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The first thing Grian sees is the blinding light of the desert sun, hot on his skin that would no doubt be pink when he would eventually retreat to the shade.
The first thing Grian hears is silence, nothing. The air around him is perfectly empty and for a moment Grian wonders if when he died, his friends were allowed to move on without him. It’s all quiet. At least, before his ears begin to ring and a gate opens with a chorus of desperate and confused wails that are led in by a merciless conductor.
Grian’s mind is quickly filled by the screeching cacophony of voices he can’t understand, but knows there are multiple, all overlapping like blankets on a bed in the dead of winter. His brain is rocked by all of these voices pushing and shoving, screaming and pleading, a horrible song of dread and fear, performed by a chorus of unseen but definitely heard ghosts. Grian can’t tell if these voices are voicing his thoughts or if him and them are just on the same page.
When Grian sits up and tries to get his bearings, he soon realizes where he is and why his head is so full.
Grian had won the game. He had been the last alive. Then he threw himself off of Pizza’s grave to be the finishing period for this dreadful story he had been a part of.
That much was right. Grian should be dead.
But looking at his hands, curling them up into fists and wiggling his fingers, Grian realized something had gone wrong.
Grian was still alive.
He checked his bracelet, which didn’t glow its familiar red with a single heart icon like it should. Instead, the bracelet shimmered gold with an infinity symbol.
That wasn’t a good sign.
Grian put two fingers to his neck to check for a pulse and there definitely was one.
Grian was still alive.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Grian had just come here because he saw the chunk of the Hermitcraft island missing and figured he’d check it out. There was just supposed to be some maintenance and then reattaching the chunk but… That hadn’t happened.
Grian looked around frantically, standing slowly and screaming Scar’s name.
Then Scott’s name.
Then Jimmy’s name.
Bdubs' name.
Joel’s name.
Ren.
Martyn.
Cleo.
Anyone.
Grian shouted for all the names he could remember, desperate wailing just like the voices in his head.
Grian took a step forward and failed to catch himself as his knee wobbled and he fell, kneeling in the sand of a place he had once called home.
Grian focused on the storm of voices in his mind, trying to pick any out to gather any semblance of an idea of what was going on.
The only voice that could be deciphered under the many layers was Scar’s as he told the others to calm down, that yelling wouldn’t get anyone anywhere.
From the corner of his eyes Grian could’ve sworn he saw Scar standing with Pizza’s lead, but when he looked over to get a better view there was nothing but sand. Grian had a bad feeling about this.
Everyone was dead aside from him. He was alive. He had won. Looking around at this empty desert something in his gut sank and weighed heavy at the bottom of his very being, the pure isolation with nothing but the disembodied voices of his friends and enemies in his head, the haunting and the grief of the traps he had made that had killed people, killed his friends .
Slowly standing back up, Grian decided he’d wander. It’s not like he had anything else to do.
How long had it been since Grian’s bracelet was made gold? How long since Grian had killed his friends? How long since the war? Grian had kept a tally at the beginning but now… He forgot. He forgot to count one day and figured if he’s invincible or immortal or… Whatever was happening to him right now, it wasn’t worth bothering with.
Grian only had so much space to wander given the borders, but he couldn’t stand the idea of wandering around the ruins of where people he had once cared for lived, laughed, and even loved. So he resolved himself to wander around the various forests that he could find. During his time Grian didn’t find much. Which meant he didn’t hear much. With nothing but him to tie the choir to Grian, very few members of it stayed with him. He couldn’t pick out voices, but Grian had a feeling it was the only people he truly considered friends during the game that had taken hold of all of them.
As the endless days passed on, Grian found himself wandering farther along the forest edge. He was still resolved to not go anywhere near the structures that marked the long-dead memories of his friends, but food was growing scarce in the depths of the forest. He would’ve just not eaten, since it appeared that he couldn’t die anyways, but the chorus always screamed when he tried to do so.
Sometimes on bad days, he had forgotten exactly where some structures lay. He was too tired to care and wandered farther than he ever had before. That’s when he saw it. To most, overgrown grass was nothing special at all. Just something to be cut down, or harvested to make builds look nicer.
