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The days after New Years were spent in paralysing silence. Avery had taken to the recluse life, lying in bed for several hours at a time, with his only real human contact being the occasional DoorDash driver dropping off another flavourless pizza for him to consume when the hunger hits too hard. Sometimes, he'll lie in the bathtub, feeling the shower head rain down upon him, water pooling into his eyes and blurring the world around him.
Sometimes, he feels like the church had somehow left the game and overtaken his apartment. Here, Avery was safe from the world, content to drown himself in grief and pity for a while before going off to lay at his bed. There would be no one to sacrifice themself for him, no one he could fail. No king to take him for its own. Perhaps this is as it should be.
All there was for him to cling to was a mantra that he repeated to himself. He didn't want to forget him after all, his saviour, Derek.
Derek. Derek, Derek, Derek. The man who gave his own life for the world, and for Avery. Avery isn't even sure it happened sometimes, since his footage had cut out when Derek disappeared from the library. There's a vague recollection of a platform and Derek's little avatar pushing Avery's own off, pushing him away to take on the weight of the King alone, but Avery's run that through his mind so often that it's starting to get jumbled up. So he tries not to as much, unless he wants to forget the man behind the screen.
Even still, this is all he has. A Minecraft world and a little less than a 23 minutes of conversation to replay.
There's a video out there with more of Derek, but that's not just between the two of them. It's Derek's alone, and it's muddled with edits and summaries that makes Avery ache. Where is the rest? There is more of him out there, more that the Youtuber who complied their stuff together decided wasn't worth it. But it is, it is, it is more than just content for Avery. He has so little, he aches for more.
One particular night scrolling through a local news site, one article sticks out to him like a sore thumb.
Young man dies violently in his own home on New Year's Day. Authorities perplexed by circumstances.
The photo plastered on the article has a photo of a tired man around his age, smiling in a burnt orange college sweater. His curls were a little over the place, but it added to the youthful hope in his eyes. For some reason, Avery feels compelled to click on the article.
A young man died in his apartment around New Year's, and the conditions surrounding his death are scratching heads. Found by his landlord after missing payments for several months, the 24 year old Derek Hutchins was initially written off as a suicide via gun by first responders. When his body was received by Meredith Grey pathologists, a shocking discovery was made. The scene indicated that there was evidence of suicide, but his body lacked any wounds made by a bullet. Authorities are currently working to figure out what exactly happened to this young man.
Avery's eyes widen as it clicks in his brain. Derek. New Years. A million questions flood his brain, but they all stop for a moment when Avery scrolls down a little more.
There's another photo of the man from earlier; of Derek. He's even younger here than in the photo they used as the cover. His curls are shorter, the glasses frame a different style. Derek is making some sort of sign, the same hand sign that Avery's university makes. It takes a minute, but Avery recognizes it as one of the dorm halls he could've moved into for his first year of university. Maybe one of his friends from that year lived there, or it just all looks the same there. Underneath the photo, there's a caption.
Photo provided by Hannah Hutchins.
Derek's mom, most likely. Or maybe Derek's sister, if he even has one. Regardless, this is a family member. Maybe something that could have been posted on Facebook.
Avery continues to scroll down the article, scanning for any more details of Derek Hutchins. It's the best lead he's gotten on anything about the man, considering before then he didn't even know his last name. At the back of his mind, there's a bit of guilt at that, but it's not like they had time to exchange age, name, locations. Back then, Avery had hoped that afterwards, they would be able to hang out and get to know each other. After all, he was curious on why Derek was specifically going for him, and how much of everything he knew. He wanted him to be more than just a savior.
Now he had a face at least. A family for sure.
The majority of the article goes into the circumstances around Derek's death, but Avery goes and ignores most of it. He can't bear the idea of how much pain Derek had to go through while his head literally exploded. In the middle of it all, there are two short paragraphs going into Derek's life.
Derek Hutchins was a former computer science student at the University of Texas at Austin, born to Hannah Rivera Hutchins and Alex Hutchins. Mrs. Hutchins says that he dropped out mid-way through his senior year of university, and went on to work as a freelance coder a few months before his death.
His apartment was in disarray, with his landlord Kristian Karola reportedly mentioning, "a strong smell of rot and piss," in the studio apartment. Strangely enough, the only food in his apartment appeared to be a rotten apple and several bottles of the protein drink Soylent....
The article goes on, speculating over what exactly was going on with Derek's life before he passed. Avery swipes out of the article, unable to keep reading after a bit about how Derek's legs had began atrophy. Instead, he pulls up Facebook, and looks up 'Hannah Hutchins.'
