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Lizzie wakes to warmth and fur and the stench of bad breath. She wrinkles her nose, eyes scrunched closed, and reaches up to bat at the source of the smell. 

“Joel, you stink,” she grumbles. Her voice sounds strange, but then again, she has just woken up. Her hand brushes against something wet. She pulls a face. “Eww, did you just lick me?” She opens her eyes.

A shaggy-furred white dog stares back down at her.

She yelps, scrambling up, and the dog jumps off of her with a startled woof, spinning back around to face her. The two of them stare at each other for a long, long moment. Lizzie’s bedsheets are an unfamiliar white. She doesn’t recognise the interior of the base she’s in.

“What the…?”

Hm. Her voice sounds really strange, actually.

The dog snarls, hackles rising, taking a step towards her. Lizzie stumbles to her feet, nearly tripping over. When did her legs get so long? 

“Hey now!” she calls, raising her hands in surrender. “There’s no need for that! We can be civilised, can’t we? We can talk this—ow!”

The dog lunges at her, sinking its teeth into her hand. She winces as she feels the hearts tick down, knowing she won’t get them back. What a stupid game this is—who came up with that concept, huh?! Didn’t they know that she would get hurt? And attacked by strange feral dogs? 

She pulls her hand away from the dog, blood spattering across the floor, and dives for the windows, the only exit she can see.

She doesn’t realise until it’s too late that the base she’s in is a tower.

Lizzie surges forward into empty air and plunges to her death a hundred blocks below.

“Pearl!” cries an offended, familiar voice. 

Lizzie blinks. “Scott?”

“What were you doing?” Scott’s not quite scowling—he seems angry, but more than that, he seems baffled. Like he’s not sure what’s going on. Lizzie isn’t sure what’s going on, either. “I know you can do better than this!”

“It’s not my fault!” she cries. “How I was I supposed to know I was in a bloody tower, or that I’d be attacked by a feral dog, or—hang on. What did you just call me?”

He blinks at her. “Your name?”

“Which is…”

“Pearl?” He squints at her. “Are you feeling alright?”

Lizzie glances down. The hair falling over her shoulders is blonde-brown, and she’s wearing a red hoodie and blue shorts. Her legs are far longer than her own have ever been, and she’d know those knees anywhere.

Though, how exactly she’s ended up being Pearl, again, she’s not entirely sure.

“Uhhh…” She blinks. “Yes. No. I mean, I’m fine. Don’t talk to me.”

She turns around and begins to march away into the unfamiliar server. She doesn’t know where she’s going, exactly, but away from Scott seems like a good start.

“Okay…?” Scott says, then barks a disbelieving laugh. After her, he calls, “Don’t die again! It’s my life too, you know!”

“I don’t know what that means!” Lizzie yells over her shoulder, and disappears behind a hill.

Pearl wakes, cold, and frowns, blinking open her eyes as she pushes herself up from the pillow. Her base is still mostly dark, the faintest hints of pre-dawn light filtering in through the windows, the orange glow of torchlight keeping the mobs at bay. Tilly is curled up on the ground at the base of her bed, watching her with reproachful eyes.

“Tilly? Tilly, baby, what’s wrong?” she calls, and the dog seems to perk up, tail beginning to wag. She lets out a yap and dives onto Pearl, slobbering all over her as she licks at her cheeks, and Pearl laughs, digging her fingers into her fur. “Hi, girl, hi! What’s gotten into you, huh?”

Tilly finally sits back on her haunches, and Pearl takes the opportunity to stretch and check the hearts on her wrist.

The. Uh. The ten yellow hearts on her wrist.

“Huh?!”

“Scott!” Pearl calls, a little after dawn, sunlight casting the ravine in a golden glow and deep blue shadows. “Scott, we need to talk!”

There’s a groan from within Scott’s house, and she waits impatiently for a few minutes, shifting her weight from foot to foot until he opens the door. There are shadows beneath his (yellow) eyes and a scowl on his face. He hasn’t done his hair yet.

“What do you want?” he asks, sounding completely and utterly done.

Pearl tries not to let it sting. Instead, she crosses her arms over her chest, and demands, “Why are we yellow, huh?” 

He stares at her blankly. Then, “You don’t remember…?”

“Remember?” She blinks. “Remember what?”

“Yesterday.” She stares at him. “You died?” 

“I what?!”

“Yeah. You fell out of your base.” He frowns at her. “Are you okay, Pearl? You’ve been acting really strange lately. Like, stranger than usual. You were already very strange.”

Pearl opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish. “I… died,” she echoes blankly.

“Yes!” Scott laughs, baffled. “Do you seriously not remember? Pearl?”

“I…” She takes a step back. “No, no, I totally—definitely remember now. Jogged my memory. Thanks, Scott. I should be going now, since you don’t want me and all, wouldn’t want to ruin your day—”

She turns and runs. Scott calls after her. She doesn’t turn back. Her head spins. 

How does she not remember dying? 

“Do do, do do, do do do…”

“Uh. What’s that?”

“Hello?”

“Hi!”

“Pearl?”

“Hi, Jimmy!” Pearl grins down at him from her perch in the tree overlooking the half-rebuilt ranch. 

Jimmy looked tired. “I thought I told you to get out of here, Pearl!”

Pearl blinks. “Huh?” 

“Yeah!” Tango chimes in. “Go on, get out of here!”

“What did I do?”

Tango laughs, a little hysterically. Jimmy yells, “You know what you did!”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do!”

“No, I don’t!”

“Come on now, Pearl,” Tango says. “Don’t be pretending you don’t know what you said.”

“But I really don’t know!” A laugh bubbles up in Pearl’s throat, frustrated and hysterical. “Y’know, I wake up yellow, which is weird, and then Scott tells me that I died, when I don’t remember doing any such thing, and now you two are yelling at me about something I don’t remember saying!”

The two of them glance at each other, then back at her. Jimmy laughs, disbelieving. “Wait,” he says. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me you really don’t remember what happened yesterday?”

“I don’t have a clue!” Pearl waves her arms. “Last I remember, I was helpin’ you guys with your goats and then the ranch burned down!” 

“Dude,” Jimmy says, quieter, as if he thinks Pearl can’t hear him, “I think she might be serious.”

“If she’s serious, she’s crazy!” 

“Well, obviously she’s crazy! But—Pearl, you really don’t remember what you said to us yesterday?”

“No!” Pearl waves her arms in frustration. “If I remembered, I wouldn’t be sat here sayin’ I don’t remember, now, would I?”

Jimmy and Tango glance at each other again.

“Should we tell her?” Tango asks.

“I dunno…”

“I mean, what’s she gonna do? She’s only yellow. And she seems pretty confused.”

“I can hear you guys, you know,” she calls. 

They go suddenly quiet.

“You told us,” Jimmy says, “That we were, and I quote, losers, and that it sounded like we deserved to get our ranch burned down, and you’d never want to be friends with us.”

Pearl blinks. “Well, that doesn’t sound like something I would say.”

“You said it, though! You did! I heard it with my own ears! You heard it too, right, Tango?”

“Mm-hmm. You did say it, Pearl.”

Pearl—laughs. Stares at her hands. She thinks she’s shaking a little. “Well, I don’t remember!” she cries. “Can we just pretend it didn’t happen? I like you guys! I don’t think you’re losers, I don’t think the ranch deserved to burn—we can be friends, right? Surely?”

“Ehh, I dunno…”

“I don’t think so, Pearl,” Jimmy says, crossing his arms. “I think you’re a bit of a loose canon.”

“Oh, I see.” Pearl huffs, crossing her arms back. “Poor amnesiac girl’s too unreliable, too crazy, we can’t be friends with her! I see how it is.”

“Pearl—”

“No! You’ve said enough, thank you. Good day, sirs.” 

She jumps down from the tree, disappearing behind the wall. Her heart pounds in her chest. Tilly nuzzles at her knee with a cold nose, and Pearl runs her hand through soft white fur.

“Well, that went well,” Tango says, muffled by the stone.

“Speaking of going well—how’s the plan—?”

“Come on, Tilly, baby,” Pearl whispers, slinking away from the ranch. “Let’s go find answers somewhere else.”

“Ren—!”

“No! Begone with ye!” 

“I just wanna talk—”

“We have nothing to talk about! Witch!”

“Witch?! What’re you—”

“You came here and you caused death.” Ren stares at her through the yellow-tinted lenses of his sunglasses. “I told you, Pearl. There is something wicked within you, and until you are cleansed of that evil you are not welcome at Box.”

Pearl blinks. “I did what?”

“Don’t try to pretend! You brought that enderman here to my home and it killed me in mine own bedchambers. Such an act can never be forgiven!”

“I did?”

“I—yes? Wait, why do you sound genuinely confused?” Ren drops the act, blinking back at her. 

“I don’t remember any of this!” Pearl throws her arms up. “I swear, I woke up this morning yellow, and everyone keeps telling me about weird stuff I did, but I don’t remember any of it! What is this, everyone gaslight Pearl day? Because let me tell ya, it’s working!”

