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If anybody were to meet Ivor, they’d assume that he’d be the type of person who’d grow up being forever alone. After all, with his quite… unconventional appearance, and his secretive personality, they’d believe he had been born into the wrong universe – after all, a person like him, in a universe where everyone was expected to find a soulmate? The thought sounded unlikely.
They would be wrong.
Like everyone else, Ivor was born with the step-counter that marked how many steps you would take to see your soulmate. As a young boy, he’d run around, watching the numbers drop with every step, hoping that he’d somehow bump into his soulmate. If one were to look beyond his seemingly stingy surface, they’d find out that he had a heart of gold after all – in fact, he could still remember all those times in the past when he and the Order of the Stone used to bond over their random adventures to farther lands, before the time they had faced down the Ender Dragon. And even now, as he had been incorporated into the new Order made by the young man he had come to known as Jesse, he was now acting as a sort of mentor figure to the team, doing all he could to help them learn more about the world that lay beyond while also making sure they didn’t get into any sorts of mischief themselves.
But even after all those years he had spent, from being close to the Order to splitting up from them, from trying to unleash havoc on the world with the Witherstorm to owing up to his mistakes, from teaching his new team potion-making to joining them on this journey with that mysterious enchanted flint and steel, he’d never found his soulmate.
It didn’t help either that all around him, the people he had met and known his entire life had already found their own soulmates. He could remember how Ellegaard had been so full of disbelief the moment her step-counter had beeped zero the moment she met Magnus. He could remember watching that young man, Jesse and that red-haired girl, Petra, grow closer over the course of their adventures, both their step-counters having reached zero back when they had bumped into each other sometime around the Endercon (right before Ivor himself had ripped Petra off on that Wither Skull and before unleashing the Witherstorm). All that, while the numbers on his step-counter never ceased, increasing and decreasing all the while, never reaching zero for so many years.
He had been so close to growing bitter all those years, had been so close to giving up, believing that he would never find the one destined to be with him. He had believed that maybe he was born into the wrong world – a world where he would never find his other half.
But over time, as he moved on from his mistakes, as the New Order of the Stone began to accept him more, he forgot about the step-counter. The more he bonded with the team, the more adventures they went on, he forgot all about his pains over wondering how many more steps it would take to reach his true soulmate. With every time they geeked out over new artifacts, laughed over antics, and shared meals together, he forgot about sleepless nights, jealous glares, petty fights, and hardened hearts.
Eventually, Ivor forgot about the step-counter. To him, the ticking of each step he took was now nothing more than background noise to the adventures he had with his new team. He had better things to worry about than a simple device that did nothing but fill his life with endless ticking and needless worrying. Right now, he had a new group – one that he knew were true and strong, one where he truly believed he could start anew and change for the better, one where he knew they could look up to him and seek him out for necessary help and tips on adventuring. For now, the clues to his true soulmate could wait.
That was, until his new team had ended up trapped in that portal hallway. Until they, after so many failed attempts at trying to find a way home, had ended up going into a redstone portal out of Petra’s own insistence and their own mounting frustrations at ending up in too many wrong places. Until they found themselves in an empty, endless sand plain, numerous mesas and buttes rising up around them, face-to-face with a zombie that had a strange blinking red chip attached to the back of its head.
Now, as they investigated the barren mesa, he was aware that the numbers on his counter were dropping rapidly. Where the numbers on the counter's screen once used to range in the great millions, soon they were reduced to thousands, and then hundreds, in mere seconds with each step he took.
That’s unusual, he thought. I don’t see why the amount of steps it’ll take for me to reach my soulmate is drastically reducing now. That is, unless my soulmate turns out to be a block of sand or a cactus or something like that. He couldn’t help the dry wit that seeped back into his thoughts, the bitterness he had felt from long ago trying to flow back into his mind.
He steeled himself. He couldn’t let anything hold him back now. Not when his new team could need him the most.
They’d been walking for hours now. Ever since they’d chanced upon that strange zombie with the redstone chip embedded into the back of its head, they’d followed it across the endless dry sands, trying to figure out whatever could’ve implanted that thing there.
Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t normal. And neither was the fact that with every step they took further into the desert, the numbers on his step-counter were falling faster than he could have ever remembered in his life.
