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Joel watches his reflection in the river and barely recognizes his own face. It’s too blurry, too shaky against the water. Too foreign. Too…different. His eyes don’t look the same. Probably will never look the same ever again. A flicker of a memory passes by in the quiet—of himself, with his grin and familiar laughter echoing in the wind, swaying his blade here and there without a care in the world. How long has it been, anyway? How long has it been since his life didn’t feel like his’ anymore?
Joel stares at his reflection and only sees exhaustion in his own eyes. The pain of everything has numbed, but it doesn’t make it any better. It’s been months, and his body has been recovering. No more wounds, no more bandages, no more bed rest. But he doesn’t feel like himself. It doesn’t hurt as much but…it’s like there was a low buzzing in the depths of his heart, and all the unbearable pain and memories was slowly stirring there, just sitting in its silence. Like it was standing at the edge of a cliff, and all it takes to make it all tumble down is a small push.
Fragility is something Joel hates. He hates feeling weak. Hates someone seeing him like this. Hates the feeling of helplessness. But for all his facade of being the best, of being the strongest, he sure doesn’t feel like it most times.
It started with a crack. And now he feels like he’s breaking piece by piece. When was the last time he truly felt whole? When was the last time he felt secure? That’s perhaps the one thing he cannot remember.
The water rippled beneath him, and his reflection dissipated like smoke. Joel sighs softly and looks away. This entire world feels like a reminder of everything he wants to forget. A game built upon the past. A game where they go back in time. All these memories he wanted to forget feels like it’s being handed back to him on a silver platter. He supposes he has no other choice but to take it with exhausted hands.
And now he’s here again. Playing. Surviving. Trying.
If only it was that easy.
His footsteps lead him around the map. He distracts himself by building. At least then the sound of the blocks being placed will drown out the heavy numbness he feels. He smiles and laughs and jokes around but he feels hollow. Like an empty shell. Sometimes he’d see Grian from across the map, all smiles and grins and realizes that perhaps both of them are doing the same thing. Pretending.
When the two of them finally crossed paths and talked to each other, Grian’s greeting is a small, sad smile. “Hey,” is all he says, and Joel leaves it at that with a small smile of his own and a wave.
They sit by the grass in a secluded area, near the forest fire that Joel had started earlier. He can feel the warmth from it but the cold overpowers it easily.
So he pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands. It’s the green one that he knitted with Grian a few weeks ago, back when they were in the warmth of their home, all quiet laughter and comfortable silence. They’d spent the whole night knitting their matching sweaters, with Grian constantly fussing over him and guiding his hand.
“Careful, careful…” Grian’s voice spoke behind him, as he momentarily put down his own sweater to help Joel with his’. The warmth of his hand over Joel’s is comforting.
“I can do it,” Joel huffs a little. Really, his own sweater was coming along pretty fine.
“Just let me help you,” Grian insists.
Joel resists the urge to roll his eyes, even as his mouth quirks up into a fond smile. “Fine, fine, whatever…”
He glances at Grian sitting beside him. He’s wearing his own, new knitted red sweater as he places both palms behind him, leaning back to watch the scenery of fire and destruction happening. Joel follows his gaze. The flames were building, sizzling like sparks in the distance.
Does it ever get easier? Joel wonders and lets the question drift away into the flames. Unspoken and lingering.
He looks at Grian again. Memories of bright violet eyes and bright violet wings amidst an endless abyss flash through his mind. Of a desperate hand reaching for him. Of a guttural, sorrowful shout in the darkness. Of the world crumbling around him.
And the numbness in his chest moves just a little bit. Shifts against its confines and oh, the pain of it all builds ever so slightly that it’s almost overwhelming. Joel blinks back the tears and forces it all down. He holds onto the numbness and clings to it desperately. He doesn’t want to feel right now. Doesn’t want to feel all of it at once. Not here, not now.
But he sees Grian’s eyes glance into his own, already catching a glimpse of what Joel was trying to hide like it’s his own intuition and instantly, his expression changes into worry. “What’s wrong?”
Joel takes a breath and exhales it shakily. “I’m just so…”
We’re going home. He hears the echo of Grian’s voice from that time in his memories, shaky and breathless and so full of sadness. We’ll be okay.
He still remembers all of it, even if at the time he was on the verge of collapse. The endless darkness, so suffocating. The taste of blood in his mouth. The bright purple, horrified eyes locking onto his own. The hand reaching for him. The scream that tore through the whole world.
“I’m so tired of being tired.”
Something in Grian’s expression crumbles just a little bit. The twitch of an eyebrow that suggests concern. The way his lips move downward into a growing frown. The way his eyes flicker with recognition, a haunted look casting a shadow over those irises.
“Do you think…”
Joel bites his lip and looks away. His fingers fiddle around the grass beside him.
“Do you think it would be better if we just…forgot about each other, too?”
Nobody would remember them anyway. They will never know of all that they’ve been through, of all the tears and desperation and misery. They will never know this story, so why not just fade away into history? Wouldn’t that hurt less? Wouldn’t ignorance and numbness be better than this?
Joel doesn’t look at Grian when he says it because he knows him too well to know exactly how Grian will react. A shadow of hurt and sadness in his eyes.
