his hands into the air into a rhythmic clap. The audience joined him and the combined synchronicity of the noise drove Larry into his final song for the night—his hottest single and the very song that sent the crowd into a vivacious explosion of excitement at the very start, "Little Moon".

The night blossomed into cherished memories that the concert-goers would remember for the rest of their lives. When the show eventually ended Larry wanted nothing more than to forget the night ever happened. His life hasn't been his life—that much has been true since the very beginning. Kappy designed his childhood so that he could have full and total control over his adulthood. It was a simple fact of life that he has known for a long, long time. And yet each day still promised him the tantalizing thought of what freedom could be like. Larry dreamed about freedom every single night—but he knew exactly what that freedom would cost.

Larry drove alone back to his hotel room and undressed. An earpiece remained in his ear from the concert—however it wasn't for any negligent reason.

"excellent performance larry. aren't you happy? you have your childhood dream of playing all these big shows."

Larry didn't respond. Terrible memories flashed through his mind each time he heard that cursed voice. He hasn't talked to Kappy since the day he broke inside. It was after the dog—back in 2013—when Kappy ordered Larry to end the life of a young girl who was a fan of his music. Kappy had assured him that he would not face any legal ramifications, and Larry was more than sure he was telling the truth, but obviously that was not the major concern Larry had with the request.

"You're asking me to kill someone, Kappy. I can't do that."

"i am done explaining this to you, larry. you do as I advise. you know of the consequences. unfortunately your father has passed, but there are others you care about. and if somehow you no longer care about them in an effort to spite me, then I have prepared for that possibility as well. let's just say more than a single person will die if you do not listen to me."

And so Larry did. It wasn't difficult by any meaning of the word. Larry was set up at a yearly convention in Saratoga when the girl approached him for an autograph—she couldn't have been older than ten. There were plenty of witnesses all around—it was inside a crowded convention center after all.

Yet.

No-one.

Cared.

He wrapped his hands around her throat and picked her up. She flailed. Gurgling sounds spewed from her throat and nobody around gave them the time of day. Larry finished and dropped the girl to the ground—still invisible to the people around. He moved on with his day. He never spoke back to Kappy again—only listened when he was given advice and he followed it.

Now he sat in his empty hotel room as the excitement of the concert died down inside himself. Kappy spoke in his ear.

"i think...that the time i have been waiting for is ready to come. larry, we're going to cancel your show tomorrow. i want you to come to where i am. i want you to see me face to face."

Before, this kind of news would have begged all sorts of questions from Larry, but he was through with questions—through with asking—through with fighting. He did not answer, but he would comply.

He slept and on the very next day started up his car and drove. He turned when told and ended up driving for four hours without stopping—ignoring the hunger that built up. He wasn't sure if Kappy cared if he ate so long he followed what he was told.

He arrived in Washington DC after eight full hours of driving—only stopping when commanded by Kappy to refuel. Larry's stomach was screaming for food, but he still not dared bend from the commands. He parked outside what looked to be an abandoned Costco. His was the only car in the lot—and it was strange to see any sort of parking lot as empty as this was.

"make your way inside and find the employee break room, larry."

He turned the car off and suddenly felt the weight of the cassette player in his pocket. He sighed and stepped out of the car, did what he was told and entered the Costco. The lights were all turned off—it looked like nobody had been around to pay the bill. The uneasy smell of rotting food invaded him. With no power the refrigerators had stopped working, leaving everything inside them to go to waste.

He forced his stomach to stay still as he pressed on. He moved passed the empty check out lanes to a section of the store marked "EMPLOYEES ONLY". The rotting smell only grew as he stepped inside—the break room was thrown apart by what must have been looters looking for an easy meal. Whoever did it must not have been satisfied as all the food that had once sat in the refrigerator now lie out in the open with flies feasting happily.

Larry held the headphones close to his ear but this time didn't hear Kappy's voice through them—he was close enough to hear the echoes of his guide's voice through the walls.

"come downstairs, larry."

He didn't move—simply looked to confirm that he did not see any sort of stairs that he could feasibly walk down. Was this how his journey would end? Stuck in some dead-end store to never end up finding the one who had called him here? It turned out—no, that was not how this story was going to play out. A panel in the wall receded and opened to a doorway six feet tall—it opened to darkness. To anyone normal this fact might cause confusion or wonder at the events playing out—to Larry he simply sighed and moved toward the doorway.

