Chapter Text
It’s very dark down here. It’s the first thing you notice, going through the jumps one at a time, slow, wary of your feet failing you and having yourself falling down below.
You’re with someone else. You don’t know who they are, don't even know their name, but they sound like Seawatt, voice smooth and low like his, so you think of them as him. They say the beneath is the void, and that is it is permanent and the best way to go out. There is bitterness in their throat. You imagine that you're starting to feel the same, their exhale being the only air you can breathe in, with how you hang onto every word they say.
Because they're Seawatt, just for now, and you trust Seawatt.
They’re right behind you, guiding you, herding you towards somewhere they say is where the houses are sold.
You hear something slip on grass.
You hear a scream caught in someone’s throat.
It sounds like your friend.
You stop.
Turning around, your voice is a quiet, trembling thing in your ears. You wish that you'll never sound like that again.
“Hey, are you still there?”
The void is light incarnate, and it's blinding to look at. The black overshadows what little else there is to see.
No one is there. No one is with you. You are all alone, and you will admit, in that moment, that you are afraid.
Who were you talking to, Evbo?
Silly is what the thought is. Because that was Seawatt, that was who you were talking to, and he just tripped, and he'll get up, and you'll both just laugh it off because he's not dead, and you didn't hear him just trip and fall into the unknown, and he's alive, he's alive, he's alive—
*
Evbo turns around. Moves on.
Jumps across a block. Then another, then another, until he’s sprinting across the one-block gaps, leather boots taking him into wherever direction he assumes is forward. He hopes he hasn't been disoriented enough to forget something like that.
What does he even get to be disoriented about? Seawatt's not dead.
There’s a stand, just in the distance. His steps slow in return, jumps becoming more and more hesitant. He stops. Waits.
The wind whistles around his hair. The cold bites through his shoes. The scream still rings in his ears.
He honestly doesn't know what he was expecting. He continues, letting his lungs steal breath after breath and his ankle throb. A bad landing is what he blames it on.
He stumbles to the next block, then to the next, then to the next, and he keeps moving, even when his legs burn with strain and his ankle shrieks in pain. He thinks, mind a flurry, that he'll die if he doesn't move. That he'll die if he stays out here, near the bright light of what's underneath.
He prays that the thing in the distance has some solid ground to stand on.
*
Evbo remembers the beginning of Parkour Civilization. He remembers it well, he thinks. Too well, considering the five years that have passed.
It starts with him thinking about wanting. He wants (food) a diamond, to craft up (he’s not allowed to craft anything) some armor (leather boots are the only form of protection he’s allowed).
In the bright, saturated haze of color, Seawatt is there. He’s ripened, he’s ready, he’s in front of him and he has everything Evbo cannot even hope to earn.
A low voice (smooth or grating, Evbo cannot listen well enough to tell), he has black hair (was it curled or slicked straight, or was it braided or hanging low?), and purple eyes.
No one else on the Noob layer has purple eyes. Evbo thinks that he remembers him wrong.
Seawatt’s kindness has morphed into sharp, shiny cruelty. Now, he has shifted from a benevolent friend to Parkour Pro, mean and insulting. Demands fall from his tongue every time he opens his mouth, but now he offers no reward other than just the leather boots on Evbo’s feet.
Evbo wishes that he had eaten Seawatt instead of allowing this civilization to even begin.
*
The second person you meet is kind. The closest thing to it, at least. They tap their iron boots in a rhythm, and they check their watch every few seconds as you read the signs, but they do not say a word to rush you.
They have black hair, you notice. It's short and cropped, but they have black hair just like your friend's.
You balance yourself on the rungs of the ladder, lifting yourself up. You turn around to meet impressed eyes.
They lead you to the house, say it’s a two story. You wonder if it’ll look like Seawatt’s. It only kind of does.
You don’t know what a good parkour jump means. You think of Seawatt and the bitter way he had looked down towards the void, while the Pro falls.
It’s the best way to go out, he had told you. You wonder if that’s really true.
*
Seawatt is dead. The one with the headband tells you much. They are nonchalant, without emotion or mourning. Should you be like that too? Perhaps.
They leave you alone, after giving your new house a look over and deeming it okay. You still don't know what that means. You do not go towards your bed, too hesitant after what you’ve just witnessed.
He’s dead, the other had told you. But that can’t be true. Because Seawatt is alive. He was in diamond armor the last time you’d seen him, so he couldn’t just die like that, just from one measly fall.
The neighborhood is very quiet. Your house is very dark too. Do you have a lock, you wonder. The door had just creaked open, a wooden thing on rusting hinges which creaked in a pitch that made you wince. Maybe you could go somewhere to get that fixed?
You’ll try and do that tomorrow, you decide. Whenever tomorrow is. There’s no sun down here. No sky either. No Seawatt either.
You wonder when your friend will return. Because he is coming back. Because he is alive. Because he is your friend, and friends don’t abandon each other.
No matter what.