It’s hard to tell what direction one is falling in where there isn’t any indicator of down or up. Of anything at all really. Wherever he is, it is unbearably dark and unbearably cold, and there’s nothing but the abyss behind him and an endless void in front of him.
But he must be falling, right? He could feel hair whipping in front of his face and his limbs outstretched and dangling high above him. And if he concentrates hard enough, he can hear the wind roaring in his ears.
“What are you on about, Martyn? There’s no wind in a vacuum.”
Martyn wakes up.
He’s in the Southlands.
All five of them are, really. They’re seated at a long, rectangular dark oak table in front of the central tower. Grian is seated at the head of the table to Martyn’s right. Across from Martyn is Mumbo and Impulse, both conversing with Jimmy who’s seated on Martyn’s left. The four surrounding towers—and the heap of wood and cobblestone above Mumbo’s bunker—are still standing tall around him. The walls are still intact, unbreached by enemies. From what Martyn could tell, not a bit of wood was even singed.
It’s twilight. The sky above is painted in strokes of deep blue and indigo, the last vestiges of sunlight slowly fading away over the western wall.
Grian is looking at him. Elbows on the table, his head cradled on the back of his hands, and a wide, placid smile stretched across his face. He tilts his head. “It’s nice to see you with us, Martyn.”
“A-ha-s if I would miss this.” Martyn laughs, confusion plain on his face. He thinks he could hear Jimmy tell him that was his one free aha of the day, but he wasn’t quite sure. “Uh, speaking of which, what exactly is this?” He leans back on his chair, gesturing to the feast of empty plates and a Southlands that was actually clean and tidy sans the few pumpkins that were haphazardly strewn about.
Grian tilts his head the other way, his feathers circling his head like a halo. (Did Grian always have wings there?) “You could interpret this however you want.”
Impulse, Mumbo, and Jimmy all laugh at a joke that Martyn somehow missed. Mumbo spears his plate and makes cutting motions with his knife; a pantomime of eating.
Martyn turns the question back to Grian. “Well, how do you interpret this?”
Grian hums in thought. He reaches for the empty glass decanter in front of him and tilts it slowly into his cup. A liquid pours out; red like Grian’s sweater.
“I’d like to think of this as a...blessing, of sorts.”
He drinks from his cup, and the liquid stains his mouth red red red—
( Grian turns to face Martyn, red on his hands, red on his face, red on his blade, and his name still gleaming gold. There’s a dead-ness to his eyes that doesn’t match his manic smile. Martyn could smell the ozone that clung to Grian’s skin, as plain as the appearance of Mumbo and Jimmy’s obituaries on their communicators.)
Grian smiles. “Looks like you’re finally catching on.”
[ He’s Learning ]
Martyn chuckles. “Actually I feel like I’m more lost than ever.”
This whole...thing, as far as Martyn could tell, was an elaborate charade. The Southlands was dead. The fortress burned and raided to the ground. Its people, his friends, scattered to the winds, red then dead dead dead. The moon was actually a giant eye, the shadows were a beautiful lie, and none of this was amore.
He stares at the facsimile of his friends with a simmering anger. Mumbo looks sheepish at the face of Jimmy’s red-faced fury, accepting the newly crafted spyglass from across the table. Impulse is doubled over with laughter, cheeks a rosy pink as he rests his head onto the table with a soft thump.
Martyn turns to Grian. “Are they even real?”
“If you believe they are.”
He lets out a derisive snort. “Tell me the truth, Grian— or, is it even Grian? Maybe you’re just another one of them. The voices. The shadows. They promised that we’d see the end, you know. Gave me hope, for once, in this godforsaken world, but no.” He slumps into his chair. “No. I just misunderstood everything.”
“I wouldn’t fault you for that. The Watchers absolutely love wordplay.”
“The Watchers….you mean the shadows? That’s what they’re called?” Grian nods. “Right, how do you even know—”
He clutches his head in pain, fingers digging into his scalp as his mind felt like it was melting trying to process all the memories that came crashing in. The world shudders. Splinters. Breaks at the seams.
The Southlands glitches. Mumbo and Impulse and Jimmy were gone. The table shifts and disappears. The towers gone and replaced with the bedrock floor of Spawn—
The chopping block of the Red King—
Where he first heard the voices—
Spawn—
The void nonono—
A symbol carved from bedrock—
The End.
