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“They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.”
You don’t exactly remember where you were born.
You know that you had parents and you know that they were not anything crazy. They seemed to at least care about you but you know that they died before they could make any major impact in your life. You spent your first 8 years in an orphanage, and it was not great, to say the least. The caretakers were never there so food was rare. You mostly spent your time in the overgrown yard in order to ignore your hunger. There were birds who would hang out there and you would sing along with their calls.
It was one of the days when you were just hanging out in this garden when suddenly you saw a faint figure standing in the flower field that was past the fences. The figure seemed humanoid but was a transparent light gray with fog floated around them covering up any distinct features. You knew any normal person would have started panicking but you had always been the weird kid so you just walked up to the fence to look closer.
As you do this, the figure turns towards you and beckoned you to come closer, and despite what was probably your better judgment, you jumped the fence and approached (you wonder for the rest of your life what would have happened if you never approached, if you had just turned around, you don’t like to admit it but maybe it would have been for the best if just stayed there slowly starving to death. Just maybe, though).
While you get closer and closer, the world around you slowly turns gray and fades away, the grass under you turning wet, like they had morning dew on them despite it being mid-day. The moment you got right in front of the figure, they reached out what you could only assume was their hand and out of pure curiosity, you took the figure’s hand.
Suddenly, it feels like you begin to fall. You panic and try to look around but all you see is inky darkness with small white dots almost like the stars scattered through and before you can even register this, your vision disappears and you wake up.
(The Sky Gods smile at this, they finally have their new messiah. Someone to spread their message but first, they must test him, see if he is ready. The best way to test is to see if he and the other candidate can survive if they can fight).
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“Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime.”
You wake up to the face of another boy above you, his mouth scrunched from concern.
You immediately sit up to scoot away and as you do, you get a better look at the boy in front of you. He seems to be the same age as you, he has dark brown hair and eyes, and he is wearing a slightly tattered suit but the thing that stands out most is the horns.
He has giant ram horns on the sides of his head, he also has goat-like ears and as he stumbles back as well, you see a goat tail on his back. You look around to find that you two are both next to a pond surrounded by climbing mountains and trees but what really catches your eye is a faint blue border surrounding the area almost cutting the mountains in half. The ram boy clears his throat and asks if you know where you both are. You tell him the truth of you not knowing what is at all happening and you can tell he slightly believes you.
As you two stand there, looking around to see if you can figure what is going on, you suddenly hear the sound of rushing water, you look back to see the ground where you originally laid is now covered in water. Without a word, you and the ram boy look at each other with panic before running to the cliffside and beginning to climb it. The ram boy gets up with surprising ease before reaching down to pull you up.
You grab his hand and you both stand on this cliff outcropping in awe of what just happened. The ram boy then makes a joke with a nervous grin and you start to laugh uncontrollably and he laughs with you, the adrenaline and fear causing you two to get delirious. As you two calm down, the ram boy turns to you and puts his hand out for you to shake it (you are called the only person to shake his hand without making a cursed deal but you did. In this moment, you and the rams boy’s souls were forever intertwined).
You take his hand and he introduces himself while saying that if you both want to survive, you have to team up. You also introduce yourself before agreeing and saying that you know this will be a great partnership and you expect all money to be split 50/50. He throws his head back laughing at your joke and you see that his teeth are sharp.
You two begin to collect wood from the trees around you and the entire time, you are both telling jokes while trying to ignore the slowly rising water that is in their corner of your visions. You build yourselves a small little house and you both still want a little privacy so you separate it in half. You start to panic however as the water gets closer and closer.
You want to get to the mountain tops above where you two will be safer, the ram boy does not agree. He says that where you are now is safe and if anything, the world above could have dangers that you don’t even know about. You two argue and argue, going back and forth when suddenly, the sound of rushing water is above and you both look up through the windows in your house to see water starting to fall.
The ram boy stares in awe while you run to the door trying to escape your certain doom but before you can, the ram boy stops you and as he does, you see the water surrounding the house completely...but none of it gets in. You stare as the ram boy cheers saying that his idea is better. You just look at him and tell him the truth, you two only have enough food for a short time and the land above has food. He just ignores you and keeps yelling.
You just glare at the ram boy before turning around, opening the door, and running out. You see him pause in his gloating to scream after you but you don’t hear his words before you begin to swim up, you swim up and up before you break the surface. You swim to land and lay there, drenched but alive. You look back, in fear for your newly found friend, but shake it off and begin to build a shelter on this land.
You are alone for what must only be a day before you look over the now even higher water to see the ram boy emerge from the surface. You dive in and pull him into your base. He lays on the floor, coughing up water before he jumps in your arms for a hug. Surprised, you return the hug (you have never gotten a hug before, and you don’t think he has ever had either).
The ram boy says that he is sorry that he didn’t listen to you, that the underwater world was worse than anything he could have imagined. You tell him with a small grin that he didn’t need to apologize, he was just scared and you understand. So, for the next 2 days, you two begin to climb higher and higher, laughing the entire time before finally you both reach the ceiling of the blue veil border that surrounds your area.
The water now is less than 5 feet below you two and you both know this. You both accepted that you weren’t going to live through this a long time ago. So, you both just sit there, telling stories of the worlds that you are from with bittersweet smiles on your faces as the water reaches above your heads and you both feel the water enter your lungs.
You accept it but after a moment, your instincts take over and you begin to struggle, the pressure on your lungs growing and growing and growing, your vision begins to fade…
You wake up in a field.
The ram boy wakes up next to you with a confused look on his face (and for a moment, you think this is the afterlife that you both died permanently, that you were both children who died for some cruel gods entertainment. Maybe it would have been better if that was the truth but it isn’t).
You suddenly hear a hissing sound and look up to see a piece of dynamite falling from the sky and you look at the ram body before you both run.
And this all repeats.
You and the ram boy continue to be thrown into different worlds with a supernatural challenge and you both survive until the world around you is completely destroyed and you are both killed in horrible pain before waking up, whether it be by TNT, the blue veil border, monsters, empty void and any other assortments of horrors.