“Uhh…” Ren’s jaw, dropped, slowly closes, and he swallows. “Uh. Pearl. I was kind of being facetious, a little bit, just then, but—are you possessed?” 

“I—” Pearl’s words die on her tongue. Because she wants to say no, of course not, that’s ridiculous—but with everything that’s happened today, well. She can’t help but wonder. “Maybe?”

Ren pales. “Oh dear.”

“But—you can help me with that, right, Ren? You know all about this sort of stuff, so maybe—”

“Sorry, Pearl,” Ren says. “My days of dabbling in the occult are over. I think you should go now. Until this evil is cleansed—”

“But how am I meant to cleanse the evil if I don’t know what it is?” Pearl asks. 

Ren never gives her an answer.

“Well, that’s—hey, did you hear that?”

“It sounds like someone’s in the house.”

“What the—hey! Hey, whoever’s in there, get out of our house!” 

“Yeah! Go on!”

“Bunch of animals, I swear—” A door slams open, followed by a moment of silence. “Oh, hi, Pearl.”

Pearl, draped dramatically over the corner of Impulse and Bdubs’ couch, lets out a wordless wail and raises one hand in greeting.

“Uhh…” A quiet laugh. “Impulse. Impulse, what do we do?”

“Whatcha doing there, Pearl?” She hears footsteps, Impulse cautiously creeping closer to her, standing a fair distance away. 

“Moping,” she mumbles.

“Why are you moping in our house?”

“Because I’m confused!”

“I’ll say,” Bdubs mutters. “Don’t you have your own house for moping in?”

“I’m all alone and everyone’s being mean to me and I don’t remember dying and Ren says I’m possessed and I don’t wanna be possessed!” She glances up at the two of them through her hair. She can’t quite see their expressions, but she can make out their body language, confused and apprehensive. Prepared for a fight, but not sure if they should expect one. They won’t attack first, from the looks of things. Good.

“Sorry, Ren says you’re possessed?” Impulse asks.

“Yeah!” Pearl sits up and rubs at her eyes. “I don’t remember yesterday, like, at all! Apparently I killed him? I didn’t mean to do that!”

“And you’re sure you’re possessed?” 

“No,” Pearl admits. “But what other explanation is there?”

“Maybe you’re just crazy,” Bdubs offers.

“Bdubs!” Impulse admonishes.

“What? You gotta admit—she’s been a little crazy!”

“Just because you don’t like to give your soulmate a little tickle doesn’t mean I’m crazy, mate. Watch your mouth.”

Bdubs throws his arms up. “See!”

Pearl tenses, preparing to lunge. Bdubs sees her move, and does the same. The two of them stare at each other, tension stretched taut between them, a breath away from snapping.

“Okay, stop.” Impulse says, stepping between them with his hands out, and the tension breaks. Bdubs stands down. Pearl relaxes, just slightly. “Let’s just pretend, for a minute here, that Ren is right, and Pearl really is possessed.” 

“Okay,” Bdubs says doubtfully. “Let’s pretend, sure.”

“You’re a demon, right, Impulse? If I’m possessed, can you like, exorcise me? Make me better?”

“Uh…” Impulse looks away uncomfortably. “It doesn’t really… work like that? But, you know, I could help you talk to the demon, maybe! They could be friendly?” 

For the first time, she and Bdubs are united in their scepticism. “Uh, sure,” Pearl says. “Did you forget that we’re in a death game, mate?”

“Honey, I know that you’re a friendly demon, but this one—if it exists— did kill Ren.”

“I could kill Ren!” Impulse protests.

“And I would be very proud of you for it! But if this demon exists, I don’t think we can bank on it being as harmless as you.”

Impulse pouts. “Can’t we at least try it?” he whines. “I—honestly, I really don’t have any other ideas.”

“I’ll try it,” Pearl blurts. “I mean—what do I have to lose?” A sardonic laugh falls from her lips. 

“Pearl…”

She ignores him. “What do I need to do?”

Pearl wakes with a start.

She’s lying in a bed she doesn’t recognise. The sheets are pink and soft. She blinks, staring down at her hands, and they don’t look like her own. “What the…?”

She starts again. What’s wrong with her voice? Why does she sound so…

She gets out of bed, nearly tripping as she does so. Her legs are… short? What? She’s wearing a skirt. This is…

What is happening? 

There’s a sound, a strange rushing in her ears, and in her hands a scroll materialises from the air. She blinks down at it. “Uh, okay…?” she calls out to the air. “If this is how you’re communicating with me, demon, it’s a very strange dream!”

The text on the scroll is even stranger.

Yes man: You can not deny any request or question from another player. You must say yes.

Huh?

“Well, that seems unwise,” she says aloud. “I must, huh? What happens if I don’t?”

There’s no response. Whatever force had given her the scroll, it’s not about to give her answers.

She sighs and, with nothing better to do, steps outside.

The house she woke up in is made of pale pink wood, sitting on the yellowish grass of a savanna biome. She blinks at it. A modded server, then? That would almost explain the magically-appearing scroll, if not the purpose of it or the instruction within. 

There are more of those pink modded trees planted around the house, and a river running nearby, crops planted on its bank. The roof of the house is made of pumpkins, and there are more scattered about the ground. It’s cute. Certainly not Pearl’s building style, but it is adorable. She can’t help but smile to herself as she explores, wandering through the trees.

There are a few builds in the distance, rising over the crest of a hill where the savanna melts into plains and forest. She begins to walk in that direction, curious of who lives there, and if they can answer any of the multitude of questions she has right now. She’s so distracted by the red-and-white form of some kind of funfair-themed build that she almost doesn’t notice the people walking towards her.

“Who goes there?”

“Hello, Lizzie.”

Pearl blinks at Joel as he slows to a stop beside her. She glances around, craning her neck behind her. She can’t see Lizzie anywhere. What a weird thing to say. 

“What are you looking at?” Joel asks her, standing on his tiptoes and also peering around. It’s weird, actually; he’s about the same height as her now. She’s used to looking down on him.

“Where’s Lizzie?” Pearl asks. “I don’t see her.”

“Uh… You’re Lizzie?” Joel says, raising an eyebrow. “Is this your task? You know I’m yellow, right?”

“Task?” Pearl echoes. “What’s a task?”

“You know!” Joel says, sounding mildly exasperated. He reaches into his inventory and pulls out a scroll nearly identical to the one that had magically appeared in her hand earlier. “Your task?”

“Ohh, is that what that is? Interesting. And what is the point of one of these tasks?”

Joel stares at her, and then says, “Is your task to pretend you have amnesia?”

Pearl opens her mouth to deny it, then remembers the task she’d been given. You must say yes. She swallows her answer and instead says, “Yes.”

Joel’s jaw drops. “Wait, for real?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go!” He punches the air in celebration. “Ah, sorry babe, losing your task that early. Shame. Heck yeah!” Despite the apologies, Pearl doesn’t think he sounds that sorry. She also doesn’t particularly appreciate being called babe. 

And then she remembers the other part of the conversation.

“Wait, I’m Lizzie?!”

“Uh, yeah? You can drop the act now, you know. Your task’s over.”

“…Right,” Pearl says blankly. Then, noticing a second figure further up the hill, she asks, “What’s Grian doing up there? Why’s he so quiet?”

“Dunno,” Joel says with a furtive glance back. “He’s following me around. It’s really creepy.”

“I’m not creepy!” Grian protests, voice small. “I’m just trying to make some friends!” 

“Aww!” Pearl stares at him, her heart pounding in her chest, hearing the echo of her own voice in her ears. I’m just trying to make some friends!

“He’s got no friends,” Joel says.

“You’ve got no friends?” Pearl calls to Grian.

He sags. “Not yet, I mean, I’m sure I will…”

“I’ve got no friends,” she says, excitement surging in her, and she doesn’t even know if it’s true or not, if Lizzie has allies, but—

Pearl hasn’t got any friends. Here, just like at home, she’d woken up alone.

“Do you want to be friends?” she asks. 

There’s a moment of silence where both Joel and Grian blink at her in shock.

“Wait, you mean it?” Grian asks. “You wanna be friends?”

“Yeah!” Pearl nods intensely. “I mean you’re alone, I’m alone… let’s not be alone together!”

“I mean, if you’ll have me!” Grian grins at her, then lets out a squeal of excitement. “Joel, I’ve got friends!”

“I can… see that…” He frowns at her. “Lizzie, are you sure? He’s a bit…” 

“Yes,” Pearl says firmly, and she doesn’t think about her task until after she’s said it.

Joel stares at her for a moment longer, then shrugs. “That works for me. See you later Grian, stop following me around!” He makes off running.

“No, hey, Joel, wait—!” Grian yells after him, but Joel shows no sign of stopping, disappearing out of earshot. Grian sighs, lowering his outstretched arm and turning to Pearl. “That man, I swear.”

A silence hangs in the air for a second too long and Pearl remembers that, oh yeah, she’s apparently Lizzie. Joel’s wife. She opens her mouth to reply, isn’t sure how to, and lets out a lame-sounding, “Yeah…”

Grian lets out a little snort-laugh and says, “So… Am I moving in with you…? Are you moving in with me…?”

