Children of Omelas

Chapter 1: Hallelujah

Guest 1337’s back thudded against the wall. Clutching his chest, his heart pounded beneath his fingertips as his body careened into a state of rest. Potential energy— the ability to move without staying in motion.

A buzz filled his ears, teeth vibrating and clicking against each other as blood and sweat seeped in through the cracks of his lips. He could taste himself on his lips, and with the judgment of an amateur chef, he tasted demonstrably terrible. Salt dried his tongue in the desert of hope, sticking against the roof of his mouth whenever he tried to moisten it. His solace was his own blood— an iron brand of suffering insulating each cell on his tongue with ridges and valleys, placing mountain ranges between the isolated receptors. Tastes pinged off his tongue, but the buzz of whatever was against the wall cooked his sensory systems into a state of entropy-filled agitation: coherent one moment, gone another. A system hurtled towards chaos the longer it was allowed to go on. Random movements and pendulum-sword swings would put even the most simple display of order to shame, given enough time. Sodium, nickel, pennies. He tasted the cost of his actions as they built up in his mouth. The last guest; a title undeserved and underserved when millions were rotting under the Bacon Empire’s thumb, toiling ceaselessly and giving their blood, sweat, and tears just to supply their fiefdom with coal. He tasted the blood of all those who came before him in his mouth. With the back of his hand, he wiped it away, licking mined salt off his lips.

An uneasiness at the back of his throat prompted a finger to travel up to his own lips, and there he saw green and red intermingling. His stomach heaved at the diseased concoction making itself home in his body, right in his arm— hatred itself, curling its fingers around his soul and leaching off his life. His blood ran cold, not for himself, but for the others that might have been affected by it: Elliot, Chance, Builderman, Two Time, Shedletsky… No matter what he thought of his teammates, nobody deserved to suffer like he did. He had witnessed firsthand what hatred did to people, and now here his flesh was, rotting and decaying beneath his own human touch. Hatred itself was inhuman: industrial steel bore itself onto him with the oppressive stench of motor oil, crushing him under its rollers with rubber tracks weighing on his conscience. Hatred loathed the divinity of love, scattering seeds from split fruits in the minds of selfless men and reaping the harvest of war. Hatred was born from misunderstanding and obfuscation— a creature that loomed from the dark, disappearing when light was shed. 1337 had experienced grief from meeting men and women afflicted by it; roaming Robloxia absentmindedly, mumbling about facing problems later and misunderstanding the petty spats born of miscommunication and misconception, refusing to understand the deeper they fell. Hatred pulled their minds into its grasp, sinking claws into convenient crooks where neurons fell into canyons of logical darkness. It was not that people deliberately chose this path (most people were afraid of the dark, and didn’t want to think of themselves as wrong), but that it was simply the only path they could think to even follow. The only road seemed to be a downward spiral, and when they hit the bottom, they chose to dig. They hated others, or others hated them, or they hated themselves. Wherever the shadows came from, they encroached, closing in on easy prey and crowding their vision with jungle crowns of envy and lost glory and sorrow. Some could brave the darkness without falling prey to the hatred within it, but many couldn’t. Shining lights of love illuminated their lives in brief flickers, opening their eyes to their drones and mutters in ignorance; showing them sunny skies and clouds and fields of verdant greens and the vibrant azures of wildflowers. Even now, as he cradled his bicep, he was sure that was one of the lone acts of kindness he had given to himself. His body’s purpose was to fight back, warn others— Telamon forbid, run from it— but the gash in his shoulder told him otherwise. For now, he had no choice. Hatred continued drilling into his muscles where the seeds of misfolded proteins sprouted, rooting him into the heavy earth to be swallowed by the tempting metals beneath the skin nutritious topsoil.

Someone had to be nearby. He couldn’t sit idly in some corner and wait for the poison to kick in. At the very least, he could help some of his teammates; kick off some generators, run around collecting medkits…

He looked over to see a hi-vis vest. Actually, a button-down; father-blue blaring brightly against the dim scenery of the map, a uniform singling the hacker out to any killer that might be interested in pursuing or survivor that might be interested in staying away. The safety goggles, then, were chicken-wired and framed glasses with Bloxy-bottled lenses. Tired needles of fingers weaved in and out of the panels on both sides of the generator— sewing together with arduous effort the future of escape on a vast tapestry for none to look on besides those granted access into the private, lush wasteland of 007n7's mind. His eyes were screwed to his head, affixed too tightly onto his face. In lieu of this, someone must have forgotten to fix his eyelids to his face, as they fell to their doom of sleep, with a bottom waterline ripe with sleep deprivation waiting patiently for it to arrive and use itself as a cradle.

1337 thought briefly of how someone ought to hold his eyelids up for him so he’d have one less thought to distract him from his hacking. Besides that, a more pressing issue was at hand: falling asleep at the machines. Others might have been questioning how someone could zone out and get so caught up in the whims and ways of wind and wires, but Guest 1337 was much too familiar with the escapism that soldiers were often too susceptible to falling deep within. Lurking in the shadows of trenches and behind concrete barriers became a habit; gunfire was music, an ocean of meaningless noise and senseless, cacophonous rhythm. The mind was a pit. It was better to keep an eye on the light above the pit when crawling out rather than the falling dirt beneath, but by now, Guest 1337 saw dirt underneath fingernails like he saw the color of eyes, and 007n7 had clearly picked up a shovel recently.

One of 007n7’s hands occasionally dodged a spark to type on the red and black panel: various commands and bits of text read themselves back to him, but found no purchase in physical reality, owing to the distraction of lights and information that must have been weighing on 007n7. Owing to the chrome-plated screws scraping against the infernal, dirty depths of 1337’s bone marrow, and the cameras mounted atop them, powered by nothing but his neurons: it was safe to say 1337 saw everything. On occasion, he’d noticed spills or objects disappearing, or clothes disappearing from out of the dryer. Sometimes, they’d even be freshly folded and placed atop the washer. He’d never thought much about it— he only ever thought of it when he saw 007n7 disappear in front of his eyes, intangible and never quite real at all. If he knew 007n7, he would only be trying to sculpt some monument proving he tried in secret, covered in the fabric of easily manipulable space and pulling the strings of physics that came with them.

Now that he thought about it, it was much too dark to see a hand out from someone. The environment surrounding 007n7 was simply built that way, whether he was forced into that position for survival or not. He had distracted himself, much too dedicated towards his task to even think of relocating. In seconds, he could disappear before 1337’s very eyes. It was very much possible that 007n7 couldn’t have been there, and in his desire, he was hallucinating the image of him dancing in the corners and edges of his eyes. He could’ve been imagining the things he’d noticed in quick glances to the other man. He could have been imagining reasons to lend him a gentle hand and kindness. He could have been imagining reasons to hold those eyelids up; curl fingers within crooks, pull and hold and cradle with calloused fingers and shortened nails. That wasn’t real. It would’ve been impractical and, quite frankly, unrealistic.

"Double-O-7!" He whispered, though he wouldn't if he didn't have to. The battlefields where 1337 had learned to shout and bark commands were useful, yes, but not when communicating in stealth and especially with someone who was too absorbed in his panel and generator to care. The whisper clashed loudly against the buzz of the map— trees rustling in the distance, silent watchers standing guard, backs turned and anticipating an about-face for the honor of the screams the last Guest had heard before.

“Oh—!” 007n7 jumped upon hearing his shout, turning and typing a few commands with fingers faster than his trigger index. With nothing but a ‘bye bye!!!1!1 :3’ brandished on its translucent surface, the panel disappeared into thin air— like magic, it was gone, like it never existed. The shield of sheen rested atop his eyes, guarding carefully the secrets of whatever he’d been doing, and concealing that he’d been doing it in the first place. “Good to see you. Sorry— Heights, you startled me.” 007n7’s facial muscles screwed themselves uncomfortably into an unnatural, contorted position that vaguely looked similar to the smile. Though, now, 1337 noticed a different glint in the mirror of his eyes— and more wrinkling at the edges of them. Not bad, just… different. If he could get him to smile, really smile, a grin, maybe… he could finally catch a glimpse of those dimples that ‘ran in the family,’ as he’d heard before. c00lkidd definitely had them. He’d never seen them on 007n7. Maybe he just never got a close enough look— or never saw him smile, even when the room was filled with the tinkling of wind chimes and laughter. 007n7 placed a hand on his own chest to relieve himself of quick, short breaths.

1337 sidled up to the other side of the generator, back towards the castle and what he knew to be the last known position of the killer. If the killer came over here, he’d much rather be on the receiving end. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you later.” He promised, peeling off the panel to a generator and starting to feel the familiar tingle of electricity kissing his fingertips. His mind raced over things he would’ve liked to do to make up for it, if 007n7 even considered there to be a debt at all. Maybe bring him a Cola or a medkit— he’d noticed things disappearing from the kitchen, but never saw 007n7 within. Though he worried initially he just wasn’t eating outright, his racing thoughts were cooled by the way he seemed to maintain his weight. As long as he was eating, it was one less thing 1337 had to concern himself with. Though, it always seemed that he took on the duties nobody asked him to do simply for the sake of it. After all, nobody seemed to notice that they never saw 007n7. Nobody seemed to notice that his little teleportation ability had gotten a little faster recently. As far as he knew, Guest 1337 was the only one looking out for him as much as he did, and for reasons he found himself unsure of every time he thought about it.

“If we get out of here.” 007n7 cracked an awkward joke as the motor to the generator revved— and promptly failed.

“When.” 1337 responded. He never liked the phrase ‘if we get out of here.’ The Noob and others preferred to use it, holding out on a limb, but the Guest grabbed the branch, even if it looked brittle. He would angle his way to a victory or land somewhere below, and from there, he would get up. An ‘if’ made something uncertain, and he was no Chance— plus, the others were always cowering in fear rather than facing that uncertainty directly. It drew him to 007n7, in a sense: that panel and 007n7’s private endeavors reminded him of deals done in darker, dank alleyways and hisses of secret intelligence and conversation, velvet whispers made over cigar smoke and cupping cheeks within hands to whisper unspoken promises. Code was the unseen hand of the universe, and 007n7 wielded it and preferred that nobody knew. If someone had seen the face of fate and the hoodwinking holes of imagination and hid themselves away in the shadows rather than champion themselves as an engineer… the Guest could see in his hunching and slouching that there was an immense weight he bore, more akin to Atlas than Sisyphus.

“Right. When.” 007n7 looked over towards 1337, but averted his gaze, likely looking more sheepish than anything. “I wanted to say sorry; I probably would’ve been over there with a clone, but I made one before I ran off and I was waiting for it to come back.”

“I wasn’t going to fault you. I had the situation handled, I got a couple of good blocks in. The others are safe.” 1337 raised his head to meet 007n7’s line of sight, and 007n7 looked at him. “Don’t worry too much about it. Whatever contributions you can make, I know you’ll find a way.” When their eyes met, they both looked towards their respective panels. 1337 felt a childish heat come to his face— nothing more than dangerous curiosity compelled him to look at 007n7’s face to see if the feeling was shared, but he knew better to indulge in fantasies.

“Thanks for all of your help.” 007n7 breathed out a sigh of relief. He tried not to hear how shaky it was. “Now that you’re here, I wanted to ask, where is—” As he went to look again at 1337, he gasped. "Keep working. I'll get that for you." When 1337 looked over, he saw 007n7’s eyes widen in horror at the bleeding gash in his shoulder, dirtying his uniform.

1337 was no stranger to gashes, and could handle it so long as he ignored it and steeled his resolve. Somehow, he kept forgetting that other people probably didn't like looking at the gnarly wounds that littered his body. He’d worn them, flag borne fluttering in the typhoon winds.

