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Wilbur couldn’t believe his shitty luck.
Of all the things that could have done him in, it had to be a creeper. A creeper! One of the most common monsters in the world, and one that would have been so easy to survive had he just used a shield. He didn’t even get to die in a dramatic blaze of glory; it was just one dull, tiny explosion, and he was dead.
See, if he’d been allowed to stay dead after giving his life up to revive Phil, he would have been fine with that. That was the kind of theatrical, epic, self-sacrificing death he deserved.
But no. He had died to the hands of a stray creeper.
How boring.
And now here he was, on a subway train with glaring red lights, rattling along the tracks in a tunnel to who-knows-where. He’d been on this train once before, just hours earlier during his attempt to give Tommy his life in exchange for Phil’s. His offer had been refused and he’d ended up being revived in the end, but now he had to go and waste his second chance at life by dying to a fucking creeper.
Last time, he’d been brought back before he’d been able to see where the train went or if it even went anywhere, but he got the feeling that wasn’t going to happen this time around. His second chance was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A chill swept through the train car and he pulled his aviator jacket tighter around him. Man, he really screwed this up for himself, didn’t he? It was only the second day on the server and he was already dead. At this rate, the whole server would be dead within the week.
He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling from the motion of the car. He wondered who was conducting the train.
He struggled his way to the front of the car and poked his head into the conductor’s compartment. His mouth fell open.
“Tommy? What are you doing here?”
Tommy glanced back from the controls for a moment. “Hmm? Oh, hey Wil.”
“Tommy, what the fuck are you doing driving a train?”
“I’m in charge of the deaths on this server, man. I’m the one who brought Phil back, remember? I’m just doing my job.”
Wilbur blinked. That made sense. “Oh, right.” He peered through the front window at the dark tunnel illuminated by the dim red headlights of the train. “So, where are you taking me?”
“Limbo.”
“Limbo?”
Tommy nodded. “Limbo.”
Wilbur turned to look at the train car, its glaring red lights the only source of light. “Limbo is a train car?”
“Train station, for you,” Tommy said. “It’s different for everyone. Mine is a void.”
“A void?”
“Yeah, I saw it. I was taking Charlie to his and thought I’d look around.”
“But weren’t you still online at that point? You told me you were talking to Jack when Charlie died. How could you be there and here at the same time?”
Tommy shrugged. “Dunno. Just was. Phil’s not quite in his yet, he’s waiting for someone else to take him there. I just dropped him off on the side of a road in the void. Death will come pick him up soon.”
Wilbur stared at Tommy, slightly baffled. This kid in a ratty red and white t-shirt and a tattered trench coat was more powerful than anyone else on that server, including Wilbur, and he’d given himself 64 spruce trapdoors by accident. Who knew what Tommy could do if he really tried to use his power to its full extent?
“Cool,” was all Wilbur could think of to say.
Tommy fiddled with the controls and they began to slow. “We’re here.”
The train screeched to a stop. Wilbur turned to the doors as they slowly slid open.
Beyond the doors was a train platform. Crimson lights poured down on the concrete, washing out every other colour and bathing everything in a red tinge. The whole place smelled musty, like it had been closed off from fresh air for decades.
Wilbur stepped into the station. The sound of his platform boots hitting the concrete echoed off the walls. The only other sound he could hear was the buzzing of the fluorescent lights above him.
“See you ‘round, Wil,” Tommy said. The doors slid shut, and the train rolled out of the station, leaving Wilbur alone on the platform.
He walked further away from the rails, every step loud as a gunshot in the silence. Cracked screens hung on the walls, some of them blank, others showing dates and times for the next trains meant to pass through. Most of the dates were unreadable through the cracks and glitches on the screens. A speaker for a PA system jutted out of the wall. It crackled as a woman’s voice said something about the next train, but it was too quiet and staticky to make out any of the words. The tunnel stretched off to either side, seemingly endless as it disappeared into darkness.
