Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Between one blink and the next, the sky begins to bleed.

Flashes of light, darkness rolling in from the clouds, the sky crack-crack-cracking open, falling falling falling falling—

The growls of ferocious beasts, the four horsemen of the apocalypse taking the form of bloodthirsty wolves, tearing every person apart, innocent or not—it’s Judgement Day, and there is no one to be spared.

The world screams and you scream with it, because it’s the end of everything as you know it and you had the chance to change it, gods, why didn’t you just change it—

He stands over you, completely drenched in blood, but all you can focus on is the bright reds of his eyes, completely drowning out every other color in the world. Just red—red, red, red dripping off his axe, staining his cloak, bleeding from his eyes like knives into your own.

And all you knew was that this? This, the earth crumbling at its seams, the sky opening up and letting horrors beyond comprehension fall into your world, tearing the world apart and exterminating all of humanity as you knew it?

This?

The air splits as the axe carves into your neck, and you feel all the air rush out of your body.

It was all his fault.

His red eyes burn into your vision long after the world goes dark. You can still hear the ominous bell tolling—your time is up.

The world holds its breath and refuses to breathe again.

You jolt out of bed with a gasp, only to find yourself tangled up, something wrapped around your limbs like snakes, overlapping your clothes and making your skeleton practically squirm in your skin.

It’s suffocating, thickly wrapped around your neck like a pair of arms, or hands, or a rope—chains—

You fight, because the memories are too loud—your neck burns from where he sliced it in two, somehow still alive and kicking—until the ropes are kicked off, falling to the ground with a loud thump.

Your skin can suddenly breathe again, a cold perspiration on the back of your neck that makes you shudder and reorient yourself into the real world. When you blink, the world isn’t red—on the contrary, it’s just as dark as it always is.

Your room is bathed in shadow, not a single glimmer of moonlight permeating the bleak darkness.

Sighing quietly, you glance at your window to find the blinds drawn tightly, blocking out any view of the moon and stars. Not that you needed them to know what time it was.

A sigh, and then you drop back into bed, feeling the uncomfortable wetness of your clothes sticking to your skin. Because no matter how many times this has happened—will always happen—your body always has the same reaction.

Sweat and shivers.

Fear responses.

You huff and drag your hand over your face, feeling the skin stretch with the motion, before giving a hard stare up at the ceiling.

Just a dream.

Nightmare.

As always.

You look over the edge of your bed to find that you had kicked your blankets to the ground in the midst of your panic.

Again.

Feeling a bit too warm to try and grab them again, you turn your back on them and grab for your pillow, flipping it over to the cooler, not soaked in sweat, side. With dread coiled tightly in your chest, you curl towards the wall, shutting your eyes tightly. Hopefully you’ll be able to drift off to sleep again.

And eventually, you do—but not without the memories of your nightmare plauging your every thought, lingering behind you like a persistent shadow. You, lying in the darkness of your room, curled around your pillow with nothing else to cover your body.

You sleep, but the dread stays.

It always does.

.

.

.

.

Eventually morning rolled around, and you were forced to get up.

Pick your blankets off the ground.

And put them back on your bed.

Not taking the effort to actually make your bed—because you would probably just kick them off again later tonight.

As you do.

The dread sticks to you as you go about your day, coiling in your chest like a snake wrapped around your ribs. It’s easily ignored as you bustle around your cottage, moving past the little nook you call a kitchen and heading toward your wall of chests. You grab your armor from the armor stand and take your time putting it on, undoing and redoing straps, tightening  and tightening until it covers you like a second skin.

Today is a check-in day—you would need the extra protection in case something went wrong.

With one last glance around your cabin to see if you missed anything, you step out of the warmth and into the chill of the morning.

Cold.

So cold.

It nips at your cheeks as you stand on the front porch, body adjusting to the freezing temperatures. It bit through the thick fabric of your furred coat, even though the sleeves ran past your wrists and over your hands.

You pause.

Not your coat. It’s too big for you, the fur hood slipping up past your hand and the entrails dragging near your lower thighs. Made for someone much larger than you.

Not yours.

You wear it anyway.

You grumble, taking the first few steps off the porch and into the snowy abyss around you. Your boots sink through the snow. You feel the way your face scrunches in distaste—already frozen from your cheeks up to the tips of your ears, and then some—teeth gritting and eyes squinting.

If anyone were to see you, they’d probably see the equivalent expression of a wet cat. A wet cat in a coat too large for their body.

With a grimace and a flick of your head, you trudge onwards.

Just a few meters away from your cabin is a greenhouse, just large enough to fit you and your herbs. You pick up in speed, sending bits of snow flying this way and that, plowing forward until you can see your reflection in the foggy windows.

A plume of heat hits you as you enter the greenhouse, the snow on your boots beginning to melt into wet puddles. You sigh, already beginning to feel warmth come back to your fingers.

The snowy taiga was ruthless in its subzero temperatures.

The humidity sticks to your hair and skin, but you don’t bother acknowledging it when there are more important things to acknowledge— such as your garden.

Your garden. Your baby potion ingredients. Your blood, sweat, and tears all tied to the herbs and vegetables spreading their roots through the ground, all lined up in neat rows across the expanse of the greenhouse. Sugar cane stalks growing and growing until they can’t anymore, carrots and potatoes dotting the ground with their greenery. Netherwart growing in tight bundles of four, the lava flowing beneath them not only powering their growth, but also heating the greenhouse.

Yours.

Your hard work, slowly but surely coming to fruition.

You crouch to your knees and listen to your armor clink at the motion, fingers extending in order to brush over the leaves of a potato plant. 

Almost ready to harvest.

However, you weren’t here for them.

Checking over your armor one last time, you step past the greenery and beeline to the leftmost corner where a crafting bench sits with a chest and a furnace on either side. A standard, inconspicuous crafting set up.

If someone happened to stumble across your greenhouse, they would see it and be none the wiser to what lied underneath.

Your fingers slip on the edges of the crafting table, grip tightening and push, push, pushing until there’s enough room for you to squeeze in the space between.

Where the crafting table once was lies a manhole, just barely wide enough to fit your figure inside. Messily dug out, a hole leading to nowhere. The top bits of a shoddily-put-together wooden ladder stick out invitingly, all but begging you to climb into the darkness underneath.

It’s a tight squeeze with your armor on, but eventually you’re able to shimmy your way into the manhole, placing your feet on the first rung. Once you get your balance, you move your boots to the ladder sides.

With a deep breath, you drop down the ladder.

Your greenhouse disappears from view, getting replaced by stone after stone. You all but burn your hands as you slide down the rungs. The horizontal bars zip by as you go deeper, the light from the hole up top fading into blackness.

As quickly as the darkness had come, however, your boots hit bedrock with a sharp clack—and when you look up, torchlight flickers the room into illumination.

The flickering light reveals a little cobbled room, dark and damp and inconspicuous. Just the way you wanted it to be.

Across the walls stands rows and rows of jars of all different shapes and sizes—some circular, some rectangular, others in the shapes of vials, needing to be hung up in order to be functional. Jars full of murky brown and reds, sitting and stewing.

You examine your hands, red and irritated from how you slid down the ladder that fast. You wipe them off on your pants—ignoring the burn—and quickly turn to your new objective: sorting out your fermented spiders’ eyes.

Your ancient fermented spiders’ eyes.

After checking over your armor one last time, you turn to the shelf closest to you, letting your gaze wander the expanse of spiders’ eyes. You know what you need to look for—any cracks in the glasses, any spiders’ eyes that had a film of foam resting over the top of it, and any missing jars.

The usual ongoings of a check-in day.

A menial chore that you hated to do, but it was as dangerous as it was necessary.

Your fermented spiders’ eyes specifically—they needed to be treated with care. Tenderness.

Carefully, you take a jar, squinting as you examine the eye inside.

Round and disproportionate, the lenses floating upward towards the lid as if it could escape its glassy confines—more buoyant compared to the retinas. The optic nerve coils at the bottom of the jar uselessly.

Still. So still.

The spider this eye belonged to has been dead for a long time.

Bits of blended mushroom and lightly sugared water created the brine, and the brine kept the spiders’ eyes fermenting as along as there are no interruptions, such as bubbles. And the longer they fermented, the more potent—and dangerous—they would be.

These ones have been fermenting for longer than you’ve been alive.

You’re kind of scared to move them—surely just one would be enough to kill a man. Hence, the unnecessary amount of armor you lugged along for extra protection.

As per the usual ongoings of a check-in day, you carefully begin to separate the fermented spiders’ eyes into two groups—the ones that had foam resting atop the eyes and the ones that didn’t. The spiders eyes’ that are foaming needed to be oxidized for an hour or two, and that required a scenery change.

You would need to take them up to the surface for a time in order for the foam to retreat. And that required a proper place to actually let the toxic material oxidize—without hurting anyone.

You were not risking opening them anywhere near your cabin. Or your greenhouse. Or anywhere you normally hang out.

Placing the last of the jars in your wicker basket, you secure them by placing a cloth gently over the top of them, concealing them from view. Unless anyone hears the obnoxious clacking of glass tinkling together, they would just think that you were carrying lunch for a picnic.

Not that anyone would care to go for a picnic in the middle of the snowy taiga, but—semantics.

And back up the ladder you go, this time with the jars full of toxic spiders’ eyes hanging perilously in your wicker basket.

It’s a bit difficult to climb up with a basket in the way, but you’ve made this trip enough times that it doesn’t phase you anymore. With the handle of the basket nestled in the crook of your elbow, all you have to do is make sure your knee doesn’t bump into the bottom of the basket as you climb, even as the wood strains and rubs uncomfortably against your arm.

You couldn’t afford to take a break until you reached the top. And, eventually, you do.

The bright light of the morning, only amplified by the glass walls of the greenhouse, is what greets you upon your ascension. Mid-morning light, the sun just barely arching at ten o’clock—you must have spent maybe an hour or two down there, checking and double-checking all of your spiders’ eyes.

First, the basket gets hauled over and pushed next to the furnace, bottles clicking together at the fast motion, and then you haul yourself over, reaching the top of the ladder and digging your knees into the dirt.

You pant, and breathe, because climbing up a ladder all the way from bedrock while carrying ten pounds worth of poison was more exercise than you were used to. You’ve met your monthly quota, essentially. But even then, you haul yourself to your feet and keep going, because that’s all you can do.

Next thing on the list: bring the poison to your dump site.

With a grunt and a sigh, you close and lock the greenhouse door behind you before starting on a trek towards the neighboring tundra biome. Not a far journey, as your little cottage is located near the outskirts of the snowy taiga.

Your dump site is in a remote area. It has to be, with how secretive this task is. If anyone found out—

You grip the handle of the wicker basket tighter, knuckles going white.

No one will find out.

The neighboring tundra biome has a nice little village, one close enough for you to do your business in. The villagers know you—not well, but they’ve seen you around enough to know that you’re not just some random player with arsonist tendencies. They know you well enough to give you a smile and a wave as you pass by, but that’s about it.

That’s about as close as you’re willing to get to them.

The little village is alight with activity and motion as you enter. You do your best to blend in with the crowd, lips curved into a light smile as you maneuver amongst the villagers. Light chatter and the sounds of merchants chanting out prices for their wares is what greets you as you make your way into the square.

There are a few faces you recognize. The librarian, the smith, various tanned-skinned farmers—the usual workers you see at this time in the morning.

You spot an iron golem giving a poppy to one of the more fortunate villager children, bringing a small smile to your face. Turning away from the heart-warming scene, you make unfortunate eye-contact with the baker, who waves at you. You’re forced to wave back, the mirror image of his smile on your face.

You aren’t sincere in your actions. Your smile drops as soon as he leaves your sight, and you focus on making sure you try not to brush arms with anyone passing by. Nicities are exchanged out of sheer politeness, but that’s as far as the interaction goes.

To others, you probably come off as rude. Antisocial, fake. To you, this is just way of life. It’s so much simpler to not get involved with people—to keep away from attachments. Especially with your… clairvoyance, about other people.

You know the fates of other people—anyone that touched you. A single brush of skin against skin is enough for their fate to wash over you, leaving you with the mind-shattering images of their death and demise, and leaving them blissfully unaware.

It’s less of a blessing and more of a curse, one that has you reeling with the intimate knowledge of other strangers’ lives without truly knowing them.

You try to avoid as many people as you can, but sometimes human contact is inevitable.

The woman who brushed past you with a scoff, clearly in a hurry for something or other—she would die in a zombie attack.

The child holding onto his mother’s skirts, who skipped past you and accidentally bapped you with a swing of his hand—he would pass away from pneumonia.

The cleric, who attempted to shake your hand as you walked by his church—and when you dodged his attempt he ended up accidentally brushing the skin of your wrist instead—he would be ripped apart during the end of the world.

You rush away from that last social interaction as quickly as you can, trying to erase the man’s kind eyes from your memory. He’ll be there at the end of the world, and to you, that is a fate worse than death.

You don’t bother trying to warn people of their fates. Not anymore.

Because you’ve tried before—you’ve tried to warn the most unfortunate of their untimely deaths, and all you’ve gotten in return was finding yourself on the opposite side of a sword—or sometimes, multiple swords. The memory of their angry words and accusations haunts you just as much as your nightmares do.

It’s not like warning them would change their fate much. Everyone will die eventually.

So you hold your tongue and continue onwards, doing your best to forget every face that walks past.

It’s the only way to stay sane.

You breach the edge of the village and continue onward, feeling the windy breeze threaten to blow your furred hood off your head, as oversized as it is. Boots tramping through snow, leaving you-sized footprints behind. You wander the tundra, fingers turning numb with your tight grip on the basket.

You don’t stop until you find a familiar clearing of coniferous trees, covering your location like blackout curtains. The snow is bare here, instead letting gritty dirt and dead grass make itself known to you and to anyone passing by.

Although, that’s hardly the least concerning thing about the clearing—the most concerning thing would be the sheer amount of holes in the ground, lumps of dirt turned over and over, old deformed creeper holes left behind by someone too careless to cover them up. Far enough away from society for anyone to care, at least.

Perfect for you.

The glass shards from the time you accidentally broke a jar are still here. No one’s been here since.

This is also yours. Your dump site.

Your dump site in all its ugliness.

Sauntering to the nearest creeper hole, you set your wicker basket down and kneel after it, hearing the sharp clicking of your armor at the motion. Opening the wicker basket up once again, you deposit each jar of foaming brine into the creeper hole, pausing for a moment to gather yourself.

Now you need to take the lids off. Take the lids off, let the foaming bubbles pop and retreat, and hopefully not inhale the toxic fumes let off. Which wouldn’t be too big of a deal if you did, considering that inhaling the fumes wouldn’t kill you—it would just make you sick for a bit.

You shiver at the memory of past check-in days—days where your inexperience cost you your health for months—shivering, wheezing breaths, elevated heart rate, vomiting until you could hardly breathe.

Yeah, no. You’ll try not to inhale much of it, if any at all.

The first jar opens with a sharp pop of air—you quickly create distance as soon as you see the wavering fumes rise. With a breath in each cheek, you move on to the next jar, and then the one after.

They would need to sit for an hour. An hour in which you will spend foraging and scavenging the area nearby. Wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally stumble onto your dumpsite.

Once each jar is open and propped up safely, you move into the foliage around you to forage. Any sweet berries are immediately picked and put into your pockets, along with any nuts and shrooms you can find. They’d be useful for… something, you suppose. Jams and butters and all the things you’re too lazy to make the trip to New L’Manburg for. Maybe potion ingredients, if you use the mushrooms wisely enough.

By the end of the hour, your pockets are well and truly bursting with ingredients. It should be safe enough to go collect the eyes—any foam should have been well evaporated by now.

The fermented eyes are exactly as you had left them, no disturbance to the glasses aside from a bit of condensation. The foam has oxidized and retreated, which means the fermented eyes are ready to be used in a potion. You gather them up quickly, taking care to tighten each lid in case of leaks.

With a sigh, the collection of glasses are put back into the wicker basket, and with that, your job is done. Time to go home, back to your happy life, and pretend that this never happened.

Pretend that there isn’t an invisible weight pressed against your shoulders, squeezing your lungs and filling you with dread any time you think about it.

Pretend that their eyes don’t shirk into you every day you fail to fulfill your purpose, pretend that the gift given to you hasn’t been wasted completely.

You turn and let out a breath as you head back to the village, the waypoint.

It’s fine. You’re fine.

Afternoon rush hour is just beginning as you step foot into the snowy village for the second time, giving out friendly waves and avoiding all those social taboos. The main plaza is much more crowded than it had been this morning with people running to and fro, vendors calling out their prices more eagerly than earlier. You slink your way through with practiced ease, avoiding any and all contact you can. Any premonitions you feel are shoved into the back of your mind as fast as you can forget.

Your grip tightens on your wicker basket, suddenly regretting taking a second trip through the village. Maybe you should’ve went around instead.

Ironically, as you think that, someone slams into your shoulder, knocking you off your feet and quickly sending your entire world spinning off-course.

The world tilts as your ankle bends painfully, arms flying out to steady you in the fight against gravity. The spiders’ eyes clink against each other dangerously, basket nearly toppling out of your grip—

The spiders’ eyes—

A pair of hands closes around your waist before you can watch the noxious poison hit the ground.

You stare, wide eyed, as the same hands that had knocked you off your feet gently hoist you back onto steady ground, leaving you dizzy and reeling, cradling the basket of poison close to your chest, tightening your grip as hard as you’re able to.

