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In the future, when you’re looking back at a long life and/or contemplating getting a sickass ocelot tattoo in the throes of your inevitable mid-life crisis, you’re sure this will be one of the stories that convinces you that you really lived. In your youth you participated in Lifesteal SMP, yeah, that happened, and you broke the rules because it was fun. You got up to shenanigans that left you paranoid of being caught.
Honestly, though, you’re not too sure that this particular tale is going to make it into the annals. If annals is a word. It’s probably a word, but it’s kinda hard to think when you’re being torn apart. You’ve been counting, so it’s maybe the hundred-somethingth death since your zombie farm broke, and it’s just six blocks to your bed, so those numbers are in conversation, right.
How many wounds can you take before you lose momentum and eat mossy cobblestone? How many times can your knees hit the floor as the zombies just keep crowding in, spawn magic as thick as smoke in the air, rotten faces turning your direction as you try to rush up like barely any steps at all, come on, come on.
Respawn and stumble off the bed and catch a claw to the throat before you can break it, blood bubbling up metallic between your lips. Respawn and get yanked away from it and maybe sob for a second, manfully, until you die. Respawn and hide in the corner and try to get your fricking comm to work and realize no one else is on the test server, you’re between Lifesteal seasons but people have lives, Bacon and PlanetLord have lives–
You spasm to life again and roll off the bed immediately, rushing for the corner with the fewest enemies, and the zombies swarm back to your location, the bed creaking as they clamor onto it and put it further out of your reach. You hear them more than you see them, since it’s so dark. The shadows feel like they’re made of grasping rotten fingers.
“Oh, frick,” you mumble, which has kind of been a refrain of the past several hours. It doesn’t really sound like a word anymore, more like some autonomous body-strategy like breathing. Thinking out loud. “Just gimme a second, you can give me a second!”
There’s blood on your tongue. There’s blood drying on the cobblestone, some of it still sticky and hot. If you wait long enough, someone’s bound to get back onto the test server and notice your death messages piling up and, you don’t know, ask some basic questions, but until then you’re fresh out of luck. The luck train has left the station, heading to parts unknown. You’re not even on Lifesteal, so there’s no countdown of deaths that matters, your deaths aren’t sped up at all. It’s the same amount of hearts clawed away each time, and you’re-- you’re losing track of time.
Respawn magic feels like being spun in a washing machine, woven back together from filaments. You start to wonder if your weave’s getting a little loose, after the next death, and you make another lunge for your bed before the stupid zombies get you, and then you’re at it and it’s breaking and then you’re dead again and you might scream, actually, except really it’s a normal frustrated sound because this can’t just keep going, this has to end, you have things to do and sleep to catch up on and once upon a time you had skin that wasn’t torn to bloody agonized ribbons.
And it’s dark, so the torch that illuminates the dungeon strikes like a bolt of lightning, searing colors into your retinas. Red hair on one figure, a snowy white face on the other. You try to call out and the zombies get you first and you’re respawning again, it’s happening again–
“What the-- oh my god. Jaron?” Bacon sputters, an actual player’s voice among the snarls and moans, and then he’s saying, “Planet, cover him, I’m gonna break the bed!”
The zombies drag you into the center of the horde again, entity cramming ripping your breath away. Bacon shouts something you can’t make out, hopefully not something super judgmental, and–
And ouch, okay, eyes, meet sunlight! It’s not a happy encounter. Abysmal, actually. You twist to the side and yank your hat over your face, squeezing your eyes shut, and footsteps rustle up to you fast, a breathing pattern you identify as Planet’s.
If you team with anyone for long enough on Lifesteal, you get to know their little quirks like that. Otherwise you never know how your enemies might trick you.
“Bro,” PlanetLord chokes out, crouching beside you so quickly that it’s almost clumsy, even though his PVP skills are just as honed as yours. You risk cracking your eyes open to peer at him. “Jaron, what, how long were you in there? We were gone for like a day.”
“Oh my goodness, it’s probably been a day,” you manage, sitting up. Planet pulls you to your feet, grabbing your hat and sticking it back on your head like he’s putting a stamp on an envelope, and that probably looked dumb, so you have to snicker, but you have to lean on him, too. “A whole day. I had goals. I’m supposed to be gradually improving my way of life, and all I’ve gotten accomplished is immense trauma--”
Your voice kind of breaks. Whoops. Planet’s grip on your hand wavers, and then he yanks you closer and hugs you. “That’s a lot of trauma,” he says lightly. “Maybe you should, uh, you should put some of that back.”
“Finders keepers,” you inform him.
“Sure, bro,” Planet says, drawing back. His hands are opalescent where they clutch your arms, black eyes wide and shining. It’s so good to see his face that you decide to pretend you’re crying from the sheer joy of it and not from, like, the emotional meltdown you’re apparently starting to experience. Seriously, it’s like seeing a tsunami crest in front of you. You’d better get under cover before you start bawling like a little baby. “Whatever you say. Do you wanna get back to my base and borrow some of my gear? Bacon’s just cleaning up your farm, but he should be there too, he commed and said he’d head that way.”
The sun’s so bright it makes your heart ache. Your legs are as weak as a newly spawned piglet’s, which you’re very familiar with due to your ten thousand samples the one time, and you can’t stop breathing weird, ragged and shaky with a building pressure behind your eyes, and honestly, nothing sounds better right now than flopping in bed while Planet and Bacon hang around and come up with new traps and schemes.
Planet smells like gunpowder and fresh dirt, and he’s taking most of your weight at this point. You sort of want to shut your eyes and breathe him in, which means you definitely need to sleep for like two straight days. He’s— really warm.
“Yeah,” you manage to say, because nodding seems lame here. “Yeah, dude, that-- that sounds like a good idea.”