Grian had stopped building a long time ago. The old blood on the blades of the grass didn’t help that sentiment much.
He had stumbled upon an unmarked grave, whose life had it claimed? Was it someone’s first life, a second? God forbid the last. He thought about how Bdubs had died by his hands in the fury of vengeance that had overtaken Grian. Did the grass stain with his blood as well?
Grian couldn’t even remember where he had taken his last breaths. Much less where others had lost their lives.
The grass was long and clumped together with blood that had long since dried and oxidized into a dark murky brown, not unlike the silt that had been stirred in that pond on the night the game ended and he was stranded. The memories of the night and the voices in his head and the grass bending in the gentle breeze all seemed to laugh at and mock him, not even the caring voices that laid under the others and did their best to keep him together could help him as Grian fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around himself, followed by shielding himself from the world with his wings.
Grian had been tired, exhausted even for a while now. But the sight of the unmarked and unknown grave sent him over the edge. It seemed to just sap all the life out of him within a matter of seconds, the same as the dirt had likely done with the rest of the blood from whoever this was. It all was too much and it made him woozy. Grian couldn’t handle it. Why had this happened to them? To him?
Grian desperately tried to push everything from his mind and hum. Hum a little nonsense tune to calm his nerves and his instincts and the primal fear that he would be next, that he too would be gotten and be nothing else left except a second sloth of dried blood on the grass.
Grian hummed various notes and various melodies of songs he could remember, the ones people had taught him, the ones he had learned himself, anything to calm down.
Instead, his body had finally had too much and simply gave out on him, leading Grian to remain passed out next to the unmarked grave. Hopefully, they were having a better nap than he was.
It had been only a few days since he passed out in the forest. Once he woke up, he knew he had to leave, the blood had sent him spiraling earlier and it would likely do so again if he stuck around.
So Grian left, mindlessly wandering, trying to remember what this chunk of Hermitcraft used to be. Clearly, nothing since chunks of islands don’t float off if they’re in use. It must not have been super explored either, since Grian couldn’t remember anyone mentioning anything about this place.
The corruption on this island went deep, that much was obvious. The lives system, the border, the way it made everyone’s memory fuzzy and drove them to kill. Something was deeply wrong with this island. Maybe Grian could figure something out to make it normal again. He vaguely remembered Mumbo talking about something like resetting islands. Maybe he could d-
Grian’s thoughts and body paused as he felt his shoe crunch the sand below it. He had come back. Just like a homing pigeon, Grian had found his way back to the red desert without even paying attention. Ironically, this place was the worst for him to be for long periods of time given how many memories it held.
Whimper.
What was that? What was whimpering? Grian and Scar didn’t have any pets other than Pizza and Pizza didn’t-
Oh, gods.
Ohhhhh gods.
Joel had dogs. They were still here.
Was everything left now permanent like him? Did everything else on this island stay rooted? Was Grian not technically alone thanks to these dogs, remnants of his friends?
Grian’s questions were answered when he saw a bunch of dogs laying on the hot sand not moving, eyes open. The smell hit him from where he was standing and made him gag. Only a few of the hollow memories of dogs turned to look at him and even then they looked to be on death’s doorstep with tired, empty eyes and skin clinging to their bones. It hurt to look at them, his heart squeezing with pity, for the animals, alone in the hot sun with no food or water, but Grian knew it hurt more to be them, at least he didn’t need to eat. Grian believes him and the dogs had more than a couple things in common. He saw his own tiredness and pleading eyes in theirs. A fly buzzing past his ear brought Grian back to reality. Grian didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what he could do. The dogs were obviously beyond saving and he knew they wouldn’t listen to him, not to mention he didn’t know how to properly handle them, what was he supposed to do?
So Grian did what he was best at. Running. Running and leaving people, things, and animals behind. He ran from Sam, ran from The Watchers, ran from his friends, it was one of the only consistent things Grian could do.
So Grian left the dogs behind, the voices in his head yelling, shouting, screaming for him to go back.