As 007n7 retrieved the medkit he’d been carrying around from carabiners on his belt, 1337 went to shrug it off and tried to wave his hand to reassure his friend. The Nobel-worthy discovery he’d found was that the prongs of a taser had embedded themselves deep into his deltoid and was awfully keen on delivering thousands of ice-cold volts through his nervous system whenever he tried to even wiggle his fingers. Obviously, this was not the best situation to be in, but he’d had worse. 007n7 looked at his attempts to raise his hand and frowned.

1337 could only give a weakly reassuring smile in turn, obviously humiliated by his lack of capability to even move his own arm. "You really don't—"

"It'll get done faster if you're working and I'm helping you." 1337 thought he could taste guilt lying 6 feet beneath the gentle, aged speech of 007n7, and further his mind swan-dove into the possibilities for why that might be. “I promise, no anomalous effects." There it was— the answer. The sky 007n7 held was green and overcast with guilt, strange colors from exploitation painted over BSOD-blue. Blue screens of death always freaked him out. Not because he didn’t know how to fix it (eventually, he’d force his way into a solution), but because they seemed too vulnerable. The blue screen only showed when something was terribly, horribly wrong. It was an open admission, an invitation to fix— for many, it was empowering to take on the job of typing a few commands into the terminal, but for Guest 1337, some part of it felt like a personal failure for not stopping it sooner, even if it was his fault. It did enable him to tackle the problem with more ferocity, but when something so openly failed, it became his fault even when it wasn’t. Computers had always seemed so mysterious to him; they seemed to serve as much as he did, but people credited them far less.

"Don't worry, I trust in that." 1337 chuckled to ease the tension between them. He'd heard things about 007n7's panel, but hadn't ever seen him doing anything necessarily wrong with it. If anything, 007n7 was the man he trusted to maybe replace his arm with a new one.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I think moving over to finish my wires would be faster than starting a fresh panel.” 007n7 suggested as he cracked open the white plastic of the medkit. It almost made him nostalgic for hospitals; on the battlefield, they often had nothing but the tactical-green and camo bags full of military-grade material, not the cushy nice stuff. The smell of sterility and alcohol was unfamiliar to his nose ground in the dirt, but he trusted those hands that knew the ways of needles and commands to reverse-search his anatomy and find a way to mend the gash that was plaguing him.

He hoped 007n7 would never see a battlefield. He hoped he would only have to crack open white, fake, plastic medkits and trace 1337’s wounds with his fingers with a quiet, unbroken breath in his lungs. That middle part didn’t make sense to 1337, but it seemed to pop up in his brain anyway, and he trusted his intuition like he trusted his closest friends.

Guest 1337 gave an affirmative grunt in response and shifted over according to the suggestion, treating it like it was a command to be followed like a dog. He didn’t look at 007n7, choosing to concentrate on the task, but from the rustling, he assumed something was being peeled.

"Who's over there?" 007n7 asked as the Guest picked up one wire and one-handedly connected it to the matching blue port.

"Noob, I think. Elliot, too. Hence why I left. Elliot’s got it covered.”

He felt 007n7’s hands stop briefly, then continue. 1337 continued busying himself with the task and conversation, wondering when 007n7 would start mending him. His arm seemed to be bracing to take in every bit of touch from those keyboard fingers, wondering if they’d treat him as delicately, or as much as a computer— something to receive outputs from and give commands to.

“Over by the castle area?” 007n7’s hands grazed his wound and 1337 felt a shiver of agony grace his chest, fluttering and shaking his ribcage with force. Something squeezed his bicep, and 007n7 breathed in behind him as he steadied his other arm against the generator. He expected for the familiar ice-bath of dread to hit him as 007n7 operated in his blindspot, but nothing ever came. No betrayals and no knives stuck halfway through his spine, rooting through his intestines. 007n7’s hands were rougher than he’d expected for a hacker— then again, he was a father. He would’ve had to get his hands dirty eventually. Of course callouses would’ve worn themselves deep into the meat of his palms eventually.

“Yeah, with the drop… good place to distract. Tactically, it makes a lot of sense to be over there.” He plugged the red wire into the red port. “The high ground makes it easy to collect information… and it’s good for baiting, too, mostly because you can drop out of the tower and loop down below, depending on the range the killer is hitting at.” He racked his brain for what he’d observed, reciting the details and anything he knew. They were on the same side, and even though there was a connection between 007n7 and c00lkidd, it seemed that 007n7 couldn’t recognize his own son and didn’t see him outside of the matches. 1337’s heart ached for him, though he’d never be able to share that with him. Though he wanted Charlotte to move on in the very likely case he didn’t come back, if he went back to the land of the living and his dear daughter was nowhere to be seen, he’d stop at nothing to find her again, work tirelessly… not even Matt would be able to pull him out of it. “And Elliot… I mean, he’s not at a disadvantage, but I can see how it’d be difficult to do supply drops on that terrain.” Guest 1337 turned around. “Did you—”

007n7 was reorganizing the materials into compartments in the box and squatted down to have a full, open view of it on the soft grass. 1337 looked down to his wound, only to see gauze and wrapped bandages covering it.

“... You—” 1337 admired the handiwork. He’d been patched up by field medics in a jiffy, but nothing compared to how seamless the work was. “Wow.” His mouth hung slightly ajar in astonishment— both at how he’d been fooled so easily, and how he felt… nothing. Only the soreness of the sealing wound stayed searing his skin and the sinew beneath.

“It’s not going to make your movement issue any better, but hopefully it’ll help you out for a little bit.”

“No, it’s… holy shit.” He grinned in satisfaction, raising his arm. 007n7 could’ve told him the wound never existed and he would’ve followed his word to the letter, believing it and preaching it to be the ultimate truth and reality. “Wrapped real tight, too.” 1337 flexed and noticed 007n7’s eyes dart to the edges of the bandages as his bicep inflated. If he was worried about it breaking, 1337 had to reassure him: “I’m saying your handiwork is good, it’s just good to test it.”

007n7 blushed and looked anywhere but 1337. “It’s really no problem, we should—”

“You’re… amazing. You ever considered being a field medic?” 1337 wanted to bash his head into the wall and shout curses at his ability to only give compliments in the form of military assignments. “I’m serious, this is wrapped strong.”

007n7 chuckled, and 1337 didn’t know why his brain honed in on the noise with pinpoint precision, a sharpshooter seeing the target. Seeing someone through a scope was a very private thing— he remembered seeing the very pores and whites of someone’s eyes once and reminiscing on how nobody else would’ve ever had that view. His breathing seemed to snag on a bullet lodged somewhere in his chest as he thought so briefly of how 7n7 didn’t laugh around anyone else. The thought flitted by and grazed his cheek like a thumb. “No. I’m not sure I ever did. I used to help my son when he’d get hurt.” 007n7 got up, placing a hand on his back and wincing in pain as he stood. “Getting old, now. But you have to have a certain kind of strength to lift a 10 year old boy. They grow big, that’s for sure.”

That much seemed obvious, when he looked at the exhausted half-smile 007 gave 1337 to reassure him he was alright. The strongest people, he’d noticed (even from himself), seemed invincible to those that needed strength. To other strong people, though, they just seemed tired. They took turns holding the burden, holding up the world. Maybe the guy would benefit from that heat pack 1337 had gotten as a gift recently— the one that appeared in his room out of the blue. “I get it. My little girl tested my back everyday. You know, if your back’s aching so much, I have this heat pack I think would help you…”

007n7 gave a smile he’d never quite seen before— the ghost of satisfaction. “I think I’ll be okay. But thank you. That’s… very kind of you.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, it became pretty useful to talk to him when he was getting his shots or going to the doctor’s up in Brookhaven.” 007n7 made his way to 1337’s side, cracking open the panel he’d labored fiercely over and plunging his hand in. “I would also treat his skin condition at home, sometimes, so I kind of learned to heap on the gauze…”

“He didn’t like needles?”

007n7 chuckled again, and for a brief moment, the shield lowered. “God, no. He’d get candy after he was done, though. I’d show him what the c00lgui did, sometimes… I wish you could’ve seen his face, he was…” 007n7 tapered off, and there it went again. Brief flickers of vulnerability, light streaming through a window when a car happened to drive by in the night. “... I don't think it's important. Sorry, I guess I could be distracting you. I don't think you wanna hear all of that." He gave a weak smile. “The killer could be coming. We should be focusing on the game, sorry for… talking your ear off.”

1337 mentally praised the highest of Hell's heavens that 007n7 had gotten so far. Over the past months that they've been meeting up, 1337 had gotten to coax details about c00lkidd out of him over candlelight and maps of the different arenas their matches took place in. 007n7 had even gone as far as entrusting a picture of him and c00lkidd to 1337 in the rare case that 007 didn’t come back to the village. Sometimes, when he was on the last fibers of his being at the very ends of matches— when he was certain his health was drained, that his limbs were going to give out, that his arms were going to fall off if they were slashed or stabbed or hit or impaled one more time... he would brush his fingers on the sleeve he'd put on the photograph in his pocket, and from those smiling faces, he would draw strength. Though he hadn't learned why the others were so terrified of a 10 year old boy, 1337 knew two things for certain as a result of their conversations: that c00lkidd was an average little boy, and that he should be grateful that he had a girl. A kid that ran amok, getting banned from pizza places and wrecking towns? Sounds like a kid, yes, but 1337 thought it reflected on 7n7 instead. He thought 7n7 must've taught the good saints patience and kindness. He also thought 007n7 should also look into a spa day.

He wasn't going to push his luck. “It’s fine, I understand. If you ever do need to talk about it...” At a nod from 7n7, he continued. “I mean, raising Charlotte and all… she had the curse of being just like me. I was a pain in the ass when I was a kid. It’d be a hell of a time to do alone. You really are a saint.”

007n7 looked away, giddy smile poking its way through his mouth. “Not really. Your Charlotte: she sounds like a good kid, though.” Wires wrapped themselves around 007n7’s fingers as he slipped them off, crocheting a pattern in the cables as he heard the motor begin to kick to life. 007n7 spoke in softer whispers— it was exactly that he didn’t have a velvety voice that enamored Guest 1337 about him. It wasn’t soft, or smooth; it grated against his ears like sandpaper, not like nails and chalkboards. He rasped quietly, voice like the flickers of a warm candle, or a lantern speckled with dust on the inside and outside, swinging and creaking. He spoke like a father would, and 1337 was the moth darting towards the flame that would burn him up. His voice was like chalk scraping against a chalkboard, painting a picture 1337 could follow only through tunnel vision. 007n7’s eyes darted to his own, and it seemed he’d said something that 1337 was too busy soaking up the moonlight of his voice to notice. 007n7 looked expectant, looking up at him rather than straight-on. 1337 was wracked with the shame of betrayal as he continued the conversation from the last known point of data. “You must've been a good dad.”

“You think so?” He could’ve sworn it wasn’t his birthday, but he grinned ear-to-ear.

007n7 nodded like he was completely sure of it. “I know so.”

“Well, I mean…” He looked away, chuckling as another blush spread over his face. “I was kind of blessed.” He needed to be humble now more than ever. “She’s a good kid. Well, was. Is still now, I’m pretty sure. Sweetest girl I ever damned did see, I’ll tell you.” He couldn’t look at 007n7 anymore. He looked down at his hand intertwined in the cables instead of those eyes— terrifying eyes, scaring him for reasons he couldn’t quite discern. He tried following the brown cable, but lost it in the tumbleweed of bundled fibers that he had to pull apart. The port was there, as was the cable, but as he explained, he found it more difficult to try and trace it. “No, uh, my… my ex-wife—”

The title slipped through his tonsils, and he promptly swallowed it, information disappearing into the wastebasket and being flushed into the soup of acid that was waiting to consume it. The ache in his arm pierced and turned venomous talons into the beef of his shoulder and bicep, grinding like an industrial meat packager— dread came over him, swallowed him, forced his posture into a smaller slump. Ex-wife.

007n7 paused briefly, looking up at 1337. “I, uh… Forgive me, but I thought she was, uh…” He seemed to get that it wasn’t exactly the right time to ask and quickly piped himself down.

