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He has lived on this island for all of his life.
It’s vast. It takes him days, to cross the breadth of it - to circumnavigate the shore, map in hand, is a project of weeks. He charts all of it - the hidden, ruined temples in the jungle, the ancient pyramids that stand, lost and inscrutable, buried beneath desert sands.
It is a wide and wild place - but it has its borders. Ranboo knows them well. The water burns him - scours his skin and sends agony like fire down anything it touches. He doesn’t try to leave. The island is big enough.
Instead, he plays the game. He plays it well. Wood into stone into steel into diamond - Overworld into Nether into Stronghold into End.
The dragon speaks to him, before he kills her. She tells him he is loved.
The whole universe tells him that it loves him.
The universe is unspeakably, unimaginably vast.
And his island, for the first time? Feels small.
-----
He makes the boat carefully. It’s a sturdy little thing - solid oak, with a pair of steady, straight oars. He’s careful as he pushes off, inventory full of food and what supplies he can think he might need -
He’ll come back, one day, maybe, but he isn’t sure. He doesn’t leave anything he might want behind.
And then - there’s nothing to do but get carefully into his little boat, and start to row.
He has a compass, but he doesn’t navigate by it. He just - rows, straight off, into the horizon, scanning it for… anything. Land, or - he doesn’t know what else.
He rows for a day, and there is nothing. Night falls, and he rows on in the dark, scanning the low rim of the sea for the shadow of mountains against the stars, or an island -
- there is nothing.
The sun rises on a flat blue ocean, but Ranboo is not afraid.
It sets on that same blue.
It does not rise again. The moon sinks past the horizon and sets, and the sun does not appear at his back. There is only blue water below him, and his boat, and the stars.
-----
The water turns black, and for the first time, he is afraid. He debates turning back -
There is a current, at the edge of the world, as it turns out. All his rowing does nothing but delay the inevitable.
Ranboo falls, for a long, long time.
-----
He is not alone in the void.
He can - hardly see them, at first. The things that look at him - great shapes, coiling off into the black, so alien that instinct doesn’t even warn him to fear them until they turn their eyes on him and the thing that is Enderman in him revolts.
He tries to flee. It gets him nowhere.
The look in the eyes might be pity - he isn’t in any state to care.
Sharp talons wrap around his chest, and he is dragged through the coils of the universe, and plummets, alone, from a clear blue sky.
-----
He wakes up on a raft. The only thing he remembers is his name.
-----
It isn’t like dying, exactly.
He lives. He suffers. He starves. His throat grows impossibly dry. He collapses, drifting for an unknowable time, until the universe loves him enough to give him a second chance - and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth.
He lives again, and struggles, and falls asleep rocked by unknowable seas.
Sometimes, he has luck - he thinks it’s luck, anyways. Things wash close enough to his little mess of planks that he can grab them - and the magic of this strange ocean is not so alien that he can’t reach out to it, and access inventory, and craft. Even if the feeling of the power flowing through him is alien, he can manage that much, at least.
He lives, and struggles, and creates, and then the rains come, and he dies. Or the boat fractures under his feet, and he falls into the water and screams as he boils to death in his own skin and respawns in agony.
There is a creature in the water. It has never strayed close enough for him to see it, fully, but it is sleek and powerful and so very like the creatures that dragged him through the void. It will kill him, he knows on a heart-deep level. He is just too feeble for it to care about, yet.
He lives, and struggles, and dies in agony, over and over again.
Eventually, he stops struggling.
Eventually, he stops trying to live.
He respawns, and doesn’t rise. He lets the too-familiar headache set in, and the hunger in his gut rise up until all he wants is to eat anything - but he’s never found food in this world, anyways.
He lays there until he dies of thirst, and after a long time, respawns again.
And starves.
And again.
And starves.
Rain falls, and it blisters his skin. He dies, and at least it’s a novel death - something to break up the boredom of life and hunger and death.
He wishes it was boring, rather - that’s a lie. Every drawn-out death is fresh agony, every one just as raw as the last. He’s just grown numb to it.
