Chapter Text
Way back when, there was someone with an aspiration and an affinity for chaos. An affinity so great, an entire empire functioned like clockwork.
Then—click.
Hickory, dickory, dock.
The mouse ran up the clock;
the clock struck one,
and down he ran,
Hickory, dickory, dock.
It takes but one cog to hitch the machine.
But one rat.
And suddenly, the source dries up. In the surrounding air, there are cheers, and yet one stands among rubble of mass defeat. For all the effort of one and two and three, four gets freed and one grows madder than it’s ever been.
Until a new source appears. And another, and another. Then, one feeds, merry.
Such is the cycle; such is the nature of Unstable SMP.
I look fondly upon the times when my primary source wielded a sword made of words, and fished for corrupted souls. Who, in all evil ambition, hid not behind anonymity, despite dictating it upon others.
With him, I stood, overjoyed and full of yearning, watching the works of my Cain, feeding on the misery and disarray in all of his domain.
With him, I stood, when a player rose through the ranks.
Click. He seems ambitious. Click. He is a coward. Click. He’s completed the mission. He’s slaughtered the rose.
Click. He is the rat.
My Cain, my dear Cain—the heartbreak he felt, the loss of trust. So much chaos from one revelation; it filled me with glee.
Until that rat proceeded to flee.
Invisible, he ran; up and down the clock. He found the screws and bolts upon which it functioned, and destroyed the leverage.
Thousands upon thousands; freed. The fear factor died, the machine collapsed.
My Cain, my Ashswag—left to rot.
There were perhaps five crucial actors of this pre-planned disorder, but only one person mattered to me. Spoke, with morals questioned; the one there from the start; the one whose knowledge one desired; the one to deconstruct.
The one most like my Cain.
The one who wreaks havoc wherever he steps.
A source to latch onto; a source, next.
But a source which, in the present-day, cut itself from me. And I am a mere river, which cannot function without it.
The rat is scheming again. Only this time, the rat cannot speak and conspire with others.
Yet, it bothers me that he does not speak with me. My Cain did. Maybe they’re not as alike as I thought.
“This is literally the stupidest place we could’ve ended up in.” Flame’s complaints are back. “We are thousands of blocks—”
“Bro, SHUT UP!” Wemmbu groans. “You don’t know anything!”
“Of course I don’t know anything! You just told me we’re like twenty thousand blocks out in the Overworld when we’re supposed to go back to the spawn. We literally could have walked that distance eight times quicker in the Nether.”
Wemmbu stops and turns on his heels to face Flame, making the grinning Spoke walking close behind almost crash into his chest. Parrot, still shaken from what he went through in the Nether, just rubs his temples and watches them with tired eyes.
“Wemmbu, he can’t see anything,” he says, exhausted. “And even I don’t understand why we’re here. How do you even know this place, and that it’s twenty thousand blocks out? The coords don’t work. What’s here? I don’t see anything.”
Spoke chuckles and sidesteps Wemmbu, continuing to walk forward. Wemmbu sighs and goes on to follow him. “There’s a stronghold here.”
“Oh,” Parrot says.
“And?” Flame questions.
“We’re taking a shortcut.”
“Through the End?”
“Yep.”
“But—don’t you have a spawn point set somewhere?”
Spoke turns towards Flame, makes a move as if he wanted to answer, only for the only sound to come out of his mouth to be pure gibberish. Glancing at him, Wemmbu presses his lips together, then answers for him. “I don’t. But even if you do, you just have to throw an ender pearl in the portal and it will spit you out at spawn.”
“Oh,” Flame says.
“Yes, oh,” Wemmbu mocks under his breath. Spoke shoots him a sharp look, which makes him make a face at him, too—Spoke doesn’t seem all that happy with Wemmbu utilising the mechanic he told him about in the past and kind of claiming it as his idea.
He ends up coming to Wemmbu’s side, bumps into his shoulder and goes on to walk forward, making everyone follow him.
“And where do you want to get the ender pearls?” Flame questions again, after a brief moment of silence.
“Ender chests?” Wemmbu answers, annoyed.
The clear structure of a plan, for once, finally makes Flame quiet. So he just listens to all their footsteps, as not to fall or stumble, and proceeds not to question them anymore.