That. That could have been so bad. If whoever had caught you hadn’t caught you, then who knows what could’ve happened—

You look up at your savior, noticing the dark cloak covering their features from view, and suddenly realize that they—or rather, he—was the one who slammed into you in the first place. You felt it as he steadied you, the way your core practically shook with the premonition that rippled through you. His fate—

His hands leave your waist as quickly as they had come, slipping past you and going back into the crowd—not a single word or glance to be found.

You stare after him, skin bubbling and twitching with the realization you’ve just had.

That man—

Holy shit—

Your brain kicks back into gear as the cloaked figure meanders away, and you have half the mind to call after him and force him to explain himself, because there’s no way that he—that he’s different like that—

You had felt it stir on your heart at the smallest brush of skin in the same way you did every other person—except this time, there was no tug in your chest saying “stroke” or “illness” or even “suicide”—

The only fate you understood from him is that he would never die. When his fate washed over you, you saw nothing.

Nothing.

He wouldn’t die—

The unsteady clicking of glass against glass is what breaks you out of your reverie, standing in the middle of the marketplace, the cloaked man long gone from your sight. The crowd parts around your stilled form, brushing by you without a care.

He’s gone.

The invisible clock is so much louder now than it was a second ago.

You turn on your heel and break back into the crowd. It’s time to go home. That man—he doesn’t matter.

You try to convince yourself of this as you tramp off through the snow back to your cabin, back to your lonesome, but everything in the air feels as though it’s been shifted, like something just happened that you couldn’t control the outcome of.

Fate, as they say. Try as you might to control it or sway it to your will, it never works—you are wary of it for this reason. Your entire being is interwoven with it, how can you not be terrified of the outcome?

That man is an anomaly, you convince yourself as the coniferous trees of your home come into view. He won’t matter in the future.

You’ll forget about him.

It won’t be the end of the world.

Chapter Text

Today is Friday. Another day of time you can’t take back.

You’ve been hiding. It’s been a few days since your interaction (if you could even call it an interaction) with that man, and ever since you’ve been hiding away in your cabin, muscles tense and teeth gritted. Curtains permanently drawn closed, a ball of anxiety tight in your chest.

Try as you might, you just couldn’t forget him.

He’s a random, a stranger, someone who hadn’t even spoken a word to you, but his touch left an imprint that you couldn’t shake from your mind. Because people don’t—they’re supposed to die, one way or another. Anyone who doesn’t obviously isn’t normal.

That ball in your chest only grew tighter and tighter as the thoughts worsen—because the anomaly could only mean that he had a connection to the end of the world. A connection to the Harbinger. And thinking about the inevitable end of humanity does bad things to your brain, especially because you know you’re going to live through it.

The ticking of the clock is so loud.

But today is Friday. On Fridays, you upsell the shit you’ve collected to the good people of New L’Manburg for monetary gain. Potions brewed in your spare time, extra ingredients that you can sell for a discounted price—anything potion-related that regular people don’t have the time to indulge in.

That brings you here—standing in front of your private Nether Portal, holding your satchel in a white-knuckled grip as you stare into the swirling purple void. Avoiding the inevitable.

You hate going to New L’Manburg, and the perilous journey through the Nether is only half of the reason why.

Wind pushes at your figure with snow flurries and a biting chill to go with it, almost urging you to stop dawdling and get going. You had left your coat back at the cabin for today, knowing that New L’Manburg’s climate is usually a lot warmer than your home climate. Although now, as shivers wrack through your form, fingertips numb and tingling, you kind of regret leaving it at home.

With a gust of wind urging you onwards, you step through the portal.

As soon as the nauseating purple of the Nether Portal fades, you step off the obsidian and onto a spongey sort of grass. When you open your eyes again, there is no more snow—only an expanse of teal and blue foliage.

Flakes of snow are quick to melt off of your hair and shoulders, steaming into the air with the change in temperature. The chill leaves you quickly, and in its place is a sluggish sort of heat that makes you bones ten times heavier and slows down your mind. The heat is one of many reasons the Nether claims as many victims as it has.

The soft clicking of an enderman nearby has you blinking back into reality, and you move to follow the path of torches you set up to get to the mainland. Your own Portal is located just a ways away from the Community Portal, hidden by the Warped Forest’s expanse of foliage.

You cross the Nether’s terrain while following the torches laid out for yourself, watching the ground turn from blues and black deepslates to deep reds. The path is as safe as you can make it without drawing attention to yourself, but the ominous red surrounding you puts you on edge as you traverse through the area.

The Nether is very red. You don’t like it very much. It doesn’t bring up many good thoughts.

Soon enough you read the main hub of the Nether. It’s practically empty, except for the few people hanging around the elaborately decorated Portal. You waste no time in strutting past them, letting the Portal’s void gloss over your figure like water.

Coming out of the Nether Portal is equally as nauseating as going in, and you have to shake your head and ground yourself with the dizziness that pulses through you. Cross-dimension travel isn’t very fun.

It’s easier to breathe in the Overworld.

The Prime Path is the quickest way to get to New L’Manburg, if not a bit crowded with how many people use it. It cuts through the Community Center into four separate directions, and after countless times of getting lost in it, you know the correct direction is left from the Portal.

You then need to walk past various structures, including a notable rainbow-colored building named ‘Targay,’ and then up a flight of wooden stairs. Once you’ve finished walking up the stairs, you’ll veer right, just past a strange looking dirt hut with boxes in front of it—someone must be moving in—and then you’ll see it in all it’s glory—

New L’Manburg.

“Oh, good.” You think to yourself as the floating lanterns of New L’Manburg come into view, having just passed by the dirt hut that has come to serve as a landmark for you. “They finally got rid of those ugly obsidian walls.”

Finally. You could finally see the gorgeous architecture of New L’Manburg, set on a dock above a glistening lake. Rustic buildings paired with warm-toned lights that left the town looking magical in the darkness.

Despite how pretty it had been looking lately, you didn’t really like New L’Manburg. There was always a sticky, gross-tasting feeling in the air, one that felt like a wire a bit too frayed to hold up the city. It coats your mouth bitterly.

The city feels dead in a way you can’t describe.

You find your place amongst the other stalls and begin the arduous process of setting up shop. The stall, set up near the corner of the dock, further away from the main hustle and bustle of the L’Manburg marketplace, is mostly vacant during the week, except for Fridays.

You lug out a register from the crate below the counter, setting it up on the counter with a loud clack of noise. Then comes filling the display box with your merchandise, the priceless potions perfectly protected by a layer of glass.

Swiftness, Regeneration, Leaping, Night Vision, Invisibility, and Strength all lined up together to create a colorful array of bubbling elixirs, each with a corresponding price lined up next to it. They were not cheap, and personally, you would never buy a potion for these prices, but the people of New L’Manburg didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with it.

With one last look over your shop and wares, you finally set up your ‘Open’ sign, standing proudly against your register.

Ready to sell.

You have to admit, although you didn’t enjoy the general atmosphere hanging over New L’Manburg, the economy is great to sell your stuff in. The people of New L’Manburg have plenty of money, and clearly they weren’t afraid to use it. The L’Manburgian currency to emerald conversion also aided you greatly, hence why you sell in New L’Manburg and shop in your local village. Easy money.

Although you heavily disapprove of a literal teenager being President, you had to admit that the kid knows how to cycle money well. Or maybe it’s his Vice President that’s good with money. You can’t tell with them.

You don’t think Tubbo really… does much, in terms of his presidency. Quackity, his Vice President, has been a lot more vocal on his part. 

Not that you’ve been keeping up with the politics of New L’Manburg, obviously.

After a few minutes of your stall being open, a few people pass by your stall with curious looks, but nobody really stops to buy anything. It’s as expected—they’ll want to spend their money on groceries and commodities first before indulging in your potions. You take the downtime to prepare for the oncoming rush.

Then, a shout from the middle of the crowd—

“Hey, shopkeep!”

Oh, gods.

Just as you had been thinking of them, Tubbo’s voice echoes across the pier, practically calling every passerby’s attention to him, and inadvertently, to your stall as well.

You wipe your sweaty hands down on your trousers and watch with dread as both the President and Vice President make a beeline over to your stall, pushing startled citizens from their path as they go. Suits crisp, clean, and pressed, radiating an urgent sort of energy that makes everyone step out of their way.

Except for you, who merely stands and withers in regret as the duo finally reaches your stall.

Tubbo’s brown hair is all up in his face with curls and tangles that clash with his clean suit and tie, face flushed from exertion. Quackity looks similarly flushed after being dragged over by Tubbo, but he straightens out quickly, brow furrowed in slight annoyance.

“Hey—” Tubbo pants, giving you a sheepish grin, holding himself up by planting his hands on his knees. “How’re you doing?”

“I’ve been doing alright.” You recompose yourself and respond in kind, as per usual. Standard greetings, customer interactions. “When did you guys get rid of the wall? It was there last time I checked.”

For some reason, Tubbo flinches at that, smile faltering so severely that you fear you might’ve said something wrong.

“No, no—uh—” Quackity chitters, quickly rushing in to try and save the conversation. “It’s, uh—it was a temporary thing, you see—”

The President nods hurriedly, brown hair flopping back over his eyes. His hands go to tighten his forest-green tie, which has gone askew in his mad rush to your stall.

“Yes—we don’t need the wall.” Tubbo says.

You are… very confused by the tension hanging in the air.

Both officials’ faces are shadowed with grim lines, eyes averted awkwardly and shoulders drawn up tight—something must have happened.

“It was pretty ugly.” You say to try and ease the tension, but both government officials’ shoulders tighten minutely at the mention.

“Yeah, it was pretty ugly, wasn’t it.” Tubbo laughs, a forced thing that makes your skin crawl. “Anyways, onto better things—do you have leaping today?”

Maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned the missing wall.

“I think I might’ve stocked up on some leaping. Just maybe.” You tease, knowing about the teen’s fascination with the green-colored potion. 

His eyes practically light up as you pull the concoction out from under the display, hands twitching and bouncing on his toes slightly in excitement. The President of New L’Manburg—who has to be calmed down by the Vice President via a firm hand on his shoulder.

A sour taste filled your mouth as you watched Tubbo go from childish excitement to a reserved sort of pleasure, his smile just a bit too wide for his face for it to be professional.

“How much?”

“It’ll be twelve gold coins.”

Tubbo places the payment down on the counter and you swipe them towards you as soon as his hands are away. You don’t want to accidentally see the fate of a mere sixteen-year-old, no matter who he’s aligned with.

“Bit expensive for a single potion, huh?” Quackity squints at the exchange, and you clutch the coins tighter, sending him a similar squint.

You did not like Quackity very much.

“You guys have the money.” You reply with a raised brow. “And my prices reflect my experience.”

“Y’know, we were thinking about upping that sales tax.” Quackity happily informs you, a smile just a tad too smug curving his lips. “You know, since you’re selling from out-of-country and all.”

You squint at him. “… I don’t live that far away.”

“Then, it would make sense for you to join New L’Manburg.” Tubbo says, a similar grin on his face. “You’d live closer and the sales tax would be lower. You wouldn’t be out-of-country anymore.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to impose tariffs on your shop to get you to join their country. Nor will it be the last.

You’ve got better things to do than to worry about a random country and its politics.

“I think I’m good.” You say, putting the change back into the register. “Put whatever tax you want on my stuff, I’ll just increase the prices a bit to compensate. It doesn’t really matter.”

Not to you, anyway, but it’ll matter to your buyers—two of which are right in front of you.

Quackity chitters a bit before brushing your words off with a nervous laugh. “Just think about it, alright? We’ve got a growing empire here.”

You don’t know much about New L’Manburg’s history, nor do you care to get to know it, but judging by the massive water-filled crater lying just below the wooden pier, you can take a guess and say that maybe an empire won’t bode well for them.

The town is certainly scenic as it is now, but you’ve heard that L’Manburg—the old one—used to be a place that resided on solid land. Not on a bunch of water-rotted wooden planks shambled together like a plaster bandage over a gaping wound.

“Sure, Quackity.” You say, and hurriedly correct yourself when the duck-hybrid lights up with glee. “I’ll think about it.”

His smile falters slightly at your rejection, but it comes back with determination, grey eyes boring into yours with a sharp intensity. “Then that’s all you’ll need to do.”

You’re sure it’s no secret that you aren’t exactly planning on thinking about it. And judging by the way he stares you down, faux-smile slowly slipping off his face, Quackity knows this as well.

Tubbo, on the other hand, only smiles placatingly. “You know we appreciate you and your business here in New L’Manburg. We’ll be happy with whatever you choose.”

You give the kid a tired smile. “Alright.”

Tubbo lights up hopefully. “..Alright..?”

You’re unable to restrain your eyeroll. “Alright, I’ll think about it. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“My hopes are up so far.” Tubbo says seriously, a stern expression on his face. “I’m going to be so let down if you say no.”

Gods.

Quackity chuckles at the young president, putting a hand on his shoulder to lead him away. “I think we’ve bothered her enough now, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think so, Big Q—” Tubbo pulls against the vice grip on his shoulder, looking at you over his shoulder. “Hey, we haven’t bothered you at all, right?”

“I’m bothered.” You respond flatly.

“Just think about it!” Quackity calls over his shoulder, dragging Tubbo back into the crowd.

“Yeah! And then keep thinking about it!” Tubbo calls after you with a cheery grin on his face.

You can only sigh and watch them go, getting swallowed by the crowd once more.

They leave, and you’re on your own again.

You always have been.

You sigh as you pocket the last of your earnings, flipping the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed.’ Six hours after opening and you’ve sold out of everything again.

That means it’s time to finally go home.

You smile at the thought of going home and resting your weary body, maybe setting up a pillow fort near the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate. That would be nice. Cozy. Warm.

Having some peace before your daily dread-inducing nightmare would be nice.

People pass by your stall here and there, some approaching before seeing the obvious ‘Closed’ sign and hurriedly backing off—so you’re mostly left to yourself. Not that you’re complaining—after six hours of bartering with people haggling you to sell your potions for cheaper, your social battery is drained.

Once the stall is properly shut and closed down, all your products properly stored in the satchel at your side, you begin to leave. Nobody spares you a glance as you round the counter and break into the slowly waning crowd, thoughts of warm hot cocoa on your tongue and a blanket wrapped securely around your shoulders.

You accidentally brush shoulders with someone, the premonition of their death rippling through you so quickly that you almost gasp aloud. Instead of stumbling over your feet, you charge forward, in a rush to get back to your safe-haven.

And just when you think you’re finally home-free, there’s a shout of your name. Loud, crisp and clear—a voice you undoubtedly recognize.

”Hey!! Over here!”

Fuck.

You take a deep breath. Shoulders slouching, eyebrow ticking with nerves and irritation—because goddamnit, you really couldn’t escape him and his unending kindness—

You turn around with a blank face and make direct eye contact with Philza Minecraft, who leans out of the window of his house casually, an amused grin on his face.

“You’re not gonna miss out on tea with me, right mate?” The blonde man tilts his head, eyeing you knowingly. That silly grin never drops from his face. “I made your favorite.”

Phil doesn’t know what your favorite kind of tea is, but you roll your eyes and take a step closer to his L’Manburgian-styled home.

“Coming, Phil!”

You turn and make your way towards his house just as he ducks back inside.

Sitting by the fire could wait. Only because it’s Phil.

You step back into the crowd for just a moment as you climb the stairs to Phil’s house, knocking on his door once to announce your presence before slipping inside.

As soon as you enter the threshold to Phil’s house, you’re greeted with the thick scent of lavender wafting through the area. It hits you in a wave, causing an almost heavy feeling to go through your bones as you breathe it in. Calming your anxieties and stresses of the day, washing them away with each exhale.

Lavender had that effect on most people, you included.

You spot Phil near the furnace, nursing a whistling kettle—the source of the lavender smell. After wiping your shoes down on the welcome mat, you shut the door behind you, which alerts him to your presence.

“Hey, mate.” The older man gives you a crooked smile, crows’ feet appearing near his eyes with the motion. “Come on in—don’t worry about tracking in mud or any of that.”

“I wasn’t.” You reply awkwardly, shutting the front door behind you and scuffing your boots against the ground.

Phil only chuckles amusedly at you, like he knows exactly what you’re thinking and feeling. Like he can sense the warring emotions of longing and reluctance in your chest.

You huff at his laughter and move over to the table, sitting in the chair always reserved for you when you visit. Although you could be sorely mistaken (Phil had to be a friendly face to more people than just you—) you haven’t seen anyone else sit here besides you.

“Dammit—” Phil hisses, which makes you turn your attention to him. He’s turns to face the window lifted over his sink, one arm propping it open as he leans over. “You lot aren’t supposed to be out here right now. It’s tea-time with you-know-who—fucking respect her boundaries, you little shits—”

You sigh and turn back to the spruce wood of the table, tracing the ridges and edges with your eyes.

He’s talking to his crows again. Crazy old man.

You hear the window slam shut before a few offended squawks from Phil’s entourage sound out from outside.

Phil huffs—in annoyance or amusement, you aren’t too sure—but he throws you a sheepish glance when he makes it over to the table, two teacups and a steaming pot in hand.

“They haven’t been stalking you again, have they?” He asks with suspicion, sitting in his spot across from you.

You roll your eyes. “Of course not, Phil.”

Phil smiles all amused to himself, pouring the purplish tea into two cups. You’ve seen that look on him before. He flashes it to you whenever you do or say something odd in his opinion. Not analytical, like others would be—just amused.

