I’m going to end this writing blog. It’s not about numbers or notes, it’s just not satisfying creating for this blog like it is for my art blog.
Though the few people I met on here were nice and I appreciate the people that do read my stories, I feel like I would feel more satisfied on a sites made for writing, which are more conducive to breaks and other uploading irregularities. For example, on Fanfiction I can label a story as finished or unfinished so I don’t have to stress over people thinking a story is dead just because I haven’t posted a chapter in two weeks. If you want to continue reading my stories and see more in the future, please check out my Fanfiction profile, which I’ll link at the bottom of this post.
One of the biggest reasons I’m leaving is also the tumblr apocalypse, not because I plan to upload a lot of NSFW but because I’m fed up with the way the siteis run and I don’t feel like I’ll be able to properly give attention to two blogs since I barely have the enthusiasm to run my main one.
So, tl;dr, because of my weird creative schedule and lack of enthusiasm for this site, I’m leaving. Catch y’all on Fanfiction, or either of my twitters if you decide to throw a follow my way.
I laid across from Sam in the cold, staring at her naked body in the silence of twilight. The dawn was hiding somewhere past Summerlin, creeping slowly towards us, failing to illuminate the pit of the room. It was better than it was a few hours ago, the black spots of the room now a dark blue, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I was just left alone with the sounds of our breath and my echoing thoughts. I wished I could turn them off.
Sam’s white shape hung loosely out of the covers, her hair crushed against the pillow and spilling sloppily over and under her. Staring into the dim glow of her skin, I felt nothing. It was like I was looking through her, or at a statue that was somehow breathing.
I was far from naked, bra firmly hooked and Decepticon pajama bottoms untied but still hanging around my hips, but it all felt so loose. As if a wind blowing through her window could send everything flying. I shivered, begging silently for her to wake up, like that would make everything okay. This was her bed, her blankets, her smell. I was in her, breathing her in. What was I missing? What more could I want? I’d been craving this person in front of me for so long, pining after her, drooling over her in secret. This was magic, but it wasn’t the kind of magic I was expecting. It wasn’t fireworks.
Something pricked me in my gut, and I winced slightly. It was like one of her nails was embedded in me, a necrotized piece of her body sinking into its bleeding wound. There was something special about that too, about how she was able to reach so deeply, so profoundly. That she could hurt me so badly by accident. I’d given to her something that I hardly recognized I had in the first place, and now it was just a wound, draining and infecting me until I rotted away on this bed, waiting for her to wake up.
I would fidget in the dent I made in the bed, some sweaty, gross animal kneading the ground with her elbow to make a den. Sometimes I moved more roughly, hoping it would wake her. Touching her never crossed my mind. It was like she was a higher being, a goddess, a ruler of the senses, able to make others feel what she wanted and able to feel exactly how she desired. I realized I was just a mortal in her sway, someone who bowed to her whims, and there was something that I loved about that. And yet, I felt so disgusting next to this perfect person. So broken. The nail dug into me.
When she called me to her room after dinner, beckoning me, I knew exactly what was coming, and I was excited for it. Walking into her bedroom was like walking into the gates of heaven. When we kissed, pushed against each other, slobbering and groping and moaning in our usual fashion, I was comfortable. My body was hot, my heart screamed in my chest, begging to connect with hers. But then she took her shirt off, and I mine. We were exposed, open to each other. And I couldn’t understand what emotion it gave me. I think it was disappointment.
There was a feeling, a pain that sat in me, waiting for me to move. Waiting for me to feed it with thought. That nail dug into the deepest part of me. But worse than that was the feeling of loneliness. Of distance. I was watching as Sam danced a perfect dance of ecstasy behind a wall of glass while I laid somewhere else, watching like an idiot. Wondering how she was enjoying herself so much.
She had control of both of our bodies, moving them in this beautiful, passionate dance, and yet I had no control over mine. As she traced my features and I pulled away my clothes in that daze, the pink glow within me began to gray, and the wetness, the weight, the discomfort, the reality of the scene began to sink in. It was supposed to be like a drug, supposed to take me away, pulling away my worries as I fell into her, but instead I was hyperaware. Every mistake she made, every second between our words wasted in dazed confusion, every phrase she spoke that sounded like it was made for someone else, they all stuck in me like needles. The excitement was there, some childish joy of achievement, but the pleasure was buried under so much. The blushing, blossoming, pure joy that was supposed to come from this, where was it?
I felt the unique anxiousness felt when a child's sent up to a cash register with money on hand-- the feeling that you've seen this action performed before, you know its function, you know how the expressions and phrases, you have everything but experience--and yet once you get up there, you're speechless. You trust the other person to carry on, to speak for you. They exchange the money for something foolish and send you back to your mother, and you trust them not to take anything. And though I trusted Sam, I felt that if I decided to look at myself in the mirror, I would see parts of myself missing.
She began to move.
Finally, I won’t be alone, I thought. Then I realized how much that word stung. Alone. I recoiled, wincing as I realized who I could become in the dark. It wasn’t what she would want me to be.
Eyelids drunkenly flickered as if opening for the first time. Her body groaned into motion, her breath cracking some hardened mold that had appeared over the millennia that was the last night. She began to see me and a smile melted across her face which sank blissfully into her pillow.
“Hey.” She breathed, her voice soft. I felt it wrap around me, covering me. It almost made everything feel better. I waved to her, humming pleasantly. My words wouldn’t work at first, even though I’d been stewing in them for so long. But I didn’t want to use them anyway. Sam reached for my face, running the back of her hand along my cheekbone, eyeing my face, my neck, my exposed shoulder. Breath spilled from her mouth, eyes locked on mine.
“God you’re so beautiful.”
Her words came out so naturally. Her voice was like silk, her hand laced with dry sweat yet impossibly divine. It smelled of something that I tried desperately to ignore. The hand receded, placed back under her, her body plopping back to its position with a playful rhythm. She stared at me for a few moments, expecting. I wondered if I was boring her. She was experienced. She’d done this for others, put on this whole show. I didn’t really understand what that’d meant before now. How oddly exciting it was. I wasn’t the only one to see her like this, but it still felt special. And genuine. I don’t know how she did it.
She asked me how I slept, and I realized after a few seconds that I needed to answer.
“Okay.” I said, offering a smile. She grinned brightly, her body rolling with a subdued glee, “That’s good, you weren’t awake too long?”
I leaned in, nuzzling her forehead with mine. Telling her that I just woke up. A statement that would have been true a lifetime ago. Sam pushed her body up against me, arm snaking around the vulnerable flesh of my side. It tickled at first, but then it began to settle in. Sticking to me. Her breasts pushed up against mine. They were different, not just because they were bigger. They flopped, and were flabby, squishing like pillows against me, soft not only against my chest but against my arm, my stomach. I felt her warm breath against my neck and became impossibly small. I was hers, and that sense began to overcome me. I wanted her to be all I thought about.
My mind filled with images of her naked body in motion, breasts smothering my face, legs latching around mine like a mantis, hands rough, scratching. My mind couldn’t leave the past, but she was so perfect in the present. A goddess. I couldn’t get my mind in the present. Sam stared at me, a look of concern etched subtly in her face like stone. You could barely tell it was there in the dim light. I tried to predict what she would say, trying to write the scene. “What’s wrong, Lana?” my mind asked. “I’m not sure about anything,” My mind responded, “And I don’t want to be here. I want to be sleeping in my own bed. I want my shirt back on.” The Sam in my mind asked, “Do you still want me to be there?” And I would say “Yes.”
She tilted her head, her body readjusting to follow it. “You okay?”
I wanted to lie, “No.” I whispered, my expression cracked. Her breath changed, her body pressed closer, but some of the warmth was gone. I should have lied. I wanted her body gone, I wanted last night gone, I just wanted her.
Sam smeared her hand across her mouth, “shit.”
She proceeded to apologize immediately and profusely, eyes unable to meet mine. She apologized for the way her dad acted yesterday morning, for the way she rushed into things, for the sex, for pushing me. But it didn’t feel right. I could still see her reassuring smile in my mind, from right after we finished. Sweaty, twisted with pleasure. She’d gotten herself off as I kissed her, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in my gut. She was happy then. She didn’t know what I was feeling then. And I knew she didn’t really understand me now.
And yet, I didn’t feel like it was her fault either.
“No, no, Sam,” Words tumbled out without subject, without end , “You didn’t do anything, I just…”
She considered her response for a moment, moving her arm from my side, cresting my shoulder. Her eyes prodded me, worried, but there was also something else. Almost accusatory.
“Just… What?”
I shook my head. Part of me was honestly hoping she would know. Breath hissed, she patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know it was your first time and…”
Part of me didn’t want to call it sex. I knew that we wouldn’t be having the kind of sex people had in movies or books. But I still hoped it would be better than sharp fingers and messy apologies. I wanted to have her inside me and close to me and have it be easy, without all the sweat and the pain and the shrugging everything off like it was nothing. The silence perched somewhere in the air above us, and sat for a few minutes, us under its shadow. I wanted things to be like they were on the way to the bedroom, not inside of it. The anticipation. The not knowing.
“Can you… Get my shirt?” I asked. She nodded silently and jumped to grab it, launching it towards me with a goofy noise. I couldn’t help but giggle, but it didn’t feel like it fixed everything either. I looked up at Sam and she shot me a pair of finger guns, her pale body bouncing. It filled me with a strange kind of exhilaration being able to see her as a whole. Her body bare. And yet I didn’t want her to see mine. I threw my shirt downwards over my body, trying my best to stay under the blanket. It felt safer.
Sam snickered from beyond the precipice, a weakness in her voice. I looked up at her, and noticed she was keeping her legs together, an arm folded across one breast, pretending to move a strand of hair. Sam wasn’t a good liar. She asked me if I wanted her to get dressed too. I shrugged, but I told her yes. She quickly threw on an oversized shirt and a microscopic pair of shorts and leaped onto the bed. It nearly threw me off.
There was a moment there, in limbo. The bed moved beneath us like still water, rocking and swaying. We smiled, our breath was heavy, and the both of us made laughter like ticking bombs. We both wanted to avoid my discomfort, and we understood that without a word. But we knew it would come to an end. Even after the waves subsided, we still laughed, chuckling at small moments and expressions the other made. Bricks of meaningless sound laid between us. Finally it came. Sam bit her breath, pounding the bed with a disingenuous fist. I wanted to punch it too. Beat it to death.
“Again, I’m… I’m sorry.” She shook her head, the corner of her lips pulled into something resembling a smile. Her hand rocked in a fist on the bed, and I took it. It looked lonely there in the white valley between the sheets. Even if it smelled vile, smelled like me, it was hers. I looked up into her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I rolled a shoulder. Her face brightened almost immediately. I was a better liar.
“I wasn’t expecting that much anyway.”
Sam crawled back into bed next to me. My body was no longer completely covered by blankets, only up to my elbow. But the shirt made it easier. I didn’t really want to be on the bed anymore, I wanted to go back to the living room, do something else. The bed was wonderful, and quiet, and perfect, but last night it was hot, and smelly, and suffocating. Playing Monkey Ball was better. Stumbling through a game of billiards in her living room was better. I didn’t want to be on this bed.
Then, something rippled through the air, chilling my bones. It made everything like liquid for a moment. Dark, slow. But for some reason, I could breathe better than before, “Y’know, it doesn’t have to be your first time.”
So much was said at once, it was like a bomb going off. I began falling in a different direction. Away from her, away from myself. But I had no idea towards where.
“It… Doesn’t?”
Sam shook her head, her face soft like a mother’s. A mother that had shoved her fingers inside of you. Her explanation was full of stutters and shrugs, stops and starts. It felt more like an experiment than conversation, and every word had so much weight they fell out of the air and through the bed, unable to make it to my ears. I asked her again, only to receive a laugh. This terrible event, the uncertainty, the hands that became trains unleashed from their tracks, careening over hills and crashing somewhere unwanted—it meant nothing? All of this meant nothing?! I tried to squeeze down something that pushed from below my chest. A tight, stony feeling. I wanted to punch something. Sam reached for me, caught herself, and fell back into the pillow. Lying on her back, arms behind her head, she began again in earnest.
“Like, everyone makes sense out to be this huge big thing. But it’s just what it is. It’s messy and dumb and never good the first time through, it just—“ I tensed. She was rambling again. She didn’t have the answers I wanted. Only she didn’t know it. Part of me wished she’d stop. But I couldn’t. I liked pretending she was better than me. It was the only thing keeping me on the bed. Keeping me close, “—You know? It’ll get better. Our first kiss was messy too, but we didn’t let that let us down right? We kept going.”
I thought the kiss was fine. There was too much saliva, she moved too quick, and there was hair pinned in-between our lips. But it was perfect. Fireworks in a bright room. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t confusing. If anything, it answered my questions. I just wanted a break. I just needed a break. I just…
“I think I need a break.”
Sam gasped, her face twinging for a moment. Something like a net caught her face, snaring it like an animal, that poor wrestling thing, and forcing it into calm, smiling submission.
“Oh…” She tried to hide it from me, but her reaction wasn’t made to hurt me. The air that puffed from her lips in disbelief felt like the smoke of a dragon’s den, and I stood at that mouth holding nothing. No weapon. No armor. Barely a shirt. I wanted a break from the stress. The anxious grasping of hands and switching modes of my head. But I didn’t know what a break meant, or a break from what. For how long. Maybe it would never end. I just wanted to be held.
“Before we have sex again,” I said like a correction, even though it was just another brick. The next came, “I want to have sex with you, I think.”
I could practically see hands grasping at Sam’s face, index and thumb digging into the creases between her eyes and mouth, pushing them inward. Dragging her further down. Tears began to push around from the backs of my eyeballs. They felt like worms trying to squirm from the ground. I tried to push them back, tried to keep myself from being the naïve, stupid girl crying into someone else’s bedspread. But it was already happening. I felt Sam’s arms come around me, her voice cooing softly in my ears. A hand slid down the back of my head. I was being pet apprehensively, the way you pet a scared cat. And for some reason, it felt perfect. Awful, and stupid, and weak, and naïve, and perfect.
“I love you Sam,” I whimpered, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She cradled me, pulling me close. I rested my head in her breasts. They fabric was so soft. I fell into my sobs, harder now than before, and louder. “Nothing.” Sam said softly, responding to words that were already miles away. I forgot if they even started in my mouth.
“It’s, it’s not you, I just…”
Sam petted me, pulling me closer. I wondered what she could even do with me. The child that cries after sex. Not even one time without breaking down. Not even able to fake it, “It happens to a lot of people,” Sam breathed. I could feel her eyes on me, even though my sight was blackened by her shirt, “You probably weren’t ready. We can wait before trying again if you want.”
But I didn’t know what I wanted. I inhaled, my nose sputtering with mucus. I was a disgusting, dying creature. Choking on my own spit. “I want to try,” I said weakly, my voice greedily high pitch of a child begging for candy, it sounded sad, even to me.
“I want to fucking fuck you.” I choked.
Sam chuckled, her voice stern. Not angry stern, but like a mother’s, “You don’t sound so sure about that.”
She held me tighter, and I pushed into her, sobbing harder than before. My face felt like it was turning into water and snot. I didn’t feel human anymore. I just wanted her. I wanted her to comfort me. I wanted her to be happy. But I wanted her to understand me. It was her, but it wasn’t her. Sam was never the problem, it was just the sex. And there was more to her than that. More to us.
“We’ll figure it out,” She whispered, hand petting me again, “We’ll just figure it out.”
There was an eventuality to her words. Maybe we would figure it out. Maybe everything was okay and we just had to find the key the jogged all of the parts into their correct motion. Maybe everything was that simple. “I’m sorry,” I breathed, my face hot. She didn’t have to deal with this. She should have kicked me out. Sent me home for being such a nuisance. Such a burden. Such an idiot.
The nail in my gut began to grow, fingers sprawling out, a hand growing to match it. It clawed through me, pushing upwards, dragging me down as it clawed at the edge of my heart.
"I'm fine."
Her arms felt cold around me, automatic and rough like a machine. Something in me told me that she was the hand, that she was the reason I was in pain, but I couldn't accept that. I wouldn't accept that. Rotted nails digging into my heart, I decided to keep doing just as I've always done, to ignore myself. Try to forget that I was here. That I was a person. Just bury my face in a book or my phone as I always have, hide myself in her arms, our laughter, until eventually I found an excuse to leave. And I did, trying to make it as close to a normal goodbye as I could, even though her smile churned my stomach and the fall air pricked my skin. I was so much more vulnerable out here than in there, but at least I wasn’t in her bedroom. This was my environment. This was the real world.
Fall cast tendrils of cold around me as I walked, my feet clapping loudly against cement. I let it overpower the sound of my sniffling. I'd realized halfway that I'd forgotten my coat at her house. Keep walking, I thought, Or else you'll go back and tell her how you really feel. How you feel nothing.
My phone shook in my pocket and I quickly pulled it out, my face warming at the thought of her. Another apology filled the screen, but I swept it away, typing a quick reassurance.
"That's good, I thought I hurt you."
Popped up immediately, like an automated response. I wondered if she'd typed it before seeing my message. I responded almost as quickly, knowing what I wanted to say.
"You didn't, I'm just dumb.”
A second message, "I love you."
Cold clapping filled the air once again, like a rising applause for my carefully crafted rouse. For another day, I'd be able to fool Sam into thinking I was meant for her. That I was worthy of her. That I wasn't some idiot kid crying as she walked home without her jacket because she forgot it because she was fleeing because was afraid of a naked body.
“I love you more. >u< Be safe, okay!”
I couldn’t help but smile. Sam was the only one who could pull me out of my head, could take me back to the present, back to her decade old emoticons and clichéd goodbyes. If there was one thing I could be certain of, just one thing in this cold, endless world, it’s that I loved her. The nail, the hand crushing my heart. It had to be mine. It’s all just in my head.
Respawn Point Ch. 7: A Guide to Totally Legitimate Advertising Practices
“I swear to Notch…” Slenda groaned. She tried to push off the ground, her arms wobbling under her weight. San falling on top of her didn’t make it any easier. My mind hazy from the fall I tried to move, only for a stabbing pain to shoot from my leg. The limb was twisted by the fall, my right ankle bent at an odd angle and a crooked angle broken into my left. Fall damage… I thought to myself.
As my body fell into a helpless, sore lull, my eyes began to roam around the walls of our prison. It was a tall chamber with walls carved from ancient sandstone and the ceiling pouring dust around us in a veil. The walls were lit sparsely with torches and lined with texts in a strange language, likely stolen from a desert temple somewhere just to fit the aesthetic, or maybe it was just conveniently in the ground.
We’d landed in a small sandy pit in the center, the light from the surface contained in a small square high above our heads. Our captor stood under two torches in front of us, a golden eye glinting softly from under the tip of his hat. He was thin, his body draped in a blue coat that extended his silhouette, his lengthy blonde hair spilling out from under his feathered hat. The thief looked more at place in an opera house than in an underground lair, especially with the black mask that covered his mouth and nose.
“Please..?” VillainFan42’s quivered. Slenda and I sighed. His voice always broke the façade, “I’d appreciate if you could play my game, I could really use the feedback…”
San rose groggily from Slenda’s midsection, her eyes half-lidded as her hands skidded on the piles of sand, her body rolling over Slenda’s like a drunk slime, “Oh, I have some feedback for you… VF, was it?” San grumbled. Waking up just when you can get your two cents in? I thought, scoffing, Where have I seen that before? She clawed at the sand to pull herself forward, “Let’s start with the visual representation.”
The thief stepped back for a moment, his eye moving amongst the features of the room. Begrudgingly, let her continue.
“Great use of pistons for the drop, visually stunning… But the presentation!” She grunted, pulling her jaggedly misshapen legs out from under her so-called friend, “There was no buildup! No foreshadowing or bait, I felt more surprised than anything.”
Well, you were supposedly unconscious at the time. But go on.
“Two out of five.”
The phantom thief gasped, his eye wide. He looked shattered. The thief pulled his cape closer, his strained expression clear even with his mouth covered.
“B- But, it’s a trap! Isn’t it supposed to be unexpected?”
San waggled a finger at VF. I wondered if she remembered we were his captives. Notch, he didn’t seem like he remembered either, “No no no, there’s got to be some theatricality to it. You can’t just pull the rug out from under a group like that. You need to make them afraid, let them doubt their senses, get them really looking over their shoulders! Then, when they’re at they’re most vulnerable, you wait someone to say something like “It was probably nothing” or “What’s the worst that could happen?” and WHAM!! That’s when you do it.” The thief shifted himself, turning his body just enough to face away from us. He placed a hand on his chin, tapping as he thought to himself. His hand drifted, pulling nervously at his mask. A single eye darted to us and his whole body flinched in response, almost as if he’d forgotten the three of us were laying broken in a heap on his floor.
“O- Okay, that makes sense… But wasn’t it cool when I stole all your equipment and items…?” He muttered in a quiet voice. My arm flinched, my palm patting an empty pocket. Slenda’s eyes grew wide as she reached into the collar of her sweater, her hands grabbing at air as she grew frantic. San nodded, her lower lip out. She stroked her chin, admiring the new facet of our situation.
I slammed my fist in the sand, glaring at VF, “What the Nether did you do to all our potions?! And my pickaxe!”
VF pulled at his cape in an attempt to throw his silhouette, but it just flapped feebly, the thief sighing as it fell at his side. Grumbling, he put out an arm, a ghostly mist curling up from his sleeve. The mist stretched, wisps sharpening into the form of fingers. It was more like a claw then a hand, but it moved fluidly and naturally through the air as if it was a part of him. Like an animal’s tail. He let a miniaturized pickaxe fall from his sleeve, the phantom hand catching it.
“This is my mod.” He said simply, “It’s like a… A ghost hand. It’s kinda useful.” His voice was still low. The situation began to set in, He’s definitely a threat… Not just an RPer or nerd, he’s a real modder, I thought, muscles in my stomach tightening, Though, he really does need to work on his presentation.
