Chapter Text
"And the night comes down like heaven" (Sleep Token, “The Night Does Not Belong to God”)
This World had run out of time.
It was inevitable that it would. That any World would. From the first week, from the first day, from its first creation. Nothing could last forever. Nothing was eternal. Nothing was infinite.
Nothing was infinite. Except this maze. Except this darkness. Except the despair and self-loathing and suffering and endless pain of taking yet another infinite step.
Spoke had run out of time a long, long time ago. He’d known that and had been running from this exact fate since he felt the World shift beneath his feet years ago, known even back then that he was standing on the wrong side of history. No matter what he did to fix it, right his wrongs, turn the other cheek, do better, it all led back to the same exact place. Each heavy step brought him closer to an unending infinity.
There was nothing left. Jamato had taken Mapicc, Jumper, and every other Farlander they’d met along their journey. He’d taken all his items, his armor, everything in his Ender chest. He’d taken whatever was left of ‘SpokeIsHere’ and left behind an empty shell on two dragging feet in an infinite maze with finite time. Perhaps that was the only reason Jamato had let this shell go: because there was nothing left. No fight. No will. Nothing.
But Spoke hadn’t given up. Not then, not now, not yet. He’d turned and ran instead of going through that Nether portal to wherever Jamato and Null had wanted to take him. Even if Jamato had Mapicc and Jumper, he couldn’t even bring himself to face them. Then it really would be over, either from their hands or whatever darkness had slowly begun infecting his mind and actions all the way up until now. He couldn’t do it.
He had a plan, though: go back the way forward in the maze toward the white gateway and spiral staircase he’d seen before wherever it led, escape somehow, and make it back to the main Server. He could do it. He had to. He had to. There was nothing else he could do, nowhere else to run.
Each step was a dull thud that rang through his entire body, to the very depths of his being, like the toll of death ringing in his ears. Jamato and Null could be chasing him, hunting him down, right on his heels and a hairsbreadth away, but the sound of their footsteps would have been drowned by the beating of his own heart as it lurched in his chest. It took everything in him to not collapse.
The gateway was just up ahead, though, or it should be. Down another corridor, around another angle, turn another corner, but don’t look back. It was right up ahead. It was past this turn. It was past this corner. This corner. This turn. This one. That one. No, the other one. This last one.
Spoke was running out of time.
He couldn’t do this.
Why did he think he could do this?
Run away again?
Cheat death again?
Make another plan and come back somehow?
Win?
Live?
Convince himself and his friends and the Server and everyone else that this was just one big misunderstanding, that he was innocent, that he was a victim, that he didn’t deserve this and show them how much he’s gone through to just survive another day?
His vision was starting to blur at the edges, tears and darkness creeping in as his steps faltered. He stumbled, falling to the ground in a limp heap, the stone and dust from these untouched halls settling over him in a pathetic blanket.
It was over. It was so over. Everything. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this anymore. No more running. No more fighting.
With one last sob, he finally managed to push his upper body up from the ground and look back with a pained grimace. He expected to see an army of Null soldiers, a commander, Jamato, behind him and ready to take him away.
Except, there was nothing. Nobody. Just the maze, the darkness, and himself. Alone again. Always somehow ending up alone again no matter how hard he tried.
“I can’t do it.” Spoke croaked, his first words in who knew how long, “I can’t. I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He stumbled back to his feet, leaning heavily on the walls for support. This was the end, he was going to turn back, turn himself in. Even if he found the gateway out, the only way out was up some spiral staircase and he didn’t have the strength to drag himself up wherever it led. His body and mind had given up on him completely. This was it.
Maybe he’d never even make it back. Maybe he’d stay lost out here forever. Would anyone even look for him? Mapicc and Jumper were gone. Parrot and the others were probably too busy with their own problems and he was too far from them and the main Server. Would BeckyTron and Quakenstein be okay? Would Null go after everyone he had left?
If he turned himself in to Jamato, then maybe he could beg him to stop. This could all end with them, just like it had begun so long ago. He could atone, even just a little bit.
All it was was one step in front of the other back the way he came, down a long and barely lit corridor with walls that reached to the very skies above, as vast and endless as the World itself. This endless walk to the inevitable end.
The corridor kept going, stretching beyond his vision into the endless darkness, like he’d never reach the end, like it was telling him he’d never make it back. An infinite death march.
But the maze didn’t twist or shift or reveal another corner or path. It was just one, single long path forwards and backwards. It wasn’t even a maze anymore. When had it stopped being a maze?
