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The boat rocked and creaked underneath him. Wifies curled up as small as he could with his leg trapped to the wood, the hem of his right pant leg snagged on an unrelenting nail.
He shivered, soaked to the bone. It had been a long swim up to the surface. He'd woken underwater, disoriented, and immediately started to drown again when he'd tried to breathe. That hadn't been fun at all.
He had no idea where the boat had come from. Maybe Hummer had left it here in anticipation of… of what? Had he known what was going to happen?
Wifies ran his hands down the strands of his purple headband and sighed.
The water laughed at him as it lapped the sides of the boat. He knew he had to leave. He'd seen all he needed to see. It was time to get up and go home, find a new mystery to latch on, a new concept that he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about until he had it all figured out.
Instead, he stayed in the boat. He shifted his leg. It was easy to lean over and unhook the fabric from the nail. Wifies willed himself to sit up but felt like he weighed a million pounds.
Ken and Wato would be so sad to see him like this.
"Get up." They'd say. "Get up and we'll catch you. It's okay."
But Wifies couldn't get up, and Ken and Wato weren't here.
When he blinked, he saw gold behind his eyelids. A bitter sense of irony filled him. Wasn't this just like D3rlord? His own creation? But the knight was able to get up after seeing something so horrible, was able to go up to that platform and face the King, even when Avery tried to stop him.
He should be trying to find Hummer. He should be washing this whole thing from his mind and moving on.
Tears slid down his face. He was so useless.
He wondered if this is how Parrot felt after Paragon. But he was sure his bird had been able to get up and leave it all behind. So why couldn't he?
His eyes felt wrong in their sockets. His tongue was too heavy in his mouth. His mind felt like it was separating from his body, a husk on a small raft in the middle of nowhere.
Somewhere, his siblings were in a place much worse than this. Somewhere, Parrot had moved on without him. Somewhere, Ken and Wato were wondering why he wasn't home yet.
His comm buzzed. Wifies jumped, and his pant leg slid free, coming to join the other one pulled up to his chest. Wifies inhaled. He exhaled. He looked around at the rotting wooden boat, and the ocean stretching out for miles around him. The sun shone brightly down at him. The world was still turning. It hadn't stopped just because of how awful he was feeling.
His comm buzzed again. Wifies fumbled to take it out, and it fell out of his pocket and onto the deck. He stared at it for a few seconds, watching as the screen lit up with a third message. A few more seconds. A call came in.
Wifies scrambled to pick the device up and answer.
"Hello..?" He asked, voice rough and hoarse. He wondered if it sounded like he'd been drowning.
"Wifies!" Squiddo of all people exclaimed. "I found another mod to try!"
"Oh." Wifies sat straighter.
"So if you wanna hop on a new server with me this weekend, you should totally come! I think I'll ask a couple other people to join. Yeah?"
Wifies blinked slowly, staring down at his comm. "…Right." He agreed.
"Hey, you okay?" Squiddo asked, a note of concern in her voice. "You don't sound too good."
Wifies made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I don't feel too good either." He admitted.
"Oh." Squiddo paused, shuffling. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I don't…" Wifies looked back out at the never ending waves. "I don't know. If there's anything you can do."
"I'm sorry." Squiddo sounded like she was frowning. "Where are you?"
That stumped him. "Somewhere… I probably shouldn't be anymore."
"Alright. Let's start with getting out of there then." Squiddo offered.
"I don't know how." Wifies told her, a hint of desperation in his voice.
"Where are you, Fies?" Squiddo asked again, firm.
Wifies sniffled. "On a boat. In the ocean."
"Okay…" Squiddo thought for a moment. "Can y-"
"Do you ever think about how much you've done wrong and wonder if anybody hates you for it?" Wifies interrupted suddenly.
"I don't hate you." Squiddo said softly.
"Okay." Wifies said, thinking of his sister Mable, because that was exactly what she would say too. "But do you?"
"No." Squiddo said. "I don't think people hate me for things I've done."
"I do." Wifies whispered.
"What could you have possibly done to make people hate you, Wifies? You're one of the kindest people I know." Squiddo asked.
I put my ex best friend in a prison because I went insane. I neglected Ken and Wato when I found someone new to hang out with. I left my siblings in a life of darkness when I had the change to escape, and didn't even think about bringing them out with me. And now Hummer is gone because I couldn't just give up when I had the chance. He died so I could live, and I wish it didn't have to end that way.
Wifies sighed. "I've done… a lot of things I'm not proud of. Made a lot of mistakes. And I wish I could go back and fix them but… I can't. And now I have to live with that." He swallowed, looking down at his comm.
"I think." Squiddo started, after a moment of silence. "That you're putting too much blame on yourself."
Wifies immediately regected that, something inside him curdling at the very idea. "No." He denied at once.
"Yes." Squiddo pushed. "You're only in your early twenties Wifies. And you've hardly been in the Overworld for five years. Of course you're going to make mistakes. You're still figuring out how people are even supposed to work."
There was a lump in his throat. His eyes burned. "But… everyone thinks I'm doing good! I can't… I'm not…"
"Hey." Squiddo murmured. "You can do good and mess up at the same time. Those two things are not one in the same. And Ken and Wato would tell you the exact same thing." She was right. They would. And they'd be really obnoxious about it too. "Now. Do you think you can click that disconnect button for me?"
Wifies sniffled, and wiped his eyes. "Yeah. Thank you. I'll see you this weekend?"
"See you this weekend." Squiddo affirmed, and the call ended.
Wifies shook his head and brought up the menu screen. He inhaled again. Exhaled.
Then he brought up a shaky hand and selected disconnect.