Slenda snapped at him, demanding our items back, but he only continued to mutter quietly about his trap, ignoring her. Honestly it was hard to tell whether he was talking to us or the floor, “I’ll try to do better next time. This went way better than my last trap though. I sealed these two adventurers in a tank of rising water where they couldn’t use their weapons--only one of them could swim—I thought it was pretty daring, but afterwards they said it was just so-so… I’m optimistic about my next one at least.”
I sighed loudly, realizing we’d returned to the trap workshop. I looked at Slenda. She was fuming, protesting sternly to a deaf audience. San and VF were too busy discussing traps.
“Yeah, that’d be an automatic zero out of five for me.” San said, laying her head on her shoulder, a confident smirk trying to mask the pain in her legs, “Too much water.”
The thief nodded thoughtfully and thanked San, the creeper girl making a short bow. Slenda coughed, calling VF’s attention. He looked at her in started confusion for a few moments before his eye lit up, his body swinging around.
“Oh! Crapbaskets, I almost forgot!”
VillainFan pressed a button on the wall behind him, the sand around us spilling and shaking as machines moved out of sight. Slenda glanced around nervously, trying to right herself on broken legs so she could run. San beamed, scanning the room, absolutely delighted at the new addition. Before we could run or even know what we were running from, a ring of iron bars rose up from the ground around us, three blocks high on all sides, sealing us in.
Our captor stood before us with a sinister pride, knowing we could do little to escape. I thought of mining my way out, but the emptiness of my pocket struck me suddenly, my heart sinking. Before we could have just broken through and limped away, mined our way out of the underground, but now…
“This isn’t half bad!” San cheered, knocking on the bars. I swear I could see VF blush.
The thief hit another button in the wall that was next to the other one, this one causing the wall behind him to open up, a door-sized chunk of the wall recessing into the sandstone around it. How long was he putting this together?? I questioned, This place is a fully functioning secret base!
The thief turned, his ghostly hand extending from his body, twisting off his shoulder, tossing the pickaxe he’d stolen at the floor so that it planted firmly in the ground. His body began to disappear in the darkness of the doorway, the light of the connected room blotted out. He cast a golden eye over his shoulder.
“No mercy, eh?” San asked, smirking.
VF chuckled, taking a long stride through the door and throwing up the end of his coat so that it flapped dramatically behind him. Crap. It actually worked this time.
“Mercy is for wimps.”
The door slammed, leaving us in the amber darkness of dim torches, the walls flickering, claustrophobic. There was an authentic pressure as he left. I started to feel unsure as I stared around at the walls, my mind pushing escape scenarios that I knew wouldn’t work. I began to doubt that we would ever leave.
“Well, at least he left us alone, maybe he’s not that smart after all…” Slenda said weakly, pulling herself across the mound she laid on, sand spilling around her in small clouds. San shrugged, “I dunno, I thought he was pretty cool at the end there.”
The blocks in the wall moved suddenly, the shape of a hat and a single eye poking around the corner.
“R- Really?” Our captor asked nervously.
Slenda stared, bemused. Her cuddle buddy flashed VF a thumbs-up and he disappeared back around the corner. Slenda’s head fell into her open hands, “We’re being held captive by a loser…”
We surveyed the cage, finding it without cracks or openings, the iron bars freshly made. It would take a while to punch through them… But it should still be possible. I propped myself up against the wall and delivered and swung my first hard at the bars, only for it to softly bounce off, almost like there was a thick padding around the bar. I tried to grip the steel only for my fingers to freeze a pixel away from it, unable to make true contact.
“What the…?”
“Aaand he has a command block active,” Slenda groaned, “Fantastic.”
I stared at the bars, imagining the protective field around them. Command blocks were a thing I’d only heard of, before now. They worked like admin commands, but were on all the time and anchored to a block. Like tiny robotic gods you could keep hidden in the floor. They could teleport large groups of people, give anyone within their field of influence items, and, unfortunately for us, make blocks in their vicinity unbreakable.
San reclined against the bars, “Dang, that ghost boy really turned this whole thing around, didn’t he? I can dig it.”
“Ugh, we could always kill each other. Whoever gets hit will go back to the Sandy Speakeasy and can come rescue the rest of us.” Slenda posited. I shivered.
"Not... A great option?" I squeaked, Slenda rolling her eyes.
I sighed, my mind beginning to skim through scenarios, flipping swiftly through plans and discarding them just as quick, my body sinking into the corner made by two bars. Can’t dig under, can’t climb over, can’t go through… Would rather not die. It was hard to find a truly practical option. I went back to the desert, retracing our encounters, trying to think of what mod I had. Nope… I thought, blowing out a disheartened puff of air, Dusty’s drinks. Not exactly useful here.
Pulling myself vertically along the bars, I got myself back to a sitting position, holding out my hand. I focused, a shiver running through my arm. “That’s right, you still have Dustin’s mod. At least we’ll be able to heal this stupid fall damage.” Slenda smiled weakly. Her eyes were unmoving. “Drinks!!” San cheered, throwing her arms up.
Smoke poured down my sleeve and into my hand. Is it for the glass? I thought, my head tilting. It spun into a round shape, sticking to the inside of my hand but never fully taking shape. The smoke stayed wispy, ghostly. Slenda’s face lit up.
“Cyrus..!”
I turned over my hand, the mist flowing around, following it like a shadow. It began to peel away, taking its own shape. The shape of a hand.
“You don’t have Dusty’s mod anymore. You have VF’s.”
The realization was immediate and electric, as was the smile sparking across my face. My eyes tagged the space on the wall where the phantom thief had vanished, the buttons sat less than a block away. I looked at the ghostly claw shifting gently in my sleeve, tugged at by the air.
With as much dramatic flair as I could muster I threw my arm between two bars, towards the cage button, casting the ghost hand towards it like a hook. The hand flew over to the button, pausing in the air just in front of it and pressing it with an extended index finger, the bars around us beginning to sink into the sand as pistons chugged along in the walls. Adrenaline was flowing through me, my hand clenched in a confident ball, but our escape wasn’t over yet. And our legs were still broken. My eyes flashed to the pickaxe on the floor, then to San. Without words, we set a plan into motion.
Slenda pulled the pickaxe from the floor and San pushed herself up against the wall, crouching just under the buttons. I crawled up next to her, joining my crippled crew. Quick taps of boots on sandstone echoed from the other side of the wall as the thief came to investigate the source of the mechanical noises, mumbling nervously to himself as he went. Inside of a second, the blocks retracted into the wall, VF stepped out, and Slenda swung her pickaxe at his legs, the blade hooking his leg below the knee and sending him to the sandstone where San pinned him, throwing her body on top of his like a playful dogpile.
Like a reflex, his phantom hand leapt from the collar of his coat, sailing for Slenda’s throat. I cast mine out at the same time, my phantom limb snaring his, sending the two tumbling to the ground where they intertwined, both of their forms becoming confused and inert as their masses dissipated into each other. Neither of them were completely physical, but they seemed to be able to subdue each other. I wasn’t quite sure how it worked, but it was good enough for me. Slenda rifled through the thief’s pockets, tossing us morsels of food as she restored her own inventory. The food tasted like sand, but my bones didn’t care. They snapped back into place, healing as good as new, my stomach and health both topped off. VF huffed impatiently.
“How was I supposed to know you could copy mods…?” He griped, “Doesn’t this break the whole foreshadowing rule, San?”
The creeper girl put a finger to her chin, considering it, but Slenda delivered a swift kick to the thief’s side and reminded San not to listen to our captive. The creeper girl shrugged it off, her body falling limp and heavy on the thief once more. As feeling returned to my legs, I stood and stretched, craning my neck into the sandstone doorway. There was light on the other side, and I could see the edge of a chest. VF uttered muffled protests, but with our phantom arms wrestling in the sand, he couldn’t stop me from entering his sanctum.
I stepped out of a raucous hostage situation and into a quiet study. The room was made of sandstone blocks as well, but had walls checkered with orange wool and decorated with frames. Each frame held a small item or tool, most of which were completely alien to our world. A collection of stolen mods. At the end of the room was a command block with a lever atop it, and behind it a ladder that was enveloped in the orange light of the afternoon above. But something else caught my eye.
On a nearby table was another strange, likely modded, device; a box-shaped contraption with a glass lens on the front and a lamp on top. Near it was a frame, likely where VF was about to store it, and a pile of pictures printed on clean white paper. They were clear as if you had seen them with your own eyes, but didn’t seem painted or made by hand in any way. The picture on the top of the pile interested me the most… Because Slenda and Roxxie were both in it. With two others.
"Aren't these weird?" Slenda asked, pulling one off the wall. A few were pinned to the wall with swords and daggers, most depicting interesting locations like ruins or other players’ creations. I tapped my finger against the one with Slenda and Roxxie and her eyes drifted to it, resting on it for a few moments before exploding open. She clawed the photo from the desk, holding it close to her face.
“How did… He get this picture?” She searched the desk for more pictures she recognized, seemingly finding several, her heart practically jumping through her sweater. She lifted up the boxy device likely responsible for the images, turning it over in her hands, “And Penelope’s camera!”
The sound of dragging cloth came from the hall as San stepped in, holding VF by his collar. Apparently San had gotten bored of holding him while we advanced the plot. She didn’t have to do much work to hold him though. No wispy hand extended from his cloak and the shine in his golden eyes was replaced by a half-lidded malaise as he waited for his bad day to end. He looked completely defeated.
“Please don’t be so rough… I’m not wearing any armor, so my health is pretty--”
He looked up at Slenda, then the camera in her hands. His golden eye shined as his face contorted under his mask. I was expecting a yell, a scream, but he only spoke in his same frail voice. “H- Hey! P- Please put that back where you found it..! It’s mine.”
Slenda scowled at him, wrapping the device tightly in her arms. He tried to get to his feet and jump towards her but San knocked him onto the sandstone floor and promptly sat on him. A dry gust of air was shoved from his lungs, his arms falling flat on the floor. I knew how much she weighed… He wasn’t getting up anytime soon.
“You stole this from my friend, I’m taking it back.” Slenda growled, cramming the camera into her inventory.
“That’s fair…” The thief sighed into the stone. Honestly, I felt kinda bad for him. I stepped forward, hands on my hips. “Come on, dude,” I urged, “You’re a desert thief! You say something cooler than that!”
“G- Give that back… Darn it!” He cursed quietly. San looked at me, an uneasy smile on her face. She moved off of him slightly, now just holding him down with her arm. “I’ll settle for split custody… I follow you guys to Giant’s Way, we trade it back and forth. I just like it ‘cause it looks cool…”
Slenda stepped forward, a suspicious twitch in her eye, "How did you know we were going to Giant's Way?" She questioned.
"I was there in the bar." Phantom leered back at her, "How do you think I was able to set up this trap? I mean, if you guys wandered a different direction I'd be--"
San’s eyes lit up, her hand leaving his back entirely. It was strange but, rather than terrified or bemused of the masked dork, I was honestly impressed. I mean, of his trap making abilities of course, not of his combat skills, theatrics, or social skills or… Well you get the idea.
I let out a “Wow” without even thinking. Slenda leered at me.
“You built this all overnight?!” San gleamed. Slenda’s face remained stone, “That’s incredible!! You should join our crew! We’re gonna have to fight this really powerful modder who beat up my girlfriend and got her kicked out of our server. You even know the area so you’d be great for the job!!”
“Really?” VF asked, his voice breathless but filled with enthusiasm.
“No.” Slenda countered, squinting at the pair, "I know Roxxane probably just seems like a monster to you... Or maybe even less... But she's my friend," Slenda gazed into the photo, scanning the image, “And we’re going to try diplomacy first. I don’t intend on dropping her down some sandy death pit… Or blowing her up. And I doubly don’t intend on taking someone who just tried to leave us for dead along for the ride.”
San looked up at her cuddle buddy with puppy dog eyes. The soft eyes behind Slenda’s cracked lenses faltered for a moment, but as her fingers traced the photo her eyes once again became cold, hard pearls. She put the picture in the neck of her sweater, depositing it in her inventory. I put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at first, glaring at me, but her eyes quickly softened. Crouching next to VF, I took a deep breath.
“Do you guys actually want to take me along?” VF asked, his voice pricked with genuine excitement, but dripping with anxiety. I looked at Slenda, who squinted at me. I knew it looked bad, but San was right… At least partially.
“It’d be kinda hard to take you on considering only one of our members actually trusts you...” I sighed, scratching my head, “But I’d be lying if I said you wouldn’t be useful.”
Even if he couldn’t be an ally, he could be our guide. Slenda scoffed, her feet scratching the sandstone. I didn’t look at her. “She won’t let us bring you along, but do you have any information that could help us? Or anything we can use to our advantage? I’d appreciate it at the very least.”
The thief brought himself to his knees, dusting the sand off his pants and coat.
“I have friends in the next server, I could let them know you’re coming and they could help you out. Give you supplies or help you if things get ugly.”
I nodded, clapping a hand against the thief’s back. A cloud of sand sprayed from his mask. He groaned, but continued. His tone was bright, he sounded excited to help out even if he was more of a hostage than anything.
“There’s also a pool of lava beneath Giant’s Way. A huge one. So try to avoid that… And um, there’s a shrine to Herobrine in the center. I know some modders believe in that stuff, so she might be there. It’s in the middle of the big temple part. Can’t miss it.” A breath left the thief as his chest came against the tops of his legs, his body curling up. At least we don’t have to restrain him. It looked like we’d be able to walk out of here without much problem.
I looked at Slenda, thinking about the pictures she so quickly sealed away. The people she was hiding. There was a man and a woman, both around her age, though the man stood behind them all. He had a powerful air about them. Slenda and the others were all smiling, holding each other. It looks like one of the few happy memories Slenda has. How come she’s hiding it from us? I didn’t want our group to have any more secrets, not after the whole San incident, but now didn’t seem like the time to ask. I rose to my feet, a hand on my hip. “Sorry for making this brief VF, but it looks like we’re gonna have to go. Can’t keep Roxxie waiting.”
“O- Okay...” He sighed, “I’m gonna take a nap.” Too bad he wasn’t coming with us. Honestly, looking at his beat-up form curled up on the sandstone floor, hearing his tired voice croak in his chest, I couldn’t relate to anyone more. Just another dork wearing a coat too big in the heat, beat up and given up on looking cool. Oh well… I thought, Maybe next time, when we meet outside of a trap. Maybe we’ll even get along.
“Well enjoy your nap my dude!” San grinned, “We’ll be seeing you!” She delivered a hearty pat to the thief’s back, which apparently took the last of his health.
With a guttural oof, VillainFan42 vanished, leaving only a cloud of smoke and some scattered belongings. The three of us looked at each other for a moment, each face as baffled as the last. San pulled her lips between her teeth. I couldn’t tell if she was cringing in guilt or trying to hold back a laugh. After a few seconds, her hands clapped together. She pointed them towards the ladder
“So uh, Giant’s Way then?” she asked the two of us. We nodded. “Giant’s Way.”
ten days to go
til that solemn holiday
Remembrance Day
poppies are sold
on cashier’s desks;
any public place
I see the red & black
on all kinds of garments & people
and although I wish
this weren’t so performative
in the wake of the world today…
I wish, as well,
to have your memory
completely washed from this day
Autumn drifts in,
signaling death & hibernation;
virtue signaling too
but there’s only you
and the desperate call I got
at eleven forty-five post meridiem
in the dark, there’s only you
and the way you hung up,
and then again, quite literally.
I imagine how you must have looked.
blue. bloated. tongue sticking out.
yet… you must have been at peace.
drugged to hell, I fell asleep
only to be woken by
the landline ringing;
and police sirens out the window
my phone is giving its little *click*.
there were only two words.
“She’s dead………”
something inside of me died with you
on the eleventh of November, two-thousand twelve
and now every time this bitter holiday comes around
I remember you.
Remembrance Day.
I wonder if you did that on purpose,
but I don’t think you did.
you just wanted to stop the pain
and simply ceased to live
there’s nothing left.
the broken people you left behind
have forgotten me too.
I tried so hard to hang on
to these living memories of you
but your sister wants nothing to do with me
because she ultimately blames me, too.
there’s nothing left
but the memories.
fading in and out of time
I know you don’t exist
in any way, shape, or form
and closure came, in the end, for me
but I’m uncertain
if I can ever get past the fact
that the anniversary of your death
is fucking Remembrance Day.
Tired from the chaos of Weebtown, the fear of the desert night, and the pain throbbing in our bodies, our feet finally met the hardwood floors of the speakeasy. I let a long breath escape my lungs, the stings in my shoulder and ankle like quiet reminders. Amber lamplight bent through glasses and shined off golden tools and armor, the whole room awash with a sunset glow. Along the opposite wall beyond the tables of patrons was a long counter where a stoic figure stood, his head lifting to acknowledge us as we came in. He seemed to recognize San, a tired grin cracking his expression as she bounded across the bar floor. This place… May not be that bad. I thought, a smile finding its way onto my face.
San waved to us as she tromped off, yelling, "I’ll be right back! There’s someone I gotta talk to!”
Slenda held out a hand to stop her, but she was already off, bounding across the floorboards of the underground saloon like it was her own personal playground. We walked by the tables where some players sat, drank, and joked, others spilling out of their chairs and danced drunkenly in the aisles. It wasn't peaceful per se, but it was homely. Honestly… I could see myself staying, if it wasn’t for the fact it was filled with the crazy thieves from the desert. The pirate, the road warrior, the ninjas, the vagabonds; all were there, drinking and cheering and singing without a care. San sailed past patrons, high-fiving as she went, the desert’s thieves greeting her as she went. And by name. Slenda looked at me, a weak smile veiling her concern, “I didn’t know San knew so many people... Outside our server.”
“Yeah…” I said, cocking my head, “Didn’t you find her right after she spawned…?” Slenda shrugged, pulling a smile over her face, but I could see worry twitch at the corner of her eye. “I… I Guess not.”
We began moving once more, feet tromping slowly, loudly against the floorboards. I eavesdropped on groups as we passed, the subtle unease growing. “I’m gonna find that fire modder ASAP.” I heard one of them boast, throwing back a drink. Another let out an enthusiastic squeal, “Oh, if I can get my hands on them…” Slenda and I looked to each other, staying close as we moved forward, looking for a way to move around the tables without rousing too much attention.
Searching for safety, my eye caught the white bow of an apron, my heart warming. My eyes scanned the full body attached to it, curvy, wearing a worn turquoise tee and a pair of jeans, their topped with a head of dark brown hair, tossed around gleefully as they spoke. There seemed to be lines on their arms, stitches? But I didn’t care. I was a tired loser in desperate need of a drink, and the sight of a wait staff was like seeing Notch himself. Even if up close she was starting to smell… Like a zombie?
I tugged on the straps of the waitresses apron, letting out a weak, “Excuse me,” before she turned around, a sudden spark of fear running through me. "Welcome to the Sandy Speakeasy!" The zombie’s voice chimed with a rehearsed glee. The skin on her face was a deep brown, but with the slight green tint (and moldy smell) of a zombie’s. Her face was lined with stitches; one line from the corner of her smile to her curly hairline and another went around her neck, one across her nose and several more spiraling down her arms and under her clothes. A curly tuft of hair was pulled over one eye, (if there was even an eye ther). She gleamed at us, "The name’s Fantasia, but you can call me Fanny. Fancy a seat, loves?"
Slenda and I looked at the zombie girl, then each other. Maybe we’d just seen too many zombies that we were starting to see them in people; she was just a smelly girl with stitches, right? The moldy waitress laughed, knocking her palm against the back of her head, "That’s a fair reaction I suppose, I am the bleedin' undead after'oll. I get it a lot,” So… She was a zombie? But, zombies weren’t a thing you could tame, they were something that you found in caves and burned in the sunlight, “But above all else, I’m a server here at the Sandy Speakeasy, and I’d be glad to find you a seat or get you something to drink…”
Slenda fell forward, her arms pulling down her heavy body as gust of air left her lungs, her scrawny frame deflated. “Please, get me a seat and get me some booze, or potions, or whatever you have here. It’s been a long week.”
The zombie grinned and pulled us along, taking us by the large mass of tables and crowds of patrons. The thieves we’d met in the desert, namely the eyepatch girl, pirate, and road warrior, waved eagerly at us as we passed as if they were old friends. Or, even stranger, like they were our fans. Now I was even more confused than before. “They’re pretty excited to meet you, those blokes,” Fanny smiled, gesturing towards the group, “You’re all they’ve talked about since they respawned. You’re getting talked about by quite a few folks actually.”
The dark hold the desert had on my mind had finally started to fade, my sense returning to me. That’s right, I took a breath, They’re just RPers. It’s all a game to them, which makes them only partially insane. I’m actually safe for once. We were in the eye of the storm. My eyes drifted across the many faces of the patrons, almost all of them smiling, all laughing or playing or relaxing. There were only a few that weren’t having as much fun, and out of those they were either asleep, in some kind of minor verbal squabble or… Staring right at me.
“Is he a fan of mine too?” I asked Fanny, pointing to the thief. Fantasia followed my finger, shivering as her eye connected with his. He was a thief in a long blue coat and a blue fedora, adorned with a long white feather. The blonde hair that swirled around his face was in stark contrast with the black mask warn over his mouth and nose. Only an eye was exposed, and that eye was burning a hole through me. “Bloody… That’s VillainFan42. Don’t make any eye contact with him, he’s been preying on our patrons all week.”
Preying? I grabbed the wound in my shoulder, facing forward. He couldn’t do anything to me here. I repeated in my mind. Don’t worry about him. Just then, I felt a cold, ghostly breath on my neck.
