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Sneeg doesn’t die. Not easily.
Maybe it’s the curse of a server he used to call home, and home, and home, and home, with each and every cataclysmic event that wiped it out. It’s not like he cares for the reason. He knows death on a personal level -- Death, specifically, because he’s ridden atop the wings of Her angel -- so of course, the inch boy comes back, again, again, again, again, again. He’s just built different, what can he say?
Staring into the eye of the watcher, he thinks nothing of this. His team was robbed. They spent the entire day gathering materials for the stupid egg event, the egg glitched out of the spot it was supposed to be in, and they gave it their all -- and still, it wasn’t enough. It’s purgatory, yeah, maybe capital-p Purgatory, but-- fuck, man.
“Welcome, Team Crabs leader. I would greet you with pleasantries, but I’d rather not waste my time.”
“You can take your pleasantries and shove them up your ass,” Sneeg snarls, thrashing against the chains pinning his arms behind his back. Behind him, his team is comatose, but standing. Jack, Axo, Duxo, Condi, Natalan -- all still, wavering on their feet, mindless. Zombies marching to their death.
The watcher doesn’t even blink. Sneeg wishes he could stab the fucker in its giant fucking eyeball.
“Are those your last words, Sneegsnag?”
He scoffs. The room shines with quartz and blackstone like some official building, the watcher’s incomprehensibly dark form standing before a closed vault door. Sneeg can’t recognize any ounce of it, especially with the lack of windows, but he knows there was a long hallway his team walked down before they ended up here. Surely, that had to lead somewhere. If he could just escape… “You gonna mark them on my fuckin’ gravestone? I got better words if that’s the case.”
Tendrils wave in the air around the watcher, shadowed and sharp, fading into a thick cloud of smoke. “Sinners do not deserve to be remembered,” it hisses, vitriolic, “but I quite enjoy watching you try to plead for your life, or your teammates’ lives. What will it be, Sneegsnag?”
Good lord, this guy is obnoxious. Antennae twitching, Sneeg rolls his shoulders -- clang goes the metal around his limbs -- and braces against his restraints one last time. No escape for him. The metal is dark, like tar, weighing all of them down to the ground. It wants him to beg for his life? Funny.
“You want my last words? Here, I’ll give you better ones. Mark these down yourself, bitch, if you even care: peepee poopoo motherfuck--”
His body seizes, sudden, out of his control, no longer belonging to him.
“You think you’re funny,” the watcher observes -- yeah, I sure hope it does -- with a squint in its eye. Sneeg’s face is frozen, but he’s baring his teeth in a grin, you bet your ass I’m funny, motherfucker. “Do you really not care for your team? Losing on the second day of your arrival -- you must not. How selfish.”
Keep yapping. Every inch of his body is petrified, stiff like he’s been encased in amber. That’s how he woke up here in this dank room; this is really how he leaves it? Talk about boring. There’s no point in taking over the body of a man that can’t even escape.
“You are confident for somebody that is about to be dissolved. Arrogance will get you nowhere, Sneegsnag. Prepare to join the axolotls in the pits of hell where you rightfully belong.”
Yeah, fuckin’ right-- wait, did it just say dissolve?
The vault door jolts with a sudden click. The earth shakes as the quartz blocks are dragged down, down, down. A sickly yellow vapor begins to spill into the room.
The room before him glows. Unnatural, vivid, neon yellow-green light spills into his vision and halos the watcher in a twisted version of holiness. The shadows in its form sharpen into daggers, edges, wings where there shouldn’t be, warped mockeries of flesh charred black, the pupil of its eye beginning to burn like the sun. Black spins, spins, spins hypnotically, until it splits into three parts, three rectangles orbiting a speck in the center while the iris is contaminated with yellow.
The radiation symbol looms over Sneeg.
Oh.
Fuck.
Honestly, he should’ve expected this. He… really should’ve expected this. Fuck, okay. He’s survived intense natural disasters before. He can… can he survive this?
There’s no fucking way.
The door finally reaches the ground and the shaking of the earth finally stops. He looks into the light of a million stars branding his retinas as it oozes across the floor like lava, eternally yellow, molten rock and uranium, the heat ricocheting into the room so pungent with chemicals Sneeg thinks his skin will melt where he stands. It scorches the tendrils of the watcher as it shuffles out of Sneeg’s way.
His lungs expand and contract with forced breaths he has to take to live, no matter how badly he wants to cover his mouth and block the fumes that burn his insides, wants to turn in the opposite direction away from this stupid room, wants to fly away, leave, get out, run--
The watcher glued his elytra shut for a reason. This motherfucker. His mind screams, but he can’t open his mouth. He can’t open his elytra. He can’t run. He can’t even move-- move toward it, even, because it’s--
It’s so… bright.
