Chapter Text
“Anyone else also feeling that same pull?”
Wels sucks in a breath through gritted teeth when he sees more than half of the remaining hermits nod and raise their hand.
He felt it too. He can still feel it.
It all started when Xisuma went missing, he guesses. Wels doesn’t know if their admin made a wise choice slipping away in the middle of the night. Xisuma never could have disappeared unnoticed. He did his best trying to keep them all out of the Nether, but through his disappearance he accidentally made it so that more and more hermits followed after him. Gone into the other dimension, never to be seen again.
It’s been weeks. Weeks without any message from the rescue team. Weeks since Stress and Zedaph have gone missing. Weeks since Wels found himself enamored by his own Nether portal. Its swirling patterns hypnotizing him, the space-warping particles whispering when he lays in bed at night. He blocked his portal off, like many others have done too, but he couldn’t bring himself to deactivate it. Afraid that he might fall through by accident. Afraid that he might anger some kind of entity that is holding his friends hostage.
Joe, being their temporary admin in this situation, called all the remaining hermits together. They were planning on shutting down the portals for good. None of them wanted to admit it, none of them wanted to say it out loud. Still holding onto the thought that they haven’t lost them down there for good. But then the Nether started... spilling through. It first began at xB’s base, affecting the flora and fauna of the area. Changing it.
xB evacuated to Hypno’s base for the time being, but it’s only a matter of time until the Nether starts leaking through other people’s portals as well.
So here they all stand, in the shopping district. Anxious. Paranoid. None of them have gotten even close to a full night’s sleep. It scares them. The thought that they could break at any moment and enter the Nether, only never to return scares them. Wels would be lying if he said it didn’t scare him too.
But this is exactly the time in which Wels has to be brave. After what happened at xB’s base no one else has dared to even get close to the portals. No one has dared to try and deactivate them, even if it would guarantee their safety. Maybe it’s because they all still secretly hope for the return of their admin. The return of the rescue party, and the other missing hermits who they assume have been claimed by the Nether as well. Or maybe they’re all waiting on the OK to enter their portals. To explore the new landscapes, find out what it is that’s calling them, and where their friends have been taken to.
“I’ll do it.” Wels says, causing the hermits to turn their heads.
“I’ll deactivate the portals. Every last one.”
They look at him with sadness and understanding in their eyes. They know they’re not coming back. They know it’s best for them if they close this part off, move on. Protect themselves, and properly mourn their lost friends.
Joe walks up to him and Wels can see the exhaustion in his eyes. He knows that with the goodness in Joe’s heart, he never would have dared to ask. But that is why Wels stood up and said it himself. He has to be brave. He knows it’s dangerous. He knows he might not come back. But what’s his life if it means the other hermits can keep living in peace? They’re all tired, they’re all exhausted. If Wels doesn’t do anything right now, they might all eventually fall prey to the changed dimension.
Joe puts his hand on Wels’ shoulder and looks into his eyes.
“Thank you.” He says. Wels looks at him, at the rest of the hermits, and nods. He turns on his heels and goes to prepare himself for his mission.
It’s grueling.
Sure, Wels was delighted to find that actually destroying the portals is rather easy; he just has to mine a single block of obsidian for it to stop working. He even mines the entire thing, just to be sure that it can’t be reactivated.
But with each portal he destroys it becomes harder and harder.
The whispers. The screams.
It buries its way inside of his head and makes him its home. It has always been there. It doesn't want to go. It doesn’t want to let go of its grip of this world. It came to them to get them. To take them all home. They’re ignoring it. It wants to be heard. It wants to be seen.
Wels keeps singing shanties in his head to keep himself sane. To stick to that rhythm he created for himself. To pull himself through, to assure himself that he’s doing the right thing, despite all the thoughts telling him otherwise.
He quickly loses track of time. Days must have gone by already, travelling by elytra to the furthest corners of the land to find and mark off every portal. He can’t miss a single one. He can’t afford to.
Wels tries to reply to the messages in chat, but it’s like he forgets his words as soon as he types them. With each day that passes it dawns on him that he’s losing his mind. Losing himself. But it’s okay. It’s okay if it means that the others will be safe, so he presses on. Singing softly to himself, he checks all the industrial districts. All of the mining mesas, deserts, and gravel biomes. Heh, the hermits will have to travel a long way to get their supplies from now on.
After what feels like an eternity he finally reaches the last portal. All the way over at xB’s abandoned base.
xB wasn’t lying, it looks... horrifying. Mesmerizing.
Wels chuckles to himself. His base really looks like an abandoned village, now.
The strange new plants, the pink and blue grass taking over, consuming the overworld. The vines look alive with an energy that Wels can’t quite explain, but it sends a chill down his spine.
It’s been getting harder and harder. The screams the portals give when they’re destroyed haunt him wherever he goes. Harsher, more painful each time. He doesn’t know how much longer he would be able to go, and he’s grateful to know that this is the very last one.
