ngl I accidentally typed 'at the end of the gae' and debated leaving it like that. Anyways I know it's not a city but I named it that cuz they're all together and it's supposed to be the end of the game
TW // blood, discussions of death and violence
I fell through nothing. First there was a glimpse of a dark torchlit room, then a force yanked me backwards and dropped me in the middle of a field. I found myself plopped ass-first on a tall pile of random things.
My first thought was What the fuck?
After getting my bearings a little bit, I sat more comfortably on the giant pile and looked up, wondering if I just fell through some invisible trash chute. If I did, this is some good trash, and not just cuz I'm here now.
What, shiny armor, shiny weapons- oh that has a lot of blood on it, jeez- what's this?
My hands found a soft material almost instinctively. It was a yellow helmet made of leather. I welcomed the feel of it, and not just because most everything else was rough and sharp. It felt attached to something, not physically, but memory-ily?
It was bloodstained in a few places, but it didn't gross me out; it just made me sad. I held it close and tried to follow the feeling backwards.
"-but we have enough for a chestplate and that would give you more protection."
"Hey, why does he get the chestplate?"
"S̶a̶p̶n̶a̶p̶, come on."
"What, just because you're a simp doesn't mean-"
"For the last time I'm not a simp!"
"GUYS! I got the leather so I decide what we make...
"I'm getting a hat," George murmured.
The other voices died, but he remembered them. Other people. I was with other people.
I looked around the field. Where are they now?
Light came from the East, from over a river and behind a mountain. But no one appeared calling my name, or complimenting my hat; there was nothing.
Now what to do...
Frankly, I was in a good position here with a clear view of everything around me.
As long as nothing gets dumped on my head- I looked upwards. It was just blue sky and a couple dotted clouds.
Nope, still invisible.
Huh. Well, there was no reason to leave, so I started examining my new treasures.
There were many sets of armor scattered around; everything was hard and blue and very damaged except for one dark purplish chestplate that shimmered when I picked it up. I felt secure when I put it on.
I put on the yellow cap too, and shuffled through the stuff around me.
There were bows, some bits of food scattered around. I was looking down for anything interesting when whatever I was leaning on sank lower and I tumbled forwards.
I rolled painfully over my head and then felt something heavy hit my chest. It skidded over the curved chestplate and pain pierced my shoulder. I cried out. Fuck that hurt.
"Ow..." I gasped. I couldn't inhale. I gasped harder but the only sound was air leaving my lungs, not going in. My chest hurt; I knew it was rising and falling, but it wasn't breathing. I was losing oxygen.
I panicked and tried to move. I got my left hand unstuck and pushed at the sword stabbing my other shoulder. Pain burned down my arm and across my chest when it moved.
Finally I felt a little air come in with my gasping and sagged with relief, accidentally pushing the point of the sword deeper in and sending more searing pain out. I tried not to move and slowly regained my breath.
The sword was stuck, hilt-first in the pile, and I'd fallen right into it. Thank god for the chestplate or it probably would've gone through my heart. It looked like it slid sideways right under the shoulder-plate. Still, it really hurt and scarlet blood was leaking down the blade.
I'd thrown my arms out to stop falling and now my right hand was stuck awkwardly in the pile. I couldn't just back off of the sword. Fuck.
I gritted my teeth and gripped the blade with my left hand. As soon as I moved my right hand it started hurting, but I didn't stop. I pushed on the sword harder and felt the edges digging into my hand as I dug it out of my shoulder, screaming. My other hand finally slid out and I dislodged the sword, leaving a deep cut.
Then my skin caught fire.
I scrambled back in shock. I didn't know what lit it but the flames spread simultaneously down my arm and over to my neck. Suddenly I was gripped with the fear it would catch everything on fire and trap me in an inferno. I was shaking and trying to stop it as it crept up my face and went out.
"What... the fuck," I panted.
I took a few deep breaths, looking at the red lines the blade cut on my hand and quickly pressing it over my right shoulder. Then I looked at what my white fingers were curled around. What is this?
I'd pulled it out of the pile without even realizing. I pried my fingers off and opened it, trying not to mark the pages with bloodstained fingertips.
Hello, if you're reading this, it means you died. I'm sorry about that. But everything will be ok.
