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Avery stared at his screen in abject horror as he witnessed the fallout of him being caught by the oldest trick in the book.
What’s in your inventory? D3rlord3 had asked, and he hadn’t even second guessed the unusual question before he had checked it, rendering him immobile for long enough that the other man pushed him off the platform they were standing on.
“No, no, no no no!” he hissed, scrambling at the keyboard, but his tiny character was already falling deep into the abyss. Above, Derek – the man whom Avery had been searching for for nearly fourteen hours – was sacrificing his mind to take the entity down with him.
The King in Yellow. Avery cursed the name.
Finally, his character hit the floor below. The death sound played and his screen turned red, illuminating his face and the dark room around him. He stared at it uselessly, unable to comprehend what had happened. There was another person out there, somewhere, who was dying, and he had no way to stop it. His idiocy had finally killed someone.
Avery shouted aloud and slammed the keyboard, and then crumpled with his head in his hands.
Outside, fireworks began to go off. Midnight – the new year. One Derek would never get to see.
He scrubbed his sleeves at his eyes angrily.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Avery growled. With newfound confidence and the knowledge that it was likely entirely futile, he swiped at his mousepad, shifting the screen from Minecraft to his browser. Fingers flying like they only did in his most intense Skywars matches, Avery opened every single social media site he could think of, and input one name into the user search bar: D3rlord3.
Facebook came up blank, unsurprisingly. So did Tumblr and Instagram, but Twitter garnered some results – an old, seemingly disused account with the same username. It only had a few tweets, several of them about Minecraft, and one about literature, which surprised Avery. It seemed Derek had an interest in literature – in the tweet, he recommended titles like ‘Flowers for Algernon’, and ‘The House of Leaves’. The new inkling about Derek’s personality spurred Avery on – and he promised to himself that if he managed to get the man out of this alive, he’d read those books himself, attention span be damned.
When the tweets held no valuable information, Avery moved to his list of followers. It was tiny – but one name stood out. A ‘dhutchins333’, upon further investigation, led to the full name ‘Derek Hutchins’.
Avery stared at the name. It was a private account – a personal one, maybe, following his more public internet-only account?
“HA!” he shouted at his screen. “I might not be able to solve stupid puzzles, but I can stalk people on the internet, goddamnit!”
He clicked onto the ‘dhutchins333’ account and turned to its followers. Rapidly searching for those with the last name ‘hutchins’, he typed out a message he hoped wouldn’t sound too insane.
TheMostMayo > Hello, I’m really sorry to be contacting you like this. I’m a friend of Derek’s and have reason to believe he’s in danger right now, but I lost contact before I was able to find his address. Please reply as quickly as possible. I understand that you have no reason to trust me, but I promise that I have his best interests at heart and will get back to you as soon as I am able to reach him.
Then he copied the message and pasted it to every single person he thought would garner results. After two seconds of restless fidgeting, he moved to Instagram and searched for Derek’s username again, this time with the ‘dhutchins333’ username. This led to another account, where he repeated the method of messaging every follower he could.
He bit his lip, knee bouncing on his carpet, as he switched restlessly between instagram and twitter, eyes peeled for any sign of change.
After what felt like hours, a ‘ping’ lit up his phone on the desk next to him, and the browser window for instagram showed a notification mark. He clicked it with a stab of his fingers on the touchpad.
Bhutchins123 > He lives at 31 Baker St. If this is a prank I promise I will make you regret the day you were born.
Please make sure my brother is safe.
Avery didn’t wait for a reply. He grabbed his phone and tugged on his shoes as quickly as possible, already inputting the address into Google Maps.
It was only 10 minutes away. All of that time spent searching for Derek in Minecraft, and he’d lived 10 minutes away in real life. The irony would be funny if Avery’s heart wasn’t pounding in his chest like a sledgehammer.
Tugging his keys off of their hook, Avery readied to leave – but then he paused. He turned back to his dark Uni dorm room, and the computer that sat on his desk, the screen glowing mutely.
He walked over slowly and switched to Minecraft. At some point, he’d been kicked from the server, and the screen now simply showed his playable worlds.
With shaky fingers, he clicked on the World – the only one on the laptop – and pressed ‘Delete’.
Then he ran out of the room without looking back, desperately hoping he’d get there in time – that it wasn’t already too late.
Derek lived in University accommodation, the same as Avery. It made sense that he was a student, too, given that his stuff had been in a lockup. Avery wondered what he studied, and if it was related to his proficiency at the puzzles the King had thrown at them both.
He only gave the building a brief glance before pushing inside. Luckily, the first set of automatic doors opened with his Uni ID.
He didn’t risk the elevator, instead booking it up the stairs as fast as he could. His eyes honed onto the numbers, and in a daze, he barely registered anything until he was standing in front of #31.
He hammered on the door, begging that Derek had roommates who were just as antisocial as Avery and didn’t go out on New Years’ Eve like normal people.
He could have cried with relief when a young woman opened the door. Her hair was cut in a short, black bob, and she scrutinized him through sharp eyeliner. “Hello? What do you–”
“Does Derek live here?” Avery gasped, well aware that he was still short of breath and likely looked slightly high – his eyes bloodshot from half a day of playing Minecraft nonstop, during 12 hours of which he honestly wasn’t sure he could say he’d blinked once.