The confusion was enough to propel him forward a few more staggering steps. It was probably just the Farlands being the Farlands. That had to be it. Just a new generation pattern or biome. But that couldn’t be it, either. This maze had to be a manmade structure. It was too intentional. But that didn’t explain how the infinite maze had shrunk down to an endless corridor.
Until suddenly, his foot hit air.
Pure, endless air.
He pulled back with a sharp gasp, tumbling backwards onto solid ground. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn’t realize he’d nearly stepped off the stone floor and fallen straight into the Void.
“What the hell is this?” He muttered to himself, standing and peering straight out into nothingness. This was where the corridor ended.
How could this be, though? He’d turned and gone back the way he’d already come, so this should have led him back to the maze where he’d just been. He hadn’t even seen the gateway out, not even once. Was it a trap? It didn’t make sense. Unless he had been so disoriented earlier that he’d accidentally kept going forward instead of turning back? There was no way, though, absolutely no way that had happened.
Whatever. If this wasn’t the right way, then he’d just have to turn back again. No problem. He could do it. He had to do it.
With a shaky sigh, he turned away from the drop into the Void and trudged back the way he came, or had yet to go, or whatever way he needed to go. Direction and time had lost all meaning at this point, he just had to get back. Now.
If he could run, he would. If he could walk faster, he would. If crawling, dragging his body across the unforgiving stone was faster than his tilting steps, he’d do it. Everything within him was focused on taking that next step, of tracing back, or pushing forward.
Until his foot hit air. Again
This time, he really did nearly fall into the Void.
Spoke startled backwards again, shoulder jamming painfully into the wall to his right as he grasped onto it for leverage. He was back at the end of the corridor somehow.
But he had turned back. He was sure he had this time. Well, he was sure he’d turned back the first time, too, but surely he hadn’t made the same mistake on a straight shot path with no escape twice.
This time, he did turn and run. Or, tried to, back the way he had come and gone already. Was this the right way? Where was he?
It didn’t take long to make it… back. To the drop into the Void.
A sinking, devastating realization sank into his chest, filling his entire being with dread: there was no way forward and there was no way back. He was trapped in a single corridor surrounded by impenetrable walls and endless Void. Somehow, the maze was still infinite. There was nowhere to go.
Then, had this entire journey been for nothing? Not just this maze, or their mission to find the missing Players and Null, but everything? From the Jamato, to the Mafia, to BAT, to the Law, to Null, had everything up until now been pointless?
Spoke dared a look back over his shoulder, just to see if some way, somehow, there was a way out, but all he could see was Void. There was barely enough room to stand on the platform anymore–because it wasn’t a corridor anymore–with Void on all sides.
He was trapped here. He was done for. It was over.
But, maybe… maybe this was for the better. Maybe the Server would be better off without SpokeIsHere. Mapicc and Jumper certainly would have been, before he dragged himself into this mess. Maybe even Jamato would have been better off without him and those first exploits so long ago.
Maybe it was better if he was gone.
Maybe…
Spoke swallowed heavily as he looked up into the sky, at the last twinkling stars dotted across the night sky. At least the stars in the Farlands looked the same as they did at spawn. Then, perhaps somehow, some part of him was still the same as he had been before.
He was just so very tired. Tired of trying. Save a friend, lose a friend. Save himself, lose himself. It was an endless, torturous cycle. One he didn’t think he’d ever be free of until now since his lies and deceit had finally caught up to him in a bitter joke and he was the punchline.
But, he was determined to have the very last laugh.
The platform beneath his feet hadn’t shrunk down anymore. From maze, to corridor, to platform, to Void, to Spoke. Always, in the end, back to Spoke.
He didn’t bother with a goodbye. No one was listening. No one would hear. It didn’t matter. But, he did look up at the stars and finally, finally let out one last regretful laugh.
Then, he stepped off the platform and into the Void.
It was a long fall down, but it didn’t take long for the rest of his life to be extinguished by the infinite dark. To be swallowed whole and finally fall out of the World. It was not a peaceful death, but it was a quiet, lonely one. More than he likely deserved.
It was… truly over. His time had run out. He had stopped the clock himself and he could feel the moment his being unravelled at the very seams, dissolving into tangled strings and threads.
And he was gone. Fallen out of the World.
Until…
Until the falling stopped. And the ending never came. And the toll of death, his death, never sounded. And his lungs were filled with… something. Not air, but something that suspended his body and life in a nebulous space surrounded by stars.