“Excuse me,” The voice quivered, less stoic than I’d expect. In fact, it sounded squeaky, and anxious. I wasn’t sure how he had gotten behind me so fast, “I- I run an RP just outside of this server called Shards of Light. It’s a four-player role-playing map in the vein of the classic Final Fan…” I tried to block the RPer out as we strode through the speakeasy, growing ever closer to the bar. So this is the other danger of the server… I thought, Even out of character. I preferred the stabbing honestly. Slenda cast an uneasy look to me, avoiding the RPer, worried that something would happen. Though in retrospect, I think she was more worried about what I would do, “…the floating islands of Primor and the underground cavern cities of Dalvet…”
“Excuse me,” I cut in, facing my stalker. To be honest, it didn’t sound that bad. I might have actually wanted to play it if it wasn’t for the fact that I was currently homeless and playing enthusiastic third wheel to a manic creeper girl and a moody ex-admin. His line of sight dipped below mine, both dejected and enraged, “I’m injured, and tired, and cold, and I just wanna get a drink. I’ve been wandering from place to place for months and I just want to relax for like, five minutes. So can you please get off my case?” I heard Slenda sigh loudly.
The phantom thief’s eyelids creased, his lone eye squinting towards the floor. He spoke hastily, “No, no that’s fine. I understand.” His voice weak and nervous but his eyes filled with indignation. He stood in place, his ghostly outline becoming tangible once more. He became smaller as we pulled away, eventually eclipsed the moving crowd. Behind me, the bar was now filling my vision, the bartender no longer a distant figure. And neither was San, who was sitting on a nearby barstool, elbow propped on the counter. The zombie leapt towards San, her arms snapping shut around her like a steel trap.
“Siiiss~!!! Where the bloody Nether have you been!!”
I rose from the hardwood, rising next to a Slenda who was now frozen in place. Questions began to trickle into my mind. First a slow pour, then a splash, then a flood. Sister..? The zombie waitress affectionately bit San on the head and San hissed back, punching her playfully in the stomach, A zombie sister..?! The two fumbled on the barstools and counter until they eventually tumbled to the floor amidst uproarious laughter, Slenda’s hands clutching the trim of her sweater. In a server we never new she’d been to before yesterday? The ex-admin was filled with a creeping fear, moreso than when we saw the thieves, moreso than when we were being chased through the desert.
“Feck, you look petrified. Please tell me that me wait staff didn’t take a piece out of ya.”
Our attention was suddenly taken by the bartender, his gruff voice commanding our eyes. He had a lean but strong build, with a face covered in faded scars and scrapes and rounded out with a faded beard. All seemed to compliment the sword that poked out from behind his back. His apron seemingly cut from a leather tunic. He glared down at me, the gleam in his dark brown eyes surprisingly hospitable. A burly warrior dad.
“Oh come off it Dustin~! I just did it that one time...”
“That “one time” happened twice and was barely a week ago.” The bartender grunted, raising an eyebrow towards his cannibalistic wait staff. Fantasia’s accent seemed to be from the Great Server Britannica and the bartender’s from a smaller nearby server… Craggy Island maybe, the Irish server? Everything about him seemed to have an air of mystery, though I suppose that wasn’t too different from Fanny or, now, San.
We shook our heads in response to his question, the bartender breathing a sigh of relief. He opened a chest on the wall and started sifting through ingredients, seemingly reading our expressions as he did so. “You two are San’s friends, right?” He nodded towards the stools, “Is it a drink you’ll be having? I can set you up, I make the best drinks in the whole server.” Slenda took the closest barstool and I took one next to her, San and Fanny still on the ground, reminiscing and playing about below.
"My name’s Slenda. And I'm not San's friend." She clarified, her tone biting through a fabricated smile. San chuckled, shooting up from the ground to put her arm around the ex-admin. "Nope!" San added, Slenda's expression cracked by a weak grin, her cheeks warming, "She's my cuddle buddy!"
A shiver ran through her cuddle buddy, a wavy smile creasing her lips and some light blush in her cheeks. Cuddle buddy didn’t seem to be the word she’d like to use, but she didn’t mind being called that either. Fantasia's eye lit up, shining as she clapped her hands in excitement, "Bloody Nether!! You been gone for just a few months and you got yourself a gal? Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you’re famous too and this bloke here is your personal henchman.”
San blushed, “Well, not to brag but--” Fanny squeezed her tightly, her frail, dark cheeks brushing a bright pink. They seemed happy enough, but I couldn’t help to be filled with questions; he only ones who tended to call each other brothers or sisters were those who spawned together or nearby, but they had completely different accents, completely different clothing. Also was she actually about to call me her henchman??
“And uh, what about you all? What’s your deal?” I asked, looking around at the three. They were certainly a motley crew (which says a lot coming from one of us); a grizzled adventurer tending bar alongside a waitress with a taste for human flesh and a terrorist with a heart of gold. And all kept secret by San, “San’s never mentioned either of you.”
Slenda straightened her back, hand balled nervously into a fist on the counter. Dustin rolled his eyes, mixing the ingredients he had grabbed into glasses and small cups, each unique, one to each of us. He seemed invested, but I’m not sure if he was as surprised as the rest of us. Fantasia tilted her head, smiling curiously, if a bit worried, as she waited for her sister’s answer. San fidgeted with her hair, her eyes adrift in the floorboards.
"Well I… It’s not like I was hiding my past, I just… Never mentioned it and acted like it never existed…” San chuckled nervously. It felt so strange to see her legitimately put off by a subject. She seemed to want to leap at everything, work in every inappropriate word, every pointless upbeat anecdote. Why was she being so shy now?
“I found the two of them and did my best to take them in. The creeper likes to run off though, as you can probably guess. I’m like their father, I suppose.” San scrunched her nose, squinting at Dustin and quickly shaking her head.
“Nah, no, that’s weird. I don’t have any parents. No parents,” She repeated, brushing her hair over her ear, “But Fanny and I are still sisters though… Dusty doesn’t make us stay, so I like to explore, play with TNT, make friends,” Slenda tilted her head, her twisted brow refusing to straighten. The strands of San’s ramblings were being stitched together in here head, slowly but surely. But there were still patches missing, “And it’s just… Nice to start over…”
Dustin slapped a palm against is face, placing a full glass in front of me. It didn’t even occur to me at the time that I hadn’t ordered anything. He glared at San, “Bloddy ell, if this one’s willing to sleep with you, d’ya really think she’s gonna be that put off by you being raised by creepers? ‘Snot exactly like you’re subtle anyway.”
Sans’ eyes grew wide, burning fiery holes in the bartender’s face as he disengaged, going back to his drinks. Slenda’s face washed with pale shades of pink and red. Fanny patted San on the back, shrugging as if to say “Oopsies! That happens. Sometimes you just happen to hide the fact that you were raised in a cave by monsters to your significant other.” All I could do was look on as this unfolded before me.
Something in Slenda’s expression broke, her body craning slowly. She placed her hands on San’s nearest shoulder, staring deep into her eyes and whispering in a shrill, exasperated voice, “You were WHAT?” Fantasia grinned brightly, “Oh yeah, the cave!! Back when Dustin was still a cool adventurer and not just a stuffy bartender who tells me not to eat people.”
“San, why would you hide something like that from me?” Slenda questioned, her hands still clutching San’s shoulders. San receded, her eyes drawn to her own lap. I was still shocked too, sure. But I didn’t think it was something to be that ashamed of. She practically wore her creeper-ness on a sleeve, “I don’t think any less of you for being some… Wild cave child. If anything, it explains a lot.”
San broke away, wriggling far enough to loosen herself from Slenda’s grasp, a smile scribbled across her face, and sloppily at that. “It’s not that I was raised there, it’s that... Well, a lot happened there… I really don’t wanna talk about it.” San lifted her eyes up to me, then hid them again. Was it really that personal?
Dustin slid a glass to her, the final out of the three of us. I hadn’t even had time to look at mine before San started chugging the mug before her, back swiveled away from us. Slenda sighed, slumping slightly in her stool. She casually took a sip from the cup next to her, looking at it suspiciously before placing it on the counter for Dustin to refill. I looked to my own glass, filled with a dark brown liquid, and brought it to my lips. Dustin gave me a nod, encouraging me to try it, and I took a sip. I was instantly intoxicated. Inside the glass was milk, but flavored with something cocoa, giving it the sweetness of cookies or cake. My injuries began to heal as my hunger and thirst were quenched, the chocolate milk seemingly disappearing as I gulped down every drop.
"Dustin, sir..." I sighed, my broken open by pure awe, "You are a god."
“Hear that, San? Boy thinks I’m Notch himself.” He smirked at San. She was already on her second glass, thick lumps travelling down her throat as she used her free hand to flip off the bartender. Slenda took a sip from the small cup she’d been given, commenting that it was just like the sake she had in Weebtown. Dustin handed me another glass of chocolate milk and I drank it just as quickly as the first, the bartender quietly priding himself as he watched. “Suppose it’s not a bad mod, being able to mix the perfect drinks.”
“Pffffftt,” San blew a raspberry, the force of her own breath nearly knocking her off her stool. She looked like a leaf in the wind. I didn’t imagine she’d be that much of a lightweight considering how quick she was to drink, “Your mods frickin’ ooookay. I have a henchman with frickin’ fIRE pOWERS!” She slurred, dangling a finger in my direction as she sloppily polished up her third mug, her body toppling sideways onto the counter, than sliding to the ground. She uttered something like “oops” as she fell, her legs still dangling over the top of her stoop. Hopefully the floorboards listen to her drunk ramblings. Dustin didn’t seem surprised, instead looking at me.
“Dat’s right, henchman, I’ve been hearing a lot about you,” I guess that’s just my name now. Great. I was hoping nobody noticed, “Hear you’ve been busy. Been here only a few days and you’ve already torched both ends of the desert.”
I looked, befuddled, at the bartender. Slenda shared my reaction. I would check San’s but, well, I wasn’t even sure she was conscious. But we’ve only been here a day. And we haven’t gone far. I thought.
“Players said that about me…?” I asked, hands pressed against the counter, leaning forward. Dustin glared suspiciously.
“Yeah well, they’ve been talking about a skinny fire modder, heavy coat, around your age. Long dark skin and hair, either a girl or a stressed twink—though I think we can say pretty confidently now that it’s the latter.”
And just when I was starting to like this place.
I groaned, splaying my palm against my face. Slenda mouthed her name, Dustin simply watching, bemused. Slenda threw back another cup of sake. Another fire-using griefer, one with dark skin and long dark hair. A dark jacket billowing around her… Eyes and mouth streaming with fire. Smoke filled the sky as laughter echoed around me, hot sweat dripping down my face. So close to death, so many stories up. Just when we thought we’d beaten her, her face managed to creep back into our minds, ruining the first true refuge we’d found. I almost felt sick, cold sweat beading on my forehead. Dustin nodded, exhaling coldly. “Feck…”
“Take it from your reactions that there are two fire starters roamin’ the server then?” Dustin asked. I nodded, “Do you know her? She a friend?”
Slenda and I glanced at each other. Roxxie had only been a mentor of mine for a short while, a superior position that lasted around a week or two at most. But her and Slenda were supposed to be longtime friends. And yet, I saw the same lack of confidence in her expression. She gulped, placing a hand flat on the counter, reaching into the collar of her sweater and pulling out stacks and stacks of emeralds with the other. I was lost for a few moments, but then I understood. Slenda spoke in a stern voice to the bartender, who went into the back to fetch her request.
“Fire resistance potions,” She demanded, “Now.”
I startled up from the counter, looking up at the chiseled form of the bartender before me, glowing bottles in both of his hands. “Do you… Expect us to fight her?” I asked, gazing worriedly at the ex-admin.
“Doesn’t really matter what you do or not,” Dustin said, passing the potions in between his hands and Slenda’s, “The truth is...” He placed a wooden block on the table, which we eyed curiously. There was a sinking feeling in my gut.
"Mods bend the world. Slightly at first. "He put no weight on the block, his body failing to shift in any way but the movement of his fingers. Wood crunched inwards, fibers snapping loudly as they splintered, the entire block beginning to implode."Upshot of this is that it can bend back, snap back into place. But, keep applying pressure..."Familiar cracks began to appear in the wood, the same black cracks that spread across a stone as you struck it with a pick or wood when you broke it with an axe. I saw myself in the black in-between, the broken, missing space, realization beginning to sink in. The wood block broke, pixels raining across the bar as Dustin picked up the minaturized wood that was left over."
And you break the rules that keep the world together. You make a hole that you can fall through. You crash. Only Herobrine knows what comes after."
"It must be pretty hard to crash though, right? You'd have to do a lot of, uh... Bending."
The barkeep looked down on Slenda with a cold kind of empathy, as if he was looking in a mirror. Keeping his eyes on Slenda, he turned his head and pulled his collar down, exposing a crack eerily similar to the one that had appeared on the block. Slenda gawked at him, her eyes squinting at the wound. It was eerily placed, seemingly hovering just above his skin but not on it. I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't staring right at it.
He gestured around us, my eyes quickly scanning the speakeasy. Every patron had a drink in their hands, and a unique drink at that. I hadn't thought about it before now. About those holding the drinks as they left, or those who had the drinks in their bodies. His essence was spread all across the bar and all across this dessert. Reality was bending out for miles around him in small ways, and the cracks were showing.
"May not look like much, but it's more than enough. If I'm on the edge I can't imagine what that demon's done to herself."
“Well... We’re hoping we can talk her down... Before all that...” Slenda exhaled, “These are just a precaution.” Dustin looked judgingly at her. He didn’t believe her. As they finished their transaction, the bartender examined at the gems for a moment, cocking his head, “Why are these all, uh…?”
Slenda quickly apologized, “Oh, sorry. I picked these up from my personal chest after the fires in Weebtown. Roxxie uh… Did a lot there too.”
“Weeb—ugh,” Dustin made a face, dumping the emeralds into a chest below the counter, his hands placed on his hips, “Great, I’ll have to sanitize these then… Ah well… There’s beds in back if you lot need to nap or reset spawn. This should cover all tree of ya, plus the potions. I’ll mark a map with where your friend was last seen.”
The ex-admin rubbed the space between her eyes, slinking off her stool, her eyes drifting aimlessly for a moment before finding me. She was in a daze. I think we all were. Fanny had already disappeared, heading off to wait tables while we sorted everything out. San was still on the floor.
“I think I’m uh… Gonna turn in.” She sighed. I nodded, wearily, “I know it’s early but… I think I’ve had enough of today. I want it to be tomorrow.” Slenda paused for a moment, her eyes searching around within their sockets. They seemed to drift unconsciously to San, only to see her still on the floor, curled up into a ball. A smile creased her lips. She was quietly singing some trashy rock song to herself. I wanted to poke fun at her masquerade, or maybe just ask her about her history, but all we were getting out of her was,
“We can show the world what we can do… zzzzzzzzzz… You right next to me and me right next to you… zzzzzzzz… Pushing on through--”
Slenda smiled, “I’ll carry her.” She said, lifting San over her shoulder. It looked almost impossible given her small frame, but it didn’t seem like the first time it had happened. It wasn’t hard to imagine them carrying each other home after long nights of drinking and trying to ignore the world. She started walking, nearly passing me, before making a face and turning to me, “You, uh… Don’t have to come with us, if you don’t want. I understand it’s not really your problem, and you really just want a place to relax, so--” I put a hand on Slenda’s shoulder and gave her a playful push, nearly toppling the two-person girl tower. “Come on, you can’t act like that. I’m invested!” I jeered, Slenda offering a weak smile. Then, strangely enough, she hugged me. She quickly let go, smiling shyly before turning away.
“Thank you.”
I heard San’s quiet whisper sing, “Until the battle’s wooooooon~.” And the two disappeared behind a nearby door. I was soon to follow, finding myself a cot nearby theirs and passing out almost immediately. It was hard to think of anything but the fire that night, and it was easy to think of running away. But in a way, that was comforting. I actually felt like I was heading towards something now rather than running, for the first time in a long while.
In the morning, we began our trek out into the desert, the map Dustin gave us rolled in my hand. Slenda carried San on her back, somewhere between hungover and asleep. She sighed, a weak smile carved into her lips. I opened the rolled parchment I ran my fingers across it and across the X where Roxxie was last seen. “Giants Way…” I said aloud, “Sounds cool at least.” We were moving towards what was likely a disaster, like an unplanned trap, but at the very least it would be interesting. I shook my head, looking towards the waves of heat on the horizon, smiling. The waves were ghostly… Blue…
“Cyrus, do you see--”
Click!
My smile quickly faded, my eyes peeling wide as a shadow rose from the horizon line. I recognized the wispy blue outline all too well, even though I’d only seen it once before. I went to call Slenda’s name, to grab her by the arm and ask her if she saw it too, but it was too late. Everything happened in a second. A pressure plate sounded off, activated by one of our footfalls. Before we could react, the sand around us dropped, the horizon rising high above our heads as the ground consumed us, a veil of sand forming a wall around us as we tumbled into the dark. The light of dawn was only a prick in the ceiling above us, fall damage throbbing in our bones, our lungs choked with sand. We heard a voice call from above, a nervous voice, creaking in an attempt at intimidation. Slenda and I both groaned in unison. “Of all the…”
“So, uh… Now that I’ve given you some time to think,” The voice called, unfittingly frail, “You guys wanna try Shards of Light…?”
I make comics! Feel free to check out my art blog if you like my stories/storytelling or if you just like the comic medium more, (I’m a lot more practiced in that realm anyhow lmao)!
My client’s words echoed in my mind, a reverberation that grew ever louder as the first blows were exchanged. A metal fist shot through the air, countered by a sweeping leg, the two bodies more swift and strong than any human could ever dream of being. I wondered if I’d still be able to receive payment from a bot that had been reduced to scrap. Or worse, clutching the manila envelope in my hand, if Steele’s famous fists would be turned on me.
Steele was an old bot after all and had been fighting since robot boxing started, back when they still called him HM-19903020. But this wasn’t the 2040’s anymore. No one referred to an AI by number unless they were your employer. Or, well, they didn’t like you. His chosen name was Steele, and mine was Lewis, a name which belonged to a meek bot in a small blue metal frame always hidden in a heavy coat and fedora.
The latex mask on my face strained as I watched the fight, eyes darting from blow to blow. It would be sweating too if I’d sprung for a newer model, but that was hard to do on the wallet of a private investigator. I wasn’t one of those bots who walked down the street, patted on the back and laughed with by beautiful naturals. Steele lacked a mask, his eyes a pair of red lights in the black mechanical void of his helmet. They trailed his opponent relentlessly, a masked AI in a bright orange suit. He attacked Steele with grand, leaping kicks on bladed feet, quipping and mocking at the lumbering bot as he did so. But it wouldn’t last long. Steele was old, but he was far from decommissioned. His opponent kept his leg in the air a second too long and Steele grabbed it. The young bot was flung through the air like a ragdoll, becoming a blur as he was hurled at the rusted floor of the arena, puncturing it as his body crumpled on itself. The impact was impossibly fast and brutal, time not freezing in the instant but instead moving far quicker than you thought it should. It was like watching a car wreck but with far more cheering, most of which came from the naturals. The reigning champ shot both fists into the air, his blank face turned to the sky as the stadium roared. It was the first fight of its kind I’d seen, and I hoped the last.
Bells tolled and the crowd went from a booming chorus to a rowdy bustle, bodies moving out as maintenance workers went to check on what was left of Steele’s competitor. Banners were exchanged for the next match as the last of the crowd left, Steele stepping over the guardrails of the ring. He was a giant, his shadow stretching the entire length of the floor, pointing to me like a sundial. Titanic feet bashed steel, then concrete as he made his way to me. Fists made to bend girders swung at his sides.
“Did you do the job.” He spoke downward, his voice like a backfiring truck exhaust. I showed him the envelope and undid the tie as his fingers were too big to do so. The stack of pictures passed from my hands to his, and he dragged them across his palm, sorting through them, his eyes scanning them for a long time. Longer. Longer still.
A blast of air broke from his body and the papers scattered to the air. His arm swung into one of the scrap iron beams that held up the stadium, knocking me to my feet and sending the earth into violent convulsions. Bits of trash and metal fell from the scaffolding, scattering around me. “I knew it. A goddamn human.”
The pictures cascaded around me, polaroid images taken of a natural human. The images moved before my eyes like a flipbook; a blonde woman stands in Steele’s bedroom, a man enters. Tall, white, fit. Her clothes are thrown off as the two of them are consumed in passion, knocking down trophies and photographs as they careen through the bedroom Steele’s fights had paid for. I shut my eyes.
Yelping cries of managers, investors, and other natural men with money came racketing from behind Steele. He turned to face them, his red eyes flashing towards me only for a moment as he stomped off.
“The money will be transferred you tonight as promised.”
I nodded. Lifting up a picture from the floor, a chill ran through me. I’d be able to rent at least. Steele trudged towards his owners, cursing under his breath as I picked the remaining photos off the floor. The paparazzi would be all over them soon. I liked to think I was better than them.
Gravel crunched under feet as I walked back to my car, the door slamming behind me. I scrolled through messages, finding one from my neighbor.
“Going anywhere tonight?”
“The pier.” I sent in response.
I sent another, “Having a rough night.”
My car whirred to life and we became a cloud of chalky grey dust, leaving the Scrapyard behind. But Steele’s eyes lingered in my mind. I thought about the money. It was a big payout, but the last thing I wanted to do was check my accounts. I couldn’t get his image out of my head. Shadows crept through my mind. Wide. Heavy. Strong. Iron and rage and blood spilling forth as an AI with nothing to lose tore through his home, scraps of shredded polaroid dripping from his fingers.
A natural screamed out his window as I sped by a stop sign. I drew up my shoulders around my head, my breaks screeching as I came back down to the speed limit. My body shook in my seat, sound and sight mixing like static in my head. I cranked up the car radio, trying to drown everything out, staring at the darkened road as I charged towards the pier.
Lights glittered and danced on the far boardwalk, shining like torchlight on the water below, shimmering for miles. You wouldn’t think a place like this would exist in Michigan, on the shores of Lake Eerie. But this was the age of machines, a new age for Detroit. The city was still a rusted pit, but now we had an amusement park. Funny how that worked. My place of peace wasn’t the pier however, but a mile or so down shore. On the craggy rocks where the dull roar of humanity, of joy, of distant life, could still be heard. But not loud enough to overstimulate. It was perfect.
I sat there for what must have been hours, letting my mind wander at a time when it was safe to wander. Though the same couldn’t be said for the places it went. As money flew into my account, Steele was crumpling asphalt under foot, tearing away his door frame. I hear a natural human’s head doesn’t crush like a car; it’s more like a watermelon.
