Chapter Text
After that day, Hummer stopped playing Minecraft for about a week.
Well, that isn’t entirely the truth. He logged onto his own server, fully expecting Wifies to be there too after drowning to death again. Well, at least, he did. Then he was banned by an operator, again. Hummer didn’t actually know if Wifies drowned.
It wouldn’t make sense if he did and Hummer didn’t. It just… wouldn’t make sense.
So he waited.
For about a day.
The rest of the night, really.
He was situated on his gaming chair, waiting on the boat, just… waiting for Wifies to show. He even put on some YouTube just to clear his head, clear his mind of guilt. The guilt of believing in something that didn’t exist.
Because that was the reality, wasn’t it? The Leviathan did not exist. Levi did not exist.
And Hummer just wasted half a year of his life, believing that it did. Because he had nothing better going on, he guessed.
But now, Wifies wasn’t even bothering to show up to his Minecraft world to grill him. Or, no, he wouldn’t do that. Hummer would, but Wifies already knew the Leviathan wasn’t real. He was just there to prove to him that he wasn’t real. It really was just… 2 bugs working together to create a legend.
On his second monitor, Hummer opened a Modloader. One of the ones he had installed, didn’t matter which one. He just searched, ‘Leviathan’ and hundreds of search results appeared.
He scrolled, glancing back at his main monitor with the chat window open just to see when Wifies joined the game.
He scrolled this list a couple of times. All of the screenshots he deemed ‘fake’ rather than ‘mistaken sightings’ usually used the mods on this list. This one mod, ‘Legend of the Leviathan.’ Yeah, real on the nose with that one. It had the same circular eye that he saw in one of the higher upvoted posts. It was just… one of those horror mods. The ones that are meant to scare you, kill you, and just… just that. One of those cheap mods that brainrot channels used for views.
Levi had been reduced to just another one of those mods.
Ah, but Wifies said it himself.
The Leviathan isn’t real.
It doesn’t have feelings.
Levi isn’t really… a thing.
It really is something that can be commercialized and used for views.
Hummer didn’t like it, but what did his opinion matter? The Leviathan isn’t real. His research concluded that very fact and he simply refused to believe the logic presented to him on every encounter.
He closed the mod list and his desktop’s background stared back at him. It was a lone TV with static, illuminating the rest of the image with its scattering light. The light was animated - he did that part himself. Then, he dragged his eyes back to Minecraft.
Still, no Wifies.
He sat there for… maybe six more hours. Doomscrolling on Reddit to see if anyone had posted anything new. More so out of habit than actual curiosity. Researching now would be like beating a dead horse.
He realized at the former half of the sixth hour that Wifies was not going to join the game.
Wifies said it himself. The case would be closed once they proved the Leviathan was not real.
He never said it, but the dots connect to his reason for not joining. Wifies was just like everyone else in the end. He didn’t really care about Levi.
He didn't really care about Hummer.
Why would he? Hummer was just some crazy superfan of this creature that didn’t exist.
At the end of the sixth hour, he closed the game. Not the server, just the game.
He couldn’t really bear to look at this world anymore. Not when the entire reason for him starting it was…
Well, he shut down his desktop fully. It was getting late. It was early in the afternoon for Hummer, so it must’ve been pretty late in the night for Wifies as well. If Hummer could be happy about one thing, it was that he was grateful he didn’t have work today.
Tomorrow, on the other hand, is a different story.
…that was a problem for tomorrow’s Hummer.
He fell asleep in his bed, rather than his gaming chair like he expected.
He glanced at his phone to check the time, seeing as his somewhat open curtains weren’t letting in even the smallest amount of light.
2:32 am.
That left maybe four hours for him to enjoy before getting ready for work.
He tried to push himself out of bed to spend the remaining time on himself rather than sleeping, but only ended up sitting up a little, head lifted to stare at the one thing that brought him joy. He stared at his desktop set up, and just looked at it for a few minutes.
If he logged back on, he would have to be reminded of the Leviathan.
Of Wifies.
So, he dropped his head back down and onto the pillow. There was a pain in his eyes that refused to let up, and a knot in his throat that he couldn’t just swallow down. The call of sleep was tempting, because even after he slept, he still felt incredibly fatigued. He couldn’t find the energy to get up. His body simply wouldn’t let him.
