The following note was found shortly after the disappearance of Todd B. Heathcoat in his apartment:

‘I have no idea how to start this. I really don’t. You’d think as a wannabe writer, I’d know the words for this. How to add the emphasis and gravity needed for a letter such as this. But simply can’t think of whatever poetic metaphors and woeful similes would hold the needed air. And for more beige prose, I can’t think of anything that doesn’t simply outright state it. So, perhaps that’s the best thing to do.

I want to die.

There is no getting around it, I don’t want to live anymore. Over the last six months, my will to be a person has shriveled until there was nothing left. I’ve gone to therapists, taken drugs, tried exercise, and done just about every other possible solution to trying to get things back on track. But all of these supposed solutions have done absolutely jackshit to help me feel better, to get past what has happened. I just can’t forget. I can’t forget him, and the way I failed him. I was here, in college, far away. And he died, alone and in pain, or so I would assume. We, or I should say as ‘we’ implies there is someone else who still cares, still don’t know. What kind of bullshit is that, nobody being able to find out what killed him? I have been forbidden, by luck or fate I don’t really know, to comprehend why my father died. I can’t know what manner of illness or bodily malfunction brought his life to an end. If he was in pain or it was peaceful as he took his final breath. What his last thought was, as he lied there alone in his bed. All of these things, these crucial facts that I need to know, have been utterly denied to me. And that is something I simply cannot take.

One week. One week, and I would have been home to visit him for Spring Break. One week, and I’d be back for caring for him again. Maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I couldn’t have. That’s not what matters. It’s the pure and simple, it’s the fact he was alone when he needed me most that I can’t take. That the one time he needed my help, my company, I was far away and so busy with my pointless trivial pursuits of video gaming and studying. It was seeing his cold, lifeless corpse that stole my ability to continue from me. Seeing the one person in my life that always believed in me, always was there for me, and I knew could always trust was nothing more than a cold pile of flesh on a slab just sort of ripped it right out from me. Perhaps that’s being overdramatic, but I know that was the last day I honestly gave a damn about life.

My grades have now slipped, and I may end up dropping out. But this apartment, four years lease. I’ve already been here two of those years, but there’s another two I could easily stay. I could try and pick the pieces up, try to move on and find a new reason to live. But I have tried. I have tried six months, and I have felt absolutely no different. My therapists say wait longer. But I’m tired. I cry myself to sleep every night, and stare at the walls during the day. I am a shell of a person, and I don’t deserve to live for my failure. So, that brings us to the method. The way I have decided to bring an end to my life. I am too afraid to use the conventional methods. I do not wish to feel the pain of blades against my wrists and my fear of heights ironically prevents me from gathering the courage to thrust myself from the balcony. So I have turned to other methods, very unconventional methods, to bring about the end of my life.

I found it by chance. I was actually going to just find an alley and hope there was a mugger that would shoot me when I resisted giving my wallet. Yes, it would be painful. But if all went well, it would be quick. Perhaps even a simple shot to the head. But regardless, I didn’t mean to run into that janitor, and yet I did. Perhaps it was the one kindness that fate has ever given me. It didn’t take long to convince him as I had my savings on me to serve as a payment for the person that killed me. A final thank you for helping me escape from this hellish existence. I gave him the four grand, and he gave me the ray. The shrinking ray. I don’t know how it works, but it does. I tested it on a few inanimate objects. You’ll be able to find them if you look. I don’t understand the science, but that doesn’t matter. The moment I held it in my hands, I knew I had found my way out.

