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There was something about Las Nevadas that felt…familiar. Like the eerie echo of a friend’s voice you couldn’t quite place, or the notes of a song you hadn’t heard in years. Maybe it was something about the streets, laid out in their organized lines and twisting through dark corners. Something about the items displayed proudly in shop windows.
Or something about the grand building of pristine quartz, crafted by careful and dedicated hands. A palace fit for a leader. The grand presidential mansion L’Manberg had never possessed.
“And it’s…a casino?” H repeated, incredulous. “He built this much and no one even lives here?”
Next to him, Niki chuckled. It was a hushed, somber thing, filled with the sorrow that should’ve been beyond her years. “I’m not really sure where Quackity lives. I don’t know where any of the Las Nevadas residents live, really. I think one of these buildings is a hotel?”
“So they all live in a hotel??”
“Not everyone likes to build their own bases. Some of them prefer it that way.” Niki said, craning her neck to look at one of the glowing billboards far above. “It all looks lovely, though.”
H made a noise of reluctant agreement, turning away from the artful casinos to take in the shopfronts and looming towers that made up the Las Nevadas skyline. Dusk was approaching, and lights hidden in every nook and cranny were flickering on.
A pang of familiarity stabbed at H’s heart. “It almost looks like a shopping district.”
“...A shopping district?”
“Oh, come on! I’m not that old.” H turned back to Niki, waving a hand as he searched for the words. “It’s the spot where everyone would get together and build a bunch of shops. Restaurants, minigames, sell resources. No one would really live there, but everyone would visit. Sometimes they’d be looking to buy something, or maybe they’d just drop by to see what everyone else was up to.”
There was a disconnect in Niki’s eyes. Understanding, sure. Maybe even curiosity. But recognition was a different story. That level of community, the ability for a whole server to organize something as one, was a foreign idea to her.
Sometimes he hated this server.
Niki’s soft words of response were lost on him, a flicker of movement on one of the low roofs catching his attention. The alarm bells went off in his brain, a deafening drone, and he reached for a weapon he no longer carried. Hands fumbled over a bare belt, a leftover strap no longer holding an axe.
A figure loomed over them. “Hello!!! Welcome to Las Nevadas, fellow humans! Whatcha lookin’ for!?”
…H went unharmed.
However, Niki’s back was to the figure. She flinched at the sudden shout, pulling a dagger from her belt with a speed H might have found impressive if his heart wasn’t threatening to beat out of his chest. Terror buzzed through H’s nerves, spurred on by the mixture of anger and fear in Niki’s. Two former soldiers — one with a blade and another fully prepared to use his fists — ready for a fight.
The figure didn’t attack, though. Instead, they perched on the edge of a slanted roof, their legs swinging in the air with the innocence of a child, dressed smartly in a white dress shirt and green slacks.
Something was…off. Like they were one step from being human, just odd enough their wide grin felt uncanny.
“Oh…” Niki muttered, just loud enough for H to hear. Her dagger was cautiously sheathed, and after a hesitant moment she raised her voice in greeting. “Hello? Who are you?!”
“Have you been told anyone was added?” H asked under his breath.
“There’ve been a couple.”
“ I hear about nothing that goes on here.”
“That’s at least partially your fault."
Meanwhile, the newcomer beamed. “I’m Slime! Yes, Slime Slimecicle, the human! Definitely made of meat, just like a guy!”
Yeah, nah. There was too much weirdness on this server already. H made up a decent chunk of that weirdness, and it wasn’t like he needed competition. “Right, Niki, I think this is where we leave.”
“Don’t be mean,” Niki admonished, before returning her attention back to the newcomer. “Do you live here, Slime?”
“Sure do! There’re a lot of nice holes to dwell in here! Nice and cozy! Get’s cold at night though.”
H turned away, very intentionally ignoring the way Slime slid slowly down the wall with a series of suspicious squelching sounds, opting instead for peering through windows, leaving Niki to chat with the stranger. He had met enough weirdos to last a lifetime, and he wasn’t nearly as far into said lifetime as most of the server’s players liked to assume. Let Niki deal with the goop man, she had enough patience for that.
“We’re just looking around.” Niki was explaining. “Neither of us get out much, so we thought we would see what everyone else was up to. Quackity has done a lot with this place!”
