Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before Scar’s sword pierced through her stomach, her blood coating his blade with her dying warmth, the following flashed through Gem’s eyes:

The crooked grin of her killer.

The glint of his diamond sword, decorated with blood from his previous victims, as though they’re a trophy to be displayed.

And the colour draining from Pearl’s face. From the darkening edges of her vision, Gem could barely catch Pearl’s mouth open. With the ringing in her ears, Gem never had a chance of knowing what was said.

Gem draws in her last breath, a gasp. 

Then, her final life was stolen along with her last exhale.

After Gem dies, she snaps her eyes open and her whole body twitches when she goes for a desperate inhale. 

She squints, but doesn’t shut her eyes completely when the blinding white glow of the sun was the first sight that greeted her, hung up on a sky that’s too blue. 

She wheezes, but continues to claw for air to enter her lungs when every muscle she has burns, and it’s like someone’s ripped open her rib cage.

Naturally, the first thing she does is to bring up an arm to cover her eyes, shielding herself from the sunlight that threatens to drill into her skull and worsen the ache coursing through her body tenfold. Afterwards, she reaches for her abdomen, where Scar had swung and cut into her flesh.

The pounding of her heart doesn’t stop when she doesn’t find an open wound, and tears still spill from her eyes.

Respawning has never been this painful. Dying has never made her feel this small. 

Gem’s never wanted more than anything to heave and scream. She sucks in another breath, and is made painfully aware of how scratched raw the inside of her throat already is. Nevertheless, a cry escapes from her lips, then she feels like she’s swallowed the thorns of a rose as each breath she takes is accompanied with a sharp sting.

Amidst all the urges to thrash, to tear into the ground beneath her and to grip onto her own head until the world finally stops spinning and her brain doesn’t pulse with a searing hot red— she knows one thing.

She’s dead. She died. Gem was the remaining three in a death game with her friends, and she died when Scar parried the blow of her sword and stabbed her.

She died, and the last things she could remember are Scott cheering her on even though she has her blade pressed against his neck, as well as Pearl standing back while Scar killed her. 

Gem’s mind is all you got this, Gem, carry it— you don’t want to do this, right? Gem— and don’t make me do this, Gem, and she can repeat, word for word, in the same shaky voice— Pearl, I’m not making you do anything—

A wave of pain floods her senses again when she attempts to sit up, because it’s been who knows how long minutes since her death, and she’s been crying and gasping for air from her sore throat on the ground ever since then. Surely, Scott or Impulse would’ve heard her and came looking for her after all that. It’s her first time dying permanently in these games, so maybe this is just normal. Maybe this is just a temporary world where the defeated players wait, until a winner has been decided and they can move on. (To another game? To her home? She’s not sure, and she almost doesn’t want to know the answer.)

If that’s the case, it still doesn’t explain why she’s currently sitting in what she assumes to be a hole in the ground, most likely made from an explosion, since the telltale signs of ash and gunpowder lingers in the dirt under, along with the air around her. Through the tears that cling to her eyelashes, she can make out blurry silhouettes of trees, standing taller than usual.

Gem sniffles, willing herself to power through the exhaustion in her bones and the stabbing sensation at her sides every time she moves, so that she can slowly but surely stand up and climb out of the man-made dent. For a moment, she considers calling out to Scott and Impulse to make it easier to find her, but the way she’s still breathing raggedly forces her to stay silent instead.

For a start, a strangled bit of noise comes out as she clears her throat. It does little to help, only reminding Gem how the taste of iron sticks to her tongue. The earth under her is entirely solid, but it might as well be made of water with how she fails to find stable footing. Hissing at how her limbs wobble and flare up with a scalding pain, Gem eventually crawls out of the crater.

She sways slightly when she stands, thankfully able to catch herself before she trips onto the ground. As she suspected, she’s in the middle of a forest; no other players in sight.

You’d think for a place set up for people to rest after a death game, there’d at least be some action. As far as Gem’s concerned, afterlife shouldn’t be clear blue skies and silent forests. 

Then again, what does Gem know? Maybe this is normal. Maybe having a health bar of 10 hearts instead of 30 is normal. Maybe waking up with no tools and armour is normal. Maybe having images of Scar’s crooked grin and Pearl saying a sentence she’ll never hear swarm her head is normal. The overwhelmingly loud thumping of her heartbeat will calm down to a steady rhythm again, her knuckles won’t turn a bony white when she thinks of that last fight, Scott and Impulse will find her— Everything will be fine again.

Everything is fine. Gem thinks again, because she’s already lost her final life and she’s not fighting Scar and Pearl anymore. Everything is fine, she repeats, because it’s the only way she can stop every other thought racing in her mind.

Everything is fine.

And there’s a tower off in the distance.

Gem doesn’t know how much time she’s spent staring at the structure poking out of the tree lines. It’s the only visible building from her position, a tower reaching for the clouds, high above ground, with its edges slightly jutted out at certain sides.

There’s a tower off in the distance. Gem’s woken up with none of her tools, her heart’s still beating furiously despite having the sight of Scar plunging his sword into her stomach burnt into her brain, none of the other players are here, and maybe, everything is not fine. 

Maybe, the threadbare effort Gem has put into composing herself begins to show its ugly strains; a small crack in the dam that holds back every panicked thought and full-on sob stored in her body. 

Gem blinks. Once. Twice. Then she takes a step forward.

She just died, she doesn’t know where she is, and there’s a tower off in the distance. That only really leaves her with one thing to do, right?

The woods seem to stretch on, guiding her to her destination with trees increasingly tainted with soot, mud, and for some reason, snow, splattered on its roots and its bark. The dirt plains below her feet begin to feel more solid as she trudges on. Interspersed between her walk, she catches flashes of iron, missing flint to properly light a fire, bursts of colour in the form of sugarcane tossed onto the floor, and for a second, Gem swore she could hear something shifting between the trees.

She turns back, but the only view that greets her is the sprawl of trees that she’s passed. Nobody’s here. Nobody’s following her.

“Just keep running, Gem—” Scott reached for her wrist when she looked back to see if Scar and Pearl were still hot on their trail. As soon as he wraps his hand around her arm, he tugs, breathless. “Just go, Gem, go!”

The tower is even taller now that she’s closer to it. Around the structure, there’s decently sized holes dug in the earth, which Gem would assume were used to shelter animals. There’s a well-worn path leading out from the entrance, footprints stamping out the grass and dragging the dirt until the soil formed a line.

Gem hobbles towards the base of the tower, and that’s when she notices a collection of scratches made on its outer wall. They start out almost like a scornful claw mark, slowly evolving into shakily etched lines— a tally. Four lines vertical, then one horizontal. Rinse, repeat.

Tracing her fingers along the cobblestone wall, she starts counting the slashes; Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thi—

A wolf barks from behind Gem, and a cacophony of growls follow.

Gem’s inhale catches in her throat. Finger still on the indent of the wall, Gem never reaches thirty before the shifting of the woods around her devolve into howls.

She stares into the tower’s walls instead of turning around, her body frozen as the growls continue, but she doesn’t feel any of the wolves moving closer to her.

Slowly, Gem lets her head turn, careful to not instantly aggravate the pack.

The thought to breathe and calm down is knocked right out of her mind when a figure in a red cloak stands among the pack of wolves, their presence clashing violently with the white fur of the wolves.

The red hood is pulled over their head, but Gem doesn’t need a clear view of the figure’s face to be frozen in place.

The glint of their diamond axe in the sunlight is a spell that reopens the wound in Gem’s abdomen, a pang of pain that could only be the edge of a blade thrusted into her side. There it is, the dread of losing her final life comes back with a vengeance.

There is no open wound, but every bit of Gem’s body runs cold.

Her hunter tilts their head, allowing for a pair of scarlet eyes to stare into her own.

Pearl is staring at her. Pearl, and those same scarlet eyes that sent her a desperate glance across cherry blossom hills, those same scarlet eyes that chose Scar instead of her, that’s the same person who betrayed her.

Now, she has a pack of wolves, a gleaming diamond axe, and a red string running from her pinky finger, its ends frayed.

The pit in Gem’s stomach grows heavier when the silence between them remains unbroken while Pearl eyes Gem, as if she’s inspecting her, a hound playing with its prey. 

What can Gem even say? In her mind, she has hundreds of things she wants to tell Pearl. She wants to know how Pearl could look into her eyes and let her die. She wants to know why Pearl came back every time Gem struck her down, the same lopsided grin, yet aware of how it would all end. She wants to scream and cry and know why her best friend betrayed her— and it all grips onto her heart instead of leaving her lips.

Gem stares on, helplessly; What did you do when I died?

Pearl answers, but it’s no answer at all.

”Who are you?”

Gem’s heart sinks, bringing every plea that clung to it down.

“What— What do you mean ?” Gem stammers, bile rising from her stomach. She swallows, and the thoughts that come out of her mouth are a frenzied sound. “You don’t— This isn’t funny, Pearl— You know who I am.”

You know who I am, don’t you? How could you not, when you let me die? We were friends, weren’t we?

Pearl straightens at Gem calling her name. Her grip on the axe tightens, and she doesn’t hesitate before responding— you hesitated, didn’t you? You said you couldn’t shoot me. You said you didn’t know what to do. 

Gem doesn’t get time to brace for impact. The words just echo through the forests, a sledgehammer to Gem’s already torn heart, ripping out all the air in her lungs and breaking the floor under her.

“I don’t know you.”

Chapter Text

Gem ran.

It was the only thing she could do, the only movement her limbs knew, the only reaction she could have— running, until her muscles burned again with flaming pulses and the world stopped closing in on her. Everything felt too close and too far at the same time, the ground threatened to bury her in and the trees would act as the final blow, collapsing down on her— though in reality, neither had changed from their immobile state; the tower that loomed before her still feels like an arm’s length away, and she’s there, tracing the tally marks all over again, though her legs are in actuality taking her farther and farther away. It doesn’t make sense, all contradictory and irrational, but persistently real in Gem’s mind.

It’s what she needs— what she thinks she needs, she needs to run. It’s the sole act that can save her from scarlet cloaks and white wolves and crooked towers and the thoughts that make tears prick her eyes and none of it made sense—

There is no real escape, the white blur of a building that Gem’s approaching reminds her, because she’s just woken up from death to find herself in a new cage, which reeks with the same smell of death and sulphur. 

Even though she’s more controlled by the sheer panic running through her veins than conscious thoughts, her brain is thankfully wired enough from the months she’s spent in a death game to avoid the countless holes lying around the shell of this ruined house. She’s no stranger to treading through wastelands now. If she had seen this sorry mess of a house a few months ago, she might be the slightest bit concerned for its owner and wonder what tragic fate befell the structure. 

Now? She doesn’t need to know. The holes punched through its walls and the pockets of caved-in dirt are nothing but a passing thought, swept away to be buried under images of familiar and once-blue eyes. 

In front of the debris, nearly blocking the broken-down entryway of what was seemingly an attempt at a modern house, there’s a short pillar constructed of cobblestone. It sticks out as the only part of the area that’s not damaged, something added to the building after it had crumbled down, freed from the vegetation slowly lurking to reclaim it as a part of nature.

As Gem gets closer to it, she registers that a sign’s been placed on the cobblestone, and she blinks away the tears fogging her vision to read the lines scribbled on its surface:

“Impulse & Bdubs”

Upon reading the words, they settle as stones in the pit of Gem’s stomach. It makes the world around Gem spin again, causing her to stumble backwards from the wooden sign. When her foot makes contact with the ground, instead of finding a soft landing from what should be grass below, there’s a crunch of glass.

The sound gets Gem’s eyes to dart down, where she finds a battered clock. Her feet narrowly dodge stepping on the item itself, as the crunch is of the glass that had long shattered and spilt on the surrounding floor. The tarnished sides of the clock are splattered with dried blood, aside from scratches and dents made to its body.

It’s a grave.

There’s no mistaking it. Why wouldn’t it be? The horrible, cracked stone jutting out from a piece of ruined land fits right in with the sights that Gem’s seen over these past few weeks, like the one they made for Jimmy. 

Well, there is the question of why the gravestone is for two people instead of just one. As unsure of her whereabouts as Gem is at the moment, she’s pretty sure she can’t recall anything major happening between Impulse and Bdubs to warrant a joint grave. In the end, they were competitors, standing on opposing ends of a hilltop—

“—then maybe you should be over here.”

“Maybe you should be over here. ”

“Well, this is a dilemma, isn’t it—”

— enemies. They were enemies, in the end. That shouldn’t warrant a joint tombstone. They’d been friends, once, before it all turned red and it was a matter of sticking with your alliance. Just not to this extent, at least not that Gem can recall.

Moving aside while keeping in mind to not trample the clock on the ground, Gem doesn’t wait for an answer to pass the cobblestone tomb and squeeze into the remnants of what she’d now assume to be Impulse and Bdubs’ home. 

She’s passed the point of no return in terms of making sense of everything that’s happening around her, so she swallows down the question of when they could’ve even built this together, when the Impulse she knew lived in a cherrywood hut next door, while Bdubs lived in an upside-down house on top of a mound. It can sit and settle along with the other question screaming in her head, begging to be answered. ( Why don’t you remember me? After all that we’ve been through, after every time you came back to me, why don’t you remember? ) 

For now, Gem’s more concerned with staying alive, and getting tools would be great for that. There should be a couple hours left until sunset, so she doesn’t have time to waste if she wants to find shelter for the night as well, because this run-down and torn apart house does not look like the ideal spot.

Pearl never followed her. 

The moment Gem decided to run, she spun on her heel and let her body carry her away. Looking back is a habit she’s keen to break, so she kept on staring forwards rather than checking if Pearl had followed.

When no cloaked figure makes their presence known by the time Gem makes it to the other side of the map, Gem makes the assumption that Pearl never gave chase to begin with, which is…good. Yeah. Good.

It makes it abundantly clear that the person Gem saw at the tower isn’t the Pearl she knows. They may wear the same face, they may share the same voice, but that wasn’t Pearl . It’s the only explanation, isn’t it? Pearl has never had powdered snow cover the ends of her cloak, Pearl has never tied a red string to her pinky, Pearl has never looked so dishevelled… and Pearl would’ve come looking for her. 

Gem never thought Pearl would betray her, either. It’s stupid to think back on, now. Those frowns the other players had flashed on their faces when they passed by her? The sympathetic glances they thought Gem never caught onto? The tension between everyone else that Gem had so gladly swept under the rug? The air was always tinted with secrets, Gem just never fully grasped onto what lied between the glare Pearl had shot to Scott during the siege of their home. Gem stepped into a storm that’s laid waste to countless lives before, and the ruthless winds were thrilling before they were destructive.

Still, the person she met is Pearl, and not Pearl . It’s been proven time and time again that Gem knows way less than she thinks she does, but this is something she’s certain of. 

It just doesn’t make it any easier to fathom how lopsided grins could twist into the same person who let her die. How cruel it was, to take memories of sunflowers and camel rides, then crush it all with ones of fired arrows and parried blows. Gem’s sure that the Pearl she last saw is different from the Pearl who watched the life fade from her eyes, but she can’t say the same for the Pearl she sent out on a dragon fight and the Pearl who chased her down in her final hours. They wore the same face, they shared the same voice, and they were the same person. Somehow, it’s still hard to believe. 

It leaves her with lead weighing down on her heart, standing before another pile of wreckage. 

This one is mainly composed of wood, now burnt down and fallen apart. Pinned under the rubble, there’s what seems to be the remains of a sail, its edges a sooty black and its fabric a creased mess. It doesn’t look like anything valuable would be left inside the heap of burnt wood, so Gem moves on to the grave built nearby.

Unlike the first pillar she found, the sign posted on the cobblestone isn’t a proper wooden sign crafted specifically for the grave, but what looks like a piece ripped out from another structure. It’s slightly curved and its splintered edges are charred, similar to the wooden beams and plates in the rubble. Aside from that, the words on its surface is of the same handwriting— Pearl ’s handwriting— as the tomb near the last house, but this one reads:

“Joel & Etho”

Again, Gem doesn’t recall why Joel and Etho would have a reason to share the same tomb. Wouldn’t Etho be with Cleo and Grian? 

Gem furrows her eyebrows at the sign, but at the reminder of the sun’s continuous fall in the distance, she saves the confusion in favour of finding another base.

There’s a canyon not too far off from where the wooden rubble is, and at the bottom, there’s a river infested with chunks of netherrack mixed in with the water. The muddled red it creates isn’t the same as spilling blood into it, but for a moment, it looked eerily similar.

Gem doesn’t bother making the trek down to rummage through the crimson remains, only leaning out to get a better glimpse of the cobblestone pillar by the river. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be a wooden sign on it, but there is a black bandanna tied around it, flowing up alongside occasional breezes. 

That…she recognises it as Martyn’s.

By now, finding joint graves would be the norm over solitary ones, but Martyn’s unmarked tomb, followed by the next few, set out to prove Gem wrong yet again.

For a start, Cleo’s is next to the stone framing of another burnt down house. Most of its wooden walls have long succumbed to flames, most likely ash that’s been scattered by gusts of wind by now. Their tomb is the most ordinary one Gem’s come across so far, and the only thing that stands out from it is a flint and steel tossed beside it. It doesn’t show many scratches made to its surface, so Gem doubts that it’s the same tool used to destroy Cleo’s home.

On the side of a rocky mountain plain, there are two separate tombs, one for BigB and one for Ren. There are no other debris or structures of note nearby, and the only thing Gem noticed was that the scribbling on BigB’s is not of the same handwriting as the others. Not Pearl’s.

Grian’s is outside what remains of a fort built from various wood types, namely mangrove, oak and birch. The ground around it is littered with spikes of stalactites, so Gem elects to not enter the half-ruined base.

Not far from Grian’s, there’s a surprisingly well-kept sanctuary for pandas, a structure that’s been repaired and healed from whatever trail of fire had broken out around the rest of the world. There’s a potted cactus beside the cobblestone built in front of the entrance, and when Gem shifts to read the sign—

That dark cloak lined with lilacs and poppies, swaying along with his dash to stab at Gem’s chest. She manages to block it right at the last second, but when she allows herself a brief sigh of relief, he flashes his crooked grin.

Gem leaves the area with the same pace she had maintained when she first began her search, running like her memories were a part of the world that could be fled from.

At the end of the day, she finds shelter in the only other base that’s loosely intact. It’s clear from the mismatched mix of wood at the base and the walls of the farmhouse that it’s also a victim of the blaze that had overtaken the lands, but it’s since been rebuilt from its ruined foundations.

There’s two separate tombstones in the ranch guarded by stone walls. This time, it’s a joint grave for Jimmy and Tango, while the other is something entirely different, a shrine made of polished deepslate with a sculk catalyst in the middle, dedicated to whatever a “Rancher’s Revenge” is.

So, that’s another two players ticked off in the mental tally Gem’s been keeping. From her time scouring the map, the only bases she’s found that didn’t have a clear indication of who they belonged to was a giant cobblestone box, alongside another walled off hut that has its insides razed of its crop fields. The players she hasn’t found graves for (or aren’t…Pearl) are Scott, Skizz, Mumbo and Lizzie. Armed with even more questions than she started and less tools than she would’ve liked, she steps into what was presumably Jimmy and Tango’s house instead of dwelling on where their graves could be.

Right as she pushes open the front door, the dust that’s gathered inside fly up, causing her to cough and cover her face. The stinging in her throat acts up again, though slightly lighter from the hours she’s spent in silence.

The interior isn’t lit up, but it’s a problem that’s quickly solved by relighting the torches already propped up on the walls. It reveals the specks of dust floating about, suggesting that nobody’s been here for a good while. Weird, especially when the patch of soil outside seems to have been tilled recently, and somebody went out of their way to repair the broken structure.