They’d followed the strange zombie all the way to a strange, quiet town (Crown Mesa, population supposedly 10,069). It seemed like any ordinary, quaint desert town – just add in a searing desert breeze sending sand into the humid air and a random tumbleweed blowing by in the background, and you’d have the perfect picture of something out of some cowboy movie.
Unless you saw the crowds of monster mobs crammed into pens, chips stuck onto the back of their heads like some gross, alien protrusion. Unless you saw that almost every living thing in this town all had that Notch-forsaken red chip embedded in their skull.
Trying to examine the chip had proved fruitless: the moment Ivor had clutched onto that thing while trying to test removing it from one of the mobs kept in those fenced-in pens, it had electrocuted him hard enough to send him stumbling to the ground, still trying to shake off the buzzing, electrifying sensation still reverberating through his arms.
So this was what they all knew – this place was abandoned, and almost every single living thing was shambling about as if they hadn’t wanted to wake up that day, all of them having that redstone chip attached to the back of their heads, and he and his team were the only ones walking around on their own.
Something else was definitely going on here.
And it didn’t help matters that the numbers on his step-counter had taken quite a drastic descent. Out there in the desert, he was sure that he had calculated the amount of steps he had left being somewhere around the 200-150 range. Now, as they roamed around this empty, desolate town, a haunting silence continuing to pervade their every sense, he noticed that the counter was now bouncing around the double digits. Right now, as he waited with Lukas and Petra while Jesse went off to check something he saw, the counter sat around roughly 30-25 steps, staying in that same range as the numbers went up and down.
He wouldn’t deny it -- he was starting to feel antsy about this place. Between the eeriness of the abandoned town and the chip attached to every living being in this dimension, the sound of the step-counter slowly decreasing with each staccato beep made his gut swirl (with hope? with fear? with both??)
Why would the universe pair him up with someone dimensions away from him? Had it been putting him to the test and secretly laughing at his back the whole time back when he felt left out back with the old Order of the Stone, his heart growing bitter over the past years? Was this some cosmic prank being played on him, the fact that he might be paired up with some being mind-controlled by that chip??
Ivor took a sharp deep breath and steeled himself, pushing away the storm of thoughts in his head, just in time as he heard Jesse yell in the distance, startled. Now was not the time to complain to the cosmos about why fate was playing with him. Not when they had more pressing matters at hand.
He turned around and saw the brown-haired man running back to him, his eyes wide as he slid to a stop.
“Well? Found anything interesting?”
In-between pants, the words fell out in astonished rambles from Jesse. “I-- I found another guy! Someone just like us, in one of those market stalls.”
Lukas gave a long sigh of relief. “Oh... that’s great to know.”
Beside him, Petra gave a huff. “Well, at least we’re sure there’s people in this world and not just-- all these creatures with that redstone chip.”
Jesse gave a nervous sound as he lifted his hand to the back of his head. “Yeah, about that... he was like every single living being we’ve seen here! Red eyes, weird glowing head thingy.”
Ivor hoped his calm yet disturbed expression hid the way his stomach dropped. Was the cosmos really going to play this cruel prank on him? Pairing him up with some unfortunate mind-controlled person?? Surely there had to be a way to remove that chip from every living being in this dimension and hopefully restore everything to normal but... could you imagine your soulmate, cursed to be under whatever spell this was??? Would they even recognize or accept him if that chip was removed???
Ivor hid the thoughts rushing around in his head by clearing his throat. “Well-- that is quite concerning.”
“Yeah, no kidding. There is something very, very wrong here.” Jesse said, his voice full of concern. “I’m just saying, these people need our help.”
And then another noise resounded out in the place – the sound of rapid running footsteps and then someone sliding on the sand, slightly grunting before running out of the group’s hearing range.
A noise that suddenly seemed to correspond with the rapid beeping of a step-counter, with Ivor becoming very aware of the count suddenly dropping down to around 20-15 steps before suddenly rising back up to 70-50 steps.
That certainly got everybody’s attention.
“Uh, Ivor?” Petra was the first to break the astonished silence. “Is it just me, or did your step-counter just go wild all of a sudden?”