Countless photographs taken over the years blurred together to create the silhouette of a family, maybe— who he used to leave goodnight kisses to, who he rode fair rides with and got stuck in a cupboard with. A family who he encouraged to move on after the operation, because he knew his own ruthlessness would burn him up and kill him. His best trait was his ambition and his commitment to those around him, so when he weighed his options and pulled the lever to divert the trolley on the tracks, he chose to take a loving husband away from his family rather than let a regime carry out tyrannic rule. Referring to Daisy as his ex-wife made him sure that his heart had fallen out of his body. There was no ‘family’ that belonged to him anymore. He floated aimlessly in a sea of great nothings, extensions of himself lost as he fell out of the cohesive, coherent family unit— no wife to look after, no daughter to tuck into bed. His personhood had been stripped of him as he could not remember any hobbies he’d pursued. It had seemed stupid then, as he’d never imagined himself growing older and dying of age. They were fruitless attempts to create himself outside of being a meatshield, as a fiery death always seemed to fit him. Now that he’d been removed and born again as the soldier of Omelas, bearing the sins of those inhabitants of utopian happiness as the removal of himself was engraved in marble… he was floundering to make something new of himself, find conversational topics outside of his old family, grasping and finding nothing but emptiness and years spent making breakfast waiting for him.

Only the face of 007n7 remained, in front of him, the only tangible thing to hold onto in the face of the emptiness that lived within his mind— this black hole of information, sprawling lazily and corrupting anything he knew. The memories no longer scared him. A hand sat on his good shoulder. The weight lifted as he looked up to see wire frames.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if you do, you know… my door is open for you.” He sounded just like a father: warm, caring… perceptive. If Charlotte could’ve met him, would she have preferred 007n7 over him?

He needed to face his ruin, but 007n7’s eyes were reflective. Beneath their glassy look was a man devoted to his care— so much so that 1337 was unsure if he was looking at himself or looking at 007n7’s soul. It was a connection made through mutual suffering; no longer was he alone in that dungeon, in that great night. Someone else was offering to take that burden. He thought, most briefly, that 7n7 would’ve made a wonderful husband. He forced that thought out of his mind. He didn’t know if he could make himself take that offer now. The barbed wire he’d crawled through in the field constricted his throat, and he steeled his resolve. He couldn’t let himself get that close to another man, especially.

“We have other things to do now. I’ll drop the heating pack off for you later.”

007n7 bit the inside of his cheek in anguish, a move only 1337 would’ve been able to interpret. “Thank you. You’re too kind.” 1337 felt that the words had a double meaning, but didn’t want to read too far into it. His thoughts poked out of his eyes, making it difficult to see anything but the generator that had to be complete. They bulged in sorrow, and he did nothing but ignore it. Eventually, he would get around to it; dealing with the thoughts that made his eyes want to bug out of his skull, setting up a memorial, putting that photo in his pocket somewhere safe…

The bell tolled again. The Noob was dead. 1337 had no reason to stay with 007n7 and complete the generator; he was fully healed and capable of taking more hits. He watched him connect the last few wires anyway, looking out for any possible approach.

“You should move after this.” 1337 suggested. He’d be able to think better if he wasn’t constantly agonizing over the first time he’d referred to Daisy as his ‘ex-wife,’ but this was his best attempt at somewhat moving on. He had all of the time in the world later to stare at his ceiling; now, he needed to be brave. Be strong.

“You’re not coming with?” 007n7’s eyebrows were raised in thoughtful surprise, though he drew his eyes back to the generator.

“No. As much as I’d like to stay around, I have a job to do, and I know Elliot is going to need some help.”

“Well… Good luck, then. Thank you for keeping me company.”

They lapsed into silence, 1337 ending the conversation with a terse nod. He pulled out his tablet to check which survivors had however much health left; Chance and Noob were both dead, and Elliot seemed to maintain himself at 100%. He must’ve been doing a good job, then; he worried sometimes about how much Elliot was taking on in regards to helping them all heal, but he was always grateful to receive a slice of pizza when he needed it. As 007n7 finished the generator, 1337 reached down to check his tablet for the time, and---

“Elliot’s not getting hurt.”

007n7 stepped away from the revving generator and peeked over 1337’s forearm. Sure enough, they were both looking at the same thing; Elliot’s health stayed at a stable 100%.

“Shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“Yeah, but…”

Guest 1337 looked up, meaning to look contemplative and heroic. Instead, he laid eyes on a green flash in the distance, bearing a sword and running right towards them.

On instinct, he shoved 007n7 behind him, bracing to block a possible hit, shouting a command that sounded more like missiles dropping over a field than words. A pair of swords came flying at him, and Guest 1337 found himself entangled, trying to pull a sword out from his calf and reaching up to block the sword being hurled right at his bicep as his mind raced with where to go— orienting himself in the map, trying to think of where 1x1x1x1 was weak. The castle wouldn’t work, it was halfway across the map… unless there was some way 1337 could slowly guide him to it. He could charge, stun 1x1x1x1, make enough time for 007n7 to run far away from the disaster and distract until they finished all of the generators. There was a shifting behind him, and he figured 007n7 was trying to use the c00lgui.

His plans never ended up coming to fruition, though. 1x1x1x1 stopped meters away from them, looking off near the rock that was neighbors to the secluded corner of the map. It was odd to see one of the killers purposefully stop if they weren’t being stunned, but nevertheless, 1337 took this opportunity to pull the sword out of his leg and hurl it at the killer. Instinctively and quite impulsively, he grabbed the sword that was hanging in midair next to his bicep (the one that he thought he’d blocked) and stuck it in the ground. 007n7’s hands grabbed his shirt tightly as he did this, bunching the fabric into his balled fists, and his cheek rested between the broadswords of his shoulders; soft, hurried breaths hot on his neck.

“Curious that you pride yourself on protection.” They sneered as it dropped near their feet, tilting their head as they inspected the blood-covered blade. They opened their hand, and the sword returned to their grasp. With the other hand, they pointed to Guest 1337 and 007n7. “I’ll come back for you later.” The voice was buried beneath garbled static and asthmatic wheezing, but 1337 understood.

They seemed to have spotted another, and if 007n7 was positioned correctly, dealing with 1337 alone would’ve been annoying. There was probably another survivor nearby that was a more viable chase.

1x1x1x1 ran between the walls next to the corner as 1337 pivoted them to face wherever he predicted 1x1x1x1 to be going— and soon enough, he heard nothing but running and taunting in the distance.

He turned to share his theory with 007n7. “Thank god that—”

His eyes were met with the hacker stumbling backwards, eyes glassy with pain as he reached down to touch the saturated blood spot on his father-blue shirt. Just where his lungs were.

“7—” Guest 1337 rushed forward to grab hold of him, stabilizing him with strong hands. “Did it—”

007n7 coughed, and 1337 saw blood beginning to color his lips. He slumped against 1337’s form, and 1337 felt the pangs of guilt hit him harder than they ever had, wracking his being with their ebb and flow. “No, no, no—”

He’d done this. How could he have done this?

“Seven, I—”

1x1x1x1 only had two swords, and he’d successfully redirected the sword that was going to hit 1337’s arm— right into 007n7’s body. That’s why 007n7 had been holding onto him.

“Damn it—” You can't die on me now! We've got to get through this together!” 1337 pressed down on the open wound, gushing with blood--- staining his hands with treacherous wine. As much as 1337 would’ve liked to create fantasies of being able to use any amount of supplies to pull him back from this, 007n7 was steeped in lower health than he’d foreseen. The only thing that 1337 was grateful for was that the poison would kill him quicker than the stab wound.

007n7 attempted to lean over to get a better look at the wound, but found himself doubling over in spasms, mouth failing to close around the spikes of agony in his palate.

“Don't move." 1337 pushed his shoulder down gently, lowering him to the floor. A gasp of relief escaped his gaping mouth as he moved to clutch his stab wound. "It’ll agitate the wound more. Try not to touch it, either.”

007n7 nodded in understanding, but gestured weakly towards where 1x1x1x1 had run off to. "Elliot, he's..."

The bell tolled. Elliot was dead.

1337 shook his head. “This is all my fault. You didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

His linen button-up was soft against 1337’s arms as he held him. 007n7 was losing blood at a pace faster than it could be replaced. Every blink of 007n7’s eyes aligned with his heartbeat. He looked into 007n7’s eyes and found wild reflection that amplified with his own. He scrambled to hold onto 1337, and 1337 held him. The weight of 007n7’s sky fell on him, and 1337 lowered them both onto the ground.

When he took in 007n7’s face, the exhaustion only seemed to intensify. The shadow of his face in the dim light seemed to worsen, eyebags growing long on his face.

“You have to stay awake.”

“Please.” War-torn, calloused hands took the soft scruff of 007n7’s face into his hand— cheeks plush against sandpaper fingertips. 1337 knew, instantly, all of the secrets within. “I’m… so tired.”

“Please. Seven…”

“Thank you for all of your kindness. It means more to me than I can say.” He smiled weakly, blood covering his teeth, gurgling and choking on the clots of blood in his throat. “I’m… just going to rest for a bit… and I’ll be better soon…”

007n7’s fingers lost purchase against his shirt. 1337 caught him once more before he could be embraced by the grass beneath his own knees.

He stopped breathing, eyes closed.

The last thing he must’ve seen was the last guest’s face: buried in bereavement, corrupted with the loss of the one person who shouldered his burden. The sky fell upon him as Atlas stumbled.

“007n7?” He gave a gentle shake to his body, like waking Daisy up with breakfast in bed.

Those eyes were dull once more, and stayed shut. His eyelids had finally fallen, and 1337 had not taken the move to keep them up for him. They did not search for anything, and consumed nothing. They were steeped in nonexistence; a temporary life discarded and existing only in pure hatred. Before he could even process it, 1337 had failed another one of his teammates because of his heroic whims. He clutched 007n7’s corpse to his chest and felt his eyes glass over with tears of despair and grief. Lava ran down his face, hellfire purging his brimstone soul of the sin of failure that plagued it. He’d had a duty and an honor; once more, he didn’t have any of the right answers, only a collection of things strung along to look vaguely like hope. Hope could not save anyone. Hope did not save 007n7. He had nobody around him to pretend for anymore. The presence of others was a panopticon that was meant to make sure he did not lapse into hopelessness, but here was the apex of evidence proving his own failures. He would learn. He would learn and be better, lest someone else die. But for now, he grieved.

Hope was something he stuck close to, but he knew when it verged into outright delusion. Still, left unchecked now, fantasies of one of his clones being alive still clouded his mind. Anything to see him alive again, looking anywhere but him, typing on that panel…

He knew it would never substitute for the real 007n7. After all, they were 'better' versions. Projections of base wants and unfortunate desires that 007n7 had but could never fulfill. They all fulfilled some aspect of moral obligation, performance, or behavior that 007n7 cowered away from. They all smiled with perfect teeth, obliging to do their job with joy. Structures and frameworks and scaffolding of code created the perfect mimicry: they had 007n7’s healing hands, his gentle face, and his spirit. They were his beauty, all of the things he desired himself to be, but he was not. It was joyous, humorous, and openly engaged in such wit and social games with him. Most importantly, they hid nothing. They were wholeheartedly honest with him when spoken to, albeit in gibberish. They were a row of beautiful picket houses with snapdragons growing in bountiful planters near the front… mock oranges growing by the bunches… and nothing within, homes barren and empty. The clones had 007n7’s wrinkled skin and occasional mole and blemish, scars stretching from where he’d been injured and nicked in his life. The clones' backs did not ache at unnatural positions, and they were all frighteningly light— dull eyes were implanted into their skulls as they blindly followed what the cursor spoke in poetry.

In their lifelessness, he saw what 007n7 saw in code.

He understood the gentle manipulations that had woven its existence, and saw the patterns that 007n7 saw— saw the spider’s web, and saw the spider hiding within a cocoon of his own design. 007n7 would have made a great father because no matter how rushed or imperfect the final product was, the clones were clearly made with the utmost love and precision.

