The sun broke over the horizon, gently, with a kindly glare. Standing on the edge of a cliff was a man. This was no ordinary man. He watched the sun rise, the wind blowing his black hair in front of his face, a single strand wavering in front of his left eye. The sun reflected gloriously off of the man’s silken shirt, unbuttoned at the top to reveal just a little bit of a muscular chest, which was sure to allure women of all ages.

As the man sighed and closed his eyes to further enjoy the budding sunlight, a sharper gust of wind attempted to cast him off the edge. He waved his arms madly as he bent his legs and tried to keep his balance, and in the end fell on his butt, getting dirt all over himself.

The man sighed again, but this time with disappointment. He got up, his aura of coolness ruined, and started to trudge back into the forest.

The man’s name was Brian Boru. He resented his name. It wasn’t anything personal against his parents, but it was hard to take someone seriously when his name sounded like he was some sort of Japanese native who couldn’t pronounce the word blue. He wasn’t even Japanese. Or good at math. That alone should have been a dead give away.

Brian Boru trudged up the hill away from the cliff back to his campsite. His school had planned on going on a bonding camping trip, but once the other participates learned that Brian Boru would be coming, all the others had slowed ditched until it was just Brian Boru and the teacher hosting the event. During the night, even that teacher had abandoned him. It wasn’t that Brian Boru was unpopular (though he was), or that he smelled funny (he did). He was just one of those supremely whiney kinds of guys who would complain that the million woolong he won in a lottery wasn’t really what he wanted, or claim that yes, his girlfriend was incredibly hot, but still, he’d seen better. No sane man would volunteer to go camping, in a forest with this man.

Brian Boru struggled for a little while dismantle the tent before deciding that it was a lost pursuit and kicked it, becoming entangled in the many ropes. Several hours later, after he had finally freed himself with a larger Bowie knife (which is like a regular knife, except with David Bowie faced plastered on it) he found buried in the dirt, Brian Boru grabbed his backpack and a few spare marshmallows that he had hoped to toast with newfound life-long friends. That had not happened.

As he trudged toward what he hoped was the trail home (it wasn’t), Brian Boru contemplated his life. It wasn’t very exciting. In fact, it was so boring, he distracted himself from his own life by performing as much of the Fibonacci sequence as he could. He didn’t get very far. While he further contemplated his utter failure at anything interesting or useful, a rock that looked exactly like Vermont hit him on the side of his head. He paused. Then, he determined that it would be appropriate to cry. A single beautiful tear trickled down his face and fell to the ground.

That tear later gained cognizance and grew to mammoth proportions before convincing the silent but deadly tree people to join with it and take over the larger city of Abyssocottidae. They failed miserably and sank back into the forest, never to be heard from again.

But never mind the tear. What’s more important in this story is who chucked that Vermont shaped rock at Brian Boru’s head. I mean, not really important, but kind of. A little. Just for the plot, you know how these things go.

Yes.

“What the hell?” an angry voice said angrily. “There’s like a kid in my path. I totally was planning on destroying the Vermont shaped rock in my fierce hatred of all things Vermontian, particularly their cheese.”

“… Vermontian? What’s wrong with you? Can’t you just say ‘from Vermont’ like a normal person?” a squeakier-but-equally-angry-for-difference-reasons voice replied.

Brian Boru turned his head slowed and looked at his attackers. The taller, more obviously angry man had a spiked Mohawk on his head that revealed metal plating on either side. His eyes had a deranged look of confused anger and angry confusion. Brian Boru guessed that he was a cyborg from the future, though he didn’t really know. For once in his very short life, Brian Boru was correct, though he would never be told this. The cyborg’s name was Bebop. There’s a story behind this name, but I’ll get into that later.

The man beside Bebop was different. Shorter. Fatter. Less robotic. He had a smashed in nose like it had been stepped on at some sort of mosh/rave party gone wrong that gave his face the distinct look of… being smashed in. It didn’t really look like anything else. The man pretended that it made him look like a pirate, but that’s just because this character is an idiot, like all the other characters who will be introduced eventually. His name was Scab. There really was no story behind his name. He’s just Scab. Get used to it.

