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A ghast shrieks in the distance. A snake of fear coils tightly around my heart, and it’s tongue lashes out through my chest in a split second flash of fear. I freeze, waiting to get shot at by its fireball, to burst in flames, to be gone as quick as the bat of an eye. To disappear in a burst of color, a painful blend of bright orange and yellow. To be removed from the world in an untimely death.
A minute passes. The nether is quiet again.
My body settles and the fear fades into numbness, leaving only that coiled snake of tension in my stomach that hasn’t disappeared completely since Tubbo said those words.
I have come to the decision that it is the best choice, the most logical decision, for Tommy to be– exiled. From L’Manburg.
God, I’m so tired. I’m tired of the snake of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can’t think or move. Tired of constant terror. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking the easy way out. Tired of the snakes that live inside my chest, flicking their tongues of misery in and out so I’ll always be caught off guard. Tired of the tight coils wrapping around my inside and squeezing out the hope.
I am not okay. I know that I’m not okay and that there are ways for me to be okay again, but I don’t know when. I don’t know if I’ll ever be presented with the chance to be okay. It won’t be worth it to be okay again anyway, because people will still hate me. I’ll always be the annoyance, the immature child, the high-adrenaline ‘hero’ searching for attention.
Everyone will be happier when I’m gone, anyway; I won’t be around to mess up L’Manburg or Tubbo’s future anymore, or bother Dream by having him visit me everyday, or remind Phil of everything he could have had with Wilbur.
I stare at the lava, and the lava ignores me like it ignores everyone. It ignores the people who fall in and die in its heat. It ignores the striders that live on its surface. It ignores the little boys who come here to die.
So many times I’ve looked at the lava and thought it might be nice to fall, to be warm, to have my hair flow around my face as gravity pulls me down farther and farther.
It’ll be okay, I tell myself.
I’m thinking about killing myself. Of course it won’t be okay.
I bury my head in my arms. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know, I don’t know, god, I’m so tired. I miss Tubbo, and L’Manburg where I don’t have to be sad and afraid, and Niki, and Ranboo, and hell, even Jack. I want to be there. I want to be with everyone.
I want to, but I can’t. I can’t leave. I can’t escape.
I want to be with Wilbur. I want to, and I can be, if I just fall. But will he be the same person? Will he be the Wilbur that he was when he died, when he blew up his own nation, when he smiled and saluted as all his hard work, everything he put so much love into, was destroyed by his own hands?
Or would he be the Wilbur he was before? The Wilbur that hugged me when I was scared and told me it would be okay? The Wilbur that ruffled my hair and told me to fuck off, even though he was smiling at me happily? The Wilbur that worked so hard for so many good things? The Wilbur that I loved?
God, I’m so tired. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know what’s going on in my brain, in L’Manburg, anywhere. I don’t know, and I never will. I’m here, in exile, and I’ll never leave. I’ll never be happy.
But maybe everyone else can be.
When I’m gone they don’t have to worry about me anymore, if they ever did. When I’m gone they won’t be mad anymore, because there will be no one to be mad at. When I’m gone, Dream won’t have to bother to check on me everyday, and he can live a peaceful life. When I’m gone, there will be no one more conflict, because it was all me searching for glory. When I’m gone, people can be happy. I can be happy.
When I’m gone I don’t have to deal with Dream’s bullshit anymore. I don’t have to cry alone in my tent wondering if anyone has ever felt the way I do. I don’t have to spend all day slaving for shit that’ll just get blown up right in front of me. I don’t have to pretend like I’m okay anymore. I don’t have to WANT to be ok. I don’t have to regret the past. I don’t have to fear the future. I don’t have to torment myself with memories and what I could have done. What I SHOULD have done.
I don’t have to be ok.
The words sent a thrill up my arms, and the snake’s tongue flicked out again. This time, it was a flash of electric triumph instead of fear.
I don’t have to be ok.
I smiled. It wasn’t a smile like any other I’d ever had upon my face. It wasn’t a smile of happiness or joy, or laughter or triumph. It was a smile of bittersweet longing, and it stuck there on my face. I felt like I was looking at myself in the third person. I could practically see myself, legs kicking back and forth in a lazy way, as if they were swinging through water. My eyes were blank and glazed over, like I wasn’t really looking at the lava but instead inside my own mind. They were half-closed and I looked like I would pass out any moment, but I knew I wouldn’t. I knew I was more awake than I ever was, even though I felt like I was trying to get through a swimming pool of honey.
I was almost tempted to laugh, but I didn’t want to ruin the silence. I never knew the nether was so quiet. Maybe it wasn’t; maybe the thoughts just took up so much space in my head they blocked out everything else.
I scoot farther forward. Just one more and I would be falling into the pool of magma beneath me. I stared at it, as I had been for the past… how long had it been? An hour? Two? A day?
I close my eyes. I almost fall asleep then and there, but I have a mission to do. The idea planted two days ago had been watered and nurtured carefully, and now the roots had taken hold. There was no turning back now.
I’m so tired. God, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m tired. I’m tired, and I’m ready. I’m ready for it all to be over.