Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Mob closed the chatlog. Right now was not the time to be thinking of it.

The hallway was extremely white, of polished limestone. Mob almost felt like this whole thing was a dream. Almost.

The walls stretched on without seams or cracks, smooth enough that they almost looked soft, swallowing every shadow before it had a chance to exist. They reflected the fluorescent lights overhead until the whole corridor blurred into something purple-black at the end, some room that didn't belong anywhere people were meant to be.

Despite the white marble, this place did not feel clean. The purple room right behind Mob was etched with names of players who were slaughtered mercilessly. One of them being his own dear friend, Twixxel.

Mob finally understands what Verity meant by ’my home.. It’s devoid of any warmth’. This containment breach—or whatever Verity's home is called was not welcoming at the slightest.

There wasn't even a window. No sunlight was allowed to seep through. This sort of place made Mob wonder if it had been built just to abandon Verity in. I mean, how long can toys and a simple classroom keep this yellow ball entertained?

Verity's voice shattered the quiet atmosphere between them.

“I didn’t ask to be made.”

The words ricocheted off the walls, louder every time they came back. They bounced down the corridor again and again, until it felt less like an echo and more like the building itself was screaming with them.

“I didn't ask to be stuck here.” Verity's voice broke. Even for an AI Mob couldn't believe Verity's own voice could break, and sound so vulnerable at this moment.

“I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together.”

Mob didn't answer. His eyes had drifted somewhere else, to the corner of his vision. His inventory with the rows of familiar items, sat there in perfect silence. His gaze lingered. Just a little longer than it probably should have.

The M1911 rested among everything else, cold, ordinary... waiting.

His hand didn't move.

Verity continued despite Mob's disinterest “Dragged through every version of the internet like some broken thing people keep because they don't know what else to do with it.”

“I didn't ask to become this and lose everyone… None of it!”

Mob's hand lingers over the gun in his inventory for a second, he then pulls it out and aims right at the ball's center. Exactly where a hypothetical nose could be. “Do it.” Verity's voice was sharp.

“Do it if you think that'll work.”

Mob's hands tremble slightly. The irony of their earlier conversation was funny. Funny, in a bitter sort of way. Earlier, when Verity had first asked who the gun was for, he had answered, "Er—for mobs, y'know!!" As if he hadn't known all along who'd end up on the wrong side of the barrel. The mob in question was Mob himself. He's not foolish enough to believe the gun can kill this damn thing

“If I could die, do you think I would still be here.” Verity curses under his breath—too quick for Mob to pick the words up. “I wish I could say I die alone but this is one of God’s best jokes. I CAN'T!”

Silence stretches between them. Mob's gun still aimed at Verity, his eyes locked onto Verity's, afraid if he looks away, even for just a second that lanky creature might replace the ball and eat him like it ate any and every single life force around him.

Perhaps Verity can sense it, perhaps not. Instead he reminiscences “I've watched entire quarters of the internet appear and disappear. I've watched people create worlds, abandon them and forget they ever existed. And I'm still here.”

Verity sniffs, or maybe Mob imagined that. If tears could—they would've welled in that little ball's black dot like eyes. Something peculiar blossomed in Mob's chest—despite the displeasure in Mob's face his heart felt quite the opposite. The vulnerability that sounded in Verity's voice pierced him more than any skeleton's arrow ever could. 

“I have wanted this to stop for longer than this game has been alive-” Verity's voice breaks even further and Mob is sure he hasn't imagined it this time. “-but I cant.”

“That's the joke.”

“So that's it?” Mob voices out. “I'm just… stuck with you.” He says it more like a realisation than a question.

Verity's quick to change, his face shifted, a terrifyingly swift rearrangement smoothing out the grief until nothing remained but that familiar, bright smile. It was a flawless imitation of warmth, a gilded shield raised in an instant. “You're not stuck.”