He always looks so gently amused by your actions.

You think you should be more amused by his. He is, by far, the strangest person you’ve ever met.

The older man had once saved your ass from trouble a year or two ago, and while you were eternally thankful to him (because if it weren’t for him intervening the way he did, you likely wouldn’t be alive today—), his method of repayment was, truthfully, annoying to you and your reclusive habits.

You had tried pawning the man off with emeralds and diamonds, hand-crafted potions made by your skilled hands, but he only ever shook his head and waved off your gifts, claiming that he had saved you just because he could. Because he wanted to, for some reason.

All he ever asked for in return was company. And now you’re bound to weekly tea time with him.

Phil is a hard person not to get attached to.

A steaming cup in the corner of your vision brings you back to reality, hands automatically coming up to accept the tea from Phil. You wince when his hand brushes yours in the hand-off, trying your hardest to ignore the blurry picture of his death playing behind your eyelids.

Red.

Red and bloody and gruesome. It would be painful for him, you’re sure.

Poor Phil.

You nearly burn yourself on your first sip of the lavender tea, and then on your second sip as well as you try your hardest to push those nauseating images away.

You couldn’t change the future. Everyone dies eventually.

“How’s your shop doing?” Phil asks after a sip of his own tea, his ebony wings draped comfortably over the back of his chair.

One of his wings lays limp against the ground, feathers frayed and torn. Despite your curiosity, you know not to ask about it.

“It’s been good.” You say honestly, sipping on your warmed mug slowly. You can actually taste the lavender on your burnt tongue this time. “Sold out on everything I brought today.”

“Of course you did.” You look up from your steaming cup to see sharp blue eyes squinting happily at you. “It’s your potions, mate. They’re literally the best around.”

“Not really—”

“Yes, really—” Phil retorts through a sip of lavender. He raises a disbelieving eyebrow at you. “They’re literally the best I’ve seen anyone make ‘em, even just commodity potions like yours. Brewing potions, especially good ones, takes a lot of skill that most people just don’t have.”

He smiles at you then, something proud on his face. “You have it though, mate.”

You squeeze your mug tightly until it feels like the ceramic might shatter into a billion tiny pieces.

Phil is too nice. And too old to know what he’s talking about.

You pretend the heat on your cheeks isn’t there.

“Oh, right, that reminds me—I wanted to let you know,” Phil says, blowing lightly on his tea. The steam blows into your face, and you blink languidly at him. “Techno’s probably going to be dropping by for a visit, so try not to be too surprised when he shows up.”

You blow on your tea in turn, stifling a laugh when some of the steam blows into Phil’s face. Revenge. “I’ll try not to be, but I have no idea who that is.”

“I could’ve sworn I’ve mentioned him to you before.” The older man muses, rolling his eyes fondly.

“You overestimate how often I listen to your elderly rambles, Phil.”

He laughs at that, which makes you crack into a smile of your own.

“I think you’ll like him.” He says. “You’re both pretty similar.”

You freeze, thinking the worst—before relaxing. Similar.. personality-wise. That would make the most sense.

“What about me?” You ask, and when Phil looks to you in confusion, elaborating— “Will he like me?”

Not that you particularly care for this Techno guy—Phil was already one attachment too many.

Phil imitates your shrug, wings shaking with the movement. “He usually takes a bit to warm up to people, but he’ll come around. Don’t worry about it, mate.”

You look down to your tea, noticing the lack of steam. It’s gone cold.

“Wasn’t worried.” You mumble, stirring the tea to try and give it some warmth.

“It’s written all over your face, silly.”

You glower at him. He cackles, opening his mouth, probably to poke at you again—

A sudden knock at the door interrupts whatever Phil was going to say, the older man abruptly going quiet. He turns then, eyes steely with a look you’ve never seen in them before, staring straight through the door as if he could see who is on the other side.

The knocking pauses for a moment. Then—

“Philllll..?” Comes a male voice, muffled from the door. “Bruhhh.”

Phil cackles, that strange look on his face gone before you know it, wings relaxing. He gives you a happy little grin as he stretches out of the chair with a pop of his knees.

“That’s Techno.” He explains, standing up and shaking out his wings from where they laid dormant for too long. “Stay here?”

You shrug and forcibly relax your shoulders. “Sure.”

You aren’t sure if you have a choice in the matter.

“Philza.” The knocking becomes more frantic, the voice behind the door no less monotone despite their apparent panic. “Phil, my invis is about to run out—lemme in, lemme in—”

“You barely gave me a second to answer!” is Phil’s indignant response as he cracks open the door, the hinges squealing loudly.

“What, you needed to find your cane first?” The voice behind the door snorts, now much clearer with the door open.

“I’ll lock you outside, you little shit—”

“Bruh—”

Despite his words, Phil opens the door wider to let the other person in.

The person who slips inside is invisible, but you had been expecting that from his earlier words. However, you weren’t expecting them to be wearing a full suit of netherite armor, enchantments gleaming proudly in the light.

You can see the outline of his body inside the armor, creating a sort of glassy see-through effect most invisibility potions have.

That rules out a possibility of this ‘Techno’ person being one of your customers.

Clearly he was going for a hidden identity instead of fully invisibility. Just enough invis to hide his features, but not the fact that he’s still there. If he was really going for the full invisibility effect, he wouldn’t have bothered with armor.

His helmet turns in your direction and stills. A hitch of breath that you can hardly hear from the distance.

Despite not being able to see his eyes, you have the sudden feeling that you’re being stared at.

Not glanced over, not a casual look—fully stared at.

A prickling shiver runs down your spine as you stare back at him, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck stand in end, somehow feeling both hot and cold at the same time.

You’re stuck—completely frozen by the stare you can’t pinpoint—he’s invisible, for fuck’s sake—

His helmeted head tilts, the motion stuttering as he turns to Phil.

“Who’s—”

“This is the potions’ shopkeep here. We’re friends.” Phil interrupts with a placating smile, not twitching in the slightest when the invisible figure fully turns to him. “They’re here for weekly tea.”

The figure whips his head back to you accusingly. You barely contain a flinch at the motion.

“Phil.” Techno grumbles, an undercurrent of warning in his tone, head inching back over to Phil’s direction.

Phil casually waves him off, as if he knew that this was the reaction he’d get. “They’re fine, mate.” He sighs as he waddles his way back over to you, either not noticing or choosing to ignore your wary eyes. “Come sit with us.”

You feel his eyes on you again.

It’s definitely not a friendly stare.

The armor moves forward a step, then two, until he’s finally standing at the edge of the table where both you and Phil sit.

The avian pulls out a chair for him, smiling kindly.

Techno continues to stand, helmet facing you.

Still invisible.

Until he’s not.

“Oh—there goes the invis.” The armored figure mumbles, his fingertips just barely fading back into existence. “This is awkward.”

You mean to go look up at his face to truly see who Phil’s friend is, but your eyes catch on his hands, slowly but surely turning opaque. Scars wrap around his fingers like rings, indented and knotted—badly healed. Speaking of rings, plenty of gold decorates his hands, dotted with rubies and diamonds. These amount of riches on his fingers are almost enough to hide the deformities from war.

These are the hands of a fighter. A warrior, maybe. Someone who fights and heals messily until they no longer have hands to fight with.

You look up from his hands and meet eyes with your worst nightmare.

Your life has to be the Universes’ biggest cosmic joke.

Red. Eyes.

Bloody red, and staring right at you.

Holy shit—

You nearly feel the axe split your skull in half from the sudden flashing of your nightmares, the ticking of time suddenly getting louder, so much louder—

In your dreams you could never get past the horrifying reds of his eyes, piercing straight into yours. It was as if as soon as you saw those eyes everything else lost color, and you were stuck. He had long hair, you knew that—but you hadn’t ever really given thought to the man’s actual appearance.

You never expected the Harbinger of the Apocalypse to have pink hair.

You couldn’t breathe.

Someone is talking to you, concern evident in their voice—you aren’t holding your teacup anymore, and now lavender is spilling all over the floor.

Your boots are wet. Tea?

When did you drop your cup-?

He just keeps staring at you.

You can’t—all the air previously filling your lungs had been pushed out with the realization of who this man is, what he is capable of—the reason for your bloodline’s very existence—

A choked noise comes out of you, small and almost unnoticeable if it weren’t for the silence in the room. They’re both staring at you, Phil with some sort of worried amusement in his eyes and the Harbinger with wariness.

The Harbinger—

“Mate?”

You snap back to attention, feeling your muscles ache with how hard they’ve been straining. Your feet move before your mind as you rapidly jump out of your chair and stumble away from the threat, from the monster that would be the cause of not only Phil’s death, but probably yours as well.

You open your mouth but nothing comes out.

You end up in bumping into the door, unable to stop looking at the bloody reds of Techno’s eyes.

Techno is—Phil’s friend is the harbinger.

Your hand expresses your panic in ways you cannot by searching frantically for the doorknob behind you.

“Hold on, mate—” Phil is the one to step up, wings raising up towards his at your sudden fear. “What’s wrong—where are you going?”

“I—” The door opens with a deafening ‘click’—both the Harbinger’s and Phil’s eyes move to it, and then you. You force a grin on your face. “I need some air. Sorry—sorry. I’ll be back.”

“Mate—”

“Let them go, Phil.” Techno’s eyes slide off of you, releasing you of their invisible weight. “I got some stuff I gotta show you anyway.”

The moment Phil turns to give his friend a disapproving look, you’re gone. Completely out of there. You don’t even bother to close the door on your way out, immediately ducking into the slowly waning crowd of people at the marketplace.

Escape.

You see the Community Portal in the distance and waste no time in beelining straight for it, forgoing the Prime Path and cutting through people’s property.

You. Will never come back.

“Needing some air.”

Yeah, right.

Time to pack up and move again.

The Nether is a blur as you rush home in a panic, probably drawing attention to your route. You’re running like death is on your heels—why wouldn’t that draw attention to you?

You can’t bring yourself to care in the moment, all but throwing yourself into your Nether Portal once you arrive at the Warped Forest. Panic clenches your mind in a tight-fisted grip, leaving no room for rational thought as you step out of the Nether and back into the Overworld—this time, welcoming the familiar chill to your frenzied thoughts.

Racing home, snow crunching underneath your boots—you can hardly feel the shivers that wreck through your body—your coat is at the cabin—the cabin—

You burst into your cabin in a frenzy, dragging in snow to melt across your wooden floorboards. Breaths heaving, feet kicking off boots in random directions and hands throwing your worn satchel to the side—somewhere, anywhere, you don’t care—you need to get out of here—

The fireplace is quiet as you move to your room, socked feet padding along quietly, just in case. Slipping through the door, knees hitting the ground as you search blindly for your getaway bag, finding it in a thin tousle in the corner.

You need to pack your shit—essentials and traveling stuff, food and tools and heirlooms, the spiders’ eyes—

Oh fuck, your spiders’ eyes—

You pause—just for a moment.

Breathe in.

In.

In…

Out.

It shudders out of you slowly, fanning out into the air in a cool mist. It’s only then that you realize how cold the house is, goosebumps prickling all over your skin.

Not only is the fireplace out, but you also forgot to close the door. So smart.

With a huff, you set down the bag, feeling the panic mold into something duller. The chill of the house helps with that, clearing the fog from your brain in a way that’s far from pleasant.

You can’t make hasty decisions like this. Not when you left in such a panic.

Fuck.

He has to know. With the way you left just then—

You move to sluggishly sit on your bed, slumping forward to let your weary head rest in your hands. It stops your teeth from chattering.

You knew this was going to happen someday. With the ticking of the clock growing louder and louder with each passing day, with the nightly premonition becoming more modern by the day. Armageddon isn’t some future fanatical event far off in the future anymore—it’s here, and you’re not prepared for it.

Nobody is.

It doesn’t make any sense for you of all people to be the one to meet him. Keeping up with your family’s legacy has been a half-hearted motion at most, how can you be the one fated to kill a man when you have no will to do so?

Their eyes press down on you, on that core part of your chest that is your purpose, your reason for existence.

You were not created out of love, this you know. You exist only to take down the Harbinger of the Apocalypse, to save the world from his wrath.

Would it be worth your life? To kill or not to kill if it’s for the fate of the world?

If you didn’t stop him, all their deaths—it would be your fault.

Fuck.

What do you do now??

You collapse onto your bed, unable to get his eyes out of your head. Shake, shake, shaking—your nightmares practically playing out before your eyes.

He’s here, you’ve made contact with him, and now he’s your problem. There’s no one you can run to for this—you are the one who has to deal with him. Even if you are the least equipped to do so.

Mother, Grandfather, and all the great’s before them—are they disappointed in you? All their lives’ burdens amounting to nothing because of your cowardice… they must hate you.

You know what is expected of you. You just don’t have the strength to go through with it.

Trapped.

That is your fate.

Chapter Text

The stars shine brightly tonight, illuminating your room through the crack in the curtains. It’s almost unusual how bright they are, sending scintillas of dust to dance and flicker around the stripe of light in your room.

Too bright. You find yourself shying away from it, cowering within the corner of darkness you’ve found yourself in. The furred trim of the coat draped over your shoulders doesn’t do much to help with the numbness nestled inside your ribs.

Watching. Waiting.

Your body aches from how long you’ve been sitting, crumpled in on yourself like wet tissue paper. Legs cramped, exhaustion pressing on your back, feeling a buzzing sort of sensation in your feet from where they’re pressed firmly into the floorboards. 

You don’t move, chin propped onto your knees, eyes trained unblinkingly on the door to your room.

Shut and locked tightly. Blocked by the enderchest you painstakingly pushed over in a fit of adrenaline, creating horrible marks against the floor that you’d normally complain about if it weren’t for the situation at hand. 

No one can get in. 

You should feel safe.

You don’t. The walls are too thin for you to be safe. The world is too small for you to run from. What is a single enderchest and a locked door against the will of the Harbinger?

You feel like a child again, hiding underneath your covers at the slightest bit of danger. Breath shallow, mind rolling over every possibility of danger, back when you were sure you died a little each night. Not a nightmare, not to child you—every night was death in its truest form, and you could do nothing but suffer in it.

Nine hours. Nine hours and fifty minutes since you encountered the man that would end the world.

Out of everyone in your bloodline, of course it would be you. This Herculean task was never meant for someone like you.

You should leave—but what’s the point of leaving if you’re going to die anyway?

They all told you that you’re supposed to be the one hunting him. You’re not supposed to run from him like a coward. 

And yet, you ran. 

tick-tick-tick.

Nine hours and nineteen minutes.

Your nails have been torn to their buds from senseless fiddling, the tips of your fingers prickling like the sting of poison ivy. Every breath is shallow, as if one wrong move will send him barreling into your room, axe in hand, ready to chop your head off.

Rationally, you know he isn’t here. He’s not outside, circling your house like a wolf does to a den of rabbits, prowling through the snow. He doesn’t know where you live. 

tick-tick-tick.

Nine hours and sixteen minutes.

Unless he followed you home.

You shake your head abruptly, physically trying to push away the thought. Even if you had acted suspicious back at Phil’s house, there’s no reason for him to follow you home and wait nine hours for you to leave your room. That would be absurd—even if he knows what you are, it’d be dumb to waste so much time like that.

Time. Right.

Night ticks steadily onward, and you have yet to fall asleep. Not that you’ve been trying, but a secondary sort of dread grows in your chest like rotting fungi as you realize that the time for your nightly premonition is fast approaching, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Even with the window covered from edge to edge, you can still feel that skin-prickling feeling that you’re being watched. A million eyes in the sky, peering down at you and picking you apart organ by organ.

Maybe he knows about your visions. They know. They’ve always known. Why wouldn’t he?

Maybe he’s waiting for you to succumb to them before he makes them a reality.

tick-tick-tick.

tick-tick-tick.

Two twenty-one. 

You grip the covers tightly, unable to control the way your hands shake. 

One more minute. You just need to last one more minute. 

tick-tick-tick.

tick-tick-tick-tick—

You blink up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling lethargic. One moment you’re sitting in your bed, fearing for your life and the lives of the people around you, and in the next—

Red.

There are no spruce walls surrounding you. There is no enderchest pushed up against the door, no filtering of moonlight through the crack in the window—only red, red, red red red—

The intense howling of wolves is what greets you as you open your eyes once more. You have just enough awareness to realize that you’re sitting in the middle of a giant crater, the remains of a building scattered skeins you. Your eyes catch onto the blurred form of the wolves—beasts—running past you with bloody jaws.

The world screams its last hurrah as the sky crack-crack-cracks above, shattering into little pieces that cut and carve into the earth as they fall down. Every breath you take is too sharp for this to be a dream, skin prickling with overwhelming sensitivity—flashing hot, then cold, and then hot again—

It’s Judgement Day, and the gods have decided that you’re going to Hell.

Moving doesn’t work. You try, and try as you might to lift yourself off the ground and run, you stay stubbornly in place like a mouse in a glue trap. 

Stuck in a paralysis.

You feel it when his shadow crosses over you. Looking up shakily. Breath catching on the thorns in your lungs.

Techno stares back down at you, red eyes gleaming hungrily.

Smoke tickles at your nose and filters into your eyes, bringing forth stinging tears to well up in your vision. It warps him into a blur of red, gold, and a smidge of the darkest purple you can imagine when he moves to lift his bloodied axe.

“Why?” You croak at him through a raw throat.

