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Avery really wished he could blame someone else for this.
But alas, it was entirely his own fault.
He had remained in a small, empty mined out area save for one chest and a couple of two-block entrances, wooden doors cheaply placed as if to make the room look less ugly… which did not work, as the room was hideous, but Avery decidedly didn’t comment on that as he had more important things to focus on.
Inside that chest, was a book left by someone unknown to Avery, and its writing was messily scrawled and hurried, as if the persons hands were trembling as they wrote.
‘At the crossroads don’t durn left. At the crossroads DONT turn left. At the crossroads dont turn left. ATt the crossroads don’t turn left. At the crossroads—‘
And that was repeated a dozen or so more times, alongside warnings of a mysterious entity.
And Avery had never claimed to be smart, so despite the obvious signs of something being horribly wrong, he raised a brow at the book as if it was a challenge with a mischievous grin tugging on his face.
“Hmmm… what if I did though?”
Curiosity may have killed the cat— but Avery wasn’t a cat, he was a half-slime humanoid who was cracked at skywars, and some ominous ‘entity’ wouldn’t be enough to kill him. He can just disconnected if something’s really wrong, anyway.
If Avery had checked, he would’ve noticed that the option to open the menu was no longer available— that he was truly trapped in this world from the moment he opened that book.
But he didn’t. So Avery, oblivious and still curious to find out whatever was up with this weird world, proceeded to turn left upon finding the first divergence in the path.
And left again, upon finding the next. And again. And again.
The rooms he found and wandered through were… odd, creepy almost, and definitely not naturally generated— and even then, the structures were… large, seemingly endless at parts, and Avery couldn’t help but wonder who would have the dedication to build this.
The constant feeling of something watching him didn’t help much, but Avery ignored it. He even started humming a small tune to himself in order to distract himself from thinking too hard.
Finally, he found himself stood infront of a gate— at least a hundred blocks tall, and made of pure gold… not of all which were normal blocks in Minecraft, but were all undeniably made of gold. Avery stared for a moment, before dismissing the anxiousness crawling at his thoughts with a shrug and a mental ‘oh, he must’ve left some mods activated.’
He absolutely did not, but Avery pressed on anyway.
Avery put one hand on the door and pushed it further open.
Reality seemed to coalesce and shatter all at once, and Avery felt his brain fill with static, overwhelmed to the brim but also feeling helplessly empty. His knees buckled, and he somehow managed to catch himself on the door. His mind flooded with thoughts, a mix of his own panicked instincts and something… other.
RUN— BOW— BREAK— WATCH— KNEEL— PRAY— FLEE—
But his eyes were never once turned away from the… being infront of him— because it certainly wasn’t human, wasn’t a person. But he could make out yellow— or gold? It shimmered and gleamed, but Avery couldn’t tell if it was truly sewn of gold, or reality merely distorted around the figure —robe cloaking its entire body. Well, almost its entire body, the only other noticeable thing Avery could see was a mask, white and only covering half of its face, the other half a black abyss seeming to swallow every bit of light near it.
He felt insanity creep up on the edges of his mind, claws dragging lightly across his mental stability as if it wanted to see if he would break from its presence alone.
His brain felt like jelly— which, if Avery had been in the right state of mind, he probably would’ve made a joke about, being half-slime and all —and he could barely string together any coherent thoughts, let alone words.
Which is why Avery believes that what he said next should not be held against him entirely, as he was arguably on the verge of insanity.
“So uh… come here oft…en?” Avery stumbled over his words slightly, but— regrettably —managed to get them out in a mostly coherently sentence.
Immediate and heavy silence filled the room. The buzz of static stopped short, allowing Avery a moment to process his words. Once what he said— and more importantly: who he said it to —caught up to him, he immediately felt his heart drop to his stomach.
But he could do nothing other than nervously watch the being as it stared at him unreadably— the way the world distorted around it had lessened slightly, but its lack of facial features and body language made it impossible to tell what it’s reaction was.
Avery just hoped it wouldn’t be rage— he would curl into a ball of embarrassment if he died to invoking a god’s wrath by… flirting with it.
When a rush of emotions not his own trickled through his mind alongside the faint returning buzz of static, Avery’s tensed in discomfort and fear.
Confusion. Disgust. Confusion again. More confusion. Amused interest??? Confusion. Disgust. Confusion.
Avery at that very moment wished to simply stop existing. So, he did the next best thing he could and bolted. The being only watched him scurrying out the door, and the last thing he felt before he slammed it shut was another wave of amusement.
Outside the door was dark, and quiet, and the air no longer thrummed with power beyond his comprehension.
Slowly, Avery breathed out a shuddering breath and leaned back against the golden door, placing his palms over his face in order to both hide himself and not have to look out into the world.
“…I’m never flirting with anyone again, holy fuck—“ Avery wheezed, feeling slightly delirious both from the sheer stupidity of his actions and the latent brushes of insanity in his mind from being in that entity’s presence. “I should’ve gone right like a normal person. Why am I like this.”