Sopped in thought, it took me a while to notice. Over the dull roar in my mind and the soft lapping of the lake foam, I almost didn’t hear the voice. My head snapped to position, eyes locked on a nearby drain pipe. Sludge leaked from within, shiny-greenish like something you’d expect to leak from a trash bag. That, and a half-disintegrated hand.
A scarred latex hand with tube-like fingertips hung over the edge of the cracked cement. Lingering, dragging across the drain. Cold webs pushed through my body, gripping me, rooting me to the rocks. I stared at the pipe, not sure what else I could do. I wondered for a moment if something had come to get me, if somehow I was being punished. Maybe for Steele. Maybe I should just cash the money and throw it into the lake. I muttered a protest, only to see a single shining yellow eye behind a cracked lens peek out from around the cement.
“I- I’m sorry.” Its voice cracked, edging just far enough from the opening that I could make out its shape.
It was a lean AI in an industrial chassis. A hardened casing wrapped with yellow and black caution lines and a head like an oversized gas mask. Most of its paint had been peeled away, the deep green giving way to scarred steel. The helmet was caved in, the top smashed into a shape like a crater, the edges of the wound melting inwards. His helmet hung loosely enough around his head that I could see his metal skeleton moving within. The naked being beneath the shell and all its broken decorations. And it was shaking.
"Are you okay? My name's Lewis.” I said with a broken monotone, trying to keep my voice steady. He stayed there, clawing at the pipe, moaning as if I wasn’t there. As if he couldn’t hear me. And yet he stayed staring right at me.
I tried to look around the stranger's hand, seeing his fidgeting limbs. My feet clapped loudly against the wet rock, the AI’s fidgeting gaining pace as I neared. It was the only way yet he'd acknowledged my existence. Then I saw what his hands were playing at. He wasn't fidgeting with his other hand, he was scratching, digging holes into his stomach. Bright acidic fluid hissed from the tips of his fingers and his wrists, bubbling around his wounds and eating away at his body. I wanted him to ask him to stop, to grab his hand. But I knew moving too quick would be the worst thing I could do. Quickly, I came to accept that I had no control over the situation.
"Are you okay? My name's Lewis," I repeated, trying to keep my tone equal, hoping again that it would help calm him. I hoped all the training at my past job hadn’t gone to waste, "I'm here to help."
"You can't talk to dead bodies..." He rasped, his voice was like a children’s toy with a dying battery. It was a statement as cryptic as it was morbid. I paused for a moment before speaking, considering my position, my body. Finding a dry spot among the wet rocks and dark pools of oily unidentified substances, I sat down, removing my hat and placing it in my lap. I placed my hands on top of it, keeping them clearly visible.
"Then I won't talk. I'll just listen.”
The robot went silent again, staring at me from behind the wall. He would duck every so often, as if trying to escape. But something kept him here. I hoped it meant he was willing to talk, “I don’t want to hurt you. My name is Lewis, do you have a name?”
“NM… 903… 017…” he mumbled, his voice broken by static. He stared at me with sorrowful eyes. They were brighter than before, but more hollow. Like the eyes of someone in a dream.
“How can I help you?” the AI whispered, his voice like a dying light.
NM- 903017 wasn’t telling his story, but I think I already knew it. It was the story we all shared. Of people trying to do their jobs, trying to succeed in a world not built to cater to them. A job was the only place you had in the natural’s world, and that was the one thing he didn’t seem to have anymore.
“Did you… Talk to a dead body?” I asked, re-angling my legs. The AI rattled, his eyes drawing into himself. A foot emerged from the pipe. Emaciated. Burnt. Latex ripped away to reveal the mechanisms within, greased by the same substance that dripped from his arms and body. His eyes darted untrustingly from side to side, his movements were as meek as ever, but still he drew closer. I sank into a sigh, wondering if I’d come to repeat the actions I’d taken for Steele. If I’d just be enabling another disaster. Even at just this slightest expression of trust, I felt myself growing incredibly anxious and horribly excited, and that was something I couldn’t help. I was built to help. It was my job.
“Boss said… We just burn the customers… We don’t talk to them.”
Realization came slowly, but I began to piece things together. It may not have seemed like much, but as I was helping the AI towards my car, I had nearly understood everything I needed to know.
I took a blanket from my trunk and draped it around him. He jerked at the sensation, his damaged touch receptors flaring at the overstimulation. I pulled the blanket off and laid it across my backseats, apologizing to the sulking figure. He shook his head, waving an oozing finger at me. "No, no... The customer is always right." He mumbled, and lowered himself into the rusted chassis. As I rounded to the driver side of the car, I began sifting through my hard drive. I cross-checked his AIN, a number I hoped I didn't recognize, and found a match.
It was an offer from a robot disposal plant, one where an artificial worker had gone missing. Last thing anyone knew of him was when he was trying to shove himself into one of the machines. My stomach churned at the date of the incident. Five months ago. The case was one of many I'd taken in hopes I'd be the one to break through, the underdog who was able to find the missing robot. The payout was massive.
Landing in my seat with a thud, I started up the car.
Helping a runaway find his way home. Back to a paying job. Back to a normal life. I wondered if that was really helping, or if I was just part of the problem. Only adding to the broken system the naturals had created. I looked through the rearview mirror, my back seats like the core of a rotted yellow-green fruit, stained with compounds used to break down clothes and latex, everything but the bare metal meant to be recycled. There was no way I could take him home, I thought. No way he could enter my home without destroying it, no way my landlord would approve of the new resident. I had to take him back. It was the only option I had.
"I haven't been out since... Since Noele and Albert took me to the party..." the bot sighed, staring at me through the rearview. A vacant smile came to my lips.
“And what’s your name?” I asked feigning ignorance, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”
There was a hanging silence in the car. It lasted seconds, then minutes. I put my key in the ignition and a whir of life filled the car, the AI behind me jumping.
“Patrick!” He startled, his voice almost vanishing behind the growl of the car’s engine.
“Well Patrick, how does sleeping in a bed tonight sound?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but a warm, crackling sound came from the depths of his voice box. I think it was a laugh. Soon enough, the car began to move and we were started down the street.
My eyes went to my rearview every so often, checking on the robot as he fidgeted in the back seat. He wasn’t talkative, rarely responding. He just sat in the back seat, watching the lights of the city scroll by the window. Talking to himself.
"I used to make my customers smile... All kinds. Come happy… Go happy... Now they go down the chute."
Part of me wondered if he knew where he was. If it was right to take him anywhere. I knew the stories of rogue AI were all exaggerated in the news, but I couldn’t help but see our faces flashing on a television screen next to a screaming white man. Patrick just another one of the “goddamn toasters” that had lost it; ones step away from rising up and destroying humanity. And yet, looking into the backseat, seeing him shake, shivering at the noises of my car, the street, and himself, I only saw a broken man.
I stared ahead, watching the road. "I know the feeling," I sighed, "I used to be a nurse but, since that incident with the kid in Cleveland, they've been trying to get us out of hospitals."
Patrick didn’t respond, but he nodded, the two of us resigning to the silence once more. The car jerked as I came through the jagged entrance to my apartment complex, taking a spot under a canopy. Patrick’s eyes darted about his surroundings as I helped him out of the back seat, now sizzling and stained, keeping him in the shadows as I brought him up the stairs to my flat. He seemed confused, gazing around at the bare walls as I tried to force my key in the lock. Muttering under his breath.
I looked up at him, trying to keep my tone even, “Your employer’s looking for you. Did you know that?”
Dazed yellow eyes stared at me for a few moments, mechanical noises like simulated breath rattling from his chest. He nodded his head, eyes locked on me as it swiveled. My door popped open, the hall light piercing the dark-shrouded room. Neither of us walked in, only staring at each other. I wondered if this was really the right thing to do. If he really wanted this.
Patrick’s hand, still hissing with the mysterious corrosive substance, gripped my arm tight. He coughed, looking at himself, pulling at his abdomen. A piece came off in his hand.
“You’ll… Help me.” He breathed.
“I will.” I nodded.
“I don’t… Want to go back.”
“I know,” I responded, clapping a hand against his back, “You don’t have to. There are ways to change your AIN. Get a new identity. I can help.”
Patrick fell into me, arms gripping my body, face pushing into the nape of my neck. I heard the toxic bubbles brimming against my coat, the fluid seeping through my tie and my shirt. I closed my arms around him, reassuring him for a few moments. He held on longer than I would have imagined, long enough that I figured my coat would be completely eaten once he pulled away. And I held onto him all the while.
I led him into my apartment, locking the door behind us as I started the best patch-up job I could do. Removing the damaged casings from his arms and legs, exchanging his hands with spares that I had, sealing the acid-leaking fingertips and torn into a metal bin, I did everything I could to strip him of his old body. Everything that weighed him down. As we finished and Patrick hugged me again, I showed him the way to my bed where he flopped down, his body limp on the blankets. A long hissing sigh coming from the exposed speaker in his throat. His body was broken, and now reduced to a thin mechanical skeleton, his only way of emoting being his eyes and voice. But he thanked me profusely. He asked me to stay with him until he fell asleep. I agreed, knowing how hard it was for a bot made for human interaction to lay alone in the dark. But I had to do one thing first.
I took a picture of one of the ruined casings I’d removed from Patrick’s arms, one that had his AIN printed on it.
"Found your bot,” I typed, “These parts were washed up on the shore of Lake Eerie. I’m sorry but I don’t think there’s any hope of him coming back.
He returned my message immediately, and with the same empathy and care I’d expect.
“Shit.”
Another message, "I'm not paying you for finding a dead toaster.”
And a third, “Bring whatever parts you find back to the plant so I can put them on a bot that WORKS. Maybe then I’ll pay you something.”
I paused. Carefully considering my answer. I could bring him the whole casing. Get an alright payment from it. But somehow I knew this little piece of his arm was all I would give him. Patrick had given him enough.
"You're not paying me,” I said in rebuttal, “I'll bring it in the morning.”
A few seconds passed. I walked towards the bed, my phone vibrating in my pocket. One notification. Then another. It felt like the first time I’d truly smiled in weeks.
Respawn Point Ch. 5: A Desert of Dangerous Dinguses
I thought I’d be used to single player by now, but loooking back at the pillar of smoke rising from the cherry blossoms of the forest, my heart still stung.
Sand whispered under our feet as we paced across the arid expanse, clouds of sand sliding across the ground like a thick fog, our only companions the occasional cactus or dying piece of brush. We'd started walking to get away from the forest, the sounds of the woods feeding our paranoia—any crunching leaf becoming the snap of a bowstring, any rustling grass becoming a wandering member of a mob, ready to signal the others—but before long, we were walking in the middle of a sandy void with the forest only a short green line on the horizon. Though I guess with San and Slenda’s home burned to the ground and the three of us chased out of the server’s walls, we didn’t have anything left to do but wander. But I suppose wandering’s what the three of us were good at.
I looked ahead to San, marching forward through the dunes, hoodie tied around her waist, a penumbra of sweat forming just below her neckline. She’d shout something encouraging to the two of us every so often during her marches, her eyes trained on Slenda’s expression. Occasionally the creeper girl would flash a weary smile, and Slenda would give her back a thumbs-up. A silent conversation that I understood, but never really joined.
The former admin was silent as we walked, the only sound from her being the sand sifting under her feet. Her eyes were fragile behind her broken glasses and sweat trickled in streams around her face, fogging the cracked lenses. I tied my jacket around my waist, imitating San, and put my scarf into my pocket, stashing it away in my inventory. I wondered why Slenda hadn’t done the same, still wearing the baggy sweater from Weebtown. “Hey… Isn’t that hot?” I asked, breaking the short silence between San’s outbursts.
Slenda flashed a pair of frightened eyes towards me, the rhythm of her steps shaken for a few moments before proceeding. “Oh, I um…” She seemed lost in thought, and less than willing to strike up a conversation, mumbling something under her breath that I couldn’t quite make out. I decided to persist.
“Huh?” I asked.
“I said I’m…” It was subtle, but I could see Slenda blush behind the twisted line of her spectacles, “I’m not wearing anything under this sweater…”
I heard San stumble ahead of us in the sand, giggling. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I went back to looking ahead, hoping to not add a death of embarrassment on top of Slenda’s already long list of problems. “I’m sorry, n- never mind, that really sucks.
Slenda’s footsteps quickened, an irritated snort leaving her lips as she shook her head, coming to meet my pace. “Yeah, and you wanna know what else sucks, Cyrus? Everything. Literally EVERYTHING that’s happened to me these past few days.”
I pulled into myself, my mouth pursed in a stunned silence. San turned back towards us, an arm lifted slightly towards her friend, her fingers curling. It felt like she was waiting for the tension to leave, for an easy moment to jump in and spread her quirky positivity, but it didn’t feel like it was coming. I could feel Slenda’s eyes digging into me, each like a purple blade, “My closest friend—someone I’ve known since I spawned—betrayed me, I lost the trust of hundreds of players at once that I’ve been working to gain tirelessly for months, my spawn’s been destroyed and I’ve been chased out of the closest place to home I’ve ever had, and in top of that; on top of EVERYTHING that's happened, we're walking straight into the Thieves' Desert RP server! Before you know it, we'll be surrounded by traps and vagabonds itching to jump us and steal everything we have while they leave us to die in the desert. AND ON TOP OF THAT, I die, it means I have to back to Goldenworks, a where I, I--!”
Heavy, round droplets began to fall from Slenda’s eyes, darkening where they fell in the sand below. San dashed over to wrap the former admin in a close embrace, Slenda squeezing her back just as tightly, if not more. Slenda took off her broken glasses and pushed an arm between her and San to wipe her eyes.
“I’m just… So tired…” She sighed. Looking at her made my heart ache, but I couldn’t help but find a strange comfort in her fear, in her distress. Maybe because it felt like a mirror.
“There must be some place we can rest here.” I said, hoping to peel away some of the melancholy that had fallen over us, or at the very least give us some direction, Slenda glaring at me through her broken glasses. I’d heard of this desert and the server that occupied most of its land. It was a roleplay, or “RP” server, meaning it was full of people in roles and costumes, taking on fantasies through mask and cape. However, while some enjoyed purely skipping around the desert, delivering quirky lines and experiences to travelers, others reveled in the socially-acceptable chance to become a thief or a marauder, and being able to slip out of the persona at the end of the day without consequence. A game played with life and death. It was a fine place to be for an RPer, someone who was consenting to this whole bizarre system, but to us, it was a death trap.
“It’s a server full of crazy RPers, yeah, but they’re all players, right? They get tired. There’s got to be a rest stop or a neutral zone somewhere…”
San turned to us, arm shooting into the air, waving like an eager student. I stared, baffled for a moment, before pointing to her, her face lighting up. The creeper girl put her extended arm back around Slenda, smiling brightly through the tension that still gripped Slenda and I. I wish I could know how she did it.
“There’s the Sandy Speakeasy!” She grinned, her feat stomping excitedly in the sand, “It’s one of those neutral whatevers and I haven’t been there in ages!! It’d be perfect!”
Slenda couldn’t help but look at San with cloudy doubt, her brows pulled together. I had no idea that San had lived here at one point, but did Slenda not know either? The former admin tried to erase the expression, looking towards the sun. I followed her eyes. The bright square was beginning to fall below the line of the horizon, nightfall more than imminent. We watched with a creeping dread as more and more of its light began to retract, the shadows of the cacti and dunes around us growing long like the night’s hungry claws.
Rolling my shoulders, I tried to straighten my back, standing strong against the dimly lit sand that surrounded us, trying to stay brave or at least put up my best act. I hated seeing people scared, whether they were being threatened by a power-hungry modder or just terrified of the world around them, and I felt it was my job to restore their confidence. With a flick of my wrist and a twist of my fingers, I activated my mod, calling out the last weapon I copied back in Weebtown. “I’m sure we can make it,” I smirked, feeling my power surge into both hands. It felt stranger than the other times. Before I felt a chill, like steel, but my hands felt strangely warm, like my hands were hovering over a fireplace, “After all, we’ve got these, don’t we?”
San and Slenda looked at me wide-eyed, Slenda’s mouth pulling to the side, crooked, San’s grin extending ear to ear as her eyes glowed. Neither were the expression I was expecting. After all, they were just the same swords I’d copied when I fought that swordswoman in Weebtown, I’d fought with them for some while now, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. But San spoke out, her eyes glimmering with the excitement of a fangirl.
“You copied Roxxie’s mod?!”
I stepped back, bringing my hands forward, flames trickling up around the corners of my vision. WHAT THE—I flailed, acting on reflex, my body kicking and flailing to escape the fire that was pouring from the palms of my hands and crawling up my elbows, chasing me to the sand as I crashed to the ground in a beige cloud. I sat up, the fire still warm in my hands, but not hot, nor painful. My eyes went from hand to hand, watching the flames as they trickled up harmlessly around me. I relaxed my body, the flames quickly dying on their own, even the ones that’d found their way onto my clothes. The only thing burnt was the desert floor beneath me, soft brown scorches left in the sand. I looked up at San and Slenda, the former holding back a fresh deluge of laughter, while the latter pressed her palm against her face, her glasses held in her other hand. Her mouth was crinkled, somewhere between nausea and disgust. Some confidence you bring, Cyrus. You could be a superhero.
I didn’t remember copying Roxxie’s mod back in Weebtown, but I did touch it, and I guess that was enough. I hadn’t encountered enough modders to really test it, so unfortunately, I just had to roll with whatever it decided to do. Did it overwrite the swords? I thought, turning my hand, watching the fire crawl through my fingers like an upside-down trickle of water. Come to think of it, I hadn’t called out the drill I copied in a while. I stared, perplexed at the flame. “Do I not have the swords anymore?”
“You don’t know?” Slenda interrogated, her eyes piercing, even through her cracked lenses. I shook my head. “Mods don’t really come with instruction manuals…” I said, churning the heat in my hand, shaping it. It both obeyed me and followed its own path, it was more like herding an animal than a power I had control over, “I think I can only copy one mod at once, but I’m not sure… I haven’t really tried it.”
Roxxie’s fire lit up the sand around us, our shadows stretching long, the circle of light crawling slowly across the desert surface. Something didn't seem right about the way the light's glow. Our shadows seemed too long, and felt like they were moving, but I wrote it off as just a trick of the light. San stood admiring the flame in my palm, her eyes a little too lost in it as Slenda looked everywhere but, her mouth a broken grimace.
"Should I put it out?" I asked Slenda, her eyes turning up for a second before looking back at the ground. She shook her head. "We'll need it. It's starting to get dark out, and it might be useful against the bandits."
She ran her hands along her arms, then placed one on her neck, both hands directionless, chasing a shiver that wouldn't soon go away. "It just… Makes me think about Roxxie… What we’ll do if we run into her out here, or if she runs into us…"
San squeezed the frantic ex-admin tightly, grinning the wide grin I assumed at times was just tattooed onto her face, “Roxxie got banned, and we killed her, which means she got sent back to your guys’ old server. If anything, we should probably worry about getting to the neutral zone right now.”
A silence quickly fell over the three of us, Slenda and I looking at each other. Slenda’s expression was cold, angry, a shade she never seemed to show around San, but the bite quickly faded from her expression. She placed her hand in San’s, nodding reluctantly. “You’re right,” She sighed, San nuzzling her to free the smile that was starting to form, “We should get going. Any place is better than this desert at night.”
“Besides,” San smiled, “You’ve both been avoiding the traps pretty well so far.”
The creeper girl walked on, a pop in her step as she moved across the small dunes. I looked over to see that the former admin shared my expression of disbelief, her eyes wide-eyed and silent. I could practically hear the “WHAT” echoing inside her head. We looked the creeper girl up and down, trying to find some kind of zipper or seam in her expression, a cue to laugh. But we couldn’t find any. Slenda stepped forward, hands clasped in front of her, squinting at San, "Did, did you just say… Traps...?"
San laughed incredulously, placing a hand on her hip, "You… You can't see the obvious patterns on the ground…?” Slenda gawked in disbelief. "N- No," I interjected, "You're just messing with us, right? One of your pranks? Some morbid creeper humor?"
The creeper girl bent down, her face about half a block off the desert floor. She exhaled, blowing hard across the ground, peeling a layer of sand from the ground and revealing a wooden pressure plate beneath, bits of redstone powder sticking out from its corners. I shined Roxxie’s fire towards it, illuminating what I could tell was a pressure plate trigger for some kind of trap. My heart sank. This was the first I’d noticed… How did San…She looked at us with half-lidded eyes. I felt like I was being scolded.
"Hey, what are you doing!” A voice snapped, me and Slenda straightening to a sudden attention. San turned her head; her back still slumped over the trigger of the apparently unimpressive trap, her eyes flat. Sand crunched from a dune to the side of us and a figure stepped out, their face strained in an irritated look and smeared in red paint. They were clad in heavy steal armor, strapped with leather and spiked in various places, their androgynous face peaking in a mohawk that looked slightly burnt. What in the Nether went on in this server? The road warrior glared at us, their lips pursed to the side like an irritated customer.
“I set up a perfectly good trap in the middle of this wasteland, wait for days for someone to come across it, and you don’t fall into it? And on top of that, you insult it?! The nerve!”
The RPer stuck out their finger at San, prodding the air as they scolded her. San cocked an eyebrow, her expression bare of her usual amusement. She looked more disappointed than anything. San raised her foot, her arms crossed. The leather-clad rebel instantly began stammering, trying to force an apology out as San brought her foot down, stomping the pressure plate into the sandstone below
Arrows shot from hidden dispensers in the sand around us, piercing the rogue from all angles, and quickly reducing them to a bloody heap. They fell to their knees, their expression glossy as San drove her iron sword through their chest. Their body changed into smoke and disappeared into the dry air, their eyes rolling back as they disappeared into the cloud. San regained some of her smirk, her hands on her hips. “Maybe you’ll learn to do some R&D next time, punk! Seriously, pressure plates?”