“Of course he has, it’s Quackity! Las Nevadas is thriving! We have burgers! Casinos! Gambling! Alcohol! Those things are cool. Quackity says so!
“Oh. Does he?”
H tapped on the glass of the storefront, trying to figure out how thick it was. It was solid, almost a full block. That was rare nowadays, as more and more people were opting for thinner layers of glass that looked cleaner and were easier to see through. They also tended to be more expensive.
“Yep! Quackity from Las Nevadas has taught me a lot of things!”
“Oh, dear.” Niki gave a quiet chuckle. “You need to speak to someone other than Quackity. He can’t be the best influence.”
Slime’s laugh was a rowdy thing. Loud and untempered by war and pain. “I do talk to people! Aren’t you talking to me, Nihachu from the Secret City?”
H’s attention was almost drawn by the comment. Nihachu? Had she introduced herself as that? Had she introduced herself at all? He hadn’t caught it.
…Wait, why would Slime know where she lived?
But he was only a few paces away, so he could help if anything went wrong…and there was this lovely set of vintage discs in a shop window. The kind of thing H might have sold back in the day, fished out of mineshafts and battles with mobs. Did he have the money for them? Was the shop even open? Was anything here open??
“And I can talk to you too, HBomb94 from The Cube! Do you like gambling? We have so many casinos!”
H had taken his fair share of beatings over the years. He’d been shot. Stabbed. Burned. Drowned. He’d been witness to wars, revolutions, betrayals, and deaths. He’d watched his friends break down to nothing, and countries burn to the ground. Some days it took a lot to shake him. Others it took nothing at all.
And apparently, today was one of the latter, because words felt like taking an arrow to the skull.
He reeled, rocking back on his heels until he stumbled back from the shop window. Some vile mixture of anger and terror drove bile into his throat, making his stomach turn. “The hell did you call me?!?”
Concern washed across Niki’s face, and she moved towards him with a hand reached out. H didn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her, not as the creature in front of him tipped its head in some horrible pantomime of curiosity and confusion.
“HBomb94, from The Cube. That’s your name, ain’t it?”
…Ain’t it?
And the world shattered.
The quartz building towered above the shopping district, hung with banners and rigged with fireworks. Above them stood a man, his hands spread out in triumph, a smile upon his face. His horns caught the light, his neatly cut suit mussed by time and continuous wear.
He was a king, his horns a crown. In another world, anarchy and war followed in his steps. Chaos and destruction in a world without law.
But here he was a friend. Here they laughed with him. He would not be the one to ruin them…
The fireworks flew, celebrating their new president.
The mansion at his back had been built by two hands, not his own. By H’s toil and H’s blood.
Only to burn under a rain of explosives.
And the world shattered.
A woman in a striped shirt danced before a campfire, clapping along to the beat of a giddy song. Cherished friends were gathered around on fresh-cut stumps, the chaos of a fresh spawn, welcoming themselves to a newfound home. People H loved. People H cared for.
A group of dogs barked in the background, stealing scraps from the partygoers, running underfoot, and howling to the chorus. One raced to the dancing woman, and she took its front paws in her calloused hands and led it in their dance.
It was their welcome, and it was her goodbye. She would leave them there to colonize that new world, taking the joyful pack with her.
He would hear of her again. Hear of the wild woman with her loyal hounds, trekking across the world. He would hear stories from friends who played in games and challenges with and against her.
It would only see her once more, in a drowned world not so different from the one they had last called home.
And the world shattered.
There was an obsidian web draped over the town, spun over their paths and builds and everything they had worked so hard for. The flags had been ripped and burned. Chunks of buildings were still missing from prior battles. Fires were left to smolder.
Obsidian, left to taunt them.
The men at his sides smelled of gunpowder and smoke. One of them was cursing out the skies and their enemies across the ocean alike. The other gripped a bloodstained battleaxe, exhaustion clear in his slumped shoulders and shaking grip.
They were all so young.
Too young. Too young to fight their friends. Too young to be so tired. Too young to have nightmares of blood and pain and fear.
And the world shattered.
H breathed.
He took in deep breaths of fresh, spring air coated in the magic of a modded world where fae ran wild and the laws of the universe were stretched to their limits.
Three voices faded into the ambiance. Two even more familiar than his own, a wealth of history between them, keeping them together through all this time and pain. The last was new, less familiar but not unwelcome.