The End.
A lonely, barren rock. Empty of the endermen, vanquished from the dragon. He’s teetering close to the swirling vortex in the middle that would allow him escape from this wretched place.
He remembers the world of Evo. Of fighting the enderdragon. Of jumping down this portal and finding out that one of his friends was plucked from the world, never to be seen again.
“You’re one of them.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “You’re a Watcher.”
“Yes.”
Grian— and it is Grian, Martyn’s sure of it now, even if the man standing on the other side of the portal looks nothing like Grian— steps foot into the endwaters. He doesn’t disappear, doesn’t sink down, merely wades across the swirling vortex as if it were a shallow pool.
Martyn steps back. “You don’t really look all that different.”
“You’re simply not looking hard enough. Besides,” he laughs, “You’ve always been better at listening.”
[You’re more of a...Listener]
“They hate you, you know.” Martyn takes a step back every time Grian moves closer. “The Watchers. Said you were only meant to watch.”
The world flickers, and they are on the outskirts of a ruined Southlands. He could feel the ghost of an end crystal in his hands, and could smell the ozone in the air. Would he die here, too?
“But you didn’t. You joined us. You were a willing participant in whatever twisted games they’re playing.”
They’re in the ruins of Scott's tower, encased by bright red lava that will never stop burning.
“I’d always wondered why we were the ones picked. Sure, some of us were in Evo, but Bdubs? Impulse? Mumbo? Why would they be here?”
Grian stopped.
They’re at the peak of Magic Mountain. Martyn manages to catch himself before tumbling down the steep edge.
“Then I realized it. The common denominator between all of us was you.”
The world shifts to the ring of cactus atop Monopoly Mountain. The moon is high in the sky, bright and full and watching.
“Why did you put us through this, Grian? Aren’t we your friends? Where’s your sense of mercy?” Martyn asks. He clenches his fists. “Or did the Watchers get rid of that when they decided to remake you in their image.”
“We’re in a death game, Grian!” Martyn shouts. His voice echoes across the empty dessert, hurt and confused and raw. “You— you and your ilk have forced us all to kill each other for your amusement. And you—” He rushes up to Grian, shoves him up against the walls of the cactus ring, arm shoved up against this throat. Grian grunts, but otherwise gives away nothing which only goads Martyn even more.
Grian steps back, as if burned. Hurt flashes across his face. “Mercy,” he parrots. “What do you know of my mercy, Martyn? As far as the circumstances are concerned, I’ve been very merciful.”
“You’re the worst of the lot,” he hisses. “Did you enjoy it at least? Taking us all for fools. Did you get a kick out of all of us fighting for our lives while you sat all high and mighty knowing that none of this matters? Did killing Jimmy and Mumbo mean nothing to you?”
He pushes himself away, chest heaving. “How is any of this merciful?”
Grian extracts himself from the cactus. A hand coming up to rub his throat.
Martyn felt exhaustion heavy in his bones. He drops to the sand with a huff. There’s a spot close to him where the sand is darker, dyed a deep dark red. He’s careful not to look at it too closely. “You took me here for a reason. Just— get it over with quickly. No more faffing about or any of this pretend nonsense. Just—” He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath. He won’t let these Watchers see more of his tears. “Please.”
Grian’s silent.
“I wanted—” Grian hesitates. Massages his throat. “I wanted to confess.”
Martyn looks up in disbelief. “Just because I can hear the voices of angels doesn’t mean I’m a priest, mate.”
“I know.” Grian sits, legs crossed, in front of Martyn. “I want to, anyway.”
The world shifts. They were in the Southlands again. Not the pretty and peaceful version from the very beginning. Not the burned remains from the end. They were...somewhere in the middle. There are scorch marks on the walls, yes, but the holes have been hastily repaired. Mumbo’s bunker is still visible. The wheat farm not yet been trampled. The base not yet rigged to blow everyone inside it sky high.
He and Grian are sitting on the same spot they would use to watch Mumbo’s intro.
It would be so easy to make himself believe that they were still living in more peaceful times. That any minute now, Jimmy and Impulse would come bounding through the entrance, excited for their daily rituals of watching Mumbo’s intros. They would pull out their spy glasses and try to spot Mumbo from inside his bunker, and Martyn would let out his best impersonation that would have everyone roaring with laughter.
Grian, voice so soft that Martyn nearly missed it, spoke. “I miss Mumbo.”