“Well, I haven’t seen your base,” Pearl points out, hoping that Lizzie hasn’t.

He blinks. “Oh. Right.” Then, in a rush, “Hey maybe I just move in with you how does that sound.”

Pearl stares at him. “Is there something wrong with your base…?”

“No! No, nothing wrong with it, it’s just… you know…” 

“Ugly?” Pearl offers, only realising how it sounds once it’s out of her mouth.

Grian barks out a laugh. “Hey!” Then, “Well, you’re not wrong.” 

“Let’s definitely not live there, then.” Pearl grins. “Can’t be living in an ugly base, now, can we?”

“Let’s go to yours,” Grian says, walking down the hill towards her and the pink hill behind her. “And we can discuss the terms of our friendship!”

“Are, uh, friendships supposed to have terms? I feel like they’re not supposed to have terms.”

“That’s how they get ya,” Grian says, and doesn’t elaborate on what that means at all. Pearl rolls her eyes and follows him down the hill. She may have no idea what’s going on, but at least Grian doesn’t change.

Oh, hey, wait a minute.

“Hey Grian?” she calls, scurrying to catch up on Lizzie’s short legs.

“Yeah?”

“What’s a task?” 

“What are you riding and why are you trying to drown it?” Pearl asks, squinting at where Mumbo stands in the river, atop a large… creature.

“What?! Oh, Lizzie! Hi! Oh, it’s, uh, it’s Scar’s camel.” 

“…Right,” says Pearl, who doesn’t know what a camel is. “Why are you trying to drown Scar’s camel, Mumbo?”

“I’m not trying to drown it!”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trying to drown it.”

It’s later in the day, nearing noon. Grian had disappeared again, saying that he had to do something task-related (after explaining to her what a task was), and Pearl had decided that, since this is not her body, she should probably do the safe thing and stay at home. She hadn’t really been expecting to see anyone, so finding Mumbo and his strange creature in the river had been a surprise. 

“I’m trying to see if it can swim!” Mumbo sweats nervously. Too nervously for him not to be lying.

“Why do you have it if it’s Scar’s camel, anyway?” She gasps. “Did you steal it? Mumbo!” 

“What?! No, I didn’t, I’m—I’m his driver!”

“Likely story.” 

“It’s the truth! Right, Scar?”

“Right indeed!” chimes in a voice, and Pearl nearly jumps out of her skin as Scar appears from behind her house. 

“Scar!” she cries. “Don’t do that! You about scared the life out of me!”

Scar laughs. “Sorry, sorry!” He claps a hand on Pearl’s shoulder as he walks past her. “I’m all done here, ready to go, Mumbo?”

“Yes!” says Mumbo, glancing nervously at Pearl as the creature breaches the bank. “Let’s get out of here. Uh. Quickly, maybe?”

“Right, right, of course—”

Scar hauls himself up onto the back of the camel, wrapping his arms around Mumbo’s waist, and the two of them take off down the riverbank. Pearl stares after them, eyes narrowed.

“That was suspicious, right?” she mutters to herself as she turns away. “What was he…?”

And that’s when she notices the empty dirt block in the wheat farm where a torch had once sat. Her eyes widen. 

“Oh, that—! Scar!”

“Grian! There you are, I’ve been looking for you all over!”

“Lizzie!” Grian turns to her. “Hi! Don’t mind me, just—just getting some of my stuff to take over to yours.”

Pearl stares at the mess of birch chevrons arching up into the air. “Is this your base?”

“Not anymore!” Grian says brightly. Then, with a dry tone, he adds, “It would be a shame if it burnt down. I definitely put lots of time into this and I love what I’ve created and I want to live here forever.”

There’s a click of a flint and steel. The two of them stare as the fire hovers in the air above a stair and doesn’t spread. Huh. 

She snorts. “You’re a pyromaniac,” she tells him. “You’re about as bad as Scar.”

Grian blinks at her. “What’s Scar done? Oh no. He hasn’t burned down the pumpkin house, has he?”

Pearl, who was thinking of the ranch, jerks back to the present. “What? Oh—” She remembers her task and swallows back a curse. “Yes! He did! But—it’s fine. I put it out. No damage done.”

“Oh, phew. You worried me there for a sec.” 

“He did steal all of our torches though.”

“He did what?!” 

“Joel gave me a couple so we won’t be overrun by mobs, but…”

“What is this witchcraft?” cuts in a voice, and there’s Mumbo on the camel, staring at the fire.

“Mumbo!” Pearl says brightly. “Just the person I wanted to see. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Scar stealing all of our lights, would—”

The camel lets out an ugly bleat of pain and everyone panics.

And then the camel sets on fire, and everyone panics harder. 

It’s getting dark, and Pearl gets a ride home with Mumbo on the back of the camel he’s trying to kill. It doesn’t seem a particularly wise decision, but it’s better than dealing with mobs, especially when she has so few hearts. (No regen, seriously, what were they thinking?) 

She’s tired after a long day of confusion and camel-related chaos, and so when Pearl hears her own voice, she thinks she might be dreaming.

“Wait, is that my camel?”

“You had a camel as well?”

Pearl stares at her own face. It’s… uncanny, seeing herself not in a mirror. The other Pearl is wearing her old blue hoodie, standing in front of a door built into the side of a hill not too far from two ugly-looking wrong-way-round houses built on similar-sized hills. The other Pearl stands casually, her hands in her pockets, one eyebrow raised at them as she narrows her eyes in suspicion. 

“That wasn’t the same camel?”

“…We should probably move on our way—”

They ride off, and Pearl has to crane her neck to look back on herself as the other Pearl yells after them, “Mumbo! Lizzie!”

She stares for a moment, meeting Pearl’s eyes, and then turns to walk back inside the hill-house. Something in Pearl’s chest aches.

Mumbo takes her home. Grian isn’t back yet, so Pearl sits on her bed and stares blankly into space. Okay. Okay, so: she’s in another game. That much is obvious. A game where they have three lives, and don’t regain hearts. They have to do tasks, and that gets them hearts back, and also makes everybody act weird. That’s normal enough. She can understand that.

She’s also, for some reason, Lizzie. That’s weird. That she can’t understand.

…There’s another version of her here. A Pearl who seems happy, or at least casual, with a camel, and a house in a small neighbourhood that maybe even forms an alliance. A Pearl with friends, or at least a Pearl that people don’t hate. A Pearl they aren’t scared of.

She buries her face in her hands and groans. She doesn’t understand anything. Why show her this? What’s the point of this—this vision, or dream, or whatever it is? 

Will she ever go back home?

…Does she even want to? At least here she has a friend.

She stands from the bed and quickly crafts a book and quill using the materials from Lizzie’s chests. She sucks the tip between her lips to loosen it and then begins to write.

Here’s what I know:

I’m in a different game. I don’t understand why. The rules are different here. I think I’ve got my head wrapped around them.

I’m Lizzie. That I don’t have my head wrapped around. Maybe I can figure it out?

In the meantime I should probably try and keep my head down. Don’t get killed, don’t get caught. Easy, right?

Still no closer to figuring out this whole ‘demon’ business. Does this world have an Impulse? If it does, note to self: talk to Impulse.

…That’s all I got for day 1. Hopefully tomorrow has more answers.

She closes the book and tucks it away into her inventory with a sigh. She hears footsteps outside, and a moment later Grian opens the door, smiling at her.

Pearl, despite her confusion, feels that familiar excitement of having a friend rise in her chest, and smiles back.

Lizzie wakes in the middle of the night feeling strangely disoriented. She blinks gritty eyes, letting out a groan as she stares at the ceiling. Something feels… off. What is it? She cranes her neck, her eyes landing on a torch where her lantern had been.

Her lanterns! Who would come and steal her lanterns while she—

A soft snore interrupts her thoughts. Well, that’s certainly not her, unless she’d somehow learned to subconsciously snore when awake, so that means—

The lantern thief is still here!

…And sleeping. Weird choice, but who is she to question the questionable choices of a lantern thief?

She sits up, narrowing her eyes at the lump beneath the sheets of the bed pressed against the other wall of the house. They’ve even covered her mine entrance with their bed, blocking her emergency exit. How devious. She summons her sword from her inventory and sneaks closer, finally levelling the tip to where the person’s throat quivers beneath the covers.

She clears her throat and says, “Whoever you are, don’t move, or I’ll slice your throat.”

The lump does move, just slightly, letting out a groan as they rise from sleep to a groggy sort of wakefulness. She hears a familiar voice mumble, “Lizzie, what’s going on? Who’re you…”

The blanket is pulled down, and Grian’s dark eyes land on her in the flickering firelight, confused and uncomprehending for a moment before they flick down to the sword held to his throat.

He yelps and, to his credit, does not move.

“Lizzie, what are you doing?” he demands, voice high with panic.

“You,” Lizzie says, eyes narrowed. “You stole my lanterns!”

“I—what?” His expression scrunches in confusion. “The lante—that was Scar! You spent half the day running around after him!”