Gem can’t help but smile when she finally finds chests of spare armour and tools inside. Iron, but they’ll do for now. She can stay the night, and then…

Then what? She hasn’t seen anyone else wandering about, she has no idea where she actually is, and the only source for potential answers has the face of both her best friend and the person she can’t look at anymore without a surge of pain rushing up her abdomen. The scar tissue has just settled, covering a fresh wound. The jagged edges feel so…fragile, like it could reopen at any moment, a nudge away from falling apart. 

She settles on one of the neatly made beds tucked away in a corner of the house. It doesn’t feel like it’s actually been used before, for some reason.

Upon laying on the wool, exhaustion from everything wraps around her body in place of a blanket, and she barely has the will to fight against the weight of her eyelids drooping down.

The question of what now? is one that she’s spared from, for at least a single night.

“Gem, you need to kill me.”

And then Gem’s eyes snap open.

Scott is kneeling in front of her again, they’re on the slope leading to the Secret Keeper again, he’s saying the same things again and he’s pressing the blade she’s holding on his own neck and no no no no no she can’t do this again—

“Gem, you need to kill me.” Scott repeats, his voice the same as the first time this happened. Only this time, Gem doesn’t respond, she doesn’t ask why. She knows why already, she’s had this scene play out once already, and she remembers what the next line is, too.

“I don’t think I can do it, I think you’re gonna need to do it—”

“No.” is what replaces Gem’s original response. 

Scott’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to rebuke, but Gem continues on.

“No, Scott, I’m not letting this happen.” I can’t do this again. “We can fight them together, I’m not killing you.”

“Gem, you don’t understand, they’ll—”

“I said I’m not doing it! I’m not—” Gem croaks, pulling back the sword that’s resting on Scott’s shoulder. The sob that builds up in her throat stops her from finishing the rest of her sentence, and Scott springs up, his hands hovering over her as he watches on with a conflicted gaze.

Then comes the whizz of an arrow.

Scott grabs Gem’s arm and forcefully tugs her out of the arrow’s trajectory, its sharp head nearly grazing her face. The sudden yank causes Gem to stumble downwards, and her vision is briefly obscured by the dirt below, before she catches herself and leans on the stone beside her to stabilise her footing.

When she looks up, Scott is nowhere to be seen.

“Scott?” She chokes out, her gaze flicking around her surroundings to find her ally. He was just here, he was just holding onto her arm and he just saved her, so where is he now? There wasn’t even a lightning strike to signal his death.

There was an unnerving silence that ran through the air for all but a few seconds.

All that Gem could hear was the pounding of her own heartbeat, but as she turns to call for Scott again, every sound is replaced by the clashing of metal.

Pearl lunges for her, and she manages to meet the blow of her sword by the skin of her teeth. For the brief moment when their swords met, Gem was greeted by Pearl’s glare on the opposing end, a furious and bitter red that she’s never seen reflected in those eyes.

“Pearl—” Gem gasps out, yet Pearl only returns the call with another swift strike, madly swinging her sword towards Gem.

There’s no time for Gem to think, or even breathe, as Pearl continuously deals one frenzied blow after another, all of which could’ve easily cut into Gem’s throat if she hadn’t blocked. The force of it sends Gem backwards, one step after another, her heels digging into the dirt floor.

The tears in Gem’s eyes still haven't cleared, but she knows that Pearl is staring right at her, unresponsive while Gem struggles out pleas for her to stop; Pearl hasn’t even blinked once.

Gem’s voice grows weaker, the clang of each parry drowning out her Pearl please— I don’t wanna die— why are you doing this? 

Those unmoving scarlet eyes burn holes into Gem; cold, soulless.

Just as Gem is finally allowed a window of time to catch her breath, Pearl winds up her arm and rams the pommel of her sword into Gem’s wrist. The impact elicits a sharp pain across her arm, and it’s enough to make her drop her weapon— her only defence.

Not even a second later, Pearl reaches for her collar, and as she was left without any chance to react, she’s shoved down onto the ground, all air leaving her lungs upon landing.

Gem can only look up, all the strength in her body dissolving as Pearl raises her sword into the air, ready to plunge it downwards.

The moment Pearl’s arm drives the blade down, Gem squeezes her eyes shut for an execution that never came.

No, it never came, and Gem instead woke up with a scream.

Gem spends the morning planting seeds into the tilled dirt outside of the house.

It’s the only thing her body could handle. Now with the weight of last night’s nightmares hanging over her, added with the tiredness that still clings to her limbs, the repetitive movement of pressing seedlings into dirt is calming. Grounding, reminding her that it was just a dream, a horrible dream that felt too real and made her throat ache all over again.

It was just a dream. Gem had bolted up, scrambled to put on the beaten up armour she found, and armed herself with a shield before the sun even rose. It was just a dream.

Her fingers tremble when she buries the last of the seeds in. It must be the exhaustion.

Well, that handles her food situation for now. Aside from wheat, she could also herd some cows into the pens that are lying around in the ranch. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of free-roaming animals around, but Gem’s got time. She needs this. This simple and familiar chore that’s miles away from brandishing swords and trading blows with players. 

Slowly propping herself up to stand, she wipes off the dirt on her palms, then freezes when her ears pick up on footsteps behind her.

Unlike yesterday, the sounds approaching behind her are made obvious, and instead of the collective growls of a whole pack of wolves, Gem only hears the pants of one singular wolf. 

Still, Gem tightens her grip on her shield before turning around.

No matter how many times she’s been treated to the sight recently, her heart pauses briefly when she’s greeted by Pearl, standing by the front entrance of the ranch, with one yellow-collared wolf beside her.

It was just a dream , Gem repeats to herself again, and she stares on to find that Pearl remains different from the one she saw in her nightmare. Mannerisms alone, Pearl is hovering awkwardly over the fence gate at the entrance, her eyes darting between Gem and the insides of the ranch. There’s a sense of cluelessness washed over her eyes, instead of the emotionless stare that kept on sending Gem a barrage of attacks. There’s also the matter of appearance, because once again, Pearl is wearing a more torn-up and snow-riddled cloak, with bags forming under her eyes to suggest that Gem isn’t the only one who hasn’t been sleeping well.

After a few more seconds pass of neither of them making the first move, Pearl pipes up.

“Heya, uh…I’m— You— You mind if I come in?”

She then tries her best to flash a friendly smile at Gem, but the corners of her lips twitch one too many times, and it’s obvious that the expression is forced. Gem’s gaze wanders down to find her fidgeting with the string tied to her pinky, wrapping it around another one of her fingers, then having it come loose again.

Gem’s body betrays her by moving closer to the entrance, before she’s even decided on whether or not she could stomach staring at a near replica of Pearl. From this, the sheepish smile on her visitor stretches to be something more; something towing the line towards being genuine.

Hesitation is what makes Gem pause in front of Pearl. Not an outright rejection, but not an immediate invitation, either. That thought alone tugs at the healing wound at her side, because in this… stranger , she sees the woman who forgave her for killing her twice, and at the same time, the woman who let her down when it mattered most— and for a second, there also stood an emotionless ghost set on puncturing her neck.

In the end, Gem pulls open the gate. 

It’s the reasonable thing to do, right? This ranch doesn’t belong to her, she’s not in the position to deny another guest, she’s another wanderer borrowing this empty shell of a home. It’s not about Pearl, and it’s not about how the tension in Gem’s shoulders eases just a small bit when the cloaked visitor perks up and beams at the gesture.

By allowing her to enter the ranch, it’s also put on display just how unarmed Pearl is, compared to yesterday. The diamond axe is completely absent, and the only shine on her is of her armour. The quality of it all is still way better than what Gem’s just scavenged, so coupled with the lone wolf she’s brought, if a duel breaks out between them, she’s got a fair chance of overpowering Gem. A fair chance, not a clear victory, which Pearl doesn’t seem to be bothered by.

In the middle of Gem’s scan over her visitor, Pearl’s hand brushes past hers for but a second, yet it makes her flinch and snaps her out of her trance all the same— abnormally cold, unnervingly Pearl . Pearl catches onto the reaction not long after, purposefully taking a step back from Gem. The gate creaks shut, and here they are, tiptoeing around each other.

The spark momentarily glimmering from Pearl’s eyes is schooled back into an attempt at a neutral stare, and she shuffles farther away from Gem. It becomes painfully clear between them both that the two of them are just dancing around each other, caution and wariness thickening the tension in the air, something that’s growing to be worse than the lingering smell of smoke.

Pearl makes an obvious and incredibly faked glance around the inside of the ranch, then clears her throat. “This, uh— it’s nice, what you’ve done to the place.”

Right after she says it, Gem catches her expression twist into a deeply regretful wince. If only this conversation happened anywhere else, any time other than now , Gem might’ve been teasing her for the awful go at lightening the mood.

Instead, Gem buries the thought and looks at anywhere but Pearl. She certainly doesn’t need any more what-ifs running through her mind.

“So, um, I just thought I’d drop by and see if you need any help with— Well— getting tools. Yeah.” Pearl continues, and Gem doesn’t have to be looking at her to know she’s flashing another sheepish smile. “Looks like you got that figured out, though, so… guess I was too late.”

The end of her explanation fades into a weak mumble, which gets Gem to take a glimpse at Pearl. She’s rubbing her arm while projecting all the dejection she couldn’t portray in her voice by staring into a patch of grass.

“That’s—” Gem hears herself speak, an impulsive response that slips out of her before she’s even sure of what to say, “that’s okay, I appreciate the thought.”

At that, Pearl’s eyes light up, greeting Gem with a familiar yet short-lived expression of excitement; a flash of hope that sparkles in her red eyes.

“And I’m sorry for just leaving you out alone last night, I didn’t know if you’d be fine out on your own with all those mobs around, but I— I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to follow you.” With a single reply from Gem, all the thoughts seemingly pent-up behind her hesitant gaze come flowing out. 

At the tail end of her sudden ramble, Gem barely catches Pearl muttering something under her breath, something about wasn’t sure and real and seeing things again .

Before the thought of responding crosses Gem’s mind, Pearl continues on again, though what follows would finally stir the storm in her mind to its peak, the resounding clash between her image of the closest friend she’s ever had and yet another competitor she’s come across on the battlefield.

“So, uh… I don’t think I got your name, last time we met.”

The impact isn’t as soul-crushing as the I don’t know you from yesterday, despite it carrying the same meaning, just wearing different skin. That doesn’t mean Gem’s pulse keeps a constant and steady pace, no, her blood runs cold upon hearing those words, but at the very least, she stays rooted to the ground below her instead of taking off again.

“Gem. Call me Gem.” She introduces herself, as much as it feels wrong in her head. She expected her throat to sting again, but the feeling of thorns lodged inside her has already migrated to her heart instead. 

“Gem… That’s a nice name.” Pearl nods sagely, and for some reason, it sounds wrong . There was nothing wrong with the actual pronunciation, but her name was never meant to be said in Pearl’s voice with such foreignness.

(There’s a thought gnawing on the back of her mind, the feeling that she might even prefer hearing Pearl’s calls for her name during those final hours, during the chase for her life, the way her voice bordered on being mournful before she even died, at least it was something. Something is better than this empty echo.)

Then, Pearl finally takes the first step to address the ever-looming questions piling up between them.

“And… You already know my name.” Pearl states, an air of confusion mixed in with the fact.

There’s an unspoken how? added to the comment. It settles in Gem’s stomach like a knot, and Pearl’s expectant gaze is an outstretched hand; unravelling, in more ways than one.

“I…” Gem attempts to start, but every answer in her crumbles into static on her tongue. Where does she even start? How does she untangle the mess of jagged scars wrapped around her body? There’s no use searching for an answer to give, when all that’s plagued her mind are questions.

So, what comes out is just that, a question.

“Where am I?”

Pearl stops picking at the string intertwined between her fingers, letting it fall slack and nearly touch the ground.

“Huh?”

That’s…not what Gem thought she’d get as a reply.

“I thought—” Pearl’s eyes widen, and she sputters out more of an elaboration, to Gem’s relief. “I thought you already knew, since you’re, well, you’re all red.”

Pearl eyes Gem with cluelessness washed over her expression. What does that mean? What does Gem being red have anything to do with her being…

…here. A ruined map, a collective graveyard for nearly every other player Gem’s seen be killed off in a death game. The game where being red meant…

“This is,” Gem feels the pieces clicking together in her head, “another game.”

As though it became an incantation, the air around them turned colder when Gem announced her realisation.

There've been other games before the one Gem was in— the one they called Secret Life, Gem knows this, she’s heard the others bring up the past games all the time. Gem knows the one that came before, the one with a clock’s tick worming through her mind, she’s been there for…what was it? A day? That was her first introduction to these games, getting control of Cleo’s body for a short while, but… No, wait, how did she even get there in the first place?

Gem thinks Pearl is talking, but every sound around her is being drowned out by a ringing— Think, Gem, how did you—

—it felt like the very essence of her being was being ripped out from her, there was void, a never-ending darkness, it was freezing but at the same time her core burned up, it didn’t make sense, none of it felt real and she was…there was something else there, she was being watched—

“Tilly, baby, wait—”

— the world spun. The world is spinning. Breathe—

She can’t breathe. It didn’t— It doesn’t make sense, but her heart is racing and she’s gasping for air? And her vision is all blurry, and she can’t move—

Something leans its weight against her body, and she falls in an instant.

Her breath hitches, then the weight presses against her chest, anchoring her to the grassy field. There’s another set of breathing, another set of movement.

The act of wrapping her arms around the mass of white curled up before her comes naturally, her fingers running through fur.

Pearl’s wolf licks her cheek, bringing attention to how it was already damp beforehand. Everything becomes a blur when Gem buries her face downwards, partially into the fabric of her own clothing. She tightens her embrace, and the ringing in her ears fade to reveal the resultant whine.

Gem hasn’t lifted her head yet, but she can feel Pearl hovering cautiously around her.

Repeating everything is fine like a mantra in her head is what Gem would default to, believing that uttering it enough would will it into being, but she lets the reality of the situation tear apart the habit. None of this is fine, and her being unable to even meet Pearl’s eyes makes it even worse.

Like every previous standstill between them thus far, Pearl is the one to crack first. This time, it comes as a soft and hushed voice:

“I’ll…let you have some time alone.” A pause, then a sigh. “I can come back for Tilly later.”

The palm Gem has resting on Tilly’s fur twitches for a second, a brief moment when instinct runs through her veins and forgoes any distinction between the Pearl she knew and the Pearl in front of her, but she’s out of the ranch before Gem makes another move. 

Chapter Text

It was one of those slower days, when the players had a brief break before receiving their new secret tasks. People would usually use times like these to collect resources or take some desperately needed rest, but on this particular day, Gem found herself by the edge of the cherry hills. The weather was nice, she was well off with her current gear, so why not stop and take in the view?

Impulse strolled over to the fence posts she was perched by, wearing a relaxed smile. At the start, their exchange was the normal good morning and how are you? until they were content to sit in silence, basking in the warm morning air. Autumn was beginning to show itself, soaking the trees below in shades of yellow.

“What were the other games like?” Gem asked, a question which had lingered in her mind since her first introduction. While Impulse’s stare went off into the horizons, Gem dangled her legs off the cliff edge, swinging freely to occupy herself.

“Well, before this, I was in four of these games.” Impulse started, idly scratching his chin. “Let’s see… There was Third Life, Last Life, Double Life, then Limited Life. Most of them stuck with the whole ‘three lives’ rule, but with added mechanics. You should know the last one, the one with a timer— oh, and in Double Life, we shared our health with another player—”

“Wait, how would you win, then? Isn’t it always the last player standing?”

“Um,” Impulse mumbled, the motion of his hand coming to a halt. “I think you’re better off asking somebody else. I’m not exactly sure how the end went down, since my memory gets pretty spotty with the end of the games.” Gem tilted her head, urging Impulse to elaborate, “I don’t remember much after my deaths.”

“Oh.” is all that came out of Gem’s mouth afterwards.

“Yeah.” Impulse maintained his faraway gaze. “If you really wanna know, maybe you could ask Scott? Once he gets back from— uh, whatever he’s doing, anyway.”

“Maybe.” Gem echoed.

The blue, almost transparent world border looms over Gem.

Her palm ghosts over the wall, one small step away from making contact before Pearl speaks up.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

When Gem pulls her arm away, she instinctively turns to the voice, finding how Pearl was in the middle of raising her own arm to reach for Gem— up until Gem caught her in the act, and her hand fell back in place.

It was Gem’s choice to follow Pearl to the world border, since after their meeting at the ranch, one solid goal stuck out in Gem’s head: she needs to get out. She isn’t sure how she got here or why she’s here, but she does know that this isn’t where she should be. There’s got to be some mistake, right? Why would she be in the ruins of another game, after just dying in her own?

Though, that presents another set of glaring questions: why is Pearl here? Now that it’s been made clear that this Pearl isn’t her— isn’t the Pearl from the game she was in, it could only mean that this Pearl is from this very game, a game from…before. Not only that, she’s the only player left in this game, which would mean that she’s already won. She’s the last player standing, she survived, so why is she still here? Shouldn’t the winner be set free?

(Gem paused at the thought, if she won, would she still be trapped in Secret Life?)

Pearl doesn’t know. When asked these questions, the best answer she could give was an empathetic I don’t know, which did nothing to ease the panic bubbling up in Gem, but at least her concerns are now less directed at her companion.

The next thing Gem asked was then: haven’t you tried to escape?

That’s how they found themselves here, hovering by the wall that separates them from the expanse that stretches on and on, towards some sense of freedom.

Once Gem steps back from the border, Pearl pulls out an iron pickaxe. Days of mining are etched onto its dulled surface, to the point where it looked a few uses away from falling apart. Before Pearl could even swing at the wall, dread has already settled onto Gem; there’s no way Pearl plans on breaking the border open with that pickaxe.

Still, Pearl makes it a point to lift the tool up, preparing herself to pry into the world border with full force. As soon as she brings her arms down, embedding the tip of the pickaxe into the wall, crackles start erupting from the point of contact. Smoke follows after, flowing out into the surrounding air. The greyness of it all almost masks how the sharp edge of the pickaxe is melting, with the tip becoming an unrecognisable end of pure black.

Before she knows it, Gem’s rubbing her hand, trying to suppress her imagination from wondering how it would have fared if she did touch the wall.

With a thud, Pearl drops the deformed pickaxe onto the ground. The sizzling dies off into the rustling of grass.

“So,” Pearl breaks the silence between them, as usual, “this way is a no-go.”

“Right.” Gem offers a curt response, her gaze determined to remain on the melted pickaxe rather than shifting to Pearl. What else can she try? The world border imposed upon them, this indestructible and all-encompassing force surrounding their every side. Going underground wouldn’t help, she’s already seen how the border penetrates downwards. Up, then? They didn’t explore the End dimension more back in her game, but if she goes— if she opens an End portal again— could she find an elytra?

She looks up, inspecting the wall that extends upwards. The blue eventually meets with the sky’s very own colours. There’s no way of knowing if going up is viable, either.

The tally marks outside of Pearl’s tower start making a lot of sense now. Gem’s sure that Pearl would’ve tried every way she could think of already, all to no avail, which does not bode well for Gem’s chances. Unless Gem can think of a way to bypass the world border, there’s no physical way of escaping.

Just the thought of it makes her fists ball up, meagrely gathering the strength left in her arms.