007n7 reverse-engineered problems and found solutions and holes in code faster than he could rip a newly-issued jacket. He saw himself like an intel team saw a spy; an exploiter was nothing but a pest to be removed and someone to make an apology for. To Guest 1337, it was clear that this was no pest. He knew better than anyone that life experience fundamentally changed the way someone viewed things (considering how he thought of his fellow teammates), so someone who dissected games and played God for their own amusement could never see a game the same as someone who had never seen a lick of code. That didn’t mean that 007n7 deserved the same shame he’d gotten before. His skills were still useful, no matter how he’d gotten them, and it was clear that he was trying to help no matter the things that he’d done. The clones were a product of necessity and survival. He could not hate them, nor could he hate the c00lgui nor the programs 007n7 used to place things every which way he wanted.

He could not make himself think that 007n7 would be a good husband as well. He would not subject either of them to that. It went against everything 1337 thought of himself, and he didn’t think that 007n7 even went that way. To hope here was to feed himself to the throat of delusion incarnate, have warbling voices of wedding bells surround him.

So, he gladly bore the burden of the weight of the body beneath him with nothing in return. He performed a lover's duty of letting the other rest on him. He took the sky off of his shoulders, as 007n7 had relieved years worth of stress with nothing but the image of love behind silicone and blue screens. With his eyes closed, he did almost look to be sleeping, and what a blissful rest it must have been. Sleep would be better than this waking nightmare; but rest was for the loved, not the loving. He yearned to succumb to those selfish dreams again. Dreams of holding him (he never wanted to admit it was 007n7, as he never saw his face), clothed under the covers, kisses exchanged while neither of them looked at each other. These dreams he ignored blocked his throat, smothered him in a thick fog of ugly smoke and terror, banging in his ears laying on heavy as 007n7’s voice corrupted under his grasp, repeating those words that dreamt of sleep. He wanted more than anything to know that he was not alone in these dreams. He knew he needed to be alone in his delusions.

Those words of gratitude 007n7 had expressed were water over his skin, relieving him of the sin of regret; they cleaned him, left the blood encrusted skin pure and orderly… removed dirt from the crevices of fingernails and from the ridges of valleys of the back he’d had lash after lash thrown on… the years of punishment after punishment he’d bore were washed clean by gentle words spoken by someone who wielded them with penultimate power, even as a removal of himself. He could never reveal his truest desires and sources of bereavement to someone he loved. He could never tell 007n7 that he was in love with him, because he would put upon himself the ultimate duty of serving him. That was not love. That would never be the kind of love they both wanted. He would always want to hear those words of encouragement, know he was being appreciated… love was selfless, love was thoughtful, love was giving with nothing in return. He could not make himself be selfish for a man that had given so much and been loathed in return.

He would never be able to tell him the feelings he’d come to realize, so he held 007n7 closer and mumbled an apology for his own foolishness. He’d led them both into this situation, after all. He’d dug this hole deeper for both of them.

The Daemonshank was raised to behead him. Guest 1337 took it with an open mind.

The lobby was cleared.

Chapter 2: The Poker Night

The dining room of the clubhouse and manor was incredibly short of a bar. It had no bar at all to serve drinks at— it had booths, tables, and a billiards table, along with a couple chairs and some stray poles and balls— but besides that, it could hardly be called a bar. Despite all of these facts, it resembled a bar in the purpose it stole from one: a means for congregation. Drinks were mixed and served in the nearby kitchen and stolen to the dining room for entertainment. Food flowed in and out, and there were always tables to be cleaned and dishes to be washed. In this way, the survivors had deemed it necessary to name it the bar, and most planning operations took place there anyway. Even though 1337 did not personally agree with the designation, he was the most common frequenter of the bar besides the lone Chance. It was his chalk doodles of strategies for different maps that were strewn about the chalkboard that nobody really paid attention to; yet nobody cared to ask him what he thought it ought to be called.

Despite his disregard for its purpose and utility of the bar as a war room, he found it necessary to participate in the morally questionable activities that took place there in order to establish a sense of camaraderie with his teammates. He would also be too much of a liar if he said that a good game of poker was practice for their daily matches. In the bar, at the table, facing his teammates, he saw it necessary to change the lines of alliance and axis whenever it was fit— and also saw it necessary to change his face to cover whatever deeds he was hiding in his hands. Whenever the room erupted into squabbles or arguments, he would stare at the picture hanging on the wall opposing his usual seat at the mashup of tables: a Van Gogh painting of people playing billiards. He was unsure if it was a replica or not, and often spent time discerning each brush stroke from another and comparing it to his own limited knowledge on the subject. Nevertheless, he found it beautiful. Sometimes, when he made his plans, he found himself staring into it with wishful intent— knowing that if he could, he would have made up a fantasy world in his head and mentally escaped the village long ago. He did not have that liberty as many of his teammates did. In fact, even now, with an ample amount of time passing after it had happened, he was still plagued with the image of 007n7 in his arms, life draining, clutching and grasping and—

A silence fell on the table as Chance dealt a hand, speaking aloud— “The game is seven card stud.”

Shedletsky and Builderman looked at their cards, and then at each other.

“What do you got?” 1337 thought he heard Shedletsky mumbling as he leaned over.

“For Christ’s sake, John—” Builderman grumbled, much louder than Shedletsky’s pleading whispers.

“We can do this together, c’mon—”

“Hey. No cheats.” Chance spoke up, conveniently nudging the flintlock on the table as he finished dealing, arranging his own cards. 1337 thought fondly of a poker-playing algorithm that 007n7 had programmed when he told him that Chance had roped them all into playing poker. “Anything, Shedletsky?”

Shedletsky shook his head silently, seemingly slouching back in his chair to settle his anxious stomach. 1337 reasoned he must have gotten dealt a bad hand.

Chance shrugged, then turned to Builderman. “Builderman?”

“Two cards.”

Chance nodded and tossed him two cards across the table.

“Guest?”

“I’m out.” He tossed his cards up on the table, much to Shedletsky’s curiosities.

Chance pursed his lips, but erased his look. 1337 connected it like generator cables to a similar face he’d get when he was on the receiving end of a bad coin flip. He checked his watch, then looked pointedly at 1337, then looked at the next player to be ran over by the wheel of fate. “Noob?”

“One, please.”

As requested, Chance tossed one card to the Noob.

“What do you have?” Shedletsky leaned over and whispered to the Noob.

“I’m, uh… not really sure.” The Noob replied. Chance was looking at them with a disdainful look. “All of them are spades, though.”

“Spade flush. Isn’t that nice.” He sat back again, crossing his arms with a vicious smile.

“Shedletsky.” Chance said as—

“—John.” Builderman warned.

“Sorry!” Shedletsky tossed his hands up in defense.

The Noob was quick to defend. “He just wanted to know, so I told him. What’s wrong with that?”

“The power of knowing. It’s what the game is built on.” Those words rolled into the room in a dense fog as Chance clicked his tongue. “Come on. You’ll never have any fun knowing all of the cards.”

Though he’d certainly trained himself out of hunger cues, his every thought went only to pizza. Maybe that was courtesy of the time: as he checked his watch, he saw it neared 2100. Nine; the layers of his personal, homemade Hell folded in on themselves like a rich pastry he was ready to gluttonously stuff himself on. He was supposed to meet 007n7 with the liaison of pizza. The hacker was the only one who had been genuinely looking over his plans for the games and his analyses on the skillsets of the different killers, as well as offering valuable insights and criticisms to his techniques. Over the course of several months now, he’d been coaxing him to talk more and more about himself, and 1337 fell prey to the urge to leave earlier and earlier from the parishioners’ game of poker. Plus, 1337 still needed to tell him about the match yesterday; the knowledge of it burned like the scent of alcohol in his nose now. He was beginning to miss the quiet of the outdoors, and knew it was time to leave as Chance gave another look to him.

“’Think I'm gonna retire for the night. I’m starving.” 1337 stood up with a hearty sigh, pushing his wooden tokens in towards Chance. The gnarled oak of the tokens scraped against the polished cedar of the table, some tokens catching against the valley between where they’d all pushed the tables together. Though the natural tendency of anything real was to change, there was some comfort in changing the rather static environment around them to fit their needs, such as the lanterns or the composition of the tables in the bar. To make sure that the lanterns on the tables had a place to go, candlelight haunted the walls as they sat in ancient holders. There were stains remaining from where wax had dripped down and seeped into the grain of the wood, but from a distance, the wood seemed spotless, ready to bear the burden of scraping once more.

As it stood, Chance had no way to leave the center. He was completely surrounded by tables and players alike, all looking to him as he relished in the thrill of embarrassment and admiration alike, enjoying the knowledge that so much money relied on his dealings, only divorced from his marriage to attention by the cacophony of sighs and negatives arose from the other players. 1337 raised his hands defensively, pushing away discordant struggle as easily as they shoved it onto him. “I know. Sorry, guys.”

"So soon?" Chance checked his watch and gave a glance to Shedletsky as 1337 pushed back his chair. "You’ve been cold all night…” He prattled on, like a lover moving a mistress back to bed. 1337 was almost partially convinced that a bed full of rose petals and candles would pop out of nowhere, and Chance would sit French-style on it, hip popped suggestively, tempting him with a spread of his cards to reveal his deck. “Come on, Guest... sit down for another round. Two Time will come back… eventually.” Chance’s smile hid secrets of jokes told in the men’s showering room at the barracks, one they both knew well but 1337 had absolutely no clue where he might’ve got it from. If he was a different man, some might say he’d be tempted— itching to sit down and rid the poor mister of his troubles, laugh until his gut was sore and his mind buzzing with shots and cheap liquor. This was not the case: he was not a different man, and he would not try to be. He was perfectly fine with sticking to his instinct, and his instinct told him it was time to get some rest.

"I’m serious, I told you. We do have someone new upstairs, you know." He jested. "You know Elliot's busy in the kitchen. Someone has to help the guy out.”

Silence. His only company now was the swinging lanterns and the flickering of the fireplace. He looked over to the rest of the guys, expecting their usual banter (long exchanges, winding words, walking him to the door, continuing the game, loud noises, gunshots, burials, funerals, slashing and hacking down, revivals, back to the cards as if none of it had ever happened, but it did, it did and they didn’t say anything, they just kept up the banter and kept playing, and maybe sometimes there were hands exchanged and words exchanged but none of it was forever) but the only thing his eyes caught on like a fish to the heaven of sirens was Shedletsky. Not to say Shedletsky in particular was odd (he had his habits and his words, but 1337 stayed firm with him), but… Shedletsky gave a glance to Builderman, Builderman gave a glance to Noob, who looked too afraid to look back. Builderman then turned and gave a glance to Shedletsky. Shedletsky raised his brows, nodded his head towards 1337, and made some strange gestures with his hands. Builderman promptly threw his hand on top of Shedletsky’s, looking wildly at the watchful 1337, and as Shedletsky turned to look—

1337 and Shedletsky made eye contact.

He was staring into the dark forest of the roaches again during night watch, and his partnering guard was falling asleep at the helm of a ship that was veering dangerously into an iceberg. Everyone at the table, besides Chance, promptly turned and looked forward.

Chance was looking at ‘the patches on 1337’s tactical vest,’ which made him an awful candidate to look at and draw attention to. Someone coughed to get Chance’s attention, and he looked down at the staring contest between him and every other person at the table. Then, he looked back at 1337. “Where’d you get this one from?” Chance got a curious smile and opted to point to a patch on 1337’s shoulder, speaking right over whoever had a question. It was a pair of swords with ‘GUEST’ written on one of them.

“Brotherhood.” 1337 narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He thought he remembered hearing ‘how many’ and ‘deliveries’ spoken by someone under Chance’s question, but he couldn’t be sure. All he could be certain of was the presence of that death-rattly cough. “Back in training, to commemorate the war efforts.” He pushed in his chair. "Listen, I'm not too keen on betting tonight. Something tells me luck's not in my favor."