As you are sent to world after world, you and the ram boy get closer and closer to the point where you two don’t even need to talk in order to communicate. Neither of you ages except your minds do, the ram boy’s in a worse direction than yours. As time goes on, the ram boy gets more and more aggressive about your circumstance, he gets into arguments with you more often and at some points, you fear that he will hurt you but he never does until one day when you are both thrown into a world similar to your first but different in that instead of water, lava rises.
You both build a tower up and up with all the resources you have and as you get higher and higher, the ram boy seems to get angrier and angrier, he snaps at you for the slightest mistakes, and every time the lava rises, he just scoffs and clenches his fists. This escalates until one night while you are sleeping, you wake to hear the sound of the ladders that scale your tower begin to break. You shoot awake to see the ram boy breaking the ladders that separate your levels so you begin to yell at him in panic, wondering what he is doing.
He just stares at you with blank eyes before jumping down to stand in front of you. He gets closer and closer, step by step, making you walk to the edge of your platform and as you look at him with a confused gaze, he pushes you.
And you begin to fall.
You look up, in your last breath to see a cold, cruel grin on the face of the boy that you once considered your best friend (this is when the devil is born, this is when the boy is killed and the devil takes the form of a simple businessman).
You fall into the fiery hot lava and you immediately die and instead of waking up next to the ram boy in a new world, you feel wind catch your soul and scatter you.
(The Sky Gods scoff at this, so they take their messiah and take him a bit closer to home, somewhere where no one can touch him and they take their villain and throw him aside, like an unwanted toy but they don’t look back to see where he lands).
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“There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.”
You wake up to a dark blue void.
You instinctively panic and try to back up but you just feel air so you immediately stand perfectly still and sit down because your head feels like someone is slamming it with a hammer.
You sit down and feel cold, the black stone beneath you, you run your hand across it and just end up with small little scratches across your palm from the uneven surface.
As you bring your hand to our face, a shiny pair of boots appear in your arms. You just stare at them in confusion before putting them on and as you finish putting them, more and more items begin appearing in your hands and you just throw off before finally, a miniature version of a fence gate appears, and as you go to throw it, it expands and connects to the stone below you.
Your eyes widen at this and as you hesitantly place your foot on it, it stays stable. So, you stand there in awe while a small wind blows through your hair (you also almost feel a little kiss on your forehead but as you go to look, there is no one there).
You continue to get more and more miniature items as the day progresses, and slowly but surely you build yourself a small platform where you don’t have to worry as much about falling off. All this balancing and work begins to make you tired and as you rub your eyes, you notice the dark blue void has turned black and you figure out that it is now nighttime, but you don’t see the moon or the stars, just the emptiness in between.
You still manage to sleep.
As you wake up, you see on the ground next to you even more miniature items, including a bucket full of water and as you pick up, you see inside a small colorful little fish. You gasp and stare at it with joy (you are still just a scared, little kid). You then decide to make a small tiny pool for the fish, who have decided to call Milo, to live so you spend the entire day just collecting the resources until you have a perfect pool. But, as you pour Milo in you realize that there is a crack and as you got to pick Milo back up, he falls through the crack and you watch him fall into the dark blue void below.
You stare in horror then begin to sob. You are just a kid who didn’t want to be alone anymore and the moment you try to get any sense of a friend, it is torn away from you. You cry and cry until suddenly you hear the sound of sloshing water and the thud of metal, as you look up, you see another bucket next to you. You jump up and look inside to see a small little beige fish happily swimming around.
You just gently lift the bucket into your arms and just laugh. A little, broken laugh that is somehow filled with hope and sorrow at the same time. You don’t sleep that night as you build an even better pool for this new fish, who you have decided to affectionately call Milo (Jr). You double, triple-check that the new pool is secure before you pour Milo in, and you watch as he swims around curiously. You clap your hands and cheer for Milo’s successful relocation.
You continue this cycle for what you assume is months but time hasn’t mattered for a while. You wake up, expand your small island with the materials given to you by whoever made this world, you talk to Milo for what must be hours, then you go back to sleep. It is a simple (and lonely) life but it is better than the life you had before, jumping from world to world. (You don’t think about the ram boy however, you keep him as far from your mind as possible).
At one point you get two buckets, one full of water and one full of lava (when you first got this bucket, you had a panic attack, even if you didn’t know at the time what a panic attack was). You know from your time in the worlds before that combining the two would give you stone so you make a machine with these two liquids to get more and more stone which you use to expand your island more in a day than your entire time there.
You make yourself an actual house with a roof. You make Milo an even bigger pool that is almost half the size of your new expanded island. You notice in the water that your hair seems to be going bright white at the roots, your usually dark brown eyes are turning light blue and your skin feels cold. But, this doesn’t even scare you because some weird little voices in the back of your head so that you are fine, that this is what needs to happen (the Sky Gods cheer because their messiah is becoming who he needs to be).
Suddenly, as you notice this, you find yourself getting up and grabbing a bucket that you pick Milo up in. You then look to the sky and nod with a bittersweet smile on your face. You see your island seemingly spins around in your vision before you find yourself in the middle of an ocean. You let yourself sink to the bottom and you don’t even feel your lungs lose air as you sink.
You sit in the gravel and let Milo swim out of the bucket, he swims out cautiously before turning back to look you in the eyes. You pet him and tell him that he is free and that he is great. You swear that he understands your words so he leans into your hand before he swims away. You watch him go with a sad look and you feel the water, then begin to fill your lungs, finally.
This time, unlike the first time you drowned, you panic. You struggle and try to swim up but it seems to stretch up to forever. The water grows darker and darker before your vision vanishes but you feel hands grab you and pull you up.
(The Sky Gods are proud because their messiah is evolving so well so they decide that he deserves a reward. They pull one of their other children from a world, the cynic. They changed him a little bit before dropping him in with the messiah then sit back to watch with smiles).