“There might be another way I haven’t thought of yet.” Pearl offers, her voice reaching Gem softly. There’s no use in excusing it as anything but Pearl’s attempt at consoling her, but the only response it gets from Gem is her biting down a scoff. She knows Pearl, or at least, she’d like to think she once did; she knows Pearl’s cheeky grins, she knows the touch of Pearl’s fingers running through her hair, and most importantly, she knows how smart Pearl really is. She would’ve come up with every possible means of escape already.

Gem finally turns to look at Pearl, her clenched fists trembling when she sees the snow-riddled cloak. Her exhale catches in her throat, and with another breath, it’s released as a sigh.

“I—” Gem pauses, her voice losing strength as her gaze lingers on Pearl, “I need some time to think.”

The gaze fixed on Gem is hard to ignore, but she says nothing more before averting her eyes. Thankfully, Pearl does pick up on the hints that Gem’s given, shown by her shifting away from Gem.

“Will you be alright on your own?”

For everything Gem’s done to compose herself in front of Pearl, her indifferent expression cracks at Pearl’s parting words. There’s genuine worry imbued into that question. She doesn’t even have to look to know there’s concern glazed over the stare pinned onto her back; She knows Pearl, and she’s starting to think she knows Pearl a little too well for her heart to bear.

“Mhm.” is what she manages to get out.

Silence comes after, though Gem can still feel a presence lingering behind her. Gem can only imagine the thoughts running through Pearl’s head, the words that lodge into her throat and devolve into static whenever she tries to speak up. It’s abundantly clear by this point that the Pearl standing by Gem at this moment actually cares about her, for whatever reason, despite the fact that she doesn’t know Gem. It’s just… Gem can’t figure out why for the life of her.

Eventually, she hears Pearl’s footsteps, crunches onto the earth beneath them becoming ever more quiet. It’s then that she allows herself to turn around, to let herself gaze onwards and watch the red silhouette become smaller with each step down the forest path.

Right, so there’s no physical way out, but there’s got to be a way.

When Gem isn’t actively brainstorming a potential method of escape, she’s taking care of the ranch. By “taking care of”, she means going from repairing broken pens to filling in man-made holes. She’s not going to be too picky about her temporary abode, but she’s not making herself look at the hollow remains of a ravaged home on the daily, either.

Besides, she doesn’t plan on milling about inside the house all day long to think of possible solutions to her current predicament, that’s only going to drive her up the walls— even more than she is now, anyway.

Look at it this way, cleaning up the ranch, including the land surrounding it, gives her time to properly process everything that’s happened so far. The explanation she’s settled on so far is that whatever force put her in these games in the first place managed to mess with the fabric of reality so much that she’s been sent back in time after her death. Yeah, it definitely makes her sound insane, but when you put that theory in comparison with everything else in these games, it suddenly sounds a tad bit more plausible.

Just don’t think too hard about the why, because that’s where Gem’s train of thought hits a brick wall.

It has been a while since she’s been able to switch her brain off and build, not having to be constantly sneaking a glance behind her back, which she is grateful for. Having spent so long around other people, it’s hard to not want some peace and quiet.

Pearl visits every day, but never too long at a time. She might come by a few times per day, normally to see if Gem needs any help, but these exchanges only last around ten minutes at max. That, Gem can manage.

The first time she dropped by while Gem was out tidying up the area, the corners of her lips quivered into hints of a frown, quickly erased by the smile she’s decided to put on whenever they met. Although Gem noticed the change in expression, she’s not sure how to decipher it.

The next time Pearl went to the ranch, she’d come with a chest full of saplings, wood, and even bonemeal. It didn’t seem like she could’ve gathered so much on such short notice, so she must’ve already had them, ready to go whenever she felt like using them.

Gem does wonder why she’s never gotten around to patching the place up, especially with all the time she’s been stuck here.

She doesn’t ask, though. They go about the same song and dance, linger out of each other’s orbit yet again, then Pearl leaves Gem to her own devices.

That should be it, really. They’re not getting in each other’s way, they’re not hurting each other, and they don’t see each other that often.

Does Gem ever get curious as to where Pearl goes? Sometimes, maybe.

Does it seem strange that Pearl’s hands are consistently a shade paler than normal? Yeah, definitely.

Is she going to do anything about it?

Probably not, she notes, watching as Pearl shuffles to the entrance of the ranch to place more materials into a chest. Her focus trails down to Pearl’s hands once more, finding speckles of white on her skin. It’s tinged redder than usual, and that, for a reason that Gem can’t quite place, causes Gem’s own arms to tense up.

When Pearl leaves, Gem says nothing.

A couple of days later, Pearl invites Gem on a mining trip.

To Pearl’s evident surprise, seeing as how she’s at a loss for words afterwards, Gem accepts. Through the time she’s spent scavenging around the map, there doesn’t seem to be much useful tools left on the surface. While she’s not exactly complaining about the resources at the ranch, the low quantity of materials like iron, coupled with the nonexistent supply of diamond left much to be desired. Following the breaking of her second shovel, a journey down to the caves not only sounded tempting, but also imminent, if she’s being totally honest.

There’s also safety in numbers, Gem reasons in her mind as the two of them peered down into the dark cave opening. As usual, Gem remains silent, letting even a sound as quiet as a water droplet be heard. She stands by the cave entrance, waiting for Pearl to go in first.

In response, Pearl shoots a glance over towards Gem, becoming all the more aware of the standstill that’s formed between them.

Of all the things Gem could imagine happening next, she really couldn’t see Pearl taking off her armour as one of them. Yet, she’s pretty sure her mind isn’t messing with her when she watches Pearl undo the fastenings of her diamond chestplate right in front of her.

“What are you—” Gem could barely stop herself from voicing out her confusion, the words clumsily falling out of her mouth.

“Well, I figured you’d want more protection before going in.” Pearl goes on, lifting the armour piece up from her torso. “Not really fair that I get to go in with full diamond gear, when you’ve only got iron, right?” Then, she presents the chestplate to Gem, the diamond glimmering with slight purple hues, showing off the enchantments infused into the material. “So how about we do a bit of swapsies with our chestplates?”

“But…” Gem’s hands hover before the offered armour, uncertainty weaved into their inaction while her gaze flicks between Pearl and the chestplate. Although she began what could only be a refusal, she can’t find it in her to not take the trade.

“Oh, you don’t need to be all polite about it.” Pearl waves off the hesitation, opting to push the chestplate right into Gem’s hands.

Politeness isn’t what Gem would use to describe it, no, it’s…

Gem’s eyes trail up and focus on Pearl’s unguarded upper body.

If she had to put it into words for now, it’d have to be shock.

Shock, because they’re standing in the grounds of a death game, and not only is Pearl giving her the chestplate in return for nothing, but she is also letting herself be defenceless while doing so. Gem could easily drop the piece of armour in her hand in favour of drawing her sword, using it to attack before Pearl could even react. She could.

Surely, this isn’t how Pearl was back in this game. Pearl won this game, no matter what rules there were and what alliances she had, there’s no way being so generous with her belongings would let her survive for this long. These games needed ruthless players, dooming friendships to break and allies to fall.

Safe to say, if Gem was the one with diamond gear between the two of them, she wouldn’t be able to make the same offer.

Regardless, now that the diamond chestplate has been shoved into her hands, there’s no reason for her to not accept the trade. So, Gem takes off the iron chestplate she found while rummaging through Tango and Jimmy’s chests, then puts on the better armour piece. The enchantments flowing through the diamond give a low hum, promising greater protection in its shine.

She also tries her best to ignore the feeling of a sheathed blade pressing ever so slightly on her leg, so ready, so primed to be wielded— and the iron chestplate gets handed off to Pearl.

Once Pearl settles into it, she wastes no time in facing the entrance once again, shield and torch in hand. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Gem tightens her grip on her own shield. Out of habit, her other hand rests on her side. Her fingers brush the sword’s hilt.

Pearl nods, then takes the first steps into the cavern.

The flame on Pearl’s torch acts as the only source of light while they venture downwards, where the natural conformations of stone and minerals block out the sunlight outside. The fire spills outwards, waving in tune with the surrounding air to cast rays of faint orange onto the cave’s walls.

All things considered, it’s a pretty uneventful start to a mining trip. Whenever they pass by ores, Pearl would stop to place her torch on nearby ground so that they could both dig it out. There’s no conversation to be exchanged, and they move on to the next vein of ores afterwards.

It’s when they reach their third patch of iron ore that something of note happens.

Pearl pauses in front of the ores, still holding the torch. She considers the vein for a moment, then turns to Gem, her face partially illuminated by the torch’s glow. “It’s all yours.”

“What?” Gem stares, eyebrows furrowed once more at Pearl’s words.

“I’ll watch your back.” Pearl defaults to another one of her usual smiles. “Go ahead.”

“You’ve got enough iron already?” With her pickaxe shifting in her hand, Gem presses on with her questioning. Every background noise becomes annoyingly loud when there’s only silence between the two; a zombie gurgles not too far from where they stand, the rattling of bones travel even through the stone, squeaks echo out from further down the cave.

“I’ve got plenty.” It doesn’t take much attention to detail to note the wrinkles around Pearl’s eyes, the way her eyelids droop lower on its own. The strength put in to maintain her smile doesn’t hold, and it shrinks by the second.

She’s lying. The thought tugs at Gem’s mind. Pearl’s voice falters too much to carry conviction, Gem hears it. She just knows.

Unease snakes its way up to Gem’s shoulders, but eventually she starts mining out the iron anyway.

One tap after another, the stone encasing the ores crumble with the touch of her pickaxe. The edge of the tool chips away at it, though the rate at which Gem gathers the resource is slower than before, since her attention floats to the figure standing behind her every so often. It’s practically impossible for her to not throw a look over her shoulder for every time she gets a nugget of raw iron out from the small cave pocket. She knows better now, this isn’t paranoia, not when a brief second of carelessness has cost her heaps of hearts before.

True to her word, every time Gem glances back, she only finds Pearl’s back facing her. Pearl’s actually standing guard, like she promised.

Why wouldn’t she? Gem clears out the ores she could find, though the thought makes her pause in front of the dug out wall. Why wouldn’t Pearl keep her promise? Well…

There’s— They’re in a death game. Trusting another player only gets you so far, and staking it all on a friendship that folds when it matters most only makes it hurt more— Pearl taught her that. Pearl could stand back and let her die, just as easily as Gem could put a sword through her heart.

When Gem pushes herself up, walking away from the indents she’s made on the cave’s wall, Pearl’s still keeping an eye on the unlit tunnels around them.

Why wouldn’t she?

“All done?” Pearl asks, once Gem stalks over to her side. The unease worming through Gem hasn’t left, more so transformed into another unsettling feeling in her stomach. There’s nothing else out of the ordinary about this mining trip, so all she can do is pin down the source of it on Pearl. Pearl, and her too-giving attitude, her slacked shoulders that jolt up on occasion, her half-genuine smiles that lack a certain shine.

Gem knows Pearl is hiding something, even if it isn’t something sinister, it’s something.

She’s terrible at it, too. Gem remarks to herself, when Pearl trips yet again on a stray rock and barely manages to catch herself. It’s evident that despite her best efforts, Pearl isn’t quite aware of her surroundings.

By the third time Pearl sways off balance a little too much, Gem can’t help reaching out to help stabilise her.

Right as Gem grabs hold of her shoulder, Pearl jerks up to lock eyes with her, bewilderment overflowing in her pupils.

“Are you okay?” Gem asks, for once able to maintain her stare at Pearl.

“‘m fine!” Pearl says, not even a second after Gem said anything, “I’m sorry, I— uh, I just, I should’ve been more careful. I will be, I will. Don’t worry about it, I’m okay.”

The sputtering doesn’t help Pearl at all. In fact, when she seems to run out of breath trying to reassure Gem, Gem is even more compelled to keep her hand on Pearl’s shoulder. It really doesn’t spark much confidence when Pearl looks like she could keel over any second now.

Gem opens her mouth, looking to disagree, but the shaky smile Pearl puts on wobbles a bit more, getting her to see how the expression Pearl has now borders on being pleading. At once, Gem loses any sense of what she could say.

An ache develops in the centre of her chest. She swallows instead of replying.

Relief washes over the lines on Pearl’s face as Gem doesn’t seem to argue back. There’s nothing to do; they stand with a flickering light between them, both aware of a weight hanging over their heads.

“Okay,” is what Gem lands on. A weak whisper to fill in the silence between them.

It doesn’t take long for Pearl to whirl around, continuing their journey down.

The distance between them closes, if only for a step or two.

After all, Gem doesn’t know what she would do if Pearl actually got hurt. What could she do? They can heal on their own, unlike in Secret Life, but—

But what would happen if one of them died here? What would Gem do if Pearl died here? They’re still…in the arena of a death game, there’s no chance they’ll respawn— they’re both red, there’s no coming back after that— They’re the two remaining players here.

These games end when there’s one player left.

That’s what Gem was told. That’s what they were all told at the start. The rules are simple, you win when you’re the last player alive. They aren’t told exactly what happens afterwards, but everyone had assumed that would mean they get to go back to normal. They’d get out.

The last player gets out.

There’s no physical way out, but there’s got to be a way.

Her gaze falls on Pearl’s hand, the fingers curled around a shield handle. The tint of her skin is pale— no, it’s scarily white, to the point where its colour rivals the metal beside it.

But Gem says nothing, and they move on.

The good thing that comes with silence is that it makes every ambient sound louder, including the footsteps of monsters sprawled about the cave system.

As such, despite the fickle wariness of her companion, Pearl is still able to notice the crowd of mobs nearing them. She’s quick to put her torch down in order to reach for her axe.

Gem braces herself as well, scanning the group to find four zombies and a skeleton. The gears in her head get turning soon after, but any plan she could formulate is cut short by Pearl slamming one of the zombies into a nearby wall with her shield, then wasting no time to put an axe in its head. Gem doesn’t dwell on how sluggish the motion seemed at first glance, opting to slice into the body of another zombie instead.

As soon as the second monster’s been dealt with, an arrow whizzes towards Gem, which she’s able to block with her shield. That gets Pearl’s attention to stray to the lone skeleton past the zombie herd, and without another second of consideration, she rushes towards it.

One of the remaining zombies claws for Pearl’s arm, yet she yanks backwards with a mere wince, sending the undead tumbling onto the ground. A crunch sounds out when the bottom of her boot meets the monster’s head; the twitching of the zombie stops a moment after.

Gem would be lying if she said she didn’t flinch, but there’s not enough time to unpack the sight when Pearl rams the rim of her shield down on the skeleton.

Another blow to its skull, then a resounding crack.

Tightening her grip on her sword, Gem snaps herself out of her daze and plunges her blade into the last zombie.

The sound of its body hitting the ground gets Pearl’s attention, “You alright back there?”

Rather than giving a verbal answer, Gem fixes a stare at Pearl’s arm. The scratch there isn’t deep enough to be dangerous, just to cause drops of blood to come dripping down.

“It’s—”

Another set of footsteps. Another mob coming to them.

Gem forgoes saying anything to scout out the source of the noise. Pearl does the same without a word.

The following hiss causes Gem’s heart to drop.

A green blur drops from a cave opening that they hadn’t noticed above, the body of the monster flashing as it lands behind Pearl.

Gem springs to action, dashing towards Pearl with her shield. A shout tears its way throughout the cavern, her voice the loudest it's been in days.

“PEARL—!”

Pearl skids away from the creeper, but with its final crackles, it’s inevitable for her to be caught in its blast.

Any thought Gem could’ve had is swept away by her pounding heartbeat, and then—

Blinding white.

Hot air pushes Gem back, stumbling as an explosion rings out around her.

What she first hears afterwards is a thud, but any sound after is overpowered by her own cough. Gem blinks furiously in the hazy smoke swirling around her, trying to make out the shapes around her.

She freezes when she finds no silhouette standing where Pearl was.

No. She— She’s not—

She fans away the clouds of smoke in front of her, but it only makes the absence of light even more evident. Their torch went out with the blast, restricting her vision to undefined blobs in the darkness.

There’s no way.

Clack. There’s another source of noise, it sounds like rocks falling onto the floor.

Then, comes a wheeze.

Gem pats through her tools, until she feels the flint and steel she’s carried down with her. With a couple more pats, she manages to find her own unlit torch. The way her hands are trembling doesn’t exactly help with the lighting process, and she fumbles with the steel more times than she’d like before the top of the torch catches on fire.

In front of her, she sees Pearl lying on her floor, shield thrown beside her while she goes for one rapid inhale after another.

“Pearl?” She calls out, unsure of its volume with the ringing in her ears. There’s no response from Pearl either way, so she makes her way over, kneeling down next to Pearl.

Pearl has her head curled down and pressed between her hands, her eyes stare into the ground, unfocused. Every breath comes raggedly, but she is breathing. She is alive. She must’ve been able to use her shield in time, and that makes every tensed up muscle in Gem relax all at once.

“Pearl?” She repeats, gaining a flinch and a wide-eyed stare back. “Are you hurt?” A pause, followed by a frantic head shake. It’s another lie, since Gem can already spot a cut on the side of her palm, and then a patch on her leg where a bruise will surely form. The shield may have taken the brunt of the explosion, but that doesn’t mean Pearl is okay; far from it, actually, judging from the faraway look in her eyes.

“Let’s get out of here.” Gem suggests, which gets the greatest amount of reaction from Pearl.

She jerks up, lets out a choked exhale, then says, “I— I’m okay, we can keep going.”

This time, Gem is set on arguing back, “you’re not, Pearl.”

“I am!” Pearl pushes, interrupted by a cough before she continues, “I swear, I swear I’m fine. We’re about to reach the levels for diamond, then you can get better gear—”

“Screw the diamonds, Pearl!” Gem grabs hold of Pearl’s shoulders before she can stand, her voice uncontrollable in her outburst. Pearl shuts her mouth, so Gem goes on, “I don’t— you need a break.” Her tone becomes softer, and much to her dismay, her voice does crack in the end.

Though her stare wavers, and for once, there’s a defined frown on her face, Pearl still mumbles, “I’ll be fine, it’ll heal.”

Gem’s grip on Pearl loosens. It’s always like this, Pearl’s always too stupidly stubborn for her own good. Gem had literally run a sword through her— and then she would come back waving it off. She can only sigh, then blink away the tears formed at the edge of her vision.

“I… I thought you wanted this.” Pearl gives another weak mutter, a quiet admittance.

And what is this? Gem chews on her cheek instead of saying her thoughts out loud. I didn’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t want…

I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me.

Gem’s body trembles as the thought comes as naturally as breathing.

“We’re leaving if anything else happens.”

And Pearl doesn’t argue back.

Gem leads the rest of their trip, and neither of them say anything when the change happens.

She checks on Pearl every now and then during their trek down, but if Pearl has a limp, she’s actually doing a good job at hiding it. Rather, she’s gone back to flashing a wobbly smile at Gem whenever she looks back, as if nothing has happened on their way down here. She’s still not sure why Pearl’s so insistent on that, when it’s obvious to both of them that she’s got to be in some degree of pain.

Thankfully, they do find a vein of diamonds eventually. Just when they were about to descend further down an opening, the glimmer of the ore captured Gem’s attention, situated on the opposite side of the cavern they found themselves in.

Gem exchanges a glance with Pearl, whose eyes practically light up when they discover it. Before Gem could even begin to speak, Pearl shoos her over to the diamonds, urging her to go dig it out.

Well, the sooner she gets enough, the sooner they can leave, so she does share the same excitement as Pearl when it comes down to it.

Her luck is…not as bad as she would’ve thought. They run into a couple more veins of diamonds later on, and there’s not another creeper that falls on them out of nowhere, which is always a plus.

“D’you reckon that’s enough?” Pearl asks after Gem clears out another chunk of diamonds. She tries to sneakily shift her weight over to her shield, so that she can lean on it while they talk. As Gem suspects, even though she’s running out of energy, she’s not going to admit it outright.