His eyes narrow down at you, but there is no answer to your open-ended question. Instead, he smiles this little bitter thing before lifting his axe.

This is different.

He’s never smiled before. Never before killing you, never after killing you—only staring with a blank look to his apathetic face. Bored, as if he’d rather be anywhere else, as if you were merely a bug he needed to quiet in order to get on with his day.

The biggest moment of your life. Inconsequential to him.

He breathes out a smoke-filled laugh, hefting the axe over his shoulder for a swing—muscles tensing, eyes flashing—

Then your head is in the air.

.

..

Screaming. 

Your eyes fly open—red ebbing away from your vision—to pain and the sound of screams. Loud ones. It assaults your ears and makes your brain melt through your eyes, body thrashing, throat tearing—

Your hands grapple and scrape at your throat, trying to fix the damage already done—your throat, sliced in half, flesh and sinew stretched like bloody taffy. 

It hurts like crackling wildfire, every nerve ending screaming and twitching. That panic is all-consuming before your eyes adjust to the darkness of your room.

Your room. You, alone, in your room. Locked and shut away.

One deep breath. Then another.

The air isn’t smoky, filled with death and decay. Your head is still attached to your body despite the searing burn of phantom pain against your skin. Not a single hint of red is present in your room.

You sag back against the wall with a shaky sigh. Eyes shutting, the furrow between your brows finally released.

It’s over.

Breathing is hard to regulate. The back of your neck is coated in sweat—you had squirmed out of the comforting warmth of your coat during your struggle. It lays in an uncomfortable heap next to you, and you have half the mind to pick it up to stop wrinkles from forming, but your ribcage is too small for your lungs to keep functioning.

Breathe in— one, two, three—

The door locked tight. The enderchest pushed in front of it. No one in your room but you.

Breathe out— one, two, three.

In—

Your bitten fingers dig into your coat. Dragging it up to your face. You bury your face in the fur and take in a deep inhale.

And out.

Safety. Heart beating, lungs filling with oxygen, hands shaking.

You’re alive.

Once the fear and adrenaline finish draining away, anger is the first emotion to bleed in.

Resentment. Bitterness.

So angry that it coils tightly in your chest. Teeth gritting until you hear them clicking in the back of your head, pressure growing and growing until—

You stop, a grunt escaping the confines of your chest.

This is so unfair. So— so unjust that it makes your skin boil and prickle with heat. 

You’re the only one that has to live like this, one agonizing night at a time. A scapegoat of pain so that the rest of the world can go on their days happily, unknowing of the clock ticking right underneath them.

It’s not fair.

You want to live a life worth living.

You don’t really know what living is like. 

Your heart pumps blood just like anybody else’s. Your lungs breathe, your thoughts race, your feelings burn, just like anybody else. You are just like anybody else.

Except you’re not.

You live in fear of the world’s inevitable expiration. Always preparing, never connecting with anyone in fear of loss. They’ll die, you’ll die, the world will die. You live with the weight of a generations’ long expectation on your shoulders—an expectation that requires you to practically commit suicide in order to fulfill it.

Not once have you ever looked for yourself. 

In order for you to live for yourself—in order to live without fear, without the vision plaguing your nights—

Techno needs to die.

The anger lights itself into a flame deep in your chest, fingernails digging tiny crescent moons into your coat.

It’s his fault. His fault your life has been ruined from the moment you took your first breath. His fault you’re cursed. His fault they left you all alone.

He needs to die. For everything you’ve been through, death is the least he deserves. 

They said he would be violent with the strength of a god. Wherever he goes, a trail of bloody footsteps would follow. Who knows who else he’s hurt—or even killed—in the time it’s taken you to find him. 

For the sake of the world, you need to kill him. It’s your purpose.

That flame of buried hatred in your chest flickers for a second—just long enough for doubt to pick at your mind, seeping between the cracks of your brain.

The Harbinger is Phil’s friend. 

You can only imagine Phil’s heartbroken face when he hears of his friend’s death. That light, cheeky smile slipping off his face into something much darker. The anguish, the despair. The disbelief when he finds out that it’s your fault his friend is dead.

He’ll hate you. You don’t want Phil to hate you.

And most of all—you don’t want to kill anyone.

Not even the Harbinger.

The thought is enough to have shame press down on your shoulders, feeling the weight of your ancestors’ glares with one-hundred percent certainty. Angry that their struggles will be null and void because of you. Because they fulfilled their purpose, and you’re hiding away like a coward.

What the hell are you doing?

The last thing you need to be feeling is guilt. Shame, maybe—for your hesitation on killing the man that would end the world—but not guilt.

It’s him or the world.

Him or the world, and you are the one who has to make that final decision. That final push to decide the winner.

No matter who you pick, you will lose.

There is no one to come to your aid but yourself.

The rest of that night was dreadful.

You moved in a daze, hysteria and irrational thinking clouded your mind. Caught at the fork between fight or flight—you chose to hide. Again, because no matter how many times you come to the same conclusion, you must try to find a way around it.

Again.

Boarding up windows, moving around chests and scratching up your nice floors. At some point during your frantic pacing you uprooted a few floorboards in the corner of your room—to try to dig a cellar, maybe? Panic had been your main mindset, all rational thinking flown out the boarded windows.

By the time rational thinking finally slammed back into your head, your fingernails were broken and bleeding. Your house was a mess, and you’re left off worse than you started. 

When you blinked back into reality, you found yourself mid-motion stocking food in your enderchest, of all places. Any little bits and bobs you could find, stuffed straight into the magical chest. For what reason? Who knows.

You’ve heard of other people doing this when murmurs of the ‘end times’ grew too loudly—Apocalypse preppers. People who prepared bunkers and hoarded food in preparation for the end of the world in an attempt to survive it. People with a few loose screws in their heads.

You suppose you’re not too far off from the same. 

They didn’t know what you knew. They didn’t know that no matter what they did, the earth would crumble beneath their feet. No point in prepping when you’re just going to die.

And as the sunlight peeked through the little cracks in your boarded-up windows, you undid the damage of the night. Put your food back where it belongs. Painstakingly pulling out the nails from the boards across the door. Letting light shine through your windows once more. 

By the time noon came around, your cabin was back to normal state, as if that night had never happened.

And yet, you refused to leave. 

Days passed in a blur against your adrenaline-spent body. Any thought of leaving the cabin was immediately banished in fear of the Harbinger you saw every night. The fact that he’s real, and out there—gods, why did this weight have to fall onto you? Why couldn’t the Harbinger have been born during your mom’s time instead? Or even your grandfather’s time?

Like a coward, you hide.

Unfit for such a massive task.

He hadn’t come for you yet because he doesn’t know where you live—that must be the truth. So therefore, staying inside the cabin, your safe space, would mean you get to stay alive for another day.

And another day. 

In the cabin. It’s safe, he can’t get you here.

You won’t die if you stay in the cabin.

You watched the sun rise and fall, felt the bags underneath your eyes grow heavier as time ticked on, as if the Universe and you were at an impasse. The nightmares—visions, bullshit, whatever—stayed consistent. Your fate would not change, so you were content to stay inside, safe and sound.

Your poor garden must be in shambles. Redstone can only do so much to keep up with the ingredients’ growth—you’ll have a lot of weeding to do after you get out of your hidey-hole.

It’s on the fifth day of your self-imposed isolation that you run out of food.

You stare into the empty cabinet with dread scuttling up your spine. There’s nothing inside but dust bunnies and the curled up form of a dead spider.

Out of food. 

You supposed that you’d have to leave your hidey-hole eventually. You just didn’t think it would need to happen so soon.

You’d much rather go hunting than make the trek to the village, but it’s been harder to find game recently. With winter fast approaching, the animals that frequent the first around you have started to migrate or go into hibernation. Any animals left behind have likely realized your presence and made themselves scarce.

Foraging can only sustain you for so long, and fishing is pretty much a waste of time with all the polar bears that hang around. You only ever eat from your garden if there is a surplus of potatoes and mushrooms grown. Most of what you grow is meant for potions and potions only.

Unless you want to survive on only a combination of mushrooms and jam, you’ve gotta go grocery shopping.

The world hasn’t ended yet. 

But it could the moment you walk out the door.

That leaves you here: fitted head to toe in netherite armor, a furred coat too big for you thrown on top to protect you from the cold. A wicker basket—the same one you use for your check-in days—for holding groceries. In the pocket of your too-big coat is a satchel bursting with emeralds from your recent trip to New L’Manburg—the currency exchange has left your pockets fuller than usual, to say the least.

You open the door. A gust of wind immediately blows into your face, sending snow flurries scattering all around your house. A good amount of snow has accumulated on your front porch—a chore that you’ll procrastinate until later.

Dread leaves your knees locked in place, feet stubbornly rooted to the floor even as you try to move forward. 

A frustrated grunt leaves you, teeth gritting. So pathetic.

Even after nearly a week of hiding away, you can’t even leave the house on your own. Can’t take a single step forward.

You shake out your arms, starting with your hands and working up to your shoulders, stretching and shaking the stiffness away. Wiggling out your nerve endings, bouncing on the balls of your feet. Loosening up.

Being stiff wouldn’t do you any good if the Harbinger actually does find you. Which is a low chance all on its own. He lives in New L’Manburg.

You think. You… hadn’t actually seen him around there before. 

Before that thought can spiral into something deeper, you steel your bravery and lift a foot.

One step. Two.

When the world doesn’t implode on itself after two steps past the front door, you take another. And another, until you’ve crossed the tree line around your home. And then even further.

Walking gets easier from there on. You’re able to pretend that this is just a regular day’s trip to the village for food. You think about what foods you need to stock up on, what dinners you want to try, or stuff you haven’t had in a while, all while ignoring the deep pit in your gut that roils with anticipation.

When you finally see the village cresting over the horizon, your shoulders drop their tension, spreading a thin ache through your body. All you need to do now is pick up some food for the next week or so and go back home. Easy.

Stepping into the town square, you swerve past various villagers and workers, each bundled up in swaths of fabric. You cast a glance up at the sky, finding grey clouds rolling over the village, sending light sprinkles of snow cascading to the ground. Not a storm, but the clouds are dark enough for anxiety to flare up in your chest.

The wind is thick today as you make your way to the marketplace. This village’s marketplace is much, much smaller than New L’Manburg’s marketplace, filled with less variety. Meat carcasses hang for display above the butcher’s stand while, on the other side of the clearing, a cleric fights with a customer over the price of glistering melon. 

You turn your attention away from them and towards some of the farmers’ stands, greeting them with a small smile and a wave.

Eggs. Bread. Flour. Milk. All the ingredients you normally pick up at the village for food for yourself. Meat and vegetables to store during the winter. Salts and spices and herbs.

With every purchase, your pockets get lighter while your basket gets heavier.

Your face sours as you accidentally brush fingers with the shopkeeper exchanging your emeralds for milk, their fate hitting you in the heart. They’ll pass from some sort of illness, one that likely has no cure—you noticed the gauntness of their cheeks and the rigid bags underneath their eyes. 

You offer them thanks for the goods and tuck the bottle of milk into your overflowing basket, turning away.

That should be enough to tide you over, at least until next week.

The wind picks up around you, rustling your hair and making you burrow further into your cloak. Turning on your heel, you beeline for your cabin. Now that you’re feeling somewhat better, you want to actually start cleaning the mess you left behind. Maybe revive your garden. All those little things you’ve neglected.

You’re about halfway through the town square when the hood of your coat catches on something, falling off of your head and exposing your ears to the biting cold. You stop, hand coming up to your face—

Not something—someone just pulled your fucking hood down-!

You turn with a snarl on the edge of your lips, an accusation on the tip of your tongue when the person behind you suddenly speaks, the pressure on the back of your coat disappearing.

“I knew I recognized you.”

You stiffen like a corpse going into rigor mortis.

No way. There’s no way.

You force yourself to turn in jerky little movements towards the voice—his voice—eyes trailing up, up, up until you see the soft pink of his hair cresting across his armored chest. Netherite armor.

There is a way—it is the fact that the Universe simply hates you.

He found you.

You feel the way your eyes bug out of their sockets, mouth just barely agape as you stare—staring death down as he glares back, looming so much larger over you. 

The Harbinger is tall. Muscular form, only accentuated by the armor laced meticulously over himself. The red cloak he had worn when you first met him is gone, now replaced by a soft blue one that blended in with the environment of the desolate tundra. There isn’t a hint of red on him now—the only thing that reminded you that he is still the Harbinger of the Apocalypse is the steely red of his eyes, glaring down at you.

You take a step back instinctively, feeling like a lamb caught between the maws of a wolf. His hand is set on the pommel of the axe strapped to his belt, and your eyes narrow in on it like it’s the only thing you can see.

Phil isn’t here to save you now.

That thing is going to kill you.

His mouth opens, tusks sharp, brow furrowed—likely about to say something to you—the last words you’ll ever hear—but all you can do is stare at the blade of his axe and wonder just how much it’ll hurt.

I’M GOING TO DIE.

“You’re Phil’s stray.” 

He says with boredom, looking down at you with an analytical eye—just as he had been back at Phil’s house. Likely comparing your previous behavior around him to now.

You’re equally as skittish now as you had been at the house, and the only shared factor is Techno’s presence. He has to know—or if he doesn’t, he’s gotta know that you’re scared of him.

Terrified. Not dead yet.

Red searing into your vision. Waiting on an answer. You, staring up at him like a deer in bright lights, buffering.

His eyes narrow just a tad bit further at your gaping, and you quickly spit out the second thing on your mind—because the first thing on your mind would probably make him kill you.

That is, if “What the hell are you doing here and why are you talking to me?!” is enough to offend him into killing you.

You bite your tongue and choose a wiser answer to his non-question.

“I thought you lived in New L’Manburg?” 

He blinks at you, then shakes his head, pink hair trailing along with the motion.

“Ehhh. Nah.” He hums, lips pressing together. They then stutter upward slightly—just slightly—the smallest sardonic smile. “They aren’t really my biggest fans at the moment.”

He huffs, as if that was a joke you were supposed to understand.

The only words you can think of to reply— “So you live around here?”

“Yeup.” He responds blandly. 

“Where?”

How long has the Harbinger lived this close to you? 

“Uhhh, east from here.” He says. His hand moves to the pommel of the sword hanging off his hip, and suddenly all you can focus on is how bare your neck feels.

You should’ve brought a weapon, or potions, or those goddamn spiders’ eyes—anything for protection—

“What ‘bout you?”

“Oh.” You drag your eyes from his scarred hands—it makes sense why he’s got the hands of a warrior. He’s probably been trained to kill since he’s been born—and up to his eyes, holding back a flinch at the startling intensity of them. “Uhm, west of here.”

He grunts at you.

You want to hit yourself. Why did you just let that particular piece of information leave your mouth?

“Neighbors, then.” He mutters, voice low, mostly to himself. 

You hear it, though. Loud and clear, as if he had yelled it for the world to hear.

You feel your soul practically leave your body.

Neighbors.

When did that happen?

How long has he been your neighbor for??

You look away from his eyes, as if that would stop him from staring at you like you’re some kind of bug to inspect and pick apart—because he’s staring at you. Very intensely. Eyes flickering from your windblown hair to your oversized coat to the snow separating the two of you.

His hands twitch to his side, to the axe hanging off his belt. Just as wary as you are.

If only you had brought a weapon. This nightmare could’ve been over by now.

All it would take is a single glance away—a single glance in which you could get him in the jugular and paralyze him from the neck down. The knife wouldn’t even have to be poisoned.

Not fun thoughts to have. Normal thoughts to have about the man who will destroy humanity, but for you? Not fun.

Surrounded by people, in the middle of a village full of witnesses, completely unprepared. He’d be caught off-guard, but that’d be it. 

This wouldn’t be a good time to kill him anyway.

“Sorry… for last week.” You muster up at the gap in the conversation, bringing your eyes to your boots, head low. Not threatening. Complacent. If you make yourself small enough, maybe he’ll think twice about smiting you. “It was a bad day, ‘s all. Nothing against you.”

The thickening silence hanging between you gives you chills. Tense, and only growing tenser with each second of silence he lets pass by.

You risk a glance up to try and gauge what he’s thinking, only to find him staring blankly down at you. Indifferent—maybe the slightest furrow of his slitted brow in confusion. His mouth stays stubbornly shut. Maybe expecting you to say more?

Deep breath in.

You offer your hand to the Harbinger. Open-palmed, friendly, inviting.

“It’s nice to meet you officially.” You say, just barely making eye-contact.

He doesn’t answer. His head moves just an inch, red eyes glancing down at your awaiting hand, and then back up at you. Leaving it hanging there.

Gritting your teeth, you stare up at him, determination boiling in your chest. Hand still outstretched, barely keeping it steady from the trembling that wants to overtake it.

The air grows tense enough for your shoulders to tighten, not a single breath escaping you as you extend your bare hand to the Harbinger. A lure to a fish, just waiting for him to take the bait.

Finally, he breaks. A puff of air, right from his broad chest and stiff shoulders, before he finally takes your awaiting hand into his own larger, calloused and scarred one, giving it a firm shake.

It tingles through you at the point of contact—palm to palm, fingerprints to fingerprints—rushing up your wrist and into your chest, pulsing through your veins. It burns like ants crawling under your skin, the warmth in your chest extinguished.

Techno’s hand draws away, the warmth leaving with it. And you—you’re stuck. Completely frozen solid. You’re too dumbfounded to notice the way he subtly wipes his hand on his cape.

