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“You were, like- the main thing keeping me going after I died.”
Those words incessantly echoed in the back of Zam’s mind, taunting him until the depths of the night. No matter what he did or where he went, he couldn’t escape the distant whisper of months — months of blood, sweat, and tears, but most importantly, months of Flame .
Even in his absence, Flame still lingered in Zam’s life. The phantom fingers of a blade remained against his throat, restraining his breath. The memory of the way in which laughter bubbled out of him, with a haunting mockery designed to make him feel so little, stayed around.
But, among the sea of searing hatred that now merely hummed in the back of his head like a whispering breeze, thoughts with less contempt for Flame occupied his mind. Zam’s stomach churned at smiles that once were void of any arrogance, at moments without the anticipation of blood.
Two images battled against each other, despite Flame no longer being here to stoke such a fierce fight.
And yet, a truth prevailed.
They had never been enemies.
No matter how many times Zam swore it under his breath through gritted teeth, no repetition made those words any truer. All the threats and promises of violence spiralled into nothingness, always. Only because, despite everything, Zam didn’t hate Flame even if he wanted to.
Hating someone that used to be such a trusting rival was much more difficult than he thought it’d be. He stubbornly clung onto the idea that, yes, he did hate Flame, but not once did his heart ever mean it. But what did his heart even know? It didn’t know what Zam did.
It didn’t know how each time he had fallen victim to Flame’s blade shattered him just a little more. It didn’t know the way in which a sign will forever haunt him, the sign “Days without spawn kills: 0” that never forgot to remind him of his own dire incompetence.
It didn’t know Flame was behind it. It didn’t know Zam just wanted peace on Zawn, and that Flame just had to come and infest it with stupid wardens. It didn’t know how insignificant he made him feel as he laughed, laughed at him because he died again. And again. And again.
And again.
His heart simply refused to know. It endured pain after pain, disappointment after disappointment, frustration after frustration. If there was one thing it did know, it knew how to bear through much more than a human should ever have to bear, and then somehow hold no real grudge.
Eventually, and it took a lot of work on his part, Zam settled on another title to give Flame in his head, one his heart will accept.
Enemies didn’t suit them, not with such a history behind them – whether that be on this server on equal grounds, or on another between an emperor and a knight. Enemies didn’t define their relationship well enough. As much as he wanted it to, it never really did.
Rivals did.
Being rivals understood their hatred but also their past friendship, both present between harsh words and deaths.
Rivals were, in Zam’s book, two people who were far too hurt to be friends again, but not nearly decisive enough to be enemies. It was no more than a line, really. A blurry, dancing line between two polar concepts humanity had always forced together: love and hate.
In novels, in paintings, in letters, in verses, in films, in sketches, and in the sand… humanity tried writing them together .
It never worked.
When together, love and hate were vastly different notions. Love was pained, restrained, and burned with the wildest of passions. Hate was harmless, frustrated, and soothed unhealed wounds with salty fingers.
The more Zam pondered love and hate, the more he paced across horizons of possibilities that stretched into infinity. He quickly realized it was all so ridiculously pointless, his face falling into his own hands. What Zam felt for Flame was stupid.
But real.
Way too real.
What Zam felt was love and hate.
Zam loved Flame, he really did. It wasn’t in a romantic, amorous way. Not at all. It was an emotional attachment to him, to what he once represented, and maybe no longer will. It was love as in a visceral bond between two souls, love weighed down by circumstances and hurt.
But, Zam also hated Flame. Every inch of his body could be alive with joy, joy from friends or from building amid peace. He’d only need to show his face, and all came crashing down. Emptiness mixed with despair would wash over him in an instant, just because Flame was here.
Zam loved Flame for what he used to be, and hated him for what he now pretended to have always been. But he knew the truth. He knew how sincere Flame had been when he didn’t want to cause harm at spawn at the beginning, knew he had tried to be nice.
And for some unknown reason, he couldn’t.
Perhaps a malevolent voice had always resided in Flame, had pushed him into destroying his own promises. The idea made him nauseous.
Whatever.
No justification could soften the reality of love and hate, together in one hell of a mess.
Love and hate.
It never worked.
They never worked.
Zam leaped out of his bed, that last thought having sent atrocious shivers down his body. He exited his base in a hazy rush, clumsily equipped his elytra, and flew away. With all those thoughts shifting through his head, Zam needed a breath of air. Just sweet fresh air, nothing more.
Yet, somehow, he found himself back where it happened.
Back in this pathetic excuse of a room, inhabited solely by sad chests and sadder memories, stuck between earthly depths and the void.
A sigh left his lips.
His heart clenched, still mourning those wistful memories of what he and Flame were before that one fateful day. Zam vaguely remembered the bitter laughs they shared, the awkward silences they endured. Often, those instants were followed by Flame’s sharp blade tearing through his chest.
Each time, Zam would mutter about a future in which he would finally get a revenge he thought he had always wanted, a death who wished to be a dream come true. But, as he stood there with his gaze glued to the void before him, he harbored no pride or contentment.
