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Jack Manifold, a dutiful fighter, a member of a nation. A nation that didn’t even spare him a rank among them.
Manifold joined L’manburg when he was seventeen years old, not that their president cared much. Wilbur would pass him a bottle all the same, despite giving the other kids of their country glasses of fruit juice instead.
Jack had not fought before, never clad in more than an iron chest plate, never bearing the weight of anything more than a golden sword. He was not built for fighting either, he was scrawny and thin, not much muscle to any of his limbs. He was engineered with an emphatic voice and a passion that would drive any daring man away if he were only allowed to use his silver tongue.
Wilbur and Tommy did the speaking for him.
When Will bestowed his hybrid son to the members of L’manburg, Fundy was only seven. Niki quickly took up a role as a caretaker of the young boy, and the child followed her like a shadow, always just two steps behind her. Niki kept Fundy away from the politics, just as she kept herself at arms-length as well. So when L’manburg’s Consitution was written, Niki did not sign it. She didn’t show to hear it read. She and Fundy were off in her hillside bakery, making pastries and sweets in celebration of the nation’s newfound independence.
Jack was present.
But as the book and quill were passed around to each member of the cabinet, he was not offered to sign.
His name would go unmentioned in their history books.
Jack Manifold lost two of his lives for the people of L’manburg, and not but a thank you was spared for him.
He spent his eighteenth birthday alone, in a home outside of the country’s borders. He drank. And the vodka Wilbur loved so much was bitter, it burned his throat. It was eleven in the evening. Not one Happy Birthday.
He sat in his too-empty house, in a too-firm chair, drinking too-bitter alcohol, and he thought.
He thought about the foggy glances that served only to overpass him. He thought about the country that would never have his name in its history. He thought about the people who didn’t know him, the people he called friends. Most of all, he thought about his deaths.
The first time he died was sudden. The nether was dangerous, something everyone knew. But Jack wanted to be useful, he wanted to gather netherite and be noticed for helping in the war efforts. He wanted to be seen . No one saw him.
No one was there to see him pushed off of the edge of a cliff by a rogue hoglin. No one was there to hear his cries for help. No one was there to see the seventeen-year-old kid fall into the lava while trying to help his country. No one was there to see his final screams of agony as his flesh melted from his bones and the molten rock dragged him beneath its surface. No one was there to see the panicked gasping that caused fire to burn down his throat and scorch him from the inside out. No one saw him.
Jack Manifold tried to swim in lava.
His second death seemed to happen in slow motion. He fled the battlefield, heart pounding out of his chest and he swore he could hear the blood rushing through him. He winced as sand and dirt kicked up and flew into his eyes, blinding him for a moment. And a moment was enough. Enough for an arrow to latch in its string. Enough for it to hurriedly be drawn back. Enough for it to fly. Enough for it to land squarely in Jack’s side. In an instant, all he felt was a searing pain as the arrow sunk into his skin. And then he crumpled to the ground, gravel and scuffed dirt scorched his scratched palms and pressed into his forehead as his head met the Earth, curling in on himself. He clutched his abdomen and turned to his side, his breathing turned rapid and short, gasps of air that did nothing to satiate his thirst for clean oxygen. His eyesight turned blurry, and fulgent light engulfed his vision. His bones turned to lead, sinking into the ground and holding him there. He was tired. He was so damn tired.
His breaths shallowed, and the pounding in his ears began to slow. His fingers lost their grip around his stomach, and the tumult of the battleground faded around him. He died alone on the battlefront, fighting for a nation that didn’t care enough to realize that they had shot an ally.
Jack Manifold was shot by Tommyinnit.
From then time had passed blankly. Elections, lost and won. Countries, burned and rebuilt. And now Jack was taking a final swig of vodka as the bottle emptied, and the clock struck midnight on November 15th. His birthday had ended with no celebration, only a pity party to throw.
Jack Manifold died the next day.