"What?" I said out loud. I can't be dead. This makes no sense.
I looked around again. There was still no one and nothing around me. Just an empty field and the sun, which was a little higher now. I climbed carefully up the pile and stopped in a more comfortable spot.
Then I resumed reading.
\\\|||///
Next we're going to enchant everything but right now everyone else is brewing and collecting food and diamonds. I don't know if I'll have time to write after that, or what's going to happen at all.
But make sure-
I looked up from the book again. Enchant... That's what these are.. enchanted.
I put a hand on the strong chestplate that shimmered lavender waves.
"B̶A̶D̶!!! WHAT IN THE HELL!! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!! It is SO GOOD to see you!! Oh my god you just popped up out of NOWHERE- HOW DO YOU HAVE ENCHANTED ARMOR-"
Whose voice was that? It was so happy. And there was... hugging. Yeah, three of us? No, more.
Wait a second- wait a second-
I flipped back a few pages.
George, Sapnap, and I are going to the Nether. I left a book for Skeppy just in case, but I'm keeping this one with me because-
George.
No wonder the name felt so familiar.
"I'm a person in the story," I realized. "Holy shit!"
Shit. Fuck. What am I supposed to do now? Keep reading I guess, and figure out how I got here. Maybe I can skip ahead. Does this book have my whole life in it? No, that's dumb. But it could, right?
Wait wait- I'm going too fast.
OK. I don't remember because I died, like a6d. But why did they come back on a bed, and I'm-
on whatever all this is. Is there a bed at the bottom?
I didn't really feel like digging down there. Maybe later.
Hold on-
I looked up again and winced. The side of my neck and face hurt. I ran my fingers over it: sensitive. Burns covered my right arm too. At least my left is dominant.
I shuffled until I could see the sword pointing upwards, still marked with dried blood. It was blue, made of diamond, but rippling with gold.
I'd planned on never touching it again, but if one of us used it, maybe I'd be ok as long as I didn't cut myself.
I slid down the pile a few meters away from it and carefully gave it a poke. When nothing caught fire, I gingerly pulled it out of the heap and held the hilt.
My gaze caught something engraved on the shining surface: Fire Aspect II.
Holy shit, that's powerful. It felt powerful.
My stomach rumbled. I put the book under my arm and held the sword in one hand to search through my loot; I know I saw food earlier. After pushing empty glass bottles and water buckets to the side, I finally found a few loaves of bread and felt much better.
I read until the sun was much higher overhead. I thought I had a grasp of what happened when a voice finally broke my concentration.
"Oh my god!"
Someone was charging at me at full speed. "I can't believe-"
I stopped him with the sword. He froze, shocked. He looked like he was going to cry. "G..."
"It's George," I said, lifting my eyes to the other people ganging up behind him. "Stay back or I'll light you on fire."
"You can do that?" one of them asked excitedly.
"Did you do it to yourself?" another one laughed.
Shit, they can see the burns. I hid my right arm and the book behind my back.
"No, shut up," I said.
The closest one stepped towards me and I swung the sword to his chest. He slowly lifted his hands in surrender. I squinted. Does he look familiar?
He took a ragged breath and said the last thing I expected. "G- George, I'm so sorry."
I lowered the sword slightly. "Who are you?"
He edged closer. "It's me, Dream."
I leaned back. "Ok, I don't know who you..."
Wait- the book.
I looked at the rest of them. "And are you all... the rest of them?" I counted. Six, including me.
My question confused them, though, because everyone piped up: "What are you talking about?" "We already met." "How'd you get all the way here before us?" "Don't you recognize us?"
I slowly shook my head.
"Well, my name is a6d," one of them said.
It's them.
I stepped onto the grass and pointed the sword questioningly. "Bad?"
"Sap," he said.
"Sapnap," I corrected.
"Yeah," he breathed.
"I'm Bad," one said. He looked scared I would hurt him.
"Right," I said, looking around. "So you, Sapnap, a6d, Bad... Skeppy?"
The one I pointed to looked surprised, but he nodded.
Then we all survived, unless...
"George-" Dream grabbed my arm, startling me and I reflexively pointed the sword at him. He backed off, but didn't take his eyes off me. "How do you not recognize us, but know our names?"