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“George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have - for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune.”
You wake up once again in the dark blue void.
But, your island is gone and as you jump up, you see another block of black stone across from you and you see another young boy laying there. He has blonde hair and he wears a bright magenta hoodie with a tv symbol stitched onto the back. The most obvious thing is that he has dark red fox ears and a tail. (You have severe deja-vu for a flooded world and a ram boy).
He slowly wakes up and you see him rub his eyes in confusion before he looks up at you in panic as he starts to shake. Even if you haven’t talked to someone in a while, you still feel sympathy and as you go to reach for him, you find another mini cube in your hand, and muscle memory kicks in so you throw it down and connect you and the neon boy’s stone.
You reach out for a hug and the neon boy accepts. You both sit there for a moment before the neon boy sits back and asks you what is happening. You answer him and tell him what you know and your voice is scratchy, not used to talking louder than whispers to a fish.
The neon boy seems to accept this and as he nods cautiously, you watch a cube appear in his hand and he throws it down so it connects to the stone that you are both sitting on. He looks back at you with a nervous gaze but he seems almost calmed by the fact that this isn't just some weird dream. You stand back up and give him your hand (the roles are switched, you realize with a start), he takes your hand and you see his hands are not real skin but are actually thin robotic metal and you see his mouth full of sharp teeth but you are not scared (kids don’t judge and your appearance is “weird” as well).
You both begin to expand your small island, it looks like a weird quilt of different materials. You and the neon boy begin to talk to each other, telling stories and jokes. He has sarcastic humor that is full of monotone comments and references to shows that you have never watched. He makes you laugh for the first time in what you feel must be months, over and over.
You build yourselves a small house of wood, a material that you didn’t have on your previous island and both of you continue to get closer, you become great friends, finishing each others’ sentences and almost walking in tandem (and you don’t feel any foreboding chills like you did with the ram boy).
At one point, you both wake up to hear the sound of heavy thuds. You look at each others’ curious glances before walking outside your front door to see a circle of white rock with dark blue bracing on the top of them and inside this circle is a dark purple-black shadowy liquid. You see the neon boy drop the stick that he had in his hand and you watch him walk forward with a blank look in his eyes (the Sky Gods were getting bored, their messiah is 100% ready and they just need to get rid of the collateral).
You run forward and grab at the neon boy’s sleeve trying to pull him back. He just looks at you with a blank gaze but you can see tears falling out of his eyes and you know him well, you look deep inside his soul and see someone who is terrified but can’t break free. He pulls himself from your arms and he steps into the liquid void before disappearing.
You cry after him and as you drop to your knees, you feel the wind around you begin to swirl and you look down at your hands as they begin to shine with white light. You look up and see the faint smoky figure that tore you from your original above you and you watch its’ hand touch your forehead
and your mind goes blank.
(The Sky Gods are filled with joy, their messiah is ready. They create with a snap of their fingers, a whole new world for him, and let him go free. They cheer and look away to let him do his own thing. But, they have never made a mortal child a god before. No 12-year-olds have been given that much power before).
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"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!"
my first group of mortals do the best.
they don’t die immediately, they at least were somewhat human and i don’t control them too much. it was boring so i made another where they just had to die. this one was the most fun to watch.
gods, i love my new position. mortal me didn’t know what he was missing!
i make even more worlds, ones where i make them by pets, animals of every kind, ones where they must live mortal overblown ideas of life, and i am the exterminator, getting rid of the ones who disobey.
at one point, the damned sky gods come down to tell me off. i just laugh at them, they really think they can stop me? fools.
they leave me with concerned words, if i listened closer but i might have been more concerned but foresight is for men of peace.
after my unknowingly final world, as i prepare to rip even more pets from their pitiful worlds, the sky gods return.
as i turn to laugh at them, i feel one of them grab me. i try to fight back, i use try to tear at my world’s strings in my effort, effectively destroying it but before i can even react, i can feel the one who took me in the first place approach. i yell at them with cruel words but they approach and as i scream, i feel a pain emerge from my heart, then my back, then my head, my eyes, my legs, every part of my body.
i feel myself get torn apart, inch by inch,
and then you are remade.
(The Sky Gods sigh, their messiah having failed. But, they are sentimental, they leave him with a small flicker in his heart. They have to erase him but it is fine, they have more children to rip from their homeworlds).
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“Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.”
You wake up with static in your head.
You can hear multiple voices above you, all of them sound like kids. You open your eyes and cover your face from the sunshine above as you sit up, your entire body sore from head to toe. A hand comes to rest on your shoulder and you look up to see a dirty blonde boy with glasses in front of you, he wears a multi-color hoodie and cargo shorts. Multiple different other boys (and 2 girls) who all seem to be 7 to 14 years old stand behind him with concerned looks.
The main boy helps you up and then asks you if you are okay. You tell him that you are okay? Your body hurts and then he asks you your name and for a moment, you don’t remember. You panic, because wait, you don’t remember anything, where are you from? Who are you? The static is getting louder and louder but you take a breath, and oh, of course, you remember your name (you don’t remember anything else though, the Sky Gods made sure of that).
You tell the main boy your name and he nods before he explains the world and the people around you. He explains that this is a world for kids who have been taken from their original worlds for reasons they don’t know why and they all wake up, without any memories in the world and they have all bonded together as a community.
All of the other kids introduce themselves before they all go their separate ways, but they all give you some supplies so you can make yourself a house on your own so you do. You travel a far distance from the place that you woke up and make yourself a dark wooden tower. You don’t get it fully furnished until you get a knock at your door.
You go to open your door and there you see a boy with rams horns who has another boy standing at his side wearing a yellow and purple hat, both of them are in exquisite suits (for a moment you hear the sound of rushing water, explosion and bubbling lava as you look the ram boy in the eyes and you could almost swear his eyes flash gold with a smile but you shake it off).