His third was odd. He was alive, stood in the startled crowd of festival attendees. And then he wasn’t. This death came with no pain. The was simply a bright light, and then- nothing…
Nothing at all.
There was no light.
No dark.
No up nor down.
There was no space, no air, no anything. There was no Jack. And he knew there wasn’t.
He accepted it as fact.
Jack Manifold blew up.
Then, there was something.
There was up and down.
Not-Jack began to fall.
Slowly, a buzzing feeling returned to him, how strange. A tonous voice bore through the nothing, creating silence in its wake, “hello there Jacky boy!” The voice rang out in the nothingness, cutting through it and making something once again. There was dark and light now, there was up and down, there was noise and silence, it was no longer nothing.
The shrill voice returned, booming through Jack’s mind, “Jack Manifolddd~” it dragged out the last syllable, seeming to test how it felt to speak.
“Oh, wait-” the voice burst into a wheezy laugh, light and airy, “I forgot to give you a proper fuckin’ body!” The voice trailed off into breathy laughter again.
Then there was his body again, although the buzzing beneath his skin remained, and he could not feel himself, he had a body again. And it was falling.
He had lungs again, he could breathe, though he didn’t feel a need to. “You alright there Mr. Manifold?”
His voice shook without permission, and sounded more panicked than he was, “yup yup, perfectly fine!” He paused for a moment, feeling the way his tongue moved, or rather, not feeling. He couldn’t feel his own skin, his own face, his own self. “Who… who the hell are you?”
He could practically sense the smile in the thing’s voice when it spoke again, “Drista’s the name. Goddess of chaos and all that. I’m helping out Kristen today, she’s handling some of the other dead fools right now.”
“Am I dead?”
For a moment Drista stayed quiet, and true silence swept over Jack in the absence of her voice.
“...Yes.”
The world came crashing down at the word. Jack was dead. Truly and endlessly dead. He had only just turned eighteen, he couldn’t have died so soon.
Drista sighed and paused for a minute or two. Maybe more. Maybe she said nothing for hours. Who would Jack be to know for certain? He was dead.
He didn’t even know how.
“Tell you what Jacky boy, I’ll give you an ultimatum; You can stay dead, and I’ll bring you to your Limbo, and you’ll be revived when a reset comes around. Orr….” she clicked her tongue, “I can send you back, three new lives, but when you lose your third next time, you don’t go to a Limbo. You stay here, in the Folds of Time. And you don’t get to leave the Folds until you’re revived by a manner that isn’t a reset. Might have to give you a new arm though, yours kinda got got by a wither, so I can’t really get that back for ya.”
A static yellow form forged itself before Jack, adorned in golden robes that shimmered a spectrum of colors at their edges. The figure’s face was obscured by a white veil, embellished with a single eye and toothy grin sewn with more of that beautiful golden thread. Glossy blonde hair rested perfectly on its shoulders, accented by a plethora of bright dandelions weaved in. Two sets of dynamic and iridescent feathered wings extended from the thing’s lower back, clawed hooks extended from the bends in them, shimmering and buzzing with energy. A pair of horns in the same iridescent shades grew from the crown of the thing’s head, one taller than the other. It omitted a pale yellow light that bathed the surrounding nothing in light like no other, and the brilliance extended forever out into the void of infinity.
“ What do you think Jacky boy?” Drista boomed, and the voice came from the figure. It was jarring now, to hear the voice outside of his own head, and instead right in front of him.
“I think I want to go home.” He wavered, awkwardly chuckling at the end.
“Then it will be done!”
Drista clapped her divine hands, and in an instant, Jack was on his bed. In his home. With a copper arm, that didn’t belong to him.
He didn’t have a home to return to after that day. It was destroyed out of spite, maybe boredom.
The crater that remained of Manburg could never be his home, even with Tubbo leading.
He packed lightly. An iron sword, an empty book, a bottle of bitter vodka.
And he left.
He didn’t look back.
He wasn’t missed.
He wasn’t
seen
.