Because you saw the Harbinger’s fate. Saw—but didn’t see. A veil of darkness covered your eyes before you could truly understand what his fate would be. His fate is empty. 

Empty.

It stutters through your heart. You know it to be true—he wouldn’t die.

Just like the man from the other day—oh.

Oh, you’re so dumb.

You bring your hand back to your side, heart pounding between your ears. 

If Techno is truly your neighbor, then that means he must frequent this village for stuff he needs, like groceries. The chance of your paths crossing before today is high, especially with how routine you are.

Which means you’ve met him before.

You stare blankly at Techno, ignoring the nausea crawling up your throat and watching him do the same. He shifts in place awkwardly, bringing a fist up to clear his throat. Loud in comparison to the quiet in the air.

You flinch at the sound.

“Alllright.” He finally utters out, taking a step back and away from you. “You’re good—just don’t destroy my property value and we’ll be okay.”

You blink at his words in bewilderment, trying to keep the horror welling up inside of you away from your face.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” His boots scuff against the ground as he takes another step away.  An awkward flick of his eyes to yours, and then— “Mmmm-bye.”

He turns on his heel and leaves without another word, sifting through the crowd of workers without a care. His crowned head ducks down into the fur of his cloak, and if you knew the man better, you’d think he’s trying to hide from your gaze.

It doesn’t work very well. He’s much taller than the human villagers. His hair is pink and glows golden with the addition of the crown on his head. He practically sticks out like a sore thumb.

You wonder why you’ve never noticed him before. He lives here as his most obvious self, and you had never suspected a thing.

A ragged sigh tumbles out of you, matching the panic in your eyes. You survived another encounter with the Harbinger. The world is still intact. For some reason.

You turn slowly, walking in the opposite direction the Harbinger had gone. Because your house is this way, and the Harbinger’s house is directly across the village from yours. Because you’re neighbors.

Even though your heart still beats in your chest, lungs filling with air and breathing life into your veins, it feels like everything just got a whole lot worse.

Having him live so close to you isn’t ideal, especially if he comes to this village as regularly as you do. It means he could find your house, your garden, your dump site. Everything that would give you away—every piece of evidence that shows your purpose on this earth.

He’d know what you are—if he doesn’t know already.

The thought has sweat dripping down the back of your neck.

You know what you’re destined to do, what your next steps should be. But how does one kill someone who's destined to never die? Is it even worth trying just to fail?

He acts like a regular man. He breathes like a man, speaks like a man, walks like a man. He’s not human, but still a man. Not a monster yet. Not a Harbinger yet.

The question of ‘for how long?’ continues to roll around your head. How long will he continue to act like a normal person? Is it truly an act, or is he content with the world as it is now? 

What the hell is his motive?

You glance at the villagers around you, content with their simple lives. Meandering people wandering to and fro, greeting friends and family as they pass by. Clerics selling health potions for much cheaper than they should be, just so that anyone who needs it can afford it. Farmers tilling the soil for their crops, skin kissed by the sun. Children playing with the Iron Golem while their parents barter out deals with the mason.

Why would anyone want to end the world when this is what fills it?

The noisy bustle of the village fades away as you cross into the woods, hearing nothing but snow crunching underfoot and your breath condensing into fog in front of you. Your head feels so far away from the rest of your body, thoughts forming and sprinkling away into nothing as you mechanically walk the path back to your cabin. 

It feels like walking to your own funeral. Not that you’ll get a funeral in the first place.

The rickety spruce of your cabin peeks through the pine woods as you grow closer. You’ve lost time on your way over, feeling as though you’ve literally just left the village, and now you’re home. A blink later, and you’re past the treeline, boots on their own path up the porch.

Home. No need to think about pink hair and crowned Harbingers. About death and decay and the fact that no one will care when you’re gone, or about the fact that you’re going to die to your neighbor. About your god-given ‘duty’ or any of the spiders’ eyes in your bunker—

You pause, hand on the doorknob.

You could finally use the eyes. You could. The Harbinger’s living in your time, neighbors with you—there isn’t a better time than now to make them.

You take a step away from your cabin, from safety, down the porch and back into the snow. The basket full of groceries gets set on the doorstep, your hands now raw and empty. Your heart pounds an unsteady beat against your ribs, threatening to break right through them as you look away from safety and stroll straight into danger. 

It’s been almost a week since you’ve entered the greenhouse. It’s been longer since you’ve entered the secret bunker underneath. 

A breath escapes you as you enter the greenhouse, heat warming your chilled cheeks and cold-nipped nose. Shaking out your hands to rid it from the buzz that comes with a quick temperature change, you continue onwards, stepping through your garden without a care.

Something to protect yourself. Yes, protection would be nice—just as a precaution.

You stroll past the main part of your garden, ignoring the copious amount of unruly weeds that had sprouted their way out of the ground. Your neglect had certainly taken its toll on your little garden, no longer as bright and lively as it had been last week. 

You’ll need to get rid of the weeds in order to revive the garden.

Later. It’ll have to be done later.

Push aside the chest. Drop down the hole left behind. Fingers barely scraping the worn ladder as you skip the rungs and slide down. Down, down, down again, until the toes of your boots tap against bedrock.

Turning around, you see your family’s stash of spiders’ eyes, perfectly preserved. 

A single eye is all you need. 

You kneel so that you’re eye-level with the bottom of the shelves, squinting through the warping glass at each eye inside. One particularly large sclera catches your eye, and you find yourself reaching for the bottle before realizing it. 

You tap on the glass, hearing it clink against your fingernail. The eye inside barely moves, but the brine surrounding it does, spinning the spiders’ eye in a slow loop until it’s staring directly at you through the glass, pupil enlarged and glassy. 

You squint through the glass at it, pleased with what you find. The sclera has enlarged slightly, soaked to the brim with brine. It bulges around the pupil like a balloon—one wrong move and it’ll pop into a bloody mess.

It’s perfect. 

You tuck it into the pocket of your coat, making your way out of the bunker and back up the ladder. Strolling past your dying plants. Back into the cabin, ignoring the mess and beelining it for your crafting table. 

Your work station is surrounded by chests full of potion ingredients, sorted by pH to reduce mixing. The most acidic ingredients stay to your right while base ingredients stay to your left. A furnace is kept to the side of the crafting table for any last-minute smelting. Four brewing stands are pressed against the wall, held up by shelves. There’s no real reason why someone would need more than one brewing stand, but running a potion making business means being as efficient as you can.

You slide one down to your level, propping it up on the crafting table. Then you dip your hand into the most acidic chest, farthest to the right, you pull out a jar of blaze powder. Its heat-retaining properties makes it the perfect fuel source for potion making. It’s much more gentle than fire, allowing the potions to set to a proper broil instead of foaming over.

Three bottles set to brew, filled to the brim with distilled water. Hopefully, three will be all you will need.

Netherwart gets put into your pestle and mortar bowl. You’re quick to run the pestle over it, crushing and mashing and churning until it’s broken down into chunks. Not a fine dust like blaze powder, but small enough chunks to fit through the tube of your brewing stand. Easily degradable when mixed with the heat of Blaze powder.

The process of potion-making is supposed to be slow—delicate. Time is an ingredient just as much as it’s an investment. The slower the boil, the better the effect. Rushing through the process will only breed shitty potions.

You don’t rush with this one. You can’t afford to rush.

The netherwart curdles into itself the moment it filters through the brewing stand, melting like butter. The change is minuscule, but you see when the bottles of distilled water turn into actual awkward potions— a proper base for any potion.

Glistering melon is easier to mash into little bits than the netherwart was. Little speckles of gold catch your eye as you ground the melon slice into slush, the air smelling fruity with its essence. 

That gets poured into the tube as well, as slowly as you can with your shaking hands.

Diluted pink runs through the filter and into the awkward potions. You watch the colors fight against each other for a moment—the stubbornness of change, the way magic resists and fights to be—before the pink inevitably wins. 

Glistering melon is more acidic than netherwart—it would always win the fight against change.

Humming under your breath, you detach one of the potions from the filters and bring it up to the light, watching sunlight hit the edges of the glass and making it glow brightly. The tiniest specks of gold flat around in the confines of the glass, glinting in the light.

A potion of healing, one of your best pieces of work. Life-saving miracle liquid if used and prepared correctly. Which, you always do.

Your shoulders drop, looking back down at the brewing stand. You wish you were just making regular healing potions—potions that help, not hurt—but you’ve brought your spiders’ eyes with you for a reason.

Squinting down at said eye, unable to infect the air with toxic particles due to the glass confining it, you realize that you really don’t want to risk making these potions in your house. 

You also really don’t want to make these potions out in the open, where anyone could stumble upon your home and find out what you’re doing. There’s also the mention of outside being a bit unpredictable—who knows how badly a single fleck of snow could mess up your potions.

You compromise with yourself and open the windows. 

You huff, feeling the breeze from outside wind through the cabin. Chilly, but at least you’re in a controlled environment. Next, hazards control.

You don’t have proper hazard protection, but you know that merely touching the eye with your bare hands is a recipe for disaster. So your normal gloves it is.

You stare down at the gloves wrapped around your hands, rubbing your pointer and thumb together, feeling the slip of fabric between them. Gloves sewn by yourself for heavy weather. It had taken hours to make them—you can still see the small stitches you sloppily threaded in. Inexperience in shaky hands.

What a waste of a perfectly good pair of gloves.

You shrug to yourself—you can always get new gloves—grabbing the jar and giving it a good shake. The eye floats within the whims of the thick brine around it, bloated and discolored from time.

You’re going to have to touch that.

Eugh.

You look down at your gloved hands with a grimace. They aren’t the right gloves for this sort of task, but they’re the best you have—and potentially damaging the eye by grabbing it with a fork is not something you want to risk.

No going back now.

With a deep breath, you pop open the lid. Fish your hand inside the brine. Ignore the soaking of your gloves.

Out comes a singular spider’s eye, perfectly snug in the dip of your palm.

The stench is immediate—you take a gulp of air in another direction before focusing on the eye in your palms, cheeks puffed and lips pinched. With your other hand, you take the eye between two fingers—very lightly, as if too much pressure would pop the bloated eye like a balloon—and shake out your brine-soaked glove.

Yeah, there’s no way you can keep these gloves after this.

You turn to the brewing stand, cheeks still puffed out with air, eyes watering slightly from the overpowering stench wafting through the room—oh, you’re so going to get sick later—and shove the eye the best you can into the brewing stand. Whole.

It doesn’t work very well. The sclera bulges at the pressure, veins flickering and pulsing, and for a moment you’re worried that you’ve just ruined a perfectly good eye before it squishes back into itself and slides through the tube.

Spiders’ eyes aren’t meant to be crushed like other ingredients, which makes your situation a whole lot worse.

Corrupting a potion from its positive base will breed stronger effects—the positive base gives it something to sit on and mix into, making the effect richer. Brewing a potion of harming from a regular awkward potion will always be more diluted than properly corrupting it.

Like hot chocolate—you can mix cocoa powder into hot water or hot milk and get the same end result, but the hot chocolate with the milk will be richer and give more energy in the long run. Calcium and vitamins in milk—not much in water.

Try as you might, holding your breath really isn’t enough—not when the smell is so noxious. Tears well up in your eyes as you push the entire eye into the thin mouth of the brewing stand, a sneeze tickling your sinuses, begging to let go.

You hurriedly wipe your eyes with your elbow, having to bend awkwardly to do so. Gods, you can’t mess this up now—

You probably should’ve done this outside.

As soon as the eye hits the blazerod filter and begins to disintegrate, you move to open more windows. And the door. Gods, you really should’ve done this outside, paranoia be damned.

You sneeze into the crook of your elbow, head stuffed with cotton. You could feel the migraine coming on already, the light outside a bit too bright for your suddenly sensitive, watery eyes. Already sick.

It won’t kill you, but going after the Harbinger within the next few days probably won’t be a good idea, not until you finish being sick. If being a little sick is the price for these potions, then you’ll pay it.

With one last sneeze and a cough that makes your chest ache, you take off the gloves and chuck them out the nearest window to deal with later. The noxious smell slowly filters out the open windows, quickly replacing itself with the frigid air from outside. Your cabin is ten-times colder, but you can finally breathe without nausea. 

The potions slowly shift hues as the eye rots—bright, welcoming pink turning into damp purple, and then an inky red, almost black. Thin bubbles rise to the surface as the noxious eye is eaten away by the blaze powder, popping away the moment they breach the surface.

Corrupted.

Potions of harming.

Gently taking one of the potions off the rack, you squint into the inky darkness, watching the hue of lingering blaze powder sift through the potion. It shines like blood on a moonlit night, all pitch black shades and the tiniest hint of red.

Terrifying, but not good enough.

There’s one more step. 

Glowstone powder—to really put that extra kick in. The last nail in the proverbial coffin, so to say.

This potion is already overpowered with the addition of a heavily fermented spider’s eye, and the base of Healing, but adding glowstone to it?

He shouldn’t survive this. No normal person can survive this—not even with full netherite armor. 

An instant killer.

Not even a potion of harming—a potion of death itself.

And by the end of this, you’ll have three of them.

You find your stash of glowstone in one of your chests—in which one, you can’t really remember, but chest organizing is a task to another day—using a teaspoon to gently scoop out the right measurement and pour it down the middle of the blaze rod, cupping the top of the tube to stop flakes from scattering around your room. It’s difficult with the open windows, but eventually you manage to get all the glowstone down the tube without much fuss.

You watch as the final ingredient settles into the potions, the brewing stand steaming as it works its chemistry. Not much changes color-wise, but you know a reaction has taken place.

Harming III.

For most people, Harming caps off at level two. Only so much magic can be shoved into a brewing stand before it levels out and dilutes itself. Spiders’ eyes themselves equals one level of Harming, plus one dose of glowstone equals two levels of Harming—there isn’t much more you can do after that. There’s no need to use redstone on a potion of instant harming.

Harming III is possible. It just matters what ingredients you use and the equality of them—shitty ingredients breed shitty potions and amazing ingredients breed amazing potions.

Spiders eyes that have been fermenting for years? For the generations and generations that your family has taken care of them, passed down like an heirloom, creating over a hundred years of blooming inside a brine-filled bottle?

These potions may as well be past Harming III—if only you knew the scale for them. Methodology—whether you decide to poison his food or just chuck gunpowder in to make it a splash potion—can be worried about later.

Breathing out one final stressed breath, your shoulders relax. You step back, the shake in your hands returning.

These potions are done.

You startle back into action. Locking up the doors to your cabin. Closing all the windows and drawing the curtains back over them tightly. The smell from the spider’s eye is gone—there’s no reason to have them open anymore, not when your potions are done.

Your potions are done, and just about every entrance to your home is open, ready for someone to burst in and steal them—

They’re dangerous in your hands, but if anyone else gets ahold of them? Anyone who understands the power of these potions but doesn’t understand what they’re for, they’ll—

Fuck, maybe you shouldn’t have made these potions. Harming III doesn’t exist to the normal person—you’ll surely be burned for making such a thing. If anyone finds out—If anyone gets ahold of these—

You shake your head, taking a deep breath. Just like with the spiders’ eyes, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect a thing. They look like regular Harming II potions, and although you specifically making any potions of Harming would be an eyebrow-raiser, it’s not like it’d be out of the ordinary. People make potions of Harming all the time for their pet mobs—who are they to say you aren’t doing the same?

Slowly, carefully, you reach out. Taking the butt of the potion into your hands, fingertips curled tightly around the lip of the bottle. Dropping it in your house of all places would be disastrous.

The glass is cool against your palm, buzzing slightly with the magic inside. Magic hates being contained, pushing and pulling at the glass around it to escape.

Pulling it closer to your chest, you breathe in.

And out.

It’s like holding a literal grenade—one misstep, and there goes your house. A grenade in the physical way, but also in the metaphorical way. You’re holding the biggest reason for your existence in your hands—a physical turning point just resting in your hands.

This potion… if you tried to kill him with it, he should die. Should. 

The chance he doesn’t is too mind-numbingly terrifying for you to consider.

His premonition practically confirms your failure. He would never die, so why should you bother? If you go through with this, you’re practically sealing your own death in stone.

Fates can change, yes—you’ve seen it happen before—but you’ve never seen someone’s premonition come up empty like his did. Will he never die, or is his fate that uncertain in the eyes of destiny? Does destiny even know what will happen to him?

You huff to yourself, gathering all three potions into your hands, careful not to drop them.

Only your ancestors would have a definitive answer to those questions. They were the ones to initially receive the prophecy. Nothing had distorted it yet—no red herrings of ‘The Rapture’ or ‘Armageddon’ or even the ‘Apocalypse’—it was the true and only prophecy of the end of the world.

Had they known that the Harbingers’ fate would come up empty? Is it truly empty, or is it just hiding from you? Was this the part of the prophecy that had been lost to oral storytelling?

If his fate currently shows that he’ll never die, then you’ll need to adjust your plan. Change it so that fate won’t see it coming and catch him off-guard. Make sure that fate won’t be able to catch up to him.

Your feet move without thinking, bringing you to your room, messy and turned over from a week in paranoia-induced anxiety.

You’ve never killed anyone before. Killing is wrong. Ending someone’s life before they’re able to live it out fully is wrong. All the visions you see as skin brushes against skin—gods, you wish you didn’t have to see it. You wish you didn’t have to see your own death play out each night. 