The ram boy puts his hand out and you (don’t shake it, don’t shake it your mind screams) shake his hand back. The two boys tell you that they have a plan, that they want to do something. You hesitantly agree and they tell you that they want you to steal from the police station, you raise your eyebrow and you almost reject but you are a 12-year-old boy, young boys take any chance to be a little shithead they can get.
You accept so you three run to the police station (where not much policing is actually done) and you take a brew of invisibility to sneak in even if no one is in there and you steal the items that are hidden in the police station, even if it is just junk. The three of you all run out giggling the entire way (if the ram boy looks at you with a look of bittersweet nostalgia because he remembers you but you don’t remember him, no one is there to see).
And this begins your stint as the little criminal of the world. You steal small items from the other kids and they all yell after but they have smiles on their faces. You are all a small quilt family of kids who are all weird in your own way. There is a boy who is half fish, a boy who is semi-made of slime, a girl with dual-color hair that never fades, a boy with dog ears and tail, a boy with pure white skin/hair, and of course the ram boy. You are one of the more normal ones (but if your breath doesn’t show up in the cold if you find pure white hairs sometimes in your roots, if your eyes shine blue in a certain light, you just try to ignore it).
You all live this blissful life for 2 years together and your lives are well, fucking perfect. You learn how to sing and play guitar, everyone jokingly calls you a bard. But, nothing good lasts forever. Over a couple of months, people start to disappear. No one sees where they went and it doesn’t look like they were kidnapped, there are no signs of struggle except for a ashy white spot where they were last seen. You all slowly begin to move from your homes to the shopping center that you have all created, so that you can all keep an eye on each other.
It doesn’t work. People keep disappearing until it is just you, the ram boy and the main boy, who woke you up. You all just stay in the main tree that is in the center of the world. You three usually don’t try to leave but at one point, you have to. You go out alone to get more food because you are all starving and you even if it is snowing, you don’t get cold.
The ram boy and the main boy both say goodbye to you as you begin to walk out because none of you know if you are coming back. You walk out and trudge through the snow until you see one of the stores where you all stored food and as you take a step, you feel wind begin to swirl around you. You look over your shoulder and see a figure of pure air standing there, you try to run back but you feel the air seemingly grab you and pull you closer.
You feel the breath leave your lungs and your vision suddenly cuts to black.
(The Sky Gods are mad, these children were all theirs, and they just lived their lives without at all trying to go back to their godly parents. They needed to take back what was theirs. But, these damn kids keep slipping out, they need to find where they went and they almost got their messiah but the devil kept them back, damnit).
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"Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you barons and dukes and earls."
You wake up to the sound of cheering.
You sit up with a start and look around to find yourself in the middle of a cracked stone plaza, it is surrounded by giant mountains with giant trees but what catches your sight is two different sides of giant pillars with stone statues of people that are changed from form to form. You also see dozens of other people around you, ranging from the age of 10 to people in their 20s.
You hear the sound of cheering and then the sound of a booming man’s voice. You and everyone around you jumps up to see a man floating above you. He tells you all that you all are a part of a tournament of skill that will take place once a week and whatever team wins that week will get to stay in a lavish house while the rest of you will be stuck in the plaza without any supplies. You see other people around begin yelling back at the floating man but he claps his hands and they all stop talking against their own will.
He tells you all to prepare because the show is about to start! You look around and see other people from your previous world, they notice you so you all run to each other and hug. You see the fish boy, the dog boy, the ram boy and the main boy, you all ask each other where you all were taken but none of you remember. You all just remember a figure of wind then nothing at all. However, your conversation is interrupted by the sound of a horn then you feel yourselves cross void then get thrown into glass cages.
This was the beginning of your pain.
You are thrown into game after game, week after week with different teammates but you never manage to win but some people who are stronger than the average person begin to emerge. A boy, a little younger than you, who has pig-like features, pink hair and who wears a king’s garb wins almost every time, most of the other people in the tournament hate him but you could never bring yourself to. You are teamed together once and he is not some great stoic warrior but an awkward boy who is just stronger than he can control, the entire time you resist the urge to give him a hug.
This world has what you can only describe as cracks, events where people, once a game has finished instead of returning to the plaza are thrown into a hole and teleported back to the top before they die. People manage to rip apart the walls like they are wet paper and some people disappear and never come back without a word. But, the god of this world, the floating man refuses to acknowledge these problems until it is too late.
It is a normal tournament day and one of the games breaks which is nothing new. But, as you all return to the plaza, the ground below you all disappears before you can blink and the sound of what you can only describe as soul-breaking screeching echoes. You look around and see the world around you getting torn apart by things that your mind can’t even register. You scream and run, trying to find your friends but before you can, a feeling like someone is hitting you in the back of a head with a brick slams into you and you fall to the ground,
immediately passing out.
(The Sky Gods are annoyed, this world was created by a false god who just wanted to watch mortals suffer. He even took some of their children which is unacceptable. They send in some of their dirty workers to destroy the place before they scoff and focus on sorting their children out. That man was so gross, but really, are they any better?)
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“They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.”
You wake up to the sound of waves.
You feel sand under your fingertips (you don’t remember why the feeling of sand and sound of water fill you with slight dread) and you sit up to find yourself on a beach with a large, sprawling forest to your right. You fumble around and find your communicator in your pocket, you pull it out and as you do, you see a message on it from a person you don’t know and as you click it, you see a virtual person appear.
The virtual person explains that you are in a world where people can claim their own countries and nations with just the click of a button, fighting and wars are allowed but perma-killing will cause you to be banned from this world. It says that the area that you are in right now is called Newfoundland and you are now the official owner of it. It then asks you if you have any questions with a blank smile, you hesitantly nod. The image disappears instantly then and just leaves you with a blank chat board with only one person on there called Admin.