But he couldn’t argue with it. He could spend his spare hours on a little more sleep. Sleeping is just as much his own time than anything else, he supposed.
It was better than opening his computer and being reminded of his mission of 6 months just… failing.
He let his eyes close once again, letting sleep welcome him in an open embrace.
He could feel his phone buzz and could hear his alarms go off, but it was distant. Despite leaving his phone charging on his night stand as he usually did, he just… couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to snooze the alarm, or even cancel it. He didn’t want to answer any calls. He didn’t want to leave this perfect, comfortable spot.
Because the moment he remembered where he was, the place he slept in reality, his mind always drifted back to the Leviathan.
It wasn’t real. There was no point to any of it.
He didn’t want to think about that.
He let his phone continue to buzz.
The world would figure out how to live without him for a day.
It turns out, he missed the one day of work he had that week.
Being a repairman was good work, but that was only if they found work to begin with. And when the only contract that they had for that week was Tuesday and he missed it…
He essentially missed out on a week’s worth of a paycheck.
That wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t the worst either.
He checked his phone to see seven missed calls and twelve missed messages. Two were from his contract. Five were from his boss.
The missed messages didn’t matter all that much. All he saw was the final message:
We found someone who could cover for you. Get well soon.
‘Get well soon.’ He must have thought Hummer had the cold or something. He was quite attentive when it came to working.
He shut his phone off, plugged it back in, and after a short bathroom trip - which surprisingly took a lot out of him - he returned back to his bed and went back to sleep.
The next time Hummer woke up, he thought of Wifies.
Why didn't he join the game?
Hummer thought he knew the reason, but the more he thought about it, the less it made sense. Wifies said it himself - he believed in Hummer. Believed in the craziness Hummer surrounded himself with, believed in the craziness Hummer was. And in the end, he chose to drown with him. No water breathing, no other ways they could save each other… they drowned.
Hummer and Wifies believed in each other.
So why didn't he join?
Hummer got up and turned on his lamp, flinching slightly at the sudden brightness. He opened his old and jaded notebook, the same he used to write fast notes about the Leviathan sightings before adding it to his library of notes in-game. He began to write.
Where is Wifies?
There were three major reasons he could think of. One, he didn't want to. Two, he couldn't. And three, he forgot to join back. Hummer crossed off the third option - it was too ridiculous for Hummer to genuinely consider. Not wanting to was… less than likely. Perhaps Wifies did not want to join, but when they both died in Arronax's world, he still returned to the ship. They found nothing, and Wifies had proof the Leviathan wasn't real, but he still joined to talk to Hummer to discuss their findings. What made this trip different?
Which brought him to the second reason, because the first was unlikely regardless of Wifies’ opinion of him.
He couldn't.
What would prevent him from joining for 6 hours? Did his game crash? Uninstall itself? Did he get a virus at an inopportune time? What if he was called in real life, and was unable to return to his computer for 6 hours. At 2 am, it was unlikely, but not impossible if there was an emergency.
Hummer sighed. This was stupid.
It probably was the first reason. He can't rule something out just because it was unlikely, not when he believes something else is possible when it's even more unlikely that he just ‘didn't feel like it.’
He finished his thoughts on the notebook and closed it. That burst of energy ended and he was left with that powerlessness again. The feeling of his hopes and dreams getting crushed again seeped into his skin once more.
He couldn't look at the computer again.
Hummer shut off the lamp, and went straight to his bed, and tried to get some sleep since he couldn't really do much else. Not when everything else reminded him of Levi.
So he more or less just stared at the ceiling for the next several minutes. He slept so much that his usual busybody self refused to do anything else but stare at the ceiling.
Hummer gave a small huff of irritation. Seriously, why is the human body like this? He turned on his phone, preparing to open reddit to doomscroll once more, when he saw YouTube on his home screen.
“I solve mysteries on the internet. I make videos about them.”
…Wifies did say he was making a video on the Leviathan. He would probably still post a video about it, even if it wasn't real. Gotta make the bills somehow, right?
He searched up ‘Wifies’ in the search bar and raised a brow when he immediately appeared after typing “Wi.” When he pressed the name, he was grateful he didn't have any water in his mouth because the cough he did was painful.
4 million subscribers???