“Maybe.” Gem hums, noncommittally. She’s gotten around twenty pieces now, if they find another patch, then she’d be able to come out of this with a full set of armour.

She waves her torch around in search of another path they could take.

What she doesn’t notice is how there’s a distant rumble of lava, as well as the cracks that run through the rocky ground beneath them.

Nope, not that way. Gem remarks, noting the line etched into the wall of the tunnel she’s observing. It’s to make it easier for them to be able to find their way out.

So, Gem takes another step.

The moment her foot makes contact with the floor, it sinks down.

Her whole body stills in an instant.

It’s like her heart’s stopped pumping in anticipation of what’s to come. Everything around her stops, even Pearl pauses behind her, no exhale to be heard.

Even so, it’s a realisation made too late, and the feeble stone and gravel under her gives in. Pearl probably yelled out for her, but the collapse of the rock pieces drowned out all other sound—

Her body is weightless for but a moment, and her back is met with a sloped surface—

A pop comes from bubbling lava—

In the midst of her tumblr downwards, she catches a glimpse of a pool unbearingly bright compared to everything else—

There’s other clacks of rocks falling down, all around her, a stray piece grazes her head—

She flails her hand outwards to the slope of rocks beside her, trying to grab hold of something, anything steady—

She doesn’t find purchase.

Instead, it’s a forceful yank that stops her from rolling down any further.

The next thing she feels is another body tripping beside her, with a landing even less graceful than hers.

Pearl groans next to her, and for a reason Gem hasn’t yet quite grasped, her exhale devolves into a weak, yet hysterical fit of laughter. “Oh, gosh…”

Gem’s muscles smarts all throughout, with each breath drawn in a laboured task. She lifts up a hand to rub her eyes, careful to not rub in any more dirt than what’s already gotten in. With how dizzy the world is around her right now, she couldn’t find it in herself to question Pearl’s exclamation. She’d much rather stay lying on the ground.

Another bubble of lava bursts, splashing into the surroundings to induce a sizzling noise. Finally, the fog in Gem’s head clears to register the much hotter air around her.

Her eyes flit open, and the sight that greets her is a decently sized pool of lava.

Wincing from the dull ache that wraps around her skull, Gem sits up, prompting her to notice the distance between them and the pool.

In particular, how short that gap is. Had Gem slid off the slope for a few more seconds, she definitely would’ve ended up succumbing to a fiery demise. Not to mention, Pearl is even closer to the edge of the pool after her attempt to tug Gem backwards. The momentum from it must’ve propelled her forwards, making the fact that her head’s not currently dunked in lava nothing short of a miracle.

She’s so close to the lava that if Gem were to give her a shove, she’d fall right in.

It’d take no effort on Gem’s part to kill her.

These games end when there’s one player left.

The last player gets out.

There’s no physical way out, but there’s got to be a way.

The thoughts worm their way into her consciousness yet again, almost hammering down on her almost involuntarily.

They’re here for a reason. Gem’s here for a reason. There has to be.

Is this…?

Pearl stays knelt beside the lava, catching her breath as her shoulders slump down.

Pearl could stand back and let her die, just as easily as Gem could put a sword through her heart.

You’ve done it twice, haven’t you?

How hard could it be to do it again?

There’s— There’s no time to think— There’s a tingling running through her fingers, a wriggling kind of ache that burrows deep into her chest. There’s a pull to her heart, one that leaves no air in her lungs.

She betrayed you, don’t you see?

Did you not wish to win the game?

She did. They all did. That’s why they did…everything.

But Gem’s hand trembles the moment it tries to reach out. The strength in it flees by the second.

And…she doesn’t do it.

Rebuilding is a much more daunting task than Gem had once taken it to be.

She’s seen ruin brought to perfectly good homes firsthand; she’s been the cause for a few of them, too. Not a lot of things survive these games, not just players, but builds, lands, bonds. There’s no preserving able to be done, one well-lit flame is enough to burn down a whole forest, one clean strike can stamp out a life.

It seemed like there was a way to stop it, always a persistent thought that made what Gem was capable of seem much greater. There could have been a happier ending for them all, at least that’s the delusion that tangled Gem’s mind as she made the order for Scott and Impulse to kill Pearl last. She chased that possibility until it led her veering off a cliff.

Then, after every disaster, there’s what’s left behind.

Half-burnt trees, ash-dyed leaves. Random holes strewn about trampled-through grounds. A mangled corpse of what used to be a lively world.

It’s at a time like this that Gem ruminates on how she’s not the cleanup type. Never was, really. Messes like these are for her to turn tails on, not to repair.

It’s not like she’s set on restoring the whole map to its former glory, the area she’s decided to tidy up is much smaller than that; once she’s sorted the insides of the ranch, she’ll move on to the plains around. No complicated work, either, meaning she’s not transforming the whole terrain.

Thing is, the starting part of it is hard enough on its own, and then there’s continuing on. There’s the easy bits that she’s dealt with already, like filling in the gap of fences in the pens; they’re so simple that all it takes to fix is a few wooden planks. Then, there’s razed grasslands just out the entrance, the kind of aftermath she’s never thought to address.

Quite frankly, Gem’s getting sick of feeling in the middle, a limbo of just-begins and uncertain ends, the ship caught not too far from shore, a heart that’s only started to process what has happened.

Pearl brings another round of materials, this time a bunch of seeds and flowers, because Gem planted a small group of hyacinths by the ranch gate; a feeble start to renewing the lands, but one that’s propelled by Pearl’s effort. It’s another needed, painful tug forward, just because Gem made the first step.

Though, the most notable difference is the fact that Pearl’s decided to stick around. The routine they had silently decided on shifts, with neither of them commenting on it. Gem wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. Despite everything, the circumstances of their situation or the questions still left unanswered between them, this is the most normal Gem has felt for a good while.

This might even be better than Gem tackling the whole project alone, since Pearl is the one actually making progress. While Gem’s been sitting around to get a sense of what she could do, Pearl’s clearing out the fallen tree trunks and digging out the rotten plants, making more of a start than Gem ever could on her own.

It rouses up the curiosity Gem had once again; there’s no doubt that Pearl could’ve cleaned up the place long ago, she could’ve done it in the month and more that she’s been stuck here, so why hasn’t she? Why did it take Gem to kickstart it in the first place?

Chucking another clump of dead roots and weeds into the composter, Pearl clears out another small plot next to the ranch entrance. She mumbles something to Tilly, then moves on to the next patch of trampled ground, quiet in her work aside from the sounds of her shovel hitting dirt.

Something odd snakes up Gem’s skin, the same way the cracked and damaged walls of the ranch have vines running through its gaps. A sensation out of place that pokes at her chest.

She’s used to Pearl humming while they’re building together, that’s all.

Instead, it’s the spring air that sings, a tune made of rustling leaves and birdsong. Somewhere in the middle of it all, autumn became a passing thought. The onset of coldness never came, Gem died before the season really settled into the world of Secret Life, and she was too lost in her own thoughts to notice how it’s spring in this map.

It certainly would’ve breathed more of a fresh beginning, had the world not been overtaken by fire.

Speaking of, the flowers could be used for more than decoration here.

As she picks out a poppy from the assortment of flowers Pearl’s collected, her gaze wanders to the gravestones inside the ranch. At the very least, it feels right to give them something in return for using their home.

Plus, it turns out that she’s not the first person to have this idea, seeing as another flower’s been left in front of Jimmy and Tango’s grave; a lily of the valley, recently potted for the ranch’s owners.

“Y’know, they were a lovely pair.” Pearl comments, as she’s followed Gem over. She lets Gem place the poppy down before continuing, “I was rooting for them. Really wanted them to last around longer.”

There’s a sombre edge to Pearl’s words, one that isn’t particularly hard to make sense of, since every player knew of Jimmy’s…streak. Even Gem was told of it, a day or two into the games.

What’s funny is that she’s never got to witness it.

“Guys, I’m not the first one out!” The sheer excitement coursing through Jimmy when they had realised what that distant lightning strike was was palpable, and he practically leapt off the cherry blossom hill as he exclaimed. It looked like it could’ve taken a few hearts off of him, but none of them cared at the moment, least of all Jimmy.

He motioned for Gem and Pearl to huddle closer, joining him in his cheer as his infectious joy radiated off to the two— it’s the first time this has ever happened, after all.

The heaviness hanging around Pearl’s sentence gets Gem to notice how she’s pursed her lips, her unnatural exterior unwinding to reveal some semblance of a frown.

An itch builds up in Gem’s hand; some habitual response to the sight that makes her want to reach out, to hold onto Pearl and clear away her darkened gaze. She doesn’t, because the distance between them feels far more than what’s within an arm’s reach. Between them sits a sea of questions that haven’t been answered, the distance between a hill and the battlefield it overlooks, the path that once joined cherry mountains to mounds. The space between them is for a sword’s strike to close, not for a pair of best friends who don’t even recognise each other.

The ground sitting between the two is a crater that yawns out, pitch black unknown weighing down Gem’s limbs.

“I’m surprised their house is standing.” Gem says, the itch climbing up to make her feel lightheaded. There’s something about the mournful glint over Pearl’s eyes, a calling that pours into the space between Gem’s ribs. It threatens to dredge up every instinct in her heart. It pulls at her insides just enough for the words to find their way out as her gaze flickers to Jimmy and Tango’s house. There’s still traces of ash on its foundation, the joining of wooden planks that weren’t originally meant to be, everything that suggests it’s been rebuilt.

Everything that suggests it’s been rebuilt by someone else. There’s an elevated craftsmanship to the repairs, details left in the build that have only been subjected to the wearing-down of time. “Sort of.” Gem adds, thinking back to the creaks that had unnerved her when she was settling into the house, the splinters and charred edges that couldn’t be hidden from view.

“It didn’t, really.” Pearl responds, taking a second of pause to consider her explanation. “Some of the stone supports survived, but I, uh, I built it back for them—” Her voice falters, “I tried, anyway.”

As she turns to avoid looking at Gem, she picks at the red string tied to her pinky finger.

“I’m sure they would’ve appreciated it.” Gem reassures her, not missing the way Pearl’s eyes briefly lit up. It leaves the pull in Gem’s chest growing stronger, curiosity eager to bridge the gap nestled between the two. It clashes with the distance Gem feels existing between them, the crater releases a hum that’s the same as the song of spring— one step more, and she’d find that the crater is nothing but a few paces on solid ground.

For a start, Gem gives in to the pull in her heart.

“Were you close to them?”

In an instant, Pearl’s hands freeze in the midst of their fidgeting. Her scarlet-tinted eyes fixate on the ground more than anything else, and behind them, Gem can see the storm brewing up in Pearl’s head. She doesn’t yet have the strength to pick apart her stare, no clue on what thoughts are running through her mind, but she watches as indecision furrows her eyebrows.

“…no.” Pearl settles close to a whisper. “I don’t think they—” She catches herself on her own wording, opting to quickly correct it. “I don’t think so.”

“Then wh—”

“They were a couple of nuggets, I tell ya!” Giving no room for Gem to continue, Pearl forces out a chuckle. “They managed to get a warden up to the surface. It got everybody runnin’, caused a whole scene.”

The smile Pearl puts on doesn’t mask the distant look in her eyes as well as she’d have probably hoped. As much as Gem is unable to decipher why that is, she knows she’s treading on thin ice. A question among many which Gem hasn’t quite figured out; Pearl’s never brought up her allies in this game, not that Gem can recall.

It doesn’t feel like Pearl. It doesn’t feel like Pearl when there’s no remnant of any allies she’s had around her— It just doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t feel right when someone who values her allies as much as Pearl doesn’t even bring any of them up. She went out of her way to rebuild Jimmy and Tango’s house, didn’t she? What really stumps Gem is that Pearl doesn’t even sound like she’s lying, so what does that mean for her own alliance? Who were they?

Still, Pearl shoots her an expectant look, and Gem figures she should give some kind of reply— she mentioned something about wardens, right?

“That probably wasn’t a lot of trouble for you.” Gem mumbles absentmindedly. With how Gem’s seen Pearl wrangle wardens around to hunt other players, she wouldn’t have any problems with one warden released on the surface.

“Um, I guess so?” Bewilderment creeps into Pearl’s voice. “I didn’t really get hurt from it, if that’s what you mean.”

It takes another second for the slip-up to set in. It’s too easy to look at the Pearl beside her and think of her Pearl, to mistake the snow clinging to her cloak as a ghost of someone she isn’t— at least, not yet. That’s the hardest pill of all to swallow, the fact that Gem’s heart is still caught up in the deaths she’s inflicted, the friends she’s lost, the pain of having Pearl choose someone else over her— and Pearl doesn’t remember. There’s no apology, no reunion, nothing. It stings even more, when Pearl knows every other player to some degree except Gem.

Maybe that’s what eating at her, every bit of emotion that’s pent up inside her from the end of her game, the grief for her fallen allies, the sorrow she has for the end of it all, the anger that flared up when Pearl helped Scar kill her, there’s nothing to aim it at. Instead, there’s Pearl with frostnip in her fingertips and secrets stowed behind distant gazes; Pearl with enough memories to know everything else but Gem, a shell that stands on the precipice of what Gem needs— always caught in the middle, always the ship caught not too far from shore.

Her heart pounds out a rhythm that rings near desperation and sounds even more of hope; All it takes is another step, a hand outstretched.

But Gem stays in place when Pearl moves to clear out the weeds in Jimmy and Tango’s fields, the distance between them widens yet again, and she isn’t sure if her heart’s just making a fool out of her once more.

The sun’s already begun to set when Gem notices the sunflowers.

Their bright yellow petals immediately stand out from the grey cobblestone wall they’re planted in front of, and their height makes them even more apparent from the poppies and dandelions below them. Just a couple of sunflowers, a part of Pearl’s work around the ranch.

Gem has to remind herself that that’s all they are. Just flowers, like how she has to remind herself that the Pearl in this world isn’t the Pearl she’s used to. Pearl doesn’t know what those flowers mean to her— rather, they should mean nothing to her. They’re just flowers. Flowers that coincidentally grew around the Secret Life map, flowers she knew Pearl liked, flowers that bloomed around the valley which would in the end become her deathbed.

They’re just flowers.

And she shouldn’t feel anything when she looks at them.

What she should do is go back inside the ranch, and stop staring at those stupid flowers. (She can’t help it; not when she feels them staring right back, an echo of what used to be.)

(…were there always sunflowers on this map?)

It’s not rare for Gem to be out at night these days.

Sleep doesn’t come as smoothly as the first few days, the nights when weeks-long exhaustion gave way to her falling asleep right when her body hits the bed. Now, it’s spikes of paranoia that send her outside to pace, something in her senses that insists someone’s watching, making safety a foreign concept.

So, she satisfies the tingling under her skin by grabbing her sword, swinging every bit of unease into whichever mob is unfortunate enough to be roaming around the walls of the ranch, until she eventually tires herself out.

A zombie’s groan soon fades into nothing when she jabs into its head, one swift motion to render it into an unmoving corpse.

Gem huffs, prying her blade out of the flesh— the crawling sensation running along her back fizzles out momentarily when she spares a glance behind her, only to find nothing, like always.

Her breathing picks up, but when she spots a skeleton’s silhouette, she doesn’t wait another second to prowl forwards; anything to keep her mind whirring, to keep her from thinking about anything else. In mere moments, its bones collapse onto the dirt ground, having never stood a chance.

It’s not a bad way to destress, all things considered— unconventional, sure— risky, even; there’s a reason why Gem and her allies set up their base atop a hill, keeping themselves away from all the dangers down below. It’s not just the players, but the mobs, too. It definitely helped when certain tasks involved bringing withers and wardens to the surface.

Though, she doesn’t have to worry as much here. It’s mostly zombies and skeletons she finds, with the occasional creeper here and there.

Here, she has way more things to concern herself with than monsters; Gem gives a slash through the next zombie, its head couldn’t even turn before she’s already done enough damage.

Thud, and another one falls. The rush in her veins continues, moving her to find her next target. And Gem complies, her eyes darting around to scan the surrounding woods. Vision swimming through each tree, her throat burns a little less given the reprieve.

The next monster that reveals itself to her comes in the form of a lanky figure, a body that very well blends in with the darkness of the night. Had Gem pressed on with her search instead of fixating on its shape, she could’ve just mistaken it for another tree— she didn’t even realise she had stared into its glowing, purple irises for too long before the enderman came rushing at her.

Its claws grabbed onto her shoulder, leaving a gash that gushed out even more blood as she tore herself out of its reach. She tumbled back and hit a warped stem. The top of the fungus isn’t low enough to stop the enderman from attacking her, she realised, while she— she brought up her shield and screamed.

She screamed, she fought against the enderman’s hold when it tried to wrench the shield away, but some part of her already knew: this would be her first death. The thought, compounded with the pure fear pooling into her body, stole all strength she could’ve had in her arms.

It got hard to just breathe— the warm air of the Nether did no favours in her lungs, making her feel all the more suffocated.

The enderman shrieked, the force of its grasp prying up splinters in the shield by the second. Gem couldn’t focus, not when the darkened edges of her vision had drenched her in dread.

Then, there would be a voice amidst the garbled screeches.

“Gem! Where are you—”

Red overtakes her vision, and the weight on her chest is lifted, despite her rapid heartbeat droning on in her ears.

Scott ran over to save her, but he paused in front of the scene unfolding before him, his sword was raised, yet he couldn’t find a clean hit at the enderman.

The same time his face paled, Gem lost her grip on the shield. Neither of them could stop the enderman’s next swing.

The growling of a wolf clashes with the enderman’s bawls, followed by a number of bashes made consecutively into a body.

There’s a squelch that makes Gem’s stomach churn from its sound alone, and then, only breathing could be heard from where she is.

“Gem?” says a faraway voice.

She exhales, painfully alive.

Something cold touches her shoulder— the enderman’s fingers curled inwards, drawing blood—

And Gem recoils. Phantom pain sprawls throughout her arms, and her instincts guide her to pull away, to gain distance, to fight and struggle and she can’t die here—

The enderman shoved her against the warped trunk. Its hands wrap around her neck. It squeezed, wringing any will left in her; she tried, weakly, anything that could make it stop.

Her knuckles connect to skin that runs with warm blood, but feels like anything but.

It first serves as a reminder that she’s not dead. She’s still breathing, she pauses, like it shouldn’t be true.

It’s then a reckoning, because in front of her isn’t a monster that’s strangling her to death, it’s a red-cloaked figure backing away from her, the battered body of a dead enderman behind them.

By the next inhale Gem takes in, Pearl’s already mumbled out an incoherent sentence that tries to shape itself into an apology.

There isn’t even any time for Gem to act before Pearl excuses herself from the scene.

With all the dumb choices she’s made recently, what’s one more to the list?

That’s what gathers energy in Gem’s legs, getting her to run through the woods under the cover of night. She doesn’t remember exactly where Pearl’s tower is, but there’s no room to back down now. There’s plenty of things that could be used to dissuade her from continuing on. Say, the mobs that linger throughout the same woods as her, or the fact that she’s in no state to fight off another wave of attacks at the moment— but it all has been made inconsequential by what her instincts say.

What her gut tells her is simple: go.

What she knows is also simple: she made a mistake. Pearl saved her from the enderman, and she needs to go find her. She needs to make this right.

So, it doesn’t matter what beasts could lumber between the trees she’s crossing, what’s making her feel like there’s eyes on her from whichever direction she isn’t looking at, how she hasn’t gone back to the tower ever since she ran from it. Gem keeps her head low, throwing herself to whichever path seems right.

She’s making it to Pearl, and there doesn’t need to be anything more than that.

