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“When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting.
When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished.
I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”
― Dream Country
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Etho stared at the golden apple core in his right hand in almost suspended disbelief, and then at the communicator in his left hand.
He’d escaped with his last life.
Joel had not.
A soulmate had been meant to be a responsibility, an oath of eternal loyalty, protection, love, till death inevitably came for both soulmates.
By some curve of the universe’s smile, Fate had tied him and Joel to each other. Two murderous, chaotic beings of dust and ash, melded into one.
The two of them had been amiable with each other, bantering all the time, discussing deadly redstone traps, rowing boats on dry land, with Etho reminding Joel to use his shield countless times, while Joel picked on his habit of not eating.
Etho had watched a show before, a long time ago, with a guy who looked like him and read Icha Icha comics. He’d always said he hated actual responsibility, while laughing goodnaturedly.
He wished he could do the same.
Look, he’d panicked, alright?
The stabbing pains in his chest had been the first thing to alert him to (his? Joel’s? Theirs? He didn’t know anymore.) rapidly depleting health bar.
At first he’d been calm although a shallow cut in his torso had started to bleed. Etho knew the drill, both him and Joel had said that if they were to ever see the shared health bar drop by significant amounts consistently, they were to, for lack of better words, binge eat.
They’d done it before, when Etho had gotten into a fight with pillagers, or when Joel had been falling into a really deep cave and had frantically messaged Etho to tell him to continuously eat to neutralise as much fall damage as possible. The chat message had just been a garbled ‘eta’, but they’d survived.
He’d started tearing chunks off steak with his teeth, stalling to give Joel more time, however long that would be.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Repeat.
That’s what soulmates were for, right?
The anxiety had started to kick in after seven steaks, accompanied by a surge of fear and desperation through the soulmate bond.
It seemed Joel was fighting more than the average cave monster menagerie.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Repeat.
Etho didn’t want to even think of the fact Joel could have been bleeding to death in a fight somewhere out there, far away, scared and alone just like last time with Bdubs.
At the ten-steak-mark, Etho had really started to hyperventilate.
Everything was hurting so much.
Everything was bleeding so much.
The taste of his own blood mixed into the steak.
He hurriedly typed a message on his communicator.
Etho: joel where yuo
Etho: JOEL
Eleven steaks.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Twelve steaks.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
Thirteen steaks.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
His hand closed around nothingness.
I don't want to die.
In that moment, he acted on instinct.
I don't want to die.
He had a golden apple in his pocket from one of the mineshafts he had found earlier.
I don't want to die.
“ Forgive me this,” he whispered under his breath, subconsciously, really, ignoring how his voice cracked, which would normally have been hidden by his mask.
Etho bit into the forbidden fruit, like one of those fairytales where the princess had eaten a poisoned apple.
Well, this was one of those fairytales where the prince ate the apple, which doomed the princess.
Bite.
Chew.
Swallow.
A welcome rush of warmth and strength coursed through his veins, making him feel invincible in that moment, smothering the feeling of the soulmate bond unravelling.
The soft ping of his communicator brought him crashing back into reality.
SmallishBeans fell from a high place trying to escape Grian
"He loves me."
"All he ever does is survive."
Etho could feel the tension in the chat for the next few seconds for the following death message that wouldn’t come.
He contemplated jumping off the peak, just to give them that death, one more red gone from the server, free from the death game.
He could already feel himself drowning, drowning, in the wind, the whirling thoughts in his brain that wouldn't stop.
He'd been known for his relative calm to contrast with his innate chaos, but his thoughts wouldn't stop. By Void, it just wouldn't stop.
Maybe he'd already jumped, that far gone.
InTheLittleWood: Etho?
By then, Etho had thrown his communicator against the wall and run out, only stopping to look at his reflection in the farm water.
Two red eyes stared at him, the way Etho had thought they would.
They reminded him a little of Tango’s eyes, except his eyes would be a content, inviting red, like how redstone was life, how redstone meant love to him, warming his hands and heart.