So, I’ve thought about this for weeks. I have no friends, nobody has bothered to interact with me since elementary school. And even then, they’ve long since stopped talking with me. My internet friends cease communication generally a week after I meet them. And my therapists, well, they’re more interested in the money than the healing. As for family, my father’s obliviously dead and my mother thinks I might as well be. So, this all lead me to a realization. There isn’t a single person that I would be hurting. Oh, there’s no denying it, doing this is entirely selfish, yes. But when there’s not a single person who will care when I’m gone, what does it really matter? In fact, why not mimic what the world thinks of me?
So, with the help of this ray, I’ll become nothing more than an ant, a bug, a pest. Something to be crushed underfoot without a care. With my rational dreams nothing but dust, I can give into my odder pleasures. So, yeah. I like that idea, and there’s no shame in admitting it now. I like the thought of being stepped on or eaten. And now, it’ll be more than some escapist fantasy. I get to experience it for real, with all of its pleasure and pain. Yes, I’ll die. Horribly, some might even say. But the most important thing is that I’ll die on my own terms even, crushed or mashed to death. It doesn’t matter which. I just know, for the first time in my life, I’ll have control over what happens. I get to decided, to a point, the when, where, and how.
So, yes. This is goodbye. You won’t see me again in all likelihood. And if you do somehow manage to notice me, it’ll probably be the bloody pulp I leave behind after you stepped on me. What an appropriate metaphor for my entire life.


Todd David Heathcoat

Aged 20’

Todd is a lion, a six foot tall, one hundred and fifty pound nerd of a lion in fact. As well as a lion that one can say, without a doubt, has had a life that has been well and truly difficult. Born to Edmond and Christina Heathcoat, Todd grew up in a household filled with severe psychological abuse that his mother dished out on a daily basis. This often took the form of name calling as well as the occasional manipulation intended to turn the boy against his hapless and put upon father. Todd remained ignorant of the true severity of his mother’s unpleasant actions until he was much older, a testament to the feline’s naivety during his early years. Edmond did attempt to shield Todd from his mother’s scaring wrath as best he could, but there was only so much the older lion could do short of provide him comfort and avoid a messy divorce that would only likely bring Todd more suffering. But the boy’s life at home was far from the only source of stress and pain. His time at school was no better, ranging from simply being teased and jeered at for wearing glasses as well as his participation special education classes, to being outright attacked with a tree branch on the playground by a few particularly vicious bullies for their own amusement. Still, Todd muddled on through it all and, with only a bit of initial struggling, managed to force himself into become a model student with some help from his father. Whilst the constant high standard weighed on his stress, the satisfaction he felt from pulling it off made him feel it was worth it. Towards the beginning of Todd’s teen years, however, his father grew tired of Christina’s abuse. The young lion could only watch as the vague air of civility and the illusion of a happy family that had been conjured for his benefit vanished, his parents devolving into openly hating and screaming at one another as he simply ignored it inside his room. Finally, shortly after his thirteenth birthday, Edmond divorced his wife and an intense custody battle ensued. It was during this time, slowly but surely, Todd became aware fully of the controlling nature and how far she was willing to go to maintain that control. He turned against his mother, and what little of a relationship they had vanished into a mutual hatred. Thankfully, in the end, his father managed to win full custody of the teenage feline and together they set out to begin their new and peaceful lives.

Todd blazed his way through middle and high school with only some relatively unbothersome bully. But, by and large, he was happy and relatively comfortable living with his father despite this. But such a relatively carefree life did not last long. Four short weeks after he had graduated from high school and into the real world, Todd’s father suffered a car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury that permanently altered both his personality and his body. Edmond became more irritable and prone to irrational decisions, forcing Todd to have to serve as his father’s therapist and caretaker. What little money they had had was swiftly gobbled up by insurance and medical fees, until only Todd’s college fund remained. His father, however, refused to take away his son’s future education, and instead insisted that Todd finally go to college. Todd refused initially, instead spending a year at home to aid with Edmond’s recovery and adaptation to his new life. But the following year, the young feline was hesitantly persuaded to finally go off on his own and stop living his life only for his father. Todd enrolled as a creative writing student in a nearby college, and whilst he did struggle initially as he found himself under the new pressures of living on his own, he recovered and earned above-average grades...much to his own surprise. Despite this, ever holiday or long weekend he was offered, he traveled back home to his father in order to provide him the care he needed. But as the semesters passed, Edmond became more and more self-sufficient and his injuries bothered him less and less. By the beginning of Sophomore year, Todd had managed to relax himself and allowed his father to go about his days on his own, the young lion instead focusing on his schooling and future. His worries were helped by the assurances of his father’s various doctors, who were certain he’d recover, and words of Edmond himself, who promised his son he’d make it out fine and always be there for him.