Eventually, she does find what she’s looking for, marked by a pack of wolves resting around the base of the tower. It’s only then that she stops, the natural reaction overtaking her movement.

Some of the pack turn to face Gem, but none of them move to block her way to the tower entrance.

Go, her pulse sings.

After a moment more of deliberation, Gem takes one step after another, gradually passing the hounds that guard the structure.

When she looks back, the dogs remain unmoving, leaving the ladders up as the final obstacle, the distance left to close.

Wasting no time, Gem grabs onto the rungs, holding in a shudder as the ladder sways with her weight. The blood rushing through her ears drowns out any creaks of the wooden beams. What’s left to do is to climb.

The closed trapdoor at the top comes into view soon enough. As Gem nears where she figured Pearl would be, the lack of noise from above slows her heartbeat.

Next thing she knows, she finds her hand placed against the door, but rather than opening it without a moment’s notice, she calls out:

“Pearl?”

Gem waits for a response— or, to be honest, an indication that Pearl actually is up there. With every beat of silence that passes, she becomes all the more aware of her dry throat. The shallower air around her makes her tighten her grip on the ladder.

The reply that she gets comes in the form of a series of scratches against the wooden boards separating Gem from the platform above her. Gem jolts slightly at the noise, but once she puts more effort into focusing on the sound, she picks up on a dog’s panting mixed into the taps.

“Tilly?” It’s a guess as to which dog of Pearl’s would be up on her tower. Seeing as Tilly’s the one she brings around the most often, coupled with Gem not seeing a yellow-collared wolf among those on the ground, this is the best shot at it she’s got.

A bark, muffled by the floorboards. Then, without Gem putting any force into it, the trapdoor shifts, revealing the snout of none other than Tilly.

With that, Gem has no other reason to not push open the trapdoor. Her palm nudges the wood upwards, allowing her to climb up— but not before the clink of what she’d assume to be metal hitting the floor rang out in the tower’s interior.

Right as Gem hefts herself up, there’s a click of a chest closing shut.

A blanket of coldness descends upon Gem the moment she steps foot onto the platform, and it’s not just because of the height of the tower; the wooden floorboards around are touched by the freezing edge of powdered snow, dusts of white tracing their usual brown. It’s like the insides of the tower have completely isolated itself from the environment outside— spring has settled into everywhere else, but this part of the world is still clinging onto winter.

Pearl stands in front of Gem, her back turned so that her bright red cloak is what Gem is first greeted by. She’s hunched over a chest, from what Gem can tell.

There’s a sniffle from Pearl’s side of the room, a meagre note that pushes Gem forwards.

“Pearl—”

“’m sorry.” Pearl whirls around, giving Gem a full view of her reddened nose, her puffy eyes, her concerningly pale skin— everything that locks Gem in place and takes every word out of her mouth.

“I— I should’ve just let you— Um, you needed space and I just—” She tries to barrel on, taking in a sharp inhale while avoiding Gem’s gaze. It takes another hitch of her breath before she could continue, and what comes after is a weak laugh, stabbing at Gem’s heart with how exhausted she sounds. “And now you’re here. You— You shouldn’t have. You didn’t need to— I made you—”

“Pearl.” Gem calls out again, softly.

And finally, Pearl pauses. Her gaze falls to the floor, grimace washing over the red of her eyes as she does so.

Watching Pearl’s head dip lower, Gem struggles between what she could do, what she could say.

(What happened to you? sits on the tip of her tongue, ready to be shot out like a notched arrow.)

The next few steps she takes are slow, steady moves that she’s sure wouldn’t startle anything in the world.

“What are you even apologising for? You saved me.” Gem decides to state out the obvious, or what she thought to be. “Heck, I was the one who hit you. If anything, I should be the one saying sorry here.”

Even as Gem’s approaching her, Pearl stays frozen in place, offering no visible reaction.

“And I am,” Gem finds it in her to start untangling the knot in her throat, “I’m sorry, Pearl.”

In the time which Gem waits for Pearl’s reply, she does a once-over on the exposed skin before her, barely containing herself from reverting to old habits— to take Pearl’s hands in her own. There’s lines of scars running across her forearms, both ones she’s already spent nights tracing and memorising into her own being, and ones she’s never seen before, and— gosh, were those burns always there?

Pearl pulls her arms away from Gem’s view once she’s taken notice of what Gem’s focused on. Her voice is as small as ever when she says, “It’s fine, my fault for getting too close, anyway.”

It isn’t, and Gem suspects they both know that. (She hopes Pearl does.)

“At least let me take care of your wounds.”

Taking a step back, Pearl shakes her head half-heartedly. “You don’t have to.”

In a way, Gem could consider this progress. At least she’s not pretending to be fine after fighting off the enderman.

“I want to,” Gem states, without a trace of doubt in her tone. Offering no room for Pearl to refuse, she adds, “it’s the least I can do after you saved me.”

Although Pearl’s got them mostly obscured from Gem, the way her arms tense up fails to be hidden away.

“Please.”

The word alone is barely above a whisper from Gem, but it’s what causes Pearl to let out a sigh, holding out her bare hands for all the world to see.

What happens next feels like something that’s meant to be, like a puzzle piece slotting into the right place; Gem reaches out and envelops Pearl’s hands in her own. She rubs her thumb on the cold skin, entertaining the thought that maybe, just maybe, the warmth in her could bleed onto Pearl as well.

With a gentle tug, Gem guides Pearl away from the chest she’d been leaning on, so that they could settle on her bed instead. A watery squeak pries itself out of Pearl’s mouth, and once she’s sat down, she scrubs at her face fervently.

Gem keeps a firm grip on Pearl’s free hand, enough pressure to convey its presence, but not too tight; a part of her is hounded by an irrational fear that she’d do more harm to it otherwise, like glass, fracturing under too much force.

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like Pearl got seriously hurt from fighting the enderman, as Gem finds mostly healed over injuries and minor bruises in her inspection. If anything, the priority right now is to clean up the few fresh cuts she does have to let them heal on their own.

Well, that and to treat the frostnip on her hands.

Gem lets go of Pearl’s hand to find a bucket of water and a clean towel— she tells Pearl as much, but the moment she stands to go through Pearl’s chest, Pearl speaks up, a very noticeable panic seeping into her voice as she informs Gem of the exact chest where she’d find those items.

While Gem knows full well how organised Pearl is, it doesn’t sound like that’s the cause of her abrupt reaction.

Gem glances at the chest Pearl had shut right when she got up to the tower.

It’s more like she’s hiding what’s in the rest of her storage.

Still, Gem retrieves the water and towel, starting work on Pearl’s wounds without any delay.

The normality of it all sinks into Gem’s bones soon after, her body can nearly move on its own, going through the familiar motions of tending to Pearl. There is one thing missing, though. Distant barks carry the same volume as thunderstorms as not a single word fills the air between the two, and while Gem can excuse her own silence as being in concentration, an ache grows in her core.

If she’s here to piece back what she’s lost— some form of it, anyway— she might as well…

“Will you tell me what happened in this game?”

Being in such close proximity, Gem feels Pearl’s pulse pick up.

“You can say no, if you—”

An abnormally rigid finger taps along the back of Gem’s hand, getting Gem to look up at Pearl.

Her heart skips a beat at the wicked-sharp grin that greets her, and she isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Will you tell me about yours, then?”

The only response Gem could give is a blink. Her mind goes blank in an instant, because on one hand, there’s a teasing lilt to Pearl’s voice that she hasn’t heard in a long, long time, something she hasn’t even realised she’d missed so badly, and on the other hand, there’s the actual question. The request, a trade that only seems fair to begin with, yet a trade that Gem hesitates upon.

She shouldn’t have asked. The thought of talking about the events of Secret Life is like reopening an old wound, to revisit the haunting that’s left her changed irreparably, and to spill the secrets that she’s reserved to rotting six feet under. Telling Pearl about Secret Life— about everything— is a sure-fire way of allowing bitterness coat her tongue yet again, after she’s just learnt to wash away a bit of the taste.

Telling Pearl about Secret Life is telling Pearl that she took away two of her lives with her very own hands.

(It’s thinking about how Pearl also returned the favour; how was she ever supposed to fight two of them at once? Why would she let it happen? When did things change?)

And that isn't something Gem’s quite ready for.

It leaves Gem sitting beside Pearl tongue-tied, because she makes requests that not even she would accept in the first place.

“I figured,” Pearl faces Gem with a smile that barely reaches her eyes. Mixed with the faint layer of tears over those red irises, Gem thinks it’s the most genuine smile she’s given so far. “Don’t worry about it, I won’t make you do it if you don’t wanna.”

When Pearl glances away, Gem can only hope that she knows the assurance goes both ways. It definitely becomes harder to focus when she feels like even an exhale too strong would shatter the quiet between them. The heat boiling up in her, half-recognisable as shame, takes every word formulating in her mind and swallows it up; this silence isn’t for her to break. She can’t.

Instead, it’s Pearl who calms the fire roaring in her chest.

“I was a bad soulmate,” Pearl starts with a wavering voice. “I think.”

Gem stares, the well-practised motions of her hands stopping altogether as though her brain has experienced a short circuit.

Returning the bemused expression, it takes a couple of seconds for Pearl to elaborate. “Oh, um, the players here were paired together at the start of the game. We’d call them ‘soulbounds’, and it came with a whole bunch of…changes, like sharing your lives, sharing the same health, sharing your heartbeats— I heard you could even share some memories.” Her voice falters at the last part. “I think, anyway. Jimmy did say that he would see Tango in a previous game sometimes in his dreams, but— Well, it never happened to me.”

Pearl looks to continue on her ramble, but the cogs in Gem’s mind are finally working to catch up to the present conversation, and bafflement falls right out of her mouth at that.

“Wait, wait, hold on.” Gem blurts out. After all, she does know a little bit of what Double Life was about, and what’s far more concerning to her is getting swept under the rug as Pearl goes on. “What do you mean bad soulmate?”

Shifting to properly face Pearl while sitting on her unmade bed, Gem pushes on, watching as Pearl’s lips quiver. The temporarily stifled flame in Gem’s core bursts out once more to lap at her throat, subconsciously evolving into her defensive tone, “Says who?”

“…everybody?” Pearl’s lips eventually settle into a defeated frown. “I didn’t find Scott at the start soon enough, and so he left me— He left me for Cleo, then Martyn did the same, even after I followed him into the Nether…”

The answer does little to justify what’s been said so far, so Gem furrows her eyebrows. “That still doesn’t make you a bad soulmate— or a bad anything, Pearl.”

It’s like Pearl didn’t even hear what she said, because she carries on in spite of the hitches in her breathing, “I— I caused death everywhere I went. I visited BigB and Ren, and that made Ren look at an enderman… Then I got Joel and Etho killed because—”

That makes even less sense, and Gem is keen to point it out, “This is a death game. Getting someone else killed unintentionally isn’t the worst thing you could do.”

Gem’s reasoning gives pause to Pearl’s near-desperate rant to prove herself— or everyone else, according to what she’s been spewing out— right. It leaves just enough of a gap in time to let Gem really think through her words, to let what she’s just said really sink in for both of them.

Because killing is just a part of the games, isn’t it? It had to happen one way or another, be it at Gem’s hands or another player’s, there was no way Pearl wouldn’t lose her lives. She shouldn’t have trembled, shouldn’t have apologised when Pearl’s blood found their way onto her hands. It had to happen.

Her hand was still shaking when Pearl was helping her up the camel, but Pearl gave no comment on it. Only a softened gaze that somehow meant more than words could.

“…they still called me a witch. They said I’m some crazy ex— or an omen, or something wicked.” Pearl spits out, her voice reaching a feverish crescendo as she holds up her hand to show the red string tied to her pinky. “This just proves they’re right. Even the world agrees, I should’ve died when Scott set off that TNT to blow himself up! I should be dead with him! And I…” A chuckle billows out, the intangible resignation behind it set on punching a hole through Gem’s chest. “I’m not. I’m still here. I’m still here…because the soulmate bond didn’t even do its job. Not when it needed to.”

Pearl doubles over when she finishes, clearly having put all her leftover strength into her speech. For a brief moment, Gem’s hand hovers over her back before being slowly placed behind Pearl, careful to not agitate her even more as Gem pats her lightly. It takes a while for her to catch her breath, but when she regains her composure, she heaves herself to sit upright.

“It doesn’t matter what they called you.” Gem states. “You’ve done nothing but help me since I got here. I would be dead without you, and that has to count for something, right? Everything you’ve said is something out of your control, that doesn’t prove anything.”

When Pearl’s bloodshot eyes meet Gem’s, the pulse spread throughout her body presents a message that rings clearer than it ever has; Take the step.

“Look, I don’t know what happened with the soulmate link for you to end up here, but you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve any of that. I— We’re here now, and we can figure it out together, okay?”

Pearl’s gaze lingers on their hands, curled into each other’s.

It doesn’t help Gem’s racing heartbeat, but she lets Pearl think, even if her throat tightens for every second that passes between them.

“…okay.”

The sigh of relief that follows is something Gem tries to hide, but she’s sure that she’s done a miserable job at it. Nonetheless, she gives Pearl a wobbly smile.

“Okay.” She echoes back.

Maybe on a different day, under different circumstances, Pearl would be teasing the life out of her for the stupid look she’s got on her face, but that’s okay. It’s okay, says the spring air that floods into her lungs with each inhale, they’ll get there.

Gem swallows, steeling herself for the last request she’d make today.

“It’s…uh, too dark out for me to walk back. Do you think I could stay the night?”

(In time, Gem will learn that the answer has always been yes.)

Chapter Text

Gem paces.

The sky above her is coated a bleak grey. Not quite evening, not quite morning. The sun has yet to colour the world in, but that’s alright— it’s not any worse than another hour of doing nothing.

Okay, so nothing might not be the best way to describe what she was up to last night, after she had to convince Pearl that she could just sleep on a spare chair or even the floor, and that Pearl really didn’t need to give her the bed. She’s pretty sure she only managed to coax Pearl back into her own bed because she had already tired herself out earlier, but hey, it worked!

That left her alone with her thoughts and, well— Tilly.

Even then, Tilly’s company didn’t last long, as the wolf clambered onto the bed as well, making sure Pearl stays in it for a while.

After that, Gem had all the time to not sleep.

Alright, listen, it’s not like the patchwork ceiling above her was that interesting enough to keep her up at night, staring into its mishmash mess of blocks to discern any remnants of damage— obviously. It’s more so that her brain is working overtime to process…all of that. All of what Pearl could blurt out before she collapsed onto bed. Yeah. All of that.

Soulmates. Sharing your health, your lives with another player… didn’t Impulse mention something like that? Double Life? Is that what they called this game? Gosh, that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the things nagging her mind. There’s still Pearl, and how she said she’s been treated throughout this game. Pearl, and how they’ve yet to figure out why her soul-bond to Scott didn’t kill her. Pearl, and how she tosses and turns in bed. Restless, mumbling out names, all of them familiar—

It’s then that Gem decided a walk outside would do her some good.

And, to be fair, it has.

Not only has it helped un-frazzle her mind, it gave her an idea.

She starts by scouting out the area surrounding Pearl’s tower. The one plot of land where she hasn’t spent much time exploring, yet the first memorable landmark she found when she was placed in this world.

The place is on a bit of a hill, giving Pearl’s tower more height— as if it needed any more. Though, it’d be awkward to build on or into the hill without some terraforming, so she moves on.

It’s secluded, circled by a thick of woods, most of which haven’t been burnt or chopped down, surprisingly. Not a whole lot of areas on these maps can remain untouched by players, so Gem pauses, and squints at the surrounding forests.

It doesn’t take long for a mass of white to catch her attention, and even less time for her to identify the source. How didn’t she notice the birch forest earlier? Birch. An entire birch forest, ripe for the taking! The mere thought of it draws her down from the hill, towards the forest in question.

Now, this is a much better spot for a build: plenty of resources around to use, doesn’t need much terraforming for a flat space to work on, and it’s not that far away from Pearl’s tower… If she clears out some of the birch trees around, she can make a start on a new house. Her house.

So, she pulls out an axe, eyeing a birch tree in front of her. The metal of it captures a sliver of sunlight, reflecting its distant rise.

(Last night’s conversation stays lodged in her mind. A constant replay, but one that becomes lighter to bear as she envisions her newest project.

She finds her words with ease— we’re here now, and we can figure it out together.)

Every build starts with a framework. Four pillars of wood to encompass each corner, connected to mark out the structure’s foundations, then a couple more to help envision its shape— the outline of where a roof will soon sit, supporting beams to make sure it holds up, smaller boxes built to the side to make it more than a bland old rectangle— and soon enough, there’s the bare bones of a house laid out.

It’s not going to be anything exceptional, especially not with the limited materials Gem’s got to work with. She accepted that long ago.

Still, it’ll be something.

Besides, her competition at the moment is either Pearl’s tower or the other burnt down houses around; her build is one of the last things here that will bring down the property value.

The palette is the next order of business. After all, she’s not going to fill in those frames with random chunks of trash, even if that's what she has on hand. Sure, she’s living in a near-apocalyptic wasteland, but she has enough self-respect to make herself a pretty house despite it all, explosion sites and gravestones be damned.

A trip from the ranch and back should be quick enough. There’s a decent bunch of dark oak logs sitting in one of the chests back there, as well as plenty of stone for her to craft stone bricks from— and how about some deepslate to go along with that? Copper would go well with what she has in mind, too, but that’s going to be tougher to gather from just the remaining loot above ground—

A rustling of grass starts behind her. Fast, discordant; multiple sets of footsteps.

Gem’s hand falls on the hilt of her sword before all else, and she’s tempted to solidify her grip. Compelled to, even. It’s a better alternative to letting the tremble she just felt settle in, knowing that she’s completely aware of what’s approaching her.

Oh, she’s not unpacking that for a while.

As though it never happened, she shoves the hand into an empty pocket. Then, once the air trapped in her lungs leaves in a drawn out exhale, she lets herself glance at the source of the sound.

“Gem?”

There’s a couple of pants and yips mixed in with Pearl’s voice, tugging Gem’s attention downwards, to the wolves at Pearl’s side. Five of them, this time, counting Tilly. Not the whole pack’s decided to follow, then.

“Morning,” Gem greets, making sure her gaze on the wolves doesn’t linger.

“Good morning,” Pearl returns, voice a bit scratchy. She shuffles in place, then adds, “Oh, uh, don’t mind them. They’re not gonna bite.”

That gets Gem to face Pearl more directly, meeting a pair of slightly bloodshot eyes, and— god, when had she become that easy to read?

Never mind that, Pearl’s just observant. That’s all to it. She knows that about Pearl. In a way, this is still the Pearl she knows. Things are different, of course, but bits of her have stayed overtime: Gem will recognise the scarlet cloak that wraps around her shoulders, even if it’s dragging along more snow than she remembers— she knows Pearl, right?

She should. And she does.

She does. She’s seen those sagged shoulders standing tall, matching Gem in ferocity. In glee. In bloodlust. There’s a sharp grin hidden behind those taut lips, a vicious laugh stored in the recesses of her chest, a pair of hands so ready and eager to notch an arrow displayed right in front of her. Gem was witness to all of that. How could she not know Pearl?

But then, the smile that Pearl gives her now is nowhere near sharp, nor vicious. It’s worse. It teeters to being pitiful with how poorly it holds, and the sting it brews up Gem’s heart is something that she can barely begin to pick apart.

There’s this trick of light— at least that’s what Gem thinks it is— spilling and warping around Pearl’s features. It’s like the tears from last night were still there, stained so obviously, shown right to Gem so obviously.

Gem feels her throat dry.