So then, why did he feel so sad?
Why did he feel so sad at seeing two bloodthirsty eyes that belonged to a murderer?
Etho could almost feel Joel’s ghost behind him, swirling around him accusingly in the mountain wind, cold and merciless.
Why did that bother him?
He was a Canuck, born to face the cold.
Etho put his mask (That was the rule, to put his own mask on first, to protect himself) back on, and began his journey to the peak where Joel had fallen from, against the gales that threatened to blow him off the bridge.
He still remembered when the danger of falling would only have come from Joel getting into a fight and passing damage through the bond, knocking him off, when he wasn't so unstable.
~
When he reached the other side, neither Grian nor Etho could look each other in the eye.
“Why is it always you, man? Why you?”
Mischief-and-grief filled burgundy met devastated crimson.
“Is that not what red lifers do, Etho?”
The wind seemed to stand to divide both of them, hope and disappointment held in open hands.
“I, will never forgive you for this.”
“I will never forgive myself. Joel was like a brother.”
Grian’s diamond sword had clattered to the ground in the time they’d been talking.
Grian’s eyes now looked empty, devoid of anything behind red pupils, hands shaking.
A rage stirred within him, a fire consuming him from inside out, like the boogeyman curse, but worse.
This wasn’t a curse.
This wouldn’t stop after one death, or two.
This was grief.
He threw himself at Grian with his sword, turning sharply, giving Grian time to pick up his sword from the floor.
Grian, on reflex, lifted his shield to cover his vitals, showing Etho just how scared he was, but then raised his blade to counter the blow.
They fought like they were in the heart of the battlefield, and Grian was the same as he had always been, a force that could kill dreams, that could slay gods.
But Etho was stronger, fueled by the burning, burning desire for revenge.
He pushed against the shield while switching to an axe, grinning as he heard it splinter.
Grian’s wings flared in protest, knocking Etho upwards and away.
Etho flailed for one heart stopping moment, before he flipped around and let himself fall onto Grian’s shield with his axe, cutting right through it and into his arm before crashing into the ground.
The wounded let out an inhuman screech, and raked his talons across Etho’s face, causing Etho to stagger back.
Etho fired their his crossbow at Grian, only for him to get out of the way in a blur.
All those hours playing Dodgebolt must have really paid off.
He turned his attention to Scar, who was cowering on a lower ledge, stuffing his face with steak.
Etho pulled out a fishing rod.
Both Grian’s and Scar’s eyes widened.
The hook caught Scar’s sleeve and pulled him into the air as Etho reeled the line back in just like last time.
One axe crit was all it had taken afterwards.
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Etho
Grian died
Grian passed on with little stir, as if in a midsummer daze, unlike him, who had clawed his way out of death.
Grian’s final words had been, “I deserve it.”
He buried three bodies that day, digging the grave with his bare hands just like in Last Life.
Joel’s eyes had been open in shock and fear.
Etho had closed them with a shudder.
Now, Joel looked like he was truly, dead, not caught in a nightmare, with his unmoving arms stiff by his sides, hazel eyes unable to see the world, with red sand, terracotta coloured markings on his cheeks, a remnant of better times.
He laid the earth over the cold body, then lit a candle to place on the patch of overturned dirt, and pretended the deep gouges in the shield didn’t hurt him at all because it meant Joel had listened to him for once and he hadn’t been there.
He pretended he could breath properly and it didn't feel like he was the one being buried five feet under, like his lungs didn't feel like they were being filled with dirt.
He pretended it wasn't his fault.
It really wasn't.
Right?
Etho remembered Joel had told him about that tradition in his home server, about the Vigil.
Etho curled around the candle’s frail flame, a protective barrier shielding it from the world, the way he had failed to do twice.
He ignored the hunger pangs in his stomach later on.
“Joel will eat,” he thought.
He let the hunger gnaw at him.
Etho remembered when he thought he had been the unlucky soulmate, to be paired with Joel, who Martyn had said was ‘the worst’.
