Resurfaced

Chapter 5

Authors note: Its late I'm sorry ;-;

     The world was pain and darkness. Iskall's arms, legs, chest, everything was in pain. His head most of all. Iskall's eyes burned with a fire he hadn't felt since he lost his first one. The pain quickly drowned out all other sensations. A groan of pain met his ears, and he was vaguely aware it might have been his own. Sounds he couldn't understand grew louder in his ears, voices he couldn't identify saying words he couldn't make out.
     The pain was still present, but it was dulled as if the fire of it had been smothered in a cloth, and now only the embers remained. Because it wasn't as bad now, he was aware of his soundings, could feel the cuts and burns on the rest of his body, but they too felt less sharp than they should. Despite his wounds, Iskall remembered everything that had happened in more vivid detail than he would like to admit. He and Cub had been pressed back to back, desperately trying to distract their target. The watcher seemed to be everywhere at once, and it predicted their every move. Eventually, the monstrous beast had surprised them with a massive explosion, the impact of which had knocked him out cold.
     Besides his face, which must have taken a direct hit, Iskall could feel a deep gash in his leg and a major burn on his right arm that hadn't been there before. Vaguely he wounded how Cub had fared. He'd been a few feet further away from the blast, but in an explosion of that magnitude, a few feet was a laughably small distance. How had the other hermits faired? Did they win or lose? How was Mumbo? Was Grian ok? The questions swirled in his head, a vortex moving fast and fast until he could stand it. Carefully he tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn't corporate. His arms still worked, though. Well, his left one did, and a quick touch to his face revealed it was heavily bandaged. Ah, well, that explains a lot.
     "Oh my goddess! Iskall!" The familiar tone of Mumbo's voice was like music to his ears. "Are you alright? Well, obviously you're not alright, but you know what I mean. How's your head?" Mumbo rambled. He sounded a concerning mix of revived and . . . considered. How long had he been out for?
"Painfull, thanks for asking. So did we do it? Did we win?" Iskall struggled to climb to a sitting position, but a pair of hands, shaky but firm, pushed him back down.
    "Woah, Woah, Iskall stop moving! You'll hurt yourself." Came Mumbos voice, much closer this time. "Yeah, we won, well I think we did. We're alive, aren't we? I feel like that's at least somewhat of a win. We are in the fourth colony shopping district right now though, the current Hemitlands couldn't be saved." He paused to restrain Iskall, who was once again trying to rise from the bed. "Iskall, you need to stop moving. You're really hurt right now."
    "Dude. I'm literally fine. A little sore, but fine." It was a stretch, sure, but Mumbo didn't need to know that.
    "No, Iskall, I don't think you understand. You almost died. I'm not just letting you get up, and the fact that I can hold you down at all says a lot about how strong you are right now." Ahh, so he had not been as discrete as he thought. The injured Hermit lay back down on the bed.
    "Gosh, I wish I could see your face right now. I bet you're doing that weird frowning thing you always do when someone is hurt," Iskall teased, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work.
    "Umm Iskall, about that . . ." His friend's voice trailed off as if he was hesitant to say whatever it was that was on his mind. "Stress said . . . Wow there is really no easy way to say this but this sight thing, it's. . ."
    "Long term?"
    "Permanent"
    ". . . Oh"
    The shock took a moment to sink in. Blind. He was blind. Forever. The more it sunk in, the more it hurt. His already aching head throbbed with the implications of everything. If I'm this bad, how's everyone else? It was a risky question, but he had to know.
    Mumbo paused a second before answering, "Well, I don't have the most up to date information, nor the most accurate, but last I checked, everyone's mostly fine, except for False, Doc, Keralis, and Cub. Xisuma just woke up a few hours ago, and everyone else has been up for a while now. False and Keralis both have more injuries than anyone can count, I think she took on a Watcher all by herself, but even she has her limits, I guess. Doc and Cub each took horrible blows to the head, and Doc's cybernetics melted, so he's in critical condition. I just got back from helping etho with him, but even now, no one is sure what will happen. I'm sorry, I know it's not the news you want, but at least it looks like everyone will live. I hope." The redstoner added the last part under his breath.
