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Martyn is intimately familiar with the way the adrenaline courses through his veins, ice hold and fiery hot at once. The thunder cracking through the sky above the Coral Isles leaves the smell of fire. Red blood fills the water around his and Scott’s home. The aftermath of Pearl’s death is silent except for the splashing of waves against the shore. Scott emerges and Martyn offers a hand to pull him onto the grass. The two sit there together, gasping for breath. Martyn can still feel where Pearl’s ax dented and scraped up his armor. If he lives to see the next dawn, he’ll be sore for certain.
“She almost got me.” Martyn chuckles weakly.
Scott smacks his arm, too weak from the chase to put any real effort into it, “Us and Impulse now. Whaddya want to do?”
“Mean Gills to the end, right? We take out Impulse, then may the best man win.”
Scott nods and they stand. Martyn wrings out his shirt to the best of his ability, rolling his shoulders. “May the best man win.” They start back in the direction they’d just watched Etho die in, under the unspoken assumption that Impulse would be nearby.
There’s a tense lack of their usual banter. Martyn knows he’s at a disadvantage. Scott has hours more time than he does, and he’s a better fighter. More than that, Scott has been his only ally since the beginning of the games. A friend, a rarity in the deathmatch. Martyn knew at some point it would have to come to this. He’d been hoping selfishly that someone else would finish his friend off, but Impulse isn’t likely to get four straight kills off. Not with whatever quickly dwindling time he has left. If Martyn wants to win (and he does), he’s going to have to take Scott out. That thought alone keeps the blood rushing to his ears. It’s a deathmatch. He’s seen more blood on the blade of his ax than he wants to acknowledge. He just isn’t ready for that blood to belong to the man he trusts with his life as they scale the hill to the Clocker’s wheat farm, already barren as a result of the family no longer able to tend it. They scale the tower, gills making the upstream swim easy.
Impulse is on the remains of the Bad Boy’s bread bridge, arrow already notched and aimed towards Scott. Martyn follows swiftly behind, Scott pulling his ax out as Martyn fires arrow after arrow from behind. As Scott’s ax hits a heavy blow to Impulse’s chestplate, Martyn’s arrow grazes his cheek. Blood runs red in the irrigation holes.
Adrenaline keeps his heart racing as he and Scott walk towards the hill where Impulse respawns, armor magically recrafted.
“What are you at, Impulse?” Scott asks, voice still slightly hoarse from the intense fight. Martyn’s barely flustered, having been out of the combat almost entirely.
“Hm?” Impulse looks up, forcing himself to stand. Martyn recognizes the grogginess of a man who’s just respawned. He’s familiar with it, the moment it takes to recollect yourself.
“How much time are you at?”
“Eight minutes.” That’s all it’s come down to, Impulse’s time running out. Martyn and Scott share a glance, allowing the immediate hostility to calm.
“Eight minutes.” Scott parrots.
Impulse sounds like he’s about to start sobbing, or burst into hysterical laughter. No one could blame him, with the helplessness of the whole situation. “Scott, I don’t understand.” Martyn and Scott turn to each other again as Impulse continues, stepping confidently towards Martyn, “Take it. Take it, then you take Scott down.” The offer is as tempting as water in a desert. Scott makes the choice so much easier.
“Why don’t we all just die, until we have less than an hour each? Then it’ll just be one death, one out.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it long enough for you two to die, and for me to kill you both.” Impulse laughs. It’s meant to lighten the mood but the wetness in his eyes says he’s already given up.
Martyn hands him his ax. It’s a gesture he makes on a whim, one that he never expected of himself. “Then let’s make this a fair fight. Take half an hour from me, at least.”
Impulse tests the weight of it. And then Martyn’s neck screams in pain for the briefest moment before everything is white and he’s on the floor a few feet from where he was before.
“My turn.” Scott says, spreading his arms wide. He joins Martyn on the ground.
“Whew, that feels a little better. Thank you, gentlemen.”
“No problem, feels wrong to win on time alone. Like Scott said, let’s make this fair.” He rubs the new scar along his neck. Impulse had moved so quickly. A reflection of the toll the game had taken on all of them.
Scott shuffles through his inventory, the holographic screen only visible to him for a moment before he holds a large bucket of lava. The warmth radiating from it almost makes it seem comforting.