Minecraft YouTubers seriously have too much power. When Hummer made his own videos, he only ever got like, 30 subscribers! Wifies just got 4 million somehow! How?!
He pressed on the channel, beginning to scroll through every video and link on the channel. He even made a video on AveryTheMayo?? What??
Destroying A World That Doesn't Exist, Searching For A World That Doesn't Exist…
Yeah, these were the same damn videos he himself ended up watching! It was one of those strange mysteries he found online and went crazy looking for a reason this world somehow seemed to connect to other worlds, so he gave up. Wifies made a total of about 3 hours worth of videos on it! What?!
He immediately started watching them, and even though his chest ached at the thought of Wifies, he couldn't just sleep it off now.
And maybe… maybe Wifies being there would actually help him sleep.
He played the first video.
At the crossroads, don't turn left…
Hummer fell asleep at some point.
He wasn't sure when, just that he did. At some point. Maybe after Avery started his own journey through it all. He also noticed that Avery had his own voice compared to Wifies voicing D3rlord3. Wifies really went all out for this video… were all of his videos like this?
He frowned. So Wifies cared more about the Leviathan than he initially thought. If Hummer had just looked Wifies up in the first place…
No matter. He was here now, with nothing to do but watch more videos, he hit play on Destroying A World That Doesn't Exist.
He finished that video, then he finished Solving the M4TCHB0X Mystery, then the next video, and the next, and the next…
He… he wanted to talk to Wifies. Whatever happened with the Leviathan, whatever happened with the world and not joining for 6 hours, he just wanted to see.
But he didn't think he could.
He could open his email right now and shoot him a message. Or join their now shared world and talk to him. It's at the tip of his fingers, all the things he could do.
But he couldn't.
This was good enough.
He hit play on the next video.
Watching Wifies’ videos ended up helping him out of his depression. Though, he did have second-hand embarrassment every time he was reminded that he knew the man personally, but was too much of a coward to actually talk to the man. Instead, he was perfectly content to watch his videos.
Over the course of the next four days, that's all he did.
Nothing else on his mind, nothing else of his concern.
Just Wifies.
It got to a point, you know? Where maybe it was a bad idea to feed into delusions. Unfortunately, that was Hummer's life now and it always had been before, so he didn't really have an option.
Even Reddit had a dedicated space for the man - which of course he had to join.
A lot of viewers seemed to think the videos were scripted. “ARGs” they deemed them. They also seemed to think every video was linked somehow, building an overarching universe.
He supposed that wasn't technically inaccurate. They all are part of a greater world, after all, but the Wifies Hummer met in their Minecraft world was brilliant.
It was likely Wifies scripted the videos after the fact, but everything within them…
If he was telling the truth about his video regarding the Leviathan, then he was a detective. None of this ‘scripted’ nonsense.
Right then, as if the Leviathan itself wished to mock him, the next video he clicked on had a specific, jaw-dropping title and post time.
Wifies: “The Search for the Leviathan.” Uploaded 3 minutes ago.
Hummer threw his phone at the wall and screamed into his pillow.
what what what what what what.
Genuinely, what were the odds of that? What were the odds?! Was he dreaming?
He pinched himself.
Fuck.
He jumped out from his mattress and navigated himself to his computer and opened the lid. He opened a tab on Firefox and searched for Wifies, which was predictably the top suggestion for his account. And as expected, it was right there under the most recently uploaded videos, with maybe a thousand views or so.
What the hell…
He swallowed, and hit play.
Then, he watched.
And watched.
And watched.
It was strange, watching how the video ended up being recorded.
He understood where those posters were coming from - the video was straight-up cinematic with how several of the scenes were shot.
Watching his thought process like this was a beautiful experience as well. The way he viewed the world so curiously yet realistically… At first, Hummer truly thought Wifies was just another journalist. Another reporter. Looking for the facts without ever wondering what those facts meant to people.
Yet, here was Wifies, taking those facts and investigating, truly investigating the wonder of the Leviathan.
It was obvious he didn't believe the Leviathan existed, both in the hindsight commentary and in the conversations he had with Hummer, but that didn't change the fact he was searching for evidence the entire time. He took several case studies seriously, while other studies he disposed of because of how obviously false they were.