Death is tricky and complicated and you hate to witness it. And for these reasons, you could never imagine truly killing someone. Not when death is so intertwined with your soul in the way that it is.

You locate your enderchest, pushed just a bit away from the door, shoved to the side. You hadn’t bothered moving it from your room—it hadn’t seemed important with everything else going on.

Deadly potions in your inexperienced hands, feeling your ancestors stare down at you and the weapon of their creation—it’s so overwhelming that the room begins to spin around you.

You need to kill him. Techno needs to die.

He needs to die.

He needs to—

You hastily shove the potions into the back of your enderchest, slamming the lid back down without another thought. The room spins back into place, and you’re left reeling from where you lean all your weight onto the enderchest, a cool sweat on the back of your neck.

One step back. Two. Laugh a little under your breath. Ignore the stubborn shake in your hands.

This. This is a can of worms you’ll deal with another day.

Another day.

By making these potions, you might’ve just opened Pandora’s Box.

Maybe this situation is a lot less complicated than they thought it’d be.

Maybe he’ll die some other way. Maybe he’ll trip and fall into a ravine or be attacked by a hoard of mobs. 

As for now, you wait.

Another day.

Chapter Text

Your mind has been in a dark place recently.

Dark thoughts are pretty normal for you. Living day-to-day with the knowledge that you are the world’s unwilling sacrificial lamb doesn’t leave much room for happy thoughts. Hopeless, deprecating thoughts rot at your brain like tooth decay, creating cavities that stick and tear down your self-esteem. 

They’ve been different lately, angrier lately. Hatred not directed at yourself or fate, but towards the Harbinger. That ugly, rotten, angry feeling deep within the center of your ribcage that harbors resentment, finally boiling over in an urge to see his end. To finally be done with your nightmare of a life. Inky thoughts of murder—of what it would feel like to finally be free of the Harbinger and its burden.

The same thoughts they would’ve thought, generations past. The same thoughts they would want you to have—that drive to end the unspoken war between your family and the Harbinger.

Gods—not even the slight bout of sickness caused by creating Harming III would stop them from sinking into your mind and into your every action. 

Stressed eyes and brows permanently furrowed, hands rough and chest tight. Slamming doors, roughly pulling out the weeds that had accumulated in the greenhouse during your panic-induced quarantine from society. The back of your tongue coated in bitterness that would surely spit out vitriol had anyone come in your near vicinity. 

You could blame it on the fact that the Harbinger of the Apocalypse is in your near vicinity, just begging to put an axe through your neck. Or, you could blame it on the resentment building throughout your life—a life of trying your hardest not to look fate in the eyes and continue living. 

You could blame it on a lot of things.

Regardless of the reason, your head’s been thinking. Bad ideas, hasty judgements, and venom in your mind. Ugly thoughts that will end up turning you into an ugly person with ugly actions.

The anger is so tiring. You hate the rotten feeling in your chest just as much as you hate the Harbinger.

However, the fear is much worse. Much worse than the anger could ever be.

The fear is what keeps you constantly on edge, constantly on the tip of your toes, unable to bear the thought of leaving your cabin for a minute in fear that he might be outside. He lives near you—it’s a proper possibility now—fear no longer irrational.

Every night, you can’t help but stare at your enderchest from your bed, covers tucked tightly around you. You never actually open it, but the thought lingers.

You know what is inside. It hums to you like the twang of a broken guitar string, a haunted melody playing for your ears and your ears alone. A siren call you can’t help but flicker between wanting to follow and avoid.

With every day that ticks by, the weight on your mind gets heavier. Your eyes stick to the enderchest longer. The Harbinger is alive for another day.

And so are you.

Using the potion on the Harbinger means facing him in an openly hostile situation. It means attempting to defy fate, its true ending and risking the consequences—that being your death. The chances of you beating the odds? Not good.

You don’t want to die yet. Not yet, not now, not today.

So instead, you procrastinate.

Restoring the greenhouse from its dilapidated state, cutting weeds and fertilizing herbs, making potions for your stall until your hands ache from gripping your pestle and mortar. Wake up, avoid the enderchest in the corner of your room, and make more potions until you have an overstock. Potions of Leaping, Swiftness, Regeneration. Strength, Healing, Night Vision. Using up your ingredient stores until your chests are bare.

So many potions, lining every corner of your cabin. Too many.

Friday—selling day—comes faster than you’d like it to. And, despite your hesitation, you suit yourself up for a trip into New L’Manburg.

Your coat gets thrown over your shoulders first, the thick furred trim brushing your cheeks as you zip up and adjust. You stomp your boots into place with a click of your heel, throwing your satchel stuffed full of excess potions over your shoulder, the strap crossing your torso and allowing the bag to sit comfortably on your hip.

Taking that first step out of your cabin gets easier the more you take it. Walking the few meters from your greenhouse and back is adrenaline-inducing, but at least you can still make it. The fear hasn’t rendered you useless yet. 

Standing on your porch and allowing the billowing winds to tear your hair asunder before finally lifting your hood. The cold bites at your cheeks and nose until the sting numbs out into something manageable. 

You keep your eyes trained on the treeline, watching.

There’s nothing. No eyes peering at you from above, no glint of suspicious red hidden in the trees—absolutely nothing.

The fact that the Harbinger has been strangely absent since your second run-in is somehow more unnerving than if he were to actually show up at your house.

Traveling to your Nether Portal is another hurdle you must overcome. You haven’t gone since he first showed his face in New L’Manburg—and that same part of you that clings to anger also clings to the fear that maybe he’ll be there again, lying in wait to kill you.

You’re wholly aware of how the taiga forest—once safe in its tall conifers and pine woods—now looms over you in great shadows, casting darkness every which way as you trudge to the Portal. Your shoulders ache with the tension strung throughout your body, and no amount of fake confidence could stop your gaze from flickering to the gaps between the trees, looking for red eyes or tall figures.

The shake returns to your ungloved hands. You can’t tell if the shake is from the cold or if it’s from how tight your chest feels. 

Breathe—and listen. 

Listen.

Breathe out a harsh puff of air, watch it condense and fade away. The crunch-crunch-crunching of snow underfoot. The occasional rabbit darting through the underbrush, breaking sticks and tearing through the snow like there’s no tomorrow. Just yourself and the hibernating creatures of the snowy taiga.

The silence is really starting to get to you. The lack of action from the Harbinger is… confusing in the worst way possible. Waiting for the other foot to drop—waiting for him to confront you—It hasn’t happened. 

You’re not entirely sure it will happen at this point. And as much as you want to be paranoid about the Harbinger’s inaction, you suppose you shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.

It would be nice of the Universe to finally give you a break.

After enough walking through unbroken snow—the only sign of civilization being your own footsteps—your Nether Portal comes into view. The top of the border is lined with snow—a mix of mud and snowy sludge drapes the circumference around the Portal, melted slightly from the light reflected, as dim as it may be.

You toe the edge of the obsidian border, feeling the Portal pull you in ever so slightly. Your reflection blinks back at you, all inky purples and swirling like rippling water. Your languid, tired reflection. 

You shake it off and meet your reflection halfway, stepping into the warmth of the Nether.

Stepping into the Warped Forest is like taking a breath of fresh air after being deprived of oxygen. It washes down your lungs like ash, burning like holy water. The air of the Nether is thick with smog, but within the sanctity of the Warped Forest, the smog clears.

You follow the line of torches, shoulders stiff and knuckles white from where they grip the straps of your satchel. Keeping your eyes averted to the ground, wary of any stray endermen that might just be lurking around. Watching the ground change from lush cyan to stony red. 

Your vision blurs as you glance upwards, finding yourself skirting past a bastion long since pillaged, the remaining piglins left behind in the rubble. Semi-active—the survivors must be trying to restore the bastion back to its former glory. Not like that’ll work—some asshole will surely end up pillaging it once more. 

Guttural snorts and the sound of hooves clopping urge you to hurry and get out of their vicinity—you usually don’t bother with wearing gold for a trip like this.

Your eyes catch on the metallic armor of a larger piglin hidden within the bastion—a brute by the looks of it—patrolling between thick blackstone pillars. Its tusks reach far up its head, ivory that could easily gut you the same way a hoglin can.

The Harbinger came from one of them. 

Before you can spiral farther into the connections between the two, something slam into your leg, hitting against your boot and falling back onto the ground. Heart rate spiking at the shriek that resigns from the thing.

You nearly kick it on reflex before your eyes catch onto soft pink, the fluffiest fur you’ve ever seen.

Piglin—?

You stop, hackles raising high, watching the piglin rub its small head with a wounded snort, before looking up at you with too-big eyes. It drags itself up to its hooves, barely reaching the height of your knee.

Too small form, too big eyes—

Oh gods, this is someone’s baby.

Fuck—you’re not wearing gold—

Quickly glancing around for any adult piglins that might try to maul you. Stepping back, looking down at the thing to find, in horror, that it’s staring at you.

At least it isn’t crying. At least its eyes aren’t red.

You shake your head. Not every piglin is like the Harbinger. And this little guy?

Just a baby.

The little thing squints up at you, the lightest sounding snuffles moving its snout as it reaches for you. Like a toddler trying to get its mom to pick it up.

“I don’t have any gold, bud.” You shift away when it makes another questioning snuffle, the sound so sweet it pulls at your heartstrings. 

It looks up at you, overly fluffy with all the fur it has yet to grow into, a grumbly sort of snort leaving its snout. High-pitched and questioning, the smallest scuffle forward, leaning into your leg.

Too close.

You take a firm step back and shake your head, taking a risk and holding out your hands for it to see. 

Empty. Absolutely nothing in them.

“See? Not hiding any from you.”

An annoyed squeal slips out of the little piglin, quickly becoming disinterested in you. It runs off, scampering away—probably to go snitch on you to its parents for not wearing gold. Little blackmail babies.

You sigh and stand up straight, turning on your heel and resuming your path. It’s for the better. If you had managed to graze even a hair of its head— 

The last thing you want to see is how that little guy will die. Not as it stood before you in its innocence, in its youth. However, you do let the smallest smile slip onto your face from the interaction. 

It was very cute. You can hardly believe that the Harbinger came from that of all things. 

You think back to his pointed ears, placed in the same spot as a human’s ears would be. How, instead of a traditional piglin snout is an oddly shaped nose—upturned and scrunched inward, nostrils cutting upward. Small tusks that poke out of his mouth, pushing his jaw forward in an underbite. Smaller tusks than the piglins in the Nether.

Not a full piglin. Piglin-adjacent, at the very least.

The bastion is long behind you by the time you reach the Nether bridges. Your torches had filtered out long ago, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention to your route. You know the rest of the way to the Community Portal—the only obstacle you have left is to make it over the only bridge available.

The narrow Nether bridges are really your least favorite part about your commute to New L’Manburg. Couldn’t anybody invest a bit of time to make a proper bridge for the Nether? Must you always tightrope walk over the thinnest bridge imaginable, directly over a vat of steaming lava? 

You grumble to yourself as you make the last few steps to a more stable platform, shooting a scathing glare to the bridge and what lies underneath it.

The Portal is already in use by the time you make your way up the chipped blackstone steps, people coming to and fro. Not busy yet, but you don’t want to stick around and watch it get busy. 

The Portal wails as another person steps out, giving you a nod as they maneuver around you. Beside you, someone else steps in without hesitation, standing on the obsidian base for a second before their form is eaten by the Portal. 

You’re left standing in the middle, hesitating. If it were a busier time of day, you’d be an annoyance.

You take a breath of ashen air, glancing around one last time. No pink hair, no red eyes.

Safe.

Just like any other trip to New L’Manburg. Nothing waiting on the other side.

You leave the lie behind as you cross back into the Overworld.

Bright—so bright that your eyes water, pupils retracting from the lightness of the Overworld. The Nether is always such a horrible muted red, it makes crossing between the two dimensions hell on your eyesight. 

You’re forced to move through the dizziness when the Portal hisses behind you, quickly stepping to the side to avoid the incoming person trailblazing through. They step through, not even sparing a glance in your direction, and continuing to walk where you had just been standing, trying to reorient yourself. If you hadn’t moved, it’s likely that you would’ve seen the way they die before you could even catch a glance at their face.

A stressed sigh. Shake out your hands from their prickly nerves. 

The rest of the trip to L’Manburg is on autopilot. Stroll past the community center, hands tucked tightly into your coat pockets even as a sweat begins to prickle the back of your neck. Past Church Prime, the last notes of an organ ringing dimly through the multicolored glass windows. Up the stairs, past the mound of dirt that makes up somebody’s home—and to New L’Manburg.

You’re glad they got rid of that ugly wall. The paper-mache lights dotting the sky are pretty. They’ll look prettier at night, you’re sure. 

It’s a shame you’ll never get to see them that way.

You stop before the boundary to New L’Manburg and pause. The boundary where the obsidian wall had been and the dirt that lay underneath. Taking a moment to just... breathe.

Breathe in. Hold it. 

Last time you were here, you met the Harbinger for the first time. No, not the first time—the first time you knew he was actually the Harbinger. 

Last time you were here, you vowed to never come back. 

You better not regret this. 

You step into New L’Manburg and let the noise of the bustling city rush past you. Head down, eyes on your boots, skirting past the slowly forming mesh of people in the market. Fridays are infamously busy, hence why you always sell on Fridays.

The busyness is normal for a Friday, but today it just puts you on edge. More people means more chances for the Harbinger to show up among the crowd, finally ready to deliver your fate.

Maybe you should’ve brought a bottle of Harming III. Just in case.

It’s when you’re halfway over to your stall that you notice it. Pink hair in the corner of your vision.

You jolt back, heart flying into your throat. Head whipping in his direction, feeling Death practically grab you by the throat and rattle you around as you meet his bloody eyes. Bloody—bloody red—and flat—

His flat, red eyes. Flat and lifeless, just like the rest of his face, and the misplaced shine in his hair. 

Not his eyes. Not his hair.

You scuttle back a step or two, warily looking away from his eyes and down to his boots, only to have embarrassment shoot through your spine with the force of a rocket. 

The curled edges of wrinkled paper tear through his boots, messily pinned up by nails in each corner. Looking up, you find the same thing near the top of his crown—a poster. 

A fucking poster. You had nearly gotten a heart attack from a poster of all things.

Gods—

Embarrassment crawls up your face in the form of red-hot heat, sheepishly glancing around the marketplace to see if anyone had witnessed your fumble. 

To your relief, the people of New L’Manburg seemed to be oblivious to your plight, too absorbed in shopping their wares to care about the heat on your cheeks. If anyone had seen you flinch, they must’ve quickly moved on with their day. Either that, or it’s common for people to flinch at the sight of the Harbinger.

You glance up at the poster again, composing yourself. He’s wearing the outfit you had first seen him in, with the red cape, facing directly toward you—or where the camera—would’ve been. Mouth set in a tusked scowl, brows furrowed, scars decorating his face, crown set proudly on his raspberry head. Wholly and truly him.

Despite the knowledge that it’s just a photo of him, your heart still stutters against your ribcage upon meeting his eyes. Bloody, red and flat—but still his eyes.

Gods, you need to get a grip.

Before the question of why New L’Manburg would have a poster of the literal Harbinger hanging up in the town square can pass your mind, you quickly find your answer in the form of bolded text, placed just above Techno’s crown. 

WANTED: Dead or Alive

You step back from the poster, a chill sweeping down your back. In a smaller font underneath the monetary claim for his capture—one million gold coins, goddamn—is his name. Technoblade—his real name. Techno must be a nickname, then.

More importantly, why does the Harbinger have a wanted poster?? When did this happen?

This was not here last week—you surely would’ve noticed if it had been there. But the edges of the poster are curled and crumpled—how long has New L’Manburg had a wanted poster of the Harbinger?

They don’t know who he is, what he’s fated to do. But why else would they have a wanted poster of him?

You take another step back, almost backing up into the bustling crowd behind you. People brush by, visions flitting through your head, but all you can see is the blank red of his eyes on the poster.

Maybe he’s.. a criminal? 

If he’s a criminal, then it would make sense why he bothered with invisibility potions when visiting Phil. His initial wariness to you being in Phil’s house would also make more sense. If he knew he was wanted in New L’Manburg, then there would be motive to hide his identity.

A criminal, for reasons other than being the Harbinger of the Apocalypse. 

But why would Phil be friends with a criminal?

Reaching forward, brushing your fingertips against the lettering on the poster, tracing over the price on his head. One million coins. 

He’s got to be worse than a criminal to have a price that high on his head. 

He hasn’t even ended the world yet.

Your thumb mindlessly trails over the curve of his jaw, tracing ink up to the sketched out lines of his hair, curly and dark pink. Pink hair for a world-ending Harbinger. Pink hair for a criminal who hides behind a wall of shortly crafted invisibly, afraid of anyone who will recognize him.

Maybe that’s why he faced you with such wariness after you ran that first day. Maybe—maybe he doesn’t know who you are. Maybe he’s afraid that you’ll turn him in.

…it’s not a bad idea.

You could. You know where he lives. You can turn him in.

You can see it now—you could snitch to Quackity that you had spotted him in a village far north, completely by coincidence—that you ‘just happened’ to remember exactly where he wandered off to. Write up a map, mark down some coordinates, and let them do the rest. The smallest part of his death, blood far from your hands. 

No trace.

Then maybe you won’t have to see his eyes in the night anymore. Maybe you can finally, finally sleep through the night like a regular person. 

