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Martyn’s sword dripped scarlet onto the flush green grass, decorating the plant life with splatters of death.
The dead bodies of his fellow mean gill and the last remaining TIES member lay on the ground behind him, blood still leaking out onto the soft dirt below, seeping into the soil and becoming one with the earth yet again.
He trembled. Not out of anguish. Not out of fear.
The tears that he expected to spring in his eyes never came.
Instead, laughter bubbled in his throat and he doubled over, dropping his ever dripping sword into the grass and putting his hands on his knees, squeezing his eyes shut.
Loud laughter spilled from his lips and he didn’t even try to stop it. It rang through the silent clearing, through the air still even seemingly echoing with the screams of the departed.
A flock of birds flew from a neighboring tree, and Martyn laughed at that. He laughed at the bodies that lay discarded in the grass a few feet away. He laughed at the blood that coated his hands in a sickly yet beautiful shade of dark scarlet. He laughed at the destroyed homes that had once held the inhabitants of his allies, his friends.
But that had all disappeared when the haze of red took over, when Martyn forgot the shared memories of a cake, an explosive birthday party. He forgot about the god forbidden cows in Episode One, the annoyed yet endearing smile that Impulse had shot at him after Martyn had revealed himself as Boogeyman after killing yet another cow.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was that Scott and Impulse were practically defenseless, having thrown their armor and tools to the side, having jumped in lava multiple times in order to get themselves down to below an hour.
Because in the end, they were all just players in a game. Players in a game made to provide entertainment to those purple beings up above. Always watching. A never ending cycle of blood and murder, friendships broken by betrayal.
Martyn knew he had played right into the Watcher’s hands. He knew it the second he dumped the bucket of lava over his fellow mean gill, and a bolt of lightning hit the spot.
Martyn’s laughter soon grew into a cackle, then something sounding absolutely deranged, but it sounded like victory to Martyn’s ears. He reveled in the spotlight shining down on him, the break in the clouds, the hundreds of eyes staring, because the second he pulled out his sword on Scott, he knew his victory was secured.
Martyn didn’t understand why Grian had been so quiet at the beginning of Last Life, why Scott had been so reclusive and cold at the start of Double Life, why Pearl had barely been seen during Limited Life. The victory tasted delicious.
A wide smile stretched Martyn’s lips, stretching an outlandish distance from ear to ear. So what if he had to stab his teammates in the back? It always had to happen eventually, after all, there was only one winner.
Sure, they might be a little annoyed at the injustice of all Martyn’s win, but he hadn’t missed the ghost of a smile shadowing Scott’s face as he fell to Martyn’s blade, the peacefulness as Impulse took his last gasping breaths, blood quickly pooling from under both of them.
Martyn turned back to the bodies, the laughter becoming abrasive and foreign to his lips, and he wanted to stop. But he couldn’t.
His laughs quickly turned panicked and not quite as victorious, but he kept laughing.
Then, the much awaited tears came.
The situation weighed down on him, nearly bringing him to his knees in the bloodstained grass.
His smile widened as tears spilled over his eyes and cascaded down his face, dripping down his chin and onto his already soaked shirt. Although this time instead of scarlet blood it was grief that weighed down Martyn’s shirt.
He cackled and ran a hand through his hair, then tugged at the strands as hard as he could, causing pain to flare up in his scalp but he paid no mind to it.
Scott surely hurt more as lava was poured onto him from behind, then stabbed twice by Martyn’s blade before he went still.
Impulse surely hurt more as an arrow cut straight through his chest, then another in his arm, then Martyn finally delivered the killing blow, leaving him to gasp out his final breaths in solitary while Martyn turned his back on him.
Martyn had turned his back on all of them.
All of them. Team TIES, The Bad Boys, The Clockers, The Nosy Neighbors. Hell, he had even backstabbed (quite literally) his fellow Mean Gill.
All for what? His own selfish desires? The want- no- urge to win?
Everything came down to this moment. Every single person that he had chased down and killed, every single alliance, betrayal, friendship, murder that had taken place in this world.
Suddenly, Martyn felt very small compared to the eyes staring down at him from the quickly darkening heavens above. He pulled his arms around himself in an attempt to keep the cold of utter loneliness from chilling his bones, but it didn’t work. It never did. Not last season, not now, because in the end, Martyn was always alone.