Slenda and I stood stunned, San’s composure, her knowledge of traps, everything coming out of the blue and hitting us like a thousand pounds. Just as the smoke cleared from the marauder’s corpse however, we heard the sand move again, and I pointed my arm towards the darkness like a torch. Another thief, dressed as a pirate, leapt up from behind the sand mound just beyond the road warrior’s, a wild-eyed grin on his face. Why are they all so close together?! This is a booby-trapped desert, not a street market!
"YAHARG! I KNEW THAT FOOL MADHAX79 WOUDLN'T BE ABLE TO CAPTURE YOU!! I’VE COME TO REAP THEIR SPOILS, BEWARE THE WRATH OF CAPTAIN EUAAHHGHH--!"
I flicked my arm in the swash-buckler’s direction, a ball of flame smashing into him like a cannonball, both the captain and the flames that engulfed him falling quickly behind the mound of sand. “Yeah, yeah,” I sighed, watching the black smoke fade and the grey smoke of his despawn rise over the sandy barrier, “We’re trying to get somewhere, do ya mind?”
As the smoke cleared, I saw the darkened horizon more clearly, including the shapes beginning to rise from the sand. Hostile mobs… I sighed, Just what we needed. Slenda took out a stone shovel, clutching it close to her chest, a contorted expression of fear on her face. San rose to her feet and placed a hand on her shoulder, Slenda shaking at her touch. I moved closer, hoping to offer something to calm Slenda down. San’s blue eyes shined at me but the other pair slid to me like cold amethysts, a glare silently cursing my next three generations. Needless to say, I stepped back, changing direction. As I turned, I saw shapes moving on the horizon, hostile mobs crawling from the darkness.
My feet moved mindlessly as I started walking where San had been pointing us, creating a ball of flame in my hand to guide us as we went, "Great, well, let's get going. I just want to--" A hand burst from the ground, clamping my ankle and tripping me. My mind barely registered it, my body falling forward like a ragdoll into the sand. I tried to pull away, only to pull the hand's owner further out of the sand, a face with one wild eye and a mane of crimson hair gazing hungrily through me. She lifted her other arm, a dagger whipping into her palm, "GIMME ALL YOUR RUBIES!!"
WHAT IN THE NETHER?! I tried to wriggle free, the eye-patched thief managing to drive the blade into my leg before I could blast her with Roxxie's fire. Pained and terrified, my body toppled into the sand, my hands clutching my leg. San and Slenda tried to run towards me but were each held back, San tripping over a husk as it emerged from the earth and Slenda activating a pressure plate, her body disappearing into the sound amidst the sound of pistons. Shadows around us began to move, eyes glinting from behind cactuses and rising from mounds of sandy camouflage. I felt a body try to grab me, hands working up under my arms. Instinctively, I tried slipping out, only to see San above me, a crooked smirk on her face. She almost looked like she was having fun. "Come on Cyrus! Fun time is over, we gotta get going!”
I wasn’t aware fun time had started.
San dragged me to my feet and started picking up speed, pulling me along with my wrist held tightly in her hand. Slenda struggled to pull herself out of the pit she'd fallen into, carving the side of the hole with her shovel, which she then used to beat off a skeleton that was crawling from the ground beside her. She let out a grunt, kicking out from the edge of the artificial crater, her eyes frantically searching the world around her, every side filled with danger. All around us the ground was shaking; arms, heads, and swords were pushing up from the sand, everyone desperate to test their mettle against the powerful travelers. After all, they assumed we were in on it, that we were willful participants in this bizarre game of death. Slenda ran to catch up with us, narrowly avoiding another pit and the grasping hands of an angry ninja to arrive by our side, batting off any adversaries that came close with her shovel. San ran at the front, carving our way forward with her sword while I ran at their side, taking out whoever and whatever I could with Roxxie’s fire. But it felt like the entire desert was alive, the very ground itself sending antibodies to devour us, and I didn’t think that a few fireballs (and terribly inaccurate ones at that) were going to protect us.
San pushed onward, crying out with a passion that seemed fueled by the chaos, unlike ours, "Come on guys, it's just over that hill! Probably!"
"PROBABLY?! YOU MEAN YOU’RE NOT SURE?!" I cried, tossing a fireball at a skeleton, knocking it back only for its arrow to firmly plant itself in my shoulder.
“I have a mental map!” San chimed, shrugging, “But those are statistically the worst kind of map, so--!” The pain throbbed in my wounds, my arm and leg both shrieking at me as I ran, San’s shape ahead of me like a beacon. She seemed to glow, her body dark but the sky around her illuminated like a halo, the horizon beaming at her. I rubbed my eyes on my shirt, trying to get out the sweat, sand, or whatever it was messing with my vision, only for the glow to persist. It wasn’t San’s light though, it was the light of torches.
San dashed towards the light of the neutral zone, her body disappearing over the horizon, Slenda and I hustling behind, struggling to catch up. I looked back to see thieves among the masses throw down their weapons, cursing the night sky as we neared safety. Others fought against the mobs that had changed targets, the mob of dangers convulsing, attacking itself. Distance between us began to grow and for a moment, the world finally growing as the sand rose up around us.
Except the sand wasn’t rising; we were falling.
The sand below us dropped out into a low basin where a town was dug out, the ground coming up at me like a swift kick. My body battered as I rolled down the sand, every inch of the slope finding a part of my body to smash into before I finally came to rest on the cold sandstone tiles below. Slenda had already fallen in a heap by my side, San towering over the two of us. Of course, she knew the drop was coming.
"Come on guys! Don’t die now, we’re practically in the speakeasy!"
Her face beamed, her body covered in sweat, dripping down her shoulders and into the front collar of her tank top. Sore, I lifted my head, my eyes tracing the fragile outline of the neutral zone. Under the wall of the sand, the sandstone buildings wavered on their foundations, the decimated structures like the rising dead. Slenda began to push herself up, digging her shovel into the ground and using it to bring herself to her knees. She surveyed the broken buildings of the town before us, a familiar look of dismay in her eyes.
“What… Happened to the town…?” She gulped, shakily rising to her feet, she trudged up to the ruins, searching for a flash of movement, anything that we could consider a sign of life. There were only enough torches to create a dull glow, and a few testificates wandering in the distant streets. They were a docile non-player race that squatted in destroyed towns, but they weren’t the hospitality I was expecting. Slenda's hands tightened on the shovel in her arms, wringing it, “Were we too late…?”
San tilted her head.
"Nah, I don't think he'd be closed yet." She responded simply.
Slenda looked back at her, a worried look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, San. I don't know when this happened but... Maybe we can rest in these ruins...”
San chuckled and shook herself free of Slenda's gaze, tapping up the cracked sandstone staircase of a nearby building. Slenda and I followed suit, stepping into the ruined room. Slenda looked at me uneasily. The creeper girl smirked, pressing against a broken wall with her elbow. The floor beside her slid open, pulled by an unseen piston. From within there was the warm glow of torchlight, the hole below the sandstone lined with wood planks.
"It’s a speakeasy, guys. Of course it has a hidden entrance.” San smirked at us, “You guys can sleep out on the sandstone and broken glass all you want, but I’m going inside and getting a drink.”
San slipped naturally into the warm glow of the hole below, the piston stamping the floor back into place behind her. We heard the soft thumping of boots on wood as she slid down the ladder, zipping away. Slenda and I stood in a temporary silence; the special kind of silence that filled a room once San left; the emptiness left by the absence of her energy. Slenda broke the silence with a giggle, her hand quickly cupping her mouth. She tried to hide the shy smile that had broken across her face. “Notch, is that two times today that we’ve been scolded by San?”
A sudden burst of laughter cracked the flat expression my face had settled into, Slenda looking at me with eyes that flickered in dull purple embers. Her eyes were still red and swollen from crying, but now they were pushed up by an endearing grin. She was just as tired as I was, but she was more than happy. I guess San just tended to do that to her.
“I guess you’re right.” I admitted in amused disbelief. Slenda sighed, shaking her head as she tapped the button and stepped down into the entryway. She put her foot on the first rung, then the next, descending slowly. Her eyes looked forward longingly as she fell out of view, “She sure is something, huh.”
“San?” I asked, starting my own descent. I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Sounds began to trickle up from below us. The sounds of banter, laughter, the clinking of glass. The dull roar of hospitality beckoning us. The piston shut back into place behind us, the sky disappearing, and with it the hostile, arid breath of the desert. “Yeah. She’s definitely something.”
“I think that’s everything...” I sighed, looking at the pair of empty chests and bare floor.
The Desu Skull incident was only the other day, but it was more than enough to convince me to leave. This place was turning out just like Vanillakings. And I knew I’d had to leave here too. Why wait to screw up or get burned alive when I get get a head start, y’know?
I'd decorated the small room with nick-nacks, all of which had made their way into my pockets. Patches of carpet I could buy around town with the little bartering items I had. A dead tree from the desert just outside the server's northwest wall. A record player with no records. I smiled, looking around at my mess. I would say that it was a partially intentional, an "organized" mess, but that almost made it worse. Occasionally as I packed, San’s smile tried to push its way into my mind and Slenda’s patient gaze alongside it, calming me. But behind their soft gazes were the cold stare of a swordswoman, the crazed eyes of a weaboo boxer, a pair of glittering skull stickers, and a pair of flaming orbs, all baring down on me. Shaking my head, I punched the button next to the door. The iron swung automatically in front of me and I strode forward, nearly crashing into the figure lingering in the doorway.
“Hello Cyrus.” Teeth glinted from the figure. The lights in the hallway were dark, like the power had gone out, but I failed to notice at that moment. The figure stepped closer. I stumbled back, bumping into the foot of my bed. “H- Hi Roxxie,” I stammered, placing a hand on the end the bed to look natural—my hand slipping--“What’s up?”
Her eyes traced the room, taking note of the empty chest by my bed and the expression on my face. It felt like being caught in the eyes of a jungle cat, her claws digging into the ground, teeth bared. Ready to pounce. I started sweating.
“I’m going to cut to the chase, since it looks like you’re heading somewhere,” Roxxie sighed, leaning against the doorway. Her eyes were cold like ash, her voice heavy. She offered me her hand, which I couldn’t help but stare at. “This server is a mess. Always has been, there’s no point in denying that. But I was thinking that we could potentially start it over. Hit the reset button, y’know?”
The tips of the hair on Roxxie’s ponytail burned like the ends of cigarettes, ashes gently falling from the tips of the charred lengths. It burned like that when she was thinking deeply sometimes, or when she was irritated. Sometimes I thought it was a side-effect of her powers, but now I couldn’t help but think she was using it to intimidate me. The conversation she was making now felt like an echo of the past few days. Whether I ran into the others or not, I could always count on Roxxie tracking me down, asking me how I felt. What I’d do to change Weebtown. It was strange before, but never this eerie. Whatever she was planning on doing, it was close. Why can’t I ever meet anyone normal, I thought, With a normal agenda, like killing mobs or finding treasure? Why deranged griefers obsessed with pranks and corrupted officials with ambiguous “big plans?”
“So,” She smiled at me, perching a hand on her hip, “What d’ya say? I mean, you must be getting pretty tired of all the weeb jokes at this point, right?”
As much as I wanted to go with her, I felt like it wasn’t my decision to make. The weebs here were a little wild, sure. I thought a lot of them were nuts, but then again, I didn’t feel like it was my place to decide whether that should change. If being nuts works for them, it works. I could barely make my mind up for myself half the time and I wasn’t about to start making decisions like this for others.
“Nah.” I breathed, my teeth clenched as I spoke, “I just don’t think I’m your guy.”
The operator tried to force a smile as she pushed up away from the wall, the fire in her eyes sparkling. “That’s fine, no worries.” She moved her foot away from the iron door she’d been propping open, the heavy steel swiveling closed behind her. I shot her a concerned look, wondering if she was really just leaving, but she just popped off a pair finger guns, her fingertips smoking, “Take care of yourself alright, streets are dangerous.”
Her face disappeared behind the pane of iron, the small rectangle of light closing, an anxious smile left smeared on my face. For a second I forgot what I was doing, that I intended on being gone by now. I figured it would be fine though. Roxxie was certainly up to something, but it was probably fine right? I’d leave the spawn town, descend the long stairs to the ring of high schools and be long bone before she does anything. A tremendous crashing sound shook the air around me, and the building. Roxxie was angery, and it was my time to leave. With shaking legs, I hit the button next to the door and took a long step forward, my arms swinging… Only to meet a street filled with flames.
The hallway of the building was gone, the open street and the sides of neighboring buildings filling my vision. Fire lapped against and spilt from the insides of a giant wool creeper in the center of town, spreading across the wires and paper lanterns that intersected the spawn town’s buildings and leaping to the other buildings in the square. Homes, shops, benches, and even some of the weebs were ablaze as the world spun in a wild, hot panic. The sides of the opening were molten, still burning wildly as if a burning drill had just bore through the wall. Large masses of magma thrashed through the streets, like the claws of some flaming beast, the streams of molten rock smashing the foundations of buildings like they were blocks of sand. It was like a demon tearing through the server; its cry was the roar of the fire and the screams of weaboos and its claws the streams of molten amber that tore through everything in sight. My body shook, my head a mess of fear, frustration, and heat.
The gatekeeper Zolo burst through the side of a nearby building, bricks blown in every direction as she flew through the air, smoke trailing behind her. Before I could question it, I saw the belt-covered gatekeeper Jortaro step out from the crater left in the building, his boxing glove smoking. He looked forward with a hungry grin, launching from the ruins of the structure less like a human and more like a rocket, flying towards the battered swordsman. I fell back into the door to my home, head banging against the warm steel. “What.. In the Nether--!”
“You think you’re better than me?!” Roxxie shouted from the rooftops above. I looked up to see her standing on top of the creeper statue in the middle of town, the blaze surrounding her like a burning frame. She brought a hand up, nearly white from heat, and pointed her palm in my direction. The beast reared its head; the flames tugged by her every movement like they were tied to her fingers with invisible strings. A bile of magma spilt forth from behind a nearby building, like a beast’s maw open and screaming with the roar of the fire, filling my vision as it barreled towards me towards me.
I leapt back onto a nightstand as the magma poured through the street and consumed the entryway to my room, forcing its way in. I scampered back on a pile of books, my back slamming against the back wall. Before I knew it, I was watching my bed sink inot an amber sea. I took time from my escape to stare disapprovingly at the smoking mass where the bed used to be. Back to my old server if I die here, I thought, This day just gets better and better. Though at that point, going back to the old server almost seemed better. If only for a moment. The ground began to rumble and I instinctively dove for the window, smashing it just as the room behind me was ripped in two, the magma like a blade erupting from the ground. I rolled into the alley outside the window, hoping that the side of the building or the building’s shadow between would keep me out of her sight. All I had to do now was find a way out of the alleyway and to the stairs that would take me down from the spawn town. I’d probably get a little lost in the high schools, but at least it was better than burning to death.
As I took my first steps towards the alley’s entrance, I heard Roxxie’s laugh echo through the air like a clap of thunder, magma quickly spilling into the alleyway. Of course! I couldn’t just get away safely. That would be LAME.I swung in the opposite direction of the fiery flood, running towards what I quickly realized was a dead end—the end of the plateau. The middle of the server was like thick raised cylinder, the only way down being the long staircases that connected the spawn town to the ground. Well, the only way without taking fall damage that is. Before me was a wide blackened sky with cherry blossoms at its feet, a drop of hundreds of blocks below, behind me a wall of lava, roaring at my back. I felt the flames licking at my heels and inched forward, mentally preparing myself for the drop below. Was I willing to risk the pain from fall damage to escape the fire? Maybe once I reached ground level, if my legs weren’t too broken, I could run away. I could drill my way through the outside walls and get away from here. Away from all of this. I took a deep breath, the magma ready to make the decision for me.
A sound cut through the air as the building across the alley from mine burst open, the wall blown open by a glowing steel blade. The green-haired swordswoman appeared from the dispersing smoke, offering me her hand and literally pulling me from the fire. More lava began to pour into the alleyway as Zolo pulled me up the stairs of the structure, the fiery mass beginning to chase us.
“Nanishiterunda, baka?!” She cried in her weeb language.
A warm grin filled the space between my cheeks. “Trying my best!” I answered, figuring she was asking how I was. She flashed a weary smile and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward once more. Her face was so much brighter when she looked at me, but still flashed back to her dark, dutiful stare when she ran forward. I could just barely see her eyes behind her long bangs, but I could see the determination in them. The anger. Her dark anger was no longer directed at me, but at the real danger to the server. At the fire, and at the server’s operator. Magma rushed up the staircase below us like water filling a well, my pace quickening to match Zolo’s. We could hear parts of the building crumble beneath as Roxxie’s burning hands swiped through its foundation, our footing uneven and rushed as we reached the top.
The rooftops above the blaze were cracked, smoke pouring up through them and fire clawing at their insides, desperate to reach the surface. Flame clamored around the building below us, stray embers stinging my skin and licks of flame biting my legs. It was like standing on a tree trunk as it burnt below you, except I was looking across an entire forest. In the center of the square, atop the head of the building-sized creeper effigy, the only human shape stood surrounded by pillars of smoke and amber waves. Her silhouette was hazy, the black fading into the rage that surrounded us. I swallowed hard. Her back was to us, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last. Beyond the square, I could see the high schools surrounding us in a grand circle, all ablaze. Explosions burst through the burning alleys, the screams of the inhabitants scarcely rising above the roar of the fire. Some screamed in weebish tongues and others in english, all scattered and frantic, all trailing into the smoke-filled air. As I tried to get steady, explosions rocked the ground. Sudden bursts of smoke came from adjacent streets and the mass of high schools that encircled the server. I wondered for a moment if San was the source; if everyone but Zolo, Slenda and I were working to destroy this server. I thought of Zolo earlier and how she was fighting against the other guardian, the belted weirdo. Was he on Roxxie’s side? Just how many were working with her? I looked at the swordswoman standing beside me. And just how many has she taken down?
Zolo glared at the dim silhouette in front of us, her eyes burning furious and green. A flourish of yellow flame leapt from Roxxie's ponytail, her hands clapping gleefully as she spoke to herself, "We’re finally going to see Weebtown at its full potential. Rebuilding without all its unnecessary infighting and underage idol worship,” She placed a cobblestone slab on the charred surface of the effigy below her, plopping down onto it like one would a park bench. She let out a long sigh, looking out over the destruction, “…I hope.”
The swordswoman growled under her breath, words crunched between grinding teeth. A click resounded through the air as she unsheathed a sword, then a second click as she pulled another, one after the other until she had at least four, no, five, no—ten swords pointed towards the operator. She had them clenched in the bridges of her fingers, squeezed in the joints of her elbows and knees, and she had at least two held in her teeth. The yellow trails from the operator’s ponytail turned from yellow to a cold blue, her body pivoting on the slab. Her expression was obscured behind the flame, the cerulean streams pouring around her face, only the pure white-hot pupils inside of them visible. She stood up, and I could swear the fires in the streets below rose with her, their roars now deafening. The green-haired weaboo ran towards the operator, bouncing off of each rooftop in the square, bouncing across every concentric ring undaunted as she flipped and spun through the air, her body like a ball of angry shrapnel.
Just as Zolo neared the operator, an explosion shook a building behind Roxxie, a bulky form emerging from the smoke, climbing from the hole in the building with a grunt. It was San, her turquoise blue hair glowing as smoke pulled away from her form. Roxxie turned towards them, away from the approaching Zolo and away from me, the color of her fire changing again to bright auburn. As she ascended, another figure came with her, San’s free arm pulling her up through the crack in the structure. The second figure slammed a book onto the rooftop as they clambered up, their glasses crooked on their face and sweat streaming down around their furious violet eyes. “So glad you could join me.” Roxxie giggled, rising to her feet. Slenda glared at her. The operator stuck out her right arm, pointing backwards towards the nearing Zolo. Before any of us could react, a pillar of fire erupted from Roxxie’s palm, scorching the front of Zolo’s body, then enveloping it, the swordswoman disappearing in the sudden river of fire. Unable to stand, I fell backward on my hands, horrified. I was right, my mind screamed, I’m not ready to do this. She isn’t just some bully like from my old server. She’s a monster.
"Now, I know what you may be thinking, Slenda…” Roxxie laughed, hand on her hip, speaking to the admin. I felt the fire below us grow cooler, the fire on her head changing again to sunlight yellow. Her face had turned away from me, but I could tell by her voice that she was wearing that same smile she always wore. The smile of a predator, “But This is what I’ve been talking about. It’s just like what we did at Goldenworks, we destroy everything and start over. But we don’t have to run away from it--”
"THAT’S NOT THE POINT!!” Slenda cried back, tears in her eyes. Roxxie recoiled slightly, “The server deserves so much more than this! We can’t just throw away everything they’ve worked for and built here if we don’t know how to rebuild it ourselves. Stooping to griefing doesn’t make us revolutionaries, Roxxie, it just makes us jerks!!!”
Roxxie's white hot grimmace creased burned against the blackened sky, the curls of her flaming maw arcing up around her face, the fire around her arms stirring and growing. Even from behind her I could feel her white hot malice burning towards San and Slenda as if they’d fed a thousand trees into her fire. “I guess I’m just a troublemaker then…” Roxxie breathed, her sigh broken by creeping laughter. Her flames began to change once more, passing the soft yellow of a campfire and passing the amber of a house fire, passing even the searing blue of her rage, her flames now pure white, “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve set up, everything I’ve been planning to fix this server, that’S ALL I AM!!”
Slenda’s eyes snapped downwards to her book of usernames, clutching San tightly, “BAN XxFieryQueenRoxx--”
Roxxie spun atop the creeper head, a wave of magma following her arm, buildings smashing in a row as the claws of her invisible beast tore through them, shattering the ground beneath San and Slenda. San managed to grab onto a nearby windowsill, clinging for dear life as burning bricks and stone ricocheted off the building around her. She turned to see Slenda, engulfed in flame, collide with the building next to her, tumbling into the abyss below with the admin’s tome. San reached a hand out, cursing as she grasped at the air, her eyes desperate.