You blink up at his poster, reading his reward amount. The money would be nice, but not needed. Not if you turned him in.

You could. You could. 

Eyes trailing down to his face, finding your own hand on his cheek, pointer finger pressing into his left eye.

You rip your fingers away from the poster as if burned.

Too far.

You shake your head to rid it of those inky thoughts. Too risky. If you ratted him out, he’d know immediately that you were the one to snitch on him. It’s not worth the potential fallout—it could trigger his wrath and cause the end of the world.

You don’t like the way your head’s been thinking lately. In normal circumstances, you would never consider backstabbing someone like that. You aren’t like that. Even if he’s the Harbinger… it’s unjust.

You refuse to be unjust.

Wrenching your head away from the poster, hand tightening on your satchel, uprooting your feet from the floor and taking the first few steps to your stall. Shoving through the people who stood and gathered in the middle of the market for no reason, ignoring the premonitions that shoot through you of faces that you’ll forget by tomorrow. 

You push out of the slowly-forming crowd before it can suck you back in like a rip current, setting your satchel down onto the counter of your stall. Shuck off your coat and set it to the side. Fill up the displays with your wares, color-coded into a rainbow of potions.

You flip the sign decorating your stall from ‘closed’ to ‘open,’ taking a deep breath to prepare yourself for the oncoming rush.

Looking up, the first thing you see is that goddamn poster. His eyes blood red. Staring at you.  

Of course they had to set his wanted poster up directly across from your stall.

You puff out a sigh and scan the crowd for any familiar faces, ignoring the way your gaze wants to drift back to the poster. Ignore the dread in your chest at the possibility that the Harbinger could still be around, masked by a shitty invisibility potion. 

He could be watching you.

You glance over your shoulder, finding nothing but the dock and the water beneath it. Back over, you make eye contact with Poster-Technoblade, a shiver crawling up your spine.

You suppose he already is.

Your eyes are dragged away from the poster as someone—a customer, most likely—comes near, all cheery smiles and interested eyes. The dark thoughts are shoved away in favor of business.

For a while, you get lost in the push and pull of transactions. Let your pockets fill with coins, drain your potion supply, shoo away the customers that bitch at you because of the prices—the works. Where one transaction ends, another starts—there’s no end to it. No time in between customers to glance at the poster. No time to worry about the future.

Busy, busy, busy.

Drown yourself in the routine. 

You breathe out a sigh of relief as the last of the morning rush disappears, quietly preparing yourself for the afternoon rush. New potions out for display, exchanging change, and taking stock. 

The sun is high in the sky, making the golden coins shine brightly. Stuffing them back into the drawer, you glance up at the marketplace, eyes catching on a familiar figure. Familiarly tall, hunched and spindly figure, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the people who lingered between rushes.

His green and maroon eyes land on you, and you can’t help the smile that comes to your face.

You’re the one to call out to him, waving a hand above your head—an obvious motion to get the socially awkward boy to come over to your stall. 

It works as expected. The more you wave and make a fool of yourself, the faster Ranboo rushes to your stall, cheeks flamed with embarrassment, one side red, the other bright green. He pushes through the crowd in no time, head ducked as if trying to hide his comically tall figure. 

You have to smother a grin as he approaches, eye green eye twitching. He presses his hands against the counter, looming over you.

“Do you have to do that every time?” He hisses, fingernails digging into your counter. “You don’t need to publicly humiliate me just to get my attention.”

“Yes, I do.” You stay rooted in place, looking up at the enderman hybrid—someone you’ve become grudgingly endeared to, despite the condition of the world. “When I don’t, you always assume I’m waving to someone else.”

The embarrassed grumble that comes out of the kid has a fond smile pulling at your lips.

It’s hard not to get attached to Ranboo.

Gods, you never want to find out how Ranboo will die. Fortunately for you, he’s just as touch averse as you are, so there won’t ever be a reason to come into contact with him. However, the knowledge that they will die is enough to keep you on edge, never wanting to get too close.

Not too close, not too far. It’s never enough.

“You mentioned a few weeks ago that you wanted some slow-falling.” Pulling the potion out of the chest by the neck, letting it taste the air of freedom before catching it with your other hand, you slide the milky-colored concoction over to the teen. “Luckily for you, I pulled a few all-nighters last week. Managed to snag a few phantom membranes.”

“Oh, awesome!” He takes it from you as soon as your hand is away from the glass, stars in his eyes as he awes over the potion. “This’ll help me out a lot, thanks!”

“That’ll be..—uh, is fifteen emeralds alright with you?”

“Uhm, yeah!” Ranboo sets the slow-falling potion back on the counter, body nearly folding in half as he begins to rustle through his bag. “Lemme just—”

“Take your time, bud.”

You should probably charge more for the emotional distress that came out of pulling multiple all-nighters (by accident or not), but this is Ranboo. New L’Manburg’s pageboy. A job you’re sure should be reserved for someone older than they are—but they seem happy with it. A bit stressed, but happy.

“So.” You say to the pageboy, tossing him a casual smile as he gathers his change. “Tommy hasn’t come around to steal my shit in a while—how’s he doing?”

Ranboo does a full body flinch at your question, as if his scarily tall skeleton was just begging to jump out of his skin. Heterochromatic eyes going wide, a twitch running through his fingers. Avoidant, leaning away from you as if you might scold him at any second.

This brings a frown to your face. Ranboo has always been jumpy, yes—but he's never flinched at something like this before. Not to your knowledge, at least.

“Ranboo?” You prompt gently, watching his eyes flicker to you for just a moment. Only a moment before they flicker away again. “You good, bud?”

You watch them shake their head, back stiff and hunched. Nervous. 

“Oh, yes, uhm. What—what were you saying?”

You raise an eyebrow. “I was asking how Tommy is.”

“Oh.” He visually buffers, cringing into himself with a wince. Not a good sign. “He’s—well, I don’t really know how well he’s doing—I visited him yesterday, but I think—I think he was fine?”

“You think he was fine?”

“I mean, I forgot to write in my book.” Ranboo mutters in obvious disappointment, bringing out said book from his front pocket to flip to the nearest blank page. “I can—I can write a reminder to ask him how he’s doing for you?”

You raise an eyebrow at the kid. “Or… he could just visit the shop? He hasn’t ever gone this long without yoinking something from me.”

Ranboo lets out a strangled laugh, head tilting away from your direction. Not an answer.

Strange. 

You should be happy Tommy hasn’t been around to terrorize you and your shop. You remember the times he’d frequently stalk your stall for no apparent reason other than to be a nuisance and cause problems, saying outlandish things and chasing away all of your buyers. Hopping over the counter, making himself at home within all your wares, tipping over potions and swiping whatever he could in broad daylight.

Most days you chased him off. Grabbed a broom and swatted at his ankles, ignoring his loud squawks and cusses that would make even a sailor blush. Pretend not to notice when he grabbed something extra from your stall.

Tommy was annoying. Annoying, but not a bad kid, despite his thieving habits. Hence why you turned a blind eye whenever he stuffed a healing or regen pot from your wares into his pockets, barely hidden. If he needs a regen pot, then he needs a regen pot. You can always make more.

It’s only been a few weeks since you’ve last seen him—back when that oppressive obsidian wall was raised high, and tension was wrought throughout the city for no apparent reason. He was all nervous smiles and anxiety, shoulders hiked up to his ears and voice blabbering a mile a minute. As if he could defuse the tension in the air if he just talked over it.

He didn’t steal anything from you that day. Only looked around your shop with guilty eyes, sat down on one of your chests, and watched you go about your day. Commented only a little on certain customers’ outfit choices, hairstyles, names. Much less than he normally did.

It worried you that you hadn’t seen him since that day.

“Ranboo,” You ask, voice small. “Where is he?”

Ranboo completely freezes. Stiffening like a plank of wood caught in the sea, barely afloat. 

“He’s—uh.” A nervous laugh, wringing his hands together before clasping them. “He’s—I don’t know the exact coordinates, really, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you where— and I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to be telling you all this—”

“Ranboo, what??”

“You know what?” A hurried smile stretches over his heterochromatic face as he grabs the potion he paid for, scooting back a step or two. “I’m going to go ask Tubbo and then I’ll get back to you on that! Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Yup, okay, awesome.”

“What the hell—” You watch the teen tuck the potion into his jacket, a sense of wrongness stirring in your gut. “Ranboo, hold on a second—”

But he’s already tripping over himself to get away, that grin sticking to his face ever so jollily. Motions frantic, almost fearful.

Escaping.

“Next week! I’ll get back to you on that, just you wait!”

You watch Ranboo scamper off into the safety of the crowd, thoroughly frazzled. 

What the hell.

You drop your hands onto the countertop with a weary sigh, watching the teen disappear as quickly as he came. So, so confused with the bizarre interaction you just witnessed.

People have been so weird lately. 

You go to open the register and sort out the change from the most recent transaction, only to pause, freezing in place. Looking up, you find the counter empty—both of the slow-falling potion you sold Ranboo and of his payment.

Ranboo forgot to pay you.

You sigh out your frustration, looking up to the cloud-covered sky for guidance. After all of that—

Whatever. You’ll put it on his tab—the one with all the other times he forgot to pay you.

The stress is probably making his memory issues worse. Poor kid. New L’Manburg seems to have an issue with putting teens in stressful positions. First Tubbo, then Ranboo, and—

Tommy. You never got an answer from Ranboo about where Tommy went.

For some reason, the thought of Tommy’s whereabouts opens a pit of anxiety in your stomach, eating through your intestines. But then you catch the red of Poster-Technoblade’s eyes and remind yourself that there are bigger things to worry about. 

You click your tongue and resume your work, ignoring the sudden looming dread crawling over you.

Same old, familiar dread. It’s what fills your lungs with every premonition, with every day you wake up and see the sun rise again. With every day closer to the end of the world. Intense, sharp dread.

And as a line for your wares begins to form, you can’t help but look past the people and towards Technoblade’s wanted poster, brows furrowing into a glare. Angry, fueled by dread. 

Your circumstances are unjust. 

Gods, you wish you had brought even just a drop of Harming III. Enough to feel secure in yourself. Enough to defend yourself against the dread.

Even as you work through the line forming, bartering out prices and sorting through cash, the thought remains in the back of your head. 

Your choice, your move. To stay idle and wait, or to get ahead and use the death potion as your ancestors had always intended you to do. To lament your fate or to finally pick up your feet and do something about it. 

For the world, or for your peace of mind. 

You’re getting restless just waiting for the other foot to drop. So restless with the dark thoughts poking at your brain.

The register dings, customers move on, your stock begins to empty. 

Those thoughts are for later.

You have work to do.

Flipping the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed,’ you shoo the last straggling customer away. The sun is long past its peak, slowly creeping towards the horizon.

Finally done. You didn’t sell out of everything today—but that’s okay. You brewed extra anyway.

Time to leave before it gets dark.

You shift back on your heels, arching your back and stretching your arms up to the sky, feeling the muscles pull, trying to escape your skin. A breath in to really feel the stretch—and release. The pain in your feet has since dulled from its sharp pains during the afternoon rush, but the spike of pain that shoots up your hip as you bend to collect your remaining wares is as sharp as knives.

End of the world or not, you need to get to bed.

But, you always forget—the Universe has it out for you.

“Hey, mate!”

Biting your lip and flexing your hands out of frustration, you turn back to your stall, finding a certain bucket-hatted individual standing there, all calm smiles and kindness. So kind—everything good about humanity wrapped up in a single human being.

Too kind—because when he notices your far-off stare and your slumped shoulders, he pauses, finally looking down at the ‘closed’ sign you have propped up against the counter, blue eyes unsurely flicking up to meet yours. 

“Am I too late again?”

You sigh and tip the sign over, letting it lay flat against the counter. “Just in time, actually.”

Phil practically melts, beaming at you. “Aw, mate—you don’t have to—”

“Sh, sh, sh-!” Waving a hand in his direction, you’re already turning to sort through the potions left over, glass clinking gently against each other as you move them. “It’s alright, Phil, what do you need?”

Phil’s voice is slightly muffled as you’re turned away from him. “Harming, if you have it.”

“Harming-?” You stop in your tracks, turning to squint at Phil. “Phil— you of all people know that I don’t sell any potions like that—”

“A healing one, then. I’ll corrupt it on my own.” Phil insists, waving his hand at you. “One of Techno’s mobs escaped recently and went down to half health, a potion of harming should heal it right up.”

Techno, again. Why does everything have circle back to Technoblade?

“Mobs?”

“Yah—he’s got some of those super rare ones.” Phil adjusts the bucket hat on his head, shielding his eyes from the sun. They squint happily at you, clear sunny blues. “Y’know, the ones with the pumpkins?”

“Ah.” You have no idea what he’s talking about. “Interesting.”

“Yeup. So, harming potion.”

With a sigh, you fish out a potion of healing, one of the last in your stock. Slamming the chest closed one last time, twirling around to place the potion onto the counter where Phil can reach it.

“That’ll be ten.”

“No discount?”

You laugh as he drops the change onto the counter, immediately going to scoop them up. “Why would you get a discount?”

“Friends and family discount?”

Friends and family. 

You don’t really feel like either sometimes.

“Friends and family discount? I think I’ll charge you extra for that one.”

Phil cackles at you, eyes squinting in amusement as he takes his potion, holding it up to the light to examine it. After a moment, he tucks it into his inventory, grinning.

“It’s perfect. Thanks, mate.”

You hum in acknowledgement, glancing sideways at him when he has yet to leave your stall, despite it being closed. 

Phil’s smile somehow grows wider at your unimpressed stare, rocking back and forth on his heels. Waiting.

You sigh. “Here to make sure I don’t run again?”

“What else would I be doing?” 

He cackles as you slip around the counter, your satchel of leftover potions slung over your shoulder. He follows you step for step, leading you away from your stall and past Technoblade’s poster. Too close for you to be able to slip away.

Tea-time with Phil is mandatory on his request. And—you owe him.

You tap the lingering dirt off your boots before entering his home, stretching away the ache of the day. Phil files in behind you, doing the same to his own footwear.

“Have a seat, any seat.” Phil brushes past you, and you can barely stop yourself from jolting at the bloody images you see as he walks by. “Techno’s not coming today, so you’re all good.”

“Right.” You mutter as you get your wits about you, feeling the warmth of embarrassment crawl up your neck. 

Last time you were here, you ran out like a coward. 

Phil is going to want answers for that.

You pull out a chair from the table, hearing the clinking of pots and kettles as Phil searches for his teapot. You’re only milliseconds from throwing yourself into the chair and resting your aching feet when your eyes catch a black, furry bundle in the middle of the table.

It only dawns on you when the bundle blinks, clicking its beak.

A crow. Sat on the middle of the table like a centerpiece.

It blinks its beady eyes up at you, and you blink back in bewilderment.

You know Phil lets random crows inside his house. They gift him things after all. You wouldn’t really have a problem with it if the mere presence of the crow didn’t send shivers up and down your spine.

You don’t really like crows. Y’know—being symbols of death and all. They like to hang around Phil for god-knows-what reason. It’s wrong to categorize an entire species based on meanings that humans gave them, but—

It clicks its beak at you, head tilting and feathers ruffling. Eyes shining with intelligence. 

—they’re too aware to be normal birds. 

“Phil.” 

He hums back at you in question, fiddling with the settings on the oven. The kettle has already begun to let off a bit of steam, a light flame flickering underneath.

“There’s a crow on your table.”

“A crow—fuck, I missed one.” Phil’s bucket hat nearly flies off his head with how fast he turns, immediately stepping over to the table. Hand coming out and snatching the bird up like it’s nothing. 

Wailing is the only word you can describe what comes out of the crow, squirming and writhing in Phil’s grip, cawing out nonsensical noises as he steps to the window above the sink. You take your chance to sit down, hands coming up to rest on the table and watch the rest of the show.

“No—no, I told you guys. Tea-time is supposed to be private, I don’t want you gossiping with the lot of them.” Despite the annoyance in his tone, he handles the crow with care, sliding open the window and setting it on the windowsill. 

It caws something back at him, something that has Phil squinting down at it in annoyance.

“You’re not special, Brian. Shoo.” 

With that, Phil shuts the window, leaving the bird on the other side. It immediately shrieks and slams itself into the glass with anger, cawing out things that makes Phil roll his eyes and turn back to the crow, waving his hand at it in a shooing motion.

With one last croak, it hops off the windowsill and soars away.

You huff. “Jesus.”

“I’ve spoiled them.” Phil comments with a wrinkled lip, shaking his head. “They barely listen to me anymore.”

“They’re animals Phil, not exactly domesticated.”

“Yes, but they’re smart.” Any other words he says gets caught off by the sudden whistling of the kettle, steam shooting into the air like a rocket. 

Phil clicks his tongue and takes the kettle off of the oven, opening the lid to let a plume of steam out. It wafts through the room immediately, tickling your nose and watering your eyes.

The room smells like lavender.

“You never did tell me what happened last time.”

You look up from where your fingernails are subconsciously creating grooves in the wooden table, quickly retracting your hands to stall any further damage. “Hm?”

“With Techno.” He clarifies, carefully handling two mugs filled to the brim with lavender tea. “You ran away pretty quickly after he showed up—I was wondering why.”

You can’t tell him the real reason. 

Even if Phil is the most likely person to believe you—he talks to crows after all, he’s definitely insane enough to believe in bullshit prophecies—Technoblade is his friend. He wouldn’t want to believe you because Technoblade has already convinced him to his side.