She snorts. “Likely story,” she says. “You have twenty seconds to tell me why you’re in my house.”

“Because you invited me to live here?” cries Grian, distressed. “What is going on?”

“I did no such thing,” Lizzie says with a huff. “This is a devious and cowardly attempt to mooch off of my resources, and it won’t work!”

“Lizzie, what are you doing—”

“Get out of here,” she tells him, jutting her chin, “or I’ll send you back to spawn the hard way.”

Grian stares at the sword and swallows loudly. “Okay, okay, I’ll go,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender and scrambling to get out of his bed and break it behind him. “Can I get my stuff first…?”

“Nice try, thief! Begone with you!”

“Thief—? I don’t—Lizzie, I’m not—what is going on?” he asks again. 

Lizzie doesn’t answer. She just brandishes her sword.

Grian leaves. Lizzie lets out a sigh and collapses back on her bed. “How weird,” she says with a snort. “Everyone on this server is deranged.”

And with that, she lies back down, and attempts to snatch a few extra hours of sleep.

“Oh gosh. Oh, no, what is he doing?”

“Uhh, sir? Sir?”

“He’s going to build height.”

“What is doing?”

“I don’t know, but I really don’t want him to do whatever he’s gonna do!” 

“No, he’s got this. He can do it. I believe in him. He’s really good at this.”

Lizzie’s neck aches as she cranes her head up, looking at Joel high above on his tiny pillar. Around her, the group clamours and chatters, and chaos erupts as the yellows begin to chase him up. Lizzie revises her opinion. Maybe he can’t do this, not if the yellows get to him first.

Joel falls, and dies, and the group cries out in unison.

“Oh, no!”

Joel appears to the side, blinking with the familiar disorientation of a respawn, eyes glowing the bright yellow of a second life. Lizzie turns to him with a grin and says, “Aww, that was embarrassing, we were all here! We were rooting for you!”

Joel glances up at her. There’s a strange look on his face as he says, “I was rooting for me as well.”

Lizzie falls back into the crowd as Joel and Grian line up to fail their tasks. Afterwards, the crowd begins to disperse, and she’s about to go with them when there’s a familiar hand on her wrist. She pauses and glances up at Joel. “Can I help you?” she asks.

Joel’s frowning at her. He’s still got that weird look about him. “I thought you and Grian were friends now,” he says.

She blinks. “What?”

“Yesterday, you said—”

“Wait—what?” She squints at him. “Hang on. Are you in on it too?”

“In on—what? Huh?”

“I wake up and that rapscallion is in my house, he’s stolen my lanterns, and he claims that we’re friends! Ha! As if I would ever be friends with that loser.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” Joel says.

“Okay, but he is kind of a loser.”

“I mean, I wasn’t going to say it…” Joel shakes his head and clears his throat, continuing, “but no, seriously, Lizzie. I thought that you were gonna be his friend and distract him so that I could get my task done! I couldn’t get it done and I took a hard task and I failed!”

“You can’t blame me for you failing that clutch!”

“I’m not blaming you, I just—you’re being weird! You’re acting strange. It’s like you can’t even remember yesterday.”

“Uhh…” Lizzie glances down at her hands, up at the darkening sky, and then back at her husband. “Wait, what happened yesterday?”

Joel lets out a heavy sigh and facepalms. 

“Okay, now I feel like that’s mean.”

Lizzie makes it back to her house, sits down on her bed, and realises that she doesn’t know what her task is. Heart suddenly dropping, she grabs the scroll from her inventory and reads it.

Yes man: You can not deny any request or question from another player. You must say yes.

She racks her brain, trying to remember if she’d said no at any point today. She’d kicked Grian out—did that count? He didn’t necessarily request to stay in her house, he’d just said she’d invited him. Which she hadn’t! Gosh, and she can’t even remember yesterday, apparently—had she been saying yes to everything yesterday too? 

Gosh, having amnesia is confusing. If it weren’t for the overwhelming feeling that she’s missing something, she’d be half inclined to think Joel’s pulling her leg about it. 

…She’s honestly still not sure he isn’t.

She slips her scroll back into her inventory and her fingers brush against an unfamiliar book. She frowns, pulling it out, and flips to the front page.

Here’s what I know:

I’m in a different game. I don’t understand why. The rules are different here. I think I’ve got my head wrapped around them.

I’m Lizzie. That I don’t have my head wrapped around. Maybe I can figure it out?

In the meantime I should probably try and keep my head down. Don’t get killed, don’t get caught. Easy, right?

Still no closer to figuring out this whole ‘demon’ business. Does this world have an Impulse? If it does, note to self: talk to Impulse.

…That’s all I got for day 1. Hopefully tomorrow has more answers.

That’s not her handwriting.

That’s not her handwriting!

She yelps, nearly dropping the book, and then feels quite silly. Geez, way to be overdramatic, Lizzie! It’s—okay, so she’s been possessed. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it? She’s not sure why, but she has the vague impression that that’s a thing. What do they call it again? An amnesia-cold?

Okay. So she has an amnesia-cold. Sure. Why not?

She stares at the writing in the book, and then pulls out the matching quill to write her own entry.

Hello? Who are you? Why are you possessing me? It’s not very nice, you know.

Also don’t let thieves into my house. I live alone because I like it! Don’t trust anyone on this server. And what do you mean, “demon”? Are there demons involved? I don’t like that at all!

Stop messing up my life.

…There. Hopefully that gets the message across. She slips the book into her inventory and stares out of the window of her house, at the faint glow of Joel’s helter skelter in the distance. Maybe she should pay him a visit. Making fun of him might make her feel better about all of this.

Yeah. That’s exactly what she’ll do.

LDShadowLady was shot by skeleton.

And so it begins.

It’s Pearl! Hi Lizzie! I don’t know why this is happening honestly. I’m pretty you possessed me first? I thought you were a demon but I’m pretty sure you’re not.

Well that doesn’t sound right. I think I’d remember possessing somebody.

Wait, don’t you? You haven’t been having any weird dreams lately?

Well, now that you mention it…

“Croak the frog! Pet the dog! Burn the log!” 

“What on earth are you two doing?” Martyn and Ren continue to chant, surrounded by burning logs. Lizzie stares. “You two are gonna burn yourselves, you know. And I’ll laugh! I will! Ha!”

They come to a halt and stare at her.

“Are you sure about this?” Martyn stage-whispers to Ren.

“We do what we must,” Ren stage-whispers back.

“I can hear you guys, you know,” Lizzie tells them. “What are you doing?”

“We were petting the dog, we were croaking the frog, and we were burning the log to summon you.” 

“To summon you, demoness.”

“Demoness?” Lizzie narrows her eyes at them. “Is that an insult? I feel like that’s an insult.”

“No, no, not at all!” Martyn says quickly with a sideways glance at Ren. “It’s… You’re very powerful, see? You’re dangerous.”

“We know that you’re not actually Pearl,” Ren says. “We know that you’ve possessed her in the pursuit of nefarious deeds.”

Lizzie blinks. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me nefarious before,” she says. Then, “I like it!”

They laugh. “We have something to discuss with you,” Martyn says. “An alliance.”

“An alliance?”

“Think about it. What do the three of us have in common?”

“Uhh…” 

“We’re alone,” Ren says with a dramatic bow of his head.

“Scott swore you off, Cleo swore me off, and BigB swore Ren off,” Martyn says. “We’ve all been abandoned.”

“Wow. That’s pretty lame of us. Man, am I seriously a loser in this world?”

“C’mon, man, that’s pretty hurtful,” Ren says with a sniff. Lizzie’s pretty sure the tears are just him being dramatic. “First I get cheated on, and now you’re calling me lame?”

“Well…” Lizzie bites back a snort. Then, “Wait, you got cheated on? How awful!” She hopes she’s selling the dramatics. She’s never quite been as good at them as Ren has.

“Pearl, what we’ve come to realise, is that the three of us are actually the same,” Ren says. “We’re all cursed, we’re all alone, we’ve all been abandoned! We’re all losers! We are the Broken Hearts Club, and I—I think we should unite!”

“I mean, you two are losers,” Lizzie says. “Have you ever considered that I’m alone because I want to be?”

They stare at her.

“Pearl, you’ve been complaining for days that you’re all alone and that you have no friends!” Martyn says. “You blamed me for it and everything!” 

“Did I?” Lizzie blinks. “I thought you just said that you know I’m not Pearl?”

They stare at her again.

“Honestly, I was just kind of being dramatic,” Ren says. “You’re not?”

“Nope.” Lizzie shrugs. “I honestly don’t even know what’s going on half the time, but I know I want nothing to do with the two of you. Now, can you put out those fires and get off my lawn? The smoke smells awful.”

They stare at her for a long, long moment, before glancing at each other.

Lizzie sighs and dumps a bucket of water over the burning logs. “I swear, I have to do everything myself around here!”

“Hi! Welcome to my house! Do you like it? Is it cosy?”

“You’re on my bridge!”

“No, no, Scott said it was my bridge last session!”

“Pearl’s insane!”

“I’m moving in. It’s my place now. Why, am I in the way? Am I in the way of you two, huh?”

