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Avery woke up in front of his desk with his game on. He's confused as to why he's even sleeping there. The game is only showing the title screen. He must have fallen asleep when trying to play the game. But the confusion never left as to why he's there and why can't he remember opening the game in the first place. He looked at the time and the date. It's been at least 2 days since he remembered. Did he really slept that long
Regardless, he forced himself to stand but immediately staggered, his head pounding. He feels like he has been hit by a truck. He felt water droplets on his hand, where is even the water coming from. He touched his face and realized it came from him. On his own eyes.
“What–" confused as he wipes his tears and it pours even more. He doesn't know why he is crying.
He made his way out to his room and greeted by his family
"Avery, you missed the new year we called for you several times but you're not answering” His mother said as it walks to him
“I'm sorry mom, i don't feel so good as you can see" He lied, well technically not at all as he actually doesn't feel too well. He doesn't even want to talk to anyone at the moment
"Well you don't have to force yourself. Go take some rest” His mother said to him as he nodded and headed back to his bedroom.
The laptop is still showing the Minecraft title screen. He wants to open his world. Like someone is pushing him to do so. But his head gets even more painful as he stares at the screen. He closed the laptop and lay on his bed. Letting sleep succumb him to his dreamland, maybe he get something good on it
It's dark but he keeps on walking. He can't see anything and doesn't know where it will lead him but his legs just won't stop walking
A light, there's a light in the distance. He walked even closer to it and saw a giant golden gate. What's a gate doing in a place like this? And for some reason. It looks and feels familiar. Did he come to this place before?
The gate is open and so he enters, there's nothing much to see. Just a floating platform and a silhouette. He walks even closer till he can see the person clearly.
“Who are you?" He asked, the person looked familiar as well. It's not even a person. It looks like a character from a game. As he realized he is as well on his Minecraft skin. He walks and walks till the character is visible to him. It's wearing a knight-like skin.
"Who are you?” Avery asked once again and this time the person turned around
“Run Avery”
He woke up, gasping for air. Sweating on his whole body. The pain in his head is definitely gone. But more questions filled his head. Who is that person? Why does it know his name? And why is it telling him to run?
He stumbled out of his bed and opened the game, his world. It's not there.
"What the hell is happening?” He closes the game and opens it again but it's not there. He tried it multiple times but it's not appearing. Lost, he closes the laptop and goes back to bed. Not to sleep but to stare at the ceiling trying to make sense of what's happening.
Days passed and he never got his answer. He knows he's not remembering something. Or someone. He tries to see his Minecraft and the world is still not there. So he decided to look it up on YouTube. Maybe he can find the same case that happened. As he open his YouTube the first thing he saw is a video with the channel named Wifies posted with the title "Searching for the world that doesn't exist” it indicates that he already watched it
"Huh?.. i-i don't remember watching this” he said to himself as he clicked the video
“Whatever you do at the crossroads, don't turn left.” he paused the video, why do he feel like he knows this. He knows it but doesn't remember where he read it
“This is the first line in a book that Avery claims he did not write.”
"Two weeks ago, a YouTube channel called Avery the Mayo uploaded a YouTube video titled Weird Book I did not write,”
"Is that my channel?!!” And sure enough. As Wifies shows the channel it's no doubt that it's his.
He immediately visited his own channel and there it is. The same video. But he doesn't remember posting that.
“What the hell is happening?" He clicked it and there it was. That's his skin no doubt.
"There's no way i posted this 2 months ago” it's only a 3 minutes long video. And so he watched it. He doesn't remember finding that mine, nor the book. But the feeling of devà ju is coursing through his body.
And so he goes back to the other video to get a more explanation.
"Where he shows us a mine that supposedly he never built. Inside the mine is a chest that Avery did not place. And inside the chest is a book that Avery did not write. Inside the book is a very strange message."
‘“ Whatever you do at the crossroads. Don't turn left."
