Chapter Text
Martyn remembers bringing Ren the rifle that their blacksmith had forged — heavy and cold, ready to spark violence and pain. He remembers how he handed it to his king, and he took it uncertainly, as if it were a garden tool or a music stand. Martyn asked if everything was fine. Ren laughed sadly, blushing shyly, as Martyn had blushed as a child: "I don't know how to load a rifle."
Martyn could have taught him. It wasn't that difficult after all. But Martyn said: "I can do it so you don't have to."
Maybe that's why they lost. Because Ren had no weapons other than his teeth and claws, and it was foolish to rely on his army. Maybe Martyn really should have taught him.
But he's glad he didn't.
. . .
Martyn was often left alone. After all, that's what these games do to people — they cut ties and leave you with nothing but a stack of dynamite in a minecart. The blast will be stronger than any friendship anyway.
His hands tremble as he makes his way through the hilly landscape of their valley: he left the heap where the dogs had found their home, because there was no business for him there, alone amongst a pile of coffins. The metal burns his palms, but he only holds the rifle closer like it’s his last hope. Martyn is a good shooter. A good fighter. He knows what he's doing! — at least usually. Now he constantly trips over his own feet, choking on saliva and whining.
He has too many bruises on his legs.
The invisibility potion lingers on his tongue, leaving behind a rotten taste, and he wipes his lips, holding his things tighter and looking down at the cliff before him: a good ten meters of free fall. He knows he won't survive, but he can try, right? It hurts more and more with each step, but he pushes himself, taking out the ender pearls.
It happens with a burst so loud it echoes in his ears. A flashing red mess, and Grian kicks him clearly in the chest.
Martyn falls down. And it's almost like falling forever into the void.
. . . He could sleep now.
Maybe even a moment of peace would help him.
Until something else happens.
. . .
Maybe he is falling. Maybe.
Maybe he is bobbing on the waves among the coral, waiting for the end.
Maybe he's lying on the ground, sprawled under the gaze of others, a beaten and battered dog. After all, Martyn really did have more bark than bite, right?
One- two- three- one- one- one- three- four- eight- sixteen- two- three- time.
How many seconds- minutes- hours- years- centuries have passed since his last breath?
Martyn inhales again just in case. Once again. And again. His chest hurts, but his breaths overlap perfectly — that's not how breathing works, is it? He doesn't remember. Maybe he doesn't even know.
Nothing exists in emptiness. There is no time, there is no space, there is nothing — such is life in a coffin!
Martyn truly considers this his coffin.
I mean, who would ever decide to give him a decent grave?
Martyn would be buried in the mass grave. Under the cross and among a heap of other people's bodies. As befits a good soldier.
"Have I been good, my lord?" — it doesn’t make it past his lips. They’re already numb.
The sound of nothing-and-never laughs at the foolish soul trapped in this children’s shoebox.
And then everything stops.
Really, everything stops.
. . .
It happened abruptly, like he accidentally fell into the cold sea. Feels like you've turned over in your sleep. Just like that.
But his waking is the opposite: his brain starts working slowly, providing some inclinations of electricity, but not enough for him to consider himself awake. Just a slight hum somewhere inside his skull.
Martyn is alive. This is strange, in fact, because this realization doesn't come upon him absent-mindedly, as his thoughts usually do, but like a hammer hitting a bell: loudly and painfully, like a fool suddenly earns the truth. Martyn is alive — isn’t that something? Thoughts must be on sale today with this unprecedented generosity.
But actually these thoughts are overdue.
He does not understand where he is, but the emptiness recedes enough that he can feel that he is lying down, lying in something soft and pleasant, which covers his entire body up to his shoulders — a blanket? He tries to move his hand, to feel the material, but his fingertips suddenly tremble, and there are too many random sensations. Great, Martyn hurts from touching.
Maybe he should start panicking.
To panic, you first need to get yourself up.
This is a tough act: it requires full concentration, all the strength of his body — he tries to push himself up.
“Oh no, no. If you get up, I'll tie you to the bed.”