“Say goodbye to your pathetic lives, Team Crabs.”
Like a moth to the flame, Sneeg’s body marches toward the light.
Behind him, his fellow teammate follow. They aren’t even awake to know what will happen to them. Are all leaders treated like this? Forced to watch their own deaths? Their teams’ deaths? How fucked is this?
His antennae shrivel. The living sun creeps closer, closer, closer-- his feet leading him to the molten lava, tainted with chemicals, what the fuck even, man. Now is a really bad time to wonder if radiation fucks with player data. Sneeg can’t die. Not easily. Not like this. (Does it? Tubbo would know, but--)
A small voice in the back of his mind wonders. Is this where Phil ended up?
Hah. Small.
The world burns.
The smell-- the agony-- the heat-- it’s too much, all at once, but it doesn’t stop. Skin splits. Peels. Melts away from muscle. Bone. Data spills. Over, over, over. He’s dying. He respawns, and dies, and respawns, and dies, and dies, and dies, and dies, and
it hurts
the light, why does it
it hurts him, its melting, its blinding, he’s going to
too much
make it stop
I can’t die
stop
he was
I was so close
please make it stop, why is it hurting me
too bright, the sun, the light, why why why
no more, please, please please
I can’t die.
not like this, it hurts but I have to
for
stop, stop, stop, stop, stop
can’t fly away
can’t run
the light
it is not the moon its the sun it burns it consumes it watches
I can’t die.
“It appears you have reached… an end. Will you persist?”
who is
I have to
I can’t die
I have to find
“--Sneeg! Thank goodness I found you! What the hell are you doing here? Of all the places-- I am so sorry we have to meet like this.”
make it stop, please, I can’t
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I will. You’ve suffered enough. You’re still looking for him, aren’t you? You’re close. Keep looking, okay? I promise.”
A hand breaks free of the encompassing light.
Claws land on smooth quartz and scramble for purchase -- the block crunches under the force. Shards of white burst around sickly gray hands sharpened into talons, crumbling and dissolving into the pool of light. With a grip secured, a body emerges from the surface.
Sludge clings to drooping skin as it mends itself back together. Antennae hang low, heavy, sizzling as his body tries to die, but something won’t let it. Eyelids pry open from eyelashes glued shut, yellow-tinged eyes peering hazily at white, white, white, bright, get out no more no no no leave--
The quartz is cold and he is burning, heat unbearable where it sits above his bones, persistent, still there, why? why is the world so hot but the ground ice? where is he? and something oozes from his jaws when he tries to breathe. It is in his lungs. It’s everywhere
the sun
it hurts
it burns
inside him, burning, a heat-death implosion, he is going to
Sneeg is alive.
he can’t
he
Hah. Hahah. That’s right. He’s alive. A laugh rumbles inside of him, caught in his throat, more ooze dripping onto the floor and dissolving holes into pristine quartz. He’s fucking alive. His wings ache to be free, but the world melts under his touch and he laughs.
He stands to his feet -- wobbles, wavers, no wings to balance him but he doesn’t care because he is standing when he should be dead. He should be-- something-- what, what wanted him dead, why is he here, where-- it wanted him dead, but here he is. His laugh gurgles in his throat. The floor hisses.
It doesn’t matter. He needs to leave. He needs to-- he--
He needs to leave this place.
The flames lick at his sewn-shut elytra and he trudges forward, away, no doors in sight but he will find a way out of here even if it kills him -- because it won’t. It’s too bright, his skin burns but won’t melt, won’t decay, and he needs to leave.
And.
He needs to…
Something is nearby. He was searching for something. He was… something is close, and he needs to… find it. Blocks break around him as he punches stone until more liquid oozes out of scraped fists. When he reaches the surface, the sun is out, and he feels his skin start to peel
he can’t die
He can’t die but he can’t-- it hurts no more please no no no-- a tree nearby is tall enough to shield him without the chemicals wafting from his flesh making the leaves disintegrate. A volcano looms behind him. Bright, something hisses, maybe his own voice if he could speak, too bright.
Find him, another something whispers, not his voice, not-- who-- where-- find?
He was searching for somebody. Was he? The sun is overhead and he can’t think, needs to leave, needs to hide, but-- what was he--
Shadows. Darkness. He can’t-- not with it looming above him, burning, watching, he needs-- no more, bright too bright hurts fly fly fly
away, he needs to run
but there is
where
who do I
not the stars, no sun, no more please, please
please
darkness? no
the, the space between
Sneeg’s wings strain against the elytra.
between the stars
the darkness
the void
Somebody was here. He was looking for somebody. He needs to find them. The sun burns underneath his skin and he needs to find-- somebody. He can’t die. He hasn’t yet. He doesn’t.
Sneeg will find him. Whatever it takes.