A goat bleated somewhere outside. A cat purred. Fingers carded through his hair. Incense burned somewhere in the depth of the house.
And it still smelled like smoke.
And the world shattered…
He fell to his knees in the shell of a burned-out city.
It smelled of gunpowder, smoke, and blood. A weathered battleaxe slipped from his shaking hands, tumbling into the mud with a squelch. Rain poured down, steadily washing blood and grime from its blade, exposing chipped diamond. It was from a day before netherite, before weapons too strong to be damaged.
The weapon had been a friend, a loyal companion through battles, violence, and destruction. The pole was bent around the curve of his palms, he knew the origin of its chips and scars the same as he knew his own. A weapon that had taken down trees, builds, and people alike.
And oh gods, that was his friends’ blood.
Immediately bile rushed to his throat, and he heaved onto the muddy path. Rain ran down his back, sweat dripping down his temple. Blood clung to his hands, staining the mud beneath him red. The blood of erstwhile friends and allies clinging to his skin and clothes.
He sat there, in the cold and the rain, in that burned-out city. He couldn’t tell which was more pressing. He couldn’t tell— oh gods, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t force himself to sit up, he couldn’t push down the fear and free himself from the searing pain in his chest.
Gunpowder. Smoke. Cinders. The familiar scents of a war-torn land. The smell of a man draped in flames as heavy boots threaded through mud.
Another wave of helpless panic. H grabbed the axe in stubbornly shaking hands as he pushed himself to his knees, flinching under the rain pelting into his eyes. His stomach turned, wavering under the weight of disaster.
H looked up at the man of smoke. His eyes were cold, impassive things, their light lost to war, pain, and betrayal, yet he was a betrayer himself. He wore a flowing coat, a beanie pulled over short brown hair, his clothes singed and sliced. A scar ran across his face, bold and ragged, a story to tell.
“President Soot.” H choked. He had never known the man well, but there were very few who escaped nightmares of him. Few escaped nightmares of explosions, fires, and smoke. For H, the wraiths accompanied nightmares of Niki’s panic or Eret’s tears, of the pressing weight of suffocating smoke, haunted by horrid cries. The man everyone feared…
“Who?” The man of smoke dropped into a lazy crouch a few paces in front of him, eyebrow raised, an amused smile quirking his lips. A red cloak fell across his shoulders, the hood half pulled up over a dark beanie. “Can’t say I’ve ever been president. Probably wouldn’t make a very good one, but I could try!”
H stuttered. The rain continued to fall. The blood washed away. They were on a dock, the city in ruins behind them. Grand ships sat in the harbor, sails billowing in the heavy showers. “I… Will?! ”
“Who else would I be?” William asked, tipping his head. “But come on, you have some seriously distressing dreams, mate. When’d your brain become such a hellscape?”
Despite himself, H burst out laughing. He let the axe fall from his grip again, tumbling this time onto solid wooden planks instead of muddy puddles. It was still soaked in blood, and so was he, but Will was here and that was what mattered now. Will was here and everything would be fine. It would be—
The ships swayed in the harbor. Will’s smile was genuine, but it was drawn and weary.
“I haven’t thought ‘bout this place in a loooong time.” H breathed.
Across from him, Will relaxed into a sitting position, squinting against the rain as he looked to the skies. “The harbor? Or the server?”
“Any of it.” He admitted. He could barely hear his own words over the storm. He decided against thinking about why Will could.
“What about Harmony Hollow?” Will asked. H shook his head in reply. “The Deep End? The Avenue?”
“None of it…”
“Don’t think that’s healthy.” Will replied.
Another grin flashed across H’s face. “I’d be surprised if it was, dude.”
“Then why hide from it?”
H took a deep breath. He held it for a moment, savoring it, then let himself breathe. Will was quiet, humming a soft song into the rain as it faded from raging storm to a light shower peppering their shoulders. “Because I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
H winced. “Of…the memories. Of what we did to each other. Of you. Of Graser. Of everyone…” The words choked in his throat. He stared up at the sky, at the darkened clouds. Will waited. “Because if I remember this then I have to remember everything.”
