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Martyn's arms tremble from non-stop exertion. His breaths come out in slow and long puffs of air, like something is squeezing his lungs from the inside. He drops his sword, having no use for it now that everyone was in the After. It's stained with red, glistening with fresh blood, as well as his ripped up clothes.
He breaths, unblinking. He doesn't have a need to blink anymore. He doesn't know why.
After a while of just staring off in the distance, standing on the ledge of the mountain a family once lived on, staring at the sun setting, he brings up a shaking hand and manually shuts his eyes. His shoulders hunch over, and soon he tumbles backwards, back landing harshly on the grass behind him.
He breathes, and he doesn't do anything else. He doesn't stare, he doesn't move, he doesn't pick up his sword once again.
In the After, thirteen souls float around the last remaining player, murmuring amongst themselves. They all knew what would happen next. What would have to happen next.
Souls of red hot fury, souls of solemn understanding, souls that don't care now that they're reunited with their lost halves.
Martyn's chest suddenly stops, stutters, and everyone notices. His eyes are still shut. His brows furrow, his fingers twitch. Everyone stops talking to look down curiously. One soul even braves enough to get as close as kneeling on the grass he can't feel right beside his head.
It almost looks like he's fighting an internal battle.
While half of the lost server wonders what's going on, the other half wonders why he hasn't died yet.
Then, everything stops. The sun in the distance, the moon creeping across the horizon. The trees rustling in the wind, the dust billowing across the warlands, the last player's time. The players shift closer to their companions, feeling unnerved, afraid, uneasy, even when they're already gone. One particular player hears.
(He listens.)
And oh-so suddenly, Martyn's eyes snap open. But he isn't Martyn anymore.
His eyes, previously red, are a bright, glowing, lime color. One might have thought that this was the prize of surviving the death game, to get their humanity back. To be freed from the shackles of time, to be granted unlimited for their woes and sacrifices. To be granted their eyes back, to be able to see for once, instead of being forced to hear. And one would be sorely mistaken.
Those weren't the eyes that one soul woke up to and scared every morning on their peaceful island in the ocean. Those weren't the eyes that a few souls saw every day in a past server, those weren't the eyes they saw when they lost all their time.
Martyn sits up slowly, emotionlessly, like a wind-up doll. Four players skid backwards, the sight being far too familiar for comfort. Then, a smile. It was empty. Fake.
He looks up, head lolling unnaturally, and makes eye contact with the soul floating just a few feet away from him. Everyone freezes, every bone chilling in their incorporeal bodies. He looks up and sees the Second, almost the First.
Then, his smile grows. Until his fangs were bared, his eyes were crinkled, until it stretched farther across his face than it ever should've.
(He heard every whisper, every murmur, every command in his friend's head. The one who could Hear listened to the bloodlust, the way he scrolled through his inventory as the other two tried to set up a fair game in a battle to the death, the way his eyes lingered on the bubbling lava for far too long. That wasn't his friend. Not his friend. Not towards the end. Not as something took over behind his mind.)
A finger raises to press against the host's lips. He can't speak, can't even utter a word. He isn't meant to watch, to see, to speak. He is only meant to listen. Everyone clamps their mouths shut and huddles closer to their dead companions.
His hand trembles as he brings it up.
He snaps his fingers.
Everything goes dark.
InTheLittleWood ran out of time!
(No one sees how his body loses the parasite, how his eyes roll to the back of his head, how he collapses as the last player alive, now dead. They'll be back, they all know they will, without any memory of the last, and with a couple more rules. This isn't the end of the game. They aren't finished with their food just yet.)