I don’t want to forget you! Grian’s voice, desperate and raw, rang in Joel’s ears.
Clarity hits him hard. And suddenly the numbness breaks again, cracks a little more, threatening to fall over completely. How does Grian always manage to keep him grounded to this world when he’s about to fall?
“I’m sorry,” Joel runs his hands across his face, wiping away the stubborn tears that were building up. His voice is shaky in his own ears. “I’m sorry, I’m just so tired.”
“I understand, Joel. You know I do.” Grian’s voice sounds just as broken.
Joel hears shuffling beside him, and then there’s a warmth covering him. He doesn’t have to look to know it’s one of Grian’s wings wrapping around him. The warmth seeps in easily, and Joel lets his hands fall to the ground. He breathes out a sigh and watches the flames in the distance as it slowly gets smaller and smaller.
“I can’t stop thinking about all of it.” Joel hears himself say, voice soft and quiet. “How all of that happened and now…we just have to keep going? How? How do we just put all of that aside…?”
“I still see it, too.” Grian whispers beside him. The weight of his wing wrapped around Joel is comforting. “It’s like every time I close my eyes I still see that sight of you.”
Joel breathes out a shaky breath. He knows exactly what Grian means. He, too, cannot stop thinking about the sight of Grian at that pivotal moment, reaching out for him in nothing short of desperation, wide purple eyes focused solely on him as the world around them crumbled to dust. He wonders what he looked like from Grian’s point of view. Does it haunt him in the same way it does with Joel?
“I guess the world really wants to remind us of everything we want to forget, huh…” Joel trails off.
“You’d think we’d be a little used to it by now.”
“Yeah…”
But it doesn’t get any easier.
Grian woke up in complete darkness. Where—?
He got off the floor and looked around, confused. His footsteps echoed through the ground, rippling like waves towards eternity.
In the distance, Joel is there, facing away from him, standing still amidst the darkness. Grian lets out a sigh of relief and jogs over to him, a hand already outstretched to tap him on the shoulder. His mouth is already half way open, ready to call for his friend.
Then Joel slowly turns around. But what greets Grian has him freezing in spot, his outstretched hand hanging in the air.
Because he doesn’t recognize Joel at all. His hair is messier, wilder and just slightly longer. One of his eyes was bright purple, shining against the darkness.
“You can’t save me, Grian.”
He sounded tired. Resigned. Hopeless.
Wrong. It was all so wrong. Joel should be smiling, and his brown eyes should be shining against the sun like bright dazzling stars. Not like this.
“You can’t save anyone.”
Grian wanted to move, to run up to him and hold him in his arms until everything is better. Until everything is fine. But he couldn’t. All he could do was stand there and watch as his best friend becomes unrecognizable even in his own eyes.
Consumed by a black smoke swirling around him, Joel stood there with a singular violet eye. “You couldn’t even save yourself, remember?”
And those words sent Grian crashing to the ground onto his knees, eyes wide as the memories came back. Of that time in the End, where the weight of his own wings felt far too heavy for him to carry. Of how he’d clawed at them in desperation, to try to force those heavy wings off and to remove all remnants that he’d become a Watcher. Of how he’d sat there, helpless in the dark, staring at his own reflection and seeing his own foreign, bright purple eyes shining with tears.
You can only watch.
The memories of it all came back. Of Joel, who Grian could not reach through that glass barrier, only watching in helplessness as his friend broke down. Of Joel, falling through the abyss, clothes covered in blood.
Grian looks up from the sight of his own hands clutching onto the ground. Joel is still there, standing before him. Silent and unmoving. A single tear falling down from his purple eye.
Grian reaches out a hand, but there is a glass wall between them, and there are bright violet eyes hovering above Joel, watching closely.
“Joel—”
Joel meets his eyes.
You can’t save me.
Grian’s eyes fly open. His hand is still outstretched.
“I can—”
He’s sitting on the floor littered with chests and a crafting table, leaning against the rough stone walls of the base he and his teammates had hastily built. Moonlight seeps in from outside, dim and enchanting in the most haunting way. His mind is still stuck to the scene he’d just seen in his dream, of violet eyes and of words that continue to ring in his ears. His heart is pounding beneath his rib cage.
His hand falls to the side. When did he even fall asleep?
After gathering himself together, Grian left the base and walked around to clear his head. The session was coming to a close, and as he passed by the other alliances in their respective places, he could hear their muffled laughter ringing in the air.
He sees Joel building a house with his teammates, talking animatedly about something he couldn’t hear. And Grian thinks of memories of the abyss, of Joel falling to the darkness, away from his grasp, away from him…
He shakes his head and calms down the pounding of his heart. No. He’s here now. They’re both here now.
But he takes a step and looks at Joel a little closer, and sees the way his smile falters, sees the way he stares off into the distance for a split second when no one’s looking until someone snaps him back to reality. He looks like he’s breaking apart.
You can’t save me.
Grian looks away.
They’re both here now. They’ve both escaped from the glass room. From the End. From the abyss. But they might as well just be there anyway because it still feels that way. Everywhere they go, it seems like the abyss follows.
You can’t save me.
Grian turns around. “That won’t stop me from trying,” he whispers, more to himself than anything, as he walks away. If it was pure determination or him trying to convince himself, Grian couldn’t tell.