"You know—" Chance took in 1337's carved wooden tokens to store and redistribute from the 'bank' run by whoever was running the house that night— "99% of gamblers—"

"Quit before they win big, I know. That's why I'm not a gambler." He picked up his drink from the table and finished it off. It was never good to waste anything, and everything had its uses. “I take my chances when I can, but I should at least go warn the other survivors of Builderman’s shuffling techniques.” Shedletsky was now making obnoxiously loud coughing noises at the other members of the table, earning sideways glances from Builderman.

Builderman very clearly kneed Shedletsky under the table, eliciting an ‘ow!—’ from the retired admin. “I don’t know what you think you’re talkin’ about.” He gave a smile that was as natural as ever. “I don’t know, what do you think of my card shuffles, John?”

Shedletsky’s brows raised and his mouth hung ajar in true betrayal. He’d reacted like Builderman had just said he was going to go get some more drinks and a birthday gift and got up and shoved a Venomshank right through his back. Then, he got a wild look on his face. By experience, 1337 knew that was never a good thing, no matter what Shedletsky promised. “You know, I think they’re great, Builderman.” He got a wicked grin, and Builderman’s face morphed into one of equal betrayal. “You are just the greatest card shuffler I have ever seen. You remember that time when you lost to a pair from me and hid half of the deck under your—”

The table erupted in shouting and Shedletsky’s laughter. Whatever had been going on earlier seemed to be nothing more than play between friends (or, whatever they were). 1337 glanced over to Chance, whose face was absent of any grin besides a tight smile. “I think someone needs a reminder that there’s no fighting at the table.” Out came the paternal voice, and Chance gave him a cheeky grin.

“Aw, whatever. I’m sure they’ll get over it soon. I'll write your tokens down for you and get you your cash in the morning.” He spoke up in a cheerful voice, opting to ignore the continued squabbling at the table. 1337 almost admired his capacity to escape yet confront looming danger and dread— despite his distaste for his tablemates, he returned every night for the love of the game. 1337 supposed that an alcoholic would down any amount of rat poison if it delivered the heady high they were looking for. “Thanks for playing, man." He pulled out a small ledger and jotted some numbers down amongst the fields of dollars growing right out of the ground. Made out of nothing. The wooden tokens, carved by Chance and Noob, were their way of keeping track of their bets— the engravings on the coins correlated to cash amounts, just like real chips a casino would use. The whole thing was Chance's idea, and he'd tagged Noob along to 'help the guy get some experience.' Really, 1337 thought it was because it was Noob's second day there and Chance was trying to get the vibe of the new guy, like he did with everyone else.

"Thanks, pal." 1337 returned the smile and trusted Chance's ledger. He always got paid in the morning, so he never questioned it. For a guy who seemed to complain so much when Builderman brought out Catan and a paper copy of a long-running spreadsheet, he seemed awfully keen on getting all his numbers straight. That trust in the data was what made most people suspicious, but 1337 had too much experience with soldiers' superstitions to warrant voided trust in eccentricities.

Chance turned back towards the others as 1337 gathered his things. "Shedletsky? Builderman? Guys in to continue the round? Noob? We'll get Two Time to sit in or something—"

All three of them made some form of affirmative noise. The fight between Shedletsky and Builderman seemed to have subsided, but 1337 knew he’d soon have to put his pillow over his ears when he slept to keep the sound of their little tiffs out of his dreams. Sometimes, in the dead of night, when they'd teleport into matches, he was almost grateful he didn't have to listen to them argue at night.

"New seats, though. Builderman keeps trying to look at my cards." Shedletsky sat back in his chair, tossing his cards back to Chance so he could shuffle and deal them all back out. The others followed suit in his stead.

Builderman, rather than defend himself, knew the game already— "I'm callin' that projection."

"Projection? Nah, this guy's a hack, c'mon. Someone ban him already."

The two erupted into boisterous laughter. Guest 1337 rolled his eyes with a smile as he walked away from the table in search of the kitchen. He was starving, after all, and Shedletsky smelling like fried chicken wasn't doing him any favors. Eating during the game seemed disrespectful to the cards, and on more than one occasion, he'd seen Chance meticulously cleaning each card in the worn deck when everyone else was going out on matches. He'd laid each of the 54 cards out and flipped face-up the ones that had been cleaned on their backs, and face-down the ones that either needed to be cleaned on their fronts or had already been totally cleaned. When Guest 1337 had asked him how he remembered which cards had been cleaned totally, he simply responded: 'If I forgot, it's probably good that I cleaned them again, since they were probably dirty. No harm in doing it again.'

Needless to say, 1337 was not interested in making him do any more work.

"Hey, kid." 1337 did a quick about-face to see Builderman's polite hand in request. Shedletsky and Chance were huddled over the table whispering to each other, but quickly pulled themselves apart once 1337 looked back. Noob looked between them, eyes wide in confusion on whatever the topic of the hour seemed to be. They leaned over to talk to Shedletsky, but Shedletsky whispered something that 1337 couldn't hear (damn his shell-shocked ears) and the Noob instantly sat back in their seat. "You mind lookin' for Two Time while you're up? Haven't seen them in a while. They were supposed to grab some pizza for the table, and… up and left.”

1337 squinted. Builderman seemed suspiciously uninvolved in any of the gossip going on at the table, but he could not deny the genuine nature of that smile. "Sure, yeah. I can do that."

"Thanks." Builderman turned back to Chance, presumably to describe the rules of the game. As 1337 turned his head, he just barely caught Builderman elbowing Shedletsky under the table, a loud 'ouch, shit—' and, of course, more boisterous laughter.

The noise of their conversation faded into gentle whispers of the night as 1337 stepped into the hallway, wind whistling lullabies into the walls of the home. The oak fibers themselves, despite being part of the wall, seemed to crinkle against the surfaces they made up, like someone had stuck cheap wallpaper to luxury pine boards. Noob had tried their hand at making it all seem a little more homely by decorating with candles and a couple of rugs, but the darkness from the eternal night of the limbo seemed to hang in every crevice of the boards. It also didn't help that there were no windows, as it was an interior hallway. That, rather than any trickery of shades or spirits, should have been blamed for the cobwebs that had to be regularly swept out of the crooks of the boards and the shadows that could not be bested. Poor home layout could really make or break entering a room— a phrase he'd heard too often wafting from the TV when those house renovation shows were on and when he was being trained in special operations.

As he looked to the end of the hallway, he could make out a figure just beyond where the golden light of the kitchen touched the inner hallway. Maybe the figure had been staring at him all along. They wore the shadows of the hallway like a cloak, trailing behind them and obscuring even the whites of their eyes from his gaze. Their hands clutched a pizza box like it was a dagger, and their dilated eyes made 1337 the next victim of whatever murder they had committed.

"Hey, uh—" He mumbled, squinting to make out the shape of their body. “Two Time? Is that— you?” His shoulders and chest inflated like he’d learned from his drill sergeants, puffing up to prevent the shadow in the hall from passing him.

The figure obliged by his commands and stepped across the canyon of the kitchen's light that had separated them. Brilliant gold illuminated their face for a mere second before the dark was granted a permit to settle and make homesteads of their face once more; sharp edges and ridges of their face were left with the glittering scars of the blade of light, while the valleys of their cheeks and the pouches under their eyes were left neglected with festering rot. They cast a long shadow down the hall that looked more like a dead willow than a human, swaying branches and leaves that held no more life or love left in them far into the wind, hoping pollen would let it spread. This was Two Time— it almost seemed like a crime not to recognize them. Any other survivor would be keen on making themselves identifiable to him.

He thought of the Bloxy Canyon, and a trip him and his family had taken out there one day. They packed the car and went on a road trip. Charlotte would press Bloxy Colas into Daisy’s hands as she drove the thousands of studs during the day, and he would pop them open for her. He took the night shifts of the drives just to watch them sleep and to make sure his girls got some rest. The moon would peer into the open sunroof when they hadn’t quite drifted off yet, and he’d shield himself away with the press of a button after they surrendered to the demon of sleep he knew too well. That knowing gaze crept on him now, smile turning into the moon he’d hidden from.

"Blessed be the Spawn, Guest 1337."

He gave a gentle smile in return. The light from the saloon door to the bar warmed his back. "Hey, man. Good to see you too." Although many of the other survivors complained of Two Time’s demeanor (or chose to avoid them outright), 1337 had never had any personal problem with them. They never picked any fights, nor did they get in the way of completing the objectives. They were first to offer themselves up for the sacrificial bodyblock, even above 1337 himself. Someone who seemed to share his objectives of keeping everyone else alive was an ally to 1337, and he preferred to treat his allies with kindness and respect, no matter who they happened to be or what they looked like.

"What can I assist with?" They folded their hands together, tilting their head imperceptibly— though, intuitively, he was still sure it was at an angle, just not one he could measure.

"Builderman is looking for you. They want you to sit in on the next game."

Two Time clapped their hands together in front of him, a spectacular reverberating gunshot that seemed to shake the walls just near 1337’s ears, fireworks blowing up in his face and letting the muscles of his mouth rip clean off. "Oh, splendid. I adore the festivities. What an excellent time to share with all of you." Though he was sure the words were true to some extent, Two Time said them in such a flat, soothing voice that he also managed to hold the belief in his mind that they would much rather do anything else. Somehow, the two ideas didn't contradict. "You will not be joining?"

"No, uh— I need to ask, is Elliot still handing out pizza?"

Two Time’s gaze reflected none of his warmth, and it was now that he yearned to stare at a glass pane. His stomach burned to look into glassy eyes, though he wasn’t sure where that urge was going nor where it came from, only that it was ripped from his heart and put at the forefront of his mind upon looking into their dull, lifeless gaze. Two Time’s gaze belonged to a corpse he’d seen on the battlefield somewhere, and he wasn’t keen on staring into his past anymore, but he felt now more than ever he needed to stare into a mirror covered with a black cloth in a wooden room with a computer opened in sleep mode, that he needed some waking dream to leave the reality he was being faced with— that his friends might be conspiring against him, and that Chance was at the center of everything, or that everything was up to fate. Sometimes, he wondered if they were just an automaton planted somewhere to be puppeteered around— flesh piled on a metal skeleton, moving and flapping the jaw to mimic speech as noises played. He shoved the thought into the trash chute hosted in his mind, as he could look like that and he’d never know. It was good not to judge others, and he shouldn’t let his judgments cloud his goals.

"Yes." Two Time moved his head up, then down, then up, then down, then in the middle. 1337 had trouble registering it as a nod and more thought of it as the way that a customer service agent (or a lawyer) would approve any request of his in vague, weird writing in chicken’s blood on the wall. "The feast is plentiful tonight. We have truly been blessed by the Spawn with the gift of kindness in his form. Have you eaten?"

As far as 1337 knew, his head had been plunged into a boiling cauldron. Sometimes, he took cold showers just so he’d never be as unaware or confused as he was during this conversation. Distraction was not something he could afford, and his tongue struggled to build up the courage he needed to respond. "No, I was, uh... thinking of bringing a slice of pizza to 7n7, maybe taking one up to Dusekkar.”

“To 7n7?” Their smile pulled at the thin cloth that hid their face from the rest of the world— 1337 wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Yes, yes… to 007n7…” 1337 was partially sure that he should be pulling at the muscles forming their smile and peeling back the layers, and should he not find spiders and spindles operating a wide loom within, he should run into the forest on fire screaming. That smile was genuinely wicked, drowned and absorbent of so much knowledge that he was sure would drag him into the fiery depths of Hell. "The Spawn would be pleased with your generosity and thoughtfulness. I remember once when they were… in a similar way for me.” Even with their oddities, 1337 was starting to be able to discern when they were expressing genuine emotions over social niceties or their comically exaggerated politeness. Though he didn’t know exactly what that sentence meant, this seemed to be a bit of high praise, and 1337 would return the favor.

