Chapter Text
White feathers fall from the sky, twirling as if in a dance, the edges of their soft touch quickly darkening like ink carelessly knocked onto a depiction of heaven. The sky is the sun peering through closed eyes, red, pulsing, and uncomfortable. There is blood and dust where forgiving grass used to proudly stand. "This never should have happened." She mourns.
He Laughs.
You wake up.
Memories are like blurry photos, your head is a broken bowling ball, and despite not being very informed you think you have enough information to firmly declare this as a shitty situation.
It's a beautiful day outside, birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and you're not in your own body. It becomes apparent the moment you open your eyes, the hair that dances in the corner of your vision is not yours. The hands in front of you are free of any imperfections, all of your nails are even and perfect, and this is not your skin tone. It is a lie to call any of these features "yours" to begin with. The smell of grass, the heat of the sun, the clarity in which you see the world... it has to be real.
You wait for emotional turmoil. You feel like you ought to be choking, your lungs stuttering, eyes red and disgustingly salty... but those emotions never come. And so you stand up. You lick over your new teeth, all of them perfectly spaced from each other and level. You used to have a scar from your botched wisdom tooth surgery, it is now gone. A birthmark on your leg, a mole on your arm, acne scares, normal scars- all have been wiped clean. It was as if a divine titan saw all the margins you'd written on your life story and decided to buy a different copy. You wait on yourself to catch up, staring down at the grass you apathetically think you wouldn't care at all if someone chopped off your feat. They aren't yours anyway. With nothing left, you walk. Maybe I can find a nice hole to crawl into. In the distance, underneath a mangled looking birch tree on top of a hill, a man covered head to toe in dark greens and browns spots you. It’s as if the world itself decided to stand up, the wind dramatically pushing the leaves to jump off their lifelines and rush between the two of you, like a line drawn in metaphorical sand. The sun beams down on your exchange, the trees the curtains, the natural illumination the spotlight, and the world your stage. He looks away first. He turns around. A horrible mistake.
Jumping over logs and rocks, climbing swiftly up steep terrain, the forest blurs past you. He knows the land better, knows how to hide, you are fast but you are new and raw and empty. It's uncharacteristic of you, this strange exchange of almost animalist behavior. But you've never been this fast, this full of breath, this light. As if at any moment you could sprout wings. You laugh.
And you lose. By the time you come to your senses you're standing at the precipice of a shabby looking village that looked more dangerous to live in then the woods. The man disappears into the shadows from whence he came, absent, but not gone.
It looks like a freak storm came through this place, something that contradicts the completely healthy looking foliage that surrounds the area. The terrain is jagged and hateful, what might have been wooden stairs and stone pathways now only look like ok-ish to climb rubble. Every building looks to be at a different height, and like old wild trees the infrastructure twists and tangles, as if competing for sunlight.
You turn around to look at where you came from and see two armored men standing at the edge of the forest. One wore a completely concealing helmet, but with the other man you could make out his eyes. They were a dark brown. Neither of them looked all that hostile, nor where they saying anything, just staring at you. So you walk closer.
With each step a clock tics, counting down to your realization. The knight with brown eyes and darker armor, the man with the yellow accents to his gear. He sees through you. With low masculine voices they both speak to each other in either a language you don't understand, or complete gibberish. After a moments pause, they will start again, repeating the same things. The two will shift and move and breath, but they do so as if programed to.
With a shuddering breath and an empty heart, you turn to explore the rest of the village. This is a nightmare.
Half of the village is stuck in the well, eyes glazed over and absentmindedly swimming. Anyone walking stumbles throughout life as if it is not their own. There are many farms, its harvesting season, yet it looks as though the villagers have left the produce to rot and overgrow instead of making something out of any of it. The people stink, as if they haven't washed themselves in months. More than a few have injuries but continue moving around with aimless purpose anyways, their sluggish blood staining their clothing. They will turn to you with no expression, they say things in a short and curt way, their language is like overtly fancy cursive. A word is repeated amongst them... Aphmau. Part of you goes back to your childhood and aches at the lost of both it and your present life. You rationalize to yourself that it might just mean hello. There is a large crack in the Earth leading down into a cave, but it looks like the villagers have at least enough sense to avoid it. You find all of this strangely familiar. Most of the houses are completely barren, some even have dirt floors. There are no beds. The sun is setting but you do not feel tired, you don't even feel hungry.
… -Are those fucking zombies?!?!
(Please read in a heavy country accent but know that the last bit has the same tone as Isabella from Phineas and Ferb) A/N: You can take away the gaining sentience arc and Minecraft's horrific gameplay implications from my cold dead body. Chapters will be sporadic and will probably vary wildly in word count. But outside of that... whatch'ya think❓