At the right place, Spoke starts digging down, and the others follow. Once they enter the stronghold, it does not take long to find the portal room. After checking all the chests of this abandoned base and finding no ender pearls, they make Flame pull some from his stash.
Spoke is the first one to enter the End, with no hesitation. Right behind him follows Flame, guided by Parrot. The last one is Wemmbu.
I am trying my best, but my hands are shaking. Vertigo from jumping through dimensions dissipates, yet I still feel ill. I want to breathe through it, I want to check on the liar, the scum, the rat, the source of all of this—and my throat tightens, and I have to gulp down the sobs my silence wants to bring.
Wemmbu, it seems, has finally reached the end of the ever-promised ledge. Though I tell myself I won't let him fall off it, I am but a mere spectator of demise, no longer in control of chains of life.
These emotions are not mine. And yet, I absorb them, and I feed—and then I feel sick, for this is not the taste I wanted.
Through Wemmbu’s eyes, I look up and lock gazes with Spoke. That look of his, that twitch of his lips; I know he knows there’s a Wemmbu, and then there’s a me. The rat is enjoying my suffering.
But then he glances away, and I drown. Just for a couple of seconds, I grope for scraps in the depths of dismay, and then I resurface. And then a new wave grasps me, and I drown again.
Beyond doubt, I now know that the strongest among us is the one I now inhabit. While I kick my feet in panic, Wemmbu walks forward. While I can barely hear the conversation of Parrot and Flame through the anxious heartbeat, Wemmbu answers them.
Still, his soul is shattered, broken, as he stands in the middle of the dimension where Eggchan used to live, where he spent so much of his time, trapped. Every block is a block Egg could’ve touched. This was his home, and now it’s empty and Egg is gone.
I wanted Wemmbu to break. Not by anyone’s intervention, not even his own.
The weakest, he is, when he reminisces.
But I hate that it affects me.
And yet again, I see Spoke’s smile, his eyes zeroed-in on mine, on Wemmbu’s.
The rat is enjoying this.
Has he not had enough?
This tight chest, this tight throat—it’s like I’m trapped; a prison, this body of one of my hosts. The more I wish to get out, the slimmer the holes between the bars become. My teeth are not enough, it’s like Wemmbu’s controlling me, not I him.
Wemmbu does not know me. Wemmbu does not hear me. On Wemmbu, I fed, on Wemmbu, I feed. I trapped me.
Spoke, I feel hatred towards you. You’ve cut me out, and you’re smiling in contempt as your blood stains the ground. Spoke, I asked you to be yourself, and seed the instability, so we’d all be free.
Spoke, why did you disobey me? Spoke; why don’t you talk to me?
I can’t breathe. Wemmbu can—this is all me.
I have no lungs. And I can’t breathe.
The world around me flutters, I see purple skies and darkness. But it was just Wemmbu blinking.
Before me, Parrot throws an ender pearl into the portal. Right after him, Flame does the same.
Wemmbu blinks. Then, I am looking directly into Spoke’s eyes.
Click. A second, then two, then three.
As for all their efforts.
Click. Four.
Four gets freed.
Click. Just one.
One, madder than it’s ever been.
A tilt of the head, a secretive smile. The rat acts like he has some leverage.
Click. He steps away, gestures for Wemmbu to hand him an ender pearl somehow. This is how Wemmbu perceived this entire thing: as his friend asking for help.
Spoke is a cruel thing. Much like my Cain.
Click, and then Spoke, with both hands, drops an ender pearl into the portal and disappears.
And I stand with Wemmbu, body heavy. We look once more behind us, at the scenery. Then, we face forward, towards forever, throw an ender pearl and reappear where it all began.
And I am freed.
Spawn is as desolate as they’ve left it, griefed beyond recognition. They stand atop a cobblestone mountain, sun rising at their backs. Gentle breeze ruffles their hair, and its faint sound makes the environment somewhat pleasant.
Wemmbu and Flame continue bickering because, apparently, that’s what they were also doing in the End. Parrot smacks their biceps in annoyance and gestures downwards, towards the place where the light appeared, and where they disappeared to the Underworld.
My focus is on Spoke. My Spoke, who is staring off into nothing, whose back is towards his peers and whose front is facing the sun. Whose hands do not shield his eyes from the sun’s rays, but whose nails instead scrape off the scabs on his palms. Whose eyes are teary, whose lips are upturned.