Numbness lazily washed over his body, deafening any soreness in his limbs and previous thoughts in his mind. A weighted silence had, since then, fallen over this place as if the deepslate had, too, understood the solemnity of that day. His fingers went to brush the grim stone, tentatively.
It was as cold as peace, peace after the storm that Flame embodied.
As much as he hated Flame for having tormented him for months straight no matter what he did or said, he came to remember he also loved him. Spending time with him had been great, even if Flame was mocking him the whole fucking time. It had been… something at least.
Except, he had only realized that time had been great now he could never earn them back. He had been far too busy staring at Flame with daggers for eyes to see the sheepish delight his presence brought. Maybe denial had also played it own part for a while, but not anymore.
Zam stared at the obsidian cross he had erected that day, to honor Flame’s death the best he could. That urge to commemorate his death in itself showed he didn’t hate Flame. Or maybe he did, and he was intelligent enough to also realize someone Flame’s caliber deserved respect after their ban.
Zam chuckled humorlessly, nowhere around to hear him anymore.
Well, there was still some denial left in him after all.
As he stood here, he could still see every scene that had unrolled. When Zam’s eyes flickered to the void, they flashed with the poignant memory of Flame falling to a death he had crafted himself. To think about those messages no one else had seen made him sick to the stomach.
Zam glanced at the other side of this place.
“Being immortal, like, actually sucks,” Flame had admitted in a bittersweet laugh, standing defenseless in the corner.
Such a confession was to be expected. Flame had never been the same after succumbing to the void, after being marked with his very first death – even though he never even considered being immortal in the first place. That title had harmed him too much for him to return to it.
Yet, it had remained. People had remembered.
A part of Zam, despite the emptiness he incarnated, was teased with a dark sense of guilt. Could he have softened Flame’s anger? Pangi certainly did, and although it was for just a stolen glimpse of time, it meant something to Zam. It meant that he could’ve done something too.
But instead, he had been blinded by a cycle.
That was how life worked on an SMP, wasn’t it?
A shimmer of hope shone within each soul, before being ruthlessly smothered by an agony such as betrayal or death. A sorrowful quietness took hold of the aftermath. But, unsurprisingly, a twist of events followed. Revenge, redemption, renaissance… an all too familiar last page.
By desperately wanting to rewrite the story of his life, Zam had composed the very same one.
He had fallen victim to the temptation of revenge.
Ever since the start of the server, Zam had yearned for renewal under the form of a completely different lifestyle: one of a pacifist. It was a defiant decision to make, on a server jokingly but not sarcastically nicknamed ‘the Deadliest SMP’ by dozens of algorithm-approved videos.
Not a single breath went by without someone or something challenging that resolution. Not any determination he preached or displayed sufficed to push the world away. No, the world kept daring him to pursue that dream of peace. Over and over and over and over…
Why were they all shocked to see him crumble after months worth of perpetual pressure and stress?
Why did they flinch when he broke ?
Hadn’t they wanted him to kill, to actively seek someone’s death under the adrenalized influence of the mere idea of revenge? Hadn’t they wanted to be right, for him to be wrong? Why was there this sickening disapproval in their eyes when he gave in to their desires?
Zam gasped for air, left breathless. It wouldn’t have been that big of a surprise if a migraine were to pound into his brain. Even now, he didn’t understand why the world had taken one single word – let alone, pacifist – as the greatest offense he could’ve done.
He had just wanted peace.
He got everything but that.
He got a rivalry with FlameFrags himself, the so-called Immortal Demon whose fury was fueled by his very own mortality. As his rival, Zam bore a scorching heat, the second Flame’s eyes went to him. Even beneath that damned blindfold, he could feel the prideful intensity they held.
They went up in flames the moment a potion crashed to the ground.
He got this unfathomable hatred for his existence. Something about Flame’s never-ending arrogance about his own capability had the gift to make him forget all about the pacifist path he had chosen up until that point. It irked him in a way nothing else had ever done.
Because his smugness had never managed to stifle Zam’s love for Flame.
That love was buried beneath hundreds of insults, dozens of fights, and everything in between. That love was kept hidden from anyone’s gaze, even Zam’s.
But it was sill there.
Zam’s attention shifted to the chests.
Watching Flame take off every piece of his armor and empty the entirety of his ender-chest had made his heart sink . He had been so utterly powerless as Flame tore away layer after layer of defense. And somehow, Zam was the one scrambling and panicking.
Which was totally unfair, in retrospect. Flame manipulated each of his feelings with an infuriating dexterity, with a control unbelievably precise. He handled his life like he handled a sword. He genuinely wondered if that was how it had always been for him. A routine, a habit, a pattern.
The answer was obvious. Everything about Flame was calculated.
Even his death.
Nothing was ever in vain for that guy, for that psychopath . Flame’s whole life was a violation to the word ‘meaningless’.