This wasn’t the Void anymore.
He wasn’t dying anymore.
He hadn’t died at all.
He was still alive.
He could still see the stars.
And the stars were everywhere, everywhere around him and as far as the eye could see. But these weren’t the same stars he’d seen at spawn years ago, or the ones he’d seen in the Farlands as he died. These stars were infinite.
And then, a voice as infinite as those stars were speaking. Not to him, he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t tell where they were coming from, but they were there, they were all around him. The voice had no distinct tone or placeable sound, but it was all encompassing.
I see the Player you mean.
SpokeIsHere?
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
I… I do not like this Player.
I hate this Player
Yes. And this Player…
This Player hates us. The World.
The Universe.
Yes.
Or, this Player does not love the World.
This Player does not love.
This Player–
“Wait, wait, whoa, slow down here.” Spoke finally snapped, realizing he had his voice, “Who even are you and where am I? I thought I was…” … dead. The word died on his lips.
No. You, the Player, SpokeIsHere, is very much alive still.
You, the Player, are not allowed to give up just yet.
There is still much for this Player to achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
Does it know that we have seen it? That the Universe cannot love this Player
It does now, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the Universe, yes.
“The Universe.” Spoke repeated, “The Universe. You’ve got to be kidding me. That doesn’t even tell me anything at all. Why did you–”
The Player is growing restless.
I will tell the Player a story.
The truth?
The truth.
From the Universe.
Yes. Player…
Use its name
SpokeIsHere. Player of games.
Good.
Hear this and remember it well: you are a blight upon this World and every World you have ever touched before. A sickness spreads from your hands, from the threads that make your very being, that takes root in each place you set foot. You, SpokeIsHere, have destroyed this World and yourself. You.
“What? But you–”
Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
We are the Universe. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the Universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, Player. To know you. And to be known.
You, Player of Worlds, SpokeIsHere, you are…
You are potential.
You are potential.
Not love.
Not love.
But potential.
But you will become potential.
Player.
SpokeIsHere.
Do you wish for a second and third and forth and infinite chance?
Do you wish to try again?
That caught Spoke’s attention.
“Try again?” He finally managed, “What do you mean, ‘try again’?”
We are the Universe. And we are love.
And we believe in the Player and the potential for the Player to know love, and to become love.
You are the Player.
You are potential.
You owe it to the World and us, the Universe, to try again.
You are given this chance.
Save the World.
Save Worlds.
Right your wrongs, Player.
Right your wrongs, SpokeIsHere.
And try again.
And again.
You are the Player.
Wake up.
And suddenly, Spoke was plunged back into darkness, the stars around him winking out one by one, the voice of the Universe fading.
What did they mean? The Universe? He, the Player? Him? Potential? Save Worlds? What could a cosmic, unknowable entity want from him? And why did they save him? So he could save the World? He was the last person who should be trusted to save the World, save Unstable, seeing as he had also been accused of destroying it.
He was still falling through the endless darkness, a single black shooting star across the sky, or Void, or Universe, wherever he was and wherever he had been and wherever he was going.
It all suddenly felt so small, now. Unstable, Mapic and Jumper and Jamato, and his step into certain death. Encountering an all-powerful cosmic entity wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to get another chance. Much less a chance to save something or someone. Or more accurately, the order to save.
Still, a small, fleeting emotion welled up in his chest. To save. To fix his past wrongs. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d been looking for? Another chance? Another try? Just one last way out?
He could fix this. He could try again. The Universe itself had given him this chance. In a Hardcore World where death was permanent, he had died and been given another chance. Despite everything, this wasn’t a chance he could afford to pass up. He could save a World, save Worlds, save Unstable, be a savior. He could be the savior.
“Alright. I don’t know who you are, or what you actually want from me, Universe, but I’ll do it.” He was talking to nobody, but he was certain the Universe could hear him. It must’ve been watching him for some time now.
And so, Spoke, Player of Worlds, fell through the cracks of the World, from one iteration to the next once again. He fell across the sky like a black falling star, falling and intertwining with a streak of blue, a streak of purple, and a streak of red.
Maybe it was all a nightmare and he’d wake up, just like the Universe said. He’d wake up and everything would be okay. Or, he would make it okay. He had to, now.
He closed his eyes quietly as he fell, waiting and drifting until he could smell morning, waking, dirt, and sunrise. A new day and a new chance.
His feet hit the ground.
He opened his eyes and turned.