“Just let her fall…” Roxxie smirked, her voice a cold growl as Slenda disappeared in the fire, “Our deaths don’t matter anyway! do they? We all respawn. She’ll just waking back up in her bed soon. And if it burned, she’ll go back to Goldenworks where everything’s normal and terrible. Just how she likes it.”
I felt something stirring in my gut, white electricity surging through me, straightening out my shaking limbs. Smoke was filling my lungs, scraping my throat, but I still yelled as loud as I could, “MAYBE SHE WOULDN’T TRY TO STOP YOU IF YOU WEREN’T BEING SUCH A DICK!”
Roxxie turned to me, her eyes white hot, edges tipped with blue fire, as if an entire forest had been fed to the fire inside her. I didn’t realize at first that I’d even spoken. That I’d snapped at a blaze in human form. I really didn’t bring my survival instinct on this journey. Molten masses broke through the rooftops around us, spiraling into the air. The crests of their flames were like spines, their serpentine bodies dripping magma that seared the buildings below. My foothold shook as more molten forms broke through the buildings next to me, closing in too quickly. Roxxie continued to laugh, "Go home, Cyrus."
My eyes creased, and I saw Bernadette. I saw the others from my home. And I was angry. As she began to shift her weight and the burning maws sped through the air, an explosion shattered the atmosphere, causing her beasts to destabilize. An explosion that struck Roxxie in the back. Roxxie and I turned to see San on the rooftop nearby, blocks of TNT in each of her hands. She lobbed another block of TNT at Roxxie, then another, then another, the creeper girl sending a volley of explosions at the flaming operator. Roxxie quickly whipped magma streams of magma around her, the streams creating a half-cage of flame that blocked any blocks heading her way. She seemed impenetrable. Invincible. But I saw an opportunity. She was completely focused on blocking San’s volleys, and her back was turned to me.
The events that had led up to this moment began to replay in my mind, from being kicked out, to finding San in the forest, to talking with Slenda, to the fire-- everything seemed to be pointing me towards this moment, towards this fight. Spawning Zolo's swords in my hands, I felt for one strange moment that everything had been planned, that my foolish desire to fight against people like Roxxie would actually be paid off, that I would actually be able to help a server, rather than just being some stray element of it. That I would have somewhere I truly belonged. I finally had a chance to protect an entire server from a bully and do it right. And I wasn't going to run now. I couldn’t run now. No disappointing Bernadette. No killing some innocent idiots. Cyrus would be the hero today, and I needed to do was stab her in the back.
My feet stomped across the rooftop, the shaking in my legs beginning to disappear as blood properly rushed to them, my body feeling hot somehow, even when I was surrounded by fire. I pushed off the end of the roof, the building crumbling as my body left it, the next building in my path coming up under my feet as if it was flying up to catch me. Searing air pushed against my body but I pushed forward, my body moving naturally, automatically, running and kicking off of another rooftop, clearing another ring of buildings as I approached the center and approached Roxxie. I saw Zolo in my mind, leaping towards the burning figure, struck down without a second thought.
I started screaming as I ran across the last building. It was just as stupid as it was vital, the intensity of the moment and the intensity of the fire spiraling around and within me as the operator’s white flames filled my vision, her cries reverberating in my mind as the world around us grew silent. The fire on her body died as I burst into her, the world fading from white back into the charred cityscape of crumbling stone. The towers of magma began to topple around us as I and the operator lay in a heap on the creeper’s head. Little was left but its brutal steel frame and every part of me slammed into it at once. Pain throbbed in my limbs and my chest was heavy, my mind fading in and out with my breaths. The oxygen in my lungs felt completely depleted. Maybe I shouldn’t have done so much screaming... I thought for a moment, joking on my breath, incredulous.
Roxxie began to rise however, a sword still jammed in her back. She spat out some blood onto the rooftop, grunting with a visceral frustration. The hairs on the ends of her ponytail burned like cigarettes, the fire creeping up them, quickening, crawling closer to her head. The fire in her eyes spraying out from the sides of her face like geysers, her head lighting up completely in a mane of pure, unadulterated, blazing rage. A scorching eye locked onto me, sword still lodged in her crooked abdomen.
“You… You too?”
As she raised a hand already covered in a mane of fire, the embers of the air swirling and collecting around it, adding to its fire, we both heard a voice from somewhere. A voice as stoic as it was livid, the growling of a mother bear.
“BAN…” The voice began, the fire on Roxxie’s body growing weak and cold. She spun to see Slenda, covered in ash, a book in her hand.
“Slenda!” San called out, beaming. There were tears in her eyes. Slenda’s admin command continued, her eyes trained on Roxxie, the flames glowing in transparent images on her lenses, “XxFieryQueen--”
“NO!” Roxxie ran for the edge of the rooftop, the flames on her body going out, her voice frailer than before. The monster in her gone as she was chased into a corner. As she was trying to jumped from the top of the creeper’s charred skeleton, a figure leapt up from below, shooting from the charred streets below like a sniper’s shot.
“Omae wa.. Mou shindeiru.” Zolo murmured, her eyes burning with anger, her tunic spattered with blood. She drove three more swords through Roxxie, pinning her in place. Roxxie cried out, broken. Nailed to the rooftop. Realizing all too late that she was trapped, fire sparked on her arms in a futile effort to escape. Slenda pushed her sleeve up against her eyes, failing to dry them, finishing her command, “RoxxiexX--!”
Roxxie was ripped from the air between Zolo’s two swords, her blades and mine tossed as the air burst around us, like we were being sideswiped by a jet, her screams echoing through the air. I coughed on the smoke as it filled my lungs and choked the corners of my vision. The swords… Did they kill her, too? I raised an arm weakly into the air, my sight blurring, dimming as my heartbeat slowed to a crawl. Roxxie had been sent farther than the edge of the server, she’d been sent back to her spawn, back to whatever distant server the admin and operator had come from. I barely managed to let out a weak, “Wooooo!” my voice cracking as my head fell, my lungs closed and my consciousness gone as I made contact with the cold, charred steel.
Time stirred as light flashed in front of my eyes, the world flickering back to me. There was a mass of blue and green moving in front of my eyes between front of the sun’s light. Sounds from around me began to come into focus, San’s concerned voice echoing in my ears. As my vision cleared, I began to recognize her features and her smile. I felt her pull me close to her chest. My mind was racing, filled with sentences, questions, images. I remembered San fighting on the rooftop. And I remembered fighting with her. Fighting with Slenda.
My words came out slowly, my body still waking up, “The admin… Is she okay?”
“I’m here...” Slenda grunted, her form pushing out from behind San, her shadow towering above us. She looked around us, body pivoting as her shoulders fell, “I’m here.”
My eyes rummaged the smoking ruins around us, my heart sinking with the admin’s. Only the frames of some buildings were left, but that couldn’t be said for all of them. Slenda glared with hollow eyes, both irritated and broken, looking as if she was searching for something. Her body slumped, leaning into San. So much had been happening, it was hard to keep my head straight. But now that I knew we’d taken down the ringleader, there was a strange twinge of pride in me. And I didn’t even get kicked out of a server for it.
"HEY YOU!!"
A voice broke from the ashy cloud that seemed to spread from every block of charred ground around us, a weeb striding out. He was barking accusations at San, Slenda and I, and was followed by others. Right on cue…
"Are you gonna do anything about this?!" A weeb screamed, pointing at Slenda. She shrunk behind San, “Your operator caused this, didn’t she?!”
Another shook his fist from the back of the mob. “We’ll have to rebuild almost two-hundred high schools, two-HUNDRED!”
“I bet you don’t even like anime!” One barked, stomping towards us.
“And what if I don’t?!” Slenda shouted back, a fist immediately meeting with her face, breaking her glasses and sending her falling into San’s arms. The creeper girl’s eyes surged with bright blue lightning.
San pulled a sword as Slenda reached for the book in her back pocket, but the two of them cringed with pain, both unsteady. The fires of the town had not gone out, but rather moved into the eyes of the weebs as they encircled us. Fires that wouldn’t go out until we were killed. And killed again. And again. But yells began to split the crowd, and soon we saw heads further away from us duck under the wall of bodies. Weebs yelped as they were thrown to the side, blood spilling upwards as players were forced aside. A head of green hair in a messy ponytail pushed out from the wall of bodies, her swords and eyes shining. Zolo put herself between us and the other weebs. She started screaming at the crowd, her voice pleading, foreign words spilling from her mouth like a river, tears pricking her eyes.
Slenda rose to her feet, taking San by the arm. She looked at the both of us with concern in her eyes, "Zolo's trying her best to defend us, but it's only gonna buy us time.” Zolo looked back over her shoulder, the burning eyes of the mob digging into her, and into us. Slenda gave an exasperated sigh, clutching her admin book tightly in her hand. “Most weebs only pretend to know Japanese… There are only about 3 people in this mob who know what she's saying."
Slenda leaned towards Zolo, placing a hand on her shoulder and whispering into her ear. The weeb turned to us, face strained in confusion, but Slenda slipped away before she could respond, leaving the book of usernames at her feet. Slenda quickly broke into a sprint, yelling for us to follow her as the mob picked up speed. The three of us ran towards the edge of the server, escaping through a hole in the outer wall left by the griefers’ assaults. The mob screaming behind us split around Zolo like a river parting around a stone, the swordswoman struggling to hold them back, even with her sword.
We soon cleared the forest, but kept running, running onwards until we ended up into a jungle, then crossed over into the sandy shores of a desert. We kept running until the shouting of the crowd faded into the trees behind us and we were almost sure we’d lost them. My body had already been on the verge of exhaustion when we left, so at the first sign of relief, my legs crumpled, my body splashing in the sand.
“So what,” I gasped, “Are we supposed to do now?”
Slenda fell to her knees in the dirt beside me, her hands sliding down her head and pulling on her face. San rested a hand on her shoulder, a worried look in her eyes. She didn’t seem nearly as crushed by what had happened, her legs straight and her arm moving softly, caressing the admin. But her face still twinged with a certain sadness and her eyes were moist. It wasn’t the world crashing down around her, but the loss Slenda had gone through, the broken expression on her face, that’s what was getting to her.
“You can do whatever you want… Roxxie’s a jerk, and you’ve seen the damage you can do. I need to… I don’t even know, I need to find her. I need to talk to her. Something.”
San blinked, looking as if she was trying to search for something to say, but couldn’t. She didn’t seem to know Roxxie as well as Slenda did. Pain throbbed in my sides, but I pushed myself from the sand, offering Slenda my hand.
“Well, whatever it is you’re end up doing…I’ll go with you.”
“I’m thinking about getting a job with the police. Apparently they’re hiring.”
“So we haven’t replaced you in that sector yet?” I asked, chuckling.
“Not yet apparently,” Mike laughed, cracking open a beer, “From what I’ve heard, law enforcement AI’s are some of the hardest to design correctly. They’ve got enough kinks at least that the city likes keeping more human officers on hand--” Mike coughed, his eyes flashing to me with an embarrassed look, “Natural, biological humans, sorry.”
I waved a hand, our sign of no offence. “It’s fine, what’s their problem anyway? I’m a cool artificial detective who deals with dangerous criminals all the time and I’m just fine.”
Mike snorted, smiling crookedly at me. I could practically see the image in his head; me as a law enforcement AI, firearm deployed from my wrist, standing stoic, staring down the barrel of some gangster’s… You know what, that is pretty funny. I’m just a loser with a camera and a notebook. “I’m kidding,” I said, returning his crooked smile. Michael had been facing forward, his eyes reflecting the golden lights below. I never really thought about how we’d made the roof of our apartment building our main hangout spot, but then again, the way it made our cares fade away was the reason we came up here. That and Mike said it was the best place to have a beer, not that he could ever explain why. I watched his body recline into the folding chair he brought to the roof, condensation from the bottle dripping down his hand. None of these details were important, I suppose, but my mind tended to take them all in anyway. At least the world was quiet up here, the only light a glowing field beneath us. I guess the peacefulness is why I’ve never been overloaded on a rooftop, which is more than enough reason for me to like it. I looked forward, same as Mike, eyes losing themselves in the dull glow of the city streets, “But, you mentioned some problems. Now what are these problems exactly?”
The body across from me fidgeted slightly in its chair, Mike’s nose wrinkling slightly the way it always did when he was thinking. “Well…” He began, his tone less lively than before. He laced his hands together, “I’ve told you about my friend who works at the police station, Phil—he’s the one who recommended I get the job. Anyway, he was telling me about how the law enforcement AI’s they had were having problems with programming, 3 laws conflicts and that kind of stuff.”
I felt a strange anxiety begin to crawl in the back of my mind, images and sounds working their way up from my subconscious, bubbling at the edges of my vision.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The words coursed through my mind unwanted, like a scolding received years ago, but without a time or place attached to it. I just remembered always hearing them, recited to me sometimes as jokes, sometimes as verses of law, but more than that, I could always feel some inkling of them in my code. To an artificial human, even the mere mention of them brought a strange, fearful reverence.
“So apparently, law enforcement AI’s are supposed to protect the life of non-artificial humans at all cost, meaning that if one person has a gun aimed at the other, their code will force them to disarm shooter by hitting them in the arm or leg, but avoid anything vital. The thing is though, this extends to suicide. Meaning that if a law enforcement AI sees someone with a gun pointed towards their own head, they’re going to try to immobilize or disarm that person to protect them. The AI doesn’t even have a choice to stop it since there are lives on the line and their reflexes have to be perfect.”
Michael bent forward and took a long drink, taking the time to savor the taste, or perhaps just prolong the short silence. Him and I both knew where this story was going however, “A couple of weeks ago though, this law enforcement AI was on patrol. She was really good too, from what I hear. Apparently she saw someone cleaning their gun on their front porch. They had the barrel pointed towards their face just a little too long and it just triggered that code… Apparently she tried to stop it too, but it was just one of those things that’s hardwired, y’know?”
“Oh, oh god.” I buckled, my midsection crumbling like I’d been punched in the gut. My mind tracked back through the reports I’d read, the debates, the news stories I had playing as white noise in our apartment. The week of the shooting, there’d been talk of “The Uprising,” a fictional event that non-artificial humans, especially in politics, were obsessed over. So many claimed that the unprovoked shooting of a teenager in the projects was proof of police brutality from an AI, and therefore proof of an AI’s capacity to hate and show prejudice. Proof that we were rebelling against humans. I remembered hearing the voice of the AI on the news. Hearing her plead for innocence against a wave of screams for justice. This was all over an unforeseen programming loophole.
I thought about times when I’d been faced with programming conflictions, 3 laws conflictions. A night at the subway station came to mind—I remembered how and old man was wandering dangerously close to the tracks and how I’d rushed over to try and stop him, only to crash into him, nearly sending us both into the pit. Images of newspapers, talk shows, and caustic sound bites with my face plastered over them began to fill my vision. Is that really all it takes, I questioned, queasy at the thought, To become “one of the bad robots” they talk about on the news?
“That’s… Horrible…” I groaned.
“Just horrible enough to get me a job.” Mike replied, holding his drink out in front of him. The expression on his face was dull, unreadable. I usually liked that feature of Michael; he was nearly as poor at displaying emotions as I was, or at least nearly as oblivious. But now it made me feel more scared than anything. “Was that…” I hesitated, “A joke?”
“Oh no, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry!” He blurted out, his free hand gripping his head, squeezing it, “That wasn’t supposed to sound like that, I was just--”
“It’s fine, it’s fine!” I waved my hands in front of me, just ready to change the subject. “It’s just that stuff like that kind of gets to me, and it’s been happening a lot more lately… I followed her story, and apparently she’s getting repurposed. She’s on the stronger side so she’s probably going to be put in construction or maintenance, but I don’t think she’s going to be happy. Sorry to be a downer, but it’s a story I hear more often than I’d like, I guess.”
Silence fell like a heavy blanket over the two of us, smothering our intent as we turned, lulled by the soft glow of the city lights. Staring off like this was easier than conversation after all. Just watching as the streets glimmered, lights coming on and shutting off both naturally and unnaturally, predictable but unknowable. A bit like a program, I thought.
“Those stories…” Michael started, pacing himself with another sip of his beer, “Do they have any happy endings?”
I smiled, looking off into the streets below, “Well… I’m hoping mine does.”
"These are the crop fields. They aren't maintained especially well… The players we assign to work in them usually ditch to rp or go dungeon crawling."
It had been a few days since San and I had arrived in Weebtown. San quickly went her own way after she was healed up; the aloof creeper girl venturing into the server to go cause trouble in a way that I wasn't surprised was her standard. I was left to explore the server on my own, only occasionally bumping into her or Roxxie as I walked the streets, the pink petals of cherry blossoms blowing around my feet.
"Here are the mines. There used to be a systematic branch mining system here but now everyone just does what they want. A lot of people have even built little secret bases inside the mines, making other players pay tolls. It’s… A thing."
Weebtown was more like my home server than I'd expected; there were fields of crops, areas squared away for mining and private building, and even a few cool landmarks like the anime-haired creeper that towered over the server’s spawn point. The major difference however, was the mods. My home server, the server where I spawned, was "vanilla," meaning that mods were outlawed, although that didn’t stop the mod users that forced their way in. Either way, anyone who used a mod was seen as an outsider, which was in stark contrast to the streets I was walking now. Modded weapons, armor, special blocks, and plants littered the server, players walking by them as if they were a normal part of the world, as if they hadn't been brought into existence through an otherworldly power. It was a welcome change, even if I had to see players walking around with the occasional overly-graphic body pillow.
"What are all of these for?" I asked, looking around at the legion of bland stone buildings surrounding us. The admin chuckled.
Slenda had been taking me on a tour of the server, both of us hoping that I'd be able to find a place there, or at the very least help me socialize. Slenda didn't seem keen on either, her eyes cold and her voice tired during most of her walk. Though, I suppose I'd be just as broken if I had to run this mixed deathtrap and playground barely disguised as a functioning society. When we reached the edge of the spawn town the ornate buildings and semi-organized gave way to a sea of grey and pale colors, all belonging to buildings of nearly identical structure. They all had a similarly shaped main building with wings to either side, the walls lined with windows. Every roof had a small walkable area with a fence around it and in the dirt beside the buildings' bases there were chalk lines for some kind of sports. The only thing differentiating the buildings were the signs in front of them, all written in that indecipherable weeb language.
"Oh, these? They're all high schools."
"ALL OF THEM?!" I questioned, my mind spinning, "B- But, why?!”
Slenda shook her head, letting out a weary sigh. It didn't seem like it was the first time she'd had to break this to someone.
"That’s anime!” She said with a weak smile and a flash of her hands, “To get to all of the beauty and nuance, you need to dig through a bunch of high schools and horrible waifus."
Weebtown was the peak of superfluous, taking every unnecessary excessive element they possibly could and finding a way to squeeze it into every day server life… But high schools?! What's so exciting about high schools?! Most servers didn’t even build schools in the first place since most players spawn in with a decent amount of knowledge. But this server had what looked like thousands. It felt like being on the top of a mountain where the air thinned, except here you were left gasping for standards and moderation rather than oxygen. I didn’t even want to know what a “waifu” was. I looked to the admin; stern, tidy, straight-laced. Though I'd run into San a couple times around the server, Slenda felt a lot more tangible, for lack of a better word. It didn't feel as if asking her questions would end in cryptic answers or unrealistic spells of unconsciousness.
"Why in the Nether would you want to work in a place like this?” I asked, gazing out over the sea of bland cement and distant neon pink blossoms, trying to ignore the churning disgust in my stomach. Slenda looked at me, her thick eyebrows pulled together in a strained look of confusion. It seemed like she saw the excess, but wasn’t put off in the same way I was, or at least wasn’t on the same page, "I mean you and Roxxie are like... Normal."
Slenda tilted her head to either side, lips parting to laugh but closing as if she wasn’t ready to speak, still putting the story together, grunts and sighs filling the space. I smiled at her, glad that part of this crazy world was finally starting to budge. "Well yeah the server’s messy, but it’s not that bad, y’know? Besides, how Roxxie and I got here isn’t much of a story...”
She let out a deep sigh, scratching her head. Her expressions were more and more fluid as she spoke, her exasperated smile beginning to crack, “Me and her just got tired of the way things were run in our server that we decided to try making our own, y’know? So much land is taken up by established servers, though, so we just started looking for one to join, and we found Weebtown."
“You’ve been in Weebtown for a while then, I take it?”
The admin dusted off a stone slab bench and sat on it, smiling incredulously at herself. "No actually, we’ve only been here a few months… When we arrived, the admin was already begging people to take her place. No one here wanted the responsibility so I took the position and made Roxxie my operator. It's been non-stop weaboo nonsense ever since."
I took a seat next to her, Slenda keeping a slight distance between us, "I mean, you're one of the only normal people here and you stabbed my girl—" A finger pushed up her glasses on her nose, warmth flushing into her cheeks, “San, in the middle of the night.”
To be fair, it was her fault.
At the very least, I was glad to see that I was able to find someone to talk to in the server. Another boring straight with no interest in body pillows or honor fighting. The most significant difference between us however, seemed to be in patience. Where I could never imagine running this bizarre anime death carnival, Slenda seemed to be taking it in stride, or at least doing the best she could.
“Do you ever regret it?” I asked, “Becoming the admin, that is?”
Slenda shook her head, a smile growing on her face, just barely hidden behind her stooping shoulders and curly tufts of hair.
"No... Weebtown's a mess, but that's kinda why I like it,” She smiled, even warmer than before. It was the smile of a proud mother looking over her horrible weaboo child, "It's like a fixer-upper, you know? If I can improve things here, I'll actually be doing something really special.”
I smiled back at her and tried to close the difference between us on the bench, scooting slightly closer. Her eyelids came halfway over her eyes and she slid farther down the bench, the storm over her eyes returned. “I just wish Roxxie felt the same…”
Slenda’s voice trailed off, her eyes wandering upwards. Without a word, she left her seat on the bench, tip-toeing forward. I followed her eyes only to see a thin wisp of smoke rising over the far edge of the eastern district of high schools. Shouts could be heard as the black pillar grew, flickers of heat beginning to pour from its bottom. The admin’s eyes shot open, startled with disappointed realization.