“Don't be fooled. It's listening.”
“You can't outsmart it."
“It's listening to me.”
"It's watching me."
“It isn't from this world.”
"At the crossroads, don't turn left."
“At the crossroads, don't turn left.
“At the crossroads, don't turn left.
“At the crossroads, don't turn left.
“Over and over, followed by a sequence of numbers."
“that's sus” Avey said as he watch the video
He watches and watches, This isn't scary at all but he feels so disturbed and somehow uneasy. The video shows the skin of the person playing, that's not him, not his skin. But that's the skin he saw in his dream. And so he keep watching
“This guy is too op for real" as he watch wifies explain the trap this weird guy trap
“I'm not scared, but my gut says to keep moving."
"This guy cannot be serious” He said as he chuckled.
"Maybe I am scared.”
That makes Avery stop as he stares at his screen. He feels worried for some reason. Why is he worried about a guy he doesn't even know
And so he watched again, he watched as this guy go through the mazes and finally reaching the cipher
“Dude, there's no way he can solve that when the commentators doesn't know what is it"
"Got it”
"No way this guy solved it with a pen and paper?? Just how smart this guy is?” He couldn't believe it in one bit, just who is this guy
"His solution this time is a bit more uh how do I put this? Efficient."
" Unfortunately for you”
"I have a pickaxe”
And that made Avery laugh
“This guy cannot be serious!! What the hell that's such a genius thing to do"
"And with that, he's, Wait, who's D3rlord3?”
"Derlord3?” Avery's head pound a little as he mentioned that name..
"Derlord…Derlord…Derlord” he said it repeatedly and it felt.. right on his tongue he repeated it a few more times until..
“Derek…. Huh?" Avery snapped on his current state and touch his lips in confusion
“Who's Derek?" He asked himself as his head pounds little more
"You are real”
" You are special”
" Remember who you are”
“W-what-..what are those.?" Avery asked himself as he caught his own breath. Are those memories?..dreams?.. illusion.. he doesn't know but he's sure. That whoever that Derlord person is involved. And so he forced himself to continue watching it
He watches as Derlord find the village goes around it
“Seriously, Wifies need to stop suddenly disappearing. It's scaring me he stop speaking" Avery said as he feel some chills while he watched the silence of Derlord looking around, it took few minutes before Derlord makes a progress of seeing the castle far away
Derlord read the book and started breaking stuff again till he broke the bookshelf and found doors behind it, Avery starting to have a bad feeling about it. It lead to another tunnel and when he reach the end there's a crossroad
"MY BRO DON'T TURN LEFT!” Avery shouted on his computer as he watched Derlord turned left
It starts to get dark till Derlord sees it. The gate. The familiar gate on his screen.
Avery holds his head as his head gets more and more painful. He screams a little in pain but still he continues watching as Derlord goes inside. It's censored but he watches as Derlord starts panicking and running the other way. He watched as Derlord break the wall and it was the back where it all started. And watch as Derlord starts writing the book. And watch how Wifies solve the code
"Run Avery, it's here”
Avery stares at his monitor. As he heard his name
"How does he know me?” Is the last thing Avery said as he see his vision turning to black
Avery looked around. He's somewhat on a floating platform. He looks around and it's just darkness. Or so he thought, as he saw something in the distance. Something big and round and it keeps getting closer. But before he could see what it was, he was pushed off the platform and saw someone. He falls on the void and screams the person name
“DEREEEK!!"
and then he woke up,again in front of his computer. He remembers now.
" No, no! How could I forget again! How?" He cries and sobs as he looks at the familiar Minecraft skin on his laptop– their laptop. He stares at the skin of the original owner of this laptop he's using right now
"I-i'm so sorry Derek. I'm sorry. I'm sorry” he cries and cries holding the laptops on his chest as he curls up onto it. He doesn't know how long he cries, minutes? Hours? He doesn't care. He just cries holding the laptop like it was his lifeline. He just lay on the floor, till an idea struck him.