Grian could hear Joel yelling for him to go back.
Grian felt his heart sink as he ducked back into the forest, desperate to get away from the sight he had just seen. Grian leaned against a tree once he figured he was far enough away and slowly sunk to the ground, hands over his ears, knees up to his chest. Like a child being told something, they didn’t want to hear. That’s all he was, wasn’t he? A big child? Wasn’t everyone a big child? Weren’t there things you never really grew out of?
Grian wished his friends were here. Grian would take going back to The Watchers over being alone like this.
Grian saw himself in those dogs. Tired, starving, dehydrated, overheated, alone.
The way they looked as if their skin and muscle had been vacuum sucked to their bones like clothes in a bag would stay on the back of his eyelids forever.
It wasn’t like he was getting much sleep anyway.
After… After… Some time, Grian didn’t know he wasn’t keeping track of how long it’d been the whole thing that happened in the desert and the grass before that still weighed heavily on his very soul . He was not having a good time, to say the least.
At the moment Grian was sitting in a clearing of the forest where there were fewer trees. Supposedly because the wood had been used for houses and tools, but it left an opening of the canopy where the sunlight would flitter down and softly lay on the grass and sit gently on the branches above.
Grian held his hand out to the sun and watched as the light softly kissed his skin and made his gold scars glitter and highlight his prize for winning. Grian didn’t want to be in this situation, but he wouldn’t wish for anyone else to be in his place. Grian is used to being alone. His friends’ whispers were more than he had before, and their concern was more than he had ever .
Speaking of said friends, he could hear a layered chorus of excitement when the ghosts realized where he was. Or at least what he was near.
Moved not by his own desire, but by his friend’s joy Grian found his way to a small clearing with missing livestock, dead and trampled crops but most importantly-
The entrance to Scott and Jimmy’s hobbit hole. Their home.
Grian felt something deep in his chest ache as out of the corner of his eyes, just beyond where he could really see he saw two men holding hands as they spun.
Grian could assume the two were happy for his own sake. He was always selfish, wasn’t he?
A pair of white rabbit ears briefly flickers in his mind before he shakes his head and walks into the cozy home Scott and Jimmy had made for themselves.
The hole is slightly cluttered, but not in a way where it’s hard to walk through. Instead, it’s cluttered in a way that makes it look lived in.
No matter how much the dust on everything says this place has been long abandoned.
Out of the corner of his eye, Grian can see Scott and Jimmy on the bed, holding each other with soft smiles.
The chorus of friends tells him to take shelter here for a bit. They’re at least right about it being more comfortable than the ground. To avoid his friend’s concern and to make them happy Grian decides he can spend at least a few nights here. Scot and Jimmy must have some spare supplies left behind. It wasn’t like they were using them.
Looking around the hobbit hole Grian made himself comfortable. Scott and Jimmy’s voices were at the forefront of his mind as he sat on the bed. This had been where they lived so of course, they’d want to tell him about the quirks of it or finally be able to be heard over all the other voices. They hadn’t been too involved in the fighting. Not like Grian and Scar had been.
With some food he found stored away, currently heating back up in the furnace, Grian took a deep breath and savored the warmth the hobbit hole still had even after being left alone for so long.
With the heat of the furnace, Grian tried to cool himself off by tugging his shirt, letting air flow under the sweater.
Why did everything feel so warm suddenly?
In the back of his mind, Grian could hear Scott and Jimmy laughing, enjoying each other’s company, Scar joining in now and then.
Grian held the neck of his sweater away from his own. Who cared if it got stretched out now? Grian just needed to feel like he wasn’t suffocating or boiling in his own flesh. He turned the furnace off, taking out the lukewarm food and setting it to the side. Grian absent-mindedly wondered if he was sick before remembering nothing about him changed so he likely wasn’t. Surely this would pass. This weird feeling would pass and Grian could finally rest in a nice cozy bed. This would pass, right?