“Not particularly…”

The music cuts out as Scott grabs it from the jukebox. Pearl panics. “Hey now! No, no, no, no.” She pulls out her axe. “Hey Scott. No, no, nah. You drop that disc right now.” 

Scott only grins at her. Pearl scowls, and brings down her axe. She feels the blow cut into her own chest, grins through the pain right back at him. Chaos erupts around them as she beats Scott back against the bridge, grunting each time at the pain of her own axe.

“Pearl, if I die we both die and then we’re red.”

“Good!” 

“Pearl!” Martyn calls, a strange tone to his voice, and Pearl glances back at him in confusion. Behind him, Cleo has her axe pressed against Tilly’s fur. Pearl’s heart drops.

“I will kill you. I will kill you, Cleo! I’m not afraid to kill you! Don’t you touch that dog.”

Cleo scoffs. “Or you’ll do what?”

“I kill you.” She leans in close, presses her face to Cleo’s raised shield and stares up into her face. “You touch Tilly, we have a problem. We have a big problem.”

Cleo meets her eyes for a long moment, gaze unreadable, before she backs off. “Okay, I won’t touch Tilly!”

Pearl nods, then spins on Scott. “Where’s my disc, Scott?” 

“I don’t have it.”

Pearl chases around several people before she finally ends up in Martyn’s base, her axe levelled at his chest. “Martyn. Where’s my disc?”

He pulls it from his inventory, holding it between his fingers.

“Gimme,” she says.

“In a second,” he says, holding up a hand. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Funny way to go about it!”

“Are you Pearl?” 

“Am I—? What’s that supposed to mean! Of course I’m Pearl! You need to get your eyes checked, mate.”

“Well, because the other day we had a conversation, and you said that you weren’t Pearl.”

“I—oh.” Pearl goes still, eyes wide. She lowers her axe to her side. Martyn reaches out and hands her her disc. Pearl takes it and slips it into her inventory. “You met the demon?” she says, voice hushed.

“We did. Me and Ren. We had a whole conversation with her and everything. She’s—Pearl, I think she’s evil.”

“You think so?”

“I do. I think she’s dangerous. But me and Ren—we want to help you. What do you say?”

“I say that neither of you have been much help so far,” Pearl says with a sniff. “Why should I trust you, huh?” 

“Because we’re sorry. And we want to be your friends. We want to help you, Pearl, we want to get this demon out of you before it goes too far. What do you say?”

“I have a proposal.”

“What’s your proposal?”

“You give me some of your cows.” 

“What happened to your cows?”

“My cattle’s been rustled!”

“By…?”

“Scar. He killed every single one.” Lizzie lets out a dramatic sob. 

“What the heck?”

“Every single cow, every single one, so I’ll just take a few of yours…” She sniffs, opening the pen doors and leading the cows out.

“Yeah, because you—whoa, whoa, whoa, not this many! Lizzie!”

Lizzie, as she is prone to do, ignores her husband. She’s got cows to lead, after all.

Joel finds her later, standing by her newly repopulated cow pen. “Thanks for that,” she says brightly.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Joel rolls his eyes. “Are you, uh. Are you feeling better today?”

“Aww, you care about me!” Lizzie says brightly with a grin.

“You were acting weird yesterday! Sue me for being worried.” He huffs.

“I’m feeling okay.” Lizzie says with a shrug, staring back at the cows.

“No more weird amnesia?”

“No.” She stares at the cows for a moment, then turns to look up at him. “I’ve been having weird dreams, though.”

“Yeah? What sort of weird dreams?”

“I dunno. Just… weird.” 

“Huh. Maybe eat less cheese before bed?”

“How am I gonna eat cheese, Joel? Scar killed all my cows!”

“I just gave you new ones!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Don’t tell me you forgot that.”

“No, no, I’m just winding you up.” She snorts. “I’m fine, Joel. No need to worry about me.”

“Good,” he says, though she can’t tell if he believes it.

“So? Did it work?” Bdubs asks once Scar’s left into the night. 

Pearl blinks at him. “Did what work?”

He scoffs. “The thing! With Impulse! The demon possession thing! Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t remember that!”

“Ohh, that thing! Right!” 

A long moment goes by.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Did it work?”

“Ehh… Maybe? I think so? I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“I just… I’ve started having weird dreams, I suppose.” Pearl frowns into the distance, trying to remember the details. Her mind is filled with hazy images, pink wood and secret tasks and some strange yellow beast. She shrugs, glancing back at Bdubs. “I dunno!”

“You’re unbelievable,” he tells her with a shake of his head as he begins to back off into the darkness.

“Oi! And what does that mean!”

She gets no reply as he disappears into the night.

We should probably set some ground rules for this thing.

Like what?

Stop telling people that you don’t want to be friends with them!

But I don’t!

Well, maybe I do! Ever think of that?

Fine! As long as you don’t tell people that I WANT to be friends with them. No more Grians in my house! Or anyone else for that matter.

UGH, fine…

Pearl is back in Lizzie’s body, on the weird deadly server, doing yet another task that she doesn’t fully understand, when Scott approaches her.

“Your area’s super cute, by the way.”

“Oh!” Pearl blinks at him for a moment. She’s not entirely sure what she ought to say. “Thanks?” 

“What’re you up to?”

She hesitates, then says, “Oh, you know. Just working on a path.”

“Oh, you’re connecting the server?”

“Something like that!”

“Do you want some help?”

See, here’s the thing: connecting the entire server is a pretty big task, especially when Pearl has no idea where half the people on it live. Here’s the other thing: she and Scott are not on good terms.

But Scott and Lizzie are on good terms. Scott and Lizzie have no failed past alliance to regret, no argument to come between them, no soulmate bond to resent. They’re just—friends. And Scott is doing the friendly thing of offering to help. It’s just like him, really.

Part of Pearl, the petty and spiteful part, wants to say no. She remembers Lizzie’s instructions, and almost voices her refusal—but this isn’t necessarily an offer of friendship. Scott’s just doing her a good turn.

…And maybe Pearl misses him, a little bit. Maybe she wants the company. Maybe she wants a world where her soulmate accepts her, even if it’s only because he’s not aware that she’s his soulmate.

“Sure!” she says at last. “Do you have a shovel?”

“Got one right here.”

“Great! Let’s get to work.”

“This is the pre-party.”

“The pre-party?”

“Yes!”

“They got an invite to the pre-party, huh?”

“No, they just invited themselves, said this is it.”

“Uh huh.”

Lizzie is eavesdropping. In her defence, the others seem to be messing around with fishing rods and cobble pillars, which sounds like a one-way ticket to death, and she’s already on yellow. And Pearl had asked her not to get in the way of any friendships, but Lizzie doesn’t necessarily want to befriend anyone here, and so she’s just sitting by the edge of the pool and eavesdropping.

And then Joel shows up.

Lizzie perks up, then glances around to make sure that nobody had noticed. After all, it’d be weird for Pearl to get excited about seeing Joel. Joel isn’t Pearl’s husband. The group coalesces around Etho and Joel, and the fishing rod shenanigans are forgotten for a moment, until—

“Hey, Pearl!” Grian calls.

“Huh?” Lizzie looks up. “What do you want?”

“Do you have a fishing rod?”

“Uhhh…” Lizzie pulls out a fishing rod from her inventory and frowns at it. “For some reason, yes.”

“What happens if I connect to you, and then you connect to Joel?”

“We die, probably?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t you want to try it?”

…She does, kind of, actually, so she does.

It’s fun. And terrifying. And—

“Now Joel connect to Pearl, and Pearl connect to Etho…”

“Won’t that just kill Joel and Etho, because they’re connected?”

Lizzie glances at Scott. “What?”

He looks over at her. “Etho and Joel are soulmates. If they both take damage… It’d kill them, right?”

“Soulmates?”

“Yeah, you know, like me and you? Like when you died I died? Come on, Pearl, it’s the central conceit of the game!”

“It’s the…”

Lizzie’s world tilts sideways. It takes her a moment too long to realise that it’s the fishing rod yanking her upwards. Her rod is still connected to Etho—

She drops it, and it breaks into pieces on the ground below her. She misses the clutch and falls down hard. “Ow…”

“Pearl!” Grian cries from above. “What’d you do that for? We had a proper chain going!”

“They’re soulmates,” Lizzie says dully, looking back and forth between Etho and her husband. Then, repeating Scott’s words, “They’d die, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh, you’re right. I didn’t even think of that!”

“Quick thinking, Pearl,” Etho says with a grateful glance in her direction.

“Hey, I’m the one who said it!” Scott says.

“Oh. Well, thanks Scott!”

Joel glances down at her. “Pearl? You alright? You’ve been sat on the floor for a long time.”

“Oh.” Lizzie blinks. “Right.” He extends a hand down to her with an exasperated sigh, and Lizzie takes it. “Thanks.”

“You apparently just saved my life, so don’t mention it,” he says, tucking his hands in his pockets and stepping around her. “Hey, Etho—!”

Lizzie stares after him. Damn, she thinks, letting out a shaky laugh and wiping a hand down her face. Looks like Ren’s not the only one getting cheated on.

“Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott!”

“Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!”

“I dropped my horse in the water!”

“What?” 

“The one that’s bones. I dropped him in the water. I can’t get him out. Can you help?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure, I can help. Show me where he is?”

Pearl gestures to the boat before her before stepping in. “Take a seat, kind sir!”

“Thank you, thank you.”

Scott sits down behind her and lets Pearl boat him to the spot where she’d lost Lizzie’s horse. 

“So this is where I lost him… I’m not sure how to get him out.”

“Ah. We could make a staircase?”

And so they do, building up one block at a time until Pearl is able to ride the horse out of the water. “Thank you!” 

“No problem! I finished up the paths, by the way.”

“Oh, you did! Perfect! Can you show me?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, it’s just this way.”

“Oh, these are perfect! Aw, nice, everything’s connected!”

She grins at him.

“Speaking of connected… I’m just going to have to take this risk. Can you read that?”

He throws a glowing scroll to her. Pearl fumbles as she catches it. “Scott! Is this your task?”

“Just read it.”

“I’m not supposed to read it, you’ll lose!”

“Just read the dang book, Lizzie!”

“Okay, okay, fine!”

Figure out someone’s task and complete it. You can show them this task once you think you have done it and get them to confirm success.

“Oh. Oh!”

“Was your task to connect the entire server with paths and such?”

Ah. Shoot. Wait, does this mean she’s failed? She’s still not clear on the rules. “Was I that obvious? Oh, man, Lizzie’s going to—” She cuts off suddenly, realising who’s in front of her. “I mean, I’m—”

It’s too late; Scott’s laughing. “You talking about yourself in third person over there now?”

“No! I mean yes! I mean—”

“It’s a little late for the redirect, you know. Don’t worry, I won’t rat you out, you know. I helped, right?”

“You did help, yes. But have I failed now? Does this mean I’ve failed?”

“No, no! Come on, why don’t both of us go to the Secret Keeper, turn our tasks in?”

They make it there unaccosted and unchallenged, and Pearl can’t deny she’s a little giddy with the excitement of actually finishing a task. She rushes forward and hits the success button—

(The world goes dark, and tilts sideways, and there’s an awful rushing whispering in her ears, and—)

(A familiar face. Pearl blinks. “Lizzie?”

“Wait, Pearl?”

“Wait—”)

“I can hear her!”

“Huh?” Pearl blinks. She’s in her tower. 

“Hi! We’re coming up!”

“Scott?” She turns to see Scott pulling himself off of the ladder, Martyn and Cleo shortly behind him. 

“They were like, she’s not up there, and I was like no, it’s just so tall—oh this is pretty!”

“Thanks?” Pearl blinks. “Wait. What’s going on?”

“We were all spying on the red meeting, and the reds have all decided to group together, and as it’s the four of us that’s yellow…”

“Wait, the four of us? What happened to everyone else?”

“Grian and Scar are green, so they’re public enemy number one right now.”

“And Joel and Etho are still yellow, but I don’t know if we exactly trust them…”

Pearl blinks at them. What did she miss?

Martyn and Cleo start chattering, and Scott starts digging through her chests, and Pearl is surrounded by the people she’s been longing for since the game started, and—

And she still feels just so lonely.

Do you not ever wish you had more people around?

No. Well. Maybe sometimes. I usually just go bother Joel. We’re married so he can’t get rid of me.

Must be nice…

I suppose. 

Nobody wants me, Lizzie. 

I’m sure that’s not true. There has to be somebody, right?

Pearl?

“Lizzie’s getting XP too!”

“Ah!” Lizzie spins away from the endermen and towards the voice to see Grian and Cleo underneath her little cobble overhang. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey, Lizzie.” 

“Welcome to my endermen hole.”

“And are we allowed to use it?”

“Of course, of course! Go right ahead.”

“You’re not gonna change your mind and kick us out into the fields of endermen.”

“I’d never!”

“Really? It seems like a thing you’d do.”

It takes Lizzie a long moment to realise what he’s talking about. “Ohh. Right. You’re not still mad about that, are you?” 

“What? Me? No, no. Never held a grudge in my life, me.” Grian takes a swing at an enderman.

“Right! Of course not. Me either.”

“Well, I am so glad that we’re both not holding grudges! I have friends now, anyway. What about you, Lizzie? Do you have any friends?”

“I have friends!”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Oh, you know. People. None of your business, really.”

“Right…”

“Right!” Lizzie tucks her sword away. “Well, I’m done now. Goodbye!”

She heads back to the portal and jumps through. There’s a weird pit in her stomach that she can’t quite describe. She doesn’t need allies, not like Grian does—she can get by by herself, thank you very much! And she has people she cares about, like—like Joel! And Scar, maybe? He had given her enchanter access. And… 

And…

Her fingers brush the leather cover of the notebook she keeps in her inventory. She swallows. 

Maybe like Pearl, too.

“I have to kill the cows. Cleo don’t kill me I have to kill the cows.”

“It’s fine to kill the cows, Pearl. You have to.”

“I’m sorry!”

A sudden slap across the face jerks Pearl from her hysterics. She glances up at Martyn. “Pull yourself together, woman!” he cries. She presses her hand to her stinging cheek. “Snap out of it!”

“Ow…” She stares at him with the saddest eyes she can muster for a moment, and then turns to slay another cow with a pained moo. 

“I can’t get through to her,” Martyn says at last. “Not my soulmate, not my problem.”

“Thanks,” she hears Scott say distantly.

Then, “Pearl, you good?” Martyn whispers.

She nods. “I’m good,” she whispers back. 

“Oh, good. I thought you were—you know. Again.”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m just—it’s just me.”

“Oh.” He sounds… almost disappointed by that. He jerks away from her, turning in the direction the other two had gone. “Right, then. We should probably catch up.”

Pearl lingers for a moment, staring after him, and feels something heavy sink in her stomach.

Get the server to sleep through the night.

“This is never gonna happen!” Lizzie yells. “This is never gonna happen, this is the worst, this is the worst… Okay. What am I gonna do? This is impossible! Nobody on this server sleeps ever!”

She glances out of the window at the setting sun, and then at her bed. Then at the window again. Then back to her bed. There’s an idea forming in the back of her mind.

Maybe she doesn’t have to do it. 

Maybe she can make somebody else do it for her.

“You’re a genius, Lizzie,” she whispers to herself, and dives for the bed.

“Seriously?” Lizzie cries, staring at the two people in the now-familiar interior of Pearl’s tower. “How many times am I gonna wake up to find you in my base?”

Grian blinks at her. “What are you on about, Pearl? You said we could come up.”

Of course she did. Lizzie sighs. “Right,” she grouches. “Of course. So, what did you two want?”

“Listen, I’m not gonna lie, we need some protection. That’s the main reason we’re here.”

“Okay…”

“There’s a lot of reds out there, it’s very dangerous. And… Scar? Anything to add to this conversation?”

“I’m just hiding. I don’t want to go near any of the windows because of snipers.”

“I don’t see anything…”

“Get down from the window! Pearl, we’re paranoid, we’ve been chased for an hour straight…”

Lizzie nods along as she listens to their explanation. “Okay, tell you what,” she says. “You two stay here… and I’ll leave.”

“Wait, what?”

“Just stay away from the windows, like you said, they’ll never know you’re up here!”

“But what if they come looking for you?”

“Only an idiot would be at their own base when they’re being hunted. And I am many things, but I am not—well. I may be an idiot sometimes, I’ll admit. But not today!” She pauses. “Just, you know, don’t steal any of your stuff.”

“Why, Pearl, I would never!”

“We won’t take any of your stuff.”

“Right. I’m holding you to it! Goodbye now.”

And with that, Lizzie leaves. If they’re being chased by the reds, she does not want to be here when they get caught.

Okay. Sure. Get everyone to the End so the server can sleep. Easy.

God, why’d Lizzie have to leave this to Pearl? 

“Impulse! Quick!” she calls. “You’re needed in the End!”

“The End?”

“Yes! I’ll put a codeword in chat—you’ll know it when you see it—I really must be off—”

“Wait, Lizzie!” Impulse reaches out and grabs her horse’s reins to stop her from leaving. Pearl bites back a groan. “You seem You sound off?”

“What do you mean I sound off?”

“I mean… Actually, I don’t know.” He shakes his head and lets out a confused laugh. “I… yeah, wow, sorry about that. It’s just—for a moment I thought you sounded like Pearl.”

Pearl goes stiff. “Ha! Imagine—imagine that, huh? Me, sounding like Pearl? Crazy.”

“Yeah,” Impulse says. “Crazy.” He stares at her for a moment longer, not letting go of the rein. “Pearl?”

“No? It’s Lizzie. We just had this conversation, mate—”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” 

Great. Pearl sighs. 

“Well, obviously!” she hisses. “But—I’m here. So just go to the End, won’t you?” 

She urges her horse onwards. Impulse holds onto the reins for just a moment longer before letting go. She leaves him behind in the dust, and tries not to let the memory of the interaction linger.