“You shouldn’t have killed him then.”
“He would have died either way. I’d rather it be from my hand than anyone else’s.”
“Is that your confession?”
“No,” Grian’s smile is lopsided. “Far from it.” He pulls on the stray threads of his red sweater. “It— the first game— was supposed to be a cooperative. Or at least, that was the impression given to me by the Watchers.”
“Cooperative?” Martyn snorts. “So much for that.”
“Sometimes I wonder how everything would have ended if I never interfered like they said. People might have lived longer. Peace might have lasted longer.” He leans back onto his hands, eyes closed. The cool night wind flutters through his blonde hair, though the white wings shield Grian’s face from most of it. “My only saving grace for interfering was the chaos I caused. The Watchers— they feast on tragedy. On war. On conflict. They liked that I pushed the server closer to annihilation.”
“But they still hated you.”
“They made their displeasure known when they gave me two hearts the second run.” Grian clicks his tongue. “Thought it wasn’t ‘propper’ for a Watcher to be a Player. But— Martyn, they haven’t liked me since Evo, remember? I’d always find a way to anger them.”
“They mustn’t have hated you that much, considering they made you a Watcher.”
“That’s the thing that confused me for a long time, really. They never liked me and the feelings were mutual. So why choose me? It wasn’t until later on that I realized that this—” Grian clutches his chest, the red fabric bunching in his grasp, and glitches.
It was difficult to see, but Martyn manages to catch glimpses despite it all. Martyn couldn’t— he couldn’t exactly comprehend the entirety of what Grian truly looked like. If you asked him to recall the entire image from memory, his mind would glaze over and he’d confess that he doesn’t remember. Fragments, maybe. Bits and pieces. There are certain details he’s able to focus on. Flickers of more elaborate robes, of wings upon wings protruding from his back, of an opaque veil shrouding Grian’s eyes.
And the eyes. It’s difficult to miss those.
“Bored.”
“This,” Grian says once more, “was their idea of punishment.”
Grian’s image stabilizes, and once more he’s back into his regular old sweater and trousers. His wings, sans the feathers around his ears, and amalgamation of eyes gone. “When they made me a Watcher, they bound me to their code of non-interference. I was a spectator. A viewer. I could, perhaps, influence a few things or nudge a world into a certain direction, but beyond that I could do nothing. I was invisible to my friends, voiceless to everyone else. It drove me mad. But more than that, it made me bored.”
Martyn lookes at him in disbelief. But...well...Martyn knew from experience that a bored Grian was a very dangerous Grian, so perhaps that explanation was good enough.
Grian shrugs. “‘Bored’ might not be the right term. Empty, perhaps. Directionless. After a while, watching others becomes boring. You start to crave excitement, crave the rush.” He jumps to his feet. “You don’t just watch anymore. You’re not content with being the bystander. You look at a person and start to think ‘hey, I wonder what I would have done in their shoes.’
“And that’s when the punishment truly reaches its climax. Because then you start to want.” Grian tilts his head back and laughs, half-crazed.
“I wanted to know what it was like to feel something again, so when I saw the plans for this experiment, I knew I had to be a part of it somehow— curse whatever the Watchers say. The more they protested, the more I wanted to spite them. They made me this way, and they can suffer the consequences for it.” He points angrily at the full moon and shouts. “You hear me! Stare all you want but it’s not gonna change a single thing.”
Martyn huddles his knees closer. “So you don’t regret anything, then?”
Grian drops his arms and plops himself back down with a huff. “No. I don’t regret any of my actions in the slightest.” Martyn frowned at that. “But— I did, I did end up regretting what you guys had to go through.”
“You called yourself merciful.”
“I like to think I was. Or, that I tried to be. It’s not much but I had hoped that it would make this whole situation easier.” He drew his knees close. “Did you ever wonder why, between the first time and the last, the goal changed from ‘surviving however long you can’ to ‘be the last one standing’?”
Martyn frowned. Now that he thought about it...He had always chalked it up to most people’s experience in the first game affecting how they viewed the second game.
“And did you realize when you started thinking of this entire scenario as a game?”
Martyn jolts to attention, eyes locked onto Grian’s sad smile.
“For many of you, it’s not real, not really; a game has no lasting consequences once its all over,” he explained. “It’s a small change but...well, it helps lessen the guilt doesn’t it?”
