Chapter Text
There were many different kinds of worlds out there.
Grian knew this better than most.
There were anarchy worlds, full of distrust, wars, and sometimes even pure madness. There were solo worlds, where you’d live out your life in solitude, isolated from society. There were the infamous permadeath worlds, where if you died once, you'd never come back. There were enigmatic worlds, shrouded in rumours and mystery.
And there were worlds like Hermitcraft, where a bunch of idiots got together to do whatever random thing they decided to do that day. Which sometimes included building incredible structures and contraptions.
As Grian looked out the window of his starter base at Boatem, he couldn’t help but feel very lucky to be on Hermitcraft, and not for the first time. This was only his third season on the server, but it felt like he’d known all his friends there much longer than that.
A knock at the door pulled Grian out of his thoughts. I wonder if it’s Impulse with an end crystal trying to get me back again, he thought with a chuckle as he walked to the door to answer it. He’s gonna succeed eventually.
Peeking through the window near his door, Grian saw no end crystal in sight. Pearl was standing on his doorstep. Not who I expected, but alright. He swung the door open and winced, still half-expecting to be blown up by an end crystal. He wasn’t.
“Hello, Grian.” Pearl greeted, looking oddly serious.
“Hello Pearl. Is there something I can do for you?”
Pearl shifted uncomfortably. “Grian, we… we need to talk.”
Grian’s smile fell. Oh. He’d known this conversation had been coming ever since the hermits had voted to let Pearl join the server this season, but that didn’t mean he was any more prepared for it. Truth be told, he’d completely ignored thinking about what might come out of it. “Uh, right…” Grian said finally, stepping to the side. “Come on in.”
Pearl walked inside, sitting on top of one of the many shulker boxes lying around the starter base. Grian shut the door behind her and followed, sitting on a shulker box across from her.
“Nice storage system.” Pearl commented, peeking inside a shulker box. “I see your organisation habits haven’t changed.”
Grian laughed. “Yeah, Mumbo keeps telling me I need to fix it.”
“Will you?”
“I will, just, you know, eventually.”
“Right, sure, eventually. ” Pearl deadpanned. She closed the shulker box and looked back up at Grian, frowning. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean, Grian. After the Ender dragon fight on Evo.” Grian felt himself stiffen at the name of his old server. “All of us went to the End, fought an Ender dragon, and came back to the Overworld. Except… you never came back.”
Grian remembered all that well. Too well. That was the day his life had turned upside down, the day everything had changed. It didn’t matter how many years ago it was. He’d never forget everything that had happened.
“We tried to find you.” Pearl continued. “We looked everywhere. The End, the whole Nether, and all over the Overworld.” Her eyes began to shimmer. “We thought you died, Grian. Permanently. We even had a funeral and everything. And now you’re somehow here.” Pearl took a steadying breath and rubbed her tears with her sleeve. “So please, tell me… what happened?”
Grian didn’t know what to say. He still hadn’t told anyone what had happened, not even Xisuma. But he had to at least tell Pearl something . “I didn’t- it wasn’t- I didn’t want to leave.” Grian finally managed.
“Then why did you?” Pearl asked. “Why didn’t you at least tell us before you did?”
Grian opened his mouth to reply, but just then, he heard something below him. I don’t have a basement… is someone-
And then the floor exploded.
Grian knew what had happened the second he realised he was back in his bed, but he pulled out his communicator to check anyway.
Grian blew up
PearlescentMoon blew up
impulseSV blew up
<Tango> Triple kill!
<impulseSV> At least losing 400 levels was worth it this time!
“He lost them again?! ” Grian laughed, shoving his communicator back into his pocket. Walking over to the crater, he gathered all of his stuff into his inventory and put Pearl's and Impulse's stuff in a large chest.
“I got you back!” Impulse shouted a few minutes later as he walked through Grian’s front door. “After losing over 1000 levels of xp, I finally got you back!”
“Dude, why did you even bother getting the levels back? You knew you were gonna go after me again!” Grian laughed again, opening the chest he’d put his friend’s stuff in. “Here. Not sure what stuff is yours, but you probably remember.”
“I remember the important stuff, at least.” Impulse began rummaging through the stuff in the chest. “Oh, that reminds me. I have a favour to ask you, G.”