You stand up with shaky legs and you begin to approach the forest, ready to start your new life here. You spend the next 4 days building yourself a small log cabin and you spend the time reflecting over what has gone on in your life. You think about your friends and where they have all gone, you saw some of them in the tournaments but you didn’t see most of them there. You think about your missing memories, you don’t feel any urge to remember though, you have a sneaking urge that your life before was not a good life. You realize with a start that you are 14, huh, you are pretty old now (you are still a child but every 14 year old thinks they are an adult).
During your work, you get a message that there is going to be a trial, and an impartial party is needed, and you don’t know anyone yet so you are a perfect candidate, you accept because you want to meet new people. As you click accept, you find yourself in a flower field on a beach. There are dozens of other people sitting in rows of chairs near you and 2 men sitting in front of all the chairs on the beachside in what almost looks like stands. One is the warrior boy from the tournaments and another is an older blonde hair man wearing a green and white bucket hat who has giant dark gray wings resting on his back. Both of them have swords at their sides.
The people around you turn to look at you, you recognize some of them as your friends, they all jump and go to hug you. You accept all of them and you all talk about what you have been doing before someone else coughs and tells you that the trial needs to go forward. You all smile at each other embarrassed before you walk to your stand.
The trial commences.
You learn that the two “men”, who live in the Antarctic Empire, claimed the land of the entire world, covering over everyone else’s claims. The people believe that they should unclaim all their land while the Antarctic Empire is willing to unclaim the other people’s land but they will unclaim their own. You are the deciding factor. But, your thoughts are interrupted by a young boyish voice behind you, you look to see a 7-year-old blonde boy who is covered in band-aids and is wearing a red/white shirt, he is jumping up while yelling at the two “men”. Another small brunette boy who is similarly covered in band-aids but who wears a loose green button-up is sitting next to him with an embarrassed smile.
The loud boy says that the Antarctic Empire are tyrants and should unclaim everything. The two “men” just look at the young boy with tired looks that make you stifle a laugh. The young boy looks at you before nodding and sitting down next to his friend. You roll your eyes before looking back at the two “men”, you tell them to unclaim all the land except their own and that they owe everyone else supplies. The people are satisfied with your decision and the Antarctic Kings just shrug their shoulders.
Your life continues on like normal for the next couple of weeks besides the fact that your communicator is spammed by messages from the loud boy and his friend. You answer every second one and you three develop a small friendship of banter and jokes. You pretend to be annoyed by them but you really start to see them as stupid little brothers. (They remind so much of the ram boy and his friend, it almost pains you to make the comparison but it is just too obvious).
One day, the bucket hat man, who you now called the survivor, since apparently he lived on his own in the wild for 5 years, visits you in his plane (you can summon a plane with your communicator with just a click). He brings with him a basket of baked potatoes and iron. You take it from him hesitantly, he just smiles at you and strikes up a small conversation. Through this conversation, you learn that he and the warrior boy are also good friends with the two young boys that you have been talking to. The entire time you know he should at least scare you but he radiates fatherly energy that you have never had before and it calms you (you don’t remember your parents or if you had siblings, but you would like a dad).
You two talk and talk for hours until the sun starts to set. The survivor realizes this and he begins to leave but before he can, you ask him if he can visit again, you don’t even tell him why but you can tell he knows why (you are so alone, you message the two young boys and your friends but it isn’t enough).
He just smiles and nods while saying that next time he will bring his friend. He does.
2 days later, he brings the warrior boy with him, and you three talk over a small meal of mashed potatoes (they both always have potatoes and when you ask them why the warrior boy just looks embarrassed and the survivor just laughs). Over the following weeks, you all become good friends, the survivor becoming a mentor to you in how to make diplomatic relations and the warrior boy teaching you how to fight and you teach them how to create art. But, the entire time you keep quiet about your past and how old you are (they think you are at least 18, you have had a growth spurt over the years).
This friendship evolves until one fateful day.
You are out at night trying to get more resources. You and the loud boy/his friend plan to hang out tomorrow so you want to get more food to give the boys since they are both small for their age. When suddenly, you hear a footstep and as you turn, you feel a sharp pain in your stomach, you look down to see a blade embedded there. As you try to look at who attacked you, they have already run away. So, you fall to the ground there, holding your wound. (Would this count as your first betrayal, who knows?)
You already begin to feel cold and your vision is getting blurry so you pull out your communicator and click the first name you see, the survivor. He answers almost immediately and jokes about why you are calling him so late, you just whimper back and tell him you need help. You hear him jump up and he begins to frantically ask you if you are injured and where you are. Your voice gets quieter and quieter as you whisper to him where you are and you begin to cry, from the pain or fear of death, you don’t know (The Sky Gods watch this with mute interest, they don’t really care, they have other children to steal).
He comforts you over the line and tells you to listen to his voice, and you do. You talk about your past, your friends, the tournament, how old you really are, and as you feel yourself get weaker and weaker, you finally hear the sound of the survivor's voice, not over your communicator but in real life. You cry out to him (and you don’t realize till later that you call me Dad instead of his name). He runs to you, hastily put-on hat and wings flapping behind him. He reaches you just as your vision fades.
You wake up in a sunny room in a comfortable bed.
You see the survivor resting at your bedside, you slowly sit up and as you rest your hand on your stomach, you find tightly wrapped bandages. The sound of the door opening alerts you and as you look up, you see the warrior boy walking in with a pitcher of water. He rushes to place in down before coming up to you, his usually monotone voice full of concern. This action wakes up the survivor who jumps awake before his panic is broken by a gentle smile filling his face when he sees you awake and the sight of him being so happy that you are just alive makes you begin to just sob.
The two of them panic before bringing you into a hug. They just comfort you as you tell them about what happened and you retell your story, what you have been through and they just hold the entire time. You all stay there for a couple of minutes before the warrior boy breaks away with a furious look on his face, you at first panic but he just tells you that whatever bastard decided to attack you is dead. The survivor, usually the more peaceful of the two, mutters his agreement. You try to stop them but give up.