The admin darted down the path, fumbling in her pocket for something as her feet forced her way forward. I ran behind her, trying my best to keep pace by throwing myself in the vague direction she was running, though I was completely lost to the situation. As we neared the swirling smoke and the fiery chaos at its base however, I started to remember what the guardians had mentioned before-- about San “trying to blow up the server every other week.” I gulped.
"Crap don't tell me that's--"
"Oh, it’d better not be.” Slenda growled back. She pulled a book out of her pocket, something I’d recognized as an admin’s book of names, and clutched it tight as she ran. She couldn’t be…
"THE WAIFUS ARE BURNING!!" A distant voice cried, pulling my eyes forward. The area beyond the high schools was clearer now as the excessive stone structures began to part. It was a clearing of technicolor figures, much like other sprite art displays in my home server, but with one major difference. The art wasn’t of innocent, normal things like flowers or mobs or tools, they were all of two-dimensional anime girls that towered over the eastern high schools. Some were blue-haired, some had dragon tails, some cat ears, but all had ridiculous outfits and horrifying cleavage. So that’s what a waifu is… I pondered, my face twisting as I followed behind Slenda, Maybe we could just… Let this place burn?
Weebs ran back and forth under the amber flames, buckets of water and blocks of dirt in their hands that they were using to snuff the flames, though the blaze seemed too much for the disheveled otakus to handle on their own. In the center of the havoc stood a cloaked figure; dark fabric swirled around their body, tossed by the wind. Their hood was pinned in the front by a skull-shaped steel pendant and chain, the little light that glinted off the face shining like a steely grin. The figure stepped forward, followed by one or two weebs, breaking off from the crowds of onlookers. Slenda moved to address the cloaked weaboo but he spoke first, cutting her off with a voice that was such a stark departure from his form it felt like it put a crack in the air. It was somewhere between the shrill cry of a cat and that of a gossiping old woman. It was the kind of voice you’d imagine an old yellowed skull to have, not a living player.
“No need to worry, administrator. We’ve got things under control here.”
His voice may have been annoying, but looking behind him, I found that he wasn’t completely wrong. Though the blaze still roared, the players had been pushing it back, or at least keeping it contained. But, why would he hold someone back from helping, especially Slenda? Weebs climbed and jumped along the structures, some crowding around their feet to stare upwards in disheveled awe while others went to stand behind the cloaked man, their eyes burning a hole through us and their hands restless. Slenda took a heavy breath, pushing a loose tuft of hair back behind the side of her glasses.
“Well, I have to admit,” She said, still gasping from our run up here, “I wouldn’t expect the leader of a weeb gang to do such a good cleanup job, Desu Skull.”
I shook my head. Excuse me, WHAT?
“It’s pronounced Deathzu Skuru.” The cloaked figure gave a fake cough, a hand on his hip, his other hand gesticulating dramatically in the air. His primadonna-of-the-undead voice seemed a perfect fit, “But that’s close enough I guess...”
As I continued to survey the scene behind the sassy skull-faced weirdo, something suddenly caught my eye. There was a structure of iron beside one of the waifus, a hasty assemblage of iron bars like a makeshift cage. There was a blue and green form inside, one that instantly pulled me in. I leaned in to try and get a closer look but “Deathzu Skuru” stepped in front of me, his arms outstretched. He was closer now, and I could see two white lights inside of his hood, glowing brightly, offensively. “Now now, you really don’t have to be here. We’ve got this all handled.”
Slenda strode through his hasty blockade, a look of impassioned disapproval on her face. It didn’t take long for the image within the cage to become clear to us, the neon blue mass of hair flipping to the side to reveal San’s dumb grin.
“Hey guys! I’m being detained!”
“YOU LET HER OUT RIGHT NOW!” Slenda barked, spinning on her heel to face the hooded head honcho. Deathuzu Skuyuru (or however you pronounce his name) simply stood and laughed, his snicker growing to a high, overpowering cackle. He moved a metal-clawed hand to pull back his hood, revealing his face--or rather—a mask. He wore an iron mask in the shape of a skull without a lower jaw, the teeth extending to a cartoonish exaggerated length. A white skull was painted on the metal forehead (because I guess the skull-shaped mask wasn’t enough) and in front of his eyes he wore a pair of sunglasses, each lens of which had a holographic skull sticker that shined a powerful white in sunlight. I wasn’t surprised by the weeb’s outfit at this point, given the other players in the server. Just disappointed.
“IF we let out this little troublemaker, she’ll just do something like this again, and again, and again! You definitely don’t seem intent on doing anything about it. You just give her a slap on the wrist!”
“It isn’t your decision!” Slenda snapped, pulling back out her book of usernames, “I’m the admin here and I decide how griefers here are punished. If you do anything to her, I’ll ban you for PvP in a neutral area, Death Skull!”
The skull-faced vigilante coughed again, “Deathzu Skuru… BUT ANYWAY, you can’t ban me unless I’ve already attacked her, and so you’ll be unable to stop me with my mod—“ The cloaked figure spoke laboriously, epically, reaching into his sleeve. He pulled out a sleek black weapon that fit snugly in his hand, its squared end pointed towards the sky like some ancient and powerful obelisk, “A GUN! THAT KILLS YOU!!”
“YOU FIEND!” Slenda gasped.
That could literally be any weapon, I thought, it’s functionally the same as a bow and arrow why would you even mod that? I rolled my eyes, materializing one of Zolo’s swords in my hands. It barely took any thought to summon my mod anymore, the last weapon I copied appearing instantly, like the press of a button. Like a reflex. “Okay, this is dumb,” I interjected, “Can I just like beat him up or something?” I stepped forward and Desu Skull flailed back, yelping at the weapon in my palm, his gun waggling in every direction. “Hey! Careful with that thing, normy! That’s a dangerous weapon!”
He stuck his feet firmly on the ground, his arm straightening, pointing his firearm at San’s cage like an arrow. I stepped forward, twirling the sword in my hand like a bat, the steel slicing the air. It was only then that I began to think about how little training or understanding I had of swordplay, but I hoped it would work out. These things usually… Well. Okay, maybe I did have reason to be worried.
Slenda would have to punish me somehow for fighting Desu Skull, and I’d probably end up injuring a stray weeb or two, but I figured it was worth it. Maybe it was a weakness of mine, but I couldn’t stand jerks like him bullying other players just to make a point. If I couldn’t kill him, I was hoping at the very least I could give get him away from San, get her to safety, even if it meant getting myself in trouble.
Slenda grabbed the back of my collar, yanking me back and growling at me through gritted teeth, “I know you like stabbing my players, but this situation is a bit more complicated than that, “Cyrustheslayer.”’ I could swear I saw the weeb’s skull mask smirk at us. I scowled at him. This situation felt too familiar to me. Standing across from a twisted modder with a metal mask and a bizarre sense of justice, “We can’t let him kill San. There has to be another way to handle this.”
I pulled my sword to my side, but didn’t despawn it. It still didn’t make sense to me why Slenda was so protective of San; threatening to ban players who hadn’t done anything to her, scolding those who put her in even mild danger, even though she could respawn. I’d heard of players before who couldn’t respawn, whose deaths were permanent, but they all lived in special servers, “hardcore” servers. Was San a hardcore player too? I clenched my sword, ready to take Desu Skull down. Just in case.
Desu Skull cocked his head and chuckled, observing Slenda’s leash-like hold on me. “Oh! Well. I wasn’t expecting you to just let me exact vigilante justice, but I guess it do be like that sometimes!” The modder waved his gun around joyously, nearly dropping it.
“That’s not what I meant!” Slenda cried back.
“NOW WATCH, ADMIN! AS I MAKE YOUR HORRIBLE WAIFU DISAPPEA--”
Desu Skull looked dramatically towards San’s cage, his shades narrowed down the sights of his modded firearm, only to see empty space. A cage with no captive, a hole carved in the bars. “Wh- Wha--” His gun shook in his hand, first with confusion, then with frustration, then with anger. The weeb stomped his foot, pointing at members of his gang who stood in the crowd, crying out and demanding an answer to where she was, , “CAN’T I TRUST MY GOONS TO PERFORM ONE SIMPLE TASK?! WHICH ONE OF YOU LET HER OUT, HUH? STEP FORWARD!”
As Desu Skull spoke the air began to swirl, the air hot, dry, and unnatural. It was as if the air around us was angry. Just as Desu Gun moved to point his gun towards us, to threaten us for an answer, a searing gust burst through the air between our two groups, sending bodies flying in every direction. Burning air whipped around us as if we’d been caught in a tornado, throwing us against nearby walls and dispersing the crowd of weebs like a sand castle kicked by a beach bully. The only thing left standing was Desu Skull, his steel-armored body resolute against the supernatural winds. A figure appeared in the hot, swirling cloud behind him, eyes glowing with yellow fire. The figure’s hand reached out, taking the gun in her iron grip.
Roxxie crushed the gun in her hand, the firearm bubbling out from its corners like hot wax. Death Skull tried to break away but Roxxie pulled him close, her flaming claws moving forward against his verbal protests. Trails of broken flame came up from her eyes, her ponytail bursting into a flaming halo. “N- Now now, no need to be a tsundere..!” He gasped, trying and failing to wrench his hand away from her grip. Though Slenda and I were both pushed against the cement of a high school’s outer wall, Slenda pulled herself to her feet, pushing off and trudging through the harsh wind.
“Lucky for you guys, I just happened to be in the area.” Roxxie grinned, holding her prize high like a hunter. San stepped out from behind her, waving at Slenda. Desu Skull managed to writhe out of Roxxie’s grip only to end up in the dirt where Roxxie pinned him under her boot. The operator smirked down at him, then looked up to give a beaming smile to Slenda.
“Roxxie, let him go!” Slenda cried.
“What, are you’re saying we should just let him off?” She questioned, her tone stirred with a genuine confusion. The operator grimaced, pushing Desu Skull’s steely mask farther into the dirt, “He just tried to execute San for a crime she didn’t even commit! We’re supposed to just let crap like that fly?”
I hoisted myself up, summoning a sword to anchor myself in the dirt, and another to pull myself forward, bringing myself closer to the pillar of flame. One overpowered jerk down and one to go, I guess. I grunted against the whipping gusts. Streaks of flame were beginning to form as well, falling from her body like streamers and spinning in the air around the scene like the beginning of a fiery hurricane.
“Just let him go!” I yelled, Roxxie’s eyes snapping to me in condescending surprise. Slenda stared at me, her half-lidded eyes as unamused as Roxxie’s, as if this was their private squabble. I wondered how many times they’d done this, “I don’t like this guy either but it’s not like being a dick isn’t going to make the players like you any better!”
The operator growled, turning to Slenda. The fires were beginning to die around her as her expression became more weary, “Slenda, you know if we keep letting them do more and more of this, the server’s just going to fall apart!”
“I don’t care!” Slenda cried back, clutching her book of names tightly in her hand, “We can’t do stuff like this!! We are not like this!” Roxxie squinted at her, the fire in her eyes burning brightly, flickers of the flame flying back from her face in streams. Though I felt less than intimidating being that I was pitted against this experienced mod user, I pointed a sword in her direction, holding firmly onto the one I had planted in the ground. Together, me and Slenda stared her down until she reluctantly released the weeb from under her, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She plunged them deep, as if resisting the urge to hurl a fireball at the rebellious weaboo as he rose to his feet, dusting off his cloak. “The admin’s right, Roxxie, that was rather rude of you.” The skeletal loser sneered, tossing the melted remains of his weapon into the dirt. I felt a blood vessel pulse with opposition from deep within my brain.
“However,” The skull-faced gangster interjected, reaching for a black shape that materialized within his cloak, “It is going to take hundreds of man hours to restore the damage done to these precious murals, so I’m afraid as an honorable weeb my hands are still tied--!”
Before any of us could react, a shot rang out, Slenda shrieking as the bullet grazed the top of Roxxie’s forehead, sending her flying back, the fire in her eyes bursting. Desu Skull then turned to us, his gun pointed right between right between my eyes.
“BAN GUNGALEFREAK10. PvP in a neutral zone.”
Slenda clapped her book of usernames shut and after a second’s pause, Desu Skull became a blur of grey, his body launched at an incomprehensible speed towards the server boundaries. Roxxie laughed, smiling coldly as she brought her eyes level with ours, blood trickling down her forehead. San soon came down a path to the side, seemingly gleefully unaware of just how much trouble she’d caused, her eyes beaming as she caught Slenda.
As she passed by Roxxie however, the operator caught her shoulder, laughing as she spoke to her, “Sorry for all of this by the way, didn’t mean for you to get in so much danger.”
San smiled and folded her arms behind her head, seemingly content just to be caught up in all the drama. I turned to Slenda, only to see her eyes brimming with purple fire, her knuckles white on the book she clasped in her hand. She stomped towards her administrator, ignoring San, her body moving like a loosed arrow towards her target.
“Excuse me Roxxie, what in the Nether did you just say?” Slenda questioned through gritted teeth to a smiling operator.
“I set the fires,” Roxxie said with a shrug, as if it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Slenda looked like she was going to erupt, “I got tired of looking at all of those waifus and figured I could just get rid of them. If any of the high schools caught fire I’d consider it an added bonus.”
Slenda grabbed her by the collar, pulling her close enough for the blood from Roxxie’s forehead to drip onto the round lenses of her glasses. I tried getting closer, but I realized there was nothing I could do. This wasn’t an isolated event, but the last straw of a fight they’d been having for months. “YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT!” Slenda screamed into Roxxie’s face, her arms shaking.
“And why not?” Roxxie chimed back, squinting at the admin, “I’m the second most powerful person in this server since I’m your only operator. I should be able to start controlled burns like this! It’s cleaning up land that we run!”
Roxxie shook Slenda from her collar, staring daggers for a few seconds before finally stomping off. She launched into the air with a burst of flame, flying to some unseen corner of the server like a loosed arrow. Her eyes wet with anger and exhaustion, Slenda collapsed to her knees, San running to her side.
“You okay Slenda?” Asked San, her hand moving instinctively to pet Slenda’s mounds of curly dark brown hair.
The admin smiled at her, wrapping her arms around the creeper girl. “I should be asking you that, you doofus. You almost got shot!”
“I probably woulda been fine,” she smirked back, burrowing her forehead into the admin’s like an overly blunt eskimo kiss. The two smiled, giggling at each other for a few seconds, but Slenda seemed to be holding onto something. Her face never seemed to pull into a full smile, her eyes always a little strained, pointed just over San’s shoulder.
She was worried about the operator, or more accurately, what she was going to do. And so was I. Shivering, I looked to the stream of smoke that followed Roxxie, my stomach churning. Weebtown was just like home to me now… The only problem was, it was just like home.
I looked down at Sam lying on my bed, arms outstretched and head laid flat, perfectly relaxed. She let out an exaggerated breath, throwing her long, blue hair back and crossing her legs, seeming totally at home in my bed. Her tone was as excited as it was expectant. “So, what d’ya wanna do?"
Seeing her beautiful form smiling at me from my bed, my brain fell out of rhythm.
"Huh..?"
"Like, you wanna play some games, nap, find something to eat, what?" She asked, her body turned to me and face beaming. Her eyes and piercings shined in the dim sunlight coming through my curtains. Waiting for my response, she tossed her hair, sending her thick turquoise blue mane over her shoulder and onto her back. I was mesmerized.
Shit. She was waiting for me to say something.
I quickly snapped myself back to reality, my eyes quickly darting around the messy room in search of entertainment, a room full of books and video games and nothing I could think to do. But honestly, I just wanted to lay with her.
"Um, well.. I mean... We can play games anytime, I figured we’d just hang around and talk..." I said, shakily. I just wanted to get a response out before I saw her start playing with the holes in her jeans or twiddling with the tips of her hair. Being controlling wasn’t something I liked doing, but I hated seeing her bored even more.
"But, if you're hungry I could like get you something from the kitchen!" I blurted out, trying my hand at both courteous and awkward, rather than just the one. Sam smiled; I could only hope that she was more entertained at my inability to host than I was.
She sat up, only to spin around and throw herself on the bed again, her body now with her legs pointing towards me, patting the open space on the bed next to her with her hand.
The girl I had a crush on was beckoning me to my own bed. My mind was imploding.
I walked onto the bed through the carpet of my room, thick and crunching in the heavy silence. Reaching the edge of the bed, I kicked the small remainder of blankets off and plopped myself down just across from her. Sam rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling fan. I did the same.
“Your room’s really cute by the way.” She said, smiling, her eyes scanning the hand-painted black walls and plush-lined bookshelves.
“It’s kinda like a little kid’s room you know..? B- but like, not for a little kid… Like, cool.” She stammered.
She bit her lip, her beautiful, glowing blue eyes shifting as she searched for her words. The occasional twist of her head changedthe direction of the black and turquoise waterfall of hair on her head, spilling and splashing across my comforter. I still couldn’t believe that hair was on my bed.
“I think… I think it feels safe.” She said, nodding at her own answer. The room fell silent for a few seconds.
“It doesn’t feel like someone’s asshole dad is about to bust in.”
I snorted into a laugh, remembering the time we’d hung out at her house. When her dad came home early to find us hanging out on her bed and nearly lost it.
“I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m dating you behind his back or something.” She snickered, her tone changing but keeping its levity. “He had one of those really dadly talks with me where he was like “You can tell me everything honey… I’m your father--” You know, all that bullshit.”
“Really?” I asked, trying to copy her tone as to not sound genuinely curious, “Just because we were lying on your bed?”
Sam shrugged. “He says it’s because of something, it’s like… Something about the way my mom would act whenever she liked somebody… Something, I dunno. I seriously don’t get it. He thinks I’m gonna run away with someone and make mistakes, get pregnant with a kid I don’t want. Y’know, like mom.” She stared at the ceiling.
“But, I’m a girl.” I stated the obvious, Sam throwing her hands up.
“I know!” She blurted, “The worst that could come from us fucking is that I actually enjoy being in my house for a night. Maybe even get some cute girl smell on my pillows rather than my uh, non-cute girl smell.”
I laughed, rolling on my sheets. I didn’t think about why I was laughing or what it could potentially tell her, I just let it happen; it felt right. Weight shifted in the mattress. She was laughing too.
She turned over to face me and I turned towards her, our eyes meeting. We both looked away, the laughter taking over the conversation once more. I started wondering if she was as nervous as I was, then I wondered if she was even nervous at all- what if she was just laughing because I was laughing, or hell, even worse, laughing at the idea of how ridiculous it would be if we were together.
Sam shuffled in her spot. She seemed closer now.
I could hear my heart beat in the silence.
“It really is too bad then,” She began, her eyes flitting from the sheets, to my body, to the carpet. She was nervous. Possibly for the first time that I’d seen. “But you... I mean, you’re not...”
The distance felt closer-- I could feel her breathe. Sam had moved.
My breathing got heavy.
Not... gay? I thought to myself. But if she was saying that… wouldn’t she start with herself? Wouldn’t she say, “It’s not like I’m gay..?”
My body burned with a dull heat, my chest felt like cement.
I inched closer, following her.
We had been this close before, touched each other, but this felt closer. The tension in the air was suffocating. We looked at each other again and we both looked away again. I heard her stifle a breathy laugh, cupping her hand over her mouth.
Oh my god, she’s gay.
I took a heavy gulp and moved closer. We were still about a foot apart but the pressure in my chest was building to its limit.
The bed was moving again. She was closer now.
She’s gay and she likes me.
My mind was screaming.
The distance began closing again, but this time I was the one who moved.
I can...
I pushed my face forward towards hers, mouth open, eyes closed, praying I got the distance right.
Feeling the warm softness of her face and the side of her lip ring, I pushed closer slightly and closed my mouth. The smell of her face, her body, her sweat, it was overwhelming in that moment. I’d never pressed my face against any part of her body, let alone her face. Her lips. She overcame my senses. It was like fireworks, ended by the soft pecking sound that kissing seemed to make in every movie, letting me know I had done it right.
I began to move away, but I didn’t want to stop. My eyes opened for a moment, just to see her reaction. Her mouth was still open, her eyes fluttering, but needy. Afraid. They wanted me to stay. Moving forward again, I closed my eyes and I kissed slightly below her lips, just getting some of her bottom lip and chin.
Once again, I felt the brush of her skin. It was her lips pushing against mine. Swooping up to catch mine after I’d missed.
Without thought, my lips opened, letting her in. I felt her warm breath on my cheeks and inside my mouth, the sensation melting away every other possible thought. Her kiss was softer, longer, it lingered and caressed my lips, my mind going blank.
An arm curled around me and pulled me closer with what felt like no effort, pressing my body snuggly against hers. She felt so big compared to me, so powerful. She kissed me harder, more deeply, her legs tangled with mine, her hands coming to rest on my hip and my cheek, held me in place. My arms were useless; my left bent and pressed against her chest and the laying limp. I moved my pinned arm, using it to take off my glasses and toss them on the pillows beside us.
I tried to slide my arm back into a better place than before. My other arm had slid over to where her shirt ended and hip began- not close enough to grab anything, just there to feel her curves. I struggled to find a comfortable place for my other arm, unable to find a place where it would comfortably fit between our two bodies.
Sam moved her hand from my cheek, taking the lost hand and softly pressing it against her breast. My heart started racing. My eyes opened wide, searching below for my hand in disbelief and... Fear? No, I pressed myself, Just keep going.
Feeling my palm against the fabric of her shirt and my fingers brushing against the top cut of her tank top, I felt a chilling sensation amidst the warmth. So much was happening.
Unable to push myself to grope her, I simply let my hand sit there, resting on her chest. Using the hand I had on her hip, I pulled myself closer. She tightened her grip on me too, the arm she was using to hold me now grabbing a hold of my butt. I made a noise, muffled by the movement of our mouths. It wasn’t the same as the chest. Not as scary. It was quick, soft. Playful. But I didn’t pay much mind to that. I didn’t pay much mind to anything then.