They proceeded with this case the same as each other. But Wifies managed to do so in like a month while Hummer did so in six months with no results.
His intellect was beyond admirable.
That second-hand embarrassment still played out in his head every time he spoke, though. Every time he got a little too close to Wifies.
Then believe in me.
Agh, they hadn't even gotten to that part yet.
He really didn't realize how this all sounded to an outside party, how it sounded to Wifies.
But Wifies never… never said anything about it. Never commentated on it.
Wifies cared so much more than he thought.
Hummer wanted to scream.
…he also realized he never picked up his phone from when he threw it at the wall earlier.
He paused, ran to pick up his phone which had somehow not been cracked in the collision, and came back to his computer the fastest he could.
He needed to keep watching.
Hummer was pathetic.
The entire museum scene was hard to watch. Wifies managed to capture the scene as if it was some Disneyland Theme Park. Which, Hummer had to unfortunately admit, it was. That did not mean he was happy about it.
Even more obviously, Hummer was very displeased about it, even in the video.
Past-Hummer hated everything about the museum. Present-Hummer still did, but it was particularly embarrassing to see just how much of a child he was acting like.
Wifies never commented on it, the kind soul.
But it didn't stop him from grabbing the closest pillow and screaming into it as loud as he could. He needs to make sure it's quiet enough to not get complaints from the neighbors.
He was like a lost puppy. What the hell. Why was he acting like that. Why did he do that. Oh my god.
They went down the hall to the water elevator, and he couldn't help but smile gleefully to himself. Wifies had this edited to be curious and whimsical too, in the more wondrous way compared to the atrocious Disneyland segment.
Every time Wifies looked at him, Hummer just felt like he was seen. He couldn’t describe it, but seeing Wifies cares so much about his opinion, painting him in a curious light, it felt good.
He hated how his heart seemed to drop every time something like that happened. It made him feel so happy, but so anxious too.
That's when they found Arronax's base in the hardcore museum world. Where they discovered all of the ways she tried to find the Leviathan.
Where they drowned together.
Seeing it from Wifies's perspective truly put his story to light.
He did have the potion of water breathing, he did, but he decided to trust Hummer over it anyway. Not thrown, just far enough in his inventory to never touch it.
He believed in him, just a little too late according to Past-Hummer's belief.
Hummer just sighed.
What a joke. It clearly didn't work because the Leviathan wasn't real, not because Wifies just… didn't believe hard enough.
This was ridiculous. Past-Hummer was ridiculous.
Yet, when they fought, Wifies chose to stay by his side anyway. Despite the delusions, the anger… he apologized. Apologized to Hummer and affirmed that they would do it the way Hummer requested. Just in case.
Even if, at the time, Wifies didn't have the slightest hint of belief that the Leviathan was real, he trusted Hummer. He wanted to trust him if nothing else.
It made his heart sink further deeper.
He was getting extremely parasocial over someone he's literally met. He needs to get a grip.
The moment they shared in the submarine was what broke him in the end.
Do you usually set out tests and take people with you, or am I the first?
Present-Hummer couldn't stop the blush rising up to his cheeks.
Seeing this conversation as a third party looking through the eyes of Wifies made Hummer feel a mixture of emotions he rarely felt all at once. There was the second-hand embarrassment he’d experienced for the entirety of the hour prior, but there was also that familiar sense of admiration for a lot of the ways Wifies presented their story. The way Wifies stared out of the submarine in those moments of quiet, and the way he turned his gaze to Past-Hummer whenever he was clearly curious about something. It didn’t necessarily have to be about the Leviathan either, Wifies was clearly interested in Hummer himself. What led him to the Leviathan, his past, his story.
Hummer recalled this part to be the moment he realized Wifies didn’t care about the Leviathan anymore. Well, he did care, just… not about solving the mystery anymore.
He cared more about Hummer at that moment.
…
The scene ended too quickly. It wasn’t the same as his memories.
Hummer knew it was because Wifies only had so much runtime before his viewers would lose interest, so he chose to include the most important parts (which he guessed included Hummer’s story too, even if it had nothing to do with the Leviathan). But the quiet parts, the parts that would never see the light of day…
He remembered being in that submarine for thousands of blocks. Just talking.
