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The water sloshed around him as he boated, oars being pushed with hands that’s caused too much blood and wreckage.
Spoke neared the familiar village, carefully exiting the boat as he greeted his friends with a half-forced, half-genuine smile. “Hey, guys!”
“Yo!” Becky called.
“Welcome back!” his friend said. “It’s been a while.”
He let out a content laugh. “Hey, I got some gifts for you guys. Got some new stuff.” He pulled out a shulker, as blue as a cornflower, and placed it down on the grass in front of him.
“Oh my god, thank you.”
“Yeah. Becky, what’ve you been building?”
“Just this.” Becky guided him to a nearby house, one built with cobblestone and oak wood.
Spoke remembered that house.
~
The skies had been blue, bluer than he’d seen in a while.
A slight wind blew past him as neared his target iMajesticRose’s house, invis particles dancing around him. His armor was still clad in dust from making the trap.
Rose was monologuing to herself, talking about her build’s design. She had pastel pink hair that followed the wind, and the only armor piece protecting her was a single iron helmet.
How could a player like this be a threat to a group as large as the Mafia?
It’s alright. I’ll just—have to go in and attack her, right now.
But before he could even move a muscle, he heard a second voice drifting towards them.
“Rose, Rose!” the newcomer called. Spoke’s heart dropped and unequipped his armor. There was a second player, nametag reading BeckyTronVIII. “I got you the cobblestone you asked for!”
“Becky?” Rose responded.
“I’m coming back,” Becky responded. He sounded younger than most of the players he’s encountered, with a voice as familiar as the wind, He couldn’t remember from where, though. Maybe they had crossed paths before, near the start of the server.
But if that was so, how did he still only have iron armor?
“I just got out of the forest, sorry,” BeckTron continued. Where are you?
“I’m here, on the roof.”
“How did you get on the roof?”
“I pillared up with some spare dirt,” Rose explained. “But do you like what I did with the place?” She started explaining what she changed and added, but Spoke’s mind was elsewhere.
Are you kidding me?
Don’t see my particles, don’t see my particles, don’t see my particles.
They both sound so familiar—Rose too.
“You might want to get rid of this dirt block,” Becky said.
“No, I need that to pillar up to the roof. But do you like what I did with the inside? I mean, I added some beds.”
Spoke peeked in through the window and was met with a pink, blue, and green bed.
Is that a third bed? Why are there three beds?
“I’m so hungry,” Rose said. “Do you have food?”
“I told you there was some food in the furnace,” Becky responded. “Porkchops.”
They’re just playing Minecraft, what do they—this doesn’t make sense.
He continued to listen, dread piling more and more on each other as Rose and Becky’s conversation continued. They weren’t doing anything wrong, they weren’t talking about anything terrible, they were just doing normal Minecraft things.
Dude, they just have like a little farm, why does Ash want them dead, this—this doesn’t make sense.
Do I actually have to kill her?
“Hey, since you have more food now, will you go back to the mines and get some more iron for me? I want to make some more lanterns, they’re pretty.”
“You also said you needed some wool, right?”
“Oh, yeah, that’d be good, but can you get me some more iron first? I really want more for the lanterns—and, well, I also don’t have any armor other than the one helmet.”
Becky bounded off on his way.
I just got to—I just got to do it. He’s gone now, I have to do this now.
He opened the door.
“Hey, did that door just—open? I don’t know, maybe I’m just—” Rose screamed as Spoke put on all of his armor again. “Oh my god, hi.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,” he said, trying to calm her down. “I’m not here to hurt you. Don’t worry.” Lies. “Don’t worry.”
“Oh, oh—okay, but you kind of look like you’re here to hurt me.”
“No, no,” Spoke insisted. “Okay, I know the invis is a little—here, it runs out in 20 seconds, you can see what who I am in a bit—no, no, I can’t, nevermind, I should—I should keep my invis on.” He splashed a new potion at his feet, glass shattering on the wooden floor. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to know who I am.”
He hoped that later, when Becky came back, he didn’t step on a shard.
“Basically, me and some friends—hey, stop walking back.” Rose was jittery, whole body ratiating nervousness as she kept stumbling away from Spoke. Although he didn’t blame her. If he was in his position, he would be scared, too. “Basically, me and some friends have started building and we were looking for a place to build and we went out here.” Lies. “And I already started on a little mineshaft, but it seems like you’re also building out here, so I just wanted to know my neighbor.” Lies.
All I do is lie.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” she said. They had somehow ended up one the unfinished cobblestone roof. A roof that may stay unfinished forever. “Uh—what’s your name?”
“You can call me, um—you can call me Jamato.” He missed Jamato. Where was he now? He still didn’t know. “Just, uh, you can call me J for short.
“Look, I really like your house, I think it looks really awesome, but my mineshaft does not look good at all.”
“Oh, do you want some help?”
Perfect, he thought. “Yeah, I was actually about to ask. It’s just, uh—right over this—hill over here, alright?” His words were coming out all stuttery.
“Do you want me to go back and get some more blocks?”
“No, no, I have a lot of blocks.” Lies. All he had were 11 blocks of dirt on him. “It’s just uh—it’s just around here. We can show your friend later, too.” Lies.
“Oh, yeah, I was just—I was just playing with my brother.” Her voice was off a little at the end, trailing off as if reminiscing in a memory long forgotten.
“Oh, he’s your brother.” No, no, no—that makes it even worse.
“Uh, yeah, he’s my la—little brother, actually.”
What was she about to say before cutting herself off? Had there been another brother before, who was now gone?
They arrived at the poorly made mineshaft, coal ore gleaming in the sunlight.