You all then hear the sound of rushing footsteps approaching, the warrior boy jumps up, sword in hand but instead of an attacker, the two young boys appear at the door frame. The loud boy holding the quiet boy’s hand but both of them with slightly puffy eyes but once they see you laying in bed, they run forward and jump into your lap. You let out a forced breath at the force they jump into your arms but you hold them there as they cry, saying that they had thought you died and that some weird man tried to attack them last night but they managed to escape him. You look in a panic at that last sentence. You see the survivor and warrior boy looking at each other with even more protective fury and you share the sentiment because whoever this is tried to kill two fucking kids, your little brothers (3 fucking kids actually, but you don’t count yourself).
This truly begins the next step of your five’s relationship.
You and the two young boys stay in the Antarctic Empire’s base from the fear that the man might come back and attack you all. The man is found, and it is discovered that he wanted to attack any allies, any weak points against the Antarctic Kings, and once this is found out, he disappears, and when you ask where he went, the survivor and warrior boy just say he “was banned” with smiles on their faces.
However, even once the man is gone, you and the two young boys continue to live in the Antarctic Empire. You go back to your base from time to time but every time you come back, more and more of your personal items find themselves at home in your room in Antarctica. Till, eventually, the survivor and warrior boy just tell you three that you can all live there and you accept.
This is how your life is now.
Over time, the survivor turns into your dad. He becomes your guardian angel, he teaches you how to survive, and what makes the world tick and how to fight against it while at the end of the day, being willing to live alongside it and become one with it. He is the parental figure that you have never had, even if he sometimes leaves for a couple of weeks and never tells you all where he went and if he goes outside during storms to just stand there letting the water pour on him with a distant look and hunched wings, you all manage to bring him inside and make him laugh for hours (it fills the halls making the coldness outside become non-existent)
Over time, the warrior boy turns into your brother. He may be 3 years younger than you but he still acts more like the eldest sibling that you ever have. He helps you become a good fighter, never as good as him though, but who can be as good as the Blood God? You and he are almost like twins, you both understand what the other is thinking without a word. He is the best twin brother you could ask for, even if he will appear his clothes stained with blood every night and if he tries to hide his pig hybrid features as he gets older, you all just hug him and you all spend the night braiding his hair (you braid his hair the best though, your fingers train from years of guitar).
Over time, the quiet boy turns into your little brother. You call him the quiet one but you learn quickly that he is loud as his twin but he just hides it better. In his own special way, he helps become an even more kind person and he teaches how redstone works, and even if you don’t understand a word, it just makes you happy to see him so happy to share his interests. He is the best little brother you could ask for, even if he sometimes wakes up with tears in his eyes, scared that he was sent back to his floating island alone (if that idea resonates with you, you try to ignore it) and if you all find him crying over a book, unable to read it, you all just sit next to him and all just lay there comforting him while letting him talk about bees for hours until you fall asleep (you make a little bee patch to stitch onto his shirt, he takes it with a grin and jumps up to hug you with a giggle).
Over time, the loud boy turns into your little(r) brother. You call him the little(r) brother just to make him mad because even if he is taller than his twin, he is still a couple of months younger and you like being a pest, so why not? He somehow manages to teach you how to be braver and when you freeze up from social anxiety, he is willing to drag you into conversations and make you comfortable. He is the best little(r) brother you could ask for and if you sometimes have to remind him that he will never be alone again and if you all have to save him when one of the many people he has pissed off comes for him, you all don’t lecture him because he is already scared enough, you all just bandage his little cuts and stay with him the entire next week, just laughing more than you ever have before (you get him and his twin matching bandanas for their 10th birthday, and if he says that green is an ugly color but still wears it every day, you don’t mention it).
(You become their son, twin, older brother, and they love you so much. You teach them how to create, feel, wonder, think. You protect all of them even when you are the one that needs to be protected. You create such wonderful music that fills the house with love and even if you don’t notice, any time you begin to play, they go quiet and listen. They love you even if sometimes in the middle of a conversation, you go blank, thinking about something that you don’t remember the next day and if when you get upset, they always feel a slight breeze and chill even if they are inside, well, it doesn’t matter).
The 9 years that you all spend together are amazing. Of course, you all get into arguments and fights sometimes but at the end of the day, you are still family. Everyone knows you five and you all know everyone. You all help Anaratica while still taking care of your personal countries. People may try to attack you all because of this fact, but you all are strong in your own ways, no one stands a chance against you all combined. (During all these years, you never remember anything from your past but it doesn’t matter, you have the only family, the only friends you could ever need).
However, your lives are torn apart one horrible day.
The “admin” of your world tells everyone that the world is starting to break apart, some outside force is trying to rip it apart. They tell everyone that they all need to flee, that a portal has been made that should send people to other safer worlds but the only catch, is that no one is assured to go to the same world as each other. This issue causes your family to all freak out because it is either death or possibly being torn apart.
You all choose the latter option.
You all spend your last day in this world that has become your home to just wander around taking one last look at all that you have created. You run your hands over your old log cabin and stare at the beach that you woke up on with bittersweet nostalgia. You go back home and take your most personal items from your room. The beanie that your twin stitched for you, your small toy killer whale that your little brother made from clay for you, your plushie shark that your little(r) brother go you last Christmas, and your guitar that your dad carved vines into.
You met your family at your front door and you all take one last look at your house before getting your planes ready to fly. You all arrive to the portal and as you all begin to walk to the portal with a nod to Admin who is stand off to the side, you all look at each other and holding hands, you walk into the portal.
You feel what almost feels like solid air surrounds and then your vision goes dark.
(The Sky Gods aren’t even here, they left a while ago. They are creating more worlds and if their dirty servants decide to attack a random world, forcing its people to flee, they do not notice and even if they did, I don’t think they would have cared).
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“And then, neutralising gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling..”
You wake up in on a wood path alone.
You immediately jump up looking around in a hurry but you don’t see any of your family around you. You try to stop your panic but you start to hear a voice call out for you. You go to look and see a man in a light green hoodie with a white smiley mask on his face. He approaches you and you in your panic, back up. He puts his hand on his arm and asks what your name (at this moment, he seems so kind. He seemed to care but what changed?).