Pearl’s eyes look glassy, wobbly, for a split second; Gem knows that’s not true. It’s the lighting. Slices of sunlight twisting Pearl’s image.

“So… What’cha building?”

With a tilt of her head, Pearl directs her attention past Gem. Gem’s throat squeezes as her eyes follow the same trajectory as Pearl’s, grappling for the words once on her mind to come back to her.

She stares at the outline of a house. Her house. Because this was the best idea she managed to think of from a restless night and an even more restless stroll. Because she made a promise. Because this is all she can do. There’s a lot of ways she could spin it, really.

“My house,” Gem offers, casually, “it’s about time I stopped living in Jimmy and Tango’s ranch, anyway.”

“It’s not like they’d mind—” The answer rushes out, evidently before Pearl had put much consideration behind it, judging by the way she stops herself, and then stumbles over the rest of her sentence. “Or, well— I don’t— I don’t think they would’ve minded? Um— yeah. You don’t have to, y’know? You don’t have to move or anything.”

If not for the way Pearl’s gaze had flicked from Gem to anywhere but, that ramble could’ve been brushed off as another one of Pearl’s less successful attempts at getting her message across. Yet, Gem catches the exact way she averts her eyes, leftover nervousness from her reply spooling into the air.

“Are you going to stop me?”

It’s like Gem had walked right up to Pearl and turned her head using her own two hands with how quickly Pearl gave her a wide-eyed stare. Complete, undivided attention— most likely from shock, if Gem were to hazard a guess. A couple of seconds pass with the two leveling stares at the other. Then, Gem decides to push it further with an eyebrow raise; can’t just have them stand around in silence all day now, can she?

Here’s the thing: they— Pearl’s been dancing around the elephant in the room for long enough, and those flighty glances she’s given aren’t helping her at all. So, Gem’s going to have to be the one to prod, and she will drag an answer out.

What makes it out of Pearl’s mouth at first is a strangled sound, not quite a sigh, but not a laugh either. Something that can’t decide exactly what it should be. Gem watches as Pearl’s lips twist, the struggle that it is.

“I… I mean, if you want to move over here, then… I can’t stop you.” Finally, Pearl pieces out her response, her furrowed eyebrows coming undone as a result. She makes sure to add, “If that’s what you really want.”

To put the amount of time Pearl took to fish out an answer to shame, Gem doesn’t even let the sentence settle into her mind before she says, “It is.” There’s uncertainty written all over Pearl’s expression, stare wavering and lips parting. Gem goes on, “I said we’d figure this out together, right? Then we’re sticking together, you and me.”

Taking a few steps closer, Gem offers a smile. She’s well aware of the wolves guarding Pearl, focus trained onto her as she approaches, but she walks either way. Her words linger, sinking into the morning air, expectant.

The pack stills, and so does Pearl, until she breaks the silence with a snort. “You really didn’t like staying in that stuffy ranch then, eh?”

It’s now that Gem realises how long it’s been since— this. This, the two of them exchanging grins so easily, so freely, without the dread of an inevitable end hanging over their heads. Her heart aches from how much she’d been missing this, waiting for the crinkle in the corner of Pearl’s eye; she could almost forget the film of red washing over it. Almost.

“Stuffy doesn’t even begin to describe it— oh, don’t get me started.” Some part of Gem’s conscience is probably wondering if she should be harping on about the poor remains of her friends’ house, considering that they’re dead and all, but she’s well past the point of feeling guilty about it. In fact, there’s no concealing how glad she is to be moving out, what with it brimming from the edge of her lips, “Besides, the view around here is much better. I’ll take a birch forest over that any day. This is, like, the perfect place to build a house in.”

When Gem looks back at Pearl instead of her barely built house, she spots Pearl squinting, with a barely hidden scrunch to her nose.

“Do not give me that look, PearlescentMoon.” Gem returns the thinly-veiled disgust with a threat of her own, though her voice doesn’t carry much malice. (Seriously, what’s wrong with birch?)

“Alright, alright, sorry.” Pearl is quick to hang her hands up in surrender, especially after Gem wags an equally threatening finger at her. “You can build your house wherever you want— even here.”

The last part of that sentence doesn’t sound particularly convincing, but Gem lets her off for now. “Good,” she huffs.

With that, they naturally lapse back into silence, eyes falling on the work-in-progress in front of them. Out of the corner of her vision, Gem finds Pearl idly twirling the red string on her pinky, and in turn, Gem’s hand wanders to the inner stitchings of her pocket, feeling her fingers wrap around a loose thread.

“Do you… need any help?”

For once, Gem pauses to take in the offer.

Then, her lips curl upward into a smirk. “Now that I think about it, I could use more deepslate.”

One life lost, two eyes of ender crafted and a whole lot more trouble than Gem had signed up for later, and she’s finally done with her secret task to open the freaking end portal. Yeah, because apparently that’s what she deserved for not being able to read properly. The Secret Keeper should’ve really accounted for the fact that most of them are idiots who would rather take a sword to the stomach than read. Either way, she’s done with her hard task now, with her green life down the drain as a result— happy? That enough of a punishment for her?

Somehow, she wasn’t the last person to finish their task this week, and she still had a bit of time to spare before the meeting at the Secret Keeper, so she ventured out to see if she could bug someone else. To be fair, she could get someone to fail their task as a yellow, as long as she guessed right, so why not give it a try?

The first green she had run into was Lizzie, but honestly, Lizzie weirded her out more than she could bother her back? The woman was just dead set on following her around on a skeleton horse, for some reason, while managing to not give her any useful intel on anyone’s secret task, least of all her own. So that’s… great. Not only that, but Lizzie also kept staring into her eyes? She couldn’t figure out what all of that was about for the life of her, and boy was she glad when Lizzie got distracted by something else.

After that, she talked to a couple of other players, like Cleo, Mumbo and Etho, all of whom either finished their task already or didn’t give away enough for her to make a guess. Which was fine, she supposed, but there were these moments in between when she caught them glancing at something on her face— her eyes? Maybe she was reading too much into it. It’s probably Lizzie’s antics earlier that put her on edge.

Her eye itched just thinking about it; her left eye, mostly. This task has taken a lot out of her, and it’s like she can’t even rest easy after it’s done. There’s still this heavy weight looming over her, this gut feeling that she should look behind her shoulder wherever she goes, this odd sensation of not being in tune with her body. Hopefully, she’ll sleep it off later tonight.

For now, she’s just going to have to play it off— can’t have the other players catch on, especially not when she’s in a pretty good position socially. After all, her reputation has managed to ward off a fair share of threats to her alliance so far. And, she has to admit, it’s pretty fun to watch the others jump at the chance to get into her good books.

Annoyingly, the itching hasn’t gone away even after she had rubbed the spot—

“Gem!”

Before she could turn to the source of the voice, a pair of arms had already flown past her shoulders and wrapped her in a loose hug.

She jolted, head swivelling to meet the other with a scowl. “Pearl!”

Despite the glare sent her way, Pearl snickered, so Gem dug her elbow into Pearl, hitting what’s most likely a rib.

“Ow!” Pearl scrambled backwards, holding the spot like it’s a stab wound. “What’s that for?”

“For scaring me, obviously! What was that for?”

“Hey, I tried calling out to you! But I guess somebody here wasn’t paying attention.”

Gem blinked, mind devoid of a reply. Was she really that caught up in her own thoughts? It’s not like there was anything else going on. She should’ve heard Pearl, all things considered—

“Helloooo? Earth to GeminiTay?” Pearl waved her hand in front of Gem. “You’re not exactly helping your case, y’know? Are you alright?”

“I— yeah,” Gem muttered, even though she’s not quite convinced of that herself. “Yeah. Great.”

Hearing that, Pearl crossed her arms and pouted. “C’mon, Gem. You think I can’t tell?”

Warmth rushed up Gem’s neck, working its way up to her face. She’s usually a better liar. “I’m just— tired, okay?”

Their eyes met, held in a brief moment of silent communication, until Pearl’s gaze softened.

“I bet,” Pearl said, and Gem just knows that that’s not what Pearl wanted to say. Not when the lilt of her voice carried an undercurrent of worry, the tone of which Gem has learnt to recognise with time. “Opening an end portal will do that to you.”

“Mhm,” Gem replied. Against her better judgement, she decided to add, “It’s a long story.”

“And we’ve got plenty of time,” Pearl stated, backing it up with an unfounded confidence and a familiar gentleness. “You can tell me all about it the next time you’re over. If you’re up for it, of course.”

To say it was a tempting offer would be a severe understatement, because after everything she had to go through, a sleepover with Pearl sounds like the best thing in the world. She could use a night to just forget it all, to goof around and not have to think about tasks or alliances or anything else about the game. She could complain about her task however she’d like, and Pearl could fill her in on the stuff she’s missed in the meantime. She could stop feeling like she’s being watched— being looked at weirdly by the other players, because it would be just the two of them. No one else.

She was so close to accepting it, too, had her focus not drifted to the spot of dirt smeared onto Pearl’s shirt, right where she had been holding earlier. Naturally, Gem went on to stare Pearl’s hands.

Her dirt-smothered hands, to be exact.

Pearl must have caught on to this discovery, as a sheepish smile started to spread across her face. Though, her eyes weren’t on her own clothes, but— oh.

“PearlescentMoon.” Gem chided, peering down to find similar smudges on her own overalls. “You know gloves are like, a thing, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Pearl shot back in an instant, unjustifiably indignant. “But— like, I was just gonna do a bit of work on my mound, and so I just— um, I kinda forgot?”

“Forgot? And did you forget all that dirt on your hands before you went ahead and tackled me, too?”

Okay, so, for the record, Gem was totally aware of the fact that Pearl didn’t tackle her; that was just so she could pick a fight over something trivial and unimportant. She’s gone too long without one of those, in her opinion.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was dealing with lil’ miss drama queen today,” Pearl scoffed, though that grin of hers has shown no signs of fading. She wiggled her fingers to add, “Sooo grumpy over some dirt smudges— c’mere, Gem, let’s hug it out!”

“Eugh— gross!” Gem complained, shuffling backwards as Pearl began the world’s least intimidating march towards her. Still, she couldn’t help the giggle that slipped out when Pearl—

—there’s frostnip crawling all over Pearl’s hands. Again.

Gem wouldn’t be staring for so long if it wasn't such a common sight. By now, she wishes she was exaggerating when she says that it’s been showing up every couple of days, but she keeps seeing it. To make it worse, it’s either that patchy pink tinge running across her skin, or it’s a pale white that could almost pass as a corpse, which begs the question of how?

It’s not like Gem doesn’t have a clue on what’s going on. More than a mere clue, actually, because she’s far from stupid— under any other circumstance, she’d probably even be offended by the idea that Pearl thinks she can be fooled so easily— but she’s got a sneaking suspicion that the answer lies atop of Pearl’s tower. With that in mind, it’s not too tricky to start putting the pieces together: that one chest Pearl had shut so hurriedly when she entered the tower, the snow dusting her in speckles, the icy chill when she held Pearl’s hand in her own…

That frostnip on Pearl is just glaring at her from a distance.

However, bluntly calling Pearl out on it would most likely do more harm than good, and Gem isn’t in the mood to find out what that would entail. For all the extra time Pearl has been spending with Gem as of late, she still hasn’t brought up anything from Double Life in detail since that night, and of course, neither has Gem about Secret Life. They’ve conveniently managed to sidestep that topic in favour of much better talking points, like how mending is a way better enchantment for a bow than infinity (people don’t need that many arrows if they just got better at aiming. It’s as simple as that, and Pearl totally agrees) or how Gem apparently has “a nightmare of a sorting system” from the dozens of chests she left around for storage (blatantly untrue, by the way, because how could it be bad if she never had a system for sorting items in the first place?).

The point is, Gem needs to come up with a subtle way to stop Pearl from doing whatever she’s doing with the snow.

And, believe it or not, Gem has a plan. Yeah, you heard that right. A plan. One that is definitely well thought-out and bound to work out, because she came up with it, and like all her other wonderful ideas, it’s going to turn out super well, and— okay, you get the point. She’s just stalling, by now.

“Pearl?” She calls out, and Pearl’s head pokes out from the double chest she had been rummaging through.

“Yeah? You need anything?”

“No, no,” Gem explains. “Just— I have something for you.”

There’s no better way to describe Pearl’s reaction than perplexed. With a single sentence, Pearl’s body stills, and her eyebrows just about jump up from the relaxed state they were in earlier.

“Uh,” Pearl offers her best impression of a lost puppy, voice climbing higher in pitch as pure confusion cracks out of her throat. “What? What do you mean?”

The image of it in Gem’s mind is enough to stir up a laugh. “Come over here.”

Pearl shuts the chest and stalks over, shooting Gem a look that’s beyond bafflement.

In return, Gem fishes out a pair of leather gloves from her pocket, then stifles her snickers when Pearl stares. Nothing else, just a stare, like the rest of her body stopped functioning.

“Don’t just stand there, try them on!” Gem says, breaking Pearl’s stupor as she takes the gloves from Gem. Still, it seems like Pearl didn’t catch what she said entirely, because once the gloves are in her hands, she’s gone back to staring. Gem doubts it’s to inspect her handiwork. “Go on, put ‘em on.”

“Oh— Yeah, right. Okay.” Pearl sputters, before she starts slipping the gloves on. It takes some effort, which is most likely because the gloves were recently made and haven’t been worn in yet— or at least, that’s the explanation that dodges taking into account how Gem has seen the way Pearl’s hands tremble sometimes when they grip onto something, and how her knuckles blanch as she tries to keep them still. It’s alright, though, as Pearl eventually manages to put the gloves on quite snugly.

“Hey, they fit!” It's a real, genuine surprise that makes it out of Gem, which, ironically, surprises her for a second time. She wasn’t expecting it to be a perfect fit. It isn’t, not really, to be excruciatingly technical about it, but she had a pretty solid idea in her head of the glove’s size before she made it; it’s reasonable for her to know, right? It makes sense for her to be able to guess it out, when during a particularly unremarkable night in Pearl’s mound, they got bored to the point where they were comparing hand sizes to kill time— of course, it circled back to Pearl mocking Gem’s height, as usual— because they’re each other’s best friend. Their one person. They—

They were, at some point in time, so Gem knows. That’s not an earth-shattering reveal, is it?

“They do,” Pearl echoes back. She flexes her fingers, eyebrows knitting together as they wiggle around with the gloves on. Truly a reaction that sparks as much confidence as the response warranted.

Gem squints at how Pearl’s wringing her hands. “What?”

“What?” Pearl parrots. What is happening in this conversation, exactly? It’s getting a bit ridiculous now, like Gem is a ghast spitting out fireballs while Pearl is deflecting all of them elsewhere.

“Do you not like it?” Gem tilts her head. “You don’t look— well, you’re looking at it all funny.”

“No— I, like, I do. I like it. I love it, Gem. I do,” the words rush out of Pearl in an instant, nearly melting into a stream of panicked noises more than anything. “I was just thinking— what, um, what’s this for?”

“Oh, well, I figured you’d need ‘em for, like, building, or farming.” Gem reasons, keeping her own hands busy by twirling a loose strand of thread on her overalls. Her voice is level, casual, up until the tease she’d attach to the end of her explanation, when a grin begins to show itself. “You did say you’d help me with my build, didn’t you? I wouldn’t want you to get your hands all dirty for me.”

There’s a brief moment where Pearl really considers those words, thumb gliding on the leathery surface of the gloves; Gem stills for those few seconds, determined to not give anything else away. There’s this feeling of warmth draining from her core, this small sensation that her heart stopped beating altogether— but that’s too great of a reaction from her body. There’s nothing to be nervous about, after all. She gave a perfectly normal answer. Nothing to worry about.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” Pearl shrugs, and Gem is able to feel air flowing into her chest again.

Then, because this was a well thought-out idea, Gem delivers the last piece of this surprise in the form of a second, slightly smaller pair of gloves. “And look, I made them for myself, too!”

She shows them off with a flourish and moves to put them on, but it turns out Tilly had other ideas in mind for the gloves. Before she could even get one of them on, Tilly skipped over to Gem, almost toppling her over with a pounce.

“Woah! Tilly—” Gem hurriedly throws her arms out to catch Tilly, stabilising the two as Tilly stands on her hind legs and leans on Gem for support. Letting out a whine, Tilly nudges Gem’s right arm until she can sniff the gloves. “No, Tilly, they’re not for you— I only had so much leather, okay? Sorry I couldn’t make you a toy or something.”

Thankfully, Tilly does let up on digging her snout into Gem when Pearl laughs, patting her own knees to get Tilly’s attention. “Aw, c’mon Tilly, c’mon. C’mere. Don’t knock Gem over now.”

As soon as Tilly peels herself off of Gem and bounds for Pearl instead, a heavy sigh of relief leaves Gem. Tilly’s a nice dog and all, but having her outright latch on out of nowhere is a bit too much for any soul to handle. Pearl is the one exception, giving Tilly plenty of scratches as the large dog tries to crawl all over her, but that’s a given— for all the excitement her dogs jump at her with, Pearl would return the same affection with coos and rubs.

Speaking of, Pearl is babbling on to Tilly right now, trying to console her from the lack of a treat. “Oh, baby, it’s alright. I’m sure Gem will make you something to play with.”

“Uh, what?” is Gem’s automatic response upon hearing that, followed by a chuckle chock-full of disbelief. “I don’t remember promising that.”

“Shush.” Pearl makes a halfhearted attempt at covering Tilly’s ears, then drops her voice to a low, conspiratorial tone. “Play along.”

Gem should actually cooperate, since Pearl is the one putting in the effort to quell Tilly’s search for something to nibble on, but the more vocal part of Gem’s train of thought would much rather be a contrarian. Y’know, for the fun of it. That’s why she crosses her arms and lets smugness carve a smile from her lips. “Or what? Are your dogs gonna come and, like, maul me to death if I don’t get them toys?”

“What? No— ‘course not,” Pearl shoots back instantly, so assured in her answer that she sounds like she’s just stating any other old common fact. “The doggies love having you around, Gem.” And there’s something to her voice that bleeds so genuine when she says that, threatening to dismantle Gem— something to make her drop her act, her teasing, everything, and be lost in the meaning of it.

When Gem goes to speak next, she finds herself having to swallow. Her throat is all tight, and her hands all jittery; only now is she reminded of the gloves in her own hand.

Pushing a hand into one of the gloves, she laces more doubt into her reply. “Mm, I dunno…”

“They do! I— You’ll see.” Pearl exclaims, and after coaxing Tilly off of her with a string of whispers, she moves to grab something from one of the chests she was organising earlier.

Despite her attempt to busy herself with the gloves, Gem tips her head slightly to get a better view of what Pearl’s looking for. It doesn’t take long, since Pearl’s already got most of the items they’ve been using sorted in different chests. The smell of steak hits Gem— and, well, Pearl’s pack of dogs, judging by the couple of distant barks growing louder— before she sees it, alongside the other assortment of meats and rotten flesh Pearl is laying out.

For a moment, Pearl eyes the pile with her teeth worrying her lower lip, then picks out one of the pieces of steak. She shoots Gem a glance, signalling for her to go over.

“What, you want me to feed them?” As much as Gem would love to give Pearl more trouble, she accepts the steak, getting just the faintest hint of warmth from the piece.

“Well— yeah! Since you’re so scared that they’ll chomp your head off for no reason,” Pearl says, though Gem gets the sense that it’s more teasing than any real indignance, “just give it a chance, will you?”

Right as Pearl finishes, one of the dogs comes scampers towards the two. It sniffs for the steak once more, which lets Gem get a better look at its blue collar.

“Go on,” Pearl encourages, honeyed up with a smile. The dog offers a yip as well.