“N– no?” Ivor internally kicked himself for the pause that was too many seconds long before he had mustered the courage to speak. He was supposed to be unflappable, nonchalant, always assured... not being someone who was so caught easily off-guard by a couple of beeps and dropping numbers.
“Ivor, I get we have other things to worry about, but I know what I heard.” Lukas spoke next.
“Well, I’m sure it was just a coincidence.” Ivor retorted back, hoping his re-ignited bluster would be enough to hide the way his heart was internally flipping over the memory of these rapid beeps as the counter went down multiple steps, at the thought of his possible soulmate sprinting past them, barely seen. “To be honest, I always thought that old thing was broken.”
“Now is not the time to make jokes about broken counters.” The assertion in Petra’s voice brought them back to reality, making them remember they were still in the middle of a mysterious town in an unknown universe, and that they had more important things to worry about -- like mind-controlled living beings and an unknown person running around town. “Lukas, you also heard that, right?”
Lukas paused, looking uncertain, before turning to the brunette. “Jesse?”
Jesse thought for a while, before looking away to somewhere behind Ivor, roughly to his left. “Someone just ran into that house.”
“Really? I didn’t see anyone.” Petra spoke, trying to sound as assured as she could be, but Ivor could still hear the undercurrent of worry in her voice.
“But you heard it, right?” Jesse didn’t wait another second before he ran ahead in the direction of the house, gesturing to everyone to follow him. “C’mon., whoever they are, maybe they’ve got some answers.”
With that, everybody sprinted towards the house, but now Ivor couldn’t focus on anything other than the beeping of his step-counter and the slowly dropping numbers.
20, 19, 18, 17, 16.
They were running through the streets and then up the steps of an empty house, the one Jesse claimed he’d heard the footsteps running into. Ivor paused with the other two on the steps as the brunette entered the house by himself.
15, 14, 13, 12, 11.
Ivor faintly heard pleased laughter accompanying the slowly-ticking down sounds of the beeps on his counter. His curiosity bursting at the seams with the faintest hint of a vain hope that made his heart beat faster, he finally decided to follow Jesse up into the house, ignoring Lukas’ concerned yell for him to wait.
That was when he saw them -- someone huddled down in front of a chest, rummaging through it for something that made more clinking noises when their hands moved.
But what made Ivor almost freeze at the top of those stairs, was the sound of accompanying beeps nearly identical to his own.
10, 9, 8.
Jesse took more cautious steps forward, but Ivor followed behind him, nearly transfixed as the numbers went down, down, down...
7, 6, 5,
The more Ivor could see of the mystery person, the more his mind began to fall into a trance that left him both perplexed yet hopeful. He was relieved to see that they didn’t have that redstone chip on the back of their head, but what where they doing in a place like this? What were they searching for? How were they so absorbed in whatever they were doing or what they were looking for, that they didn’t even notice the beeping on their own step-counter, or the new sounds it was synchronized with??
And how could it make him feel so curious in a way that practically enchanted him?
4, 3...
That was when Jesse made his best attempt at getting the stranger’s attention.
“Hello?”
The stranger turned around -- and then jolted with an alarmed gasp that had Jesse and Ivor moving back instinctively as the stranger (herself?!) dropped what seemed to be more redstone chips.
2.
Yes, now Ivor could see her more clearly -- a woman around his age, with dark skin with an umber-hued tone, wearing an olive-green robe and a black hood, along with a pair of brass goggles above her white braids of hair that fell around her face.
Ivor had to admit, she looked striking. Sure, he wasn’t the type to be so analytical or drawn to looks, but she stood out from the town and this dimension in a way that somehow... captivated his curiosity even more.
He took another step, unable to ignore the way his heart beat faster with rising anticipation.
1.
When she spoke, her voice was nervous, almost as if she was expecting the worst, yet grappling for the faint hope that it was otherwise.
“Is that you, PAMA?”
Ivor took a step forward, about to reassure her–
Beep.
Beep.
At that moment, everyone froze. The thick desert air seemed to go still.
Ivor found himself staring into the eyes of the woman in front of him, and then the next thing he knew, he was looking down onto his own step-counter.
0.