He stammered once when he had said he didn’t want to fight anymore. Flame showed more and more kindness to Zam, even though it was only crumbs of it more. All had been calculated. Unconsciously so, probably, but still calculated. All had hinted to his death.
A terribly beautiful guilt went ahead and kissed him, its lips an intoxicating and addictive drug. It was all over Zam, its presence incessant ever since that day. Flame said it wasn’t his fault, but it sure felt like it was. Zam had given him a purpose, and took it away from him.
A pain thumped against his forehead.
He began pacing across the room of deepslate laced with heavy memories.
“I’ll only be mad if you don’t win.”
Zam scoffed.
The very same person who had prayed for his downfall every day of his life on this server, who had killed him countless times, and who had destroyed any good thing Zam tried to build, now wanted him to win. That was what he wanted before dying.
He wanted victory for Zam before dying.
‘Why’ was a question he was able to answer in a matter of seconds. Dying was giving up on one’s own legacy, leaving behind any hope for a future for one’s self. Wanting a rival whom he had always despised not to give up made sense in a way, albeit an odd one.
He didn’t understand ‘how’.
How could Flame wear detachment like it was the only thing he ever knew to wear, or the only thing he allowed himself to wear? How could Flame say that so nonchalantly? How could Flame say ‘bro’ and ‘chungus’ and ‘like’ every sentence he spoke, and proceed to say that ?
Zam felt like pulling his own hair. His fingers found their way between his golden strands, but they didn’t tug. They stayed there, nails hovering over his scalp without ever scratching it. For some reason, he couldn’t. That frustrated him. He tried to scream.
No sound left him, other than a stuttered breath.
He wanted to give up.
It was beyond a desire muttered without a purpose in sight. Zam had this deep-seated urge to throw away his own determination, one he had harbored for far too long now. He was about to, he swore he was about to give up. No odds were in his favor. Not a single one.
Zam wasn’t amazing at PVP.
He didn’t have a sharp game sense.
He didn’t have a great use of Minecraft mechanics.
He didn’t have the ability to lead powerful teams.
He had the urge to give up.
He didn’t have a strategic playstyle.
Not even luck would be enough to save him.
Zam wasn’t Flame .
Yet, here had Flame been, asking Zam to be him, not to give up, to win despite the extreme unlikeliness of winning. For months, he had pushed him to his utter limit to the point he had often wished they had never even met so his love for Flame would stop being challenged.
And now, Flame hoped Zam would win.
He stared once more at the obsidian cross. A flurry of memories of what they had once been then crashed upon him, flooding his chest with a nostalgic warmth. Such a structure meant so much to Zam, even if it was a bit stupid. It was just blocks of obsidian put together into a cross.
But, in Zam’s head, it was the closest he could still be to Flame. Perhaps all of Flame’s belongings, including the generous amount of enchanted golden apples, did the same, but it didn’t feel like it. While useful, they remained meaningless, unlike what made Flame Flame .
But the cross.
The cross was different.
It was just to lighten the heavy guilt that had been on his chest the moment he began speaking of the loss of his own will to continue, in the heat of the moment. But, without really meaning to, it well and truly represented Flame’s character on this server and beyond.
The cross wasn’t meaningless.
It thus symbolized him.
And in a way, Zam was happy about that, in a way that at least he honored his end the right way. It softened the past pain and the present numbness that tentatively tethered towards sorrow. Under the form of a cross, he liked to believe a piece of Flame was still here, with him.
Zam’s vision went blurry, and he couldn’t have been any more surprised. Emotion had always been his greatest friend. Salty, warm tears pricked his eyes. He didn’t stop them – couldn’t even if he wanted to. Not when he missed Flame so much that his chest hurt.
A shaky sigh went past his lips as he sniffled quietly, no one around anymore to hear him.
For him, he will try his best.
Far away from the earthly ground, there existed a place in which all the banned people could look back on the server. They can wander around an untangible space that stretched into the eternal horizons, reminisce about their time on the server, watch the past and the present, and simply rest.
There, Flame had been able to laze around after falling into the void. One second, the ever-so-bewitching void was slowly chipping away his existence, and then the next second, he was here in an ethereal expanse. He didn’t try to comprehend it. He’d get a migraine from it.
Flame stared at his own hands the first thing he did. A soft, sheepish glow emanated from his body, swishing his awful reputation into oblivion. Nothing mattered anymore. Everyone shone and floated around the same way, their past actions so trivial now.
In this abstract room, Flame watched the season’s finale but most notably, he watched Zam.
Zam won.
Zam. Won .
He didn’t get banned, the spawn will forever remain overall intact, he got to go back to his adorable pink house he had since day one, he peacefully logged off the server for good… Zam got his good ending. He got something he deserved after all the misery and the agony.
He got peace.
Finally.
And that was a real win to him.
Flame smiled.
Not smugly, not arrogantly, not mockingly, not tauntingly.
Flame smiled, proud not of himself, but of Zam.
Maybe, they can love each other again without any hate.
Maybe next season.