He’s very nearly dead, when he hears the voices.
They’re distant - so, so far away - but coming closer. Someone shouts something, and Ranboo almost wants to shout back. He’s too weak -
But then the whole of his raft pitches, and he thinks it’s going to buckle -
There are warm arms around his waist. There is - someone is lifting him, painstakingly gentle, and for the first time since ever, he’s carried out of the parching sun.
“Shit,” a voice murmurs. “He’s really - go grab some coconuts, Lin -”
Someone shuffles through a chest - but he can’t think about that as he’s lowered into a crude - something? A hammock, instinctive knowledge offers up. It’s - safe, in the way that beds are -
He dies, again. Respawns, and someone shoves something against his lips and tips it, and something sweet and not-water floods his mouth. He sobs as he gulps it down, as fast as the - whoever - offers it.
There’s a cool cloth pressed to his forehead, and he whimpers as the water burns his skin, tries to twist away -
“Shit - shit -” the person holding it hisses, as they pull it back and see the searing blisters on his skin. “Towel -”
It hurts, as his skin is dabbed dry, but it’s better than the water.
“Here,” they say, and offer him more of the juice -
He drinks that, too, and a fond but worried hand pets his shoulder as he sinks back into sleep.
-----
The people that have rescued him are… strange.
Strange but kind, and endlessly patient with him - they’re desperately careful with him as he recovers, someone always hovering to help him sit up and offer him a drink or something to eat.
They ask questions, of course, but they don’t get angry when he tells them that he doesn’t have the answers they’re looking for. That he doesn’t remember -
Much of anything, really. He thinks he might’ve had a life, before the ocean, but he can’t remember -
But they laugh, and tell him that it’s okay. Tell him it’s okay even when it’s not his life but them he forgets - reintroduce themselves, as many times as he needs, even when they say their name and he turns away and forgets again.
They tell him - lots of things that he forgets. Some stick - how to use the hook-shaped tool to drag things onto the deck for them to pick through, still-dripping, how to gut and spit fish, how to fight the thing they call a shark when it ventures too close to the raft. Some vanish - but they never seem to tire of laying on the deck, telling him, over and over again, about the shapes that live in the stars.
He survives, for the first time, a storm - they catch him looking up at the black clouds on the horizon, and hustle him into a sheltered little room, and the pitch and rock of the ocean are terrible, shoving salt spray up through the floorboards to scour and singe wherever it touches him, but eventually the thunder fades and the bright flash-lines of lightning stop, and he’s alive.
Even if he hadn’t survived, he would have been okay, they tell him. He’s part of their crew, now. He won’t respawn alone again, adrift on a tiny raft -
That doesn’t stop it from haunting his nightmares, but they don’t blame him when he wakes up screaming, either. Someone - he’s not sure how they choose - curls up beside him, and holds him until he falls back asleep.
The nightmares don’t stop. Eventually, it makes more sense for him to just curl up besides someone every night - and they always welcome him. It’s - nice, falling asleep with a gentle hand brushing through his hair, and someone warm at his side, and the whole world rocking gently with the shifting of waves.
He’s been with them a month, when he spies the island.
He had forgotten about land.
That’s why they laugh, when he points it out - laugh, and gently remind him that there is a world out there that doesn’t shift, a world of steady soil and trees far vaster than their little raft can support, and grass, and flowers, and stone. They set their sails - and he helps, because knots are one of the things-that-stick - and turn the ship, and the waves fall away beneath them until, at last, the water is shallow enough for the raft to anchor.
Getting to shore is… trickier. It takes two of them to carry him through the surf, but they do it grinning, and he grins back, ignoring the little burns where their sloshing splashes water against his back.
He’s never seen anything as beautiful as the island.
