A/N:(translated from Cdubese to english) This short story has been inspired by a comic called: To Dear Raymond.

The comic was created by Puruling. I definitely recommend checking it out! Make sure to show the author some love while taking a look at it!

As for me, I've got to research these "Naruto runners" and "Kyles" to find out why they were running on my lawn last September.

It was nine o' clock at night. Everyone in the town was ready to rest and await for tomorrow. One by one, all of the villagers turned off the lights in their houses until the outside became pitch black. It was quiet. The only sound heard was the distant and eerie whistles of the town's train carrying it's passengers into the unknown. Getting further and further away, until the ghostly locomotive disappeared over the mountains. All that remained was the black smoke emitted from it's chimney, and the haunting whistles ever growing fainter.

A retriever named Goldie placed a bookmark in between two pages of a novel and closed it.

"I think this is a good spot to stop," she thought. She placed the book on a small table next to the recliner and yawned. The heat from the fireplace was making her feel tired and cozy. The orange and yellow flames danced and waved as if they wanted Goldie to stay and watch their performance.

Goldie still had many things to do. Wash up, Brush teeth, put on pajamas, the usual bedtime preparation. But the fire. It was so nice. Her bedroom was cold and bitter. It would not welcome her or give her comfort. In here, the room had cherished every second it spent with Goldie. She laid back in the recliner. "Just a few more minutes," she thought as she stared into the fireplace. "Just a few more minutes." Her eyes became heavy. "Just a few more minutes." She sank into the soft cushions of her seat. "Just...a few...more…"

Next door to Goldie was a grey cat named Raymond. Raymond had not come outside all day. A couple of the villagers called him on the phone and asked if he was alright. And every time he would leave out details and say he was fine.

How could he include the details? He spent his time in his room, lights off, staring at the bright screen of his laptop. The details. How could he give detail about what he had seen? What he had done to himself every time he closed that screen? Where his mind would always travel to in a fit of confusion and anger.

He took a deep breath. He closed the screen. "They won't understand." The voices. They still tormented him. "You're helpless." He went to the kitchen. "Worthless." He grabbed the key behind the bread box. "Pathetic." He walked to the locked cabinet. "Trash." He turned the key. "Alone." There was the knife. "You mean nothing to anyone." The voices. He always fell victim to them.

The Mayor stacked the last piece of paperwork on their desk. What was once hours of work and towers of paper, became a clean desk as well as files neatly organized in their drawers. "Is that all of it Isabelle?" The Mayor asked, rubbing their eyelids. The shih tzu nodded tiredly. "That's all for today Mayor." The Mayor glanced down at their watch. It was forty minutes after nine. The two still had twenty minutes of work left. "Let's clock out early tonight." The Mayor said, smiling. Isabelle looked surprised.

"Mayor! Are you sure about that? What if someone calls?"

"At nearly ten o' clock at night?"

"You never know."

The Mayor sighed. "Alright. How about this. I'll get our stuff together, while you wait for calls." Isabelle beamed. "Deal!" The Mayor immediately went to the coat rack and got both theirs and Isabelle's jackets. They were about to grab the lunch bags, when suddenly the unthinkable happened. The phone on Isabelle's desk began to ring.

The Mayor was surprised at first, but then smirked. "Very funny Isabelle. Let me guess. You called it using your cellphone?" Isabelle narrowed her eyes at them. "When have I ever done that Mayor?" She picked up the phone and answered politely. "Hello! Town Hall Services. How may I help you?...Oh hi Goldie!...What?...Raymond?"

The Mayor noticed Isabelle's face slowly turning from her cheery disposition to a morbid and pale expression. Her smile washed away into a quivering frown. Her eyes swapped from nice and relaxed to wide and afraid. Watching her like this made the back of the Mayor's neck feel boiling hot, yet ice cold. Like a disease, her fear had passed on to them.

"Okay calm down Goldie. We'll be right over." She hung up the phone and stared into space, shaking from head to toe. Her heartbeat increased with every second passing on the Mayor's watch. "Isabelle?" She looked over at the Mayor. "Is everything alright?"

"Goldie said she heard someone screaming."

"Screaming?"

"It came from Raymond's house."

"Is he hurt?"

"I...I"

She didn't cry, but she was shaking even more now. "I don't know, but Goldie sounded so scared." The Mayor, though just as scared as Isabelle, placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. Everything's going to be okay."

Inside, they knew it was a lie. Goldie was in her house probably scared half to death, Raymond was either frightened, injured or worse, Isabelle was shaking all over, and all they could do was promise that everything would be fine. In all honesty, they didn't know if anything would or wouldn't be what they called "fine."

"We'll check it out. See if anyone's hurt."

It took about ten minutes for the two to make their way to Goldie's house. It wasn't hard to find in the dark. All of the curtains were opened, and the lights inside spread across the grass of her front yard.