And it was his fault. Every. Single. Time.
Martyn’s laughter came to an abrupt halt, leaving him gasping for breath, and clutching his stomach as tears still freely waterfall from his eyes. His eyes drifted to where Scott was laying in the grass some ten feet away from Martyn.
Martyn stumbled towards him. He fell to his knees next to Scott’s prone figure, ignorant of the blood quickly soaking his jeans, and stared down at his teammate friend.
Martyn had done this. Martyn had driven his sword through Scott’s stomach, and when his fellow Mean Gill had fallen, Martyn had not been there to pick him back up.
Droplets of blood lead a path of gore towards where Impulse lay on his side, blood still dribbling from his lips, and a bloody arrow embedded into the dirt before him.
Martyn stumbled to his feet away from Scott, away from Impulse, away from the bodies as if mocking his victory.
He wanted this, didn’t he? He wouldn’t let some pesky memories of friendship get in the way.
Martyn’s stride was purposeful, but aimless. He didn’t know where to go, where would be rid of the bodies of his friends.
He passed by Bread Bridge, where Etho’s blood mixed with the water that he had barely missed. He walked by The Rock, where three perfectly carved gravestones were aligned next to each other. Flowers lay at the base of each, a daisy for Bdubs, a lilac for Scar, and a poppy for Cleo. Martyn knew who had planted those flowers. He had been there when Scott had knelt by Cleo’s grave and mourned for the loss of the one person that he kept coming back to every season.
Martyn paused for a second to pay his respects to his former soulbound, then he walked on.
He passed by the Crooked Tower, where two more gravestones lay. One for Skizz, and one for Tango. Martyn was almost regretful that the other two couldn’t have gotten a proper burial. He was almost regretful that they both had fallen to his own blade.
But after all, in this particular game, there was no time.
Martyn found himself staring at the hourglass that he had filled with red, reflecting the exact same color of blood from his own irises.
He decided to build a grave for Scott, despite his time ticking down faster than he deemed usual. What kind of a teammate would he be if, after all those sacrifices of time Scott gave him, would leave his body to rot?
Martyn constructed the grave, and laid a pufferfish in a bucket at the base of it. Hopefully that would be a suitable apology for everything that he had put his teammate through.
Martyn made his trek back to the Crooked Tower, then swam up the bubblevator to Skynet. His footsteps were even as he walked to where Joel’s ladder for his Submarine was, and began climbing the rungs with surprisingly steady hands.
He walked across the highest level of Skynet, before settling down at a random spot, the ground no longer visible to him through the haze of gray and the white fluffy clouds drifting about below him.
Martyn titled his head back and breathed in through his nose, then out his mouth. A thousand apologies waited at the tip of his tongue, but he held them back, sensing it would do him no good here to vocalize. Even if there were the ghosts of his dead friends watching. Waiting.
Martyn dangled his legs over the endless abyss of gray below, and sighed, checking his timer.
Twenty seconds.
Huh, apparently time flies fast when you’re all alone.
Fifteen seconds.
Martyn missed the laughs.
Twelve seconds.
The jokes, the pranks, the laughter ringing through the still air.
Eight seconds.
Maybe in the next season Martyn would hear that laughter again, instead of his own insanity claiming glory over his brain.
Five.
Perhaps Martyn could team up with Jimmy, maybe keep him from getting out first.
Four.
Jimmy would appreciate that. Probably.
Three.
Martyn just wanted to see Scott again.
Two.
Martyn was utterly alone.
One.
So many eyes. Bright, purple eyes shone down on Martyn in his last seconds of life, staring at him through undeterred and unblinking gazes.
Martyn watched his time tick down to zero, something akin to relief and melancholy twisting his stomach into an uncomfortable shape.
Then he felt… nothing at all.
Everything was dark, there were no eyes, no death, no blood, no screams of betrayal. Just him and the darkness that seemed to consume him in its inky black depths. Perhaps that was for the better.
When Martyn opened his eyes next, it was to the sight of a ring of people, him part of the circle, with confused looks being shot all around the group, but he didn’t miss the smile that a certain cyan haired Empire sent his way.
Everything would be fine this time around.
Martyn was sure of it.