Chapter Text
Avery remembers staring at the screen, thinking the person willing to protect him from some weird eldritch horror was dead. The final fireworks of the night went off, taunting him, as if to tell him that despite the fact that the only person who still cared was gone but the world would keep moving on without him.
He stared at the parting words on the letter Derek left him.
‘At the crossroads, keep going forward.’
What a load of bullshit. How could he keep going when the only one who saw worth in him was gone? What was he going to do now? Cry about it? Try and find Derek?
Avery never was smart enough for that kind of thing. Could never figure things out unless someone pointed it out to him. So he tried to make up with it with strength and reliability. But what use was that when it came to trying to track down a person with only a first name and likely last name.
Derek Hutchins. That’s really all Avery knew about his savior. That his savior was a man with a somewhat deep voice who played Minecraft and was named Derek Hutchins. That was all. Avery wishes he had pried more, but really, there was no chance too. The king made sure of that, separating the two on purpose or by accident Avery didn’t know, but it pissed him off regardless.
He fell asleep stubbornly looking through more profiles on the internet of men named Derek Hutchins.
When he woke up, he knew something was wrong. First of all, he was in a dark, creepy forest. Second, his hand was clear and green- actually, both of his hands were clear and green- but they both had no bones for some reason?
He really knew something was wrong though when a bug crawled into his hand and crawled right out. Yes. He screamed- he can admit that.
When he’s finally calmed down, he took a look at himself in a nearby puddle- murky, but it worked. He was wearing a black button up shirt with yellow and orange flowers on it, he also had on white cargo shorts and black flip-flops. Anytime something touched him, it’d immediately stick on him. His eyes and mouth were two dark green rounded cubes and a thin dark green line, and suddenly, it finally registered in his head almost immediately that he had become his Minecraft skin. A Slime.
Okay. Let’s not think about this for now so we can avoid having any body horror thoughts. We need to focus. Like Derek would.
However, his resolve failed, as he had started crying a lot when his arms suddenly lost shape and instead of reforming like he tried to will them to became weird tentacle blobs like some monster’s arm.
The grossness of having leaves, bugs, sticks, and twigs permeate his skin was also really terrible, but he discovered that by willing it, his body would digest whatever was in it really fast. That could be really useful in a fight.
Of course, there’s the added possibility that he could accidentally digest someone’s arm, which slightly sends him spiraling.
Gross. This is so so gross.
His thought, however, was put on hold when he tried poking himself. It sounded kinda nice. And it took his mind off of the stress he felt from waking up in a body that wasn’t his and trying to deal with it. It felt so gross, to just see how his skin got all melty and formless seemingly randomly.
Eventually, he got himself together and stood up. He wobbled a little before falling. It was more difficult than he expected. But eventually he got up and started walking.
He wasn’t really walking with a goal in mind, he more so just wandered aimlessly while silently remembering not to turn left, and eventually he found something.
A city.
A oddly flat, dull gray city with only some dots of color. Avery wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do at that point. It was still morning, so he couldn’t just walk into the city, but what about during nighttime? He supposed he’d just have to go to the nearest colorful building to investigate.
He ended up climbing a tree near the edge of the forest, where he could watch the city from afar. As he drifts into slumber, he finds himself thinking of Derek. Was the man even okay right now? Did Avery even have a chance to find him while he was a slime?
Were they even in the same world anymore?
Sleep did not bring answers that night.