As Brian Boru described these men to himself, the two grow bored standing around waiting for the rising action to continue after the setting had been established. They had both agreed that the setting was quite shitty and needed some work, but they can shut their freaking gobs. I’d like to see them write a book. But HA! They can’t now because I declare them illiterate. What now, fools? That’ll teach you to mess with me.

“Shit,” Bebop said, trying and failing to read the letters on his Adidas shirt. “I’m still not done with Jane Eyre. I guess I never will now…”

“Why would you want to read that? Who cares about some girl who gets beat up in a closet? That happens every day of the week. Look,” and, to illustrate his point that child abuse is okay, Scab started to hit and kick Brian Boru.

Bebop joined in, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He liked the plucky heroine of the story, and was just starting to get into it. He momentarily supposed that there probably was some sort of movie adaptation, but after watching 6 hours-but-feels-like-60-hours long Pride and Prejudice remake, he didn’t have faith in the adaptors of literary classics.

“Yeah, I know, but still… It’s not just about a girl who gets beat up in a closet, unlike that other movie… what was it…” Bebop landed a good kick in the kidneys of Brian Boru, who had curdled up into the fetal position at the first sign of danger. “You know, that one with Snape and that chick with the huge hair.”

“Was it from the ‘90’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, they all had huge hair, how is that an accurate descriptor?”

“True, but then there’s Snape in it.”

“Oh, I know. Closetland.”

“That’s a really terrible title for a movie about molestation in a closet. It reminds me of Candyland…” Bebop trailed off.

“…that’s kind of disturbing. Is there something you want to tell me about your childhood, hmmm, Bebop?” Scab asked.

By this point in time, the two had gotten bored of kicking Brian Boru and were sitting down on two opposing boulders, which were conveniently placed nearby. Brian Boru stayed in the fetal position as they talked, slowly moving to the left inch by inch, hoping that they wouldn’t notice him and he could escape.

“Shut up,” Bebop said. “I just think it’s a weird movie, that’s all. I was expecting Snape to do some sort of magic spell on her the entire time, like when Snape with in that Robin Hood movie and he had that witch do Harry Potter magic all the time. Like that.”

“Yeah, Snape tends to do a lot of magic. Like when he was the German dude in Die Hard.”

“You know, I’m not a fan of Die Hard.”

“Seriously? What’s not to like? It’s got nasty Europeans, Bruce Willis without the ass-rape from Pulp Fiction, Snape doing magic, and like explosion and stuff. Hell, it’s probably my favorite Christmas movie of all time,” Scab said earnestly.

“Really? I think my favorite Christmas movie is probably Little Women.”

“…you and your gay-ass literary movies…”

“Hey! Just because I can appreciate the classic does not mean I’m gay! Anyway, have you actually seen Little Women?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny-“

“So you haven’t.”

Pause.

“I dressed up as Jo last Halloween,” Scab said quietly. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh.”

The two men looked awkwardly at one another, trying desperately to think of a manly topic to talk about, preferably something that involved blood and death.

Nothing came to mind.

Instead, they quietly shuffled off into the forest, leaving Brian Boru behind to wallow and complain quietly to himself, about the injustice of the world.

After several minutes of massaging and angry muttering, Brian Boru finally concluded that he ought to do something about the situation of getting beaten up on a camping trip. It was his right, nay, his duty to report this kind of grievous offense directly to the city council for recompense, or at least a new Pokemon wristwatch. His was now broken.

With this new lofty goal in mind, Brain Boru got to his feet, a glow of determination and whiney incompetence dominating his stride. Though he had no idea where he was going, Brian Boru knew that this would be a new day, a day of new beginning and a fresh start. Sadly, it turned into a day of him wandering around in circles, waiting for passing travelers to pity him and point him toward the nearest major city, that of Abyssocottidae, which I don’t think is even a real word. Whatever. The journey continued onward.