"You go check on Goldie," said the Mayor. "I'll see if Raymond is okay." Isabelle nodded and walked to the light show of a house. The Mayor then looked at Raymond's house. All of the shutters closed off his windows. The whole place was painted a dark grey with streams of white traced around the roof. If it weren't for Goldie's lights, the house would be perfectly camouflaged with the dark sky.

The Mayor walked up the doorstep. The stairs creaked even when the tip of their foot so much as poked the wooden boards. They knocked on the door. "Raymond? It's me, The Mayor. Are you alright in there?" No response. The Mayor repeated themselves again. This time, knocking a bit harder and a bit louder. Still nothing.

They reached for the handle on the door. It wouldn't budge. The Mayor was hoping they wouldn't need to resort to forcing themselves in. Sadly, for the concern of Raymond's safety, there was no other way.

They pulled out a used gift card from their wallet. "Sorry Raymond." They shoved one of the ends in between the door and the handle, sliding it up and down continuously trying to find the right spot. Finally, the door clicked and eased open. They were inside.

The Mayor slowly opened the door all the way. Suddenly, a sickening stench drifted by. It smelled like something died in there. The Mayor coughed into their sleeve. "Raymond?" They took a step inside. It was dark. And it was quiet.

The Mayor's hands scanned across the walls in search of a light switch. Once it was found and switched on, The Mayor saw that they were in the living room. However it was not what they expected it to look like.

The Mayor's feet stepped on something that made a crushing noise. They looked down and saw that all around the floor were aluminum drink cans. Some of them were crushed flat, while others laid sideways untampered, but still had contents dripping onto the brown floorboards.

The Mayor looked back up, and saw Raymond's black couch nearly shredded to pieces. They were clearly scratch marks. Every fractured seam leaked of stuffing. The coffee table was over on it's side. Having all papers and coasters joining the cans on the floor. "Dear God." The Mayor thought.

Proceeding through the living room, The Mayor continued calling for Raymond a lot quieter than before. What happened was still a mystery. Was this a robbery? A simple accident? Murder? The last one made them feel sick to their stomach.

Shortly, they came into a small hallway. It would've been hard to see in there if a dim white light wasn't peeking out from underneath one of the doors. Raymond's room.

The Mayor crept through the hall. Their calls for Raymond moved down to a whisper. Suddenly, they heard talking. No- murmuring. The Mayor carefully walked, this time keeping their mouth shut. With each step, their heart rate gradually increased. They even had to hold their breath when their inhales and exhales were in a fit of panic.

Not long after, The Mayor gently put their ear against the door. The murmurs turned into light sobs. Words the voice spoke were incoherent, but by the tone it sounded like pleading. Hearing it was torturous. The Mayor slowly turned the knob all the way and cracked the door open. What they saw made their blood run cold.

Raymond sat on his bed. He winced as he covered another layer of bandages around his left arm. He had tore an infected scratch that hurt beyond description. Tears ran down his face in agony and sadness. No matter how many times he did this, the pain would still spread throughout his body and mind. The voices. They still lingered even afterwards.

"Nothing you do will change their minds."

"Please. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It all hurts."

"Your existence has done nothing, but make people suffer."

"..No...Stop."

"You want to make everyone happy?"

"I'm begging you. Leave me alone."

"A simple lunge off the roof should do the trick."

"Stop it!"

"There's no hope for you."

"Leave me alone."

"No hope."

"Leave!"

"NO HOPE."

He begged. He pleaded. He couldn't think. He felt like vomiting. The voices. They kept at it.

They plunged his mind in a downward spiral of despair; made every muscle, every bone inside his body burn and writhe; and used voices of those he knew and loved against him. He could hear them all:

"Why have you done this to us?"

"Why do you hurt us?"

"Why don't you ever do anything right for us?"

"Why can't you just leave us in peace?"

The questions. They never ceased. Raymond covered his ears. Bawling for the quiet to return.

"Why?"

The questions. They dug into the tissue of his head like daggers. He wanted to scream.

"Why?!"

The questions. They mercilessly crumbled his sanity into dust. He wanted it all to end.

"WHY?!"

Suddenly, a quick loud noise had come across his ears, and disappeared in an instant. Raymond opened his eyes, now all red and puffy. The noise had made him jump, and caused all the voices to escape his head, and drift away. As if the air outside his window had pulled them all out.

Raymond looked up. The door was slightly cracked open. In the darkness of the hallway, he detected a bit of movement on the other side. Someone was watching him.

"Who's there?" The Mayor heard Raymond call out. They could hear both the tension and fear in his voice. The Mayor didn't know how to approach this. They didn't want to pretend they had seen nothing, and they also didn't want to come in demanding what was happening.

They were running out of time to respond as well as deciding how to respond. With very little options left, The Mayor took a deep breath, and opened the door.

The two stood in the room in silence for a while. Neither of them spoke to one another. All they did was stare at each other. Both blank on what words to say.

The Mayor was the first to speak. "Goldie heard a scream from your house. Is… everything okay?" Is everything okay. That was probably the worst thing to say to someone whose arm was bleeding from top to bottom, and The Mayor knew it. Regardless, Raymond answered.

