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His hands are the only thing that shows the hurt, face masked, when he holds her figure gently, stroking her curly hair.
“It’s okay.” He mutters. “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.”
He lies.
Her body goes limp in his arms.
***
You may not notice her at first, her short height and plain white hoodie only standing out so much in the flashy multi-colored flags of L’Manberg or rainbow flower fields of the greater Dream SMP. But in fact, if you, as a watcher, look a bit closer, pay just a little attention and you will find out the truth.
Her light, soundless footsteps make up in the amount, imprints of rain boots left in the mud, not grasped by the uncaring passerby, but just a nudge, just one look down, and you will see.
She is everywhere. She is everywhere and everything, the eyes of the looking and the silence of the listening.
They look like a child most of the time, but do not let your eyes and their appearance deceive you, they are nothing like one.
They walk the curved shadowy alleys no one ever does and they do not fear death, because it cannot get her.
A non-speaking ghost, she roams the world to come to a stop for one thing and for one thing only. To tilt her head just a bit, interested, when she sees a story. An important story, a complex story. One that leaves a message. Minds and hearts torn into pieces and corpses buried, of course, as always, but in the gruesomest ways you’ll ever imagine.
They don’t do it as much lately. They’ve grown tired of the predictability of people.
But roaming hurts. Not being able to make roots, to be known, to be seen.
So they still try. They do, again and again, but their trail is blank and grey and dies out time after time.
She puts her fingertips on the corners of her lips and pulls them up forcefully with all the force she can put in. They don’t budge, not even a single bit.
She covers her face at some point. What’s the point, they ask themselves. What is the point of their face if every so easy to read expression is left unseen?
What is the point of emotions then, anyway?
They draw a single line and two dots on the mask, black felt-tip pen smudgy on the edges but the curve itself perfectly even, artistic touch she acquired throughout her life seen in every motion of the hand.
Their steps freeze for a second, themselves out cold when they’re faced with an image of their old roots, buried deep within her memory to rot. She doesn’t want to believe it when she sees a white mask mirroring her own, corners of the mouth quirked up in fake happiness. He doesn’t notice her just like everyone else, and it feels like a slap to the face sometimes.
She has a shield though, a smooth shield of white plastic barricading her eyes. And while she has it, she is untouchable.
Tears fall down her cheeks the day she logs onto the SMP and nobody is there to stop her, to ban her, to banish the ever silent spirit of a person that once existed.
She is seen by gods sometimes, or people that claim the title.
The self-proclaimed Blood God does when he clutches his head and whispers in a loop stop stop stop, and she sits down beside him, weightless. She doesn’t talk so he can’t think of her as one of the voices that love to pick apart his mind into little pieces. She is there for someone, and she leaves a presence. It reminds them of the days they were able to freely breathe fresh air into their lungs and speak and smile.
She leaves him be because things like this never go right with her.
They find the maze of the other God’s mansion more fitting their theme, infinite and never ending, with the owner himself some days unable to escape the intricate structure. It’s web-like, drawing in foolish flies just to suck life out of them.
Isn’t it so easy for her.
She only so often goes out of her way to leave. There’s only one reason here for her to do so, and it’s to see someone by the lava falls in the middle of an even more unbreakable building.
She phases through the walls of obsidian, and they’re both grateful and hateful for the state they’re in because there is no one in this both magnificent and terrifying prison that could ever see her until the day they die. For the one that she didn’t know in another life, she wishes it would come soon. For the other, she feels like death would be mercy.
She stands in front of the broken person she once remembered to be very different, a sincere smile, no mask to shelter his face and soul.
They can’t be the one to talk, really, but it’s not like they’re able to.
And she watches as he coughs and chokes and whimpers, scars on scars on scars, not even the mask enough to hold the picture of him whole.
Her hands go through him when she tries to touch, to help, to relieve the pain.
They do, and it makes her heart ache.
Until they don’t.
And she doesn’t even bring up in her mind the hopeful idea for it just to shatter, she’s too used and she’s okay with it, she is. She knows what it means when someone can see her or feel, and she looks down on him sadly, putting together the image of him alive, grey hair and cracks in the matte mask.
For the last time.
***
Their hands are the only thing that shows the hurt, face masked, when they hold his figure gently, stroking his curly hair.
“It’s okay.” She mutters. “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.”
She tells the truth.
The world makes a perfect circle.