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The world was dying. Anyone could tell, there wasn’t anyone else there to tell, but Scar knew.
His fields, which now overtook most of the world within the border, had begun to wilt. The dirt they were planted in was dry, crumbling in his hands no matter how much water Scar had tried to add. Days were filled with a continual dust storm, which added to the sky’s permanently sandy color. The sun sat above him in a glaringly deep orange that pierced through the clouds.
The world was dying, and yet Scar was still here. Over a year spent in this world that was deteriorating, and he wasn’t quite sure what would happen to him when it did.
It wasn’t that Scar was losing hope of escaping – he had lost that months ago – it was that he wasn’t sure if the end of the world would be enough to kill him. The contemplation of that fact left him debilitated, stuck in a corner of his rotting home, just still. He needed answers, which meant that Scar had to visit the thing he avoided most, the Secret Keeper.
With a deep breath and an overwhelming feeling of dread, he made his way to the only thing really left in this world. The dust settled as he got closer to the stone idol, with its damned buttons just sitting there, the words on the signs in front of it faded, but not forgotten.
Sighing, Scar dusted the rubble off the button before pressing it, hoping for any sort of answer as he spoke. “Does the end mean the end for me? Will you let me die?” He asked whatever god had trapped him here.
The statue hummed, a puff of purple smoke outlined the symbol etched into its face. Then, as if like a whisper from behind, a voice breathed into his ear. “She’s not dead.”
Scar whipped his head around, but there was no being attached to the voice, only the sound of items raining down onto the pedestal. He turned back to the Secret Keeper. “She is dead!” He screamed. “You told me yourself! Pearl is dead. She’s gone, I killed her!” Scar pleaded, but there was no further response.
He turned to leave, it was his fault for believing they would give him a real answer, but something caught his eye. The Secret Keeper used to drop gear after successes, but it hadn't for a long while. He went over, kneeling to investigate the object.
There sat a singular orb, but not an ender pearl, but an eye of ender. Scar picked it up and rolled it between his hands, there wasn’t anything unusual about it. He furrowed his brow, staring at it, hoping that the eye would give him some sort of answer to why it was spit out, but no.
Scar stuck it back into his pocket and headed back to his abode. It was starting to get dark, and while he didn’t really need to sleep, Scar didn’t like to be out when the things came. And well, there was no other better way to pass the time.
He set the eye down on his counter next to his other trinkets from the world and laid in his bed. Scar sat there, awake, as he tried to figure out what it all meant. The eye had to have a meaning, it just had to, he just needed to figure it out was all.
The end portal had been opened this game, he knew that. Gem was the one who opened it, but Scar killed her himself, so he was pretty positive it wasn’t her. Bdubs killed the dragon but they-
Scar shot out of his bed, his eyes wide. He scrambled to his desk, yanking open one of the drawers. He dug through his various junk before he pulled out his communicator, which he had shoved in there weeks after being stuck here.
He held the ‘on’ button, praying that it still worked, and let out a small cheer when the device lit up. Scar impatiently waited as it went through all its starting screens before finally getting to the chat logs. Scar scrolled through the old death messages of his friends till he finally found it.
LDShadowLady fell out of the world.
It was Lizzie. Was she out there, stuck in the void, alive?
If she was alive, then it was her fault he was still here. But she wouldn’t have much control in that, but it would be because of her.
“She’s not dead”... would her being dead let him escape? Did Scar need to ki- now wasn’t the time to be considering that, he needed to, at the very least, find Lizzie. He owed it to her to find out if she was alive.
Once morning light rose above the land, Scar headed out, with his cloak covering the bottom half of his face, the eye of ender tucked in his pocket, and a semblance of a feeling he hadn’t felt in months. The trek to the stronghold wasn’t far, just past the remnants of Bdub’s base. Scar had found it a couple weeks after the games had ended when he had explored every inch of his prison. After he had realized that the endermen wouldn’t have any real way of killing him, Scar hadn’t gone back to the stronghold, since it didn’t have any real use to him. Until now.
The entrance was more exposed than it had probably been when Gem had first dug it, the hill it was once on having been eroded by the wind, leaving behind a stone tunnel far closer to broken stone brick walls of the stronghold than it used to.
It was eerie in the structure. It wasn’t quite that the interior was preserved, but that the decay of the place didn’t seem new. As if the ruins would survive far longer than the rest of the world.
The portal was easy to find, its loud humming bled through the halls. Before long it sat in front of Scar, pulsing with the energy of the end.
Scar turned around, eyes closed, letting himself fall backwards into the portal, a feeling that felt all too familiar. When he opened his eyes again, Scar was standing on a cobblestone platform. He made his way towards the central island on a path made by his long dead friends.
Large obsidian pillars circled around the platform, none of which gave Scar any indication on where to go. He didn't know where Lizzie fell, how could possible find her?
A buzzing from Scar’s pocket caught his attention. The eye was shaking, begging to be removed from his pocket. As soon as he pulled it out, the orb flew out of his hand, zooming across the island. Scar followed quickly behind it.
It finally stopped over a small jut off the island before shattering. Scar looked out, there was nothing but the endless void. He wondered what life would look like stuck out there in the void. And what did life look like for her if she was out there.
With slight hesitation, Scar called out to the void. “Lizzie?”
…
Silence
Until there was a small voice who responded. “Scott?” The voice was weak and it was feeble, but it was Lizzie.
“Uh, no it’s Scar.” His own name felt odd on his lips, Scar becoming aware of how his own voice sounded weak as well. It had been a long time since he had talked to anyone, and he hadn’t spoken his name for even longer.
“Oh.” She went quiet for a moment. “Is everyone else…”
“The game is over Lizzie. It’s just me. Well, there’s just us.”
“How long has it been?” She sounded sad, he had felt that way once too.
“A while.”
She went silent again. After a moment Lizzie spoke up again. “Are you going to get me out of here?”
He thought about it. A Scar from a year ago would’ve made an effort to get her out. He would’ve sat on the edge here and basked in Lizzie’s company as they brainstormed ways to bring her up.
“Scar?”
But that Scar was long gone, now he only wanted to go home. Scar took out his trusty bow, the same one that had killed Pearl. He notched an arrow and pulled back. As he released, Scar felt the same thing he had felt for so long, numb.
The arrow shot through the air as Lizzie continued to call his name, each time sounding more frantic.
And in a moment, she went silent again.
Scar felt a buzz from his communicator, with a message he already knew.
LDShadowLady was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using HoTGuY
A wave of unknown relief rushed through Scar’s veins. He knew it then. He had done it.
His shoulders felt lighter as he made his way to the portal. The magic warping that brought him back to his bed no longer felt sickening.
The world, which was still dying, now felt more poetic than a hellscape. The Secret Keeper felt more inviting. Scar took pleasure in pressing the Success button, an emotion he hadn’t felt in so long.
Scar couldn’t help but hum as he climbed up the stone limbs of the statue. And he couldn’t stop himself from giggling as Scar let himself fall backwards off the head of the Secret Keeper.
He had done it. Scar was finally free.