Wilbur heaved a great sigh. He was going to be stuck here for a while, wasn’t he? And all alone? Boring. It would have been better if he was with Phil or Charlie, at least.
A faint sound shocked him out of his thoughts. He squinted down the tunnel to his left, but the dim red lights made it impossible to see much of anything. He could have sworn he just heard someone quietly crying. Wasn’t he supposed to be here alone?
Still, he started down the tunnel in search of the source. It could have just been the faulty PA system, but he wanted to make sure. Besides, he had literally nothing else to do. It’s not like there was anything around to entertain him. Why couldn’t his limbo have been a music studio or a library?
As he walked, he tried to read some of the times on the screens he passed. None of them were comprehensible at all, which was a shame. He wanted to know if any other trains would pass through or if anyone else would end up here with him.
He’d only been walking for a minute or so when he saw it. On one of the benches sat a person, curled up with their knees to their chest. Their back was to Wilbur, but it wouldn’t have mattered whether they were facing him or not, because their face was buried in their arms. Their shoulders hitched, and a quiet sob escaped through the sleeves of their yellow sweater.
Wilbur strolled up to them and stopped at the bench. “Hello.”
The person jumped and fell right off the bench with a yelp. They scrambled on the floor to turn around and look at Wilbur, their beanie half hanging off their head, eyes overflowing with tears that steamed against their grey skin.
And... their face looked exactly like Wilbur’s.
Wilbur blinked. Bracing his hands on his knees, he leaned down to get a closer look. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
The other Wilbur sniffled and wiped at his tears. “Wh... are you—are you Alivebur?” he asked, his high, reedy voice echoing off the walls.
“Alivebur?” Wilbur snorted. “If anything, I’m Deadbur. Now who the fuck are you?”
The other Wilbur tugged his beanie back on. “I’m—I’m Ghostbur.”
“Ghostbur?” Wilbur repeated, confused. “So does that mean you’re my ghost or something? Where did you come from?”
“I was in the Dream SMP,” Ghostbur said. He paused to sniffle. “And—and everything was fine, and I was with Tommy, but then we went to the prison to visit Dream, and I had to leave Friend behind, and I... I died.”
“Dream SMP?” Wilbur muttered, confused. “What the hell is that? Is that some kind of place outside the border?”
Ghostbur scooted away from Wilbur, staring at him with wary confusion. “Are you not Alivebur?” he asked.
“No, I just said, I’m dead. Got blown up by a fucking creeper of all things.”
Ghostbur furrowed his brow. “So where are you from?”
“I don’t know what we called it. Free Trial SMP, 30 Days SMP, whatever. It’s a little hundred block area squared off with a border that we can see through but can’t get through, and there’s this big timer in the sky counting down from thirty days. No clue what was supposed to happen at the end of the month, but now I guess I’ll never find out.”
Ghostbur stated at him for a second. “Oh. I’m... I’m sorry you died.”
Wilbur shrugged. “It’s whatever.” He flopped down on the bench and stared out at the train tracks.
How long would he be here? He would hate to stay in this old, musty train station for the rest of his days. Would he eventually be moved somewhere else, or was this it for him? Would Tommy eventually join him when his time came, or could Tommy even die at all? And what on earth would happen to the others when the clock finally ran out?
He was shaken out of his thoughts when he felt a tug on his jacket. He looked down. Ghostbur still sat on the concrete, but he looked up at Wilbur through his steaming tears. He held up a deck of cards in a battered old pack that looked seconds away from falling apart.
“Want to play solitaire?” Ghostbur asked, his quiet voice shaking.
Wilbur turned back to the train tracks, then glanced up at one of the screens above him. It was hard to make out any numbers or words, but he got the feeling another train wouldn’t be arriving here for a very, very long time.
Wilbur slid off the bench and sat criss-cross on the concrete across from Ghostbur. “Deal me in.”