You tell him your name and explain your previous world and you ask him if he has seen any of your family. He seems to think for a moment before he seems to light up and he says he thinks he might have. You light up and ask, beg him to take you to them. He nods and leads you up the path to stairs and as you step up them, you hear two young boyish voices both of them yelling back and forth. You recognize them immediately and run past the masked man.
You reach the top of the stairs to see your two little brothers standing in front of a little bunker and you cry out their names at the top of their lungs. They turn to you and you see looks of pure joy cover their faces. You all run at each other and join in a giant hug. You hold them against your chest and you just cry because your twin and dad might be somewhere across infinity at least you have your little brothers.
You all let go of the hug and you look down at them to see their tear-stained faces. They have giant smiles on their faces and you just smile at them and ask them what they have been doing, they just smile and begin to lead you to their projects that they have made.
(The Sky Gods look up, their original messiah is somewhere else. They squint their eyes and begin to pay attention to. They may have been trying to ignore him but they always come back to him because they don’t like to let their toys go).
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“Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun..”
You are running your hands through your hair.
You didn’t want to start a war but it too late now. You just wanted to have a bit of fun with your family but the masked man is a bastard who doesn’t know when to stop. You pace throughout your country with fear because today is the final day, and then you hear the fox yell out for you. He is a friend that you have made in this new world, he is a genius when it comes to inventions and technology. He is as silly as your little brothers so you almost consider him another little brother. But, nevermind that.
You run to him to see that he is leaning standing next to the table in the van with your little brother sitting on the table in front of you getting stitches in his arm. You run up and ask what happened, your little brother replies that he got jumped while getting supplies. His voice is softer than it usually is, his lungs still injured from the fire and as you think this, you remember the burn scars covering his left side that reach up to his neck.
Your little(r) brother and the light come in. The light is another friend that you have made in this new world. He is a kind and gentle man who is the hardest worker you have ever met. She is kind but stern like your twin and so you almost consider her another brother. But, nevermind that.
Your little(r) runs to his twin as the sound of the Kings enters your ears from outside the van. You walk out to see all the Kings standing there, they look at you with cruel looks before running off to your little(r) brother’s base. You run back into the van and command your men to prepare for battle. You watch them all grab swords and bows, you help your little brother get off the table before giving him a pat on the head (if you had been turned around, you would have seen the light hide armor in his pack).
You all leave the van for what you fear is the last time. You all march to the battleground to see the Kings all stand at the top of the tower that the portal is stored in. You approach them, one last time offering peace but before you finish your sentence, they fire an arrow at your feet and suddenly explosions rock the ground. You command your men to run into the bunker base. You all start to shot back through holes in the walls and you peek out the door to see the Kings run off (you barely miss them giving a wink to the light).
You all run after them, going to the whitestone tower. You watch your little brothers and the light begin to climb it for a better shot but you and the fox stay on the ground. The fox in order to get intel while he is invisible from one of his brews and you in order to draw the shots from the Kings. Your plan works as you watch after minutes of shooting from both sides end as the Kings run off into the woods.
You cheer as your brothers and light get down from the tower. You all quickly hug before running back to your country to restock your arrows and see if the Kings have fled there (as you all run, the light stays slightly behind the voice of regret screaming in their head).
You all get back to base, and before you can even grab more arrows, the light gets all of your attention. He tells you all that he was a secret weapon that will win this war. You immediately nod and get your men to follow her. You all dig into a tunnel and as you walk down, you all make nervous jokes about your situation before you find yourselves in the entryway of a small blackstone room, with 5 chests in it with your names labeled on them. You walk up to yours with a smile and as you open it up, you hear a mechanical click.
You back up immediately but before you can react, you hear the light saying that the revolution is done and you see the wall in front of you open up and the masked man jumps out with a blade in hand and you feel it cut across your chest. You immediately out to your men to flee and you run to the door, grabbing your (3) little brothers before sprinting down the tunnel (and behind you, the light watched you go with a hand outstretched and the grin on their face drops as a singular tear drips from their hidden eyes at the sudden recognition at what they have just done).
You feel the sunlight and wind on your face as you run out, you look back to see your men behind you, all of them in similar states of disarray. In this moment, you take a breath and swallow your pride. You lead them to the van and you begin to help them wrap up their wounds. None of you say anything, just filled with shock but deep down, you feel deep anger begin to build in the pit of your stomach but you push it down (at this moment, you are a good man. What happen to that man?).
You sigh and tell your men that you have to surrender. They all try to argue but you just hold your hand up and they silence. You shake your head, set down the bandages, grab your sword strap it to your side before walking out to where you know the masked man is waiting for you. (The wind begins to swirl around but you are not cold).
You arrive to see him leading against one of the non-exploded parts of the fence. You go to stand next to him, your hands behind your back and your shoulders straight. You ask yoursled if you are going to surrender with a smile, and for once, you go against your plan and look him in the eyes saying no. He just shrugs at this and begins to stroll to your country. You jog after him, fear gripping your heart.
You get back home to see your brothers standing in the gateway, all of them injured but confidently glaring at the other Kings already there. You join your mens’ side and tell them of the news, as you do, the masked man lays a single stick of dynamite on the ground. You almost scoff at this arrogance and just tell your men to step back. But, you look up to see a grin on the masked man’s face almost too late as you hear the sound of the TNT lighting, then the ground below you has ripped apart (at the moment, you consider this tyrant a mad man, the true living being of evil. Now, you consider him a genius).
You hear your brothers call out for you and you blindly run to them, you feel water underneath you and you just begin to swim. You swim and swim before finding yourself in the blink of an eye in a small bunker, the sound still ringing in your ears and the smell of ash stuck in your nose. You look around and see your brothers around you.
You blink and find yourself telling your men that you need to surrender.
You blink and you and your little(r) brother are walking down the tunnel back to the surface with the fox and your little brother sneaking back the other way.