Someone's voice is close, someone's hand is on his shoulder. Martyn obediently freezes in place, and an awkward pause reigns for several seconds. The person next to him sighs.
“Relax. Go back to bed.”
He obeys, exhaling and lying back down on the pillow. His whole body instantly lights up with pain, and he can't help but groan a little.
“I’ll get you some water and potions now, and then you should try to sleep again, okay?”
The question is rhetorical. Martyn can’t place the voice, figure out who it belongs to — it’s disorienting, disarming, but he still obeys the other person’s commands, leaving this mystery for later. Okay, it seems someone has set some of his ribs. It's not his problem now.
First they bring him water, and it seems like the nectar of the gods — damn, how he loves water, why does he drink so little water? Then comes the regeneration potion, and it burns his throat, making him cough roughly.
“Sorry. Anyway, go back to sleep. It's too early.”
Martyn doesn't want to sleep. Martyn wants to know what's going on.
But he allows himself to fall through the warmth and softness, and soon he actually falls asleep, not noticing that the emptiness has subsided.
. . .
The next time he wakes, sunlight falls on him in streaks, tickling his nose and warming his broken fingers. He has enough strength to open his eyes: he squints and winces, stares at the white ceiling. Slowly turning paper birds hang above him: they remind him of Jimmy. He's not sure why.
Well, now is the time for movement because he is tired of lying flat. His whole body is numb, and he would not mind at least warming up a little.
And, once-
“Oh fuck-”
Well. The experiment was obviously unsuccessful.
What’s hurting him? - fuck it’s easier to tell what’s NOT hurting him.
He hates living. Put him back beneath the truck he must have been pulled out from under.
“It’s like I broke my spine,” he mutters through his teeth, inhaling more air and exhaling it noisily through his nostrils, like a bull.
“Oh, you did.” says a familiar voice — familiar but not one he knows.
“Wow, sucks to be me.”
Behind him, he hears a chuckle and a creaking seat.
“Yeah, it does.”
And then a woman approaches him.
The first thing that catches his eye is her yellow-blond hair, which in the sun takes on an almost golden hue: it falls over her shoulders, covered by a swamp-colored coat, and is neatly held away from her face by glasses — or are they pilot’s goggles? Martyn is not good at this, and he puts off thinking about the question until later. She has large, bright blue eyes, but they are slightly squinted, like she often frowns or looks into the distance — maybe they’re pilot’s goggles then. She smiles lightly at him, and he decides that this smile is not hostile. He looks at her outfit for another second: a red striped vest over a shirt and rolled up shorts, which reveal strong, muscular legs. Why the hell does anyone wear shorts with a coat? What's the weather like outside?
“Since you’ve already hurt yourself, we can change your bandages and then talk.” She interrupts the questions that have not left his lips. Now he hears: she has a strong British accent and a peculiar manner of speech, with an upward intonation and a direct tone.
She opens one of the drawers and takes out a medical kit, full of materials a skilled doctor would use, but she only takes out bandages and jars of regeneration potion, and then she drags a basin from somewhere under the bed with the toe of her boot.
“How do you feel about diluted potions?” she asks, looking up at Martyn, and he shrugs, the movement reminding him: oh yes, he’s still in fucking pain.
“I’m not a child,” he remarks, feigning offense. The woman chuckles and hands him a pink bottle.
He tries to drink carefully, still feeling the liquid burning from inside - the nasty taste is the price to pay for the miracle effect. When he finishes, a glass of water is handed to him. Obviously, he doesn’t refuse it.
The stranger frowns a little while she pours a solution into the basin and throws bandages into it, and barely visible wrinkles appear on her face.
“Now I’ll never get this smell out of here,” she complains, moving the chair closer to the bed and sitting down, starting to unwind his bandages. Martyn grins a little.
“Say thank you that this is not an invis potion.”
“Thank you,” she says with sarcasm, “Thank you for not spilling even more of it on your clothes.”
Oh, that's right.