Wrong. So wrong. Absolutely Incorrect Grian could not stay here he has to get out now he has to get out now now now now now now now NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW-
Grian ran out of the rabbit hole, tripping down the stairs, hand over his mouth as if he was about to puke. He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t even stay in the hobbit hole one night. Now Grian was on his hands and knees in the remnants of where Scott and Jimmy had farmed wheat, fighting desperately with his own lungs for air, tears running down his face like they were going to be late for something.
Grian didn’t get any rest that night, but it wasn’t like he got rest any other night either. It wasn’t like he needed it in the first place. Grian was just always fine. No mobs attacked him, he never grew hungry, nor thirsty, nor tired. Grian was stagnant.
And that’s what made being in the hobbit hole so awful.
He was stagnant, but alive and his friends were stagnant in the fact that they were dead .
Seeing Scott and Jimmy out of the corner of his eyes, embracing, comforting, reliving their cherished memories in their house- it was too much. It was too much for Grian.
Everything was too much for Grian.
He still felt like his sweater was suffocating him.
Currently, Grian was standing in front of what had once been the Crastle, that had once stood tall and proud and guarded, just like the people who had lived inside it. As of now it had caved in on itself, the roof, broken and crumbling, vines and moss starting to crawl up the sides of the Crastle.
The coffin Scar tried to sell Bdubs was still there, open and dulled with age and weather. The pillow and lining of the coffin are definitely filled with mildew and maybe even moldy, but it was still somehow comfy looking. Out of the corner of his eyes the crumbling walls of Dogwarts, torn down and worn by both people and weather looms, a reminder of what had happened and what he had done.
It was funny in a way that made his stomach churn that the world seemed to move on without him. The grass grew, vines scaled the houses that had once been filled with people and warmth that were now just hollow as him and Joel’s dogs, the wood used to accent the stone rotted, rain still poured, everything continued and grew.
Just not him.
Grian remained the same as the day the game ended.
Grian could see himself in the ruins of the Crastle. Just like how he saw himself in the eternally stained grass, the haunted eyes of the dogs he had abandoned, and the empty field where there had once been wheat at the rabbit hobbit hole.
Grian should’ve been stuck here by himself since the beginning. The island was clearly corrupted enough to split from Hermitcraft, it was his fault everything had happened. He was the first to step foot on the island which led to it, claiming him as its owner and it was his idea to stay and set up camp to see why the island was so corrupted. Grian did this to his friends, to himself.
“Supplies, Grian. You need food and weapons and a bed if you insist on staying in the woods.”
Right. Right, that’s what he came here for. Grian took a deep breath as he crossed the threshold of the moat and into the Crastle. The second his foot was in the doorway, he could feel eyes on him and whispers of his name. Presumably relieving the last time he was here.
Grian shook his head as if that would get rid of everything that’s happened and pushed past the ghosts and himself to look through the chests.
Going through everything here really felt like he was looting someone’s grave. In a way he was, wasn’t he?
Grian found a couple of abandoned weapons and took them for himself, going upstairs, he found a single piece of obsidian on the bubble elevator.
Grian could’ve sworn he felt the floor fall out from under him at the same time as his stomach collapsed in on itself and his head felt lighter.
Grian shakily put a hand to his stomach as he suddenly ran cold, a stark contrast from how he felt in the hobbit hole, trying to keep himself standing and awake. He couldn’t faint. Not again. The chorus would worry. His friends would worry. Even after everything he put them through. Grian tried to adjust his footing to be more sturdy but as he stared at the obsidian and felt the judgment from beyond and the concern of his friends he knew in the back of his mind a light breeze could knock him over.
As Grian fell to the floor, eyes falling shut and concern being the last thing he hears he can only help but wonder if it’s better or worse that it wasn’t the breeze that took him out.
Aimlessly wandering a server where blood stained grass likely meant an unmarked grave, age and plants wore away at structures he and his friends had built, remnants of a war that didn’t really matter crumbled, was a sharp pain at first. Grian knows why he spent those first days, maybe months, in the forest. His friends hadn’t been there. Nothing had been touched other than trees removed but the stumps of trees turned into tools and homes didn’t fill Grian’s gut and mind with a storm that could rival the worst of the worst.