“Fine,” Gem sighs, feigning annoyance as she plants a knee down on the ground. “Hey, uh—” not that she was expecting every dog to have a visible name scribbled on their collars, that would’ve been pretty useful as her mind’s drawing a blank, “—buddy. Hey, yeah, over here, buddy.” Gem waves her free hand, drawing the dog’s attention as it pants, eyes starting to be trained on her.

Slowly, it steps towards Gem and nudges her palm.

“Hey there.” Feeling a pull on the corners of her lips, Gem starts with some light brushes of the dog’s fur. There’s a bit of roughness to its body, which she feels even with gloves on. With time, she eases into the motions, and eventually, she dangles the steak above its snout. It leaps at the treat, catching it in its jaw and eagerly tearing into the meat.

“There you go,” Pearl comments, “not that bad, is it?”

Not that bad. It’s as apt of a way to put it as they’ll ever get, when it took Gem a few cautious strokes to fully settle against its fur, or when she fought against the jolt of her hand at the hint of fangs pressing against her skin— not that bad. Yeah.

So, Gem turns to give Pearl a shrug, now that she’s not as preoccupied with the dog. “I guess.”

Yet, right when she stops paying attention to it, something wet runs across Gem’s cheek. “Hey!” She faces the dog again, but that does nothing to stop the onslaught of licks, however affectionate they may be.

“See? Told you they’d like you,” Pearl adds, standing around and offering Gem no help at all.

“Yeah—” another lick. “Like—” Gem has to throw her arm out, breathless, when the dog tries to climb into her lap. “Maybe too much— If I’m gonna be honest—”

The only response she gets from that is a chuckle. Pearl literally chuckled instead of helping. This woman.

Gem mumbles something not entirely coherent to the dog in her lap, mostly to direct her ire elsewhere. Thankfully, the slobbering from it has calmed down a bit, and it’s content to curl up against her.

“Does this guy have a name?” As her hands wander around the dog, the blue collar is the only accessory noticeable, with no tag attached.

From the small crowd of comparatively less clingy and excitable dogs, Pearl hums, contemplating the question for a bit before saying, “Um, actually, now that I think about it… I don’t think I gave all of them names— I’m not that great at that, so…” Her voice trails off, softened by the chorus of dogs. When it reemerges, it teeters the edge of being uncertain. “If you’ve got any ideas, you can give ‘em a name?”

“Uh,” Gem utters, getting one last word in before her knowledge of it as a concept vanishes from her mind. No, seriously, it’s like every name she’s ever heard of has just dissolved into white noise in her brain— what even are words? Or, like, normal names people give to pets? Okay, she can start from there: pet names. She’s had so many friends with pets, so as long as she thinks of those, she can draw some inspiration—

Amidst her scramble for words, her focus flits between the deep blue in front of her and Pearl.

“Mailbox.”

“Uh, what?”

Great question, honestly, because: what? Why the heck is that the one she just had to blurt out? Why did she do that? What the heck?

“Um, yeah,” Gem continues, though her widened eyes are no less baffled than Pearl’s. “Mailbox.”

What in the world is wrong with her?

“You— what?” Pearl asks, veering into a giggle.

“I dunno!” Gem exclaims, conveniently answering both questions at once. The absurdity of what’s happened dawns on her, alongside warmth rushing to her ears. “I just— You put me on the spot and I, like, thought of a dog’s name!”

“What kinda dog's name is mailbox?” Pearl counters, and it lodges Gem’s heart right up to her throat.

It hasn’t yet come to Gem’s attention that she’s not really thinking through the things she’s about to say, as she’s more concerned about not looking ridiculous and being someone who thinks Mailbox is a good name for a dog— so, what comes next is a retort that borders on being offended: “You tell me!”

Reasonably, Pearl sputters until she lands on a complete “What does that mean?”

“You— Or, like, you in the future— had these two dogs, okay? And one of them is called Mailbox and the other one is Matchbox and— I don’t know why, so—” Gem pauses for breath, heartbeat drumming on in her ears as she makes the connection. “I guess he reminded me of, um, Mailbox.”

Pearl narrows her eyes at Gem, the look on her face undoubtedly clear that she’s thinking; Gem can imagine how she’s chewing the insides of her cheek already, gaze pinned on the puzzle she’s trying to figure out, which, in this case, is Gem herself. A heat greater than that flushing Gem’s ears starts to coil into her chest, but as much as she could blame it on the dog pressed against her, she can’t draw herself away from the way each heartbeat punctuates the silence. Thump. Thump. Thump. And even as Pearl’s mouth twists, thump, thump, thump.

Their eyes meet.

And they stay, despite the pull in Gem, deep and gnawing, screaming at her to look away. Some instinct, crawling up her spine. As they’re held in time, the thumps thunder for only a few beats more, and then it’s like a hand reached out— reached in, taking hold of her beating heart. Maybe to soothe its rapid pace, maybe to grip, grip, and grip until it stops— she can’t tell the difference. It tingles under her skin, either way.

Release comes when Pearl’s lips settle, the corners tilted up. “Was I a postman or something? Why would I ever name a dog Mailbox?”

“Oh, no. It’s— Oh my gosh, it’s even dumber than that, because,” a smile starts to spread on Gem’s face, mirroring Pearl, “you literally had like nothing to do with mail. You just had these— mounds? Yeah, no, you guys just had… mounds, and the weirdest houses on top of them, too.”

“Who was I with?”

Gem watches the lump on Pearl’s throat bob up then down. “Mumbo, Bdubs, and Joel. You guys were the Mounders.”

Unsure of what else to add, Gem lets Pearl dwell on that answer. She bites her lower lip, stare pointed to the distance, and there’s this brief moment in time where she’s just frozen, overtaken by this new knowledge.

“Were we… happy? Did— did we stay together? What happened to us?”

No matter how much Pearl could try to hide it, a desperation accompanies those questions, running jagged along Gem’s nerves. An ache, stinging and tearing through her body, all because of a scarlet cloak across the hill— I can’t— it’s Mounders for life— Gem takes a deep breath, though it does little to chase away the sour taste on her tongue.

Despite herself, Gem answers, “You stuck with them. To the end.”

“Huh,” Pearl offers, shoulders relaxing at the discovery.

“Yeah, um, so,” Gem speaks up, no idea what to say, but knowing she has to say something. Rather than the snow white fur or the deep blue collar in front of her, her eyes land on her own sleeve; red, raw and hurt. “Mailbox— if you don’t like it, we can think of another name.”

“No, no, Mailbox is fine.” Hurriedly, Pearl goes to shake her head. She even tacks on, “Hey, I think I gave one around here an orange collar— maybe we’ll have a Matchbox, too.”

Gem, for all the residue ache writhing through her insides, keeps her composure.

It all came down to this.

Gem slid down the mountain and into the covers of the trees below, buying whatever time she could. Scott was looking out for the other players, asking her if she could swim— they had nowhere else to go. Joel and Bdubs were climbing uphill earlier, with Pearl and Scar chasing them downhill now; they’re cornered on both sides. Nowhere to go. Nothing that could save them.

Impulse’s already gone, taken before Gem could reach him. The last she ever saw of him was the flash of thunder, and the remnants of it still rang in her ears, reverberating in her skull. It made their dire situation that much more prominent, pressing, reminding her that this was it. That lightning could’ve been her. It probably will be, come the next time.

She felt her ribs squeeze, an invisible force digging into her flesh, shoving pins and needles across her skin. It can’t end like this. It can’t. No matter how much every inch of her hurt, she had to keep going. She just had to grit her teeth and bear the sting in her shoulder blade. Don’t look at the seared flesh. Don’t recall the wound smouldering just minutes ago. Don’t think of who put that arrow into her side.

At the centre of all the possible emotions clashing in her, there would always be a bone-deep exhaustion to claw at her. This needed to be over. The chase had to stop, one way or another.

But it won’t end with her being cornered, being the prey, she can’t let that be.

Scott turned to her, then told her of his plans to go for Joel.

They could do that. They could fight Joel off together, overwhelm him, just like they did with Grian. They won’t go out by being backed into a corner.

It was the easiest choice to make. Slip into the burst of anger pumping in her chest. Give into the red. Carve herself a way out.

So, she followed. Her blood rushed through her ears at the next lightning strike, and then she lunged, cleaving Joel’s side with her sword.

Another crackle. Another flash. And it wasn’t her. The remaining proof of the other player’s existence coated her blade, blood slick against the metallic sheen.

What else could she have done?

Her only mistake was letting herself look back. Soon, there would be a blot of scarlet tearing through the treeline, and she would find the very site Gem was standing in.

She shuddered at the image. Then, Scott called out for her again. She had to go.

(She couldn’t stay for the cry that echoed through those woods.)

“Um, why are there two beds here?”

The last glass pane fits into the wooden wall’s opening with a thud. Gem takes a small step back to appraise her work, allowing for more sunlight to flow into the room. When she finally deems it to be the spot, she spares a glance back at Pearl, whose attention hasn’t left the beds since she came in.

“Hm?” Gem asks; she heard Pearl the first time, but there’s something to the way Pearl looks at Gem, then the beds, and back to Gem. Her eyebrows screw together as she takes in the bedroom interior.

“The beds,” Pearl repeats, “there’s two.”

“Yeah, I did notice that.”

“Wha— You— You know that’s not what I meant, Gem.”

That, she absolutely does. In fact, when she started working on the interiors of her house earlier today, she had already known that she was going to do this: two beds, set on opposing sides of the room, alongside the promise of an obvious question to be posed.

Gem lolls her head to the side, a grin rising as Pearl continues to gawk at the scene. She doesn’t have to spell it all out, does she? Well, that does seem more and more likely as Pearl maintains her wordless scan of the bedroom; Gem can just hear the cogs turning in her head as she tries to work out the great mystery of why there’s two beds in a bedroom when there’s only two people around this place.

Still, as much as she likes watching Pearl flounder about and sputter out half-formed sentences, at some point, the spacey gaze worn on Pearl’s face pinches at Gem’s chest— this growing, nagging twinge. Not far away, a lone tower sits, isolated from every other trace of people that were once here. She doesn’t know the specifics, doesn’t know when it began or for how long, but she can picture the nights Pearl had spent up there, on her own, overlooking the other pairs of soulmates. No company to speak of, nobody to even talk to— the image doesn’t sit right in her mind, sinking to her gut with an uneasy swallow.

Gem lets herself fall onto the bed closest to her, sitting on her pink blanket. “It’s for you, you silly goose.”

“Oh,” Pearl gives, and it’s a genuine shock that colours her response, like she was expecting anything but that answer. Just one soft oh, and the twinge rooted in Gem twists. Even then, she hovers around the second bed, scuffing her boots against the floorboards rather than making any move to get closer. The blankets are dyed red specifically for her, but she lingers around it, as if it’d burn her alive if she stepped any further towards it. “Uh, why? I mean, I live right next door.”

Bits of sawdust grind against the wooden floor, making light scratches and creaks from how Pearl drags her feet. It’s going to take so long to clean those out, but at least Gem’s finally gotten around to putting in the interiors: digging out the dirt floor and replacing it with planks, replacing the torches strewn about the place with lanterns, setting up a proper bedroom… It helps that there’s not a whole lot else to distract her, forcing her to stay in place and mull over every little detail, filling in the pieces that make up her new home.

Gem leans forwards, resting her chin on her hands while she takes in her work. Sunlight grazes her back, its warmth seeping into her skin. She looks at Pearl. “Yeah, well, I did choose this spot because it’s closer to you, so you can come over and stay when you want to— I don’t know how you scale up and down that tower every day, honestly, so we’re not having a sleepover up there anytime soon.”

Pearl perks up at that, and at last, she brushes a gloved hand against the end of the bed.

It unwittingly leaves Gem by the edge of her seat.

“That,” Pearl pauses, “um, that sounds nice.”

And as she turns to avoid Gem’s gaze, hints of a smile pull at the corners of her mouth.

Pearl ends up staying that very same night.

Actually, she ends up staying over more often than not.

It starts with a you might as well, I already made you a bed. After that? Oh, Gem wouldn’t be able to remember all of them— something like how it was getting dark out, or maybe because Tilly was particularly clingy with Gem that day, so Pearl had to stay over as well— most nights, Gem could simply turn her head to the side, and she’ll find Pearl on the other side of the room.

It’s much better than that stuffy ranch. She’s spent so many nights craning her head to stare out the window, counting stars to lull herself to sleep. Then, she’d wake up for what’s probably the thousandth time, heart trying to dig its way out of her ribs while her hands are uncomfortably clammy. And she has to do that all over again.

At least she has a change of scenery now.

Of course it couldn’t just fix her sleep. She was too hopeful to think the ranch was the source of her restlessness. It wasn’t just the dust, or the smell, or the view, or the fact that it’s basically what’s left of some dead players. She still feels it. A phantom of what’s been done, a ghost of the blade that caught her flesh. Out of habit, her hand would trail down to her side, and her fingers would find the rough patch of skin.

She still feels it. The ache that reached, deep and all-consuming. Pearl— Her Pearl, blocking a blow that would’ve otherwise sliced right into Scar’s forearm, setting her wolves on Gem when it came down to the three of them, betraying her.

But this is better, she thinks. It’s something. It’s not being stuck with her thoughts the entire night. It’s not being stuck with herself the entire night. She can look across the room and spot the rise and fall of Pearl’s chest. And the darkness of the unlit room would grow, until she next opens her eyes to morning light.

(She could even let her imagination slip in tandem with the darkness. She could blink, and see herself inside Pearl’s mound again for the night. Those times always ended with Pearl failing to hide a grin as she pretended to be asleep. Her eyes would flit open, and her teases would eventually become what’s wrong? Couldn’t sleep? I’m telling you, I could feel you staring in my sleep—)

If nothing else, Pearl would appreciate the company, right? While she hasn’t been complaining about sleeping alone in her own tower, it can’t be doing her any good, either. There’s a reason for those coats of snow on her hands, or the times she’s been caught spacing out, or the bags under her eyes; they’ve made less of an appearance ever since Gem got Pearl to stay the night, which means it’s working. If not for Gem, then for Pearl.

So, Gem convinces Pearl to stay for another night, which brings them here:

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s just a ladder, Gem—”

“It’s a death trap, is what it is. You know how easily someone can fall off from that thing?”

“Oh my gosh,” Pearl sighs, muffled by the palm she’s brought up in exasperation. “It’ll just be one quick trip! Or, okay, maybe two— but like, after that, you don’t have to go up it ever again.”

“Do you seriously have that much stuff up there?” Gem glances up the beams supporting the tower, then the ladder in question, being the only way up.

“Uh, yeah.” Pearl juts out her chin, as though it’d make Gem any more convinced. “C’mon, you’re the one that’s always going on about how I’m using up all your stuff—” She’s complained, like, twice, okay? One of those times was about Pearl’s dogs eating up all her food, which is genuinely an issue, but whatever. “—so just help me out and get my things down with me!”

Rolling her eyes, Gem scoffs in lieu of an actual answer.

“One trip up,” Pearl goes on, “we only have to go up once. That’s it.”

“There’s still the trip down.”

“Oh,” Pearl replies, yet there’s no inkling of realisation in her tone. “Don’t worry about that.”

And if that isn’t the most unsubtle Gem’s ever seen someone be, she doesn’t know who else would fit that description.

“What, you want us to just jump down from there?” Gem asks, with as much casualness as one can muster when they’re talking about a plummet to imminent death.

Pearl, doing a terrible job at hiding the smirk on her face, grabs onto one of the rungs on the ladder. “You’ll see.” Just like that, she climbs up a couple of rungs, then glances back, clearly expecting Gem to follow.

In response, Gem grasps onto not the rungs, but the frame. She looks up to meet Pearl in the eyes, before giving the ladder a slight jostle.

“Gem!” Pearl shrieks, clinging onto the rungs for dear life. The ladder itself didn’t really budge, and Pearl was only a couple feet up from the ground— she was going to be fine. “You can’t be all ‘oh I don’t wanna go up a ladder’ like a lil’ scaredy-cat and then go and do that!”

Unapologetically, Gem offers nothing but snickers from where she stands. “Alright, fine— get moving and let me up your stupid ladder.”

“Stupid ladder,” Pearl repeats in a higher pitch, followed by some mumbling that Gem couldn’t quite hear. Either way, she starts climbing up the rungs again, and Gem follows suit.

It’s a slower climb this time. Not necessarily because Pearl is moving too slowly, though. From below, the tower stood intimidatingly tall, and it’s through this that Gem truly gets the sense of how long it takes to scale up its entirety. She didn’t pay that much mind when she was rushing up this ladder the last time.

Thankfully, the nudge Gem gave the frame earlier did nothing to its stability, as much Pearl would like to claim as such, and both of them made it up the tower without any problems. From there, Pearl rattled off some of the items they’d find useful, where to find them, and set Gem loose to scour her probably all immaculate and neatly organised chests.

Since this whole ordeal started from them not having enough food for the dogs, Gem takes to gathering those up first. The chests for those are set above this small garden on one side of the tower, but it’s lacking any crops or vegetation at the moment, leaving it a barren patch of dirt more than anything. When she’s done rooting through the chests’ contents of mostly wheat and bread, she spots the faintest footprint embedded into the soil of the garden. Actually, from this angle, she sees more than just the footprints: at the edge of the patch, there’s dirt smeared onto the window; it looks like someone stepped up to the tower ledge this way.

Rude, she notes to herself. Trampling through a garden to get to the windows is just unnecessary, especially when there are three other perfectly open ones, y’know?

Anyway, she moves on to the next closest chest, which, if she remembers correctly, should have some of Pearl’s spare clothes.

The pile she’s welcomed to is— well, it’s not a complete mess by her standards, and she’s definitely in no position to judge— it’s not as pristine and organised as one would expect from someone who preaches about organising whenever she gets the chance. And Gem gets it, okay? Who has the time to start folding their laundry in the middle of a death game? It’s much easier to toss it elsewhere and deal with it later, whenever that may be. (Hey, that’s one perk of being in these games: you’re never going to worry about your growing clothes pile when there’s much more important things to be doing.)

Still, it takes a decent amount of strength to hold herself back from calling Pearl out on it. In fact, as much as Pearl would rightfully deserve some flack for getting on Gem’s case about her storage while having seemingly just dumped a couple of shirts into the chest, she holds her tongue, choosing to grab the ones on the top without another word.

It’s until a pool of deep blue is revealed to be lying under all those clothes, that she decides to speak up. She reaches down to pick it up.

“Is this…?” She wonders aloud, letting silence finish her question; it can be none other than Pearl’s old hoodie, the one she wore like it’s her second skin, the outfit that Gem used to always imagine her in whenever she thought of her—

Used to, anyway.

She looks over to Pearl, in her scarlet red cloak, as she steps closer. “Hm, I haven’t worn that in a while… It probably stinks.”

Right on cue, Gem inhales. What she breathes in, aside from the thin air atop the tower, is a wave of this musty smell that suggests the hoodie hasn’t been washed in a long, long time.

“Ew!” Gem chucks the hoodie at Pearl, which lands squarely on her face.

“Hey! You didn’t just have to lob it at me!” Pearl tears the hoodie away from her head, before giving it a sniff. “It’s not even that bad.”

“Why would you even—” Cutting herself off, Gem reaches the conclusion that she’d be asking a pointless question before she even finishes the sentence; it’s Pearl, of course she was going to smell it. “You’re not fooling anyone here. Don’t lie to yourself.”

“I’m not!” Pearl exclaims, waving the hoodie as she throws her arms up. “Here, I’ll even smell it again—”

She makes a show of bringing it up to her nose and making a few fairly audible sniffs. As an immediate reaction, she wrinkles her nose, but quickly washes the expression off her face in favour of something more unaffected. “See? Not that bad.”