A week before Spring Break however, Todd received an unexpected and life-changing phone call. His father had passed away quite suddenly. Almost instantly, Todd returned home and the psychologically shattered feline looked over his father’s body in the morgue. A follow-up autopsy had concluded there was no valid medical reason for his death. It had simply happened. The lack of an answer was simply the final straw for his sanity, and it snapped. Having never had any real friends or any sort of support net, he turned to every logical medical solution he could to solve his problem. Yet, for every supposed solution he attempted, he found he had nothing to show for besides an ever worsening depression. Eventually, he grew tired of rotting in emotional agony and trying to keep going. So, he turned to his only other possible way out of his misery. He decided to take his life. Not by his own hand, as he knew it would take too long to get a gun or cyanide and his various hang ups prevented slit wrists and jumping to his death from his apartment window. So, one dark night he went out into the city and searched for an alleyway to get conveniently murdered for his wallet. What he had found was far from what he expected or desired, but at the same time absolutely perfect.

For, you see, the alley he had chosen to wander down was located behind a lab belonging to a small yet profitable research company. And in that alley, he found a janitor who was in the process of tossing a prototype shrink ray in the trash. Apparently, the scientist who had built it had demanded it be thrown away in a fit of rage after learning that the device would be too costly to mass produce, thus rendering all their effort for a grant useless. Todd, having had a secret interest in all things macro and micro most of his life, took out the four thousand dollar reward he had kept in his wallet for his killer and handed it to the janitor in exchange for the ray. Within an instant of the exchange, Todd was running home and already crafting his plan to die anew. He would make himself no bigger than an ant, and simply explore the world around him until he decided it was time to die. And then, well, he’d simply chose whether to be eaten or stomped...and it would likely be done for him, by some knowing person. He left a note, messed with the settings on the ray, and then...it was done. And he was exposed to a new world, a world that had previously been locked away in his fantasies.
However, what had intended to be a temporary dive into his internal perversions to end his life ended up being a more permanent solution to not only his depression, but also simply what he was now going to do with his life. As he lived like a common pest amidst the residents of his former apartment complex and learned the harsh realities of scavenging for food and avoiding massive insects and other vermin that would devour him whole, he found himself oddly...enjoying life again. The near-death situations, the constant wandering to find new food and safe havens to rest in, and the exercise he received daily in the process...it was reinvigorating. Soon, he ceased to seek out situations where he was life was at risk for the sake of finding a good death. Instead, he simply risked himself for the pure thrill and enjoyment of it, often exploring the homes and bodies of norms that he lived around. As days became weeks became years, he ran across several micros who happened to inhabited the apartment complex and its surroundings. Against all odds, at least going by the general luck in his life, he managed to find the loyal friends he had been missing in his previous existence. In the end, Todd managed to find happiness again by simply abandoning his old life and the burdens it contained. While the pain of his father’s loss never truly vanished, the lion managed to push aside the nagging blame he felt and the supposed failure that stained him with the help of his new found friends in his strange new micro world.

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So, yeah. lots of angst. This, ladies and gentlemen, is my second Sona. Before anyone panics, no, Sly isn't going anywhere nor is he getting replaced. The lovable Rex will still be having plenty of unaware shennigans in the future. But Todd here, well...he is a truer representation of myself. A lot of people assume, since I have a macro sona, I prefer being a macro. This is far from the case, as I'm actually a die-hard micro at heart. Not only that but Sly is an idealized version of myself, both in terms of personality and life. Todd here meanwhile is far more accurate, to the point his life is a semi-autobiographical account of my own. Whilst exaggerated to the degree of suffering I went through, as I did have friends and wasn't completely isolated, I did actually dumb down the abuse I went through and cut out the traumatic experience of my house burning down whilst living with my mother. Anyway, yeah, this is Todd. He'll be around for micro shennigans! Hope you like him, and do go take a look at  ChocolateGoose, the artist who created this ref! He's a wonderful friend of mine, and a talented artist!