Chapter Text
The thing about the End, was that it wasn’t.
Wasn’t cold, wasn’t dark, wasn’t empty or lonely.
But it felt like all of those things. When the temperature was so unremarkable as to make Rek feel like a zombie, when the light came from nowhere and just little enough to leave him on edge, when the same terrain stretching to infinity stopped registering in his mind, like the rendering was shutting down to preserve power.
It was lonely, though.
Just him, in this infinity. Not empty. Not dark. Not quite cold. Just him.
Rek had started flying, a lot. More than he needed to. Wasting resources. He hated himself for it. When the rest of his team arrived, when they found a way to meet him, they’d blame him.
He’d have to work harder to make up for it. Which wasn’t hard, when he spent every waking minute working. Those that he was asleep were uncountable. Nothing changed, around here, not unless he changed it. Time only moved when Rek opened his eyes. He had to be awake, and working, to drag himself further along the timeline, closer to when he could see his friends again.
That was what he was working for. That single event, that certainty, an event horizon that would end this purgatory. Rek just had to work for it. He’d see his friends again. And they’d want to see progress, because there was plenty still to be done.
SB’s death didn’t change anything. It just meant half the pairs of hands at work, but it gave Rek more time, fewer distractions. He could pick up the slack, expected himself too, he expected that to be the expectation.
It wasn’t like he knew. Communicators didn’t work in here. Not out where Rek flew, around the outer islands. Near the portal, sometimes, he’d get through. But it was fleeting, like a signal only connecting for as long as it took for a satellite to orbit away again.
Most days, Rek didn’t bother. He knew his job. It hadn’t been that long, he’d just gone searching for signal a few times, long enough to see SB’s apologies, Minute asking if Rek was ok in there, Clown asking if they were good to carry on.
Rek had messaged back. Accepted SB’s apologies, even if they slid off him like oil. Said he was fine, would be fine, had always been fine with whatever, because he loved this team. Said he was happy to carry on.
No one had really messaged him since. Or, they had. SB had checked in most regularly, for the first week, a small flood of messages every time Rek bothered to go check. He’d seemed guilty. They’d petered off, after a while, but Rek hadn’t been too upset. He wasn’t going to forgive SB that easily anyway. It had been his fault, after all.
Well, he’d proved this place wasn’t infinite, at least.
Rek saw why he’d thought it, though, as he circled their map, this lonely realm he was sole guardian of, until it all went wrong again. This was a rest, in its own way. A chance to catch his breath, fill his lungs with alien air of an indeterminate temperature and what he could only describe as a tinge of Void.
And wait. And work. And worry, just a little.
Rek fired off another rocket, running away from his problems, but he was stuck in an infinite pen. No mater how far he ran, the landscape would always look the same, in and outside his head.
Still, it was beautiful. He wasn’t over that. The End had always been beautiful. Finality, victory personified, a final kick to his adrenaline, the last push. The culmination of skill and work and luck, and now all that was left was a little effort, ability he’d honed for years on end.
Rek couldn’t say it didn’t sting a little, to be stuck here. The End had never been meant to be somewhere he’d linger. It was a final checkpoint in his speedrun, somewhere he wanted to leave as soon as he’d entered. He felt lagging, here. Stuck buffering between victory and disappointment, waiting, waiting, for his systems and teammates to catch up to him.
It was strange, even, to soar over purpur castles and ships, strange plants reaching towards him like underwater life. Rek dipped lower, letting his elytra extend, weaving in and out of a chorus grove.
Really, he should take his elytra off. It would do his shoulders and tail nothing good, if he kept this up for too long. But it didn’t seem to matter, in a place where time was measured by shulkers full of their deceased brethren, and pumpkin after pumpkin mined as he hid away from the sunless sky.
Rek glanced up, and couldn’t help the ache in his chest. There was something unnatural, about darkness above and below. Outside of here, even when the sun had vanished from sight, there was always the reassurance that it was somewhere below, making its way back to surface again from the opposite horizon.