He’d thought the two of them were like Martyn and Cleo, inverse soulmates who hated each other with a passion, but were destined to be together for eternity.
The two of them had hated each other for being the same, stubborn to a fault, but loyal, petty, fiery but oh-too-nonchalant.
Etho had hated Joel for being too much like him too.
It was like taking care of two of himself.
If he tried hard enough, maybe he'd be able to still feel the phantom heartbeats layered under his.
Two people who knew exactly when they could be reckless, two who had too much sarcasm in reserve, two who had much capacity for chaos, two halves of a whole.
Cleo approached him, also carrying a body, not even questioning Etho’s very glaring still-aliveness.
“Again?”
“Again.”
Cleo knelt to dig a hole in the ground beside Joel’s makeshift grave.
The teal of Scott’s hair made him look like a figurine of ice, small and breakable and fragile and—
The burn scars on his face were not creeper burns, redstone burns, nether bed burns, or lava burns.
“How did he die?”
Cleo merely threw him her communicator, trying to keep a facade of aloofness, wine-coloured eyes dry and emotionless.
After all, they were not soulmates.
The Watchers would surely smite them.
PearlescentMoon blew up
Smajor1995 died
Etho’s heart ached for a second.
That was likely to be his and Joel’s TNT Minecraft trap, which worked, unlike Grian’s, mind you.
And it had killed one of the people who deserved a second chance, in his opinion.
Etho would tell Cleo another day, when everyone was safe and far away from this cursed server.
For now, he could hide behind the ice-chilled flowers on the mountain.
He lit another candle for Scott.
~
No longer bound to someone else, Etho had more freedom than anyone on the server.
He chose to spend it holed up in the base Joel and himself had rebuilt, letting his hunger bar run low, still electing to turn his back on the way his empty stomach clenched around nothing.
If he had still been bound to Joel, he’d have thought Joel had been stabbed in the gut.
Etho didn’t eat.
“Joel will eat,” he thought.
Somehow, his inventory was always filled with at least one stack of bread or something else, passed through a hole dug in the wall by someone, which had been covered with a trapdoor.
People stopped blowing up, and the server seemed peaceful for a while.
The server seemed peaceful, and Etho couldn’t function.
He’d tried going out to hunt once.
He’d ended up walking in, and out, of the base six times, thinking he had forgotten something, like the crossbow they’d shared, or ender pearls, or boats, or something.
No, it was just Joel that was missing.
Just Joel.
They’d never been that close when alive, their relationship not even halfway intimate or romantic.
No engagement, no ‘marriage’, no physical contact with the exception of bandaging, or the quiet hand on the shoulder when they stood together in a fight.
Not that Etho ever really fought.
He had always been the one standing to the side with the flint and steel.
Joel had never seen Etho without his mask before he died.
After all, Joel was already married to Lizzie.
The Mad King of Mezalea and the Ocean Queen.
Etho may have had capacity for chaos, but had none for romance.
Yet, love was not just pretty flowers or romantic poetry.
Love was connection, a cruel twist of fate; commitment, dedication, communication, understanding.
Chaos was his love language. Who would he speak it to now?
Etho took one step out of the base.
And another.
And another.
~
At the burying ground, other graves had joined the first four in that short reprieve that had been death-free.
Impulse and Bdubs had brought the bodies of the long-dead Tango and Jimmy, burying them side by side, next to Scott's grave.
Impulse had put a creeper head on the grave as some sort of last joke.
Bdubs had placed roses between Jimmy and Scott.
~
Everyone was worrying.
No one was functioning.
They worried for people who loved those they weren't bonded with, they worried for people who would never love the same.
People like Tango.
Impulse worried for him.
Impulse worried for Zedaph back in Hermitcraft.
People like Joel.
Etho worried more for himself, though.
Etho worried for Lizzie.
People like Jimmy.
Everyone worried that was the breaking point, one too many tricks played on the Canary.
Scott would have said everyone was being paranoid.
You could only be paranoid if there was no actual danger, and that was the sad truth.