Grian thought for a moment. He felt bad ditching Pearl to help Impulse… but he hadn’t exactly known what to tell Pearl, either. “Sure, I can help you out.”
“You sure? It’s a pre-tty difficult task.”
Grian grinned. “Is it? In that case, I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh, that's too bad.” Impulse sighed dramatically. “Guess I'd better ask Mumbo, then.”
“I guess you better.”
“Yep.” A few moments passed in silence. “You're just joking around, right?”
Grian gave Impulse a stern look. “Why would I ever joke around?”
Impulse laughed. “Good point.” He grabbed his last item from the chest and closed it. “So, basically, I found Scar taking a nap next to the Boatem hole, so I was thinking-”
“Say no more. Let’s go.” Grian walked around Impulse and out the door, crashing straight into Pearl as she was walking in.
“Where do you think you’re going?” She asked, arms folded across her chest.
Grian grabbed the door frame to prevent himself from tipping over. “Oh, uh, sorry Pearl. I didn’t see you there.” He gestured to the chest in the house. “All the stuff in that chest that aren’t pieces of the floor is yours.”
Pearl didn’t move. “Where are you going, Grian?”
I should’ve known I wasn’t going to get out of this that easily, Grian thought, fidgeting nervously. “Impulse wanted some help pranking Scar.”
“What about…”
“We’ll talk about it later, I promise.” Grian said quickly. “We just don’t have long before he wakes up.”
Pearl scowled. “Fine. But we are going to talk about it.”
“O-of course.” Grian slipped around Pearl and began walking to the Boatem hole.
“Sorry.” Grian heard Impulse say to Pearl before jogging to catch up with Grian. “Hey, uh, G, you sure you shouldn’t finish talking to Pearl first? She seems kind of upset.”
Grian glanced back at Pearl, who was still glaring at him. “I’m sure.” He told Impulse, looking back ahead. Lowering his voice, he added: “That wasn’t a very pleasant conversation we were having anyway.”
Impulse seemed unconvinced, but he didn’t argue. “If you say so.” The two of them continued on in silence.
Grian glanced back at Pearl one last time, hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake. It’s fine, He told himself. I’ll know what to say when we talk about it later.
He could only hope.
Grian still wasn’t sure how he let himself get talked into this.
“This” applied to multiple things. The most obvious of those currently being staying overnight in a haunted high school. The other, more important thing was coming back to Japan in the first place. This city he was in was madness. And everyone in it was crazy, including Grian’s friends who had invited him here, Sam and Taurtis. There was a reason he’d left after only a few hours last time. He almost hadn’t accepted the invitation to come this time, but it was Halloween, and he didn’t have any friends back in England to hang out with. And so he’d come again-and regretted it again.
“Guys, I really, really think we should leave.” Grian said, glancing at his watch nervously. “It’s 3 am, we’ve been here long enough.”
“We can’t leave yet! I still need to prove to Yuki and Chan that I’m a better boyfriend than Taurtis!” Sam protested, leaning against the wall.
“No, I’m the better boyfriend!” Taurtis shouted at the other boy. “I’m gonna prove it, and then Yuki’s gonna be so jealous that I’m Chan’s boyfriend, not hers!”
“Uh-uh! Chan’s gonna be the jealous one, because I’m obviously the better boyfriend!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
I’m such an idiot, Grian scolded himself. I should’ve known better than to come back here. “Alright, that’s it, I’m done here. I don’t even have a girlfriend to prove any nonsense to anyway.” Grian spun around on his heel and began striding purposefully towards the stairs.
Sam grabbed Grian’s shoulder before he could go far. “You can’t leave, Gree-on! I need a witness to prove I’m better!”
“Be your own witness!” Grian knocked Sam’s hand off his shoulder and continued walking to the stairs.
“G-guys? Teacher G-Gareth is b-back..” Taurtis’s shaky voice cut through Grian’s frustration. He whipped his head around to see that sure enough, the teacher’s ghost was standing in the middle of the hall.
“Oh, uh, hi again Gareth!” Sam waved half-heartedly at the ghost. “How’re you doing this fine evening?”
The ghost didn’t move, staring blankly at the three boys.
“Didn’t Grian say it was 3 am?” Taurtis asked, seeming to have regained his bearings. “That’s technically morning, right?”
