South Park One-Shots

100 Prompts - 5. Christophe De'Lorne

Prompt: "You aren't here to make friends."

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The year is 2919, and all ideas of freedom have been shot out the window. We live in a wasteland, where every family must sacrifice one of their children to the government so that it may have an army and soldiers it can sacrifice in the battle against all enemies.

Most families give up their first born, in worry that they'll never have another, but not my family...

I was the youngest of four, and my mother loved my brothers too much to let them come into harm's way. So when the soldiers in black came knocking at the door in the annual sweep, I was thrusted into their arms at five years old, my mother refusing to look at me while I sobbed and cried and begged for her to save me.

She never even shed a tear.

When they brought me to the capital, I could see the rows upon rows of barracks, where current students were being taught about the best ways to murder those who fought against them. I cried again, but the lead soldier who had retrieved me from my house slapped me harshly, causing my face to jerk to the side and my voice to get caught in my throat.

"-Now, listen to me. You will work for this government, and we will train you to become one of the most lethal things that has ever walked the planet. You are not here to make friends." The instructor was stern and her eyes glared into all of our five year old souls, causing me to shudder and turn to the boy next to me. He looked really scary, and his hair was wild, and his eyes looked like they had dragged him out of the woods by his feet.

He was constantly scoffing when they spoke, and he rolled his eyes at everything the leaders said, and no amount of lashing or slapping or cruel punishments could convince him to hold that anarchist tongue.

I had never heard that word before I met this boy. Anarchist. He told me one night, while we were laying in our cot that we shared, that he was an anarchist.

"What's that?"

The boy turned to me, his eyes glaring at me yet he didn't seem like he was mad at me. Perhaps he was mad that my parents hadn't educated me, or perhaps he was angry that the government had taken us in the first place. "An anarchist, Y/n, is a person who submits to no government. Who has no leader. Who knows that what this government is doing is wrong." He kept his voice hushed, but the words he spoke made my heart race so quickly that I could feel my pulse in my ears.

I stared at him. "Are you the only one?"

He smiled, his green eyes giving me the slightest twinkle. "Never. There's many, many of us out there. My parents led an anarchist revolution," his face grew solemn and he looked away for a minute, "well, until they were snuffed out by these cocksuckers."

It occurred to me that I had spent 5 months with this boy and yet had never learned his name. He knew mine, but when it came to his, all I could do was draw a blank. That didn't mean I didn't know him, though. I knew how he refused to scream when they lashed him, and I knew how he cried himself to sleep on the nights when the moon shone into the room because his mother used to take him out to see its beautiful glow while they watched the moon flowers come to life around them. I knew that he favored those younger than us, and that when he found a three year old soldier-in-training, he immediately would become their guardian, taking any lashing they might have had on his raw back.

But I needed to learn his name. I needed to put together this last piece of the puzzle and examine the whole picture.

So I turned to him.

"What is your name? You know mine..." I spoke softly, and I was almost certain he didn't hear me, but then I saw his lips curl into a smile.

"My name is Christophe Augustus Lorenzo De'Lorne. My mother was French, and my father was Italian." I mouthed those words, a little confused, but then he continued. "France and Italy were countries before the wars that destroyed us all. Both had amazing cuisine, powerful citizens, and breathtaking sights." Christophe yawned, rubbing at his eyes. "My greatest dream has always been to go there, to see what they once may have seen."

I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, and so I laid down next to Christophe, my threadbare blanket over both of us as my arms wrapped around him. "Will you be my friend, Christophe?"

His voice was breezy, like he was almost on the other end of the curtain that separated our dreams from our reality,

"Always."

Thirteen Years Later

"De'Lorne! Cover my back!" I shouted, running into the trench and aiming my blaster over the rim, shooting quickly at the man who was charging us. We had gotten into this war three years ago, and I had been on the field since my birthday, which was 8 weeks ago.

Christophe had been here two weeks less than that, but he was much more powerful than I.

He pulled an explosive off of his coat, pulling the pin before hurling it into the enemy trench, yanking me down so that we weren't struck by debris. The explosion rattled everything and I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment before rising again, shooting at the survivors until they hit the floor.

The dreams of being an anarchist had left Christophe the longer he was here, or so I had believed. He never spoke to me late at night about the beauty of France, or the romance of Italy anymore, and when the moon was full and it would light up the room with its holy glow, he merely rolled over so that it wasn't in his eyes. Being here had killed his soul.

Christophe screamed out, bringing me from my dreams and into the reality of our war.

He was bleeding, badly. I knew that our commanders would expect me to leave Christophe to bleed out, would want me to further the mission and lead our soldiers to their own deaths, but I couldn't. I needed to do all I could for Christophe.

I noticed that his bullet wound was close to his heart, but not quite there, so he would have about three minutes unless I could find a medic to help me. I inspected the view, grew hopeful, and then was crushed. Our last medic was just shot in the face, collapsing immediately.

The only thing I could do now was make it comfy for Christophe, I suppose.

I removed his pack from his shoulders, using it for a pillow and laying him down. I stroked his hair, remembering how wild I had found it when I first laid eyes on him. His eyes couldn't stay open, his eyelids were too heavy. This made me whimper. I wasn't ready to lose him, wasn't ready to watch my only friend die.

Christophe grabbed onto my body, too weak to form words but desperate to have his last moments in comfort. I hugged him close to myself, weeping softly as I felt him growing weaker in my arms.

"Do... do you remember what you told me, Christophe? About your biggest dream being that you wanted to see France and Italy?" My voice was quaking, but I continued, "Well, my... my dream was" I shut my eyes tightly, "my dream was to never lose you, and to never have to watch you die." There was a sharp break in my voice and I wept once more, but Christophe couldn't hear me.

He was gone.

The friend I was never meant to make had left me to live in this hell... alone.

I rose after kissing his forehead, letting out the loudest scream I could. This alerted my enemies to my location and I could feel myself becoming swarmed by snarling beasts and bloodthirsty men. I cried once more before they attacked.