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Sleepless nights were no news to Xisuma. In fact, it has been an ongoing public secret for years on end, nearly a decade, even. Nights spent working on anything, from codes to builds, from a rare personal satisfaction tower to a more common community-based project for the other Hermits. He knew it wasn’t the best action health-wise. Heck, if he didn’t know, he sure would by now, being friends with Bdubs and all.
Oh, his screams still rang through Xisuma’s ears every single night.
“Hey! ” it would scream, adamant, insisting on having its presence known. You’re not working on your base anymore, you! Aha! A pillow! Go to sleep! ” And with a rather aggressive throw of a pillow and a pulling of Xisuma’s arms to his bedroom, all accompanied by a lisping voice, Bdubs sure left a mark on Xisuma’s memory.
But overworking wasn’t the reason Xisuma was up tonight. Honestly, he didn’t even plan on staying up late in the first place. There he was, amidst the pitch-black room, under the yellow covers — should’ve been orange and blue, really, but yellow’s seasonal and on-brand, at least — supposedly dozing off by now.
Xisuma’s always had a keen eye for detail. His senses were heightened, naturally more than the others, but even more so now in the dead of the night. Above him, the window twinkled, well — it wasn’t a twinkling light, truly — it was Keralis’s lighthouse beacon spinning around, creating a twinkle to Xisuma’s eye.
Occasionally, some odd noise ranging from music to explosions would catch him off-guard, but by now Xisuma had learned to conclude anything odd as Etho’s newest shenanigan.
Faintly, very faintly, he could hear Mumbo’s base’s heartbeat and a Wandering Trader rustling above the jungle leaves (they always appear in the least conventional places, dammit) and he could feel the ridiculous cold of his bedroom, which was a way of combatting the warm, humid nature of the biome at first, but now a strong contender for Impulse’s ice fortress.
The bees near his base buzzed and buzzed, in tune to similar buzzing noises created by his own helmet in its charging pod, accompanied by a ticking desk clock.
Sighing, he turned to his desk, very neatly organised as usual, not even a pin out of sight. Amidst the colour-coded arrangement of books stood a photo album larger than anything on the desk — no one uses albums anymore these days — compiling documentations of every single week he had spent on Hermitcraft, photos and journal excerpts alike, from Day One to this very second, all nine hundred ninety-nine pages of it.
Nearly another milestone, a big one of one thousand.
So, naturally, his brain racked through every single memory leading up to tonight, leaving him sleepless, wondering about what past Xisuma would react when he saw how different present him was.
He wondered when and where everything turned upside-down.
Ha, that’s a funny joke. He knew exactly how, where, and when everything changed.
Week one hundred thirty-three. Quite a substantial amount of duration since Day One. Xisuma felt at his peak back then, he remembered, as if the whole world really was his oyster and nothing could stop him from achieving everything — for even if he failed, the worst possible outcome is to merely patch every physical damage up with band-aid or cement, whichever physical object got the hit.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, tick, tick.
He still had an eye for achievements, to this very day. However, he could barely remember that feeling — that feeling where the world had nothing on yourself, nothing could stop you, no consequences would ever happen no matter what you do — so try everything.
That night, Genny sat him down and explained, rather bluntly, in-character of him , how they would be moving to an entirely new world in under a week.
An entirely new set of possibilities , Xisuma thought at the time. Brilliant! His brain started churning out ideas after ideas, technical and creative milestones to achieve, oh, new bucket lists of things to do, things to experience, everything...
Genny wouldn’t be joining.
And he put Xisuma in charge.
Present-day, still in the freezing, pitch-black bedroom, Xisuma kicked his duvet off in frustration.
Tick, tick, buzz.
He’s a self-assured person. Always had been. He liked using positive adjectives to describe himself — slightly similar to Ren and Bdubs, who radiate confidence with every syllable they spoke, yet Xisuma’s choice of adjectives were far different than those of his fellow Hermits — their perfect and gorgeous remarks contrasted Xisuma’s adaptable and responsible ones.
Wa s Xisuma even adaptable or responsible in the first place?
Or was it all a forced reaction to a sudden change of events, repressing everything that he truly was, changing not only his world upside-down, but also himself, and now it’s been so long, he couldn’t possibly reconnect with his old self even if he tried?
His mind wandered to the Hermits that had come and went throughout the years.
Spumwack, a rather interesting character with his snarky remarks and rare yet genuine smiles, who left after a few months in an attempt to finding out his purpose in life and what he wanted and needed. Or Etho, you’d be mad if you don’t know Etho, who, like Xisuma, had a rocky past and took the time necessary to heal from it, now returning better than ever on their seventh world. Or Biffa — he’d always had a soft spot for Biffa — Xisuma’s second-in-command in many, many ways, but unlike him, Biffa’s thirst for achievements didn’t fade one bit even after Genny left, and it was also the reason why he left in the first place — after six worlds ventured with Xisuma and everyone else, Biffa wanted to see more past Hermitcraft — so he did.
They all had a choice, they could come and go as they pleased, to fit their own necessities.
Did Xisuma?
Tick, tick, the clock that had been consistently making its presence known the past hour, due to ring at five in the morning— was it an alarm for Xisuma to wake up or to go sleep, it’s a worldwide mystery. Xisuma smiled slightly. Ticking clocks were calming for him — he knew Grian, for one, cannot stand it — he wouldn’t be able to sleep with a continuous noise around. Why did Xisuma know that? He didn’t know.
Buzz, buzz.
Right. This was getting ridiculous. The night changed people — depressing thoughts always seemed to appear around these hours, and all Xisuma needed to do in order to recompose himself was to sleep, Bdubs was right.
After all, Xisuma thought, slipping an arm below his pillow to feel the cold side, Hermitcraft was thriving, more than ever. And that was truly what’s most important for him, the one thing that ever truly mattered, was Hermitcraft’s longevity and the well-being of everyone involved.
But, oh dear, he missed being so care-free and ambitious with everything. He missed building things for the sake of it, murdering monsters just because, creating anything he’d ever wanted without the constant worry of the world he’s responsible for possibly burning to ashes from one mishap. He missed experiencing life as-is, taking in every element surrounding him with no other reason than the world and this life was beautiful.
Instead of constantly getting his day interrupted by alarms after alarms, reports after reports — Doc’s villagers were acting up, Tango’s ravager teleport device crashed, Bdubs, Scar, and Grian bullied each other, Mumbo’s creating tonnes upon tonnes of lag — with every minor inconvenience, Xisuma’s presence was expected.
Careful, that was another positive adjective he would use to describe himself. Ever so careful. From working around the diverse personalities, trying to keep everyone satisfied and content, to working with technicalities with the buzz of his helmet ringing in his ears for days on end after a troubleshooting session, he had to always be careful. Any wrong coding or an off verbal tone could led their world to fall to shambles.
That was irrational, he knew. But Xisuma had been forced to a leader position for years, without any proper guide to. His perspective wasn’t one of an average person’s, and his perfectionistic tendencies weren’t helping in the slightest.
He was not a leader, deep down he truly felt like it. He was not adaptable, or responsible, or careful. He wanted to create community portals with Biffa and throw snowballs at the Dragon and battle a dozen withers at once for the sake of it. He wanted to feel, to live, to get in tune with the child that he once was — but he never got the chance to, and he most likely never will.
Hermitcraft was at its peak.
But Xisuma hadn’t felt like himself for years on end.