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43 Days without a death game. 43 Days without the world around them suddenly changing into a forest, a city or something else.43 Days without any message from the scientists or sightings of Atlas and IV. And yet they were still here. Still trapped in this box surrounded by borders they couldn’t break. They had tried.
It had taken them a week to realize that there was no more game. probably no more scientists either as Red had noted. A week to realize they had collectively become a forgotten experiment.
10 Days and Ratchet had tried to build some kind of machine to break the border. Only for it to fail miserably.
12 Days and they had hit the border collectively with any spell they had. Only for the border to seemingly absorb it.
13 Days and Echo had somehow gotten together a massive amount of tnt and tried to blow the border up. Only to create a new ravine.
15 Days and they had come to the understanding to try and live together in peace. No more teams. No more Games. Simply letting the other be. They were all trapped together, so they might as well try. to make it work.
20 Days till it actually worked. They had restored the community farm. Tried to find the missing team members that hadn’t woken up for the last game or had simply vanished after. Though that wasn’t really a success at all. Dorian, IV… They were just seemingly gone.
Day 21 was the day that Theseus carefully build another purple house. Though the Purple team technically didn’t exist anymore. no more games, no more teams. Everyone still knew it was the purple house. Others joined Theseus in the construction of houses. Refusing to live underground and hidden away.
Emil had insisted they would at least keep a chest with “the good shit” hidden away. Oz had agreed. Especially when Rhudra and Rachet both confirmed to also still have hidden chests stashed away. Old habits died hard. Emil had let Oz build a small house for them. Something that wasn’t shared with other people. Something that was theirs. He had insisted that Oz could build it however it wanted. Neither commented when it was Emil who insisted on them getting a blue rug.
It got weirdly domestic and peaceful after that. As peaceful as this group of people could be.
They would spend evenings at a large campfire, where once the blue team's lab had stood, telling stories. When they couldn't remember more to tell they just made up new things. It didn’t matter as long as there was something to tell.
Rudra and Oz lovingly forced Ratchet to build a house of his own. Something that wasn’t just a room underground filled with machines or flower magic.
They spend sunny days dancing to that disc they had found in the castle. “I am convinced that this stupid song is the only thing keeping Ratchet from going senil” , commented Manes to Theseus one of those days.
There were bad days too. Days where the weather was bad, where the old yellow team kept to themselves again. Where Red made one too many comments about blood magic and spores. Where Ratchet, Theseus and the remainder of the purple team would run looking for treasure or any sign of Atlas because someone had heard or seen something that reminded them of him.
Days where Emil couldn’t come to pilot, where it was just Oz because something had set him off and he could feel what once were his legs and arms too much. Like they weren’t prosthetics. Even days where Theseus refused to leave the purple house because “If I leave someone [Echo] will come and burn it”
But those days were rare. The happy days were more common. Days where they were fine, where they could even count as one community. where testing remarks, both flirting and not were, thrown from one person to another while both farmed for carrots or experimented with spells. Days where they were riding dragons and taming animals.
It was days like that where they could think that their situation was fine. That they weren’t trapped in a forgotten death game.