Spoke, who suddenly bares his teeth and chuckles, and who turns his head to the side, water on his cheeks, with an expression of challenge.
Pressing his scarred thumb and pointer finger together, he brings them to his lips, and makes a gesture similar to turning a key. Then he proceeds to “throw it” off the mountain.
Ah. So the rat will not speak, ever. Whatever did I do to deserve such treatment?
The strangest of feelings is this mix of longing and hatred, currently occupying me when I look at him. Longing for greatness that could have been, if only he’d been less like this watery clay he presents as, drier. If only his destructive force destroyed things for me, instead of working against me all the time.
I don’t understand him, and we’re past the point of supposed affection. There is nothing that could convince him, or me.
How do you approach an unpredictable force that cannot even predict itself? How do you go about offense and defense against a multi-vortex tornado, shrouded in rain? You step away, and see the sun’s rays, even the occasional rainbow, before the supercell moves your way and the rotation catches you again.
Like a bird in a whole lot of nothing, you’re trapped by the force which pulls you towards it, intent on eating you alive, pulling your skin apart.
To me, that force is Spoke. To him, that force is not me.
His gravity, his way of consumption, speaks to me. Back when he tried to be righteous and won, this gravity spoke to me. I fear I’ve tried everything to make him see that, together, we could achieve greatness, and now I think that in all simplicity, greatness is not in his line of interest.
Rule breaker, exploiter, rat; to me, a black hole whose pull I cannot shake, and now it’s too late. White, pupilless eyes—magnets of my demise.
His expression is calm as he bends his head towards the ground, staring down the mountain’s eastern side, as he approaches the ledge. The wind ruffles his stiff clothes, though unseen stained with blood. His locks keep getting into his eyes, but he does not seem to mind.
It would take little to get rid of the rat and his taunts, and yet, I am unable to act.
Click. I process his stance, his stoicism.
Click. I gather my strength.
Click. He steps away, whips his head back. My power, I redirect.
And click—the server glitches. And Spoke looks at me. And he does not smile. Instead, he shakes his head, as if disappointed.
And all of my being reels back.
These are the moments of hatred. Longing transforms, turns savage, because this person—this rat—knows me as I know him. He’s seen me, he’s been here with me, he’s learned me. I hurt him, and I know he wants to even the score, because I know him as well. He’s a being full of revenge, and he hates me as much as I hate him.
To me, he’s a rat. To him, I am a parasite. And as he starts to walk away, his back towards the sun, as he starts to climb down the mountain with difficult jumps, I realize that our link is closer than I realized.
Spoke, you do hear me. You feel what I feel towards you, and it all blends.
You and me are we; one!
And you smile. Because one is pure madness.
And the fix is a four.
Spoke. You clever, cruel thing. A hindrance to my goal, a disruption to all.
I focused on one, and forgot there’s a two, a three and a four.
Back then, when there was my Cain, with his aspirations and affinities for chaos, with an empire so great I thought it’d never fall, there was also a you and there was also a me. The rat and the parasite, clear for those with eyes to see. In silence, whispering coaxes and promises; to disrupt and to feed.
Not two sides of a coin, but magnetic polar opposites. Similar force, used in an antithesis.
Back then, I watched you. Still, back then, you had help. Back then, to distract, to fight, so you could sneak in and infiltrate, and attack the core of the machine.
Now, I watched you and expected you to play the same role.
Rats are adaptable. They can be found in almost every environment on earth, and learn to utilise it differently based on the resources.
This rat, it seems, has learnt the art of distraction. Or maybe he’s always been one.
Spoke wears a blank face, but his big eyes are intense as he nears the place where the light previously appeared, close to where the four disappeared. He walks slowly, taking in the quiet moment.
He carries himself with no nerves, and yet, I can feel myself shake. I watch as his face gets lit up, then darkens, then lights up again—the skies around us switch from day to night, from night to day.
Where are Parrot, Wemmbu and Flame?
Spoke, what did you do?
Click. There’s a light smile.
Click. He brings his pointer finger up and presses it to his lips.
Click.
Click.
Hickory, dickory, dock.
I knew this mouse named Spoke.
What I realized not
was that this mouse named Spoke
had mousy friends
capable
of running up clocks.
Hickory, dickory, dock.
"The shadows have eyes. Sooner or later, what you will find out is that every rat will scurry into the light."
–Ashswag