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Now, theoretically, the portal should’ve worked.
Joel knows that.
As he stares at the misshapen blob before him, he thinks, Maybe I’m too old for this .
He’s really not that old, technically. He was, what, 28? 28, becoming immortal. Then, giving the thousand years or so that have passed, plus the couple months it’s been, Joel’s what? 1029? Void, he’s old, at least compared to the only other immortal he knows. Well, that is if Gem counted her years the same as he did. He’s not sure if she does.
Somewhere along the line, they’d met. Whether it was the same Gem he knew now, he was unsure. But he kept running into her every couple years. It was a different person each time, but he was sure it was the same soul, at the very least.
It was the only consistent thing in his dull life, at least until now.
Somehow, Joel had wound up in a circle that was a little too familiar for comfort, surrounded by familiar faces. He played it off, letting the more cocky side of him show. Before long, they’d gone off in their own directions, and he’d gone back to Stratos.
As buildings started to pop up around him, he wondered if he should bring back the village. It reminded him of something he had before his godhood, but he wasn’t sure what, or why he would want to bring it back now. Perhaps it’s the mortals getting to him.
Joel’s not sure mortals is the right word to describe this crew he’s started involving himself in. A few of them seem to be normal, though he would definitely describe Sausage as anything but normal. There’s the others, of course: Scott, a fae who seems right in his element, stealing and flirting, Gem, the ever-consistent warmth these past hundred years, fWhip, that goblin that keeps popping up in places Joel would’ve never thought to look.
Lizzie.
Every time Joel sees her, it’s like there’s this chain dragging him towards her. Everything about her is so familiar, yet different. He feels this ache in his chest every time she so much as glances at him, an ache of longing and melancholy. He wonders if perhaps she had been someone important, before his ascension.
He can’t be sure, though.
All he remembers is the sharp pain in his heart, the sky crying, and the ocean wailing as he collapsed on the ground before a bright light searing his eyes.
Now, it’s been months since he met these peculiar fellows. One may even say it’s rapidly approaching a year. Really, they’re due for a celebration soon! Perhaps he should build another temple, one for his brother of anniversaries, celebrations, and forgotten moments.
He’s getting off track. So many years alone does that to a fella, doesn’t it?
“Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel!”
Joel turns to find Gem behind him, landing carefully with grace that he wonders if it comes from being a butterfly hybrid or a princess. Actually, correction. She’s probably a soul-drifter, if anything. But for now, his Gem is a butterfly hybrid.
“Hi Gem,” He says back, using that easy-going tone he uses when he’s not doing anything important. The tone he reserves for her, every time he sees her. Joel really can’t explain it, but there’s always a sense of something that comes over him when he sees her.
Gem cocks her head at his mess of a portal, if it could even be called that. “What are you making?” She asks, her attempt at being serious failing. “What is this?”
He rolls his eyes at her, grinning. “Oh, I’m sorry that you don’t seem to understand the art, Gem.”
That only makes her laugh louder, before suddenly stopping. Joel pauses, sensing that something’s gone wrong.
She doesn’t say anything, just goes silent. Pale.
“Gem?”
She shakes herself out of it. Phew, Joel thought he was gonna have to zap her or something. Respawning is such a disorienting experience that it would’ve probably done the trick. Maybe.
“Sorry, I’ve just been a bit… tired lately,” Gem says, sheepishly shrugging it off. “Work on your portals, it looks awful!”
He laughs with her before helping her out with what she needs.
Joel hadn’t said it was a portal.
So, of course, being the madman he was, he goes immediately back into trying to build this portal after Gem leaves. Now, he doesn’t even know what he’s building, if he's being honest. It just… appeared in a dream. It felt real, stepping into the portal and finding a place that felt comfortable and homey and everything he wanted. Someone had been holding his hand. Too bad he woke up before he got to see anything more.
There’s something there if he pushes at the thought. It’s almost like something was blocking him from it, from reaching anything from before.
The portal should hold if his memories are correct. It’s supposed to hold, if he knows his blocks. And he knows he does because of the long years he’s spent in this world alone. He knows every nook and cranny of the maps he’s created, though are they really his maps if he has memories of the same ones in a sunlit tower, pink hair drifting and catching the sea breeze?
Immortality is making Joel restless. It’s making him think more than he wants to admit. Perhaps it would’ve been better for him to have died on that rocky shore, sobbing his heart out to the world as he held the remainder of his life in his hands.
His memories of his life before godhood have always been faint. When he’s asked about it, he just simply responds that he’s always been a god. He’s the only one who knows the truth, as far as he’s aware. Maybe some text out there will tell everyone otherwise.
There’s this tingling in the back of the brain which he hasn’t noticed before. He tugs on it, loosening it. Well, in a metaphorical sense. Obviously, he can’t actually tug on his brain. Joel may be stupid at times, but he’s not that stupid.
A portal. That’s what he’s been building. Right. But… a portal to what?
That’s what he should’ve been wondering, not how to build it. What did it lead to? Somewhere new, somewhere safe?
He’s long been aware of the eyes that Watch him and his friends, thinking They were slick. It felt familiar, to be under the presence of danger. Familiar in a way that made his stomach twist.
