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“The only way to stay alive is to be a little bit selfish,” the person in front of him says, lips stretched in a wild smile.
It brings him back to days and nights in the End - cold void seeping into his bones and a friend by his side and the cool endstone beneath his feet and a supernova opening like a flower, flashing like fireworks in the sky.
It brings him back to days spent running from the Mafia - the fizz of fireworks chasing him, invisible distortions always in the corners of his eyes, a ring of chunk bans broken. It brings him back to flying next to an end city, chased by Mafia members. A new friend, falling from the jets, the pop of a totem and a goat horn the look in his eyes please save me and then Dean is gone and dead just like everyone else. It brings him back to hiding in an endstone hollow with a best friend and listening to them say
Be a little selfish, Parrot. Please.
It brings him back to days spent in a macabre parody of the real world, of a prison, of Paragon - brings him back to the moment his best friend said it all started at the End chase.
“You sound an… awful lot like someone I used to know,” Parrot says, slowly. He’s surprised at how steady his voice is. Shoebilly chuckles, still smiling - eyes the cold murderer eyes Parrot has seen before. “Makes me kind of sick, having to hear all this for the second time now.”
And it does - it sends the tingles of wrong all the way down his spine and bile up his throat and it’s all wrong because his best best best friend in the whole wide world had turned into someone like Shoebilly and how could he not have noticed? Because this is the opposite of what Wifies was, who Wifies used to be and how could Parrot be so blind? Because he sees who Wifies could have turned into if he hadn’t died in Paragon.
Is it selfish to be glad that his best friend died before he could get any worse?
“Do you know what you did?” Parrot almost-yells. “Do you know what you did?!”
“‘Course I know,” Billy says cleanly without any remorse or regret or guilt. His smile stretches just a bit wider. He’s been grinning like a madman throughout this whole conversation.
“To my people! And you’re just… standing in front of me like nothing happened!” Shoebilly starts to laugh and it’s a horrible sound a fake sound and a wrong sound. His eyes are cold like Wifies’ eyes were once he’d gone crazy and mad and wrong.
“All right,” Shoebilly says cheerfully. “Well, I’ve heard enough. You got any last words?”
“Yeah. Theo, light ‘em up, bro!” Some part of him is screaming that Theo won’t light them up because when has someone ever stayed, when have they never betrayed him? Everyone has and it’s all wrong and…
The team blows up. A slow, relieved grin spreads itself across Parrot’s face. And he hears Theo’s familiar cheerful blunt right voice saying, “You like that, Shoebilly?” A pearl lands next to him. “Woo!” Theo has a wide bright smile plastered on his face. “King Parrot, get out of here.”
“All right. I’ll meet you back at Skymore, bro! See you.” And he’s off, running and praying but he’s not really praying because Theo won’t die he lived before and he’s better now so he won’t die right?
Don’t die on me, Theo.
The sandstone is quickly cooling in the light of the sunset. The last warm rays of the sun bathe Parrot in yellow-orange light. He’s waiting - waiting for a friend who won’t come back because he is dead just like everyone else Parrot has sacrificed and Parrot just won’t admit it. His gaze roves over the ghost town. It’s uneasy, unnerving here because he can still see the players in his mind’s eye - farming, fishing, mining, building. It all ended so suddenly, so unexpectedly and they’re all dead now. Dead when they had just started a new life. Guilt rises up in his throat, curling up into a lump, bitter.
The squadron is dead everyone is dead and it’s all his fault.
He keeps looking, because he’s learned that someone isn’t dead until you see the death and the leave. He didn’t see anything but there’s a tiny voice nagging in his head that he is dead dead dead dead and he’s not coming back and Parrot sent another person to their death - another headstone to add to the graves and graves that he already has.
He has all of his friends and he has a new thousand players and he has his squadron and it’s all crushing him to the ground because he is buried in bodies and blood and organs and no one can see it except him.
Where is Theo? He looks out across the town, wants to pull out his spyglass but can’t because Theo is dead and he can’t touch anything related to him without breaking inside; he started breaking the moment that insane maniac Shoebilly said a little bit selfish and brought him back to days spent hiding in the End. And now he’s sent Theo to his death and doom and he’s never going to see his best friend - or any person he cares about - ever again because Parrot has a curse and all of his friends are going to die.
He just can’t keep to himself - always too selfish to stay by himself and be careful and not doom people he cares about.
“Hey,” he hears distantly and it’s a nice familiar friendly voice. “Theo?” he asks. “You’re alive,” he breathes and there’s surprise and relief and infinite gratefulness in his voice because Theo is alive despite his curse. He grins.
“Yo,” Theo greets.
“Oh my god,” Parrot sighs, prays, “you’re fine.”
“I wouldn’t say that, bro,” and worry flickers in Parrot’s gaze.
“Are you-?” But Theo says
“No, I’m not hurt,” and everything is fine and okay again because his best friend is living and breathing and right here.
You should know the most out of anyone that only the strong are meant to survive. And on Unstable, the only way to stay alive is to be a little bit selfish.