No one worried for Scott, though.
He had always been too stubborn to submit to the universe.
~
Martyn had dug the graves of Pearl, Ren, and Bigb.
Etho worried for him too, and the way his hands were always covered with carefully, painstakingly painted-on lapis sigils, the way Etho could see him brushing the crushed up blue pigment on faithfully, from memory at the start of every day after Cleo’s ‘wake up’ routine.
Loyalty.
Unbreaking.
Fire Aspect.
Efficiency.
Power.
Mending.
Looting.
Loyalty.
Unbreaking.
Fire Aspect.
Efficiency.
Power.
Mending.
He had placed the sole enchanting table on the graves of Ren and Bigb, a callback to their first death game.
A poppy for Ren, and a dark oak sapling for Bigb.
Pearl had been buried away from Scott, where they couldn’t quarrel with each other.
Martyn had lit a candle for Pearl.
Etho lit one for Jimmy, even if they weren’t close.
Joel would have wanted him to.
His death had been partly his fault, too.
It was weird, opening the player list to see an odd number of names.
Good times things came in twos, and Etho was not one of them.
He set his bouquet of purple hyacinths and yellow roses on Joel’s grave before rowing his boat away on moist grass.
He let the tears freeze to his face.
This was a game with no winners, only losers.
Etho had already lost; he was just but a walking dead.
~
Etho found himself drawn back to redstone and explosives, like he had always been, even if he could never find the courage to walk further than the graveyard.
He took the leftover quartz, redstone, gunpowder, and sand from all the chests they had, salvaging anything he could find.
There were only five people left.
Three Two people left to kill.
That was the curse of Double Life.
Less time, but someone to spend it with, to laugh with together, to mourn over alone.
Maybe it was a blessing.
Less time to get attached, to forge alliances that would always, always, fall apart.
Etho had been a fool for many things before.
He would not be again, not for a stupid death game, not for a stupid joke Fate had decided to play on everyone.
Their lives had been the punchline, and that was unacceptable.
~
Etho ended up using almost no explosives at all.
His friendsThe others deserved painless, fast-as-possible deaths, not ones burning to death in their last moment.
Etho had targeted Impulse first.
He couldn't look Bdubs in the eye and then push him off a cliff.
He couldn’t.
Etho had found Impulse talking to Tango’s gravestone.
Or maybe to himself.
Flowers had gotten scarce in the time everyone had mutually decided on a truce so they could bury the Fallen, and now, the patch was full of lit candles.
A citadel of candles, doused in life force, undergoing catharsis.
Impulse was hugging himself, rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, face struggling not to show emotion.
He knew too, the Watchers were doing what they did best.
Etho would be lying if he wasn’t also mourning Tango, someone who had done redstone with him in Season seven Hermitcraft.
Etho placed a cold hand on Impulse’s shoulder tentatively.
Impulse didn’t look up.
The grief cycle had always been the same.
Play.
Lose.
Play again.
Play again with a yes-yes button display.
This was just a darker version of the Super-Mario-on-a-Gameboy they’d used to play as kids.
They had all grown up.
They were all paying the price.
The magic mushrooms had been replaced with golden apples.
The tales had said the Trojan War had been started over a golden apple, the fruit of discord and strife.
Funny how the fruit of discord and strife would break the bond between him and Joel, the pair who had thought they’d gotten over it, that they could be happy.
Name a hero who was happy, the tales challenged.
Name a player who was happy, Fate challenged.
It felt wrong, disturbing, even, to see Impulse, who was normally such a joyful man, grieving.
But again, Impulse had the most to grieve.
The most to be angry at Etho for, too.
Etho had slaughtered the whole Boatem crew (he'd also killed Mumbo in Last Life), directly or indirectly.
Or at least, he was about to complete the collection by nightfall.
“Hey.”
Impulse said nothing.
“You’ll catch a cold.”
“So what if I do?”
Maybe Etho should have been worried for Impulse instead.