Will hummed in consideration. “There was so much to love though.” He chuckled. “Remember teasing Graser? He’d get so mad about it, but no matter what you always knew he didn’t really mind. I remember ABBA caving with the crew, spending hours and hours down in the mines. Oh! Or going to the hub worlds and playing mini-games with Grape and Issac.”
“There were a lot of bad things too. It…it turns it all sour.”
“Only if you let it.”
H cackled dryly. “Will, we hurt our friends! We got petty over nothing and we fought and every second of it hurt!” The panic rose back to his throat, and this time driving it back down brought a rush of rage crashing down on his shoulders. “It hurt , and then you and Graser just left! I had to figure out what to do with my life without any of you there, and the more I thought about it the more I remembered how much everything hurt! ”
“H—”
Furious, H shoved himself to his feet, nearly stumbling over the fallen ax. “And then I had to watch a bunch of kids go through it all over again! I had to keep watching people fight wars and kill each other and…and gods , they remind me of us sometimes!”
Will got to his feet. That singed old cloak billowed in the wind, revealing every tattered edge and frayed rip. The hood had fallen, draping down his back, revealing the scars peppering his neck and the edges of his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
H laughed. Will winced. The winds spun. “Like hell you are!”
Will started his way down the dock, towards the row of ships. H chased after him, their boots thudding like frantic heartbeats, echoing against the deck. The sea rushed underneath, the ships swayed. There was a gangplank lowered from one of the furthest vessels, where ghostly wisps tended the rigging.
“What if we hurt too?” Will asked, his tone musing. “What if it hurt a little too much to see everyone happy again?”
“Well, then congrats!” H spat. “You successfully made us miserable!”
Will stopped at the edge of the gangplank, looking solemnly out to sea. “What if I didn’t want to make you miserable, H? What if I thought you were happy, but I still hurt, and I thought if I spoke about it everything would be ruined, so I just decided leaving was easier?”
“Again?!” H stood below Will now, as his best friend stood on the gangplank of a ship bound for distant lands. “You’re just going to leave again, and who aren’t you telling this time?! Who are you abandoning to find out you’re gone from someone else?”
“You know I’m not really here, right?”
“Who gives a shit!?” H snarled. “You ditched us! Twice! And I don’t care if you’re not here, some part of you is and that’s enough to yell at!”
“...Then find me, H. You need to yell at me and Graser? You need to be mad? Find us! We’re out there, somewhere. We might be waiting, and all we need is for you to reach out first!”
H’s rage stuttered. “And what if I’m scared, Will?”
“Then…then we might be too.”
And he left H there, standing on the empty dock with the ghosts of memories. And there was the slightest flicker of consolation that this time, at the very least, he got to see the ships leave the harbor.
And the world faded.
“You have had a time of it, ain’t ‘cha?”
The ships and their harbor were gone, replaced by a hand-carved front door and a worn dirt path. He stared instead at a home embedded into the wall of an overgrown cave lit by lanterns, fairy lights, and sunlight filtering through tiny cracks in the ceiling. Flowering vines were draped in every passageway, the gentle hmmm of modded magic buzzed in his soul, and an animal bleated somewhere in the background.
Calm rushed over him like a weighted blanket dropped on his shoulders. It felt cozy and warm, and H took a breath, grounding himself. He took a moment, then, remembering there had been a voice, he turned. Turned to an arching tree and the elegant benches that surrounded it, to meet the eyes of a woman who seemed both at home and out of place in equal measure.
Green overalls, a purple sweater, and high black boots. Her eyes were yellow as goldenrod, and her dark hair was strung with flowers. She radiated a presence of home, laughter, and friendship. Of happy memories.
“Shubble?”
Shubble grinned, a bold, impish thing. Mischief danced in those yellow eyes, that playful spirit, untempered and unbroken, unlike so many of her friends’. “Of course! Who else do you think this pretty face belongs to?”
“You look different?” He noted, turning completely as Shubble bounded from the bench, skipping to his side. Her hair was styled into waves, her paper crown was gone, and the old shorts and gray hoodie traded out for her current outfit. She looked younger, happier. It made H all that more aware of how much older he seemed.
“Most people would look different after so many years.” She noted. Her heavy boots sent up puffs of dust from the worn paths, clacking against the occasional flagstone. “It’s kinda weird how little you’ve changed, H.”