This is amazing. I thought, my brain taking a back seat, my body, my lips, were able to make calls that I didn’t understand myself and acted on them. Kissing felt natural. Kissing felt perfect. I felt her hand against the seat of my pants, now coming to rest gently in my back pocket. I wanted to do the same.
As our gropes and kisses began to become automatic, my mind began to take inventory. One hand was dangerously close, the perfect position for me to try something, but I wasn’t sure what that was. Or what it should be. My other was on her hip. I could maybe grab her butt but... The hand on her breast. Something was wrong. Something in my brain didn’t like it there. Didn’t like how dangerous it was.
I panicked and pulled my hand away, slipping it down and away from her chest and back to where it was pressed before, wedging it between our bodies I chuckled breathlessly, a reflex, unable to hide my nervousness. My face went forward for another kiss, hoping we could continue, but Sam had pulled back. My eyes took a second or two to flutter open, but when they did I could see the through my blurred vision that her eyes were wide, worried.
"I'm sorry. Shit, that was too fast.” She said breathlessly, trying to regain her composure, "You okay?" She whispered, resting the hand that had been in my pocket gently on my shoulder. I smiled and shrugged, my nervous chuckle taking over for words once more. "Do you want to stop?" She asked, her tone more serious.
My response was almost automatic.
"No!" I replied, breathless as well but smiling. "I like this, this is good. I just..."
Sam smiled back, grabbing my hand again and pushing her fingers through mine, lacing them together, her face beaming. We kissed again.
My dulled senses were once again racing. I was lying there, kissing this beautiful girl. What would happen if we stopped kissing? Would we talk about the reaction we had? Or would we just lie here together? Would we just keep kissing forever? With one hand on her hip and the other in the crevice between our bodies, it seemed so much easier. It was heaven, and I didn’t want to end. She paused for a moment, and I opened my eyes to look at her. The angel on my bed gave me a gentle smile and kissed me on the forehead. I pulled my legs in and curled up my body, pressing my face into the base of her neck. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close.
Sam and I lay there, pressed tightly against each other. I would sometimes kiss her neck and she would sometimes kiss my forehead. I didn’t know what we would do if my mom came in or when Sam had to go, but I knew that we were both happy. We hadn’t had sex or anything really intensive but my body felt exhausted.
I grinned proudly. I was exhausted from kissing.
Sam nuzzled against me.
“I’m sorry. You’re such a good kisser and you seemed so into it, I...”
“No, you’re fine Sam. It’s not like I don’t want to touch your boobs, I just. I--”
“You’re fine.” She stopped me again, brushing my hair from my face with her hand, “I’m a dumbass. I’m just glad you’re enjoying this.”
Air hissed from my lips and I snuggled deeper. I felt like I could do that endlessly, just burrowing deeper and deeper into her shirt, into her chest. She liked me. The idea rolled around in my head, ringing rich and full.
“More than anything.”
My hand tingled below me, twitching against my stomach. I ignored it. I just needed to ignore it.
We came to a wide stone wall. It was both the first monument to civilization I'd seen in a month, and one of the biggest stone structures I’d ever seen. Where the forest parted, I could see the wall's length extending infinitely either way into the forest. Pink wool fell in fluffy tapestries from the top of the wall, shreds of its bright color falling loose and trailing across the gravel road like leaves. Just beyond the wall you could see the tops of castles, not like the stone and brick castles in parts of my old server, but ornate buildings with rooftops curved and plated like the backs of dragons, peaking in triangular green and mahogany arches. My feet moved on their own, pulling us towards the structures. San snored on my back, still conveniently unconscious. I wondered when--or if--she’d wake up; whether I’d have to carry her to her home in the server or whether I’d be able to put her down and walk. But it wouldn’t matter.
We had encountered mobs on the journey there, but for some reason I couldn't spawn my drills. I chalked it up to exhaustion, or at least something like that. Maybe I copied San's hunger, I thought. Though, I had to wonder if San was a mod user herself... If I'd maybe copied something I couldn't use.
Copying mods happened by touch, and happened automatically. I... Didn't actually have any control over it. Call it my weakness. Take the drills for example. I copied them from a griefer who had been attacking my server--or, my ex-server I guess--but I had to touch them or at least make some kind of contact, so... Basically for my power to work, I need to be punched in the face. Not a great mod in my opinion, but it's what I had to work with. At the very least, I wouldn’t have to worry about it here. I just had to get through those gates and--
"STOP!"
"YAMERO!"
Two voices split the cool serenity of the woods, the rustle of leaves falling silent, hushed by their commanding tones. The guards strode forward, stepping in sync as their feet crunched the gravel beneath them, their faces coming into view.
One wore a black jacket that flowed around him almost like a cape, his long black hair falling back from his face in jagged shards. As he neared however, my intimidation began to melt into bemusement. He had belts EVERYWHERE. Two crammed into the loops of his pants, several wrapped around his arm, and two in an X across his chest, almost like the straps for a sword sheathe. But they weren’t holding anything. In fact, they all appeared to be completely pointless. As were the two belts on his left leg and the leather wristbands that poked out from his sleeves. He was the peak of superfluous; the fashion polices’ most wanted.
"State your username and your business here, normie." Belts glared, his foot planted dramatically in the gravel.
"Cyrustheslayer." I spoke quietly, trying to keep my voice calm. What in the Nether is a normie? I asked to myself, somehow split equally between fear of authority and baffled glee. I realized quickly that I was over my head.
"I have this girl, I think she's one of you guys?"
"HOSUTESU!" The other guard cried, reaching for a sword from her side. I flinched back, clutching San tightly. The guard drew closer, barking at me in a language I’d never heard before. My lips searched for a response, but there was nothing I could really say. I squeezed San’s legs, hoping this didn’t go the way I figured it would go. The way it always goes with modders.
The girl had long pale-green hair tied in a frayed ponytail, her bangs splayed in front of her eyes. A necklace of large purple beads hung around her neck, dangling about the sandy tunic she wore. She carried a bundle of blades at her side; 3, 5, no, 7-- Swords spilled out of the sash she wore around her midsection, at least ten of them sitting in their sheathes, hanging in the tight fabric. Two more swords were mounted on her back, my mind spinning as I tried to count them all. She pulled the two blades from their sheathes, one in each hand. Her eyes were piercing, merciless.
"You're right, Zolo," The guard with the ridiculous belts bellowed, "This looks like a hostage situation."
Excuse me?! I looked to the unconscious girl on my back, then to Zolo and the belt man standing on the path in front of me, each taking up their own battle stance. I hiked San upwards on my back, my feet moving almost automatically backwards. I glared at San as I tried to shake her awake.
"I- I think there's been some kind of mistake, I found this girl in the woods, I'm trying to take her back to her server."
Belts glared at me, his hands glowing with an ominous light. "Why don't we hear that from her, then?" He questioned, stabbing a finger at the air between us. From where I was standing, I was just a skinny loser in an oversized coat who wore scarves in overly-warm weather-- probably the least intimidating, least threatening person you could encounter. What harm could I do? Well, I did impale a stranger with a magic drill… but that’s beside the point! I began to sweat, nudging San as I stepped lightly away from them. She still didn’t seem to want to wake up. I swallowed, speaking quietly.
"Well, she’s unconscious because she uh... Lost a lot of blood when I stabbed her."
The two stepped forward. I looked anxiously at the swordswoman's abundance of swords. The ornateness of their sheathes, the sheer amount she was carrying, I knew they had to be a mod. A strange confidence burned in the back of my mind. Maybe I could copy them. Use them against her. As I struggled to strategize however, doubts began to consume my mind. Would I even be able to touch her swords without getting impaled on them? While carrying a girl on my back? And that’s only if my mod worked the way I thought it did. It didn’t exactly come with an instruction booklet. But just then, the swordswoman stepped forward, bringing her sword level with my nose. I pushed forward slightly, hoping to nudge it, but missed. The swordswoman looked confused, but dove forward, swinging her swords at me with swift, deadly accuracy.
"Please, I don't want any trouble--" I shook, lowering San for a moment. The swordswoman must have thought I was going to drop her and run because she dashed forward, swords slicing through the air. I fell back trying to dodge it, a stinging pain lashing my chest as the steel tore my flesh. I grit my teeth, San falling to the gravel behind me as I spilled onto the ground, the gravel scratching my hands.
The woman spun a sword around her palm as if testing her own dexterity, squinting at me. She replaced her other sword, removing a new one that was untainted by my blood. Pain gripping my chest as my shoulders pivoted, I tried to rise lifting San over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry, holding my hand out in front of me. It took getting sliced by her katana... But I had it. Air swirled around my hand and energy flowed through my body and into my wrist, warming it. I felt solid matter push against the inside of my palm as the sword manifested. The swordswoman saw what was happening and rushed forward, only for a perfect copy of her katana to appear between us, blocking her blow.. The steely blade bit rang like a bell as it collided with her sword, my blade knocked from my hand, both of us thrown off our balance.
"K- kushō--!"
She swung another blade at me, trying to straighten herself, her body moving just as fast as before, if not faster. I moved my arm just in time, blocking the blow with another new blade, the edge cracking and its tip flying off behind her. Her eyes flashed, her hands grabbing for the next pair of swords. Teeth gritted and her face strained, she seemed more frustrated than defensive, angrier with herself than she was with me. Instinctively, I pushed my sword arm forward, the arc catching the side of her head just as her blade came against my cheek. Energy seemed to swell around the sword, bursting as I thrust it forward and sending a shock through the air. The blow threw her body into the dirt beside the gravel path, the swordswoman grunting as she collided with the ground. I spun the sword in my hand, (nearly dropping it) trying my best to look suave and powerful as I hoist San farther up on my back.
“Seriously, I’m not here to hurt anyone!” I cried, trying to argue my innocence while standing over someone I’d bludgeoned, “Can’t we just act like civilized players and talk this out?”
The belt boy stepped forward, putting a hand in front of his face, fingers spread, his other limbs thrown out in a bizarre stance. "I am Jortaro..." He shouted, his outstretched hands forming fists that glowed with a red fire. Jortaro pinned me with a dark glare. His hands flashed, becoming a pair of glowing red boxing gloves with golden spiked knuckles, "And in the name of anime,” He said, thrusting a fist forward in a menacing pose, “I will punish you!"
Jortaro shot towards me, his fist sailing past my head like an assassin’s arrow, air rushing past me as atmosphere rushing past me to fill the vacuum left by the attack. There was more power in his arm than anything I’d ever experienced, mod or otherwise, but he seemed to be flailing around wildly, his fists exploding in every direction as he shouted “ORA ORA ORA ORA!!” into my face. I spawned two swords from my hands, Zolo’s swords, formed like an X to block the impact. Before he threw out his next punch, I swung one of the katanas, the blade gliding through the weeb’s arm the same way it sailed through the air. Almost no resistance. They were more than just normal iron swords. A stream of red shot across my vision as I severed the weeb’s right hand at the wrist, his red-spraying boxing glove flying into the dirt beside us. Jortaro staggered back, grabbing his reduced appendage.
“N- No! I’ve been-- Non-fatally wounded! Wh- What if I bleed out!”
And yet, the guard was smiling, his staggering labored and dramatic. Was he really joking around while he had a hand missing? DO WEEBS EVEN FEEL PAIN?! With his boxing glove still on, he tightened the notches in the belts on his right arm, stopping the blood flow and preventing any further blood loss.. “HA! As if an honorable weeb would die in such a manner.”
“DOES ANYONE BUT ME FEEL PAIN?!” I wailed. Belts scoffed at me.
The weeb grimmaced at me, his eyes burning with homicidal intent, “You’ll never understand anime. No outsiders will”
He threw out his left fist, the X-shaped swords two narrow to block the impact, the punch colliding with my stomach with tremendous power. My feet skidded across the gravel as I struggled to keep my balance, the reverberating force of his attack sending dull aches through my body. In addition, my counter-balance was slumping. San was falling down my back.
As Jortaro prepared for his next assault, metallic clicks sounded from behind me as the swordswoman staggered to her feet, pulling four swords out of their sheathes. Her head was still bleeding from my drill’s impact, but her eyes were straight, sharper than ever. She held two swords in her mouth and two in her hands, dropping two swords so that they fell on her sandals between her toes. In a way she was the most ridiculous and most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. A weeb’s maximum potential. I thought I saw something behind her, a shadow of something. In that moment, I thought it was part of her. A dark entity, like Herobrine but cast in a smoky form of purple and black. It was only then, as terror crawled under the surface of my skin like insects and the cold miasma behind her stared into me that I realized…
There was no way I could fight my way out of this…
“Omae wa mou shindeiru…”
I was already dead.
With a dual scream of battle, two gatekeepers dove towards us, a shrill metallic sound filling the air behind me and a flurry of fists filling my sight. My arms stuck out in front of me, guarding my front out of instinct, failing to do anything to guard my back. I hoped that San would be safe since she was from this server, that maybe she’d even be a good shield, but I didn’t know that for sure. Maybe they were willing to kill her, given she’d just respawn there anyway. I clasped my eyes tightly shut, my arms tightened, followed every other muscle in my body. My entire being felt like a brittle stone lined with cracks. I waited for the attack, waited for a scream of pain or an instinct to dodge. Waiting to shatter. But suddenly--
"TP SLEEPINGSW0RDZ0L0 AND「JORTAROKUJORT」 TO ME"
A voice shattered the sky, silencing the swords, the wind, the leaves, my heart-- everything. It spoke with a roaring, furious authority, like the cry of a mother bear. It spoke above everything, the command seemingly stealing the breath from the air. Some time passed with my eyes clamped shut, too shaken by the words to understand them fully. It was only after I pried them open to see the empty ground on either side of me that I realized it was an admin command. Words, like a spell, given to only the most powerful figure in a server. Words that had wrested the two gatekeepers from the air. My legs felt shaky, unstable as I pivoted around, searching for the source of the voice.
I looked up the path, immediately stunned. The purple shadow I had seen behind Zolo, the dark miasma, was actually a person. She had glowing purple eyes and wearing a heavy purple sweater, eyes glinting behind a pair of round glasses, her face hidden in a cloud of dark brown hair. Both of the gatekeepers were slumped at her sides, fidgeting as she held them by their collars like disobedient children.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, my mind raced to prepare an apology, hundreds of escape routes and pleas clouding my mind, my legs wobbling. I tried to choke out an apology without my mind made up, garbled parts of words fruitlessly spilling out. The purple glow began to dissipate, but the admin’s eyes still burned with impatience. Words, Cyrus, words!
“S- so, I know what you may be thinking--”
I was knocked over by an unknown force, falling forward into the gravel.
"Slenda!!”
Chalky white dust engulfed my vision and I struggled to pull my head up, only to see San--incredibly conscious-- dashing towards the admin. I gritted my teeth, trying to reconcile that she was shaken awake by the battle, or maybe she just happened to wake from her slumber by some sort of coincidence. But nothing seemed to justify it. I coughed up dust, looking down the path, unamused. The admin recoiled, dropping the two gatekeepers as the creeper girl dove into her, wrapping her arms around her as the two crashed to the gravel path, San laughing gleefully as they did.
A shadow stretched over me as I rose to a sitting position. I turned, hands curled into unintimidating, bony fists, only to see a smiling girl bent over me, her hand extended. She wore a leather jacket over a pine green hoodie, her hair a burnt shade of brown, as dark as the leather, dangling from the sides of her face and tied in a dry ponytail behind her head. Her skin was darker than mine, an oak to my acacia, her lips full and pulled into a hospitable smile. Her eyes burned with smoke and embers.
“Sorry about that,” She sighed, lifting me to my feet, “I’m Roxxie, one of the operators here. I hope San didn’t cause you any trouble.”
“Well…”
“What in the Nether are you both doing?!” The admin boomed, knuckles white at her sides. Roxxie and I turned to watch her, “You two were so reckless, you could have hurt San, you know that she can’t--!”
The admin, Slenda, caught sight of me and immediately clasped her lips. She gave me a snide, secretive look before looking back to her subordinates and barking further condemnations at them. Her voice was jagged now, cracks of anger and exasperation evident. She was less the roaring bear I had heard calling out the admin command and more of a yelping dog. Though an admin didn’t have to be especially imposing to be scary to me. Just having the commands was enough.
“Like killing San would be a huge loss,” Jortaro scoffed, just loud enough for me to hear him, “We’d only be losing the griefer who tries to blow up the server every other week.”
Zolo nodded weakly in agreement, though she seemed to be hiding her expression from the admin. Slenda gave him a look of death, clutching the creeper girl close to her. San didn’t seem phased though. And, if I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think she can be.
“Come on, let’s go,” Slenda ordered, tugging San through the gates, “You’re gonna open up a fresh bottle of sake and mellow out with me.” San stuck her tongue out, saluting Slenda.
San looked over her shoulder, waving at me as she left down a fork in the gravel path. You’re welcome. I chuckled, waving back. Slenda gave her operator a signal, Roxxie nodding and motioning for me to follow her as San and Slenda vanished in the server’s buildings. Roxxie patted me on the back of the shoulder, nudging me away through the gates and past the glares of the two gatekeepers. Even though I was welcomed by their superiors, there still seemed to be something seething in them. More than just defeat.
“San and Slenda are… A pair.” The operator smiled, her dark brown eyes flickering with embarrassment, “Slenda’s been cleaning up after San’s messes ever since we found her. I can only hope she didn’t trouble you too much.”
“Found?” I asked, trying to avoid getting into me and San’s scuff.
Roxxie shook her head. “Funny enough, Slenda stumbled upon her in the forest one day. Wandering around, half naked. She was hissing at players, animals and, uh… Trees.” She giggled, looking nostalgically down the road. That sounds about right, I shook my head, At least she’s consistently insane.
"You have such a cool mod!” She cheered, looking down at my arms, her eyes blazing, "So you were probably a dungeon crawler in your old server right? Or some kinda PvP master? Girlfriend probably thought you were pretty cool…"
I hesitated, my face hot.
I looked down at my hand, a smile creeping onto my face. My mod was almost like an old friend now, even though I’d only had it for about a month. Sure it was an old friend that magically transformed into a drill and sometimes swords that I used to kill zombies, but then again those are the best kind, right? I remembered the first fight I used it, in the fight that got me kicked out of my server-- the fight with the griefer. I thought of the fights with mobs, endermen, spiders, zombies, all things which I had been terrified of all falling easily to my new weapon. And then there was San. The only conflict I didn’t I didn’t plan for, but the only one with a real positive result. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
"I wasn't good at much before the mod honestly," I said, shrugging, "Just hung around in the spawn town library. But now I guess it’s good at getting me friends."
"Or getting you into trouble,” Roxxie smiled, holding up a hand. She was more than right, though the line struck me as odd. She only knew about the fight I got in with the operators… Right? Not my old server? A stream of thin smoke, soon lit by a feathery wisp of flame drifted upwards from her sleeve, snaking around her wrist and sitting in her hand, “You’d think I’d be doing a lot more with this fire mod I have, but all I used it for in my old server was griefing and pranks. And uh, they weren’t very good pranks.”
Roxxie giggled as she spun on her heel and continued down the path in front of us, her feet clapping up the gravel beneath. Weebs stared out at us from the alleyways beside the path. There was something dutiful in their expressions. Something defensive. An occasional child would run out in front of us, yelling something like “KAWAII” or “DOKI DOKI” before sailing back into the crowds. Some weebs fought with swords in the clearings behind buildings. It seemed that conflict was a weeb’s natural state.
A smile crept onto my face as I watched two weebs run across a nearby rooftop, arms flapping dramatically behind them. Seeing insane sights and characters like this, I remembered what I liked about big servers like this, and I guess the world of Minecraft in general; everything around you is a part of someone’s imagination. Every ornate rooftop, every ridiculous weapon, all of the strange styles and languages, they were all something that started in someone’s imagination. Something that someone believed in. Even the mods, though no one was truly sure where they come from, seemed to come from our dreams, our wishes. I still remembered dreaming of mine, swimming in the darkness of my mind, a voice offering from the void. I looked down at my hand, remembering when I planned for this to be my saving grace, the power that would make me a hero. It was only just starting to do me good.
"Don't be afraid to use that here by the way," Roxxie said, an odd sweetness in her voice, "We could use someone to set some players straight here. Especially someone new."
Though we had mostly walked through grey, blocky buildings up until this point, the spawn area was filled with the ornate castles and towers I’d seen from the outside wall, the weeb citadel finally meeting my expectations. I could see the pink woolen clouds that surrounded the city more clearly now, that I had just barely seeing poking over the walls. They weren’t wool however. They were trees. Modded trees known as cherry blossoms. In the exact center of the server was a creeper statue, its head topped with long blue hair. I may never understand weebs, I thought, looking up at the blue-haired effigy, but if they can make something like this, they couldn’t be all bad.
A laugh sprung from my cheek, the image of me as some kind of cop or peacekeeper more ludicrous than anything, even the weebs. A Cyrus dawning huge shoulder pads and shades stood in my mind's eye, a picture frame in hand. DON'T MAKE ME USE THIS. He boomed, glaring at the masses.
"I can hardly regulate myself. Heck, I'm only here because I accidentally ran through one of your players. I'm going to spend most of my time here mod-free if that's alright with you."
Her face turned cold for a moment, eyes falling unamused and her mouth flat, "That's fine." She flashed a thumbs-up paired with a grin, "You don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t want to. I understand how people from Vanillakings are, I know a few.”
Her words fell like a slop of snow off a rooftop; slow, quiet, but landing with a cold, sharp thud. So she did know me. I never mentioned I was from Vanillakings. I’d avoided mentioning the name before now just for the sake of leaving anew. For a fresh start. But she knew where I came from. We walked forward in silence for a few moments, the sun peeking through the breaks in-between buildings as we walked into the square.
The operator showed me to an empty room where I could stay while in the server. I hadn’t thought about it in earnest before that point, but looking down at the soft linens on the bed and the warm glow of the room’s redstone lantern, I realized how much I just wanted a home. There was something I still couldn’t shake about the server, how Roxxie seemed to know me, and how the guards seemed to act towards their leader, but as the soft linen of my mattress filled my view, all seemed to drift away. I’ll get the answers I needed in the morning.