"I had a bit of an...accident. But I'm fine now." He looked down, seeing the knife on the floor, still with a light smear of blood across the blade. The Mayor took notice of the knife. Part of them wanted to rush to the poor feline to the hospital, while telling Raymond that everything will be alright from here on out.

However, the other part of them said to be patient with this. Rushing him will only make this worse. "Raymond." They said in a soft tone. "You know you can tell me anything. As the mayor, it is in my best interest to help everyone who lives here." Raymond didn't say anything. "It's okay if you don't want to talk. I won't force you to. I just wanted to let you know that I'm here for you. Because...I care about you. I care about all of you." He still stayed quiet.

The Mayor didn't know the next plan of action. They had said what millions of others had said to those that they cared about. The best thing to do was probably to let him think. "Let me know if you need anything," they said heading towards the door. "I'm always happy to help." The Mayor didn't want to leave him, but they also didn't want them to feel uncomfortable. They started to wonder if they were making the right choice.

But, before they took the first step to leave, they felt a hand grab their forearm. The Mayor turned to see Raymond looking at them with sad and soaked eyes. "Don't leave. Please." He whimpered softly. Without hesitation, The Mayor nodded and followed Raymond back to his bed.

As they sat down, Raymond began to tell them everything.

"Mayor. I have a confession to make. Do you remember when I first came to your village?"

"Of course. You were very formal and polite when you introduced yourself."

Raymond stared down in guilt. "I was never really happy on that day."

The Mayor, though very surprised, continued to listen. "You see, before I moved here, I was already going through the abuse with mayors I had in the past. I can't remember how it all started, but every village I moved to would be the same. I would move in, the town's mayor would greet me, I would settle for about a week, until the mayor would receive hurtful comments from other mayors saying how it was wrong for him or her to have me a part of their village.

"Not long after, the mayor would become as abusive as the comments were, and start pushing me around. Then when they were finished with me, they would toss me an eviction note, and tell me to pack up, leave, and never come back.

"I don't recall when it began, but I started to have these feelings. Horrible feelings. I would think back to what people would say about the previous mayors and I. The things they said would awaken something inside. Voices filling my head with grim and awful ideas. And-"

Raymond paused. He looked down at his black and red streaked bandaged arm. His voice became shaky. The tears were getting close to coming out. He couldn't hold back anymore. Everything that had happened to him; the abuse; the evictions; the broken friendships. It all just came out.

Raymond began to cry. But not like the soft sobs of regret, or the tears he would shed in fear of the voices. He cried like how he cried when the mayors would become his friend, and shortly after, his tyrant. He cried like how he cried when they would cast him out of his new home without a second glance. He cried, because he was genuinely sad.

"I c-couldn't help but think that the reason they were b-bullied was because of m-me. And one d-day, the v-voices in my head t-told me to do something horrible t-to myself, And I…I-"

Before Raymond could finish, The Mayor had wrapped their arms tightly around him. He let out a small gasp as he felt them slowly pet him.

"You have been through so much." The Mayor said. "None of this is your fault Raymond. You have done nothing to cause people to lash out at those who love you. Sometimes you have to realize that not everyone will love you, even if you love them. And that is just part of life."

Raymond was amazed at what The Mayor was saying. No one had ever talked to him like this before. "The things you're doing are nothing to be ashamed of. And I will do everything in my power to help you stop the voices, and the pain.

The Mayor let go of Raymond and faced him. He looked confused. "I don't understand." He said. "Why do you want to help me?" The Mayor shook their head and smiled. "Because you're my friend Raymond. Friends help each other. Through the good, and the bad.

As The Mayor said this, a warm feeling filled up inside Raymond. The sickness he felt vanished, the mess in his brain faded. Raymond felt his tears well up again, but this time, it was from happiness. "Mayor," he smiled. "You're going to make me cry again."

A few minutes had passed and The Mayor heard someone calling for them from outside. They went to the window to see Isabelle and Goldie standing a few yards away. "Mayor!" Isabelle shouted. "Is everything okay over there?" The Mayor gave a thumbs up. "Everything is fine. I'm going to talk with Raymond for a little bit."

Isabelle didn't know what was going on, but based on The Mayor's attitude, everything seemed in order. "Okay Goldie. You've got nothing else to worry about tonight." She assured her.

Back in the bedroom, The Mayor helped Raymond up off of the bed. "Before we turn in for the night, we should probably see Gaston." They said. "He's a good doctor, and should treat your arm." Raymond looked nervously to the floor.

"Mayor? Does this mean I need to get a therapist?"

"Yes Raymond, and you will have to tell them what you told me. But you don't need to worry. They're there to help you."

The Mayor extended a hand. "And so am I." Raymond stared at the hand timidly. After tonight, things weren't going to be the same, and the thought both excited and scared him. But he knew that whatever happens, The Mayor and all of the villagers would be there. Raymond took the hand and shook it in appreciation. "Let's go."

And as they left the house to see Gaston, the ghostly whistles of the town's train could be heard as it made it's journey back home.