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Wilbur told him what his limbo looked like. A train station. One that he could never leave. People came and went on trains, but he could never leave.
Tommy said that his limbo was a black void, falling infinitely.
Mexican Dream never said what his was.
Schlatt never told Wilbur his limbo. He never told Tommy, or Mexican Dream, either.
But as he looked around the ruined and empty server of SMPLive, he began to think he should have.
Sometimes it wasn’t just this. Sometimes there were echoes of memories long forgotten, memories of people, places, events that he could never go back to. He would see another him, a younger, livelier him, acting out these scenes from another life with people he never got the chance to properly appreciate.
But now it was empty, and he wandered around the main town, remembering with bittersweet fondness everyone he had ever encountered.
His friends, all of them. He never appreciated them enough, and now he would never get the chance.
The shades of the past drifted into existence before him. He and Connor ran down the path, laughing their asses off at something Schlatt would remember with context in a bit. They looked so happy. Schlatt-the-younger led Connor out to a pair of pants that someone had built, and pointed at them just to laugh in Connor’s face about it. Connor looked mildly offended.
God, Schlatt was such a bastard. All his life, he was just a bitter, unappreciative asshole who never cared about anyone. Why could he only see that in death?
Why didn’t he ever appreciate people properly? He never accepted hugs, never said nice things, he just yelled at his friends and took advantage of their kindness. Why couldn’t he have realized sooner how much of an asshole he was? People were right to hate him.
Tears slipped down his face as he watched the past him shove Connor away when the man tried to give him a hug. That was fine. No one could see him, anyway. No one cared to. He watched as he laughed off Connor’s clear disappointment. Oh how he wished he could go back. Go back and lift that disappointment from his friend’s shoulders. He didn't deserve any of the people around him, much less Connor, who had been so loyal. He wished he could hug the echo, but as he stood to go try, it faded again.
God, no wonder everyone wanted him dead, he was a complete and utter asshole ! He hadn’t ever, not once in his life, stopped to make a real connection, real friendship, real anything with anyone. People had tried to befriend him, and he just let them wilt and wither behind him as he marched ever forward, hell-bent on greed.
Why was he learning more in his death than he had ever payed attention to in life?
If only he could go back, redo it all. He’d be better. He’d have to be. He really thinks he’d kill himself if he weren’t, send himself back here to learn some more, since he obviously hadn’t, then.
He hoped Wilbur and the other ungrateful dead learn as much as he did. They at least had a few redeeming qualities. What did he have? Echoes that shaded the way to the past, pushing down on him as he crumbled.
He didn’t deserve to come back, he decided. Everyone had wanted him dead for a reason. He understood that, now. He’d been selfish, greedy, manipulative, and ungrateful for what he had. He just couldn’t have been focused on anything else, he just had to have more.
He hopes he never comes back. He can spend eternity here, watching the ghosts of the past and making friendships he never had with imaginary people who will never get to see how much he’s changed.
He wants to leave, to come back, but for the sake of everyone he ever hurt, he hopes he never does.
More tears fall. He hopes they keep coming. He deserves it.
He deserves to feel the sting of loneliness after all the times he’s made others feel it, too.
Another shade, an echo, a memory, brushes past him, leaving chills that go up his spine.
“Did you feel that?” the echo of himself asked the memory of Connor. He remembers this, only barely.
“Feel what?”
“I dunno, like a chill up your spine. Like, it was cold for a second, now it isn’t.”
“Huh. No, I didn’t.”
“Mmm.”
“I heard a theory that that’s when you pass over your grave, or someone steps on your future grave!”
“Oh come on, that’s bullshit, Connor.”
“Just a theory,” Connor said. The echoes disappeared.
“Oh Connor. Why did you put up with me?” Schlatt asked to the open air. He sits down against a tree, hugging his knees to his chest. “Why did anyone?”
Schlatt watched forever, pleading in vain to unhearing ears to change his selfish ways, learn to appreciate people, but of course he can’t be heard.
He should have given up a long time ago.