“They were?”

“Oh, yes.” Two Time folded their hands and nodded. “The Spawn is very generous with their gifts. Blessed be their love for us, such that connections are allowed… that the blessed respawn in unity, all become one under Spawn, under their love. Love is their way of introducing us to the perfect unity of the Spawn.”

“Love in unison, huh…?” Guest 1337 mused. “You really think so?” The thing that had exactly attracted him to Daisy was her nonconformity. She lit up a room without even realizing she did it. She stood up for others like it was breathing; started trends if she thought something looked cute or particularly fashionable. One time, she walked around the yard surrounding the little schoolhouse outside of their orphanage with her backpack unzipped because she’d forgotten to zip it up. It started in ripples after that; some girls opened the top of theirs, zippers separated in an act of quiet signaling to everyone else it was okay. Then, other girls began walking around with their bags wholly unzipped. After that, the trend had spread to the entire schoolyard: in fact, some girls began walking around carrying their things, empty backpacks on display, entirely defeating the purpose of a backpack. Knowing he carried her with him brought the warmth of the sun onto his skin, prickling to reach towards the light.

“Lovers adopt each other’s traits. They adopt each other’s methods of speaking and communication… they learn each other like the back of their hand. Lovers act like each other. Lovers become inseparable from the very idea of a difference between them. Lovers become one in death. It is a beautiful thing to watch and be part of.”

“Be part of?” In media training, he’d learned that he could seem to reasonably respond to anyone’s questions merely by repeating the last words they’d said. It seemed to be working incredibly well. “You were in love once?”

“Yes, I…” Two Time’s eyes became glass in the candlelight as it flickered across the walls, changing and becoming music in their gaze. “Once, I was… blessed.”

“Once?”

Two Time looked back towards the kitchen, then back to Guest 1337. “... Once only. Once. Once and never again. Once… as the Spawn has plans for everyone. Plans they cannot deviate from. The Spawn’s beautiful vision for the world, bathed in the light of their love, is planned in their perfect omnipotence. Robloxians stray from this perfect vision. It is us disciples who must stay on the holy path.”

Elliot’s humming echoed off the walls of the hallway. The candlelight refracted stained glass vigils onto the floor.

“Only once?” Guest 1337 prodded.

“Once. Or they seek certain punishments…” Two Time’s voice grew a glassy exterior. “... punishments no follower would dare inflict on another living being. No cruelty is deserved to be inflicted upon such gentle beings.” They slinked around the topic, orienting themselves back into steering control of the conversation: some shift in the hollowness of their eyes made it clear that the act of being missed had hit someplace vulnerable and dear in them. "I shall entertain if I am being requested so specifically. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.” That seemed terse. Maybe he’d said something wrong— words seemed to have great, holy power to Two Time, and the slightest implication had an Illumina’s ability to set him off. He didn’t understand where they had miscommunicated, but knew that he had to set it right.

1337 stopped them with a brief grab of their shoulder— as delicate as a card house that would quickly collapse if its faces showed too blatantly, hiding itself as the table rotated. "Hey. I didn’t mean to offend you. We appreciate all the work you do and we’d like to see you. Maybe some company can help you settle. Good job out there today."

Two Time kept up their smile, but it was clear from their demeanor and the way the shadows of the light of the bar ahead of them melted off their face that a sense of duty had been bestowed upon them. That was a skill that 1337 considered quite handy— garnering respect. They turned their face up to him with new understanding, and it seems the bluntness of his appreciation reached them.

"You as well, Guest 1337. Your thoughtfulness will be rewarded soon. Trust in it as I trust in you.” They reached a hand up and put it on their own shoulder, resting where 1337’s hand sat. “I trust you to judge where others have walked and find the righteous path to your shelter. You have the gift of divine strength. Marry the wisdom before you.” They chirped up to him, spouting divine action as if it were a plaything in their mouth, tasting the wrought iron flavors of Olympus’ gate on their tongue.

1337 nodded promptly, staring into the mirror of authority he’d given Two Time. Any blessing, no matter how strange or cryptic, was considered a good blessing to him. He tried to swallow his communion wafers, but threats burned like a glass of wine and burnt the Polaroids of his memory up. Two Time slinked off into the hallway and out from beneath his hands like sand, nearly singing in a porcelain vase’s voice— “To eat and be merry. What a blessing for all of us. What blessings await you and I!”

The blessings they must have spoken of had come true, as he could clearly see that the kitchen awaited him ahead— his feet walked on the clouds of cedar upon receiving Two Time’s blessing. Golden light spilled out into the hallway, and soon he, too, was bathed in its radiance as he looked upon the scene that yielded the heavenly scent of freshly cooked pizza before him.

Elliot was kneading dough at the island in the middle of the kitchen. Music oozed out of a radio they’d found somewhere; Builderman had fixed it out of boredom, and now it seemed to live in the kitchen on the edge of the stovetop, right above where all the dials sat neat and tidy. The fridge lived in the back corner of the kitchen, closest to the sitting room at the front of the lodge, just in case— the oven beeped, and 1337 slinked over to the fridge just as Elliot turned around.

Two plates sat on the counter next to the oven. That was where his next destination was. As Elliot slipped on an oven mitt from the drawer to the right of the oven, 1337 stepped on carefully balanced feet to inspect the plates. He took them both in his hands, ensuring no stains marred their surfaces, and grabbed another from the cabinet above the sink. It seemed like a sin in and of itself that there was no window above the sink— even the familiar pleasure of home or looking out the window when doing dishes was denied them. That was 1337's favorite part of cleaning. When Daisy and Charlotte went out, sometimes he'd surprise her by picking up some extra slack around the house and cleaning. He would open the windows and let fresh air and sunshine stream in and aerate the space— he'd light candles and let floral scents waft out of the windows while he swept and mopped and dusted and folded the clothes and sheets and rags and put it all way and, most importantly of all, washed the dishes. They'd come running in, and not even lemon-flavored plasticine freshness overpowered the scent of home.

He laid out all three blue ceramic plates horizontally next to a half-open box of steaming cheese pizza. The words from the Builder Brothers' Pizza logo stared him down, tantalizing cheddar wafting from within, promising— ‘Hot! Fresh! Pizza Pizza!’ He didn’t know if that slogan was so important that they had to repeat it twice, but in his starving stupor, he would have believed anything and licked the rosary with a dog’s tongue. They all swore that Elliot didn’t have to put the pizzas in the boxes, but there never seemed to be enough pans for all the pizzas he made, and the boxes just seemed to… appear. The smell tempted him closer, that darling siren it was, and a thick coat of rabid spittle covered the inside of his mouth. Blessed be that his stomach did not growl, because it would have convinced Elliot to be a religious zealot regarding the invisible bear in the room.

“Holy shit.” 1337’s mouth gaped as the oven door closed.

“Crap—!” Elliot turned, delicately balancing the hot pizza on his right hand. He sure did hold it like a server would, splaying out all of his fingers evenly to support the searing tray. “Hey, 1337! Just a second and I’ll be with you.” Even now, as Elliot took the pizza out of the oven using the mitt as a safety net, he seemed to be set to automatically steer the pizza towards the invisible drop-in point held within the box. He smiled, setting the pan down in the box and slipping the oven mitt off of his hands. “Nice to see you! Having fun out there?”

“Yeah, yeah. Gettin’ a little late, though.” His eyes were firmly fixated on the pizza— as they lapsed into a silence that was 8 months pregnant with a food baby, he remembered Elliot was there and was quick to try to make good conversation. “Do you always work this late?”

“Well, yeah. I make the best tips at night. You have no clue what people are up to at night.” 1337’s mind drifted towards shadows in the woods and harrowing late-night escapes, but forgot he was talking to a pizza delivery driver and let his mind claw its way back to reality. “Plus, I couldn’t sleep.” Elliot wiped the sweat off his brow and stood with his hands on his hips. “I was in here prepping dough, and Two Time put in an order. So it’s the least I can do.”

“This sure does seem like a lot of work. Are you sure there’s enough people to eat all this pizza?” He exaggerated Elliot’s pose, also putting his hands on his hips but in such a way that his elbows were excessively, inefficiently flared. He nodded his head towards the pizza, and Elliot laughed.

“You have no idea how much cold pizza people eat. I personally don’t get it, but some people buy it just to put it in the fridge and eat it later.” 007n7 liked cold pizza. He don’t know why that thought was at the forefront of his mind now, but he remembered that 007n7 mentioned something about liking it better when it was stowed away for later. Something about being broke in college, always eating leftovers.

1337 put a finger to his chin. “You know, I never thought of that. I’ll have to try it. Speaking of pizza—” Elliot moved back over to the pizza box and grabbed the shiny slicer as 1337 adjusted the position of the plates on the counter. “Were you doing anything with these plates here?”

Elliot began to slice the freshly hot pizza as he spoke, hand moving in harmonic lines that 1337 was sure would reveal some hidden, mathematical harmony of the universe if graphed correctly. Someone really ought to get on that; it looked far too methodical to not have centuries worth of data and study backing it. “Yeah, I was just about to take pizza to Dusekkar and 007n7. Why?”

Though there was a small deviation from the script tonight, 1337 could reasonably estimate where to step on Elliot’s ribs to get him to fork over the pieces of pizza. It wasn’t impossible to do it, but making Elliot still look holy in the meantime was a bit of a difficult task and required some tactical and social maneuvering. “I know you won’t let me touch a single bit of this kitchen, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna help you any less. Let me deliver these.”

The pan cradling the pizza clattered next to him as the slicer steamrolled its way through the pizza, leaving three even slices in its wake. Though the door was shut, the heat of the oven still radiated through the kitchen— reflecting off the walls, as if having nowhere to go. There was no window above the sink, after all.

“I assure you,” Elliot shot an affirmative, confident glance at 1337, all the stars contained in those eyes, “I can get the job done. Plus, I was gonna ask them if they had any... special eating rituals, or anything like that. You know, Two Time doesn’t eat certain foods, some people are vegetarian…"

Even though 1337 wasn’t going to immediately protest, he plastered the well-practiced visage of the look he gave his daughter when she insisted she could do things herself. Elliot grabbed a spatula and shoveled the three slices of pizza onto each of the three plates before acquiring a blank look on his face. He turned and looked at 1337, who was still very much expecting that Elliot should hand over the weight of some of the tasks he burdened himself with.

“Hey, 1337…” Elliot’s smile looked more wavy than anything, like a ghost had dared intrude upon his kitchen. “There were 2 plates here, right?”

“Sure.” 1337 smiled at him. “Yeah, I put an extra one down for me.”

Elliot sighed in relief, then chuckled playfully. “Maybe you should put this one in the fridge.”

1337 raised his brows, then picked up one plate of steaming pizza. As much as his mouth longed to be one with the surely delicious food on his plate, he walked over to the fridge in the corner of the room and stared. Within were cases upon cases of Bloxy Cola, beer, and the occasional bottled tea, along with entire half-empty pizza boxes stashed away in the corners of the fridge. 1337 pried open one of the boxes of pizza and replaced the hot slice with a cold one— though the plate still burned with the remnants of the searing grease, it would eventually compromise on a temperature vaguely resembling one belonging to a slice of pizza that had been microwaved for 15 seconds. 1337 had never been a broke college kid before, but if he was to think of one microwaving pizza, he thought that this was as authentic as possible.

“Aren’t you worried someone’s gonna take it?” Elliot called out, crossing his arms as 1337 looked over his shoulder.

“Nah. They’ll know by the plate. Plus, if someone else wants it more than me… they can take it.” Daisy always stole bites of his leftovers. He learned not to mind after a while— it was probably good of him to not be so possessive about food. “There will always be more pizza.”

He turned around to face Elliot, shutting the door of the fridge. “So, you’re letting me take them over?”