He took the first step into the darkness and found his footing on a stone slab of a step. Each step down was a greater leap from the last—until the last of which he had to sit down to crawl his way off the edge as the distance between had been a good ten feet.

"you're almost there."

Larry continued forward. Lights guiding his path from above him until he reached a large metal door that looked twice his size. It opened with a slow, crawling groan and bade him inside. The room was mostly empty—machinery of unknown purposes clung to the far edge of the cylindrical room, but in the center commanding attention was a singular tank connected at both the floor and ceiling. The tank was filled with a green fluid and some sort of creature—one the likes Larry had never seen before, but in his heart, he knew exactly what it was.

It was an amorphous being that floated inside the tank—its body was filled with a multi-colored gel that glowed as he walked in.

"welcome, larry. you've finally made it. i bet you have plenty of questions."

"I only want to know what you are. Everything else I've stopped caring about. If you're going to ruin the rest of my life I at least want to know why."

"i do not aim to ruin your life, larry, but I shall tell you my story. you are the first in a long time that I will..."

It was late in the summer of 1903 when a meteor crashed into southern Kentucky grasslands near a farm owned by an old man. Inside the crater a protoplasmic specimen crawled on gooey appendages before shifting its appearance to that of a human infant before being discovered by the man. Confused of the child's origin his hospitable side had him take the child in; caring for it as if it were his own.

The infant aged slower than a normal human. After 25 years of caring for the child the farmer passed away and the creature looked like that of a 15 year old—it had no gender and no name which it was called—the farmer had only referred to it as "You".

Once the farmer passed, You stayed in the farmhouse as it was the only home it had known on Earth. It was able to stay here until one of the farmer's exporters—confused at the mysterious cease of shipment—arrived to investigate. The exporter discovered the farmer's corpse and the creature he believed responsible for the act.

The farmer never made public knowledge the existence of the child, so the exporter believed that the creature had murdered the old man to take his home. He confronted You, accusing it of murder and theft of the man's home, which caused the creature to become upset. The exporter called the police and drove the creature out of the old man's home. For the next eleven years You would live off the streets and on the run—only visibly aging about four years in that time. During its experiences with the Great Depression You learned how to deal with sorrow and how to survive on the smallest amounts of food.

As Germany invaded Poland in 1939 You took notice of the savagery of the German blitzkrieg. It sympathized with those they terrorized. It listened to a lot of blues around this time—concocting a new identity based on one of its favorite singers, Alonzo Johnson. It shifts its physical appearance to be more masculine and enlisted in the army—remembering the stories that the farmer had told it about his time at war.

It was put on reserve under the alias of Alonzo Johnson. It succeeded in its training to join the United States Third Army. It was sent to clean up Germany in the invasion that took place in 1945. It acted differently in combat as it was trained, as it didn't care about protecting its fellow soldiers. It instead focused on defending those who cannot defend themselves, such as with the Polish and German Jews who were stolen away into the concentration camps. You saw the war through to the end. It witnessed the trials of the German soldiers and the aftermath of the fighting. You's sense of justice over humanity wanes as it comes to terms with the atrocity of the war crimes that these humans could inflict on one another.

As You dedicated itself to rebuilding the lives of those destroyed by the war it saw that the victims it tried to help also carried darkness within. Cries of revenge and blood lust were common whispers that traveled through the night. During this time You began to fully understand human nature—it only served to wrong and hurt one another rather than to live and co-exist. It was also during this time that the creature discovers its ability to project its voice through certain human electronics, but only devices that the creature's personally touched can be made into a channel for it to communicate through.

It spent its time throughout the second half of the 1940s and all of the 1950s creating 95 different channels through which it could communicate through. You decided that if humanity was willing to fight itself to extinction it would stop fighting it, instead it would act as its guide to the bitter end. It had sent the channels it had created to guide certain individuals to turn the tide of the planet.

Unfortunately, the first listeners of You's voice didn't last longer than three months without ending their lives. Disturbed, You had been shocked to learn that the human mind was quite more fragile than it originally believed. Most people that listened to You ended up dead sooner rather than later. All except for Larry. Larry was the one exception who lasted. He suffered immense tragedy, but he still continued—he still lasted. You would do everything in its power to make sure he would continue to last.