Wels sets foot onto the strangely soft, otherworldly grass, shivering when he sinks into it slightly. He walks toward the swirling portal. It both calls to him and yells at him to get away. Wels pushes through, pushes against it and wills himself not to fall for it. He slashes at the grass creeping up at him, at the vines that curl around his feet to either keep him in place or drag him in.
With another slash from his sword the plants curl away and retreat, allowing Wels to reach the final portal. He pulls out his pickaxe and swings. It hits the obsidian with a cry that shakes his very core. He swings again, and again. Each time the clank of diamond against stone it shrieks harder, louder. Wels begins to feel dizzy. Sick, even. Nauseous. Finally he breaks the first obsidian block, but the portal seems to hang on, clinging onto the remaining stone.
It swirls and shrieks and its purple laps at Wels’ feet as he continues to swing his pick. He’s tired. His very bones ache, his limbs feel like they could give at any moment. Wels can feel himself being pulled away, but this portal has to be destroyed as best as he can. It screams, its screams pierce his mind. He pushes on. For the hermits. For his friends. They can’t and shouldn’t be able to ever rebuild it.
The portal doesn’t want to be erased. Still, it retreats back into the Nether.
And it takes Wels with it.
Wels opens his eyes to a familiar red landscape. He turns around and sees that the portal he came through is broken.
It worked. There’s... There's no way back.
But at least the hermits are safe.
Exhausted, Wels drops his pick. It clatters against the stone underneath his feet. Wels looks at his hands and sees that he’s shaking. It makes sense, he guesses. He’s been working at it, against the call of the Nether non-stop. He can finally rest. The Nether has stopped screaming at him.
Because he’s finally here.
He sits down. It’s quiet. Ambient. He notices he’s located on a small island in the middle of a lava lake. The soft, distant bubbling of lava is a treat to hear after how many days of constant otherworldly screaming.
Wels is glad the hermits are safe, of course, but he can’t help the tears dripping down his face. He knows he could, he should look for the missing hermits, now that he’s here. But he... he’s so tired.
He rests his head against the obsidian pillar behind him. It feels nice and cool to the touch.
Wels’ hands have stopped shaking. He looks. Oh. He supposes that they simply can’t shake as much. He tries to curl his fingers, but they won’t move. Figures. His breathing becomes more shallow, and he vaguely notices the dark color that his armor has started to take on.
It’s so warm down here. Wels can feel the sweat rolling down his back. It makes his armor stick to his body uncomfortably, yet he somehow feels both warm and cold at the same time. More tears drip down his face, onto his unmoving, darkening hands.
Purple.
His tears are purple.
Wells pulls and scratches at his armor, but it doesn’t budge. His chestplate, his gauntlets, even his helmet. They all appear to fuse to his skin. But that’s okay. He’s okay with it. He’s protected the hermits. He’s done what he could to serve them. The Nether can have its revenge on him, if it means it’ll keep the others safe.
He gets into as comfortable a position as he can, and lets the transformation wash over him. It starts picking up speed now that he isn’t fighting it anymore- His now dark armor clinging tighter and tighter around his limbs, his own veins beginning to shine through in an eerie purple glow that seems out of place for how red his surroundings are.
Wels realizes he’s been crying all this time. Tears now steadily rolling down his face in perfect drops, splashing onto his armor, seeping into his skin.
Are they tears of sadness? Happiness? Relief?
Wels wants to look up, to look away from himself, see anything but his changing body, but his head appears stuck. Fused to the obsidian behind him. He can feel the dark stone spreading across his cheeks, making its way to his eyes. Wels keeps them open with the last of his efforts despite everything, before they’re covered in stone and shut forever.
From the corner of his eyes, through his tears which stain his vision with a subtle purple fog, he can see two... creatures in the distance. Wels can’t for the life of him remember their names, or if he ever knew them at all. They look happy. Wels would smile if he could. He wishes he could join them. But maybe they’ll come over to his little island sometime, he thinks.
He won’t be alone, then.
More tears drip down his textured face. The obsidian is almost mocking him. Making Wels into what he swore he would destroy. But he knows that the hermits are smart. They will know not to ever rebuild a portal. They will know to stay away.
He can’t breathe, though it appears he doesn’t need to anymore.
Wels is consumed.
But what matters right now is that the hermits are safe. He did what he promised, he protected them.
They’re safe.
----
The hermits don’t go back to the Nether after that. With no portals to call out to them, the Nether is silenced. Nobody feels that magnetic pull to the other dimension anymore. It slowly ebbs away as the strange plants and trees that have started spilling through over at xB’s base slowly wither and die.
They mourn the loss of their friends. They’re truly gone, now. Locked behind portals that they all swear they will never relight again.
They’ve only got one way to go, and that is forward.
Torn, their community lives on.