Hummer… didn’t have many friends. Sure, he had his colleagues and his family to an extent, but no one had ever been interested in him beyond what he could do to help him. It was why he was so insistent on helping Wifies with his story - once he was cleared for actually being interested in the Leviathan, he provided all of the research he could.
He never once admitted why he did that, why he willingly gave up his research to a YouTube journalist of all people, but by how this was shot, Wifies probably already knew.
And hell, maybe Wifies was lonely too.
Maybe Wifies could see how lonely Hummer was and sympathize, maybe even relate. So the conversations they shared in that submarine would only remain as a memory the two of them shared. No other.
That’s why he chose to make this video in the end with all the important bits and pieces. Even if it amounted to nothing, he wanted to write a story that weaved his life and Hummer’s together. Binding them together in the archives of internet history under the 4 million channel named ‘Wifies.’ The world would see their story and gather their own message over the fiction of it all, while Hummer would see it as an homage to their shared fascination with a creature that doesn’t exist.
Hummer sighed, exiting out of fullscreen to check the time, but only then did he see the timestamp of the video.
There was still a significant portion of the video left. The video should end after this submarine ride, right? When Hummer himself blew up the machine and they drowned together.
Then they die.
Right?
I don’t know if I can believe in something that might not even exist.
Then believe in me.
…
…
…what?
The rest of the video was… absurd.
The golden forest, the palace in the center, the pathing. It was all something you’d see out of a custom map made by a bunch of professional builders. It was ethereal, and extraordinarily creepy.
It got even creepier when, apparently, Wifies’ OBS turned itself off without his direct say in it.
Then, Wifies decided to record on his phone, and Hummer had to hold off on analyzing Wifies’ room and instead investigate the goddamn Leviathan.
Because all of this… this was all proof that the Leviathan was real.
That confused the shit out of Hummer.
The fuck you mean the Leviathan is real? Hummer believed it more than anyone and it didn’t work for him. What the hell did Wifies do for it to work?!
Additionally, that meant that while Hummer was brooding in his single-turned-multiplayer world, Wifies was out on an adventure exploring the house of the Leviathan! What the hell?!
Annoyed yet simultaneously relieved, he kept watching.
Wifies explained how he was unable to record on his computer, how the hotkey for recording wasn’t working, how nothing was working as it should be.
He seemed… genuinely a little freaked out by this whole deal, even with his voice so calm and his demeanor more tired than anything, Hummer could just tell what was running through Wifies head. Regardless of if he spoke aloud or not, Hummer just knew that he was terrified. Curious, but terrified.
This wasn’t normal, and Hummer knew that very well.
There was a part of him that was still incredibly jealous of Wifies, but he could hold that feeling off for the sake of solving the mystery at hand.
‘The Search for the Leviathan.’
Wifies approached a chest in the video.
Opened it.
And there it was.
Then, Wifies fainted.
And it cut to black.
Hummer felt his heart drop, not in the affectionate but fearful way it had before, but in the concerned and terrified way when someone you cared for was in pain.
That was why.
That was why Wifies didn’t join the world that night.
He did in the morning, but not that night, because whatever was in that chest made him pass out in reality.
That isn’t terrifying at all. No, no, not even remotely.
Hummer, seeing as he only had a few minutes left in the video, thought he would go ahead and see what happened after that, only to feel serious whiplash as Wifies began to narrate an email being written to himself.
What?
Dear Hummer,
I hope this email finds you well.
I don’t know why Levi let me in and not you. I don’t know why he stopped my recording, or why all my screenshots are blank. Like I was never really there.
I don’t know what Levi is. Or what he wants.
But I can promise you this. I won’t stop, until I figure it out.
For you, and for me.
Yours,
Wifies.
Hummer opened his inbox.
That email lied somewhere in his inbox.
Above that message, the very same one Wifies had written in that video and sent, there were several, several other emails coming in. Did… did someone manage to find his email?
Half of these were from Wifies himself.
Good lord, he did not have the mental capacity for this right now.
The video ended, a ‘Thank you for watching screen’ popping up at the end there.
…what would you do if your potentially-potentially-not-friend created, filmed, and edited an entire video around you and your hyperfixation of half a year and declared that all of your theories were right and true and correct and literally what are you supposed to do with that?
Scream into his pillow for the fortieth time today, of course.
So, he screamed.