You've Come Undone

Listen for Rewyll's music, courtesy of Jake Bugg & Sounds of COCO:

How Soon the Dawn

***

It's softer this way, isn't it?

It's the only thought he can think. As he sits in the treehouse and stares out at the darkening sunset, it's the only thing he can think of. It's softer- it's better- this way, isn't it?

He sits atop the highest point of the house. All the world is below his feet, along with a few scattered, bright green leaves. By his side is the torch of blue fire. Underneath him is the little square of wool carpet that he managed to drag up here.

It's better to be up here than in the rest of the stuffy treehouse. It has had a strange atmosphere, a sad air, ever since...

...ever since. It ends there. Only ever since. Ever since when? The when doesn't matter. It's just ever since.

Forest is not as sure at him. He thinks that it's only worse this way, to stare at the horizon and try to forget, become numb to the passage of time. Forest does not think it's healthy for him, either, being only seven years old.

But what does it matter if he's seven years old? Ever since, he doesn't feel seven years old. He just feels little, and that's it.

Hearing his own breath, he takes the headphones slung around his neck and slides them over his ears. The music that calms him begins to play. Soothingly, lullingly, it runs through the speakers, runs through his head, and all he can do is watch the stars start to twinkle in the sky as he listens.

Ever since...

He misses Lavender.

Lavender and Violet both, he misses. One of them is gone. He saw the Storm take her right before his eyes, and she accepted it, and she disappeared into little swirling pieces of paperish black.

The other one is not gone. The other one is somewhere out there, in the world where he isn't, in the other universe that he cannot, no matter how hard he tries, seem to get back to. The other one, his sister, is still looking for ways to find him.

He knows because he knows her. He knows he much she cares about him. She is still looking for him.

He rests his head in his hands. The phantoms have come out already. But they've learned to ignore him. For one, he has the blue fire torch. And two he always falls asleep anyway, so they haven't a reason to swoop down and annoy him and try to vampirishly bite at his neck.

He turns up the music.

And he still wonders.

Why did the Storm take Lavender instead of him? Someone specifically told him that the Storm was coming for him, because he was a glitch, and he didn't belong here, and he would mess up the world if he stayed. But then it took Lavender instead.

It makes no sense.

Perhaps Lavender was a glitch, too. Perhaps Forest is. Perhaps all of his friends, including Straeder, the Stray that talks with a strange accent and always pats him on the back to encourage him, do not belong here, and they are glitches, too.

It only makes sense. No Enderman is like Lavender. No Slime is like Forest. No Stray is like Straeder. And he's fairly certain that Coco is just a Player who managed to stay in the game too long and Kyle is... is... Well, it doesn't really matter what Kyle is. He's made of netherrack and fire, so he must be some sort of Nether-creature.

Maybe they're all glitches. Maybe they all don't belong here. Maybe someone tried to get rid of him because... because... they're all the same...

The thoughts slide from his head. He curls up by the edge of the railing, his eyes sliding closed, the music still playing slowly in his ears.

Rewyll feels himself drifting to unconsciousness.

From far-off, in another tree, another boy in another hoodie sniffles. Another boy cries. Another boy feels white tears burn down his face from his glowing white eyes.

William looks longingly at the treehouse as all of the bright turqouise lights begin to burn out.

If only the world... if only the world was the way it was when he was here. If only his friends still knew him.

But they don't. He traded friendship for power in an involuntary exchange with danger. And now his friends hate him, for they think he is the enemy. And he has the power to collapse this whole world in his own hands. Because it was only a dream anyway, and his dreams, he can finally control.

Both William and Rewyll fall asleep under the stars, out in the open, sitting in their own makeshift treehouses.

***

Lavender and Forest, characters of a friend of mine, Kayla. Minecraft made by Mojang.