“It’s really ugly, I know,” he admitted, walking inside. The sandstone crunched under his netherite boots. The sound of plants breaking brought him back outside, where Rose seemed to be searching for something.
“No, there’s nothing on the outside—”
“Oh, but I was just picking some flowers—you know, maybe you should put some flowers down, to spruce it up a little bit.” Rose’s hair, adorned in flowers, rustled in the slight breeze that passed in the moment. “You know, my brother, he loves these cornflowers. They’re so pretty, aren’t they? They’re blue.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. His favorite flower were cornflowers as well.
“Yeah, I—I made his bed green because I couldn’t find any blue dye, but I’ll actually have to take it back for him so I can dye his bed blue.”
But wasn’t there already a blue bed?
Whose bed is that for?
“You know,” she continued. “Blue is his favorite color.”
So is mine. “Yeah, so—the mineshaft part—” He blocked the entrance with obsidian, plunging them in darkness. “—it’s definitely the ugliest part, but—”
“It, it’s kind of dark actually,” Rose observed, fidgeting. “Uh, do you have any torches?”
“Uh, no,” he replied awkwardly. “You’re going to have to come up here.”
“Up—up here?” she said, coming up from the small tunnel he’d made earlier. Her loose dress rustled with the movement, the sound of fabric accompanying her footsteps.
“Yeah.” He placed more obsidian, blocking up the tunnel as well.
She was completely trapped now.
“Oh, what’s—what’s going on?” For the first time since he met her, pure, unadultered fear crept into her voice, loud and painful. Spoke resisted the urge to let her go, to let her out.
To let her live her life, like she should be doing right now.
“Look, you seem amazing—no, no, don’t try to mine out.” The sandstone she broke was quickly replaced with even more obsidian, god did he now hate obsidian. “That’s just going to make it harder—no, don’t try to mine down there, not yet.”
“O-okay.” Her voice trembled, tone small. “Not—not yet? What?”
“Look, um… I understand, that uh—I’m not good at this, I don’t—I don’t like to kill, like—innocent players—”
“What do you—what do you—what do you mean? What do you mean?”
“Look, I don’t want to kill you, but–”
“I was just trying to play Minecraft with my brother, man.” The beginning of tears started to well in her eyes, her pastel purple eyes.
“No, no, no, it’s not—this is not my decision, alright? You have to understand, it’s either—it’s either this, or the entire server dies, alright? That’s the thing, you don’t want to server dying, right?”
Guilt-tripping an innocent player about to die. He really was starting to hate himself.
Why would she be a threat to the Mafia? I don’t understand.
“I’m just—come on, man, I just—”
“No, no, this is not my fault, alright?” His voice wavered as he tried to keep his calm. “This is not my fault, I’m being forced to do this—” Lies. You have a choice.
But that choice—if I take that choice, the entire server will succumb to the Mafia. And there will be no server for any of us to play on freely anyway.
This is the better choice, this is. It has to be. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.
“It’s kind of looking like your fault, man!” Sobs made their way into her voice, words coming out in quivers.
“I don’t—” She punched him then, attack damage weak having only used a wooden shovel. What am I doing? “No, no, no, you don’t understand, stop, stop, it’s not even—look—”
“I just want to give this flower to my brother, man.”
“H-here, give me the flower, give me the flower—I can—I’ll give it to him, alright? I’ll give—I promise, I actually promise I’ll give it to him, okay?”
“Promise?” She dropped the flower. He picked it up, an aching sensation running through his heart as he held it.
“I do.” It’s the least I can do. “Alright, I—once this is done, I can, I can do what I need to do, alright? Like, the player that made me do this will die, soon, alright?” He stumbled over the word soon, because he wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth then or if it was just another lie. “He will—I will get revenge for you, I will revenge all of the players he’s either captured, he’s killed, destroyed bases—”
“I don’t want revenge, I just want to play the game with my brother.” With a fist, she wiped away the tears that had started to fall to her feet. It sounded like her heart was breaking as her knees buckled. “I just want to give this flower to y—to my brother.”
“I promise I’ll give it to him, I promise,” he swore.
“You ca—”
“This is bigger than me and you, alright? This is bigger than us—"
“Spoke?” she whispered, watery eyes fixated on the nametag over his head. His invis particles were gone. “Who are you?”
In a surge of panic, he whipped out his netherite pickaxe, breaking the block Rose was standing on.
She fell, air rushing against her as she neared the bottom, the end.
iMajesticRose was impaled on a stalagmite
iMajesticRose left the game
~
Months later, after having not touched exploits in forever, he finally realized gave the flower to the wrong brother.
Rose hadn’t been referring to Becky when she told him his brother liked cornflowers, that the flower was for him—it had been for Spoke.
He should have known, with all of those coincidences. His favorite flower, favorite color, her familiar voice, the third bed. That third bed had been placed for him.
After the wormhole he’d pulled off, the exploits had taken over him so much he’d lost most of his memory of before Unstable. She was the only one out of the three who remembered, Becky having being too young to remember anything. (He’d asked, wanting to know if Becky recalled anything called the Wormhole or Lifesteal, but his little brother said he didn’t.)
Rose had followed him with their youngest brother to Unstable, not knowing if she would ever meet the real him again.
And after he killed her, even before knowing Rose had been his sister, the guilt never left him, not fully.
Becky, Quackington, and their other friend chattered away as Spoke wrenched himself free from his thoughts, from the past he was always running away from.
He glanced up at the hill, where iMajesticRose’s grave was. Where his sister was buried. Planted in front of the decorated stone, was a single blue cornflower he’d placed just a bit ago.