“Bdubs is going to be the one looking after you if you get sick. Before he was your soulmate, he was my…”
… friend?
Friend.
Yes.
That was the word.
“...Friend. He feels your pain, your mental dips, and he’s going to have a hard time taking care of you when he’s sick because of you.”
“He can tell what I’m thinking?”
“Well, he can feel your fear, your sadness, your emotions, strongest of all. He doesn’t know it’s your emotions though, and he’ll think there’s something wrong with him.”
“How do you know?”
Etho’s eyes flicked towards Joel’s gravestone and back to Impulse.
He wouldn’t admit the obvious truth.
He wouldn’t admit how he could see how his ribs looked like rows of note blocks in the mirror.
He wouldn't admit the way he used to hate being hollow, the way he now drew to it like bees to a candle.
“Joel will eat,” he thought.
Etho merely stood up and built a dirt shelter over Impulse, sheltering him from the snow.
He cares.
He didn’t talk about how he’d only built the roof over Impulse.
The server was so poor they couldn't afford more food.
No one had a monopoly on it at first, not even Scar and Grian, having focused on other 'more important' things to capitalise on.
No one had enough food now that they were so far in.
Only he did.
The kind soul who had gifted him the bread must have been starving.
Etho must have been the most ungrateful person ever.
He still never ate.
He’d only eat if he felt like he would pass out if he went a second more without sustenance.
He'd only eat if he felt the dizziness and emptiness from waking up on a stomach that had nothing in it would kill him.
“Joel will eat,” he thought.
It still didn't matter.
He could sit in the sleet.
~
Impulse sat under the shelter, shrinking in on himself, still rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
“I think Tango’s waiting for you in Hermitcraft. He wouldn’t want this.”
Ah, yes.
The guilt trip.
“You’re too loved to give up now.”
He asked for a hug.
Etho didn’t really know what to feel about it, given he never actively indulged in that sort of thing, and Bdubs was Impulse’s soulmate, not him.
Etho embraced anyway.
He then slid his sword between Impulse’s fourth and fifth rib, feeling as Impulse slumped and went limp against him.
Blood seeped into the snow below.
impulseSV was slain by Etho
BdoubleO100 died
A weird rush of memory of people in different coloured suits and helmets came and went.
Etho was slightly grateful that Impulse's shirt was black.
It hid the blood a lot better than Joel’s white tunic did.
Just one more kill to go.
One more and he would be done.
One more and he would truly be alone.
One more and everybody could go home.
~
He buried Impulse beside Tango, and collected Bdubs’ body afterwards.
He’d collapsed while building.
Etho washed the bodies in the river, watching the blood dissolve into the clear water below, turning it an awkward cerise.
He ignored the way Bdubs’ clock’s face had cracked, the way its soft gold frame had suspicious finger-shaped indents in it.
He ignored the amount of time it had taken to pry Bdubs’ fingers off the timepiece and get it into his front pocket.
Even in death, Bdubs was still stubborn, as if he was alive.
He ignored the way his stomach was still aching.
“Joel will eat,” he thought.
~
Both Cleo and Martyn were on high alert after Impulse’s and Bdubs’ death.
For the first time, they were forced to actually work together and live together.
They were both playing a higher-stake game than Etho, the game of not losing face.
Cleo’s and Martyn’s cheekbone(s) and arms now perpetually were stained purple with bruises that would have had ten hermits at once swamping Cleo with potions, questions, and hugs, if they had been on Hermitcraft.
Etho could hear them accusing each other for Scott and Pearl, for being a danger magnet, for being too casual about the game.
Under the cover of night, Etho could hear them blame themselves for not caring enough, for not doing enough, for not being the perfect soulmate, for taking unnecessary damage.
Neither of them made any stand against Etho, and did not try to chase him down.
Etho kept well out of their way, just in case.
I don't want to die.
Individually, Etho had a neutral-positive relationship with the both of them, which protected him, giving him more time.
He caught flashes of golden apple between inventory switches, a clear sign their relationship was not getting any better.
Discord, strife, dissent.