"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing," Sapnap said.
"Same," a6d and Skeppy said.
I wordlessly held up the book.
"What is that?" a couple of them asked at once.
"Bad's diary," I said.
"No way! Lemme see!" Skeppy exclaimed.
"Geppy," Bad groaned.
"It has answers," I said. "I've been reading it, so I know our names. Hey-" I had to back up to stop them from snatching it. "Wait-"
"I want to see-" "what else does it say-" "share-" "how we got here-" Their voices were overlapping and eager.
"Hold on hold on!" Dream stopped the rest from crowding me. "We don't have to fight over it."
He looked at me. there was something about his gaze; I couldn't put my finger on it. "Read it out loud," he said gently.
I raised an eyebrow. "I can, but you'd want to sit down. It's really long."
Bad immediately plopped on the grass and Skeppy sat next to him, but a6d piped up, "What about all this stuff?"
He was running his hands over a crossbow from the pile.
"It was here when I got here," I explained.
"I feel like we should collect it," Dream said.
Sapnap was looking at the sky. "We should go inside, guys. I don't want to have to fight when the sun sets again."
"Fight?" I was confused. "Fight who?"
"The monsters, like we saw in the dungeon," Dream said, staring at me. "And they attacked us all near the ocean. You don't remember any of that?"
I shook my head.
"Did they kill me?"
Dream hung his head.
"Yeah," Sapnap interrupted, "like really violently."
Oh. This makes perfect sense then.
"Why?" Dream looked up.
Oh did I say that out loud?
I held up the book- "When you die you respawn with amnesia."
All noise and movement stopped. I just felt the warm breeze brushing my skin. Dream has frozen. The other four had been scavenging the pile, but they all stopped as my words sank in.
"What?" I asked.
"Holy shit," Dream groaned. He made eye contact with Sapnap.
Sapnap shook his head in disbelief. "We all died."
"Wait- you all died?" I echoed.
"Yeah," Skeppy sighed.
"We all respawned together with no memories," Bad said.
"Hold on- this makes sense," a6d said, pointing at Sapnap. "Because you were there and then you went into the star thing and no one saw you come back. But then you didn't remember going in."
"No, no, no, this is bad," I said, flipping the pages. "Don't you guys get it?! Bad wrote this thinking there would always be people who remember. He was sure- he goes off track over and over and every time he says just to ask someone who knows..."
Dream leaned over my shoulder, "Wait- there's instructions in there?"
"Yeah! He wrote it for himself in case he died! He said..." I flipped through pages, muttering, "a6d died, and Dream died, so he says to learn everything you can from Skeppy, Sapnap, and George. Oh my god, this is so bad." I closed the book, looking at them. "We are so fucked."
"Language," Bad mumbled.
"So what do we do now?" a6d asked.
"Screw you guys," Skeppy said, scooping as much as possible into his arms- "I'm running. I'm not dying again."
Sapnap and a6d started arguing with him and I could see Bad was starting to panic.
I tensed at Dream's hand on my back. "What?"
"Can I see that?" He meant the book.
I swallowed. It was the most valuable thing we had. I wanted to hug it to my chest and say no, but I let it slip into his hands, trusting him.
He noticed the blood on my hands and was about to ask, but bit his tongue and stood up taller, raising his voice. "Hey guys! Chill. Skeppy, you're not going anywhere tonight- that house is obviously the safest place we've seen."
Skeppy frowned but didn't interrupt.
Dream continued. "We shouldn't do anything rash until we get all the information from this-" he held up the book- "then we can talk about what to do."
"He's right," Bad added. "We all need to work together." He stepped closer to Skeppy- "And stay together."
"Fine." Skeppy dropped the stuff with a clatter. "But if you guys are going to get me killed again, I'm going out on my own."
A6d glanced at Sapnap and then looked at me and Dream. "Me too, I don't want to die."
"Fine," Dream agreed. "That's fair. Just help us get the stuff inside and we can all figure this out."
\\\|||///
A little while later everyone had eaten from the random stuff scattered around and put a lot of the pile into their backpacks.
It was kind of nice to finally enter the little cottage I'd seen from far away. It was... familiar.
I picked a spot by one wall and dumped my backpack out.