“Joel?”

“Pearl?”

“I heard you guys had the enchanter, I, uh—wait, what’s going on?”

“They burned the ship, Pearl!” Joel cries, surrounded by flame, a bucket in his hands barely putting the fire out. “They burned the ship, it’s not going out, I— argh!”

It’s difficult to tell if it’s a sound of frustration or pain as sparks lick out at the tips of Joel’s fingers. 

“Be careful!” she cries, grabbing him and pulling him away from it. “You’re gonna hurt yourself!”

“It’s my ship, Pearl! It’s the Relationship!”

“But is it worth your life?”

“She might have a point, Joel,” Etho says, and Lizzie feels herself stiffen as he rounds the corner from the other side of the burning boat. “We’re still yellow, we should try and stay that way.”

“We have to at least try, Etho!” Joel cries. “It’s our boat, don’t you—don’t you care?”

“Hey now, I never said I didn’t—”

Lizzie really doesn’t want to hear this right now. She grabs the bucket from Joel’s hands instead. “Oh, give me that,” she snaps, marching over towards the boat.

“Wait, Pearl, what are you—”

“I’ll put the dang thing out, shall I, while you have your—your lover’s spat!”

“Huh? What is she—?”

“Wait, Pearl—!”

Lizzie splashes the water onto the flames. They hiss and go out, the wood soaked through, and that’s another area safe. She kicks dirt over a few more spots of fire, and she’s making progress, when there’s a sudden loud crack from above—

“Pearl!”

Joel barrels into her. Lizzie cries out as she’s pushed to the side, landing amidst the flames, and she cries out as she rolls away into the grass, hair and clothes burning—

The broken, burning crossbeam falls from the mast, and Joel disappears from view under collapsed wood and flame. Etho disappears a heartbeat later, leaving a pile of stuff and glowing orbs behind him.

Lizzie stares, shell-shocked, and she can barely even feel her skin melting until she feels it being healed up.

“I’m hosting a birthday party! My place! At midnight! There’ll be cake!”

Pearl slams open the door to Lizzie’s base, expecting to see the beds filled with people.

Joel is lying on one of the beds. The rest are empty.

“Hey Lizzie, I’m sleeping.”

She freezes. “Where is everyone else?” she asks softly. 

“Just me. I’m sorry, babe.”

Pearl turns and looks back out of the door. She can feel the adrenaline-surge of energy leaving her, and the fatigue of staying up for two nights straight trying to complete this task sinking in. She’s failed. Lizzie trusted her, and she’s failed, and no one wants to be her friend—

“Sorry,” Joel says again, and when she turns back, he’s standing up by the birthday cake she’d prepared, lighting the candle. “Do you want to say a wish?”

Pearl’s face falls. Her eyes burn. She sniffs.

“I wish I had friends,” she sobs out, and instead of blowing out the candle, she throws herself into Joel’s arms. He stumbles backwards with the force of it, then wraps his arms back around her, holding her to his chest as she sobs. “I told them all to be here! I told them all—and they didn’t—and nobody wants me—”

A hand runs through her hair. They’re quiet for a few moments, other than the sounds of her sobs, before Joel finally says, “You’re not Lizzie, are you?”

Pearl goes stiff. “What? No, I’m definitely—”

“No offence, but you’re not very good at pretending to be my wife.”

“...Had everyone else fooled.”

“Not me.”

“Should’ve known you’d guess.”

“So, go on. Who are you, then?”

“Promise you won’t be mad?”

“I’m not mad. I’m… confused, sure, but I’m not mad.” 

“...Pearl.”

“Pearl?” Joel pulls back from the hug to frown at her. “Does that mean Lizzie’s back at the Mounders?”

“No, no, it’s—I’m a different Pearl? I think? I’m from—from a different game.”

“...Oh,” Joel says. “Yeah, no, that does explain it. You know, I’d been misremembering things lately? It’s so strange. But…” He lets out a breathy laugh. “I always did think Pearl reminded me of you, when I saved her. Thought it was really weird. The two of you are really nothing alike.”

“Well.” Pearl sniffs. “I’m sure Lizzie appreciated you saving her. And, uh—I guess I do too? Even if I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You’re welcome, I guess.” Joel sighs. “I guess I should go then. If the party’s off, and all…”

“Wait!” Pearl grabs his wrist before he can leave. “Wait, I just—can you stay? For the night? I don’t… I’m so sick of being alone.”

“Pearl…”

“Look, I know I’m not your wife, you don’t have to pretend that I am, or anything, just—she’ll be back in the morning. I just don’t want to be alone.”

Joel stares at her for a long moment, then sighs again. “Fine. I’ll stay, if you really want.”

“Thank you.”

Lizzie bolts awake with a gasp. “My task!” she cries. Her base is full of beds. On the bunk beside her, Joel starts awake from his sleep, staring up at her blearily. She grins down at him. “Joel, I succeeded my task!”

“Uhh… So, about that…”

Lizzie’s face falls.

LDShadowLady was slain by SolidarityGaming.

“There’s something going on with you.”

Pearl blinks. She and Scott are on  their way to his secret bunker, surrounded by dogs and danger on all sides. “What?”

“I said, there’s something going on with you! At first I thought it was just—well, you know. You’re kind of a psychopath, always have been, so I thought that it was just that.”

“Jeez, thanks.”

“But—then you got weirder. The strange bouts of—amnesia? Not knowing how to play the game? Just acting really, really weird? Like, seriously weird. What is going on with you, Pearl?”

Pearl scowls. “Why do you care?” she snaps back. “You haven’t cared all season!”

“I—Pearl. We’re soulbound, in case you’ve forgotten! Again!”

“And would you be talking to me if we weren’t?” She scowls. “Would you care if my life wasn’t tied to yours? You won’t even be my friend when the game is forcing you to, I doubt you’d care at all if it wasn’t!”

“That’s not—”

“Hey, is that Cleo? I think that’s Cleo, isn’t it? Let’s go find her.”

“Pearl—”

“Come on. Let’s go find your chosen soulmate, huh?”

“...Fine. Come on, this way.”

Lizzie, are we friends?

I’d consider you a friend I think. Yes.

Wait, really?

I mean… What else can I call someone who’s living half my life? An acquaintance?

I wouldn’t put it past you.

We’re friends. Aren’t we friends?

We are, I think.

Oh, this is great! I finally have a friend!

“Please help me and do damage to Scott.”

“Can I push him into the void?”

“...You can. And then you can say, the florist sends his regards.”

“Ahh, you’re the florist?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got you. One dead Scotty, coming up!”

The End is cold. Pearl keeps up a stream of chatty conversation as she leads Scott towards the edge of the island.

“This works, because Jimmy’s been hunting me all day, so…”

“Oh yeah, he’s never gonna find you here. No one is ever gonna find you here.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“...Nevermind. It’s funny, for a second there, I could’ve sworn you sounded like—”

“Anyway, follow me!”

“Ah, nope, nevermind. Good ol’ Lizzie. So, what am I looking at, again?”

“Just over here—here, I’ll put down an enderpearl for you, just in case.”

“Oh, thank you— Lizzie!”

Pearl lets out a laugh as she hits him with her axe, familiar as always, though she doesn’t feel the familiar sensation of her own blade cutting through her skin here. He doges out of her way, droplets of blood spattering the pale endstone, and Pearl hisses with frustration through her teeth. 

“Why won’t you just die—!”

She’s not expecting the enderman’s blow when it comes. 

“Ah—!”

“Lizzie—! Lizzie!”

“No, no, no, no, no—Lizzie—!”

LDShadowlady fell out of the world.

Smajor1995 went off with a bang.

Pearlescentmoon died.

“So, how does this work?” Pearl asks, sitting cross-legged on the end of Impulse and Bdubs’ bed and Impulse sits across from her, mirroring her position.

“Have you ever played Cat’s Cradle?”

“Isn’t that that weird game with string?”

“Right.” Impulse agrees with a nod, passing her a loop of string. “Normally it’s played with two people. But you’re trying to connect with someone else, so you’re just going to do it by yourself.”

“Right.” Pearl stares at the string dubiously. “Are you sure that’ll work?” 

“Do you wanna do this or not?”

“Right, right, sorry! Listening. What next?”

“Loop the string around the back of your hands, like this. That’s it. Then you want to loop it around your wrists, just like so… And then catch the inner stand of the string with your middle fingers.”

“Got it,” Pearl says, mirroring his movements. “What’s the point of all this?”

Impulse is quiet for a long moment as he moves his hands in a complicated rhythm that Pearl attempts to mimic for a couple seconds before giving up. The string twirls around his fingers forming intricate crisscrossing patterns.

“It’s about connections,” he says at last. “We’re all connected in this big web of relationships, you see. And this web is like a spider’s web—things can get stuck in it.” On cue, he lowers his head and raises his hands, allowing the strings to get stuck and twisted around his horns. “There’s something stuck in your web right now. And untangling it is difficult.” He pulls at the strings with his fingers, but they just twist tighter around his horn. “So instead what you’re trying to do is let them in.” And with a single deft movement, he transfers the mess of strings from his fingers to his horns, the intricate pattern of crisscrossing threads maintained in its new form.

