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“Yo,” Avery says, waving at the screen cheerfully, “UU uploaded!”
“What?” Derek hisses, wondering if he heard Avery right. “You… you?”
“Dude, it’s a series. Did you not watch it?”
“No…? Is it good?”
“Yeah, it’s great man. You wanna watch? I really like Wemmbu, but Parrot’s alright.”
“Parrot?”
“ParrotX2.”
“Ohh, that guy. I used to watch his Lifesteal videos, like, years ago.”
“Mmhmm, so, are you watching, or what?”
“Umm… alright, I guess.”
“Great!” Avery beams, playing the video.
“Wait wait wait wait…” Derek says. “Didn’t we watch a video from Wifies about…” he gestures vaguely in the air, “and it was named the same thing?”
Avery squints, seemingly only seeing it now. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t notice.”
“How do you not notice.”
“I guess I was too excited about Parrot uploading?”
“Sure,” Derek sighs, “of course. Just play it.”
As the king of the Unstable SMP, I recently sent a group of players on an expedition more than a 100,000 blocks outside of my kingdom.
“Wait, Parrot’s the king? And what’s this Unstable? I thought it was UU?”
“Oh, yeah, UU’s an abbreviation for Unstable Universe. You are so out of it, Derek,” Avery jokes, pinching him.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Derek waves him off.
“Dude,” Derek says, nibbling on a chip, “Skymore is freaky. Like a ghost town.”
“Yeah.”
Reina, I had to run. Follow the farmland.
“You know, the sucky thing about having infinite knowledge is that you can never get surprised while watching any video or movie or show.”
“Oh… never thought about it that way. Wait, that would actually suck, man. Wait… but then why didn’t you know UU?”
“You have to go chasing after the Knowledge to find it.”
“Like…”
“Like those puzzles where you have to follow the line through to see the correct path to stuff.”
“Ohh, I see.”
“This town is freaky. Everything in this video is freaaaky,” Avery mutters, stretching the e.
“I know…”
“They even have orchids by the graves.” Avery swallows.
“It’s fake, bro, no need to get scared.”
“Sure, guy-who-screamed-during-jurassic-park.”
“I did not! You’re making stuff up again!”
“This Zoe girl is smart. This Parrot guy is actually really, really smart. But it’s pretty obvious it’s scripted.”
“Yeah,” Avery says thoughtfully.
Dude, I would put a base right here.
“Theo is so stupid,” Avery laments.
“Nah, I’d say he’s like you. Parrot is me - the know-it-all - and you’re the friendly sidekick who doesn’t know everything - you don’t want to, trust me - but is pretty nice and manages to find his way through everything.”
“Hmm… I guess I never really thought of it that way… but yeah, I guess you’re sort of right?”
“Toldcha. I know everything.”
Do you know what the-
“Oh, shoot,” Derek says, pausing the video. “Let’s not watch this.”
“What? Wait - why?”
“It’s just… umm…”
“Derek, if you’re not gonna give a reason for pausing the video-”
“It’s - whatever, I’m just - I need to go to the restroom, you can go watch the video without me.” Derek quickly walks out of earshot.
-King in Yellow is?
It’s hard enough hearing everything all the time in his head, but it’s worse hearing it out loud. Hearing it out loud makes it real, too real.
…once he’s sure enough time has passed, he comes back.
“Um,” Avery says, haltingly. “I’m sorry, for like… arguing with you, um, earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it - it’s fine.”
“Zoe’s dead. We went all this way just to chase a dead person.”
“Hey, it’s the journey that matters, not the reward!” (or something like that. I was never really good at idioms.)
“Yeah, but this is just crazy. She could have eaten the berries! Scavenged for food!” Avery sighs.
“This ShoeBilly guy is evil. Who even gave him such a creepy laugh?”
“His laugh is intended to be creepy, Avery…”
“Jesus, bro. Let a man dream.”
“Dream what?”
“That ShoeBilly will get over his fear of laughs.”
Derek grins. “Nah, I can see it in the future - he’s never gonna.”
“Will he die?”
“Can’t tell you - that’s spoiling.”
“Dude, you are impossible.”
Theo. Light ‘em up, bro!
Avery’s eyes widen. “There is no way. I thought - I thought this was another Great Sea scenario!”
“I saw it from the beginning,” Derek shakes his head, “even without godly knowledge, I could’ve guessed. What Great Sea scenario?”
“Doesn’t all your godly knowledge know?”
“Just tell me, Avery.”
“Ok, so Parrot went to the Great Sea to get treasure because he needed to give it all away - or no, he wanted to.”
“Savior complex much?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Keep going.”
“And so Theo got tired of Parrot being self-sacrifical and ditched him.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?”
“Just thinking about how you’re a master storyteller.”
“Okay, that’s it-”
“You know, it was a pretty good video.”
“Yeah, but the foreshadowing was a bit obvious.”
“Obvious? It’s only obvious to you because you know everything.”
“No, it’s not just me. I promise you.”
“Prove it.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Derek asks, glancing around helplessly.
“Uh…”