Chapter Text
Everyone thought about dying, now and then. It was human nature to wonder what it was like for everything to end. Derek was no exception.
He'd wondered many times what his death would be like; let the morbid curiosity run rampant as he imagined what his ending would be.
Of course, that was in the Before.
Now, Derek didn't need to wonder. He Knew the feeling of every possible death just as well as he knew everything now. He Knew which way was his death, the exact time he'd die, and even how long it would take for his body to be found - (just under a week.)
He was a dead man walking and he Knew it.
Derek tried not to think about it. Much.
But if he was dead already, why not bring down the King with him? If he was dead already, why on earth would he let Avery - wonderful, kind, Avery - die alongside him? Avery would not be that thing's Vessel, Derek wouldn't let him.
So Derek, d3rLord3, stopped thinking and started acting.
Derek sent the spell in the game chat, distantly aware of the body that barely felt like his echoing the words that were burned into his too-full brain.
He endured the King's onslaught, even as he felt the pounding migraine intensify and the blood and cerebrospinal fluid leaking from his face. He stood firm, relishing in the panic in the Yellow King's - Hastur’s - voice.
He, Derek Hutchins, a nobody college student whose only hobby was playing Minecraft, made a God beg.
His heart dropped when Avery found them. He couldn't be here. He was putting the world in danger, he was putting himself in danger.
But Avery… kind, stubborn Avery wouldn't go. He tried to convince him to leave; when that failed, d3rLord3 tried to trick him into leaving. But despite what he thought of himself, Avery wasn't stupid.
So Derek told him the truth. He was dead already, his mind was unraveling with every passing moment. He wanted to stay with Derek, but… soon there wouldn't be anything left to stay for.
Avery wanted them to go down together; Derek couldn't let that happen.
He shoved Avery off the platform, Knowing the other would never quite forgive himself for falling for the inventory trick. But he would live.
It was over.
He typed out a final goodbye for Avery with shaking hands even as the world and his mind unraveled together.
It was over.
Red hot pain lanced through his skull about a millisecond before the King's World crashed, taking his computer with it.
Derek forced his head to turn away before he could see his reflection in the black screen. He already Knew what he looked like. He didn't need to see his gaunt, blood-soaked face staring back. He didn't need to see the sickly yellow glow in his formerly brown eyes.
The pain was excruciating, but Derek would take it one-hundred times over to stop the crushing torrent of Knowledge.
If being in the King's realm had been a filter, letting him process the infinity of the Universe without breaking, having Hastur contained in his mind was the opposite. Pure, infinite Knowledge was blasted into his mind with the force of every waterfall on earth combined.
Derek struggled to stay in his chair as his body convulsed. The fragments of the King left in his mind seethed and tore and ripped at his mind, Its rage just as painful as the information, as the pounding of his head.
Boom.
A bright burst of light from the window lit up his desolate room with color.
Midnight. New Year's Day. The fireworks had begun.
Derek finally fell out of his chair, his body no longer strong enough to hold him up. He kept his eyes glued to the window, drinking in the display.
Fireworks. Potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur. Potassium chlorate and bismuth for a grander show. Copper, magnesium, aluminum, titanium for coloration. He knew exactly where this particular firework was made, where the metal was sourced, who the person lighting the fuse was. Exactly 12,691 people were seeing this particular firework… he knew every single one of their names. Their histories, their hopes and dreams. How they'd die, none as painful and dramatic as his own, which would take exactly three more minutes and twenty seconds. Nineteen. Eighteen.
Even knowing every last detail couldn't ruin the magic of these fireworks. Because less than five miles away, one of the 12,691 people was Avery. Avery, incredible Avery, was looking up to the same sky and seeing the same colors. He was sobbing, chest heaving as he mourned Derek, someone he'd never met and never would. But he was alive.
Alive, Alive, Alive, he crooned to the dying god in his skin, victorious. Avery is alive and you're never touching him.
Hastur screamed, Its wordless rage buffeting Derek's mind as Knowledge dug into the grey matter of his brain like claws. It was killing them both faster.
What did Derek care? The only thing that mattered to him anymore, the only one of the over 8.3 billion people on this planet that he'd given his life for, was ok.
“Avery,” he said out loud, savoring the shape of it. He laughed, the sound more of a pathetic cough. “Avery… we won.”
Derek Hutchins died with a smile on his face.
***
In a world far, far away, twenty-five players felt their comms buzz. Those who checked saw a series of messages that made eyebrows raise, eyes widen, and hands type out concerned questions to the admin.
<d3rLord3 joined the game>
<d3rLord3 was killed by psychic damage>
<d3rLord3 died due to psychic damage>
<d3rLord3 was killed by psychic damage>
***