“I hope you don’t expect me to do that, mate. I don’t have any horns.”

He smiles at her. “No, no,” he says with a shake of his head. “You don’t have to do any of that. Just, you know, take a deep breath—and hold out the string— and let them in.”

Pearl closes her eyes, sticks out her hands, and sucks in a breath—

“Lizzie!”

She jerks awake, red and panting in the ruins of her tower, and a sob pulls itself out of her chest. She doubles over, hugging her knees as she cries, and it’s only when she feels the familiar rough warmth of a tongue lapping at her fingers that she jerks out of it. 

“Hi, Tilly, baby,” she whispers softly. “I met a friend.” Tilly yaps. “I lost her. It was my fault, and I—”

I’d been misremembering things lately, Joel’s voice echoes in her head. I always did think Pearl reminded me of you, when I saved her. Thought it was really weird.  

Remembering. Past tense. Wait. Wait a minute. Does that mean—?

“It hasn’t happened yet,” she whispers. “It hasn’t happened yet, I can still save her!” 

She’s surging to her feet immediately, rummaging through her chests to grab blaze rods. There’s no ender pearls. Shoot. Who has ender pearls? Scott, maybe—

By the time she makes it to Scott’s bunker, she’s red in the face and breathless. “Scott!” she gasps out as she throws herself down the ladder, catching herself at the last minute.

“Whoa! Pearl! Watch what you’re—”

“Do you have an ender pearl? I need an ender pearl.”

“I have one… why? What do you need it for?”

“I need to go to the End.”

“The End? What do you mean the End? Now’s not the time, Pearl!” 

“Now’s the only time, Scott!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I made a friend and she’s the only person who’s wanted me around and she’s going to die unless I get to the End!”
“Who—? See, this is what you mean! You’re acting crazy again!” 

“I—” Pearl bites back her words with a frustrated groan. “You want me to think you actually care for me, Scott? Just do this one thing for me. Give me an enderpearl. Then you can go back to Cleo, and you can win your game, and I’ll get out of your way forever. I just want this one thing.”

He stares at her, shaking his head, confusion and distress written across his face. “What if I don’t want you gone forever, Pearl?” 

“Don’t lie to me, Scott.”

“I’m not, I—” He sucks in a breath. “You’re my friend, Pearl. You’ve always been my friend.”

“You haven’t acted like it!”

“I—I know, look, it’s complicated—”

“Doesn’t look complicated from where I’m standing!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Pearl, can’t you just let me say that I’m sorry!”

Pearl goes still. “What?”  

“I’m sorry, okay? Maybe I—maybe we messed this whole thing up. Okay? And I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want you to go away forever. I never wanted that.”

Pearl’s next breath half comes out as a sob. “Scott…”

“Here.” He pushes the enderpearl into her hands. “Take it. But promise me something, okay?”

“What?”

“You’ll come back alive.”

She nods, wrapping her fingers around it. “I promise.”

“Okay. Go save your friend, Pearl.”

Pearl goes.

She finds the stronghold deep underneath Box. She breaks through mossy cobble, stumbles through dark mob-filled hallways, and finally makes her way to the portal. She only has one eye of ender—

And lucky for her, there’s only one slot missing.

The End Portal opens with a clamouring ring that she knows will be heard all across the server. Pearl stares down into the shimmering void in the midst of it and takes a breath. She has a loop of string curled around her fingers, and she’s been pulling intricate patterns into the strands with every breath she takes. 

Here goes nothing, she thinks, and closes her eyes, and stretches out her hands, and takes a deep breath in.

Let them in.

Pearl plunges into the void, and the world dissolves around her.

“Can I put down water to be safe?”

“I was gonna give you an enderpearl to be safe.”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll be good, I’ll take that.”

“Just in case.” Lizzie throws down the enderpearl and raises her axe to hit Scott as soon as his back is turned.

“Oh, thank you—oh! Lizzie!”

“Oh. This has not gone very well.”

She hits him again. Twice. He bounces away from the edge, because of course he does.

She’s not expecting the enderman’s blow when it comes. “Oh my god—!”

“Lizzie—!”

That’s not Scott’s voice.

That’s not Scott’s voice, and Lizzie doesn’t have time to process it as she tumbles back from the edge with a scream, squeezing her eyes closed—

A hand grabs onto hers. Lizzie jerks to a halt mid-fall. Her heart pounds in her chest. The only sound she can hear is ragged breathing—her own, and someone else’s.

She opens her eyes.

“Pearl?”

“Hi, Lizzie.” Pearl is breathless and red-faced and red-eyed, a familiar yellow-collared dog at her heels. 

“Wait—but you—what are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t just let you die now, could I? Not like that, at least.”

She pulls Lizzie back from the edge, until Lizzie is once more on solid ground. “You saved me,” she says dumbly. 

“I did.”

“Why…?”

“Well, because we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but—how? You’re not supposed to be here!”

“We’re friends, Lizzie,” Pearl says, like it’s so simple, like that should allow her to break the rules of time and space to be here. The endermen are gone, and Scott is gone, and it’s just Lizzie and Pearl at the end of the world—

Lizzie throws herself forwards and wraps her arms around Pearl. “Thank you.”

Pearl wraps her arms back around Lizzie, and for a moment, they’re one, caught in the same warm embrace. “It was the least I could do,” Pearl says softly into Lizzie’s hair.

They stand like that for what feels like an eternity, and then—

Lizzie falls forward into cold hard endstone, and there’s somebody standing above her who wasn’t there before. There’s the distant sound of a dying enderman’s screams.

“Whoa!” Scott cries. “Pearl! Where’d you come from?”

“I came to get some enderpearls and saw that you might need some help,” Pearl says. “Lucky I was here, eh!”

“I mean, Lizzie was trying to kill me, so I don’t know that you helped me so much…”

Lizzie blinks up.

Scott and Pearl stare down at her with twin green eyes.

“You alright down there, Lizzie?” Pearl asks. “Do you want a hand?” She extends one out.

Lizzie, shaking, takes it. 

“Thank you,” she says at last. Her tongue feels numb. “That was… what just happened?”

“I saved your life,” Pearl says brightly.

“Right. Of course. I, uh, I suppose I owe you.”

Pearl grins. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Right. Well. I ought to be going now, I suppose…” Lizzie backtracks away from them, back towards the portal. “Okay bye!”

She scurries off. Her head is reeling. What had just—? She could have sworn that…

That what?

She stops at the edge of the portal, staring down into swirling void. She’d come to kill Scott, and she’d nearly died to an enderman, and Pearl had come into kill endermen and had grabbed her just before she fell. Right. That was what had happened.

So why does she feel like she’s forgetting something…?

She shrugs, and jumps forward into the portal.

“Did you save your friend?” Scott asks.

Pearl blinks at him. “What?”

“I said, did you save your friend? You know. The whole thing you disappeared to do?”

Pearl stares at him blankly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He stares back at her, just as blankly. “Right. Of course you don’t.” He sighs. “Well then! We should meet up with Martyn and Cleo, they’re around here somewhere…”

He begins to wander off. Pearl glances back over her shoulder. She knows there are at least four other reds on this server—maybe they’ll be more agreeable to having her around?

She stares off after Scott for a moment longer, before turning and heading off in search of Joel, Etho, Impulse, and Bdubs, leaving a tangled mess of string on the ground behind her.

“No, Mumbo!”

“I’m on one and a half, don’t you dare—!”

“No—ho-ho! Oh, that’s another one down!”

“Jimmy’s gone!”

“Jimmy’s gone, for goodness’ sake, Jimmy! How has he died, again?”

Lizzie stands in the ruins of the Mounders’ base overlooking the chaos outside. “Well,” she says. “Glad I’m over here, and they’re all dying over there.”

“Lizzie!” calls a voice. Lizzie turns to see Pearl standing in a hole in the ground, gesturing her forwards. “Come hide down here with us.”

Lizzie turns back to the carnage, just in time to see Mumbo go down—and then turns to nod her agreement to Pearl. “Why, thank you, I think I will.”

They find Bdubs further underground. “Did Jimmy die first again?” he asks.

“You know, I think he did!”

“Ha, loser.” Lizzie scoffs. “Imagine being first out! Couldn’t be me.”

“No, no,” Bdubs agrees. “Not us!”

“We’ve just gotta stay alive,” Pearl says. “And that’s why we’re in here, and they’re out there.”

“Too right!” crows Bdubs.

Down in the dark beneath Pearl’s base, Lizzie slips her fingers into her inventory and pulls out a notebook she doesn’t remember keeping there. She squints at it, but she can’t quite make out the letters in the dim light—ah well. 

Surely it couldn’t have been important if she doesn’t remember it, right?

“Tilly death do us part, Pearl—”

“Wait, Scott, no—!”

Time has strayed from its path;

To fix it is to stave our wrath.

Rescue those trapped in this web of fate

The martyr and the victor must switch the bait.

Cut short the canary’s final call

Save the fairy from her fall.