It takes a bit of scrolling, but Avery lands on a woman with the same tawny skin as Derek. Same smile, even. He clicks on her profile, and stares at the first line of her bio.
Rest in peace, my loving son, Derek Hutchins.
Avery scans the page for a moment, only to find that she'd turned off message requests and comments on all of her posts. The last post she put up was a memorial post of her son, with the first photo being a dedication edited with him in Heaven, birth date and death date printed in white at the bottom. It must be much more recent here, given that the tired look Derek had in the other two photos had been exaggerated by the purple eyebags on his face. There's a scruffy, but fitting, bit of facial hair growing on his face, and a shirt decorated with some far off city. With the sunset peeking through in the background, it might be a vacation photo.
It blurs easily with the tears welling up in Avery's eyes. He wipes it off with the shirt he's been in for the past two days, not caring that it'll be stained with snot as well.
Avery clicks on it, and begins scrolling through the photos. He's grateful for Mrs. Hutchins' photography hobby, as there's a nearly overwhelming amount of photos of Derek here. From kindergarten, to his first robotics competition, to his senior prom, there's barely any corner of Derek's life that wasn't photographed when Mrs. Hutchins had the chance. Once he scrolled through all the photos in the post, he taps out, and checks to see if there's an album of Derek himself. At first, he's relieved to find that there is, but his relief soon dissipates as he scrolls through it. There is little that was not included in the memorial post itself. Avery still scrolls through, tapping on what little videos he finds.
There's one of Derek and a little girl, maybe his cousin by how similar they look, standing by a lit cake. People around the room sing 'Happy Birthday,' one in English, then in Spanish. Avery smiles, wondering how whoever that girl grew up into thinks of all of this. He stands to get some water at least, it's getting harder to breathe.
Once he returns, he scrolls to another video, this time of Derek getting ready for some concert. His mom chides him for his outfit choice a little, but he's clearly excited for whoever the DJ is. The camera flips to show that his mom was somewhat dressed similarly, the caption confirming that they went to the concert together.
Another scroll. Another video. Another memory of Derek Hutchins, managed to be saved through the power of technology and love. For a while, Avery scrolls through the small selection, occasionally stopping to wipe away his own tears and rewatch videos for any little bits of Derek that he missed. As Derek ages through the videos, it takes multiple tries to get through some videos for Avery. He's older than Avery, but he was in the same places Avery was.
Sometimes, Avery could recognize places that Derek was in, his own memories coming up. There, in the quarter, he too had to pose for his momma, a little embarrassed for his first day at university. Maybe they went to the same haunts. Maybe Avery could have met him. Maybe, maybe.
A person outside of the screen is forming in his mind, solidifying from the snippets Mrs. Hutchins thought was best to share with the world. It's odd to think that he met an end like he did. The thought pulls at Avery as he continues to scroll.
It hits him eventually, a nagging feeling pulling at him. As Avery pauses on a video of university aged Derek at some competition, explaining for the camera what he and his teammates built, he stares at each detail on Derek's face. The small dimples that pop up when he smiles, the times his explanation is interrupted to laugh at what a teammate had said, Avery begins to ache even further. He never got to witness this personally. Never got to hear Derek's laugh unfiltered by a phone, never got confirmation that those were dimples. Never got to ruin his curls as he tries to tell his own mom about something he made with pride.
He puts down the phone by his side as the thought runs through his mind again, the video's audio serving as backdrop. Avery never got to witness anything like that with Derek. What is he doing on his mother's Facebook page of all things? Creeping on it, all because he's desperate to know more about a guy who's last name he didn't even know until a few hours ago.
And yet, the same guy had given his life for Avery.
And all Avery really has of him is a Minecraft world, 22 minutes and ten seconds of recorded conversation, and his mother's Facebook page to hold onto. Nothing else connects the two, beyond frayed memories.
In a world like this though, maybe that's all Avery needs to have. After all, he can't afford to forget him again, not after everything he's been through, everything that Derek had fought for. A screen doesn't separate them entirely when Avery just knows his own heart aches when he thinks of Derek. Derek, Derek, Derek. He needs to do more. Avery can't make more, sure, but he can't afford to forget his own mission again, especially when there's no one but himself stopping him from remembering.
So he picks up his phone again, and begins to write down all about Derek Hutchins. On pen and paper, so that nothing but carelessness and time could take him from him.
Because really, what else can he do?