Standing in front of Dogwarts however? That filled Grian with a fear he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The shiver of a feeling that Grian had both grown used to and knew deep down that he never would get used to danced a graceful waltz down his spine, the feeling of being watched.
Inside the walls Grian could hear Ren and Martyn. He could hear them laughing about everything that had happened. It was loud, joyful laughter, muffled by the veil of death instead of the proud walls they had built.
Grian’s eyes land on the crater from his failed yet still successful trap. The smoke of past pride flows through him, but the guilt of having killed his friends outweighs it. The haze of the game he had brought his friends into long since cleared from his eyes and nose, the smell of blood, making him queasy like it did before, rather than filling him with a bright and shining joy.
Grian takes careful and hesitant steps into Dogwarts, feeling the ghost of a hand on his back in a reassuring manner. After he steps through the gate his eyes are pulled, in a way that doesn’t feel like his own, to a pedestal.
Grian’s everlasting curiosity pushes him towards the pedestal, feeling the eyes of the chorus and more on his back, he sees the brown splatter and a small chip in the stone and his mind shoots back to the moment where Ren’s death message had appeared and his stomach starts to swirl like the ocean during a storm.
Grian doesn’t know why he feels guilty, just that he does. He sinks to his knees near the pedestal, a faint outline of the scene that the blood and chips in the stone had come from, playing before him like a movie. He wants to reach out and stop Martyn, and he does. His shaky hand reaches forward for the edge of Martyn’s shirt as a whisper falls from his mouth, unsure if he could muster anything louder. And just as Grian’s hand makes contact with Martyn’s figure both him and Ren disappear, blowing away like sand in the wind. Like the sand Grian can still feel in his hair, wings, clothes, even between his toes. He misses the sand. He can’t go back, he can’t bear it, and it makes his heart ache something dreadful.
Grian looks up and notices how almost everything is made of wood at the same time he notices the flint and steel in his pocket. He knows that it's a bad idea. The chorus sees the lighter and begins to scream. Grian rises to his feet and rolls his shoulders back. He can hear the chorus telling him to stop, put it away, he even feels a few try to grab it from him in vain. It’s too late. They can’t stop him.
As the chorus reaches its peak, the climax of their song, Grian gently sets the first flame on the bark of Dogwarts. The chorus rang loud in his ears yet the crackle of the flames was louder as he ran, destruction and flame in his wake, change in his wake. He’s tired of the static and stagnant and the screams and his own thoughts. The warmth of the flames makes him feel alive for the first time in who knows how long. They lick at his skin like excited dogs and his skin doesn’t change, doesn’t burn. It just stays the same, just as it always has and will. He doesn’t care. He spread his arms and wings, revealing in the flames as the chorus continues to yell, calling him a monster, saying it wasn’t necessary, telling him to grab water. He does nothing but stand and be consumed, the heat so unlike what he had felt before in the rabbit hole, this brought life when there was nothing. His tired voice rang out in laughs and screams as he watched the place of what had once been his enemy burn.
It almost feels like he’s in the game again, half expecting to turn and see Scar cheering for him as he burns Dogwarts, proving the two of them to be better. Ren and Martyn yells with smiles in their voices at the pair, desperately trying to put the fire out. Yet when he turns he sees no one, and reality hits him with the same force as his knees hitting the ground.
The fire eventually burns out, as does his previous spirit, running out of wood and leaving the ash and stone of what had once been with Grian at its center, on his knees as if in prayer. Grian had never been one to pray since on the off times he had, nothing ever listened, it’s not like something would listen now.
He unclasps his hands, unsure of when he had clasped them in the first place as the shouts of his friends rings in his ears. He screams back just as loud. None of them are there, they can’t stop him, they didn’t, there hasn’t been any change in so long, he’s tired of looking at it, tired of the memories, he’s just so. Tired.
Grian doesn’t realize he’s crying until he sniffles, wiping his eyes as leaves the now burnt ruins of Dogwarts, stumbling with exhaustion as he subconsciously finds where the sand meets the grass, a poor wall of cactus in front of him and lava behind it and it makes his heart ache worse.
