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Wearily blinking and rubbing the sleep from his eyes (he swears he’s more tired every time he dreams, these days), Lops squints through bleary eyes at the now-familiar place he’s in. Garish yellow walls, bright screens, uncomfortable booths… yeah, he’s in the Waffle House. Again. At this point, it’s normal for him to wake up there, since it’s a safe place to fall asleep - as much as he never wants to go back to that white void, he still needs to sleep sometimes.
What isn’t normal is that he has company.
Steam is peering through the door, and her face lights up when she sees him.
“Lops! It’s good to see you,” she says, and sits opposite him at the small booth. “I thought you might be here.”
“...Hey, Steam.” Lops mumbles. “What’s up?”
Steam smiles amicably, and replies, “Oh, you know. A lot. Nothing you should worry yourself with, of course. I figure you might be… going through enough right now.”
Lops lets out a wry laugh. “Yeah, now and for the last couple months.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Lops,” Steam says. She looks down at her hands, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. “Listen, Lops, I’ve been… thinking. I figure you have, but— have you tried to go to other servers while you’re here? Other worlds?”
Lops nods, and says, “Yeah, I have… it just sends me back to the void. Not like falling asleep here, though. It sort of… hurts.”
“I see… I, well. I’ve looked into server travel a bit, and frustratingly most of the answers are just… theories. But the predominant one is that, in order to travel between worlds, you have to cross through the Void. Like, void with a capital V. It seems to hold up under scrutiny, but I’m not super confident in the levels of proof… but, uh, I’m getting sidetracked.” She looks up after she says this, making eye contact with Lops.
“If we take the theory as truth, we can assume that the thing keeping you here has something to do with the Void. Maybe in the dream-like state you’re in, the Void can’t recognize you as a player? Or something along those lines.”
“I mean… maybe. If that’s the case, I might really be doomed. I’ve heard about the Void theories – there’s no way to cross worlds without going through it.”
Steam sighs, looking off to the side once again. “Maybe. But… well, I’m not sure if you’ve been told, but the server is set to reset pretty soon. I think it might help.”
Lops finally looks up, confused. “A reset? How would that help at all?”
“Well, most people aren’t able to be inside a server as it resets, right? It kicks all the players out to perform a full wipe. But, like I said…I don’t think it’d recognize you as a player.” Steam gets slightly more animated as she speaks, gesturing with her hands while trying to explain herself. “Either it would kick you out, forcibly pushing you through the capital-V Void, or you would survive through the reset, or… well. Something else. I’m not sure– like I said, there’s a frustratingly low amount of evidence and research on this sort of thing,” she says.
Lops rolls his eyes, groaning. “Oh, great, I get to be a test subject. What if it just shoves me back into the void, and I’m stuck there for good?”
“Well… that’s one of the worst case scenarios. There’s that chance, but there’s also the chance that you’ll never go back there again.” Steam reaches out towards Lops, grabbing his hands gently to rest them with hers on top of the table. ”There’s a chance you’ll be free.”
There’s a long pause. Lops looks down at the table, deep in thought, before he scowls slightly. “...Ugh. What will happen if this doesn’t work, then? If I’m stuck forever? This is the only place where I can enjoy myself. Talk to people, build things… do anything. What if it’s all taken away?”
Steam squeezes his hands in reassurance. “That’s a risk that you’ll have to decide if you want to take. I… promised you I would try to find a way out for you. I’m sticking to that promise. I’ve done some research, and this is the only proper lead I’ve found. It’s… I think it’s your best shot. Trust me.”
Lops stares at their intertwined hands. His face is unreadable, a slight mix between contemplation and a deep, sorrow-filled loneliness. “...Fine. When’s the server going to reset?”
Later, Lops sits in the Waffle House again, alone this time. Everyone had left earlier, waiting for the server to reset. They’d been talking about new mods or something? He hadn’t really been listening.
He has the feeling he isn’t going to see any of them again anyway.
But it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Even if he gets stuck between worlds or back in that damn white void, it would be worth it, trying to get out of this hellish loop.
Hopefully.
There’s a ping on his communicator, a final message.
<Server> good luck, Lops.
The world is crumbling a hundred blocks or so away, trees disappearing into the aether as the world prepares to implode into itself, making way for the next iteration. In any other context, it would’ve been beautiful.
Lops lets himself close his eyes, just for a second, before fixing his eyes on the horizon and feeling the game start to rip him away from the server.
Seconds later, the wave of destruction crashes down on the Waffle House, and Lops is gone.
Steam enters the server a little later, cautiously hopeful that her plan worked. The new world is similar to the old one - wild crops dot the landscape and there’s a towering mountain to her left - but that’s not what she’s interested in.
As more and more people join, she waits at spawn, hoping that Lops will appear. Maybe he was here right at the start and went to explore? Maybe?
Steam pulls up the player list on her communicator, and her heart sinks.
Lops isn’t there.
Somewhere else, on another world, Lops wakes up, the warm sun streaming onto his face and soft grass tickling the back of his neck.
Sitting up, taking in his surroundings, he realises:
He’s free.