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Grian had gotten used to death. Well, really only his own death, and even then that statement was a hyperbole. He had more so come to terms with the strange limbo realm he entered when he passed, and so when he was stabbed in the chest or blown apart by dynamite, his incorporeal form was never a surprise.
And so, after Gem took away his final breath in what he felt was a rather unfair convention, he found himself watching over the battlefield of the Life Games once again. He pushed away the unease he felt at doing exactly what the Watchers wanted him to be doing, and instead focused on his friends that remained alive.
The grassy fields and the tall trees that dotted the background faded out of his view - he didn’t have enough energy to waste focusing on them. In such a strange, intangible form, he could only ever focus on two or three things at once. And so he stared down at two people who he dreaded seeing in conflict with each other.
Scar, the man who he’d tried desperately to cut ties with, stood in the field with his hands awkwardly holding a longbow. Grian felt a strange embarrassment seeing someone so skilled in archery never learn to hold his bow properly after so many forceful loops of these deranged games, but if anybody could accomplish that, it would be Scar.
He wasn’t tense in any part of his body. It looked like he was just out on a leisurely stroll, with a large grin on his face and not a hint of fear in his eyes. It made it feel like he had only accidentally covered himself in blood and shredded his clothes to pieces. Grian knew it was bad to wish death on somebody, but within the games, life and death was a lot more loose, so praying and hoping for Scar to get stabbed through his torso or pushed over a cliff was a lot less morally questionable. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Scar notched back two arrows and let them fly through the air. They both whistled by the only other person remaining in the game, and the person who Grian was focusing on the most in this mortal combat.
Pearl’s hair was covered in twigs, leaves, dirt, and probably a couple of bugs. Whereas Scar was radiating pure joy, Pearl’s entire body was tensed up. She was carefully backing away from Scar, trepidatiously balancing on rocks and logs while trying to land her own blows. Every time she aimed she did what Grian had taught her so long ago: she made sure her breathing was steady, she stopped in place as much as she could, and she concentrated on her target just long enough to get a close enough arc, but not long enough to let him close in on her.
The two had been dancing this dangerous tango for what had seemed like hours to Grian. An almost tedious back and forth of missed shots, calculated retreats, and the rare connecting strike that did nothing more than a paper cut would.
Pearl wasn’t fighting to live, that much Grian could tell. She didn’t want to die, obviously, but it felt like she was just delaying what she felt was inevitable. Every time an arrow whizzed past her ear he felt her body ease up just a bit; a breath of relief leaving her body more relaxed before returning to the anxious and concentrated mien she held before.
The field surrounding the combatants suddenly dipped down into the earth, a warm orange light illuminating a canyon that stretched on for hundreds of feet down into the world. Pearl planted herself firmly, raising her shield up as Scar continued to fire a seemingly endless barrage of arrows at his former ally.
Grian watched as the focus built up on the two fighters, their mouths moving but his current form unable to make out anything they said. He clung to the mumbles and incoherent whispers he could hear from Pearl, hoping that none of them ended up being her last words. Partly because he wanted to be able to remember them when they were uttered.
As the fighting continued, each person getting closer and closer to the edge of the canyon, Grian spotted a green blur in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t make it out, but from the way Pearl gestured at it, he guessed it must have been a zombie or a creeper or some other abomination sent to kill them.
Pearl pointed at it, which Grian guessed was her trying to get Scar to look at it. The grinning archer turned his head away from Pearl and looked at the green blue, surprise finally replacing his grin that seemed almost permanent. Grian got flashes of previous lives, but all of that went out of his mind as he saw Scar’s last arrow fly through the air. Pearl was preoccupied with the blurred threat, and by the time she noticed the arrow, she didn’t have nearly enough time to raise her shield or roll out of the way or hit it with her sword or do any of the other things she could do to block the projectile. Instead, its momentum was stopped when it pierced her tattered red cloak and penetrated deeply into her skin. A clean shot.
Grian felt his heart drop, though without a physical form it felt more like vertigo mixed with the worst case of motion sickness he’d ever felt. Everything seemed to lose its solidity. The fields and trees warped together, creating an environment that only helped Grian’s being feel sicker. Scar was in six places at once, and the green blur was now a visible zombie. He could see the faces of all of his fallen friends, all a mix of shock, horror, celebration, and a million other emotions. But Grian knew his was different, because of course it was, because of course he had to be the one who felt the biggest gut punch in a game that everybody else treated as just a game.
His face was a pure showcase of deep melancholic guilt. He watched Pearl, the only thing unaffected by his nightmarish feeling of vertigo, fall down into the canyon. She didn’t even reach the bottom. Her head slammed into a small ledge, and he could feel the life drain out of her body like his had out of his own body only moments prior. But this was different. This was his sister, she wasn’t supposed to die, she couldn’t die. He couldn’t allow it. But he never had a say in the matter. He knew that was the point of it all. Give him that feeling of victory, a sense of accomplishment and pride. And let it slip away, game after game. Watching his friends die over and over again, all because he couldn’t be enough.
And even with all of that roiling inside him, he could still feel another powerful emotion. Anger. Anger at the man who he had never wanted to be close to, who nobody ever wanted to be close to. The guy who screwed everything up, who could barely even unsheathe a sword. The guy who killed his sister without even bothering to look while he did it.
Grian watched Scar, alone, surveying the battlefield with a look of confusion on his face. Grian knew what his job was, and he knew he had no choice but to carry it out. He willed himself closer to Scar, and positioned himself right next to the victor’s ear. He whispered quietly to make sure no one else heard his message.
His words dripped with venom as he spoke. “She’s dead, Scar. You won.” Grian gripped his blade and prepared to unsheathe it, but stopped himself. If Scar couldn’t do the decent thing for Pearl, why should Grian return that indecency with mercy? He let go of his blade, and then let go of himself. He knew limbo was a place of indescribable passage of time and a weightless existence, but he could condemn himself to it with the knowledge that Scar wouldn’t die. He didn’t have it in him to take his own life, Grian knew that. He could wander the empty world for the rest of his life, alone, without a decency done for him. Because he didn’t deserve that. He never did.