    It was, admittedly, much better than Iskall had expected. None of his closest friends were on Mumbo's list, but a part of him felt personally responsible for Cubfan. He hoped the elder Hermit woke up soon. Instead of continuing down that line of thought, though, Iskall opted to turn his attention back to the conversation at hand.
    "What about Grian and Stress? Can I talk to them? Maybe they know something."
    "I- I actually haven't seen Grian yet, which is weird, but Stress is just outside. I'll go get her, give me one second." The sound of a chair squeaking against the floor and retreating footfalls told the blind Hermit his friend was already gone. Iskall waited, alone with his thoughts. Try as he might, they kept circling back to his eyes. The conversation with Mumbo had distracted him, but now that he was alone, they felt more painful than before. Blind. That was an . . . unexpected development to be sure. He assumed his friends had already looked into bionic replacements, They had done it for both him and Doc before. He'd have to give up building. Sparing too. The former he wanted to choked up over, but he loved fighting. At one point in his life, it had been his entire identity, though he preferred not to think about that time period. He refused to give up redstone, though, even if he had to tell the components apart by sense of touch alone. He'd teach himself to be able to do something because he'd be damned if he had to give up everything that made him him. He would also never fly again. Never explore the nether or go end busting with his friends. The thought of missing out on all those adventures was off-putting enough to dampen his determination.
    After what felt like an eternity, two sets of footsteps returned. One, probably Mumbo, sat back down in the chair, while the other took a seat on the foot of his bed. The person in the chair, definitely Mumbo, he realized, seemed to be struggling to breathe properly, as if he was upset.
    "Stress? Mumbo? Hallo? What's going on?" Desperately wishing he could see their faces for some sort of clue. The thought stung as soon as he had it, so he pushed it away.
    "Hey, um, Iskall. How's your head doing?" Stress asked, trying to change the topic already.
    "I'm fine, really. Stress, what's going on."
    "I- I'm sorry, Iskall." Stress whispered as if realizing she would have to answer him sooner or later. "I- thought Mumbo would have told you. I didn't realize no one had told him.
    "Told him what Stress?" The injured Hermit hissed, thoroughly fed up with this guessing game. He was no idiot, something was very wrong, and he knew it. Why wouldn't she just tell him-
    The healer in question cut off his thoughts, voice raw. "In the battle, Grian he . . . one of the watchers got to him first. It grabbed him, forced him to- to turn into one. I- I'm sorry, Iskall, Mumbo. I'm so so sorry. He's gone."
     What? Gone? As in gone? But no, that didn't make sense. Mumbo had said they had won. Besides, you can't just turn into a Watcher, could you? No, this was some horrible, sick joke. Grian was fine. He would walk into the room any moment, laughing and tossing eggs everywhere. But he didn't. It took a full five minutes of silence for Iskall to comprehend that this wasn't a prank. He was gone. All at once, his throat felt thick as he struggled to draw breath. His hands began to tremble as a heaviness found its way into every bone in his body. His thoughts stuttered as a horrible feeling he didn't have the energy to identify flooded his brain and sank its teeth into his heart.
     How could this happen? Grian was- he- he was- gone. How could this have happened? How could he let this happen? How could the others let this happen? How-
    Iskall discovered that he could still cry.
"Mumbo, why didn't you say anything? You could have told me. WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?"
    "I DIDN'T KNOW"
    Silence filled the room, broken only by the labored breath that came with high strung emotions. It didn't take the ability to see for Iskall to feel the eyes of everyone else in the room on the two of them. The salt from his tears chafed the skin under his bandages, but he hardly noticed. Why- why hadn't he stayed by Grian's side in the battle? He could have saved him, knocked him out of the way, distracted the Watcher, something, anything. The muffled crying from Mubo made so much more sense now. As close as the cyborg was to the gremlin, Mumbo was twice as close. It briefly occurred to Iskall that he should be strong for his friend's sake, but this hollowness in his heart demanded his attention. It was selfish, but he felt he deserved some time to grieve too. So he lay there, in that cursed hospital bed, and mourned.