K.O. let out a sigh, slowly coming out of his hiding place. Here he was, in the back of the bodega, hiding from Enid and Rad, as well as his mom. He didn't want to have to go home, he didn't even want to exist at this point in time.

He knew it wasn't like him to want to do this, but things have changed since he's shoved T.K.O. into his subconscious. For the past five months or so, he's been taking everything in, and he's became more aggressive in some situations.

His dad being Professor Venomous was probably the worst thing to happen to him. Granted, the incident with the goo clones and him believing his friends were really dead was before he knew about Venomous being his father, but it still seemed to traumatize him to an extent.

Then, there was school.

He's always seemed to have minor issues with bullies, minor things like being called names or being laughed at. Nothing was too major up until when he started going on missions with Rad and Enid.

More major things started happening, like being pushed and shoved. He assumed it's because his bullies are getting older, and therefore more aggressive. Of course, there was always the option to believe they were jealous, but he didn't think they had a reason to be.

There was also weekends where he was with his dad. He despised him with all his heart, and he disliked the fact he had to stay with him. Of course, he could always tell his mom he didn't want to be there, but he was scared what Professor Venomous would do if he stopped seeing him.

He treated K.O. like garbage.

Yes, he cared about him, or so it seemed, but it wasn't a healthy place for him to be. Every minor slip up, and the boxbots would rattle him out to Boxman, which would cause Professor Venomous to yell at K.O. loudly.

Nobody would listen to him, and he was too scared to talk to his mom or his friends about it. Each little thing would eat him up inside, and he'd feel awful. He couldn't vent out his emotions, and he didn't want to cry for fear of T.K.O. being unleashed.

In short, things have just been awful for him, and he can't take it anymore. Nothing is getting better, it's all gotten worse and he knows it's only going to go downhill from this point on.

He walked towards a shelf, where they conveniently kept a couple unused ropes for whatever reason. He had planned this out a few weeks before, so he already knew what he was doing. It was a Thursday, and the bodega was going to be closed from Friday to Monday, due to a reason that the author is too lazy to explain.

He knew what he had wanted. He grabbed a rope and checked it's height. After knowing it was long enough, he proceeded to tie the rope into a noose.

For the past few weeks, he'd been practicing tying nooses every day while he was home alone waiting for his mom to get home. He'd tie one, untie it, and retie it again and again before untying it for the rest of the night, so his mom wouldn't get suspicious about a random noose lying around.

Once the noose was tied, he had placed on a sturdy spot where he knew it would not fall. Each time he came back here, into the break room, he'd look around and study the ceiling. He would look for a place that seemed sturdy enough to hold the body of a small child his size, as well as one that you could actually place a rope in.

Of course, he had to use a stool to place the noose up there. He wasn't anywhere near tall enough to actually reach that height, and he had trouble even with the stool. Nevertheless, he succeeded in hanging it up.

Now, it was time.

He stuck his head into the loop. He knew this was going to hurt, and he knew that if this didn't work, something bad could happen to him. He was willing to accept this, however. If it worked, it worked, and if it didn't, well, it didn't.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and kicked the stool away.

The rope quickly tightened around his neck and his breath was immediately taken away. It hurt, a lot, and his chest felt as if it were on fire. Within minutes, he had blacked out, and it wasn't going to be long until he was dead.

Hopefully, anyway.

***

It's been four days since K.O. seemed to have went missing. His mom was in a panic, crying her eyes out unable to stop, and Enid and Rad had been trying to find him.

They don't even know how he went missing, he was just in the bodega beforehand. They couldn't wrap their heads around this. Either way, was time for them to go to work, even though they didn't want to.

They walked inside, looking down at the ground, sadly. It didn't feel the same without K.O. here, it was much more dreary and depressing.

Something very noticeable, though, was a foul smell coming from the breakroom. It smelled putrid, a mix of rotten eggs and flesh, and like someone had crapped themselves. It was indescribable, to say the least, and nobody even dared to go to the back of the store towards the awful stench.

