Chapter Text
It happened the moment he had pushed Avery off. A shift in vision. Derek stared out at the landscape of darkness around him. And when he glanced back, he could see golden eyes staring at him. Attached to his dying, withering body. The King would die in there. An unsuitable vessel with a broken mind.
And Derek would be here, with a front row view.
He couldn't feel that body anymore. He couldn't feel a lot of things. Perhaps it was the... Disconnect. From his body in the first place. But he could only stare back at a horrified face- a face that was once his- and watch a god grapple with the inevitability of his own death.
The God could not speak. It left its true godhood, and all of that knowledge, behind in the screen.
The Spell had become a Trade. The King In Yellow had his body. And Derek had... Whatever he was becoming.
The process, for Derek, wasn't painful. His memory didn't falter. His knowledge didn't change. It was... Infinite. He simply now had the processing power and space necessary to hold it.
What Derek was more concerned about was something else. His humanity. The humanity he was watching die past a screen.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. He could feel it. Trapped in this digital ever stretching sandbox. For once, that Infinite Knowledge that plagued him could not tell him what the incoming loneliness and isolation was going to turn him into.
At least Avery was safe.
... This Avery. At least.
The world was randomly under his ownership when Avery checked into The Hub. He hadn't noticed it for several hours, because he had been too busy making sure that all of his information was correct.
Avery Matteo, a Skywars Champion, was a Server-Born. He came from Hypixel, and he was rather proud of it. It gave him access to Skins at a very young age, and Avery's go-tos when accessing other worlds were his slime skins. They made competitive play in other worlds a lot more fun. And, it meant people weren't looking at... Avery. If that makes sense. Not Avery Matteo. They were looking at TheMostMayo (creative, he knows), a strong, battle-intelligent ally.
Not Avery Matteo. The guy who barely passed the assessment to get access to other worlds in the first place. The guy who was told once he'd have more luck becoming a miner because it doesn't take a genius to swing a pickaxe.
The guy who then made sure the one who said that in particular had a respawn beacon on before he shoved him into a very. Very deep ravine.
That is the one who peeked back into his World List and saw something. A world that did NOT exist before he had to replace his Console. ... Not that it was THAT bad before. Avery had just. Found this world console- a laptop model, actually, great for portability- and decided that he was going to use it.
And there it was.
'DONTTURNLEFT'
Sitting at the top of his private worlds, as if he had been there recently. Last played... October 17th?
Okay. He hadn't played alone in a WHILE. But this thing was saying he was playing- what- earlier in the day? Yeah, right. Sure. Sure.
Well. If it was SO insistent that he'd played this thing, he might as well check it out. Right?
It took Avery 3 hours to get bored enough to start to wander. The world was a Peaceful one, just to start. Meaning nothing that wanted to hurt him would crawl out of the ground or the walls or- anything.
Cheats were enabled. Meaning in the first 15 minutes he was able to go into Creative and build himself a... okay. Not. Perfect House. But it looked nice enough. It had air conditioning. And he was able to set his world console up in its own little room.
And when he tried to see if he could find anything else nearby...? Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. A whole lot of nothing.
He tried the turning left thing. At every tree he saw! But then he walked in a big circle and decided that maybe he was in the wrong spot for that.
Then he wandered. But not before noting his coordinates down at his house. So he could go home. Of course.
Thats how he ended up at the staircase. Gazing down into a well-lit mine.
Someone HAD been here. It was finally, FINALLY, something interesting. Thus began his descent.
The mine itself made him feel... uncomfortable. And as he started to hit the bottom, he could smell. Blood. But, that wasn't all. No. He could see it too.
His eyes followed a trail that led from a random part of the wall... to a chest.
In the middle of the room. The lid covered in the stuff.
Slooowly, Avery pushed up on the chest lid. And he found... a lot of ores and materials.
That wasn't what caught his eye though. A book and quill. Also covered in... Oh, someone had to have died writing this. ... In a Peaceful world though?
He flipped the book open. Mumbling to himself as he began to read.
It was only as he turned to page 4, thoroughly confused, that he heard it. The sound of stone Breaking under immense force. And a pop. From... from... Him.
The man who was boring a hole in the wall to his right.
He wore a gladiator skin. Though he looked... injured. Yellow eyes bore into Avery's as he stared back in shock at the stranger. A stranger who he Knows is Not in the player list. A stranger who-
"Don't Run. Avery."
The gladiator spoke. Avery could feel the book drop out of his hands. Hitting the stone floor with a dull thud.
Then, Avery was running. Up the stairs. He blocked the cave off. He could still hear the stranger yelling for him. Labored. Almost begging.
How the fu- FUDGE- did that guy know his NAME?! He didn't know- he didn't KNOW but he knew he had to RUN he had to GO. Reach the world console. LEAVE the world. And GET OUT.
He'd heard of haunted worlds before. And Avery was NOT becoming a body to add to the haunted world pile.
That was his thought, as he slammed his door shut. That was his thought as he opened the options menu.
And that thought died the moment he realized that the button to leave the world was Gone.