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He immediately pressed the respawn button. He still had time to get back — he had to have enough time to get back. He needed to save Derlord- no, Derek. He needed to do something. Something for the man who sacrificed himself for Avery, who warned Avery, who did defied a God for Avery.
He didn't think about the fact that he had respawned at the bed he placed in that mine. That didn't matter. For some reason he was able to put himself in creative mode again, and so he flew back through all the strange places this world held and back to the original gate. He didn't hesitate as he retraced the path him and Derek had followed before. Didn't allow himself to stop and think about how much time he was wasting.
Finally, he reached the final crossroad, and with no hesitation, he turned left. Just as before, the cave turned a dark, almost midnight, black as he approached the area the ominous gate stood.
Before he could see it, though, he was suddenly blinded by his homescreen as a crash log for Minecraft appeared in front of him. Right, he had been playing Minecraft, everything had been in a game…
Did that mean Derek was alive? Could he be somewhere out there perfectly safe? Had this whole thing just been one huge elaborate prank and somewhere out in the real world Derek sat on his bed or maybe at his desk, laughing at Avery's gullibility? Frankly, he'd prefer that over the other option.
But... He knew that wasn't the case. Everything had been too real. And what would even be the point? What would he gain from tricking Avery with this?
And how could someone manipulate a Minecraft world in such a way if it was just a prank? How could a regular person put him in a twelve hour daze and force him to take care of that little church area? It had to all be real.
And... Derek was likely dead. Gone before Avery had ever met him.
He stared blankly at his computer screen. All of that... for nothing. He had failed. He couldn't save Derek. He couldn't even solve a single puzzle on his own. Derek had sacrificed himself for Avery, but why? He wasn't worth it! He was just some stupid nobody from a no-name town at some unknown state college because he wasn't smart enough to get into a big league school. He didn't have any friends that would miss him, and frankly his family would probably welcome the removal of the burden his very existence acted as. Surely Derek knew all of this, he had known of Avery somehow, it wasn't crazy to think he would know those details.
So why would he give up his own life to save Avery's pathetic existence?!
No. There was no way he was dead. He had to be alive. All Avery had to do was get back to that strange area filled with floating eyes. He just had to get back to Derek.
He booted up Minecraft again. His leg bounced as he waited for the game to load. The process didn't take any longer than it normally would, but he couldn't help but feel as if seconds were hours and minutes were days.
Eventually, the world selection appeared on his screen and he frantically selected the singular world he had played on this laptop. Once again, he was stuck waiting as the world chunks loaded.
He flinched as the loud crack of fireworks sounded outside his window. He glanced at the time, just past midnight; it was officially the new year.
His Minecraft crashed again.
"No!" The shout escaped without his permission. He flinched at the sound before remembering he was alone in his apartment. The others were all out with friends and family, celebrating the coming of a new year, and he was here… staring at a crash log for fucking Minecraft, pleading for the life of a man he didn't even know. A man who called Avery his friend.
Friend. The title made him laugh despite it all.
Derek, a man whom he had known for all of what, an hour? Was his friend? Here he was, alone in a dark bedroom on New Years fucking Day because all his time at university and the years before had been spent as an odd one out, unable to relate with anyone else in his cohorts. And fucking Derek saw him as a friend? Derek who was able to solve a stacked cipher (whatever the fuck that meant) in a mere matter of minutes with just a pen and paper. Derek who knew exactly what they were up against (what the fuck was the King in Yellow anyway?) and managed to find a way to destroy it? Derek who was so smart and everything Avery could never be, and yet he saw Avery as a friend?!
He slammed his fist against his desk. The plastic of his empty water bottle rattled as it fluttered with the vibrations of his anger. He glared at the bottle and chucked it at his door, satisfied from the resounding thud as it landed on the floor.
Derek couldn't be dead. He was so smart. There was no way he could just die… right? No. He wasn't dead. He had to be alive.
