Raped by Words

Obligatory Prologue

     Quiet, Utah suburbia. At a glance, there is nothing unusual about this average-sized city. It's one of those places you might stop at on a long road trip to get some gas and snacks before going on your merry way, not thinking twice about it. It's quite a diverse city considering the fact that it's fucking Utah of all states, and that's not just in terms of ethnicity either. It also accounts for the structure of the city itself. Up north, you'll find rural farming land along with the largest prison in the state. Then towards the middle, it's mostly working-class neighborhoods with maybe some grocery stores and pharmacies along with other necessities on the side. Then down south, there would be the city city— busy streets, tall buildings, ghettos and a courthouse, etc.

     This city is near the center of Utah. Kortsdale, they call it. It has a reputation for having the lowest Mormon population in the state, as opposed to Utah having the largest Mormon population in the country. You see, Kortsdale is unique in the fact that its radiation levels are on the more dangerous side of things. Many residents pay no mind to this as it's just not something that seems to bother a more politically right-leaning population, as well as the reason for the city being so polluted remaining unidentified. Some may speculate that it's due to the booming manufacturing industries in the area, while others may disagree on the basis of their own ignorance. Besides, the city was making money and becoming successful. What kind of "un-American, anti-capitalist pig" could argue with that?

    At any rate, the increasingly dangerous levels of radiation and pollution on the planet caused many governments to take action. In some countries, this resulted in stricter environmental and occupational laws, but the US on the other hand could not bear to sacrifice its income, so instead, a new profession was developed, opening new job opportunities. This profession was known as the "Waste Worker." Basically, all their job entailed was gathering potentially harmful waste and hauling it off to a proper disposal site. It appeared that the country was finally doing something about all the excess chemicals instead of just storing them while they slowly ate away at the planet.

     And this brings us to the man known as Neddison Eddison, the man who would change everything for the worse. Neddison, going by Ned most of the time, was one of these Waste Workers. Not having much work experience and dropping out of college, this job was perfect for him. The job was easy and didn't demand any basic understanding of the chemicals at play so Ned was pretty much guaranteed to get the job. Not many people were willing to work in an environment like that so it paid decently enough to get him off the streets and start a family with his wife, Alexis, previously a sex worker that made her money at a strip club. 

     The new couple moved into a middle-class neighborhood and had a child who they named Echo, a unique name that the couple thought was beautiful, but had no real other meaning to it. Ned liked to think that maybe she would 'echo' him in a way and follow in his footsteps, though he knew that probably wouldn't be best for her.

     Five years after his daughter was born, he would find himself stuck in a mundane, repetitive life. He would wake up, go to work while his wife stayed home all day, come home and watch some TV or porn, maybe play some video games if he was lucky, and then more porn. Pornography is what gave him life. Alexis stopped seeming sexually interested in him after Echo was born, so getting to engage in sex was quite literally like winning the lottery for him. Years of built-up sexual frustration resulted in him becoming quite the degenerate, and he would project this into his disturbing search history. With his wife being a stay-at-home mom and his five-year-old daughter in the house, he would find it difficult to keep up with this, oftentimes locking himself in the bathroom multiple times a day for long periods of time.

     As you may or may not be able to tell by now, Ned was quite the loser, and he had a lot of regrets, such as: getting married too early, having a kid at 23 with a 21-year-old stripper, doing favors for money on the streets, dropping out of college, not killing his mother... you know, the usual stuff. But Ned was only 28 at the time, after all, and he had a long life ahead of him and he hoped that he could try and fix these mistakes and potentially make a name for himself one day, and try as he might.