A6d was nearby. I paused to watch him organize.
"Hey."
He looked up. "What?"
"How did you cure your eyes? I thought they tried everything."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
I scooted closer. "Did you die again since then? Maybe that healed everything, since I don't have marks from the lava anymore."
I looked closely at his eyes. They looked clear.
"Do you have a bump on your head?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "No?"
"Hmmm. Is your arm ok?"
He glanced at it. "It's been better since I ate the food. Yours looks worse though, is it hurting you?" He gently picked my hand up, looking at the burnt skin and lifting the shoulder plate to look at the wound.
"No," I breathed. This was the first time I could remember that someone was this close to me, actually caring about me. I could see concern in his eyes and felt.. something. Like I should look out for him too.
He let go and moved back a little. "Well, uh, let me know if I can... help." He gave me a small smile and went back to sorting his stuff.
"Right," I said mindlessly.
>>>
<<<
I felt something twist in my stomach watching George talk so intimately with a6d, but Sapnap stopped me from interrupting them. "Let him do what he wants."
"Yeah, I know," I lied. "I wasn't going to do anything."
He scoffed. "Yeah. Why do you care anyway?"
I looked at my hands. "I dunno, I thought we had something."
"Well, what's wrong with having more than one thing?" He raised an eyebrow at me.
I hadn't thought about that before. "Nothing... I guess." I met his eyes again. "Wait- do you want a thing with me?!"
He laughed. "Don't sound so panicked. What do you want?"
I thought about it.
"...Attention."
"Flattering," he chuckled sarcastically. "Ok, we can test it out. Come kiss me."
"Wait- you serious?"
"Yeah-" he beckoned- "smooch."
I gingerly got closer. "That's very bold of you."
"Mhmm, you like it?" He grinned. I was still wondering if he was joking.
I stopped moving and he climbed practically in my lap. I blushed. He noticed. "Chill dude, it's just a kiss."
"O- okay." I started wondering what made him so calm and what was making me so nervous, but then he leaned in and I stopped thinking about it and started kissing him.
He was a good kisser. That was unmistakable. It felt good. It was like oh, okay, and then ohhh, okay. Our heads moved in rhythm; I felt his hand on the back of my neck for a second. It felt good, but not quite right. He stopped. I was still a little breathless.
"Mmm," he hummed in thought. "That wasn't it. I think I get more 'best friend' vibes from you. What do you think?"
What do I think? Do I even know what I think? He seems a lot more in-touch with his feelings and honest than me. Huh. He has a point though.
"I think you're right," I said.
He shrugged and got out of my lap, patting me on the shoulder. "It was fun though. And hey, I can still give you attention. Hug?"
"Sure," I smiled. He was a good hugger too.
I watched him pull more out of his backpack, piece by piece.
"Should I kiss George now?"
He laughed, "Good luck with that, he's more uptight than you. Remember how he pointed a fire sword at you like 30 minutes ago?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Yeah, go easy."
"Guys, look what I found!" George interrupted us excitedly, holding, bizarrely, a chicken. A hen to be exact.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"Can I eat it?" Sapnap asked at the same time.
George hugged it protectively. "No! She was in the wall. I don't know how she survived." He gently petted its head and it clucked.
The sound and visual reminded me of something. Us three, in this house, much earlier, unhurt. "It should have grown up by now." Why did I used to think the chick looked like blocks? It was definitely a normal chicken. I touched it and felt feathers, muttering, "Weird."
Skeppy interrupted us, with one foot out the door and scanning the area. "Hey guys, are you going to read the book or stand around talking all day?"
"Cut the attitude," Sapnap muttered. "We're getting to it. George, you still have the book?"
"Yeah," George gave the chicken to me abruptly and flipped it open. He cleared his throat and started reading: "Hello, if you're reading this, it means you died. I'm sorry about that..."
(3.4k words)
Except for y'all who are reading it and didn't die XD
Hello, I'm back from hiatus and I think I can finish this before the new year. I started it in 2020 on Dec 26 so it will be just barely past the anniversary, but that's ok. The next chapter is already long, but hopefully I'll finish it tomorrow. We're really close and thank you everyone who stuck around for this long. This is still my favorite and I'm super proud that it's my longest piece <3