For all the suffering of this poor woman, he pays with pain: the bandages come off his skin with a very unpleasant sensation, and any movement reverberates through every cell of his body with a sharp sting. When the old bandages are finally on the floor, she begins to apply new ones.
“How long was I passed out?” he decides to ask, a little worried about his condition.
The woman grunts, pulling his chest tighter.
“Five days, probably. I didn't count. I had to pump you up with a ton of gapples to keep you from getting blood all over here. Well, also so your spine would heal.”
His breath comes a little short. Not because Martyn is afraid of broken bones — this is a common thing, he is a fighter after all — but because some stranger spent so many resources on him just so that he had a chance of survival. Gapples are terribly expensive — and illegal on half the servers!
. . . Fine. It's time for questions.
He has accumulated a lot of them.
But the stranger again pulls the bandages too hard, and he breathes quietly through his teeth, waiting for it to end. The smell of the potion is really very pungent - he knows that he will get used to it, but for now it gets into his nose and tickles a little, almost to the point of sneezing.
He is also distracted by hunger. Oh, Prime, Martyn is right about ready to sell his soul for food now.
The woman apparently senses his need too, so once she's finished with his bandages and slides the basin back under the bed, she walks over to the small refrigerator and squats down to get a better look at the contents.
“What about tomato soup?” she asks, and Martyn almost groans.
“Yes, please.”
She nods and turns away to start cooking. Martyn exhales and looks around, finally deciding to take in where he is.
It's some kind of van, or a motorhome, maybe? Martyn has seen these before, but this space looks wider than it should. Behind him are boxes and a door to the outside, then the driver and passenger seats. Opposite his bed stands a bunk bed, the lower bunk neatly covered with blue sheets and the top bunk sitting precariously above it (it must be held up in some magical way, beyond the understanding of Martyn’s currently boiled brain). Next is a small kitchen space with a stove, where the stranger is just now preparing food for them. The rest of the space is filled with cabinets with clothes, flags, and papers sticking out of them, and every relatively flat surface has been decorated with something: old movie posters, drawings, blueprints, photographs, and maps. Hanging from the ceiling are the very small paper birds, which he noticed when he woke up. They spin gently, giving off an almost calming effect.
Turning his head to the left, Martyn’s gaze falls upon a window through which warm sunlight shines.
They’re in the middle of a field. Yellow withered grass covers the dark earth beneath, broken up here and there by dirty snow.
“. . . What day is it now?” Martyn asks in confusion. “I mean-”
“Twenty first of December.”
He didn't even hear her approach — he couldn't help but jump a little when she poked him in the arm with a can.
The can was warm, and judging by the steam, the soup was hot.
The stranger takes her place by the bed, and she eats the first spoonful of soup without any enthusiasm, unlike Martyn, who, like a dog, is already ready to lick every last drop.
“Now,” she says, “you can ask questions.”
Martyn is too busy eating, thank you very much — the woman looks at him with a little concern, but gives him time. Damn, even canned tomato soup seems like food fit for the gods now. He finishes eating in a couple of hurried minutes and, when he’s done, he feels that he is now the happiest man on the planet.
Except for the fact that he still feels like one big bruise.
The can rattles as he successfully tosses it into the trash.
Along with the spoon.
“Who are you?”
Yes, this is a wonderful first question after such a performance.
The stranger is in no hurry to eat, and now she no longer shows any concern about the speed of her fellow traveler — or hostage? What is his status? — putting the spoon in her mouth and swallowing, wincing a little. She must have been eating this soup a lot lately.
“False” the answer finally comes, “False Symmetry.”
“Oh, how much this name tells me,” Martyn replies sarcastically, immediately receiving a mirror response:
“As if yours tells me a lot.”
There's an ominous pause in the air — Martyn raises an eyebrow.
“Wait, so you don’t even know me?”
False shakes her head, not even looking up from the can.
“Nope.”
“Not at all?”
“Only from stories.”
Oh
This. . . is interesting. Maybe?
False eats another spoonful of soup, and then carefully puts the can on the table, apparently not very hungry.
“Okay. Look.”