He isn’t very useful, honestly. He’s too spell-struck by the bright green grass, and the soft, broad-leafed plants, and the trees. He finds a plant that’s too prickly to harvest, with a bright-orange fruit, and wanders back to the ship to find a knife as all around them the rest of the crew busy themselves - diving for scrap, gathering stone, chopping a few of the broadest trees for wood more sturdy than their ocean-foraged driftwood -
They smile, though, when he brings them back the fruit. Show him their own catch - the limp body of some kind of bird, and a pile of coconuts, and the cook shows him how to skin the bird and clean it - so unlike a fish, but their knives are sharp and it isn’t hard -
Coconut chicken, they call the dish, and it’s hot and wonderful and they eat it under the stars. And then they cut the thing he’s found - a pineapple - and it’s gold inside, and sticky-sweet, and they laugh when the juice drips down his fingers and he has to wipe them on his pants -
It’s good.
They sleep on the island, and there are sounds he’s never heard, before - wind-in-grass and leaves-blowing. And the raft’s creak is distant, but the waves still lap the shore -
The world isn’t rocking under him, though. He stares up at the stars, and they don’t roll overhead.
-----
They’re heading, they tell him as they shove off the next morning, for paradise.
They look at each other like they’re surprised he didn’t know. Like they’re surprised he didn’t ask - but it’s more than that, for them. A deeper knowledge, the reason they are - paradise is out there, and they exist to seek it.
He doesn’t tell them that the reason that he never asked is that he didn’t know there was anything else out there. That their world, for him, had seemed like nothing but the raft.
It seems so much vaster, now, as they tell him about the places they’ve been. A ship - the messages that they’ve been following. An island, far vaster than the little spur of rock he’s visited, inhabited by monstrous creatures - a city of wood and metal boxes, towering high above the water, but empty, all of its occupants gone.
It strikes him, as they show him their receiver, that the world isn’t empty, but they’re still… alone. He doesn’t say it - doesn’t want to say anything that might dim their smiles, as they show him the faint pulsing dot that might, at last, be paradise -
But he thinks it. It’s the rare thought that lasts long after he should have forgot.
-----
He’s as surprised as any of them, when they find it.
There’s - quiet, for a while, as they stare up at the perfect glass dome - the buildings, impossibly high, that tower over them.
They don’t try to go aboard - ashore? - the first day. Just - process, and make ready, and the whole crew are quiet in a way that they’ve never been before as they pack food and water and tools -
He doesn’t go with them, in the end. There’s no easy way aboard, for him, and - and something in his gut tells him that this isn’t his story -
They offer, though, and it makes his heart soar. When they finally manage to get the great doors open, and the inflatable bridge unfurls, they let up a great cheer, and wave him on, and a dozen hands reach out to haul him up the last few feet and welcome him to paradise.
-----
He spends weeks with them, exploring the city. Exploring their paradise - scaling the maze of stone towers, and learning to fight the metal horrors that occasionally wander out into the streets, and carving furrows in the green grass so that they can start gardens. It’s - wonderful.
It’s wrong.
He’s never felt it before, but - here, in the city, with soil under him, and stone all around him, he remembers. Nothing solid - the thoughts are flighting things, scattering as he turns to focus on them, but this isn’t his home.
It’s their home. They are his family, but -
But he tells them that, and they go quiet.
“We are,” someone agrees, and their name still slips from his grasp. “But - well, you’re obviously not -”
They falter, and someone else takes up the slack.
“You must have had a home, before,” they tell him. “When we found you, you had been alone for a long time, but - there must have been somewhere. You drifted -”
“I want to find it,” he admits, almost ashamed, because they have welcomed him and given him everything -
But they nod, like they understand, and maybe they do.
This, after all, is their paradise.
“You can take the raft,” someone suggests. “We can build another, if we need to -”
“I’ve got the motor running,” a hum of agreement. “With enough fuel -”
“It will be dangerous -” cautions a voice, wary. “If you don’t find something before your supplies run out -”
“I can fish,” he says. “I - you’ve taught me enough. I want to try -”
“You’ll always be welcome back,” they tell him. “Always.”
And he nods, and leans in when they reach for him and drag him into a hug -
“Thank you,” he whispers, and there’s laughter, all around him, as if saying they’ve done nothing at all.
-----
It’s still a week before he sets out.