“I need to find Derek" he said to himself as he sat up. He remembers that he brought this laptop to a nearby storage, meaning there's a possibility that Derek is near him. He first goes to the storage locker where he gets it. He asked there if he can possibly get some information about the person who owns the locker before him
“I found something on this person's laptop and I think I need to at least give it to him" that's the only reason Avery can think of. Of course they refuse but at least they did tell them the person name
“Derek Hutchins. Huh, I don't care where you are. I will find you”
And so he continues tracking him down. He searched everywhere. Of course it's not easy, there's multiple people who have the same name. He narrowed it down to the people near him and in the same age range as him. He looked for days. Searching on different platforms. Until he gets into 3 possible candidates. Now he just hope that one of them is the person he's looking for
The first person is someone who's only 50 miles away from him, he goes there to meet him. But immediately removed him as he saw that this guy doesn't act like the person he knows. He's cheerful and already has a family. He is sure that if this is Derek he's looking for. Maybe, just maybe he would think twice of sacrificing himself for someone like him and so he leaves.
The second person is just a normal guy working in an office. He approached the guy and talked to him. He asked if they play Minecraft and sort and unfortunately for him this guy doesn't. And so he told him that he's looking for a friend that suddenly disappeared who has the same name as him. The person told him good luck and kind enough to at least let him talk to him
And so he turned into the last Derek house. He really hoped that this is it, that this is the person he's looking for, he took a deep breath and walked on the door and knocked. But no one is answering. He tried the doorbell but still had no luck. A neighbor saw him and called out for him
“Hi, I'm sorry. I'm looking for my friend and he lives here. Do you happen to know where he is right now?" He asked
"Oh, didn't you know? He got taken to a hospital. Someone heard falling and called 911. Saw him In front of his computer pale and passed out. We don't know what happened but we just hope that he's okay.” Avery felt his blood turn cold and thanked the neighbor about the information. And so he looked up how many hospitals are near that place and found two.
He immediately headed to the first one and went to the reception.
“Hi, I'm looking for a friend named Derek Hutchins. Is he by any chance here” He's tired and breathing heavily. He's close. He doesn't want to waste anymore chances. Unfortunately for him. There's no Derek on the list. He left and immediately hailed a taxi but no one was stopping. There's no bus route on the way too, and so the next plausible thing that came into his mind is to run.
“Please be there. Please be alive" he mumbled to himself as he ran and ran and tripped and tumbled around the sidewalk. The people around him are worried and ask if he's okay but he ignores them. He just stood up and continued running till he got into the hospital. His vision has black spots around. His breathing is ragged, he probably looks ridiculous right now. But he doesn't care. He goes to the reception once more and ask
"Is there a patient named Derek Hutchins here?” He still catching his breath as the reception look for a name
"What's your relationship with the patient?” the person on the reception asked. He lightens up and smiles. Finally, Finally he's here
“I'm his friend. I only found out about him getting rushed to the hospital. He never tells me anything” the reception nodded and asked him to sign the log
"I see, well. Mr. Hutchins' room is room 303. Take the elevator on the left and turn left for you to be there" He thanked the person and took the elevator. He's fidgeting, his heart is beating so fast, is this really him? Is this really the person who sacrifices himself for him? The elevator stopped on the 3rd floor and he stepped out. He turned left and walked a bit and saw the room number.
“303, Derek Hutchins" he read Infront. This is it. He's finally meeting him. He took a deep breath and slid the door open. There's a person sitting on the hospital bed. Glasses on his face, reading a book as Avery walks closer to them. The person smile a little and look up
"I found you” Avery said, tears running down on his eyes and small sobs let out of his throat
The person looked at him. Finally look at him. Even with his exhausted eyes he smiled and said
“That you did” and so Avery crashed himself on this guy arm and hold him and made a promise to himself to not to forget again