“I’ve changed plenty,” He grumbled, following her down the path, past scattered houses of a dozen different styles. “Age does that to ya’.”
“ Excuse me , I’m older than you!” Shubble griped. “And you look fine! You’ve grown your beard out more, you’ve bought a new flannel. That’s about it... You haven’t even got any new scars! That’s impressive for you!”
“...Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
They kept walking, past familiar nooks and crannies, under loops of fairy lights and cozy little builds that stirred up fond memories. Before long the path began to slope, the occasional stair or two leading them slowly upwards. Side by side, both of them smiling over quips and banter.
“Do you ever miss this place?” Shubble asked, suddenly, like an afterthought.
The question carried weight. Likely more to him than it did to her. He considered, looking up at wooden beams hung with lanterns, and the drifting sparks of airborne magic. He always forgot how much weight the air could carry, how it grounded you more than the thinness of worlds he typically called home. “Yes. This…it felt like home? While it lasted, at least. I wish we’d stayed here.”
“All servers end, eventually.”
“I wish they didn’t.”
“Well, unless you want to spend your entire life in a hubworld.”
H gave a tired chuckle. “Yeah. No thanks. But I guess…I don’t understand why players always need to be on the move, ya’ know? Why do we always end up fighting or running? Why can’t we just find some folks we care about and never leave them behind? Why do we always need to move on?”
Shubble gave him a weak smile in return. “Because time isn’t kind to us. Because eventually players get bored, or we see too much, or there’s something greater to see. I mean, just look at Scott! I don’t think you could ever make him sit still. We’ve tried! But he keeps going. Always moving. A lot of players are like that.”
“And what if someone wants to sit still, but no one else does?”
“Then that’s how servers break apart, isn’t it.” She answered. “Someone wants to stay and someone else wants to move on. They part ways, and some of ‘em never see each other again.”
A final step upwards and unfiltered sunlight greeted them, welcoming them to a small patch of farmland and grass of a vibrant, verdant green you didn’t see on unaltered worlds. The sun was bright, and the skies were clear. In the far distance a castle floated, held up by clumps of cloud and draped in rainbows, glittering in the midmorning light. The shadows of other builds — further away or lower down — could just be seen, shapes H had watched come into being, years and years ago.
“I don’t want to never see them again.”
“You see me and Scott at MCC every so often,” Shubble prodded. “You could, you know, talk to us too. But you do see us.”
H kept walking, further down a path he knew every turn and twist of. “I worry about talking to you. You’ll ask me how I’m doing, and the answer isn’t that great, so it’d be better to just…not speak to you to begin with. Besides, then I have to start thinking about everyone else we don’t and can’t talk to anymore. I wouldn’t know how to contact Britt or Dylan. Hell, I don’t even know how to contact Will or Graser, let alone anyone else!”
“So, it’s like a rabbit hole?” Shubble asked. “One thing leads to another and another until, eventually, you decide cutting yourself off is the better option?”
“Exactly.”
She was quiet for a minute, before continuing in a voice far softer than her typical. “You boys never told me what happened.”
His eyebrow creased. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… Well, you don’t need to tell me, but Britt made sure we knew when you and Graser joined that your previous server had kinda…gone up in flames? We could tell it had messed you up a bit. And then Will crashed through the whitelist and he was all kinds of scarred up, and we knew something bad must have happened. But we never knew. I never asked, because I felt like it was rude.”
“And you’re curious?”
“...Yes.”
“It’s a long story.” H hummed. “I’m not sure I want to tell it.”
“Then…well, don’t.” Despite the edge of harshness in her voice, Shubble looked up at him with no less concern. “Are you doing alright, though?”
“I’m… No.” He admitted.
“Can I do anything?”
They’d stopped in the middle of the path, surrounded by structures H couldn’t remember who’d built. Surely it can’t have been that long. Surely? The comforting blanket was starting to feel like a pressing weight, suffocating him in the confines of his own creation.
“Can I have a hug?” He whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear. For a second, he thought the winds caught the words, that Shubble had missed them and they would never be heard. He thought the request would be lost to time, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to voice it again.
…And then he was pulled into the tightest bearhug his old friend could manage. He was pressed into that soft-knitted sweater, held close by familiar arms that claimed memories of comfort, safety, and laughter. There wasn’t pain here, no memories of soot and blood. Nothing like the hint of darkness behind Will’s eyes, none of the shared memories to torture him further.
