FicWad

(A.N. Alright, so I've got this up on Ao3, and it's doing okay. I thought I'd pop it over here as well. It was basically my goal to finally conquer gosh darn HS fanfic and boy howdy I am not doing that.)

The first time I nearly died was at Disneyland.
Kind of pathetic. I nearly bit it at the place America goes for happy memories.
I was seven years old. My younger brother, Eridan, was five. It was his first big family vacation. And seriously, fuck, yeah, Disneyland. Show me one kid who wouldn’t want to go to the Land of the Mouse.
Anyways, dying. I bet you’re wondering how. Did I fall off a ride? Wander off into the bushes and get mauled by rabid cartoon characters between photo ops?
You sick bastards. I nearly drowned on It’s a Small World After All.

If you’ve never been, here’s a summary of It’s a Small World.
Long ass wait in long ass line, with it being so hot that you hallucinate. My brother and I were tripped-out on sugar, too. Even in the photos, you can totally tell our pupils were blown all the way out. My mom and dad pinned it on ever-elusive heat stroke, but we were pretty much vibrating-high.
It’s a Small World is a subterranean cave ride. You feel like you’re travelling through the underworld in this packed boat with a ton of strangers.
Holy shit. It is the underworld.
So you’re travelling through this weird animatronic Netherscape, and everything’s singing. Everything is singing the same song.
It’s a ten minute ride of the same song in English, Swahili, Japanese, you name it, you got it. I’m not gonna lie to you, seven year old me was in fucking seven year old heaven. This is the shit, or something along those lines. I wanted to join in the Swedish hoedown, soar on the hot air balloons, kick up my heels in fake Paris. I wanted to be apart of things. I knew, deep in my stupid kid brain that if I jumped the boat and swam across the river to the puppets, they’d take me in as their own kind. I could finally belong to something bigger than me, you know? And after my mom read me so many stories about super special chosen kids, who could blame me? Fuck yeah, gimme wizard academy, or god camp, or Starship Rangers.

I managed to make it to the stereotypical heart of the jungle before I jumped ship. My mom screamed and tried to grab me back. Sorry, mom! My people need me!
I hit the water and sank. It’s a Small World does not hold a lot of water, but I didn’t swim very well. Also, the river is not very deep. I abandoned ship and pretty much ate pavement. I still got the forehead scars from it. Also I downed some water with that, too, what not being able to breathe underwater and all.
At this point, I could still hear my mom screaming to stop the ride. Snot-coloured light filtered wavily through the water, looking like I’d finally landed in a watery hell. It’s a Small World burbled through in German (Es ist eine Welt des Gelächters Eine, Welt der Es von den Rissen Ist eine Welt von Hoffnungen Und einer Welt, German, or so I’m told, for “It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.”)
And I did not magically become a part of things. Sucks, but that’s life for you.

I got fished back out by the Disney Paramedics. I got to lay down on the sprayed-hard landscape of fake non-specific jungle and puked up a pint of Small World Styx River water. The medics yammered into shoulder-holster walkie-talkies, saying It Was Under Control.
I remember watching a string of monkeys rhythmically dipping in a chain to the music, eyes staring unblinkingly ahead, hands reaching out to touch the surface of the water over and over.
From here, shit gets hazy and it’s filled in by the memories of my own parents. We got to skip all the lines and go on any ride we wanted. I guess Disney was afraid my father’d sue for letting his precious tomato take the plunge into the Happiest Rainwater Ditch on Earth.

After the traumatic visit, my dad went to go spend some time with Eridan and recover him from any potential shock while mom tried to wash the smell of the ride off me.
“Cronus,” she’d asked. “Why’d you jump? Did the ride scare you?”
I didn’t know how to answer it. I nodded.
“Aw, baby,” she said, twisting a spike of three-times-now shampooed hair into a little pyramid. “It wasn’t real, okay, Cronus? It can’t hurt you.”
“Just a ride,” I repeated numbly.

I dodged death’s icy grip at the Place Where Dreams Come True. I Went To Disney World and All I Got Were These Scars and a Boatload of Psychological Trauma. The Final Tax Collector came around for me again when I was sixteen years old. Not in a optimistic boat ride, this time.
I got sick.