1337 saw now more than ever that the whites of his eyes were battling with the dark resentment of the center. From his night watches, he could see that Elliot truly did stick true to the spirit of being a delivery driver sometimes— he’d leave the plate on 7n7’s doorstep after a quick knock, and then he’d run indoors. 1337 hated when delivery drivers did that, mostly because he personally cherished getting to thank those drivers personally and hand them cash tips from his warm hands. He liked getting to see their faces light up when they were given a generous cash tip, and liked letting Charlotte have the pleasure of handing it over. He always wondered why he never handed the plate to 007n7 directly. Maybe it was a mercy, not to make him look into Elliot’s eyes.

When 1337 had delivered the pizza to him these previous nights, 007n7 always took it with kind eyes and shaking hands. Their hands would briefly touch as he handed it to him, and 1337 would take his shoulder as they walked inside. As 1337 would spread open the maps on the table, 007n7 would devour the pizza, holding it not as if it were a wedding ring, but as if it was a pile of precious compost for a garden. In candlelight, 007n7 and 1337 would huddle together, sharing breaths as they stared at the glittering writing across the maps. Labels were scribbled all over the place in 007n7’s handwriting— notes jotted all across those maps. 007n7 would squint and stare at the paper, apologizing for not having his glasses while 1337 stole glances at his elbows braced against the table and his look of determination. 007n7 would take care to wipe down his fingers before touching the maps— and 1337 knew now where he’d learned not to touch Chance’s cards with his greasy fingers. Except he treated Chance’s cards with courtesy. 007n7 cleaned his hands with the respect that a monk had for a statue of their god. 1337 had started keeping the maps fully unfurled on his desk. He would’ve framed them, but he got the sense that framing them would prevent them from serving their purpose, and they would be awfully hard to write on.

Sometimes, when he couldn’t stop thinking of home, 1337 would unfurl the glass-paper maps just to distract himself by memorizing them. He’d always end up staring at each curl and loop in old-style cursive. He knew he was going to end up looking at 007n7’s handwriting instead of absorbing the plans, but no strength could keep him satiated, and he had to be strong for everyone else— in the comfort of his private room he could indulge in the loops and circles that 007n7 drew rather, grow weak to the promise of plans that would never arrive. The truth was that they would never be able to get the others on board with the plans; they weren't clean enough, were never refined enough for both of their ruthless, starving tastes. 1337 knew this, but he wouldn’t acknowledge it. He wouldn’t have any other reason to come inside and spend his nights with 007n7. Still, he could feel 007n7's eyes searing into his back whenever he had to leave, and the burden of guilt sat on him for not being strong enough to admit he desired true company— not just games.

As he would feast his eyes on the paper maps, convincing himself that he was doing this to refine their plots, he would drink in how graphite scribbles and rushed arrows shone against the dull background of the parchment. On occasion, when he laid back in bed with the sick taste of shame in his mouth, he imagined 007n7 saying those things he wrote down: ‘Shedletsky to the left.’ ‘Possible spawn here?’ In imagined raspings, he found a requiem to their separation— in hushed whispers, he found the commands and order that he missed from training. He stood dumbfounded constantly at 007n7’s schemes: truth be told, his ability to dissect enemy movements that blindsided 1337 was amazing. Ever since they began meeting, 1337 noticed he’d teleport away within an inch of time rather than getting hit in the middle of waiting for the system to update him to his new location. He had a knack for taking things apart, and 1337 had a knack for keeping things together. In the deep night where they made their plans, they would be far away from the social coercion of the bar and the cantankerous atmosphere; the only sound, besides the cicadas, would be 007n7’s whispers to him and the sounds of paper crinkling.

1337 liked cicadas. They reminded him of home. Of warmth. Of peace. Amen.

“Yeah…” Elliot looked somewhere off into the distance, voice trembling with conflict. Then, he looked right into 1337’s eyes. The conflict was gone; he could clearly see where the whites of his eyes respected the boundary of the iris and the dark pupil within. “Yeah. Thanks, 1337. You’re a lifesaver.” His shoulders lowered in an imperceptible sigh, a soft brush of rain against a shingled roof.

“I’ll make sure to send over the compliments to the chef, if they have any.” He winked and walked back over to where Elliot was standing. Elliot began working into a wad of dough, thinning it and spreading it out with well-trained fingers next to him. The ridge of crust on the outside became a boundary for the sauce never to leak where it shouldn’t. Only the cheese was the cover of this turmoil, spreading and wearing itself thin to contain the sauce.

A familiar voice chimed in from the doorway as 1337 collected napkins from a little cubby on the counter.

"How's everything coming along? Guest, I thought you were retiring upstairs."

Both the Last Guest and Elliot turned and looked at Builderman. He supposed the deflection meant it was his turn to speak.

"Hey, Builderman! Yeah, I was thinking about it.”

"Well, that's awful considerate of you. Three plates is a lot to handle, mind if I help?"

He was already far too familiar with carrying three plates at once, but he joked anyway. "Be my guest!" 1337 spoke, and they all erupted in stupid laughter— more for the sake of laughing than the sake of acknowledging that the joke was funny.

Chapter 3: We Looked Like Giants

1337’s footsteps thudded on the wooden stairs as Builderman led ahead of him.

Faded posters lined the left wall of the stairwell, gifts from a grateful present that moved on without them. Posters; some from Builder Brothers’ Pizza that stayed plastered on the walls even if they didn’t need to call to get a pizza delivered, a wanted poster for a mysterious figure called ‘The Adversary,’ reports on the disappearance of Builderman from The Heights after a Telamon sighting, and an advertisement for Shedletsky’s Annual Chicken Eat-Off. He remembered seeing in the newspaper once (when the Normal Elevator was still popular) that Shedletsky himself had shown up to the Annual Chicken Eat-Off. He won, of course, and got the 1st place medal awarded by Harlem himself. A sense of nostalgia washed over him at remembering his view of the picture— the stain of his father’s coffee mug freshly imprinted on the paper as he washed dishes from that morning’s breakfast while his mother dissected the crossword. In the photograph, Shedletsky stood proud next to Harlem, championing new and original games that innovated on ordinary concepts, Builderman by his side. He’d peeked just over the wooden table to see the photograph as his parents bantered over ‘studs’ or ‘money’ for a ‘Roblox currency’ clue; properly placed oak grain rough against his fingers as he asked who Shedletsky was. He’d learned plenty about the achievements of figures like Doombringer or Builderman in his history class, as well as major hacking incidents like May Madness or groups like team c00lkidd— but nothing about a legendary sword-fighter on The Heights. He remembered fondly the many arguments between himself and Matt over who would win in a duel: Shedletsky or Telamon. If only they could get Shedletsky and Telamon in the same room together.

He could’ve laughed at how petty those little arguments were. If Matt was here, he would’ve been forty whole studs richer: this version of Shedletsky could never beat Telamon. When he thought of Shedletsky, his mind went to ‘chicken guy’ and ‘ally,’ not ‘famed swordfighter.’ Past glory meant nothing when they’d spent countless days fighting alongside each other. As much as he believed Shedletsky had somewhat poor manners and poorer consideration for others, he sure was reliable when he needed to be, and 1337 could never truly look down upon anyone who could be taught how to be better. Even Builderman was subject to the same treatment— as much as he was an authoritative figure to them all in the past (even the great Telamon, who was once seen receiving a scolding from the engineer), he was an ally before he was a legislator or an administrator. They fought alongside each other. Looking down poorly upon people who were his friends and allies had no benefit at all. Any prejudice against them would hinder their mission, and in dire circumstances, they couldn’t afford to be hateful. Hence why he never understood why the others were so adamant about ignoring 007n7; it wasn’t like he was actively shoving them into the killers’ open maws. He tried his best to help, so 1337 gave him a pass and made sure that 007n7 stayed on their side.

“Thanks for helping me carry all of these.” A soft sigh filled the stairwell, belonging to none other than Guest 1337. The ceramic plates that belonged to 007n7 and himself clinked in his hands as he neglected his duty of separating them. The noise might alert others, and though he would often do the dishes as noisily as he liked in his old home (washing and putting away dishes was just an obnoxious job), the context in which the dishes spoke aloud to each other in his hands was different. This was a quiet stairwell— any conversation louder than the sounds of the breaths rattling in his chest might disturb the boisterous party below, so obviously clinking plates were out of place amongst the clinks of glasses below. Besides his internal sarcasm, the cold pizza might get warm if the hot pizza was too close to it, and 1337 carried the duty of temperature regulation on his back, a weight of 50 lbs that held all of the necessities of love and warmth inside, secured with two green camo straps and a buckle. The walk upstairs was long, but reminders of the righteousness of his duty (holding the two pieces of pizza apart) made every second ecstatically rewarding.

"Yeah, no problem. I gotta go see Matt, anyway, we got a couple things to talk about, so—”

“Matt?”

1337 stopped on the stairs.

Soft brown hair seemed to sift through his fingers, sand slipping away as he tried to grip tighter onto it, blazing desert salt burning the calluses in his hands. The heat of the day seared blood and whiskey into his throat, and here he was, tasting the iron that’d killed his friend, useless to even walk away from the sweating, delirious vision in front of him. Matt was dying.

Matt’s shallow pulse— racing, racing in the pizza under his fingertips, as if it were a heart— throat closing, protesting, reaching for Matt, angry that the breaths he was breathing did not go towards Matt’s dire survival. Matt deserved to live more than him. Matt was kind— Matt defended him when he was too weak to defend Daisy. Matt looked after them both when Charlotte was freshly born, lying in her crib staring awake at the ceiling unaware of the future that had carved its path for her already. Matt knew about the fights they’d had just before 1337 left for the military— comforted him when he was sent over papers to sign.

He should have known Matt standing up like that was a bad idea— he should have done something. His friend’s shoulder was bleeding on those steps in front of him. He did nothing. Matt was losing consciousness, and the sand was beginning to crust and clutch onto the steel bullet in his shoulder, like 1337 had done one night in the barracks— clutch onto his lips with his own. Right near his heart. It could have been pierced. (It probably was.) Matt was dying, and he was standing doing nothing. Nothing at all.

When he blinked, 007n7’s glassy eyes stared at him behind wire-frame glasses. Dual daemonshanks stood like flags, celebrating the cursed hacker’s demise. Blood colored his lips. There was no concrete barrier to drag him behind. He was standing doing nothing, and yet, he had done this. He’d killed 007n7 with his ambition and pride— pride that curdled into shame, shame that burned deep into his stomach and made sand climb back beneath the beds of his fingers. No matter how much he scrubbed, he couldn’t rid himself of the sand from that day. The sand that gathered beneath his fingers as he grabbed Matt’s body. He should have been moving faster— or not moving at all. Contradictory internal orders sang cacophonous melodies in his ears. Do something? Not do something? Who was he to decide?

“Oh— Dusekkar. Matt Dusek. Sorry.”

In an instant, the sand fell to the floor. The warmth in 1337’s hands was not anyone’s waist or anyone’s fingers or anyone’s beautiful, thick hair, or anyone’s shallow pulse, but was a plate. A plate holding a piece of pizza that was isolated from its cold neighbor— the cold neighbor that sang, that so craved its warmth, that yearned like no other. “Oh.” How could he think that he’d moved on from his old bonds when the mere mention of Matt’s name sent him spiraling in his own thoughts? The guilt had gathered in the crevices of his clothes, and indoors was no place to shake out his dirty laundry.

“Yup.” Builderman turned around, searching until his eyes landed on 1337. “Sorry. Should have explained that.” From the look in Builderman’s eyes, his stopping wasn’t out of concern, but out of confusion— Builderman raised the hand not holding a plate of pizza in Jesus-like reassurance. Though 1337 no longer saw him as an authoritative figure, he did trust him, the mere suggestion that there could be peace in this situation seemed to still 1337’s heart from where it tugged and murmured.

To cover for his mind’s grind to a halt, it seemed 1337 would have to play the part of ‘confused Robloxian’ so Builderman didn’t suspect anything. “Like, uh— ‘John’ is Shedletsky, but nobody else calls him John?”