Now, it was just black. Rek didn’t fully believe that he wouldn’t fly into the Void, if he went up far enough. He didn’t believe that this wasn’t a two dimensional continuum, penned in above and below with a death so otherworldly as to form a perfect cage.
No, that wasn’t fair. This place wasn’t a cage. Rek was here to help his teammates, and because he couldn’t leave, and he didn’t know why the thought was even crossing his mind. It wasn’t a cage, because a cage implied a desire to leave.
He shouldn’t get in his own head. He should land, find a city, carry on mining and farming and working.
He needed to have something to show for himself, when they came back for him.
——————
Rek stared at his handiwork, feeling oddly numb, the triumph having died to a low ebb almost instantly. Muffled by the darkness, by the silence.
It was good. He was… happy with it. Just a pillar of spiderwebs, that he’d dug out of what must have been SB’s chest, with a random block of endstone descending through them. There was a pressure plate at the bottom, a column of dispensers, and it was a waste, waste, waste, but Rek needed something to keep time. He’d go insane, otherwise.
This was day one. Or unit one, depending on how he decided to count it. It took six hours for an item to despawn. Rek had timed it to be almost exactly that, because there were no variables in here. Everything he did was forever.
So, six hours to a clock cycle. Four cycles to a day. Seven days to a week.
Rek didn’t know how many weeks there should be in his calendar. In his countdown, to when he’d see his friends again. His communicator was running low on charge, despite him barely using it. He’d forgotten it was solar powered. He was still angry at himself, for that.
Every fourteen clock cycles, he’d let himself check his comm. Surely he wouldn’t be here more than a fortnight more.
Surely.
Rek stared, for a while more, watching the pale stone descend, oh-so-slowly. His ears itched, because it was instinct, to always keep it in mind that something could go wrong. But there was nothing, in here. Everything was the same. The air, the darkness, the silence. Nothing changed. So he made his own change, brought a little of his world to this. Time was now something that existed, in the End.
Rek couldn’t help but be a little satisfied, at that. It was the sort of thing Branzy would like, or Jaron. Just outlandish enough to make a good story. His ear twitched, as he huffed out a laugh, not caring if his voice cracked or if it sounded odd.
As his own laugh rippled through the stagnant air, Rek froze. It was strange, to hear himself. To hear anything, aside from the rush of fireworks, the destruction of a block.
Normally, he’d talk to himself. They all did, around here. But Rek hadn’t been. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been.
Maybe he’d been scared.
Anxiety itching at his tail, Rek glanced over his shoulder, searching for something that might have heard. Of course, there was nothing. The ceiling was two blocks tall. He was hundreds of blocks from a living shulker.
And yet. Rek felt like something had heard him.
Maybe he’d just keep quiet from now on. For his own peace of mind. He wouldn’t die here. Not to an enderman, and that was the only thing that could kill him, in here.
He and SB had laughed, about the endermen. Rek laughed now, another painful chuckle setting his nerves on edge. His instincts screamed that he should run. His anxiety screamed back that there was nowhere to run to.
Without thinking, Rek moved backwards. Avoiding his little clock, he let himself stumble backwards, until his back hit the wall, and he slid down it, breathing like Branzy had taught him.
He wouldn’t panic. Not over this. If he got it in his head that this whole situation was something to panic about, he wouldn’t stop panicking. And Rek couldn’t afford to panic. Not when his team was relying on him.
Count to twelve. Rek started counting, inhale, hold, exhale, hold, until his head started to spin. Of course there was nothing to hear him. He was normally scared of rational threats, this would be a step too far, even for him.
It was just the whole of the End dimension. Hemmed in with void all around him. And his teammates’ disapproval waiting if he slipped, even for a moment. Rek was meant to be the capable one, the reliable one. Not like SB, so harebrained he could get away with anything.
Stupidly, Rek wanted Clown to be here. He wasn’t, and he probably wouldn’t be, he was busy and that was fine, but Rek almost wanted someone who’d tell him to deal with it, because he’d signed up for this, and someone he wouldn’t want to argue with.