“‘Fine evening’ sounds better than ‘fine morning’, Taurtis.” Sam replied.
“Yeah, but still. It's technically wrong.” Taurtis pulled a chip out of the bag in his pocket and ate it.
Grian chuckled at the exchange despite himself. Leave it to Sam and Taurtis to have a debate over the time of day in front of a ghost.
Suddenly, Gareth screamed, and started running straight at the trio.
“After careful consideration, I’ve decided Grian has the right idea!” Taurtis exclaimed, bolting for the stairway. Grian and Sam followed closely behind, running as fast as their legs could carry them. After reaching the bottom of the stairs, they all sprinted to the exit, not even hesitating as they ran through the school entryway and back outside. Yuki and Chan were both there, giggling at the sight of the boys.
“Aww, did you guys get scared?” Yuki teased, grinning.
“You would’ve been scared too!” Taurtis retorted, glaring at her. “There were ghosts in the school!”
Sam’s expression darkened, looking over at Taurtis. “Did you just make fun of my girlfriend?” He asked, one of his rabbit ears tipping to the side.
“No, I just said that she would’ve-”
“Those sounded like fighting words.” Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the knife Yuki had given him earlier that night.
Grian’s heart skipped a beat. He’s just joking. He’s just joking. They’re best friends, he wouldn’t actually stab Taurtis. “Sam, I don’t think those were fighting words. Put the knife down, please.”
Sam looked over at Grian silently for a few tense moments, then suddenly burst out laughing. “Did you really think I’d actually stab him?” Sam patted Grian’s shoulder, still laughing. “You can be really stupid sometimes, Gree-on.”
Grian forced a laugh, glancing from Sam to Taurtis anxiously. Taurtis was laughing too, but it didn’t sound forced. How is he not disturbed by that at all?
“So, who won?” Sam asked the girls. “It was me, right?”
“Yeah, you ran out after Taurtis.” Chan replied, looking a little sullen.
“Yes!” Sam pumped his empty fist into the air. “Told you I’d win, Taurtis!”
Taurtis shrugged indifferently. “Okay, fine, maybe you’re the better boyfriend…” He put his arm around Chan’s shoulder, smirking. “...but I have the better girlfriend.”
“No you don’t.” Sam tossed the knife from his left hand to his right, a deranged grin plastered on his face. “I mean, your girlfriend didn’t give you a knife.” Without any warning, Sam thrusted his knife into Taurtis’s gut just above his left leg.
Grian’s eyes flew wide open. “TAURTIS!” He looked over at Sam, who was still holding the bloody knife. “What is wrong with you?!”
“Relax, Gree-on!” Sam laughed, shoving his knife back into his pocket. “We’re just goofin’ and gaffin’, right Taurtis?
“Y-yeah…” Taurtis gripped his wound, wincing in pain. “...just goofin’ and gaffin’, Grian.”
Grian couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d seen Sam do questionable things before, sure, but this- this was insane! “We’ve gotta get you to the hospital!”
“No, I’m… I’m okay for now.” Taurtis replied, waving his free hand dismissively. “You’re gonna miss your flight if you don’t go soon, right? We need to drop you off first.”
His flight. In all the chaos, Grian had completely forgotten about it. Yes, he was getting dangerously close to missing it. And he would love nothing more than to go home to England. “Oh, uh, yeah, but I think your stab wound is more urgent…”
“Here, I’ll drive the girls home, and you drive Gree-on to the airport.” Sam interjected. “How does that sound, Taurtis?”
“That works for me.” Taurtis said, giving Sam an unsteady thumbs up.
This is a nightmare. “You-you can’t drive when you’re bleeding like that!”
“Here, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go straight to the Hospital after I drop you off.” Taurtis offered. “Deal?”
Grian wanted to tell him no, that they needed to go to the hospital first. But he was worried Taurtis wouldn’t go to the hospital at all if he rejected the offer. “Deal.”
“Does that work for you, ladies?” Sam asked Yuki and Chan.
“Yep.” Yuki instantly replied.
Chan glanced at Taurtis somewhat nervously, then looked back to Sam. “Yeah, that works for me.”
“Okay, follow me, Grian.” Taurtis began walking down the steps away from the school. Grian took one last glance at the others, then followed. This whole evening had been madness, but at least he was going home. Then everything would be back to normal. He’d never have to come back here again.