Avery pulled up his recording. If there was anything that could prove he was right and Derek was okay, it had to be in his recording.
He frowned at the length. Only fifteen hours? But it was midnight and he knew he had been going for longer than that. Shouldn't there be another hour or so?
He skipped to the end; it wasn't that final confrontation in front of hundreds of eyes, but instead it was that strange moment in the library right before Derek had killed him. Whatever. He had something more important to figure out.
The string of letters Derek sent in the chat. He had told Avery to ignore it, but it had to have some sort of meaning. He knew Avery. He knew he wasn't good with riddles and puzzles. Surely it was something obvious. It had to be. He needed to figure out what it meant. He didn't know how he knew, but something screamed at him that this was exactly what he needed to figure out Derek's condition.
Admittedly, despite his confidence, he still stared blankly at the screen for an embarrassing amount of time trying to come up with what code it could possibly be. It wasn't until he opened the original Google Drive folder and glanced at the address in the search bar that he realized.
He groaned at his own stupidity as he carefully typed the combination of letters and numbers out.
And finally, he saw it, Derek's own recording of the events along with another file. He clicked on the one titled goodbye, knowing exactly what it was but still denying the obvious.
He blankly watched the video of his letter, a symphony of emotions swelling within him.
"I didn't forget, Derek," he whispered. "I remembered." Teeth tugged on his lip as a final stand against the flood threatening to surge through him. Derek couldn't just be gone. He couldn't just leave Avery here with all these memories just for it to be done.
"Please," he begged, pleading to nothing in particular. "Take it. All of it. Just, give him back? I- I can't do this." His body was beginning to shake. "You can have them, the memories, the- the recording, all of it, I don't care, just, why?" Who the hell was he even begging to? The King? God? His computer? "Why him?!"
The recording finished, and he heard a strange thump, as if… someone had bumped their mic.
Or collapsed on their desk.
The floodgates opened. Sobs hiccuped out of him as he was forced to accept his reality. Derek was gone. He had sacrificed himself for Avery. He had done everything for Avery. And Avery had failed. Over and over again. He couldn't even convince Derek to let him stay. He couldn't see the distraction for what it so obviously was. And Derek was dead. Meanwhile Avery was sitting at his desk, fucking alive and perfectly unharmed while the smartest, kindest, overall best guy he had ever met died from fucking Minecraft.
It wasn't fair.
None of this was fair.
A scream tore out of him. Raw and damaged. It cut off in places and gutted his throat in others. He threw his headphones off his head and pushed away from his desk. Tears seeped into his mouth as he continued screaming. His chair tipped over as he sank to his knees, palms covering his face.
What the fuck was he supposed to do now? How the fuck was he just supposed to move forward like Derek wanted him to?
He had nothing. He hated his college (why the hell had he decided to go to a school in Vermont?). He hated his degree (why the hell had he chosen to go into architecture?). He had no fucking friends. He barely spoke with his family. What the fuck did he even have to deserve to continue on?
Derek had been everything. He had outsmarted the King in that original video. He had figured out the fucking signs. He had survived seeing the King uncensored and had enough sense to warn Avery about it all. He had spent his precious moments writing to Avery. Even though his head must have been killing him, he still managed to write that fucking letter.
And Avery was just supposed to keep moving forward?
"Stupid fucking game," he muttered to himself. He was curled up in a ball on the floor, his hands shaking as they gripped the sleeves of his hoodie. "Stupid fucking King. Stupid fucking Derek. Stupid fucking letter. Stupid fucking everything." He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the stupid fucking tears from trailing down his cheeks. "Why the fuck am I even crying? It's just a game. It's just a game. It was just a game. I didn't even know him. He was right. I know nothing about him. It's fine. I'm fine." He wasn't. But he could pretend. He could pretend his entire New Years hadn't been ruined by a stupid fucking game. He could pretend he never heard of the King in Yellow. He could even fucking pretend that he never even met Derek.
He could pretend he was moving forward.
That would have to be fucking good enough.