But the last time he ignored it, it didn’t go so well. So he remembered. Or didn’t remember. He’s really getting twisted up now, isn't he?
Bitterly, Joel wonders if he’ll be welcomed with warmth if he completes his godhood. That had been his goal. There was much more to do as a full god than there was to do in his current state, stuck in a limbo between mortal and immortal. He wasn’t even a full god, not like how his “brothers and sisters” had been before they had lost their worshippers. Before he had lost them to time.
Joel is really old, now that he thinks about it. At least, that’s how it feels.
Jeremy had always been much older than him, but he was past the age Jeremy had been when he simply faded away.
Pearl had been his age. Well. Considering her ascension. He has a faint memory of knowing each other as mortals, which means, of course, theoretically, they were close in age. He misses Pearl. She simply understood what he was going through. Faintly, he wonders if his Pearl and Sausage’s Santa Pearla are the same person. Perhaps it’d be better if they weren’t. Joel doesn’t think he could face her again.
He doesn’t like how much he thinks nowadays. It was better to joke around and pretend that he won’t be alone again in a couple years.
Right. The task at hand. This portal. Memories.
Joel tears down what he’s built so far, feeling a twinge of discomfort seeing the blocks fall to the ground. There was something on the other side, he was sure. He just had to figure out how to get there.
Though he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s rather lonely. He has these friends, right, but he knows in a couple of years they will die, and he will be alone again. Even Gem disappears for long periods of time sometimes.
He doesn’t want to be alone.
There is a crack in the side of the mountain at the Spawn when he flies by. It wasn’t there when he last visited to meet up with his fellow rulers, as they’d been referring to themselves as of late. Joel’s only meant to visit Sanctuary and see if Hermes wants to come back to Stratos with him for a few weeks, but he’s distracted by the glow from inside. Of course, he’s gonna investigate, he’s not stupid.
He lands by the rift, eyebrows furrowed and heart pounding. It’s whispering to him. They’re Watching him. Joel does not like being Watched. He’s never liked it. Now where did he get that idea?
fWhip appears beside him. “Hi Joel.”
“Hello fWhip,” Joel responds, watching fWhip as he walks closer, one of his boars behind him. “Come to stare at the weird rift with me?”
“Mmh…. No, but we can pretend I did.” fWhip chuckles. “Is it just me or is it whispering?”
Joel looks at the rift. It continues to whisper at him.
“I think it’s just you, fWhip.”
Joel bids goodbye to fWhip but stays close. He wants to know why fWhip has visited the weird glowing portal. That’s weird. It was just a rift. Nothing indicated it being a portal.
The whispers are quiet now, but they are still persistent. He refuses to give them any attention.
A few minutes later, Lizzie appears, carefully dropping next to fWhip. Joel watches as they talk with the boar fWhip has brought before it is pushed into the rift in a flash of bright light. He was right, it was a portal.
Joel visits Sausage like he was meaning to. Sausage is normal as always, laughter echoing through the area and jokes like he will die if he doesn’t. Hermes wants to spend another day in Sanctuary before returning to Stratos. With somewhat of a heavy heart, Joel agrees, telling Hermes to be careful before flying home.
Later, he visits the rift and throws in one of his sheriff toys. He feels drawn to it, though he couldn’t explain the feeling if asked. To make up for it, he tills more fields of wheat for his people. Joel has spent more time on the ground than the sky as of late.
As he plants more wheat, Joel thinks. It’s ironic that he thinks. He doesn’t like thinking very much. It is easier to give in to his instincts and let them take control. That’s what his body does. But his brain, the annoyance of his immortal life, does not appreciate it. It continues to turn its stupid little wheels.
He wants to remember his old life. He hadn’t before. But it’s like dreaming of another place has triggered something in him that he does not remember. It’s a faint memory, one of scorching heat, of ocean waves, of people who sit in a circle like his friends now do.
There is another life for him, somewhere.
Joel is aware of the other realms within this world. The Nether, a burning dimension that was inhabitable once. The creatures have adapted over the years, but it had always been like that, even when he was not a god. The End is much creepier, with the unrelenting void and dead islands. It’s always Watching whenever he visits.
The eyes on him are mildly uncomfortable. At first, when his ascension happened, he thought it was the gods watching him to see his progress, to see if he would ascend again. As time went on, watching became Watching, and now Joel does not appreciate being Watched. He bears it like a curse, however, like how he bears the weight of his urges.
In his dreams, Joel sees red. Fighting, snapping teeth, sword cutting down everything in front of him. He has these dreams frequently, which might be why he was so drawn to the one dream where everything was peaceful.
There are always eyes Watching him in these dreams, but he fights them. He snarls and breaks out of the shackles They put him in; he does not appreciate being puppeteered.
He begins with others. One by one, they drop like flies, just like how they were made to. A canary first, a vampire next. One by one, they fall to his hands. The red pools next to his feet, his arms, his chest, his head.
The world burns with every dream. Fire rages, set by who else but himself?
In his dreams, Joel dies, losing in a flash of red and with screams for someone he knows will not remember him.