No, actually. Clown wouldn’t say that. He’d tell Rek to rest, to conserve resources.
Rek didn’t know what they’d say. He missed his team. He missed everything. He missed the sun, and leaves, and human faces, and a breeze of warm air.
He pulled his knees to his chest, and looked at his clock, heart pounding at the single block that hadn’t even cleared a block of cobwebs yet.
Rek wanted out of here. Before he went insane. It was feeling more likely by the second.
His eyes drifted back to the room at large, and Rek swallowed hard, swearing he could see particles pop in the corners of his blurry vision.
He just wanted to go home.
——————
Something was following him.
Rek dived, breath stuttering, but he held it back, biting his lip. He couldn’t make a sound. His fireworks were fine, in his head, the things couldn’t hear those.
The things he could swear were chasing him.
It was probably just a shulker bullet, one that hadn’t fizzled out. A flash of particles. Or something else, maybe something from the Void, maybe something that got closer every time Rek stopped working or dared to breathe aloud.
But Rek would swear, to his team, if he saw them again, that whatever the non-existent something was, they were chasing him.
Either way, he had nothing better to do than run.
He’d cataloged everything that was functionally limitless. He could waste pearls. He could waste food. He couldn’t waste gravel, or soul sand. Easy. Self-sustaining. Rek was getting good at that.
The stagnant air whipped through his antlers, a deer dipping its head into empty Void, and Rek careened through the space between eternities, running from something that didn’t exist.
He was scared. On some level, his body was terrified. The part of him that was prey, not bloodthirsty, just something built to run, kicked into a higher gear. He hadn’t had much better to do than to indulge his instincts, recently.
On another level, his logical side had been growing spikier, driving stakes of frustration through his mind at his own irrationality, recently. All he had to do was keep working. Yet he kept doing things like this, running from the demons of his own loneliness, and for what?
Rek certainly wasn’t having fun. He didn’t feel particularly conscious of any level of higher thought right now, just that his heart was pounding, and he was flying, and for Void’s sake, he needed to stop using so many rockets or he’d blast his own hands off.
A moment later, that came true. Gunpowder sparked, slipped, and Rek shrieked, all phantom pursuers forgotten as he recoiled into a chorus plant, his elytra crunching behind him and making his antlers vibrate through his tortured skull.
Rek trailed into a thready whine of mingled pain and humiliation, slipping sideways, head ringing too much for him to catch himself. He felt it, though, as he started to fall.
Rek hit the ground hard. Shoulder-first, and thank everything it was a baby plant, because for a solid second, he thought he might actually be dead.
He thought he might actually be dead, and he could see his team again. Finally get out of here.
That scared him. Rek froze, finally froze, didn’t run or back away. Just froze, face down on temperatureless endstone, his hand stinging and burning and throbbing and his shoulder doing much the same, feeling his own breathing quicken.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die, and he needed to remember that. He couldn’t die, his team was counting on him.
Pulling himself upright, Rek was shaking, as he pulled out a healing pot. Lacking the dexterity to actually open it, he just smashed it on the ground, gingerly holding his hand in the vapour while avoiding the glass shards. Blood dripped onto them anyway, and Rek didn’t trust his depth perception to assure him he wasn’t cutting himself.
It helped, still. He wasn’t going to die, not like this. He wasn’t going to die at all.
They’d hate him, if he died. That had been underpinning it all, fuelling Rek out of fear. SB was forgivable. Rek was a professional. He couldn’t let them down.
Deep, shaking breath in, and Rek forced himself to relax. It was strange, how much he was holding his nerve, despite being downed on some outer End island with pitifully little gear. This was his domain, now. His lonely conquest.
Branzy would help him with his breathing. SB would share some embarrassing story, and Rek had to hold his breath not to laugh aloud at the mere thought. His lips still twitched. Jaron would laugh at him, but it would feel kind. Clown would be getting him bandages, more potions, telling him not to just sit here like a deer with a broken foot.
Rek would say he wasn’t a deer.