Some other reason. You gotta come up with some other reason for your behavior that day—maybe you could say that you remembered you accidentally left the stove on at home..?

Phil sits in the chair across from you, eyes curious and observant. “What got you so spooked?” He asks as he presses the tea into your hands.

“It’s… ah.” You stutter, mind barreling over itself in an attempt to find an excuse. “It’s embarrassing, ‘s all.”

Phil raises a brow at you, interest suddenly glittering in his eyes. 

Not the reaction you were looking for.

“Embarrassing?” Phil is listening now, eyebrows raised and chin in hand. “How so?”

Oh gods.

“Uh, he was—I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting him to be invisible and all that.” You wave a hand at him flippantly, not liking the way Phil’s face scrunches with mischief. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“I told you he was coming. And you didn’t seem to have a problem with him before his invis wore off.” He points out, taking the very first sip of his tea, still hot and steaming.

“I was just surprised.” You decide to stir your tea to try and cool it down, lavender wafting up in thick plumes of steam. “You know I’m not good around people.”

“I know, mate—trust me, I know.” He points his spoon at you, eyes squinted, mouth stretching into a grin. “But I saw the way you looked at him, and I swear—”

This is worse than anything you could have said to him.

“Phil—” You try and stop him, but he just barrels over you—

“—and I’ve never seen you look at anyone else like that—and listen, I know sometimes emotions are powerful enough to make you want to run—”

“Oh my gods, Phil—”

“—but you shouldn’t run just because you’re flustered by him. He isn’t one to chase—if you want to get close to him, you’ll have to stick around—”

“PHIL!”

Finally, he pauses, that stupid grin still stubbornly on his face. Eyes knowing and mischievous, like he’s got you all figured out.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

“Phil, for the love of the gods, you’ve got it all wrong. He’s got a wanted poster, for crying out loud.” You shake your head, mortification flowing through you. “I could never—”

Phil’s face drops then, something dark squirming its way onto his face.

“Mate… you don’t actually believe the propaganda, do you?” 

Finally—a chance for you to speak.

“I don’t know him, Phil.” Your brow furrows as you speak, voice wavering in your chest. “All I know about him is that he’s wanted, dead or alive, for a million coins—and that he’s your friend.” Seeing Phil stunned by your words, you continue. “What could he possibly have done to become public enemy number one to New L’Manburg?”

The older man quickly shakes off his shock, frustration blooming on his face. He clicks his tongue with annoyance. “They’re slandering him, that’s what they’re doing.”

“Slander is only slander if he doesn’t deserve the million coin target on his head.” You raise an eyebrow at the elder man, watching his stare become strangely blank for a second—but only a second. “What’d he do to get that amount on his ass?”

Phil chitters out a laugh, waving you off with one hand. “You know how humans are—scared of things they don’t understand. He’s from the Nether, and humans only ever have bad experiences from the Nether.”

You can practically see the sweat roll down Phil’s neck. He’s avoiding the question.

“I don’t think him being Piglin-borne would warrant a reward of one million L’Manburgian coins. Do you even know how much that’s worth in emeralds??” You cross your arms and stare him down. “A lot, Phil. A fucking lot.”

“Still not enough to buy a fuckin’ house—”

“You already have a house.”

“Hah—” Phil’s eyes flit away from you, sardonic grin straining. “The L’Manburg housing market isn’t fucking cheap, mate—”

You cut him off. Firmly.

“Phil.” 

Stop. Avoiding.

Phil finally looks back at you, shoulders relaxed and face straight—serious, but not severe. “Why do you want to know, mate?”

Want. As if you’re trying to fish for gossip, for petty little entertainment that doesn’t concern you. As if you’re not involved.

It is not a want. You need to know. His fate is irrevocably tied with yours whether you want it to be or not—this affects you personally. Not just petty gossip or rumors. 

The Harbinger has had an entire history before you, one you haven’t paid much attention to now. An entire life of what will lead to the end of the world—you need to know what he did wrong. You need to know how brutal he can be. How terrible his crimes are. 

Then maybe, the hatred boiling inside you can be justified.

“So I can keep myself safe.” Is what you say instead of the dark plans floating around in your head.

Phil’s brows crease in sympathy at your words. You hate how that makes you more irritated than before.

“Tech’s safe, mate, trust me.” He lays a hand down on the table next to his mug, palm open and inviting. A gesture, a promise, a gift of comfort wrapped up in a single open palm. “He won’t do anything to hurt you, especially now that he’s seen you with me.”

You really, really doubt that. 

You leave his hand lying open on the table. Staring down at the slowly draining lavender, watching your reflection ripple inside the confines of the mug. Phil continues on without a care for your blank expression.

“But, you know—legally in L’Manburg, he is considered a war criminal.”

You stop short.

“War criminal?”

Phil’s eyes dart away from you. “Technically speaking.”

“Uhm.” Eyes wide, blinking several times to digest the information Phil dropped on you like it was nothing. “Explain? Please? Why the hell are you friends with a war criminal??”

“Friends with him before he was a war criminal.” Phil corrects, like that’s supposed to matter to you. “He’s—it’s a lot more complicated than what you’re thinking, mate.”

“Then explain it to me.” Your jaw grits tightly, metaphorical walls drawing up high, blocking any ounce of fear that wants to leak into your expression.

“It’s not really my story to tell—” He shifts in his seat, taking a sideways glance down to his own wings—one full of dark plumage, the other shredded to bone. Eyes still in their painful neutrality. “It’s messy—super messy.”

You see it in the conflict flickering in his eyes, fought by the calm neutrality he’s always shown to you. The way his eyes slowly drag away from his burnt wing, brows heavy, face lined with stress. Signs that you probably shouldn’t push.

And normally, you wouldn’t. Not when Phil is giving you such obvious signs of emotion that he usually holds back around you. You know never to ask about his wings, to never ask about his past—the days before he met you.

Not today. Today, you push him.

You have the fate of the world resting on your shoulders. Your shoulders. Not Phil’s.

Phil can have his own ghosts, his own grievances to deal with—but not now.

Heart pounding quickly against your ribcage, about to burst right through. You’re on the edge of a cliff, waiting for that last push to force you into action. 

You need to know what the Harbinger did.

And when Phil sees your expression set hard as stone, not a single flicker telling him that you planned on backing off, he sighs. Drags a hand down his face. Wipes the grief, the irritation, the regret away. Looks up at you again.

Complete neutrality. Regular ol’ Phil.

“He was part of the L’Manburg Revolution—I think it was called ‘Pogtopia?’” You watch him bring his cup up to his mouth. Despite his forcibly relaxed demeanor, his wings hiked up to his ears. “You’ve heard about the Manburg-Pogtopia war, right mate?”

“Who hasn’t?” You take a sip of lavender right after Phil—cold, bitter-tasting, nauseous lavender—and nod back at him. “His war crimes are from that war, then?”

If so, then that wouldn’t be so bad. 

From what you’ve heard, Manburg was a corrupt time for the developing nation, ruled by a power-hungry drunk that suppressed anyone who tried to speak up. Taxing the poor and embezzling funds for the rich, letting the city fall apart from its former glory. Pogtopia was the rebellion created underneath the corruption, seeping through the cracks until enough citizens joined their side.

The Harbinger was on the good side of that war. Surprisingly. The winning side—not-so suprisingly.

However, Phil cringes. 

“No, no—directly after. Literally five minutes after the war ended.”

“After the war ended—” You think back on the bit of history you’ve heard since moving in close proximity to New L’Manburg, and all you can remember is the obvious crater lying beneath your feet. The reason New L’Manburg is a coastal town. “You mean—the traitor to Pogtopia? I thought the former president was the one who tripped the TNT.”

Phil sighs. “He did most of the damage, yes.” A deep breath through his nose, a sip of lavender to drain his cup. “Techno’s withers only contributed about fifteen percent of the damage to the land.”

What-? WITHERS??

You hadn’t been aware that withers were spawned during that final battle—you thought it was just the explosions. The explosions and the aftermath. But Phil just said—

Fuck.

The Harbinger had managed to summon withers. 

A chill crawls down your spine at just the thought. Beings that had once been rumored to be mythical, died out, extinct—summoned back to life with the placement of some sand and skulls. Mass destruction left in their wake.

That had to have been an earth-shattering event. To go from winning a war to losing what you fought for in minutes. TNT and withers. Two lost allies.

Because if Phil’s story is adding up the way it should be—then the fallen leader wasn’t the only one who betrayed Pogtopia. Techno betrayed Pogtopia as well. 

“Two traitors.” You whisper, heart sinking into your stomach.

“No, one traitor.” Phil brings his cup up to his lips for one final sip, lips curling downwards when he realizes his cup is empty. “Could you pass the tea?”

Your lip curls in confusion. “One traitor?”

“Yah—c’mon, mate, pass the tea—” 

The elderly toddler makes grabby hands at you until you comply with an irritated huff, filling it until it nearly spills over. Phil takes a sip, steam wafting in front of his face, nearly concealing his expression, before continuing on.

“I can’t exactly tell you why he did what he did without violating his privacy, so you should probably ask him instead.” He eyes you cheekily from over the rim of his cup, the edges of his lips perked into a grin. “Which would be helpful, seeing as you clearly want to get to know him better”

Oh, for the love of the gods—

“Phil, please.”

Phil cackles then, the conversation taking a lighter turn. “What? I saw the way you looked at him. The way you ran afterwards. Embarrassing, huh?”

You blink stupidly at him for a moment, disbelief raising your eyebrows to your hairline.

There’s no way Phil misinterpreted the situation that badly. 

“Do you need glasses, Phil?” You ask him sarcastically at first, then genuinely after you think about it for a second. He is kinda old—maybe he genuinely mistook your fear and horror for being enamored with his friend. 

Old people do that sometimes. Pry into things that don’t bother them. Like romance between their younger friends.

That’s definitely not what’s happening here, though.

“My eyes are perfectly fine.” Phil squints at you, almost as if to contradict himself. “You’re the one missing out on this opportunity. Romantic or not, I think Techno could be a good friend to you.” He takes an obnoxiously loud slurp of his tea before tacking on a small—“You’re lonely.”

“You could stand to be less cringe, Phil.” You bite back at him through disbelief. “I am not lonely.”

Phil’s eyes squint you down accusingly. “I haven’t seen you around anyone other than me.”

You frown at him. You want to keep poking around for answers about the Harbinger, about the withers, about the Manburg-Pogtopia war—but it might be best to give it a rest for now. You know enough. 

Gods, you know more than enough.

“There’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely.” You scoff, looking past him and out to the window. The sun is just starting to set, casting a warm glow through the kitchen and onto your face. “Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely. At all.”

“That’s fair. You’re fine being alone right now.” He stirs his spoon within his cup, looking at you knowingly. “But are you content with being alone forever?”

No such thing as forever.

“I think I am.” You respond quietly.

Phil’s lips thin, a clear sign that he doesn’t agree. Fortunately for you, the old man only sighs, relenting.

“As long as you’re happy, mate.”

You hum, thankful he dropped the subject. 

Quietly you rise to your feet, gathering your half-full cup in your hands, and step back from the table. You shoot Phil a grin as you back away, slowly but surely crossing the floorboards to the sink.

Phil only smiles at your nonverbal cue, glancing over to the window to see the sunset. “Time to go, huh?”

“Well, it is getting a bit late.” You set your mug in the sink, dumping the contents and running the water. “I’m sure your bedtime is getting close, old man.”

You hide a grin when Phil squawks like the bird he is.

“I’m not fuckin’—Is this revenge for all my teasing earlier-?”

“You tell me.”

Phil joins you at the sink a moment later, his own cup held in both his hands, wings dragging lazily along the ground. He clicks his tongue at you shoving you aside so that he can take care of your cup instead. 

Too kind.

“Pruney bitch.” You mutter as you turn away, going for your boots instead.

“I heard that—” The sound of the faucet squeaking, the absence of rushing water. Padded footsteps following your steps as you crouch down, methodically tying your boots.

Glancing up, you see Phil standing above you, his smile soft on his face. Soft as jelly, blue eyes disgustingly fond.

“You two really are similar.”

The soft atmosphere is shattered within seconds.

The rush of acid in your throat is painful from those words. Because you know who he’s referring to.

You rise to your feet, taking a step back from Phil, the previous smile on your face wiped away in an instant.

“Please don’t say that.” 

You’re nothing like him.

You may be a coward, pathetic and everything miserable about the world, but at the very least, you are not him. You may be the biggest disappointment in generational history—you may not be the hero the world needs—but you aren’t the man fated to bring the world to its knees.

It’s the only thing you have going for you.

Phil’s face is no less fond of your proclamation, but sadness is written so thoroughly through the wrinkles in his skin that you know you hurt him with that one. It has to hurt him at least a little bit—that despite all his teasing, you, his friend, and Technoblade, his other friend, will never get along.

You can’t bring yourself to care right now.

The sadness is gone as soon as it comes, and Phil pats you on the shoulder before you leave.

“Have a good night, mate.”

“Goodnight, Phil.”

And as the door shuts behind you, you come to the conclusion, the answer you’ve been searching for since you first saw him—

You need to kill the Harbinger.

The walk home is quiet. The sky begins to darken, people ducking back into their houses before nightfall comes. Not too long before the stars will show themselves. You’ll make it home before then. You always do.

Head numb, eyes down, drifting past the few people that stick around for the sunrise to end. Fingers twitching at bloody premonitions. Brushing them off like water. They fuel the inky thoughts in your brain. Drowning in them.

You’re full-on swaying by the time you trudge to the community Nether Portal, drunk on bloody images and death, death, death. His face on that wanted poster, jawline covered in darkened blood—his, his, his, his—

One blurry blink and you’re suddenly mid-step on the middle of a thin cobblestone bridge, drooping above thick bubbling lava. The warmth of the Nether assaults you all at once as you try to reorient yourself—try not to tip over and fall into the lava—dizzy, breathing in thick ash—

You fall back into the ink. 

Deep breath in, another blurry blink, and a cold gust of wind slaps you across the face. The buzzing of the Portal slipping off your frame, your coat unzipped and sliding down your shoulders.

With a shiver, you zip it back up and tip the hood over your head, teeth gritting and hands digging into the pockets.

Home. The cabin. 

It’s there.

You need to kill him. You need to at least try. If you don’t try, if you let this opportunity pass you by, then you’ll be nothing but a failure. Not a savior to the world, but the bystander who looked away. The bystander that ignored instead of helping. 

Kicking at snow flurries, hearing the discordant crunch-crunch-crunch of packed snow beneath your feet. You hone in on the cabin peeking out between the trees and pick up your pace.

The potions. The spiders eyes. 

You need gunpowder for splash potions. You can wait for him at the village. Drop it on him when he passes by, ignore the collateral damage—

No, no—too far. You don’t want to kill anyone else but the Harbinger. Maybe you can skip the splash potion and… poison his food? Make him a gift basket—you’re neighbors after all, it’s the neighborly thing to do—and mix Harming III in with some freshly baked cookies. The only issue with that is that you can’t guarantee that he’ll actually eat the cookies—or whatever you make him. He could just decide to throw them away.

Stomping up the steps, you throw open the door with a little bit too much force, sending it careening into the opposite wall with a loud thunk of wood against wood. You ignore it and kick it closed, not bothering to chuck off your snow-covered boots before continuing to your room. 

Snow gets dragged along your carpet, but that’s a grievance for later.

Your mind whirs with what you learned from Phil, about the wanted poster and the crater lying underneath New L’Maburg. About the fact that the guy who betrayed his own side and spawned withers on L’Manburg will cause the end of the world.

Which came first, the withers or the explosions? 

He deserves it either way, Phil’s friend or not.

Phil should get better friends.

Romping through your cabin, swinging open the door to your room, kicking snow everywhere. Your vision blurs and hones in on the enderchest pressed against your wall, immediately making a beeline for it—

You slow to a stop. Enderchest directly in front of you, pressed to the wall. Hands shaking, eyes wide and dark. Because you swear you’re being watched. Watched by ancient eyes of generations past—they’ve been waiting for this moment. 

You know better than to fool yourself into thinking that they’re actually watching over you, waiting to see you trip and fail. They’re dead and gone, old age and tragedy catching up to them. Untied by blood, hatred, and visions of the future. Harming III is their creation, and you will be the first to use it.

They aren’t here. They aren’t here, and yet you still feel them.

Their eyes bore into you as you thumb the edge of the chest. Prodding you forward, generations past drifting close and crowding you. Pressure rising, sweat beading on the back of your neck, room darkening.

It’s all you can see—not the chest, not the whispers, or the eyes—but the potions inside. They burn your retinas and sink into your conscious like an unrelenting sin, tempting and burning all at once.

A hand placed on your shoulder, skeletal fingers digging in sharply. A frigid breath fanning across the shell of your ear—

“For the good of the world.”

…

..

That’s right.

Technoblade is a bad person. He hurt people—has hurt people and will continue to hurt people if you don’t act. 

He knows how to summon withers. That alone won’t be the end of the world, but it's the smallest, rotten bit of him that will affect the end of the world. The smallest part of his power is the fact that he has summoned withers.

He will do worse. It won’t just be L’Manburg next time. 

You’d be to blame. It’ll be your fault. 

His fault that you can’t live a normal life. Your fault if the world ends.

Squaring your shoulders, you grip the edges of the enderchest, pulling against obsidian until the first bit of light shines through the opening.

And with no one to stop you, you open Pandora’s Box.