“We get down to less than an hour each, then lay down our armor and weapons, and we decide this, yeah?” Martyn and Impulse both nod. Scott spills the lava on the ground, the grass lighting on fire for a moment before dying. They all die quickly. Impulse only needs to do so once, as does Martyn after giving his time to Impulse. After the two of them respawn, Scott has to burn himself again. It’s not fun to watch, and his heart pangs in sympathy.
“No shields, fists only.” Impulse confirms.
“Ah, jeez.” Martyn mutters to himself. “I… okay.”
As he watches Scott’s expression go from a grimace of pain to the blankness of death, Martyn realizes that he doesn’t have to accept the challenge. He watches Impulse and Scott carefully, reverently doff their armor, piece by piece, tuck swords and axes into their inventories.
Firey hot and ice cold.
He watches Scott’s eyes widen before he even has a chance to process what’s going on. The way the blade of his ax slices through his partner’s neck is identical to how Impulse took Martyn’s own life not ten minutes earlier.
“Nah, I don’t want to play this silly game.”
“Woah, woah, woah, woah!” Impulse shouts, turning fast enough to stumble over his own feet in his desperation to get away. “What, what?” He shouts, incredulously, as Martyn’s sword misses his shoulder by less than an inch.
“Come back here, Impulse!” Martyn crows. He lets the joy of the chase take over, the adrenaline pump through his veins. “I don’t care if you’re a Clocker, or a Bad Boy, or a Mean Gill or a Nosy Neighbor, none of these niceties, this is a death game for a REASON!”
His sword connects, running straight through Impulse’s back.
He pulls it out, and he has a single second to meet Impulse’s eyes.
He has only a split second to realize that he’s won. The thunder of Scott’s death echoing overhead, then Impulse’s.
Then Martyn is alone.
Not even the bodies remain.
The tick-tick-tock of his watch doesn’t stop. He looks down. His time is still dwindling. He may be the last person left, but death still comes for him, only now it is unavoidable and certain.
The sun is going down over the silence. Martyn’s never heard the place so quiet, only the water rumbling down the tower and the breeze rustling half-scorched trees. It’s too early for the hostile mobs to emerge from their caves, and passive animals have long since been restricted to farms. He walks home. From the shore, the sun setting casts the Coral Isles in a golden glow. Scott would have loved this, their gorgeous home silhouetted in the fading light. He returns to the wooden structure, running his hands over the burn scarred wood where the bed had been trapped, the muscle memory leading him away from the pufferfish-poisoned corners. In the back of his mind, he keeps expecting to hear a splash and then laughter from Scott popping up from the coral beneath their island. It never comes. He takes off his axe and sword, and fashions a little wooden pyramid, dropping a few lilacs from a chest in front, then his weapons.
On the wood, he etches, ‘In memory of Limited Life. May the players never be forgotten.’ He starts to etch Scott’s name at the top of the other side. It looks lonely, so he adds his own in the small space above it. Then Impulse’s below. Then Pearl’s. Then Etho’s, Grian’s. BigB’s, Cleo’s, Scar’s, Tango’s, Bdubs’s, Joel’s, Skizz’s, and finally, Jimmy’s. He knows the water will wash them away eventually, but some part of him hopes that somehow, some part of it, will stay. Will find them, remember, in whatever way they can, that they were here. They fought, and he won. Winning feels so small now, all he’s earned is loneliness and the memory of the people he killed. Even so, he wouldn’t trade it.
Martyn glances at his watch. The time is short now, just ten short minutes left before he joins the rest of them.
The moon shines above him. The Coral Isles bask in torchlight. Silvery waves splash along the shore, visible through the dark lines of bamboo.
He doesn’t regret it.
Tears fall heavily down his cheeks anyway.
For the first time since the beginning of the hellish deathmatch, Martyn allows himself to confront the reality that he’s going to die here. He’ll never respawn. Even winning hadn’t stopped the cycle of life and death. Just like everyone else, he was mortal. A few hours ago, it would have made him angry, he’d shatter their home for some way to express his hurt. All of his adrenaline had receded now, leaving him just… here. Sobbing.
Martyn hasn’t known loneliness. From the beginning, he had Scott. Had friends that crossed the lines of alliances, however temporary. It’s unforgiving in its nothingness.
The tick-tick-tock reminds him. He’s out of time.
Martyn decides to greet death with honesty, not sparing the thought to rub the tears off his cheeks, nor pick up his sword to fight. The final seconds tick on his wrist as he stands on the balcony of his home.
His vision goes dark.
His body crumples to the ground, then disappears.
For the first time, the server is silent.