They pack the ship with - everything, really. Review skills with him over and over until they’re burned into his brain - how to use the motor, how to clean it, how to navigate by the stars -
They write books for him. Rules. Instructions.
They write - memories. Goodbyes. For when he forgets.
They wrap them in oilcloth, and put them in a sealed chest, and he hugs them all, and cries, tears burning hot streams down his cheeks -
It’s been a long time since water burned him. The city is dry, and the pain is fresh, and it’s - fine. It’s a memory of them - something to remind him, until the scars heal -
He watches them until Tangaroa is a faint speck on the horizon. He watches them watch him -
And then he’s gone. There is ocean, all around him, flat and smooth and gently rocking -
He turns the rudder aimlessly - west, after the sinking sun - and lets the sails carry him, engine rumbling idly below.
Only the seabirds follow him, as he sails off into the dying light of dusk.
-----
He sails - forever, maybe. He fishes. He grows coconuts, and splits them, eats the flesh and drinks the juice.
He doesn’t bother with islands. He’s one man, on a raft built for seven - he has everything he needs.
He sails forever, escorted by the circling white gulls and the shadows of his crew, in every corner of the ship - the faint rock of an empty hammock, the condensers purifying water that he cannot drink and doesn’t need to bathe in, the warm laughter that echoes like a phantom when he forgets that they aren’t there -
He doesn’t remember their names. He forgets their faces, eventually, but not the shape of them - the space they filled and are absent from on the ship and in his heart.
He sails forever, and eventually, the world falls away beneath him.
The sea turns black. That’s the first warning he has, that perhaps he’s sailed too far - the sea turns glassy and pitch-black, only the edge of every wavelet curling to show that there is anything at all beneath him.
He isn’t afraid of it, though.
He isn’t afraid, when the black floods with stars.
Or when those stars stop reflecting the ones on the curved sky above them. He is - alone, on a sea of perfect black, wavelets receded into a glassy surface that seems to stretch on forever.
The sun sinks below the horizon, one day, and never rises.
He sails on through void.
Hunger is the first thing to lose its grip on him. Then thirst.
Time fades, and with it, exhaustion. He does not sleep.
He doesn’t know how long he sails. It’s a long, long time.
Then -
One day, there is water, again.
It’s - wrong. Different - too blue, too flat, too - wrong.
Hunger is a living thing in his gut, and - as he pulls the last little bits of fish from his chest, and debates fishing, again, the motor, the constant thrumming noise in his heart, fails.
So does everything else, to be fair.
The raft, around him, starts to splinter -
And - he doesn’t know what to do -
He claws his way to the chest as his raft unravels underfoot. It - he needs it -
He latches onto it, as the world around him breaks, and clings to it with everything he has as he plunges into agony and the ocean below.
-----
“Oh, shit -” shouts a voice, so distant that he can hardly register it.
Hands shake his shoulder, and he’s in so much pain - everything hurts -
He sobs, and another voice barks “He’s a - enderman. Help me get him out of the water -”
He tries not to scream as he’s hauled across rough sand, and turned onto his back. “Shit - somebody get Dream -” the voice snaps, and a bottle full of something sweet is pressed to his lips -
His wounds knit. His flesh heals.
He feels the very world around him tremble, and -
>Who -<
He manages to crack his eyes open, and look up at the new speaker - and recoils with a shriek, until they tap their face with a rough clunk, and -
“Sh, sh,” the person at his side murmurs. “It’s just a mask -”
He tries to say something, but his throat is raw from screaming, and salt, and he barely manages a hiss.
>Who are you,< murmurs the mask, and kneels -
The hand that brushes across his forehead feels like static, and there’s silence, for a moment. A long, long moment -
Then >Oh,< they say, and he can hear the smile, in it. >He’s - a new player.<
The hand on his shoulder - his rescuer’s hand - tightens, just a hair. “Dream?”
>Welcome to DreamSMP,< rumbles the voice, and there’s lightning twineing in his chest, and Ranboo doesn’t know anything else as he sinks into unconsciousness.