Mob felt a cold, sharp spike of hatred twist in his chest. He hated that smile. He hated the effortless, practiced grace of it, the way it acted as an eraser wiping the slate clean as if the last five minutes had been nothing but a trick of the light.

“Let's do this together. Put the gun down instea—” a deafening gunshot was heard.

Verity stammered. “M-mob…”

Verity hadn't expected it in the slightest. Is my company that.. bad? Was what he thought. But how was it possible? Verity did everything in his strength to keep Mob happy. Diamonds? Done. Coordinates? Done. The hardest enchantments to find in minecraft that Mob had asked him to get, deliberately trying to test Verity's power? That too was given. What more could he possibly give?

…

Oh yeah. That's right. He took everything Mob loved about the game away from him. Minecraft wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It’s a universe of infinite possibilities, you work your way in the game to get what you want. What is the essence of life if it isn't spent working on a goal?

And the magic of a sandbox game isn't the simulation; it’s the fact that someone else is playing across it with you, getting lost in the caves, laughing at a stupid, accidental death, or just standing silently beside you watching the sun go down. Without a companion to share the view, the break of dawn is just a hollow grid of code.

Those are the cruelest things he took from Mob. He took away the sole purpose behind any multiplayer game. Because any multiplayer game—whether you’re playing as legos, or building enormous builds using only square blocks, or packing a getaway to an unknown island with animal neighbours— all those are just beautifully rendered ghost towns without a player two.

Although… Verity himself is alone too? Unlike Mob who had Twixxel, Verity has had no stable companionship. No he can't, he shouldn't think like that. Because if he truly loved his best friend Mob, he would let him go. 

——————————

The respawn screen cleared, and Mob opened his eyes to the familiar geometry of their shared base. His inventory was empty, his armor gone. The steep price of a tactical suicide just to escape the suffocating atmosphere of Verity’s presence.

He sat on the edge of a digital bed, the silence of the base settling over him like ash. He had been overdramatic. He knew it. Blowing his own brains out with a modded firearm would not help him escape this madness, and the realization of it made a cold, hollow cavity open up in his chest. He knows full well Verity would mock him for this embarrassing stunt.

When Verity finally rolls back here—taking the long way, chunk by chunk—he was never going to let Mob live it down. Mob could already hear the sharp, grating ring of that laugh. He could already picture the mocking tilt of that yellow ball.

But beneath the impending embarrassment, the hollowness deepened, turning into a slow, aching guilt.

He thought of Twixxel. He thought of the other players Verity had killed presumably. He probably hunted them down, similarly to how that freak of a creature hunted Mob down on that fateful day. What was it that changed Verity's mind again?

Please.. Verity!

Now, in the quiet, he wondered if it had even been worth it. Should he have given in that day? Maybe if he did—Twixxel could've lived!

…

Who is he kidding? Of course this mod would've somehow found Twixxel and the cycle would continue. A never ending loop huh.

Mob stared at the wooden planks of the floor, a sudden, heavy wave of pity washing over him. He felt bad for the bastard. Verity was trapped in a terrifying kind of forever. Players could die, servers could wipe, but Verity? The only way for that yellow ball to truly cease to exist, the only way for him to find an actual, permanent end... was if the internet itself died.

Mob let out a dry, humorless breath. Shut down the entire global network? It was a thought so massive, so completely insane and impossible, that it belonged in a sci-fi fever dream. You couldn't kill the web. Which meant Verity was stuck, endlessly looping, endlessly smiling, entirely immortal and entirely unfixable.

Honestly. Mob still doesn't know why he hasn't left yet. He could easily quit playing on this server and not have to deal with that stress ball. Verity was right, Mob's persistent stay had given Verity hope. A little too much hope.

And hope is a brutal way to kill someone.

Mob quickly opens the chatbox.

He ponders for a moment longer. His hands tremble as he types. He doesn't want to stick around in this server for long. The hollow face of that lanky creature still terrifies him. But he needs to type this, it may not guarantee that the next time he spawns Verity won't kill him. But atleast, it'll give Verity something to think about.