“Thank you.” He murmured. After a grateful moment he returned the embrace, clutching to the wisp of comfort he’d been offered.
“It’s the least I can do,” Shubble responded. “But, if it ain't me, find someone to talk to, okay? It doesn’t need to be the moment you wake up or anything, just…don’t hurt yourself any more than you already have. Talk. Talk to your servermates. Come talk to Scott and I sometime. Maybe, if you like, we can even try tracking down Graser and Will someday.”
H thought about it for a moment. He thought about Graser’s raucous laughter, echoing up from the robot’s tinny speakers. He thought of Will, cheering as he soared through the air on some of the first elytra they had ever found. He thought of cliffside balconies, seaside bunkers, and parkour courses.
“Yeah. I’d like that. It’d be nice to see ‘em. It’s been a long time.” He cleared his throat. It felt rough, strained. Nearly choking him. He took a breath. The sky was clear, cloudless. “And I’ll talk to you next MCC, ‘kay?”
“I’ll hold you to it, H”
They broke apart. There were tears in Shubble’s eyes, brushed quickly away. H glanced down at his hands, finding them clean and unbloodied. The weathered old axe had been left behind on a muddy dock.
Then there was a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up into Shubble’s eyes. Her smile was soft. A little sad. A little happy.
And a little bit of impish light.
“ Wake up , HBomb94. I’ll see ya’ on the flip side!”
And the world faded away…
H lurched awake, and for a long moment he tried figuring out which memory was haunting him now. The stone walls felt familiar, the high ceiling, the signature mix of minimalism and opulence of an old-fashioned castle. It reminded him of minigames, arrows, and pitfalls. Of old friends, who he never saw elsewhere or since. It took him a while to realize that this wasn’t the wraith of yet another abandoned world where a forgotten friend would come to comfort him. It was just an old-school castle, built by the man who’d first given H his first home on this godsforsaken server.
He was in Eret’s Palace, in his old room, tucked under spare sheets, and surrounded by the collections of furniture he had left behind. The air was warm in the fashion of sunlight piercing through a morning chill, dust drifting through the air, and colors spread across the room by stained glass windows. It lit familiar images, coffee cups and photo albums, items he’d known he owned but not allowed himself to understand,
One such item was a tapestry, hung on the far wall. Dusty and aging, it bore the image of a dragon curled around a half-formed world, weaving blue code between its claws, knitting the little world together. Puffy had always referred to the creature as a monster, this dark being with wicked spikes and ragged wings, plates separating along the curve of its back to expose a brilliant red interior. The notion had always annoyed H. He hadn’t been able to say why, only able to tell her and Eret that the image felt like a symbol of friendship and kindness to him, that the furled wings seemed protective, not pressing.
He looked at it now. He looked at it and chuckled, imagining the raging monster in Puffy’s imagination having Graser’s tinny wheeze or excited skip as the construct leapt ahead of the group, too filled with energy to consider their organic stamina.
Their admin. Their protector. Their friend.
H could defend that memory now. It was his to claim and treasure, even if a part of him still wanted to take it and stuff it in the furthest recess of his brain because it hurt. Because with those joyful moments came memories of wiping dried blood from scratched metal shoulders. Of a metallic scream of rage. Of a world shattering to nothing.
But the memories were his. Memories of his friends, of his days as a solider, of learning redstone and building games.
It felt like a promise. It felt like a release.
Swinging himself to his feet, blankets cast aside, H stood in the middle of the room. It felt familiar and it felt like so many things before it, boots against wood and wind filtering through stonework. It felt like a hotel made of sandstone. Like a mansion made of quartz. Like the set of a friendly game.
Memory.
H let himself breathe, and then he let himself laugh. He let it echo through the halls of the castle, and didn’t care if it sounded mad. He’d take being mad right now, because if being mad meant he could remember his family then he would take it gladly.
It wasn’t raining.
There weren’t any ships in the harbors.
And so he laughed. He laughed because his past was behind him and the future was ahead of him. He let it fade into a grin, salt caught at the corners of his mouth as tears slipped down his cheeks. He could explain to Niki and Eret later.
For now, he let himself laugh.
For now, he let himself sob…
And the world would keep on moving.