Gold, apple, Eris.
Etho knew then, they were of no threat to him.
~
He’d made a trapped chest, and put his valuables in it.
Etho would have had no use for it anyways once he outlasted Cleo and Martyn.
Sure, it felt a little like a cop-out, but since when had he ever been the one to outright charge into a battlefield?
His instincts were those of a bird of prey, to choose flight over fight.
On the trapped chest was an apology sign, from no particular person.
Cleo would assume Martyn put it there.
Martyn would assume Cleo put it there.
Either way, they would both die in the end.
~
He heard an explosion the very next day, followed by two pings of the communicator, and the wards on the world dissipating, and the universe searching it's own code, trying to find Etho's soulmate and pull them apart for one last bloodbath.
ZombieCleo blew up
InTheLittleWood died
The universe forgot, Etho had always been the lone wolf.
He was the last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, only one left.
Etho buried the two on the mountain with the makeshift cemetery, only to find that Cleo had already dug her own grave.
He carefully laid Cleo to rest, and then started to dig Martyn’s.
His shovel broke halfway.
Etho used his hands for the rest, ignoring the way the dirt clods had gotten under his nails irked him, and then whispered prayers for each of them.
Aeor for Jimmy and Scott.
Lady Prime for Grian, Martyn, Cleo, and Pearl.
Vex for Scar.
The Ocean Deity for Joel.
Lady Death for Tango, Ren, Bigb, and Impulse.
A prayer to whoever out there was listening for him and Bdubs.
He relit all the candles that day.
~
Etho found himself doing okay now that it was the equivalent of a single player world. He didn’t want to leave, even though that meant everyone else was stuck in the world as ghosts.
I don't want to die.
He missed his friends, though.
I don't want to die.
So he made the last few touches to his automated farms and builds, using up all the redstone, and chiselled himself a tombstone with an epitaph no one would read.
It felt melancholy, being the only survivor.
He’d blown his horn once, just for fun, only to hear a bird call back to him.
Somehow, it felt worse than just silence coming back at him.
The bird flew past him, and perched on his shoulder.
He blew the horn again.
The bird chirped back.
Apparently, the horn sounded like a mating call.
When he left, the pesky bird would be gone, and so would it's voice.
“It’s just the two of us left, isn’t it?”
~
Joel had once told him about an adventure he had embarked on together with Lizzie, Grian, and Jimmy, something about ghosts.
Etho had recreated one of the devices he had heard about from him.
The tree leaves rustled above him, with a particular rhythm, that allowed Etho to place the presence.
Joel.
Or his ghost, at least.
Etho pressed the button on the device, revelling in the crackling static that came out of it.
“Joel Smallishbeans.”
More static.
His voice wavered.
“Are you angry?”
He closed his eyes, fully expecting himself to fall out of the world.
"The power of Christ compels you, Joel."
Nothing.
Desperation sang victory dances to the secrets and fears behind his eyes.
"Joel Smallishbeans. Are you angry?"
“No.”
Relief, like a breeze, washed over him like a tidal wave.
“Joel Smallishbeans. Where are you?”
“Home.”
Where was that?
“You’re too loved to give up now, Etho. The universe said you are not alone. The universe said you are not separate from any other thing. The universe loves you. We all love you, it's not much but there's proof. Eat now. Don't waste yourself on this game.”
The wind continued to caress Etho’s covered cheek, as the static came back on, and ultimately shut off completely.
~
Etho dug his own grave and pillared up, laying his last few pinches of redstone dust, to complete his circuit.
He was going to have the last laugh.
He lay down in the grave, hand feeling for the button he had pressed into the dirt.
Etho looked up to check the redstone connecting to his piston-and-anvil system and smiled even if no one could see it. (The rule still applied. His mask would always be on first.)
If the universe was truly kind, if the universe truly loved, if he was truly love, the universe would let him die.
He felt a little rift in the universe's seams open.
He let the anvils crush him into the grave.
Etho was squashed by a falling anvil
Etho died