She takes a deep breath, sitting more comfortably in her chair, accepting that the conversation may drag on. He gives her time: after all, she saved his life. This conversation is probably as nerve-wracking for her as it is for him.
(He notes how slowly and carefully she leans back in her chair. A very unnatural movement.)
“I’m from Hermitcraft,” she begins, “Do you know what this is?”
Martyn nods. Of course he knows — half the people at the games were from Hermitcraft! It would be strange if he didn't know.
“Great. So, I have a friend — his name is Ren. Ren-Dog, You-Can't-Take-Theater-Out-Of-Man-Ren,” she gasps, “This Ren.”
A significant pause for Martyn to clutch the sheets and digest this thought.
Ren.
Of course it was Ren.
False watches his reaction, but doesn't say anything about it.
“When he returned from one of the games, he started constantly talking about you to Doc — this is his best friend, let’s put it that way — and then he switched to me. At some point, he got the idea of finding you, well, you know, how people usually do it, making connections with peers, but!” she raised her finger up, as if stopping him from interrupting. “After breaking through the entire half of the database accessible to him, he found out that you were not in it! Not at all.”
Well this was news. Martyn knew about the database, but the fact that he wasn’t in it? That's the news.
Although, in fact, it wasn’t so surprising. He could have guessed sooner. He didn't exist for the rest of the world for so long.
He nods again, as if this is completely normal, and False continues.
“He went to Grian to ask about you and all that, and Grian, being Grian, said: ‘I have no right to disclose information about the participants in the games, I apologize.’ Then Doc went to Grian, and, well — no matter, in the end we found out that you, once EVO had its catastrophe, were never attached to any server again.”
EVO. Grian. Games. Catastrophe.
Maybe that's a little much.
Maybe.
Martyn's fingers aren't shaking - he just really needs to hold the blanket.
No one has said all these words in one conversation for a long time.
In general, he hadn’t heard “EVO” from anyone else for a long time.
Nodding again seems stupid, so instead he just looks away.
False looks at him. She looks at him like a beaten mongrel — a pitiful dog thrown out into the street, whom you can sympathize with and take in to warm up for a couple of days. That’s fair. Martyn might as well be.
“Ren wanted to get you out of there,” she says quietly, “And we wanted Ren to be happy.”
Martyn inhales.
(He is in pain).
“I know.”
False nods.
Of course Martyn knows.
Martyn also wanted Ren to be happy.
“I don't know if you need the technical details of the rescue, I myself don't really understand what we did, really - Doc was just dictating instructions to me, that's all — but, um. You're not there anymore, buddy. You're safe now. You can return home.”
Home.
Burnt resin, dry trees, smoke escaping from under the bricks.
Home.
The sound of a portal, the cry of a dragon, a thousand curious eyes.
Home.
Now 10 become 9 and you must leave this land.
Okay. This is a little too much.
He bends over, burying his face in his knees and breathing heavily: in through nose, out through mouth. Martyn is not going to cry, Martyn is too strong for that.
. . . Ren wanted to save him.
Ren wanted to find him.
Ren was talking about him to someone. And they agreed to help.
Martyn is here. He's safe, he's out of the void, he doesn't have to fight anymore.
But he's in pain.
And she said that he could return home.
Martyn doesn't have a home.
It’s likely that he never did.
Everything is fine.
“Thank you,” he whispers. He doesn't know why exactly.
He will never be able to adequately thank them in his life.
He is infinitely ashamed of his momentary weakness before False, but he does not have the strength to look into her eyes — Prime, he cannot look into the eyes of the woman who saved him from an endless nightmare. Martyn has just hit rock bottom in ingratitude.
“You need time,” she says, calmly and almost tenderly, “We all need it. We can continue a little later.”
Yes. They have enough time now.
He has enough time now.
Martyn straightens up again. False smiles at him awkwardly, obviously not knowing what to do — but she smiles, and it's almost welcoming, almost friendly.
“Well. Welcome on the Boat!”
Martyn forces himself to at least smile in response.
. . .