He wished he had Clown here, to ignore the retort.
He knelt there, for a long time. In another world, he was a lost traveller, huddled over a fire, warming his hands as the sun set before him.
In this world, he was everything from nobody to regent, bathing his mangled hand in the breath of a dead dragon and sugar, kneeling before the Void itself.
It was nothing like what he knew, and it was beginning to eat at him. The Void had realised he wouldn’t leave it be, wouldn’t move on like he always did, so it was beginning to work its way under his skin. Rek felt himself disintegrating.
He had to hold on. He couldn’t fall, couldn’t fly above his purpose. He had a job to do.
Even if his hand was still stinging. And his fingers looked wrong, now he took the time to look, and Rek could feel bile in the back of his throat, remembering too late the numbing effect of healing potions.
That’d better not cause him problems.
Rek needed both hands, to fight his demons.
——————
His timer had run down thirteen times.
Seven times, into three and a half days, into half a week.
Thirteen times, nearly fourteen.
Rek could nearly let himself turn his communicator on again.
It had become his security blanket, even more than his Echocraft equivalent, the latter tucked in the corner of his ender chest. That was an older, lesser sort of comfort.
These days, he slept with his Lifesteal comm clutched to his chest, in the short bursts between resetting the timer. Rek didn’t dare let it run over. Then he’d lose track.
He spent most of his time sleeping. Or trying to sleep. Communicator held close to his chest, a powered-off lump of technology that would do nothing to save him from the shadows that flickered in the corner of his eyes.
Rek told himself he was resting his hand. He’d burnt his fingertips off, and thanked the Void that it hadn’t been whole fingers. It would have been too much of a waste, to let himself patch that. As it was, he’d allowed himself one regen potion, and time. They were both in decent supply.
Honestly, though, he was conserving energy. Conserving sanity. There was only so long he could soar over boundless darkness and soulless castles before he felt like the chorus groves were reaching towards him like alien claws.
So, Rek sat. Hugging his comm. Staring at his clock. Waiting. Rocking, slightly, silently, stimulating himself in the most minimal way possible, so as not to attract the attention of the demons in the corners of his eyes.
The endstone was only two cobwebs away from the floor. Then he could turn his comm on. See if anyone was still out there, still thinking about him.
It made Rek feel normal. When he’d spent the last six clock cycles not wanting to break his hand or elytra further, swinging between struggling to remember what the point of his work even was, and crippling guilt at not working through his pain. He needed something to remind him there were worlds outside his lonely one.
But he was lonely. And sad. It itched at him, not working. Even though he could get up, and get back to work right now, and no one could even tell him to stop.
His team would. From inside his head. That was a stupid thing to rely on. They’d be just as likely to tell him to tough it out.
Really, Rek was being nice on himself. He hadn’t even been thinking about Minute, who could probably pull off everything he was doing without blinking. He worked so well, without complaint or comment, wouldn’t be sitting here, thinking about nothing but his own loneliness.
Rek did. Rek was staring, at the single block left. Rek could feel his comm digging into his chest, entirely dead and shut down, yet some kind of safety regardless. Nothing could hurt him, as long as his teammates were a call away.
Nothing could hurt him, as long as he knew his team would come save him.
His team was coming to save him.
Just one more block.
Rek felt his eyes and ear itching, as he watched, legs crossed and long gone numb, fingertips indented from how hard he was gripping his comm.
The endstone hit the bottom, and vanished, whisked back up to continue the endless cycle of this place, but Rek relaxed like he’d been stuck in those cobwebs along with it.
With shaking hands, he fumbled the buttons, pressing them down to power up the screen. Rek felt like crying, for no good reason. It was like he’d surfaced from something, not drowning, but something more alien than that. Something vast, and lonely, and soul crushing. Mere human drowning would feel like a luxury, at this point.
Still, he got his comm on, and for a moment, he felt normal again, his hands going limp as he saw the messages, his chest loosening in relief. Like there was nothing to be scared of.
Because his team was waiting for him.