You blink and you are facing the masked man.
You blink and your little(r) brother is yelling, saying that he wants a duel and that he wants to settle this like men (but is just a boy, and for once, you don’t mean this in a joking way).
You blink and find yourself lecturing your little(r) brother.
You blink and tell the fox and your little brother the news.
You blink and the fox is crying and both of the twins are holding each other, your little brother screaming in anguish and your little(r) brother face numb.
You blink and you are telling your little(r) brother to just do what he wants.
You blink and you are counting down,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10….
You blink and you are running back home with your little(r) brother in your arms, blood soaking both of your clothes.
You blink and the fox is pouring a healing brew down your little(r) brother’s throat while your little brother frantically puts on bandages.
You blink and your little(r) brother is walking away, barely healed, saying he is going to make a deal. You don’t try to stop him and hold your other (2) brothers back.
You blink and your brothers are cheering because your little(r) brother has given his discs away for your freedom. And you look at him before you begin to cheer as well. Hopeful for the future.
(The Sky Gods are intrigued, their messiah has done some interesting things, and he is just setting himself up to be theirs’ again. Maybe if they just throw some new toys in it might just change things up).
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“She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.”
You are running for your life, your little(r) brother at your heel.
You made this election to reinforce your power but it went horrible. You brought the ram boy back but he changed since the last time you saw him in the tournaments. His smile is crueler and his suit seems unnaturally clean (it made your ears fill with sounds of bubbling lava and burning).
He and the damned lawyer won because they cheated and combined their votes which were totally illegal (it wasn’t). But, none of that is in your head as you run through the forest, holding your shoulder in order to stop the bleeding. You and your little(r) brother run through a forest after forest until eventually find yourselves leaning against a hillside. You both pant and just sit there in pure shock from what just happened.
You begin to hear crying next to you and you see your little(r) brother breaking down. You pull him into a hug and he just whimpers saying why did his twin going up on that stage? Why did that man (that devil) hate you two so much? What is going to happen? You just whisper to him and tell him that it will be okay.
You both sit there for a moment, calming down, and as you both get up, the rip-off part of your sleeve to wrap your shoulder up. You two then begin to create a small base for yourselves in the hillside, somewhere that you can rest up in and as you do, you find a large cavern that you mark as yours. But, you have no supplies. So, you decide to take a risk.
Your little(r) brother will run into dangerous territory in order to get some supplies while you will watch from the sidelines. You both trace your footsteps, being careful of any sound that you make. You stop at a hill that looks over your country. You see the walls that you spent weeks help building being torn down. You see your little bro-, sorry the fox, ripping them apart with a grin and you see your little brother standing next to the devil taking it all in.
You watch all this with a broken heart and a blank stare as you just mutter your country’s anthem to yourself as your little(r) brother returns.
You both return to your new base as you set up your new supplies, you hear a thud above you. You both look at each other before sneaking up and as you peek out, instead of an enemy, you just see a familiar long pink braid and red king’s robes. You watch your brother, your twin, sit up with a confused look on his face and you watch him get up then look you both in the faces before he runs to you two with a hug (you both slightly flinch).
You all just cry and stand there in a hug (2 missing, one hasn’t been seen and one has been trapped in the devil’s plan). Your twin steps back and looks at you two with a concerned look on his face at the state that you are both in. You take him into your new base and sit him down before explaining what has happened to him and by the end of the story, you can see protective anger flash in his eyes (it usually made you feel scared but safe but now it just makes you feel, well, nothing).
He nods and says that he is going to help you two. One because he loves rebellion and two because no one banishes two of his brother and then kidnaps the other one. He then reaches his arms out for a hug, unlike his usual behavior, and both you and your little(r) brother accept before putting your arms with a yell of hope and pride (but deep down, you know that this rebellion will fail, you have a sense of dread of what the devil can do).
(But, a voice in the back of my head says that they haven’t seen what the lord can do and I find myself grinning at that).
(Oh, no. He’s back).
(The Sky Gods are so happy, their messiah is gaining some of his strength, some of his spunk back. But, they are just repeating their previous mistake. No mortal was ever to supposed to have this spark inside them, it just breaks them).
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"What was it?" he said.
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.”
i am pissed.
i forgot about what i can do. i have this power and the damned gods decided that i didn’t deserve it, bastards. i don’t care about this little war anymore (it’s the fight for your family’s freedom, what are you doing?).
i just want destruction. this world is disgusting, i think it should be destroyed. natural wildfires happen so that can even healthier grass can be grown (but this isn’t natural, this is man-made).
i woke up just a couple days ago. i could tell that the devil knew i was here, i could sense his fear because even if the devil gave eve the apple, it was the lord who flooded the world to kill eve’s children as revenge (but the devil is no longer afraid, because both he and I know that there is still a scared little boy deep in your heart).
the masked man gave me all the explosives i could ever need. i will blow that place to the sky. I don’t care who gets caught in it, the traitor boy (your little brother), the foolish warrior (your twin), my arrogant right hand (your little(r) brother), the damned rodent (your new little brother, the fox), the crazy women (the kind baker), the fucking traitor bastard (the light, the king) and all of those other worthless mortals. maybe that damned angel will show (your dad). i will show them all what i can do (you can’t brag about your win to a corpse).
if i can’t have that damned country, no one can (you are so cold, when was the last time you were warm? Oh, you were warm with redwood trees, bumblebees, music discs, redstone, sunglasses and with your brothers in your arms).
i just want to see the sky rain ash for days and the grass be stained forever gray.
let that fucking place burn.
i look at the sky above with a wink and say with a knowing smile that i hope this can be wrapped up with a nice little bow before i turn on my heel and prepare for the wonderful day that is soon to come.
(The Sky Gods watch and then panic, oh no, they have created a monster, they thought he was insane before but now he has a motive and better control over his powers. They are for once afraid because he knows they are there and that if he tried, he could destroy them to).
"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."