The girl eyed him. “Uh, yeah, he does. He might be out right now, though, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“No, no, I promise you he’s not. I was–” Avery cringed as his voice broke, wracking his brains for an excuse that didn’t sound absolutely insane. “I was on Discord with him when he made a sound and then stopped replying to me. I think he’s having a medical emergency.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Shit,” she said.
“Yeah,” Avery replied hurriedly, and then pushed inside. Luckily, the girl seemed genuine enough, because she switched into a state of urgency.
“His room’s here,” she said, and pushed open the door. Avery noticed that she probably wasn’t very close with Derek herself – or maybe just didn’t want to be the person in charge of the situation, because she let him go through first.
For some reason, Avery had been expecting the room to be a mess. It would have fit the mood better if there had been an array of broken objects on the floor, scattered papers, or any hint of the suffering that Derek had been put through – but instead, it was a perfectly tidy dorm room, with books stacked neatly on a shelf and figurines from various video games lining the desk. The only things out of order were, firstly, a mini fridge to the side of the desk, which had its door hanging open and the contents disturbed as though someone had tried to take things from it with their eyes closed. Secondly, in the middle of the floor, the prone figure of a young man lay still.
Avery cursed, scrambling over to Derek, and moving his neck to the side so that he could see the man’s face.
His eyes were closed, but there was blood encrusted around his tear ducts, as though he’d been crying his vital fluids.
Avery’s fingers found the pulse point on his neck. His breath hitched when he felt it – light, fluttery, but undeniably the beating of a heart.
“C-call an ambulance,” he said to the girl without looking up from Derek’s face. She had not passed the threshold of the room and stood anxiously, illuminated by the yellow corridor light behind her. She nodded and took out her phone, murmuring into it rapidly.
Avery turned his attention back to Derek. He nearly flinched when he met open eyes.
“A…very?” the man asked, the words slow and pained.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. Are you gonna be okay?”
Derek blinked, and some awareness filtered back into his irises. Avery stared at them with awe – they were dark, golden-brown, but had a ring around both pupils that looked almost yellow.
“I– I think so. You saved me,” Derek murmured. His intense eyes were still staring at Avery, who was hit again by the realisation of what Derek had been through. All of the information in the universe, shoved into his head. Avery could believe it, just from his facial expression – his gaze was slightly too sharp, like he was reading a book and he’d already predicted the ending. Beneath were dark eyebags, and the set of his strong jaw was tight and pained.
“No, dude, I did nothing. You’re the one who saved me.”
Derek shook his head, trying to push himself up, but he winced and nearly collapsed under his own weight. Avery gently lifted him to a sitting position. “You deleted the world. I felt it. My mind– it was nearly gone, nearly destroyed, but you,” Derek met his eyes again, softly this time, “you killed Him right at the moment He was about to assimilate with me. At the moment he was moving from the digital world to reality, you severed his connection.”
“Oh,” Avery breathed. “All I did was delete a minecraft world.”
Derek smiled. Though it was pained, it was one of the best things Avery had seen in his life.
Avery smiled back tentatively, running a hand through his short hair. “Does that mean you’re, like, fixed now? Everything’s back to normal?”
The other man’s smile faltered slightly. “N-not quite. The knowledge is still there, still present, it just–” he winced, his eyes squeezing shut. Avery waited quietly for a moment. Then Derek continued, without opening his eyes. “It’s no longer constantly ‘updating’. I can look away from my screen without pain, and there’s no more constant feedback. It’s stabilised, I guess. Overwhelming, but nothing more.”
Avery worried at his lip. “So, you still know everything about me, huh?”
“I’m afraid so,” Derek smiled at him again. Behind it, Avery could see a hint of that signature cockiness he’d seen through D3rlord3’s personality – the clever charm underneath the pain he’d been through. “But that’s one of the upsides.”
Avery felt heat rise to his cheeks and shook it away. Silence permeated the room for a few seconds, but it was comfortable, a shared knowledge of the insanity of the past day.
“It’s over,” he murmured finally. “We’re safe now. Different, but safe.”
A warmth suddenly met his palm. His eyes flicked down, and he saw Derek’s fingers intertwine with his own. “Yeah.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Man, how are you so good at puzzles but so dogshit at PVP?” Avery complained after winning his twelfth match in a row. He took his hands off of the keyboard and flexed them, eyeing Derek.
The other man was lying on Avery’s bed, his long hair pulled up into a bun, his own computer in front of him on the mattress. He met Avery’s eyes with a small, apologetic smirk. His own eyes still hadn’t lost that golden-yellow ring around the pupils, a phenomenon which had utterly confused the doctors, because all of Derek’s other symptoms had been easily explained away as a sudden stroke.
The King had left His mark on the both of them, but they were slowly healing.
“I’m sorry that infinite knowledge of the universe doesn’t improve reaction time or muscle memory,” Derek shrugged back. “I guess you’re just gonna keep having to carry me in Skywars.”
Avery sighed dramatically, though he couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice. “There are worse fates, I suppose.”
When he met Derek’s gaze again, though, the eye contact they shared was charged with something much deeper than banter over a video game. Since Derek had been released from the hospital, they’d spent nearly every day together, and Avery couldn’t have been happier.
“Hey,” he said, voice quieter but more confident. “There’s a new restaurant opening downtown.”
“I know,” Derek quipped.
Avery rolled his eyes. “Do you… wanna go together?”
Derek paused for a quiet moment. His next smile lit up his whole face. “Only if it’s a date.”
Avery laughed, and shut his computer. Minecraft could wait – the real world was much more captivating, now, than a world that didn’t exist.