“I don’t remember asking.”

“You made it look like it was so bad! You threw it at me! I had to, like, make sure—”

“It is bad!”

“‘s not!” Pearl insists, holding the hoodie towards Gem. “C’mere—”

“No,” mirroring Pearl, Gem holds both her arms up to keep the distance between them. “Just— put it with the rest of the stuff we need to bring down already.”

“Aw, but I gave it another sniff for you!”

“I literally did not ask, you did that to yourself.”

Their impromptu staring contest holds for not more than five seconds, until Pearl huffs. “Fine,” she drawls, dropping her arms with a pout, and thus saving them from a round of hot potato with the hoodie.

Just as Gem requested, Pearl puts the hoodie alongside everything else they’re bringing down— into a chest set onto the back of a boat.

“Wait,” Gem eyes the boat, “what are you doing with that?”

“I promised just one trip up the ladder, didn’t I?” Pearl shuts the chest, a grin splitting across her face, “So this is how we’re getting down.”

To properly present her plan, she shuffles to the side, allowing a second boat, crafted with its own chest as well, to come into view.

“See, there was this one time where Grian and Scar— those absolute cheeks— barged in here, looking for a place to hide since they were the last greens in the game, which got everybody over here to try and kill ‘em.” Pearl explains, “It got pretty dicey for them, and they had to make a break for it, so they crafted some boats and launched themselves off the side.”

It’s one heck of an exit, that’s for sure— while boats aren’t what’s normally used as a way to get down from tall places, it is possible to do. Basically, you’d push yourself off a ledge in a boat, and it would slow your descent right as you hit the ground, cushioning the fall.

“So,” Gem deadpans, “your plan is to do the same thing.”

“Yup,” Pearl answers, beaming, “I mean, we’ve got chests on the back to carry everything, and we get to fly down from here. What more could you want?”

It’s not gonna make them fly, Gem nitpicks in her mind. Yet, in the face of Pearl’s cheery expression, she concedes, “I guess.”

“Oh, c’mon, it’s not gonna get you killed.” Pearl pats the boat. “I assure you, Grian and Scar lived to tell the tale afterwards— just, not for a lot longer, but still!”

Whatever untimely demise those two were met with after jumping off the tower, it’s left for Gem to imagine on another day, because Pearl starts hefting each of the boats onto the garden. The boats have pretty much been loaded with everything they needed, which makes it all the more impressive that she managed to haul both of them with just some grunts and an eagerness to her steps. Turns out, it’s a good thing that the crops have already been trampled. If not, they surely would’ve been crushed just now.

Once Pearl is happy with the boats’ position near the window, she climbs onto the garden bed herself and turns to face Gem. “So? You comin’?”

The scarlet of her cloak is a glaring contrast to the pale blue sky behind her, though both ever so bright. There’s no other argument Gem can make against the plan, and it’s not like she’s actually that opposed to the idea, but something, this rock settled in the deepest pit of her gut, this ball and chain dragging her feet, something, stops her from going forwards. She hesitates, with all this red in front of her, an overwhelming presence to the rest of the horizon.

Logically, she knows that this won’t harm her. She’s seen other players do this plenty of times, like when Etho was trying to get the jump on people leaving Pearl’s party; he probably didn’t jump off from a spot this high, but he crashed down onto the front of the mound by rowing himself off somewhere of a decent height, and he was fine. And so will Gem be, when she leaps off this tower. She’ll be fine. She knows that.

But she pauses in front of Pearl. She hesitates, her heart hammers in her chest, and it’s alarm bells trilling in her head. Red, red, red.

“Gem?”

A familiar call smooths out the crawling under her skin.

There’s a hand outstretched towards her. Scarred, calloused, but a healthy shade of pink nonetheless.

And it’s like muscle memory kicked in, before all else, because she grabs hold of the hand without any second thought. She doesn’t dwell on the overbearing flashes of red striking her thoughts as she’s helped up onto the side garden. No echoes of a past hurt, no phantom of friends that once were— just Pearl squeezing her hand as she finds her footing on the soil, her breath carrying away a snicker.

“Oh, couldn’t climb up by yourself, huh?” Pearl teases, tooth poking out from her smirk.

The racing of her heartbeat doesn’t stop in an instant, but it does start to settle, soothed and comforted by the sight. It’s not rare, by any means, she’s seen Pearl’s mouth curl into something smug more times than she can count, but she can’t recall the last time she could find it worn, either. Given the chance— or the method, honestly— she’d capture the scene. Crystallise it, keep the memory from slipping from her grasp, just so she will have it with her forever. Just so she can relax the aching and the pulsing and the missing in her heart. She’d trace it, memorise the curves and the edges, so she can still hold onto a piece, no matter what happens.

She lets their hands stay the same for just a few seconds more, and then she lets go. With a soft scoff, Gem tries to shake off the heaviness building up in her chest. “Yeah, right. Just thinking of my last words before you send us both to our deaths.”

“We’re not gonna die! Jeez,” Pearl exclaims. “Look, I’ll even go first, if you’re that worried about it.”

Pearl nudges one of the boats closer to the edge before getting into it, craning her head to look at Gem, waiting.

“…if you really don’t wanna, we can—”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Gem pushes the other boat so that it’s nearly side by side with Pearl’s. “Let’s do the boats.”

As soon as Gem gets into her boat, all signs of uncertainty on Pearl drained away, replaced by an ever-brightening smile. “Heck yeah!” She cheers with a fist pump.

Peering down at this height, the trees below are reduced to dark green dots in a backdrop of grass and dirt, and among them all, sits the gleam of her coppery roof, as they’ve yet to oxidise to the right shade for her house. Despite all the reassurances given and the knowledge that this is something tried-and-tested, Gem can’t help the tingle running through her. She ends up white-knuckling the oars at her side the longer she casts her stare downwards.

“Ready?”

The question thankfully draws her attention away from what’s below, and beside her, Pearl bounces her leg within the narrow confines of her boat, the smile on her face unwavering to the great drop before them. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any room for concern left in Pearl’s mind, completely taken up by this odd yet not really surprising enthusiasm to throw herself off a tower. It even bleeds over to Gem, who manages her own smile.

“Yep.”

Once she’s sure of Gem’s response, Pearl pushes her boat further using the oars. Above all else, it just looks so silly— she rows forward, wood scraping against soil, and with each little grunt of hers, the boat inches closer towards the edge.

“Quit— hah— starin’,” Pearl huffs, taking a moment to pout, “and get movin’!”

“You looked like you needed the head start, though?” Gem teases, before copying the same moves to nudge the boat forwards. Just not with as much sighing and grunting as Pearl.

“‘s not a race!” Pearl exclaims, interrupting one of her rows to jab an oar at Gem’s boat. Not only does it get a squeak from Gem, she also freezes mid-row, giving Pearl the perfect opening to gain an even greater lead.

It just so happens that she’s already at the very edge when she does that push.

The boat tips off the window, to the point where it’d take nothing to send her straight towards the ground below— and as it does, she crows up a laugh; loud, vibrant, and on top of it all, boastful.

“I’d beat you anyway—!”

The last of her gloating is carried off by the wind, turning the shout into a faraway cry the second her boat makes its leap.

And, for all the reservations Gem has had beforehand, she follows swiftly after.

Her boat doesn’t even have time to dangle off the edge, as she thrusts the oars as hard as she could to get her the furthest she could possibly get, all to catch up with Pearl.

She’s falling.

She’s falling. Every fibre of her muscles tingles as she feels the absence of any solid ground beneath her; save for the wood of the boat.

Her heart could fly out of her chest with its rapid beats, alongside the air being dragged out of her lungs in a scream— she’s weightless, bound and chained to nothing at all.

The sights around her aren’t easy to keep up with. They’re all flashes and blurs; a whole mass of green met with blue expanse and—

Every thought of hers either flees or gets drowned out by the noises. The whoosh of air clashing with her and her own cackling and the rush of blood to her head—

She is flying—

And then, it slows.

A gust of wind rises upon the impact, but what Gem feels from that is just a soft, graceful landing, barely startling her.

The world stands blissfully still, awaiting.

It takes a couple of seconds extra for her senses to catch up. Although her boat’s touched ground, her limbs still sway unfettered, burning off the adrenaline thrumming throughout her body. The fall ended in the blink of an eye; the aftershock? Not so much. She gulps down pockets of air, warmer in comparison to those that ran beside her during the descent. Then, she goes for an exhale to set the scene back in motion.

It first comes stilted. Jagged, choked breaths out, uncontrolled residue of this buzzing beneath her skin. Bundled, blooming, bursting out her throat.

Exhilaration, takes its place in the form of a laugh.

“We did it,” Gem says, “we actually— woah.”

Her hands are jittery as she clambers out of the boat, the whirlwind of excitement tearing through her trajectory as she just about stumbles to Pearl, who catches her and lets Gem slump onto her figure.

Pearl chuckles, and Gem more so feels it than hears it, as she rests her forehead on Pearl’s shoulder. It ends up with this awkward hug while they catch their breaths, but neither of them make the move to break it.

Just then, the only thing tethering Gem is the pulse beside her.

“Wait,” Pearl remarks, later on, while she is taking stock of the items they had brought down, “huh… did we forget something up there?”

“You didn’t,” Gem returns with a low grumble.

The two exchange stares.

Under a skin-piercing glare, Pearl cracks, showing a wry grin. “Alright, jeez— just wanted to give you a lil’ scare.”

The house has just enough room for two, as it turns out.

There are plenty of spare chests for Pearl to put her belongings in (after Gem makes her wash her filthy clothes, that is), the legs of the dining table is decorated with heaps of scratches from the dogs trying to clamber up for a bite, and for all the neat organising Pearl tries to get Gem into doing more often, there’s also a lot more stuff strewn about the place; sometimes, a scarlet cloak draped on a chair, and other times, scraps of paper, filled with scrawls and doodles.

Naturally, at times, Pearl would ask if she should go back to her tower instead of spending the night there. If she’s overstayed her welcome.

In response, Gem would pull her own blanket over her head, hurling out a muffled complaint for her to snuff out the lantern and go to sleep already.

Though, there are moments where their house feels a bit cramped.

They come on with no forewarning. They could be talking about anything and nothing in particular— and then the topic would resurface, lurching from the seas that Gem wishes she could have sunk all reminders of it into. The waves of a storm rolling in, just from the way Pearl clears her throat across the table and picks at the leftover breadcrumbs of their lunch.

“What was it like?”

Gem won’t pretend like she doesn’t know what Pearl is— has been asking for. She doesn’t even blame her for it. It’s not as simple as being curious, not in their shoes, anyway. It’s being cautious, because it’s already plain as day between them both that Gem has something to hide. After all, Pearl told Gem all about Double Life, while she hasn’t begun to scratch the surface of her own game.

There’s just enough space in this house for the two of them, but there’s not nearly enough for all secrets to stay buried.

So, each time they tread these waters, Gem lets slip a piece. With time, Pearl learns of the rules of Secret Life, the Secret Keeper, the secret tasks— Gem lets her know all about how Skizz had to follow her around for a task, how Etho’s antics one week led to him lighting a TNT right in front of her, how badly she wanted to punch him in the face ever since— everything that Gem can share. Then, as Pearl tries to imagine these stories, laughs with her at the absurdity some people got up to, Gem gets to breathe a little easier again. More room opens up.

(It’s never about the boogeyman task, or the murder camel, or Pearl’s betrayal— heck no, she’d pry up the floorboards and keep them a safe six feet beneath them if she could. It’s already bad enough that she told Pearl straight to her face that she was allied with Scott; there weren’t any snores from the other side of the bedroom that night. Only the occasional shuffle of bedsheets.)

In return for shreds of Gem’s past, Pearl offers up more of herself. She speaks up, in the middle of the night, when they’re both aware that the other is awake.

It’s often a trivial thing bothering her; she’d sigh, then say something dumb that didn’t warrant that much lamenting to begin with—

“I don’t know if I actually meant to hurt them,” a pause in the darkness, “I— BigB and Ren, I definitely didn’t mean for them to die— I just, wanted to mess with them a lil’, y’know? And then— and, Impulse and Bdubs, they attacked my dogs first— I didn’t just… everybody got scared of me. They didn’t wanna be around me…”

Pearl’s voice trails off, letting her words stir in the dimly lit room.

Not for long, though.

“So what? That’s their loss,” Gem declares, holding her voice steady, “you can’t just— Scott, Cleo, Martyn, everyone— they were stupid for abandoning you. You literally won, and you could’ve done it with or without them. You’re probably the best player in these games— you’re the Scarlet Pearl,” she can still recall how excited she was, when Pearl had changed into her red outfit, had let Gem join her in hunting Cleo down, “you would’ve been the greatest teammate ever. They just couldn’t see it.”

—but it’s different tonight.

Pearl stands next to the lantern in their shared bedroom, watching the tiny flame wisp around in its glass chamber. Her fingers tap along the rim.

She doesn’t move to snuff out the light.

Okay, weird, but not the weirdest Pearl has been. Gem would love to give her time to rethink her life choices while staring at a lantern, but some people do actually need to sleep? Seriously, Gem would like the lights off now, and she’s not going to—

“Did you ever believe in soulmates?”

“What?” Gem replies, reflexively, because she was absolutely not paying attention in favour of deciding when she was going to start complaining out loud.

Pearl lets go of the still-lit lantern, and defaults to her nervous habit of playing with the red string leading to her pinky. “Oh, uh. Well, y’know, before… this, did you ever believe in soulmates? Did you think they exist?”

“Um,” the bed frame creaks as Gem sits up, and though she tries to wrack her sleep-addled brain for an answer, what comes out as a result is the opposite, “why do you ask?”

“I just— I never really thought about it before this game, but the concept of it— it sure sounded nice.” Her voice is then dragged down by a heavy sigh. “When we found out the rules of this game, I thought… it’d be nice to have someone who you know would have your back. Someone who knows you. Someone who will be there, no matter what.”

The longer Pearl goes on, the more Gem feels of a lump forming in her throat. She sits, all the same, and keeps on listening.

A laugh, bitter and low. “Yeah, well, turns out it’s not as nice as I thought. He’d rather have someone else. Anyone else but me.”

“I… maybe it’s not about that, maybe…” without really any sense of what she’s spewing out, Gem lets whatever first comes to mind spill forth, “I wouldn’t know how to feel if my allies weren’t chosen by me. If they were just forced onto me. Maybe it’s just that—”

The air carries a tinge of smoke; Gem swears neither of them left a window open, so it can’t be from outside and its ever-charred woods. It’s suffocating. She could choke on her own words if she kept going, spreading out gunpowder, tempting for a spark.

Ignition looks like a pair of scorned red eyes, reflecting the glow of fury-bright flames.

“But he did.” Pearl says, three small words to hold such a fiery blaze. “He did choose me. He chose me last time. In Last Life. We were friends— we were friends, and where did that get us? Spent a whole game together, just for him to turn around and decide that he didn’t want me anymore. Just for him to blow us both up all willy-nilly— I didn’t even get to— it just. Happened. And that was it.

“When he… when I saw the TNT, when I saw him light it, and I realised that that was how he was going to end it… I thought, maybe it was him finally… apologising. Or something. Letting me win and all that. I thought— I was going to die, right then and there.” She peers down to the severed red string tied to her hand. “I think I would’ve forgiven him. I think— but then, I opened my eyes and he was gone and I wasn’t, and it just didn’t feel… right?”

Why would you want to forgive him? Gem lets the sentiment sit on the tip of her tongue, smouldering. He was the one who left her. The one who betrayed her, when they had been friends before. What’s there to forgive? Him blowing himself up doesn’t sound like something remotely close to an apology, not when Pearl didn’t have a say in it.

The thought simmers, in the back of her mind. If it had been Gem, she would’ve wanted a fair fight, at the very least. She would’ve wanted the chance, the choice to do it with her own hands. Then, and only then, could she consider forgiveness. Call it even. That’s what’s fair.

But she can’t say it. It stays, tar coating, seething from the inside. Still the lump in her throat.

Without the kindling, Pearl retreats, looking back to the lantern. “I’m sorry. Forget about it— it’s stupid.”

The light goes out.

Days pass by, melding together into indistinguishable mush. It’s one thing for it to be peaceful; moss reclaiming fallen trunks, wildflowers blooming in once-barren lands. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that Gem watches Pearl leave for her tower on a daily basis, adding another mark to the tally etched on its exterior.

(She joked, once, that she put the tally outside just so she had a reason to get out of her tower every day— yeah, uh, it didn’t land very well.)

It’s nice, but then the world border would come into view again. It taunts her, each and every day, that she’s trapped. That her life ended in one game just for her to get stuck in another one. That she still hasn’t figured out why.

Luckily for her, the key manifests in a cloudless morning sky.

“Soup? Again?” Gem asks, putting as much disdain as she can when she finds two steaming bowls set out on the table. Looks like she woke up just in time for breakfast.

“What’s wrong with a good bowl of soup?” Pearl retorts. She sets a used pot aside, then takes the seat opposite Gem, as she usually does.

“Nothing!” Gem says, earning an unimpressed eyebrow raise from the other side of the table. “It’s just… can’t you cook anything else?”

“Wow, I see how it is.” Pearl grins, slapping a hand onto the table. “Fine! If you don’t want soup, then I’ll just have these all to myself. They’re gonna go cold by the time I finish them all, Gem. Is that what you want? Cold soup?”

“I mean, if that’s how you’re going to take it, sure.” Gem rolls her eyes, and scoops up a spoonful of mushroom stew anyway.

After a sip, she shoots Pearl a look, a silent challenge for them to continue their bickering.

Pearl’s lips quiver, but when she opens her mouth for another quip, it’s not words that fill their otherwise quiet meal.

It’s the whip of a lightning strike, booming, leaving crackling in its wake.

Gem drops her spoon into the bowl of soup, spilling some of its contents out onto the table— she stares and stares and stares, because death rings in her ears, stalking right behind her, and the room is painfully still.

“I— I saw it. Out the window, it hit something outside.” Pearl sputters, darting out of her chair. “We need to go— we need to go see.”

Despite her thunderous heartbeat, Gem manages a nod, following Pearl’s rush out to the door. It gets harder to breathe, no less run through the fields, the instant they step outside. Even after the flash, the strike lingers; residual energy, pricking her bare skin like static electricity. It feels as though the clear sky above them could fall apart, shattering into pieces as thunder had streaked across it moments ago.

Still, the smoke billowing out isn’t something you can just miss.

They find the spot struck by lightning, and their questions only pile on when the clearing isn’t set ablaze.

Instead, it’s burnt with precision. The lightning strike was purposeful, tamed, to make a mark.

A symbol. Two L-shapes on opposing corners, then two dots on the remaining, diagonal from each other as well. The exact same as it was on the Secret Keeper.

And, sitting completely intact in the middle, is a book.

At least to Gem, it is intact, because it looks the same as the last time she saw it. Its cover bears the same singed edges, the same dried smudges, and the same enderman claw marks as her secret task book.

She flips it open.

It shouldn’t come as a shock to her, yet she still freezes when she scans the words on the first page: Convince someone to take a leap of faith and make sure they take no damage.

Turning the page, it reads the same as before. Even when she skims through it— open the end portal— nothing you say to another player can be true— you are infected with the Boogeyman curse— hit a green name with a sword until they block you—

Win Secret Life.

That was the last page. Was.

Now, a new message sits at the end of the book:

The moon and the stars,

though your story ends in tar,

one remains,

past the flames.

Repair the string,

seal your fates.

Only then,

will you escape.