Chapter Text
"This… tumor," the doctor said, "it's unlike anything we've ever seen before."
"And you're sure it's a tumor?" the other questioned, flicking through the numerous tests on his clipboard. "Documentation doesn't fit."
"It's the best word to use," they sighed. "It's eating away at the brain — but while doing so, it's eating away at itself."
"How does that work?"
"I don't know. It's like I can't even look at it. It's… shapeless, almost." The doctor flushes, as if embarrassed to say something so vague.
"Shapeless?" the other repeats.
"The best I can describe it is like — superposition, you know? Where when you watch, it solidifies and stays in one place, but when you look away, it shifts around. It's kind of scary."
"Hah. And this… tumor, it's assimilating with the brain?"
"Something like that."
"Not exactly?" the other presses.
"No. Well, we can't isolate it, not completely, but if we block it off most of the brain — "
"To where? From the tests, I'd say the most optimal area would be in the prefrontal cortex, but… it's a risk. One I'm not sure you're willing to take."
"I…" the doctor sighs once more, tension suddenly gone from their shoulders. "If it saves their life, I will."
"From what you said, and from what I see, this thing isn't Earthly. I'm sure you want to study it — don't give me that look, I know you do — but it isn't natural, and everything in me is telling me to kill it. And if we can save this kid without sacrificing — "
"He's not a kid, he's twenty four."
"And I'm a newborn. Whatever. Point is, if we can save the kid and get it to kill itself faster, then it should be no thorn in your side. We don't need to sacrifice him to potentially save someone else. This is the first time something like this has ever appeared. Shouldn't we… well, we shouldn't risk it."
"Even if it could benefit — ?"
"Nothing like this has ever been documented before," the other repeated. He took a breath, then ordered, "Start the operation."
"Yes, sir."
"It's been two months," the doctor says, panting slightly. They're tired, and they're hungry, and two soggy sandwiches are being crushed by their sweaty hands as they speak. "They've been in a comatose state. No one has come to visit them, and I don't know how shot their memory is," they say informally, handing a sandwich over to the other.
"Hey," the other chastises, though his heart wasn't in it. "You know the policy. And besides, we want to wait until they wake. Just in case something else like this happens — "
There was a loud bang from one of the upper floors and a crash outside. Their heads whip around just as an announcement rings throughout the halls: Code Yellow. And then, to both of their horror, Code Blue.
"What the hell?" they mutter, finishing their meal and standing up hastily, rushing past the chaos in the corridors to check on their patient. Something tugs deep in their gut as they do so, but the ignore it steadily, priorities stacking up in their mind.
They go up two, three, four floors. Their train of thought halts. The alarm quiets through the swimming cotton in their head — the thought that it can't be, they should be exactly where they left them —
But they're gone. And next door, there is shouting and barking orders as an older patient enters cardiac arrest, and the doctor goes to help where they can and they get the feeling that something more is terribly, terribly wrong.
D3rlord3 wakes to rough concrete and stone and the cold night air. The most damning, however, is his headache; it's as if a sword has pierced his skull and twisted, mashing his brain into the side of his head, as if a mini bomb has fallen right in the center of his mind and exploded, rattling about in his skull. He sucks in one shallow breath and coughs and can't stop — his eyes start watering and he grips the wall for support, though it's hardly needed considering he's already on his knees. Then his coughing fit ceases, his knuckles white and red and raw, and he laughs.
It's not a pretty thing. His laughing is raspy, as if being forced out of his lungs, and this doesn't quell with lack of air, either. It's a madman's laugh, of someone who has looked a god in the face and won — which isn't that fucking far off, D3rlord3 thinks, his cheeks hurting with the width of his grin. Because there's only one conclusion to draw from this. The King — fuck the King, he killed Him, D3rlord3 fucking killed Him and he lived. He lived, and now he's kneeling in a dark alley with a dying street lamp to keep him company, and he's never been so emotional in his life.
That bout of mania doesn't last long. D3rlord3 stands, however shakily, and drags his face down with his hands. They're a bit rough from the concrete below, certainly not recommended to be the first thing that touches his face. He takes them away and stares at the red streak dripping down his ring finger. His nose is bleeding, he realizes, his headache strengthening slightly with the thought of pain. He almost forgot about it, but — with the king gone… aspirin, maybe. Something over the counter might be able to fix it. The start of a wobbly smile starts to grace D3rlord3's face, but it's then that the thought slams into him: He doesn't know his own name.
He remembers his Minecraft handle, sure. He knows that thirty thousand years prior, this place was uninhabitable, covered by a sheet of ice — that in India of 1947, a little girl was sleeping with a knife under her hands, it leaving a light scar on her palm — that a star of high mass, six hundred and forty light years from his location, has violently bursted, shedding its outer layers in a spectacular show that, if experienced by someone like him, would cause pain so immense he would only feel it for a few seconds, agonizing seconds, before passing — that life beyond isn't so far away, that there is alien life less intelligent than humanity relatively close by — that, upon waking, Avery Meyers passes by his local coffee shop and deliberates whether or not to get the —
Avery.
Avery, the name slams into him like a freight train. Avery. Avery, the name rings with staggering importance in his head. All the thoughts D3rlord3 has about the man dissipate, as if he's trying to grasp at smoke — every fact about Avery, everything D3rlord3 knows, has known, is jumbled up in his head, a mixture of all the different universes he's been cursed to feel, to see, to remember. His favorite color is red, no, green, and he — he rollerblades, does he? Won — no, he just skateboards for fun, and he texts people as soon as they text him, and his favorite flower are — forget-me-nots, they're heavy and looming in his head, reminding him — no, they're blue orchids despite him being unaware of their name, giving him nostalgia of times he shouldn't even remember.
The only constant D3rlord3 has are those damn yellow gates. In every fucking universe, he's come across them. And in every universe, Avery —
The walls of the alley are closing in on him and his white socks are ripping as he tries to find his footing and the yellow street lamp is light is getting impossibly brighter — twenty two years ago, it was installed by an underpaid middle-aged man, and the roads weren't cracked with heat yet, so the scene could have been called picturesque —
D3rlord3 takes another breath, deep and shuddering this time, and profusely ignores his surroundings. He tries to sink, deep within himself, a place where maybe the King one laid. Nothing.
Nothing… There once was, and eventually will be, nothing. The thought is comforting, if only because he won't live long enough to see it.
The time is 2:33 AM. Avery, in most timelines, is asleep. He focuses on him, the image of him sharpening in his mind. He hasn't seen him in person, not yet, but —
There are people looking for him. With a computer and a few threats, he can fix that.
There is no god besides the King, and His essence seeps into every stone he treads on. But He is as gone as He can be. That's — that's enough.
Avery Meyers has not dropped out of college. He might. His roommate has left to celebrate new years and will return in a week. And Avery will attempt deal with New Years like he deals with most things; by pretending it never happened. But he will fail, and the image of D3rlord3's Minecraft skin will stay near the back of his head no matter what he does, and if D3rlord3 is lucky, he will never forget.
The battered man grins. He looks up, the night sky's few stars glittering back at him. White, not gold.
Slowly, on shaking legs, he makes his way towards the front of the building he's been clinging to. It's cheat enough to excuse its shadiness; they won't think much of him so long as he isn't carrying a gun or screaming.
Avery lives in this apartment, four floors up. Room 428. The lady at the desk doesn't register his presence until he's well out of sight. The stairs make his legs ache, but it's worth it. It's always worth it.
Avery's door is decorated sparsely. A mossy welcome mat gives his feet minimal relief. He rings the doorbell, once, twice —
And passes out.