"My cob, what is that awful smell?" Rad let out a groan. "Why now, out of all times, did a rat or something have to die in the back of the store?"

"Why don't you go check it out," Enid suggested. "The sooner you check it out, the sooner we know what it is, and we can deal with it."

"Why don't you do it instead?" Rad crossed his arms, looking away from her. "If that's what you want to do."

Enid placed her hand in her face in annoyance and sighed. "Okay, why don't we both check it out? The sooner, the better."

"That works, I guess."

The two gulped and hesitantly walked towards the back of the store. The smell got progressively worse as they got closer, and it was at its worse when they were right up in front of the door. The two wanted to throw up because the stench was so foul.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say a person died back here," Rad said quietly, hoping it'd lighten up the mood.

Enid rolled her eyes and placed her hands over her nose, unsuccessfully blocking out the smell. She slowly opened the door, closing her eyes. She slowly opened them and looked up, her eyes immediately going wide in horror.

"K - K.O.?"

Her voice was weak, she couldn't believe the horrifying sight she was looking at. She felt sick to her stomach, she felt her entire body shake as she suppressed the urge to throw up all over the floor.

"K.O.?" Rad chucked, walking up to the doorway, his eyes closed and one hand on his hip, keeping the other on his nose. "Nice try, Enid, I highly doubt it's -" He opened his eyes, and his mouth dropped and he placed his hand over his mouth as quickly as he could.

K.O's body was hanging from the ceiling, a rope tightly wrapped around his neck. His flesh was a color that was a mix of yellow and black, and his veins seemed to be more visible, with them being a dark blue, almost purple, color.

It seemed like there were hundreds, if not thousands, of flies buzzing around him. His hands had a tiny bit of red on them, signifying that he did in fact struggle before his last moments.

The expression on his face seemed like that of one you would see in a horror movie. Lifeless and empty, yet somehow you were able to see the sadness in his eyes, as well. His eyes seemed to be sunk in a tiny bit, and there were some parts where his flesh had already rotted away completely, leaving his muscles and bone visible beneath.

The two didn't know what to do, they couldn't even begin to describe the way they had been feeling. It was like they could taste the smell of his decaying corpse in their mouth, which didn't help how they had been feeling.

Rad was shaking and started to gag, inevitability throwing up, right where he was standing. Enid could feel herself starting to cry.

Quickly, she ran out of there as fast as she could, she couldn't bear to stay in here any longer. She knew she had to get Carol, even though she knew Carol would take this the worst.

She ran into the Fitness Dojo, crying and choking on her words, the only thing when could get out was K.O.'s name. Carol knew something was up and she quickly ran into the bodega to see what was going on, Enid quickly following.

She got there and let out a bloodcurdling scream, a scream louder than anything ever imaginable. You could hear her horror, fear, and sadness all at once, and it was depressing, to say the least.

She collapsed on the floor and had started to hyperventilate, breathing heavily and quickly. She had started to cry, screaming out K.O.'s name loudly and was hitting the ground with her fists.

Enid ran up to her as soon as she could, and got on the floor next to her. It made her feel awful, the way Carol had reacted to this, and she had started crying alongside Carol. Granted, it wasn't anywhere close to how Carol had been crying, but she cried and couldn't stop.

Mr. Gar had came out of his office, to see what was going on, and, quite frankly, he was disturbed and felt sick to his stomach. The only thing he could do was comfort Carol the best he could, but it didn't lessen her crying in any way.

Her child was now dead, and she didn't even know why he had decided to do this to himself. This hurt her, knowing it could've been prevented, but she didn't think anything was wrong, and she had to suffer because of it.

This was her fault.

And now he was never coming back.

(A/n) wowie 1744 words, this is the longest something has ever been from me. This was fun to write, and I put effort into this despite it not being the best and me not being insanely proud of it

votes and comments are highly appreciated. Thank you for reading, thank you so much