Martyn tasted ash in his mouth.
He said nothing.
Grian continues on. “There are...limits to what I can do; they took away most of my abilities when I entered this world. I can’t break the world border. I can’t stop the boogeyman curse. I can’t change the ‘win condition,’ and I can’t bring someone back after their last life.” He plucks a white dandelion from the ground and takes a pinch of the whitte tuft in his fingers. “But when they die, permanently, I can, for a brief moment, anchor their soul to this world.”
“The shades,” Martyn whispered. “The ghosts— they’re because of you?”
“For a small moment in time, they, too, become Watchers. Spectators. Free from the shackles of this game if only for a little while before the Watchers take them back.”Grian blows the puffballs away, watching them float lazily in the air. “Is that not mercy, too, Martyn?”
Martyn gazes at Grian. He doesn’t...he doesn’t know what to say about that. So instead, he switches the topic. “Is that it then? Make us more mentally resilient, make us ghosts, and voila?”
“Well, there’s a third one. Though I haven’t exactly done it yet.”
“Grian. This game is over. There’s nothing else you could do.”
Martyn grits his teeth, fingers digging into the cold dirt. “All knowledge is.”
“That depends on your decision actually.”
This piques Martyn’s interest, and Grian continues. “Like the Watchers picked me, they chose you too. To torment, to act through, I don’t know. But at the very end of this game, they told you the truth of this world.” He tilts his head sympathetically. “It’s a burden, is it not?”
“I can get rid of it, if you want me to,” Grian offered. “The knowledge of the time loops. The game. Your place in the grand scheme of the Watchers.” He scratches the back of his head, sheepish. “I can’t literally get rid of it, though. I can just...bury it. Hide it under lock and key so if and when the next round starts, you can go unburdened.”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“The greatest bliss.”
Martyn laughs; terrible noise that bubbles up his throat like burning oil and comes into the world a strangled cry. He buries his face in his arms. “Will we ever get out of here, Grian?”
“What do you want me to say?”
His voice chokes. “Lie to me. Tell me the most beautiful lie you could think of.”
He hears Grian get up. Feels Grian crouch in front of him and raise his head to meet Grian’s softened eyes. Grian’s smile was so warm. “We’ll get out of here, Martyn. You, me, the Southlands, and everyone else. We’ll find a way to break the border and crystal the Watchers in the face. We’ll go out and build a nice little village in the woods with a bunch of hidey holes so we can stalk Mumbo’s intro every morning and spy on team BEST. With diamonds galore and so many amethyst crystals that Timmy would have spy glasses coming out of his ears. A nice place where the boogeyman doesn’t exist and no one has to die.”
Martyn breaks. Grian pulls him close and Martyn clings to the back of his red sweater like it’s his last lifeline.
Martyn doesn’t cry. Doesn’t scream. Doesn’t want to give the Watchers anything more than what they’ve already taken. Will continue to take. He just stays in Grian’s arms, on the brink of another crossroad.
To know or not to know.
To listen or to cover his ears.
To remember or to forget.
Martyn was loyal to those that earned it. Cleverer than most people suspect. He could be brave if he wanted to. He could be brave.
But Martyn was just so tired.
He squeezes Grian one last time. “That was a horrible lie, Grian. You’re not much of a storyteller ah-are you?”
Grian smiles. “You gotta put something in the a-ha jar now, Martyn.”
Martyn wipes what stray tears he has with the heel of his palm and lets go of Grian. “Knowledge is worth its weight in gold. That should be enough to fund my next couple of a-ha’s yeah?”
Grian places his hands around Martyn’s head and presses their foreheads close together. “Sounds like a plan.”
He felt himself relax at Grian’s touch. The knots in his muscles unwinding. His breath steadying, his heart slowing. He just barely stifles a yawn. He covers Grian’s hands with his own, feeling his eyelids droop lower and lower. “Does that mean I’ll go back to dreaming after this?”
“Oh, Martyn,” Grian cried. “You were never awake to begin with.”
Happy holidays everyone! It's not much of a Christmas gift but for those of you who liked my last life smp fic Mercy from a couple years back, I'm happy to announce that I've finally crossposted it to AO3
You can read it here!
I'll also be slowly crossposting my other fics onto there as well
titsay
vaporwave
dededos
gummygunk
germansingergirl
izzy806
andulkaphoto