Grian walks through the lava, trudging through like wading water with no care, wanting to go home until he remembers the crater where home once was. It hurts to look at the same way everything hurts. It reminds him of a prank gone wrong and a bond he had put full faith in even when he shouldn’t have.
His throat is sore as his feet drag through the sand to the bunker, past the moats that he still wishes had worked better, and to a bed. Grian feels his wrist being gently pulled as he walks towards it, kicking off his shoes and settling down into the cold sheets of the cold desert night.
It’s the best sleep he’s gotten in ages. In the gentle light of the morning his muscles ache and his throat burns every time he swallows, but he pushes it aside in favor of finally taking off his sweater as the heat of the desert he had grown so used to gently sinks back into his bones. He attempts to hum as he starts to clean, finding his voice failing him. He can’t name why it shakes him to his core but it does.
A cold arm around his shoulders makes him feel only a bit better. He can’t tell what Scar is saying, but he knows it’s him, his classic “please calm down” voice flowing over him like a river as he slowly stops shaking and breathing so heavily (When had that happened? Why doesn’t he remember?) The way Scar could make his voice so smooth and deep like a dark European chocolate was something that Grian and anyone really would find charming, but the avian moreso found it calming, especially in moments like this.
Grian sweeps the sand that had blown into the bunker out and into the lava as he slowly finds himself comfortable and at peace in the place where he had made and hidden a separate room in preparation to be betrayed, something that hadn’t even fully happened, as he taps on the broom handle to get the tune he craves so desperately to be able to hum out.
The bristles of the broom brush against something, causing a little click! When Grian looks at what made the sound he sees the lever he had installed, the trigger for the TNT he had planted out in the sand, the lever Scar had wanted to pull so badly. Grian’s chest aches as tears meet his eyes, making him tightly shut them, not wanting to look or cry.
Scar’s ghostly remnants of a voice can’t spare him this time as he sits on the bed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, desperate to force the tears to stay in his eyes. He doesn’t know why the lever hurts to look at so badly, he can only assume it’s because he misses Scar and everyone but he won’t lie and say he doesn’t miss Scar more. Grian had spent almost the entire time with him, caused his first death, helped him with traps, reached for him as he fell into that ravine, had gently taken the flowers from his hands that Scar had handed him in an attempt to keep him around despite his own morals keeping him there anyway.
Grian decides he’s done. He’s tired of crying and fainting and reminiscing and missing. He’s going to reset the server. Hopefully it’ll let him and everyone out of this game. He needs out.
Grian leaves the bunker, remembering reading somewhere that to reset a corrupted world you need to travel to a place that he couldn’t fully remember, but like everything else he would stubbornly push forward until he got it right.
That’s how Grian found himself in a cave in the center of the borders. There wasn’t a single thing in front of him, but instinctively knew he was in the right area. He opened his Eyes and refocused, Seeing the world itself. He pushed past his own limits to will the chunk that had become its own world to reset, a strain that was so utterly worth it. Hopefully his efforts would destroy the tainted world once and for all, tearing the corrupted code that had kept him and his friends bound there to shreds. With a little luck, Grian would be able to permanently make sure that such code would never be able to exist again.
The strain on his body, on his Eyes and Seeing it all becomes too much in only a few moments. The code is vicious, fighting for the right to exist against Grian’s onslaught against it. It’s too much even for his own abilities and he wonders, with a final push, whether his attempts truly are futile.
For Grian, there was only one way to find that out.
The first thing Grian sees after his attempt is the blinding light of a midday sun overhead. He hears the soft murmurs of his friends, and in his heart he knows he’s failed. He no longer hears the symphony, but despite that he can feel the wrongness of it all through the blades of grass under his fingers. He curls them a bit and squints at the sun as familiar figures loom above. Grian knows how wrong, everything truly is with this world, and the agony that surely will continue with his friends.
But, if he lets himself pretend that the world is genuinely normal, and that all is well. If he lets himself be so utterly selfish, he can allow a faint smile to find itself at home on his lips.