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It’s been a month. Grian’s been counting the days. He’s been counting a lot of days really. Days since the world began. Days since Mumbo went to take a break. He’d been counting, and he wasn’t sure why. But it had been a month since the world began, and those glitches, those tiny, odd details were just… they’d gone, because they were fixed. Even then, there was the strangeness of everything.
Things happened. Back in the starter base, he’d noticed that not only had the Entity sprouted a tree but had also stolen most of his waterwheel. In the beginning, he could dismiss these as ‘early days’ faults, and live in ignorance to his obvious surrounding weirdness. With forty-nine days of the world existing, that couldn’t be the explanation anymore.
There were other things now. He’d been reassured that he was simply being paranoid by Stress, Pearl, Keralis, all of them. Everyone had said he was just missing Mumbo, or that living right next to Scar might be having weird side-effects on his mind. He just couldn’t trust them on that though. Especially since they themselves were making him nervous.
The other day, he’d been heading to where his new home was going to be. His bigger home. He’d flown over Zedaph’s base, and Zedaph did strange things, sometimes he did crazy things, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t evil. He was just as normal as the rest of them. And Grian had to admit that maybe he was looking for trouble. Yet, it was just supposed to be a quick look around, a tiny snoop to see what was going on with his neighbour. Upon seeing all the strung-up mobs, hanging, still alive, and the sounds in his head like they were begging for it all to stop, the fact he couldn’t come between them and their misery out of fear, he’d quickly decided to leave.
He wasn’t exactly sure what Zedaph had been doing, but he wasn’t willing to find out.
Zedaph wasn’t the only one though. Just a little before that, around the start of April, two ghasts from the Nether had been brought into the overworld. Doc had taken the blame, and though at first, they’d floated around as an endangered species, they’d now gone missing, and hadn’t been seen in the Hermitcraft skies for quite a bit. The usual people, the strangest things. Nobody would have killed them, and he was sure couldn’t have just vanished. Yet the fact that nobody had seen them was irking him.
He'd been having dreams as well. He could be doing anything, anywhere, and then he’d just space out, and wake up somewhere else, and there would be this voice, talking to him. He was always so calm when that voice started speaking. It was always familiar to him. When he woke up from these dreams, he’d be somewhere different, maybe building something, maybe fighting mobs, maybe mining, maybe collecting resources.
It was something about the Entity. It was why he was moving out to his new plot of land, to start his projects and hopefully get away from the thing for a while, but that wasn’t really working out. Because now he had another problem.
Last night, Bdubs hadn’t been online. In fact, he’d been the only one around at the time, so the nights could draw out. He’d been cutting down some trees; he had to clear the area for his build, and then he’d just… drifted. The voice had been talking to him, louder than ever before, in a language he didn’t understand. He’d stood there, in the darkness, and just listened too it rage at him. no overwhelming fear, no anger, no emotion as he listened to the voice growl, nothing but serene calmness, like the voice was just empty of the violence it resonated.
It had been a loud sound. The voice had shouted something, and then there was strong wind rushing over him, light hitting his eyes, and he was awake. Motion just seemed to burst around him, head ringing, wind whipping at his face like a train rushing past him, distant grunts and groans of mobs, the shrill calls of bats, hard stone between his feet and an ache in his muscles. He woke up with a pickaxe in hand, somewhere deep underground in a large cave, staring up at purple light, shifting purple light spewing with particles. It was like a portal, and yet different.
He'd fallen to the floor and screamed.
Nobody had come to find him. He’d been alone with this thing. He’d kept screaming until there wasn’t any air, and then he didn’t have the energy to keep going. He’d just knelt there, stricken, pickaxe still in his hands. At some point, he had knelt down, head against the cold stone beneath him, and heaved in the air. Then he’d risen again, risen to his feet, one leg at a time, reluctant and tired. He’d put the pickaxe back in his inventory. He’d taken off all his armour, his elytra. If anything were to attack him, he’d be vulnerable.
Slowly, he’d stepped closer to the colossal monster above him. His body hadn’t felt like his own. It’d been acting on its own accord in a way, bringing him further forward. Closer and closer until he’d been right in front of it.
His eyes hadn’t belonged to him. He couldn’t turn his head to look away, only forward. He looked further and further, deeper into the structure, and the further he looked, the more energy flooded out of him, until he was certain his eyes had reached the end of it, and he could see a shape, surrounded by those purple particles. Something had been in front of him.
The shape had turned slowly, and the wind was rushing over him again, his ears ringing. He’d been frozen in place, until the shadow’s head was locked in place, watching him. He’d felt sick, staring into those pitch-black eyes, watching this thing become completely still. And it had just grinned. It had grinned at him, not menacingly. Not really. Somehow, in its own wicked sense, it looked happy. Before the thought had processed in his mind, the thing had rushed forwards, forwards towards him, forwards with the charging wind.
Grian had woken up, heaving, staring back into the Rift, but it had been like glass. All he’d seen in it, when he woke up, was his reflection staring back. His heart had been racing, his head throbbing, his ears ringing. His reflection had suddenly melted, returning to a wavering, liquid-like purple light. Grian had felt sick to the stomach and had to do everything in his power not to fall down and pass out on the floor.
Now, back at his home, he was taking a break, trying to sort through everything he remembered. It wasn’t enough to settle him, and the shape charging forwards as if to try and escape the rift wasn’t helping ease his mind. Despite all this though, he was grateful that had been where he had woken up. Somehow things felt a little less dangerous, and he felt a little calmer. Somewhere, deep down, he knew the truth.
He had looked into the Rift, and the Rift had looked into him.