Chapter Text
Jimmy sat in the center of the ruined sky-island, surrounded by the holes in the ground. He created makeshift ankle braces from the loose sticks on the ground and some wool and string he pulled out of his backpack. He hoped to––he wasn’t sure who he hoped to now a days, since none of them were gods anymore. Well, he hoped that either his ankles wouldn’t be broken when he arrived in the new realm or the braces would come with him. He couldn’t handle the idea of running on broken ankles through death games. The solitary confinement was strange now. He feels like whatever trial run the sky-island was, was just meant to taunt him, Lizzie, and Joel; Oli had just been there for cruelty's sake.
The sky is different for Joel now. He still tried to call upon it. He was the last to fall from the edge of the island, but it wasn’t really his anymore. It wasn’t like the ocean though, thrown into chaos. They stripped him of his powers silently. He had his memories still––it would be too hard to take them now with all the convoluted scheming. They risked damaging his brain and his brain was good for them. He was a tool, he still has active deals.
Jimmy thought about how he and Lizzie were free now, in a sense at least. Joel is a different story. Joel is in the Hermit Realm now. He was even deeper into the web than before. Jimmy wondered if Joel ever talked to Tango. From what he heard, they lived close to each other. It was a gut punch to think about Tango again after so long. They weren’t on the best terms last time. The Heart Foundation . It sat like stale bread in his mouth. He felt bad for the other man though; another place he loved going up in flames at the hands of Scar. Jimmy pushed Tango out of his mind. It had been years or what felt like years, it was so hard to tell when he was traveling so much and in the recent times, he had been pulled in every which way. Tortured by Grian’s tower of creation, living his life as an Elf, in different solitary confinements, a whole different death realm. He was tired.
Staring over the edge of the nearest crater, he wondered why he was tortured like this. He would never know perma-death. Just the constant loop of pain. He felt it in his hands as well as his ankles. Old pains from past falls; tears in his ligaments, something that would never heal now. He didn’t have scars like Scar or Skizz, but he couldn’t breathe at night, Martyn said it was sleep apnea––Jimmy knew it was left over from that Enderman that killed him and Tango. He got shooting pains like he was being impaled by arrows and tridents, post-traumatic pains. His life was a huge post-traumatic pain.
Nonetheless, he could feel the magic growing in the air; they were getting ready to take him again. Since he disconnected himself, since he became more aware, he could sense it more. He felt like Martyn nowadays. He knew what was coming––Another death game was pulling him in.