The visions never happened like that, though. He’d only imagined Matt in his old resting position. Never anyone else. Not even Daisy. Not even Daisy took Matt’s place. 1337 was convinced: this new vision and the dreams he’d been having about 007n7 were going to kill him. It was official. It was true, beyond the looming shadows that monuments made of doubts left in their steads. 007n7 had no place in the cimmerian corners and crevices of his mind, where he covered the windows of the soul with the curtains he’d crocheted out of the reasons he had to protect all of them. Nerves prodded and peered their ugly heads around the corners of his eyes, dark dendrites branching out to strangle the single piece of light that had teleported its way into his head with a c00lgui. 007n7 had no place here— he’d done awful things, but he was capable of changing. Guest 1337’s fate was to stay rooted in a past that meant nothing to him anymore, protecting people that didn’t protect him, staying strong for a legacy that was dead.

“Yup. I think he prefers just Dusekkar now, though. Actually, ‘s part of what I was goin’ to ask…”

1337 was taking far too long to answer— he sputtered for a reply— “He’s a mage, isn’t he?”

“Yup. Casted that… spawn protection of his.” Builderman chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe how mad he’d used to get when people would ask him to god them. Couldn’t join any servers without gettin’ swarmed.”

If he did join that reality with 007n7, he would’ve had no idea how to live it. Here he was, years after Matt’s death and his own subsequent arrival to the Realm of the Forsaken, and he was still having vivid, violent hallucinations of his own buddy retching up blood from a punctured lung (shoulder? Where’d he get the idea that it was his shoulder?). “That’s… a real thing?”

“Yeah.” Builderman leaned part of his weight on the rail as his eyes flirted with the wall, willingly losing themselves in thought. “It is.”

“The admin commands are real?” 1337 raised his eyebrows. His fingernails turned white with the weight of the plates. When he looked at 007n7, he saw his own eyes staring back at him. Eyes that wore born punishment borne upon them. For 1337, he wore his battle-hardened eyes like a medal. 007n7 wore his like a scarlet letter. He was starting to care far too much: it was starting to make him hope for a fate that wasn’t his. After all, if he didn’t bear the responsibility for the other sinners’ punishments, they would. That was a fate worse than the 1,000 blows he took daily, whether by fist or daemonshank. Vicariously so, he wished that 007n7 would one day know a life without the brands of his past sins. In an even more selfish manner, he wished both of them could be washed clean. He wished he could do his laundry, maybe— delicately pick the sand, grain by grain, out of his clothes. Hang sopping wet clothes out to dry in the fresh morning air… let sunlight filter and bake his linens or his father-blue button-down.

Builderman raised a single brow and smiled down at him. “Did you guys not learn about the admins in history class?”

“Well—” He sputtered— “yeah, but I kind of just assumed that was… nonsense, or propaganda.”

Builderman went to respond, but (much unlike the only other admin here, who probably would have butted in with a joke or some story about how he fought the Doombringer and won) he gave that answer some thought. “I guess there was that whole fiasco with the Bacon-supporters being paid off to change some of yer textbooks… and I think I remember some…” He waved one hand around. “Ordeal with their adamance about the admins keepin’ quiet about the ‘violence against Bacons,’ or whatever nonsense they spewed. I get it. The admin commands are real, take it from a verified source.”

1337 stared in pure amazement before remembering he had an actual job to do outside of learning Robloxian history. His face contorted itself into a serious expression as he tried to think of something remotely helpful to say. There were more important things outside of his awe, and he couldn’t just stand here while they could be coming up with a way to break them out of this Hell. “Is there any way we can use them to help?” That was not incredibly helpful, but it bought him time.

Builderman shook his head. “Tried to think of it already, son. Anything we could’ve used is back at HQ. Includin’ the Banhammer.”

He thought so. Builderman and the others were resourceful above all, they would’ve surely found a way to use them… and Builderman’s an engineer, so out of anyone, he would’ve been the first to start brainstorming any type of solution to the problem. “I’m really sorry, son.” Builderman sighed again, face disappointed. He drew himself into a resolve that only a man with practice could, and 1337 was reminded eerily of why survivors like Noob and Elliot took solace in him— when he looked into those eyes, he found no mockery of importance and elevation, like many others took on. He looked at 1337 to have faith in him. “Shedletsky, 007n7 and I have been trying to brainstorm our way out of here, actually. You should come by. We could use a mind like yers.”

So that’s what those meetings had been about; why he’d watched Shedletsky and Builderman go up to 007n7’s cabin so many times. Why they were so surprised to see 1337 leaving the table, then, he wasn’t sure. If anyone was going to have an answer, it was going to be Builderman. Though, now didn’t seem to be the best time to bring it up. The focus was clearly on what to do for the betterment of the group— when they inevitably fell into a lull, 1337 would bring it up and catch him off guard. That would force him to reveal the truth in a panic. It was settled, then. Guest 1337 would wait to strike. “I’ll be looking forward to it, then.”

Whether or not he would divulge the information that him and 007n7 were meeting in private would be up to 007n7, but—

Builderman spoke in a hushed tone, almost edging on relief. “... Y’know, I’m happy you’ve been getting out of your shell recently. John thinks you’ve got an eye for battle.” Though it was true he didn’t see Shedletsky as a legend anymore, the idea that his allies supported him strengthened the tower of his resolve and distributed the load on his shoulders more evenly. “I think you’ll give 007n7 a creative spark. He’s already got those little… I think they’re… maps? Maps… on his wall. If he’s drawin’ again…”

1337 looked up, then looked at the banister. Wood grains spiraled in on one another in an intimate dance, sprawling up the handrail. The rail was worn with support from over the years, wearing deep into the ground as dust collected around the base of the pillars that held Builderman’s weight as he leaned against it. These handrails must have been touched by thousands of hands— curves and dips and valleys racing along its surface in a reminder that suffering was universal and stretched far beyond their word for ‘history.’ He was avoiding the question.

“How did you—”

“—Ain’t stalkin’ you. You left one of yer little costume coats over there. Nobody wears those colors that I know of. John was talkin’ up a storm about it on the way out…”

The worst part of this entire conversation was that Guest 1337 knew exactly what coat he was talking about. It had seemed to be missing until it appeared in his closet, clean and ready to be donned (unwillingly, by Guest) again. 007n7 had said it was a nice coat. His words exactly, if 1337 remembered (he always did, if 007n7 said them), were an uncomfortable “It looks, um… nice,” and a prompt fixing of 1337’s collar and tie with those stubby fingers of his. No eye contact whatsoever. 1337 had taken it off during their planning, as the swamp air that flowed through the cabin was hot in his dress suit, and 007n7 had stowed it away on a coat rack that appeared with the click of a few buttons and the input of an item ID. He must not have picked it up before he left. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d left clothes at 007n7’s dinky little cabin. Shirts tended to get discarded in favor of tank tops when the days tended to be hotter, and at least he’d always have clothes for when he left. When they’d get up from their hunched positions over the maps, sometimes, 007n7 would have graphite smeared up his forearms from where he’d rolled that stupid little blue button-down’s sleeves up to his elbows— and the graphite would kiss where the shirt’s sleeves were cuffed. He’d offered to help 007n7 get the graphite stains on the cuffs out, but 007n7 only laughed sheepishly and looked away, mumbling something about how he couldn’t make 1337 carry any more weight. If only he knew how badly he wanted to get the stains out of his shirts— anyone’s shirts. How badly he wanted to have a duty outside of taking blows again and again. How badly he wanted to feel the warm water in his hands, how fleeting it was as it slipped through his fingers…

“That coat…”

“You should’ve heard him, goin’ on about the coat you wore… 007 disappointed him, I guess, by tellin’ him it was yers. He did agree it was a nice coat, though. He said it fits you well.” Builderman trailed off, looking towards 1337 again to try to find the conversation. “Anyway, you get my point. I’m happy more people are seein’ the benefit to cooperatin’. I’m afraid judgment blinds people to the benefit of collaboration.” Though that last sentence could’ve been ripped right from one of his speeches, Builderman spoke as if he was filing his nails, having friendly conversation with someone who knew as much as he did. That was what 1337 liked about Builderman— anyone who joined a conversation, Builderman would find some way of elevating them to his level rather than lowering himself down to them. He made them feel like an equal: made bigshots feel humble and modest, but made small fry feel confident and empowered. “Nothin’s ever done alone, after all. Takes two. Back in the early days, I’d toss ideas at Erik, and… like magic, he’d make ‘em real. You should’a seen his talents, he was…” Builderman’s eyes went hollow for a brief moment; a flickering star turning to face away from the dim reality, lonely in the parsecs of void between constellations in the vast cosmos. Flares emerged from sparks of cognition, igniting back into the courageous, self-assured leader he knew. Still, the idea that Builderman could falter in the face of loneliness, despite being surrounded by so many friends constantly, shook Guest 1337 to his core. “He was a real prodigy. Ask John, he’d know.” He snickered, as if some long-shaded joke brought itself to the forefront of his industrial mind. “Anyway, nothin’ gets done alone. Not even the creation of Roblox.”

1337 nodded, still mulling over what Builderman could’ve possibly said. The last sentence had ingrained itself so many times into 1337’s head over the years that it was impossible to say no, even with conscious effort. It was impossible to deny that 007n7 had great potential to help the group, but the one thing he believed got in the way—

—and just like that, 1337’s mind stopped. The wrench of a sentence had thrown everything into disarray, careening towards the floor and into the deepest pits of Hell. He’d been working backwards, trying to figure out what to say, and now, embarrassingly so, 1337 was curious about 007n7’s thoughts about his coat.

“He was talking about the coat?” That coat. The coat that 1337 hated. The maroon of the coat totally clashed with his bright blue hair— how anyone could like the coat at all, he wasn’t actually sure.

“Yeah. He was mostly amazed at how you could run in it.”

“I mean…” 1337 leaned on the railing, a bashful smile making its way to his face. “Running in muddy or icy conditions is similar. The fabric could catch on the shoes. It is a little annoying to deal with, though.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Builderman chuckled and looked away, shaking his head… looking at the posters on the wall that so obviously brandished images of people that they wanted to be portrayed. Their reflections shone in his eyes, but 1337 could see nothing within. That brief glimpse into his soul sent a shiver down 1337’s spine, and he took care to manage his feelings.

“What?”

Builderman looked back at him. Right in the eyes. Bullseye, like Builderman had been practicing for years how to throw a bar dart in a resoundingly perfect arc into his eye, just to scramble his frontal lobe in one shot. The pick embedded itself somewhere between the eyes that picked away at 007n7’s clothes; the eyes that shredded him like a daemonshank. “Nothin’. It’s nice that you’ve been visitin’ 007n7 lately. We really were worried about you for a minute there… Good that you made a friend.” On the surface, nothing was particularly wrong with the phrasing, and that was exactly what was wrong. Builderman was being incredibly supportive, and that was true— but there was something else to it that 1337 couldn’t deny.

“Worried?”

“You just seem like you’ve had… a lot on yer mind, recently.” Builderman cast a kind look to him. Any fears he had— about the reflectivity of Builderman’s eyes, about his intentions— had quickly drained out of his body. It seemed to be authentic worry; as if he had anything to worry about with Builderman.

“I’ve been…” He cast his eyes aside. “Thinking, yeah. A lot about my family. But… it’s been nice to get to talk with all of you.”

“I remember yer family. Good lot.”

“Yeah. I miss my daughter, and…” 1337 caught his tongue before he could continue. “Her mother.”

Builderman paused, then spoke quite carefully. “If you need advice on how to launder that coat, I know John used to have to get blood out of his old robes—”

“... 007n7 has been helping me clean it.” Hopefully, if 1337 was right about what Builderman was trying to say here, this would settle the conversation.

Builderman squinted at him, then slowly nodded. He understood. Both of them did. “Good, you know. I’m glad we’ve been seein’ you out more. Makin’ friends.” His voice took a certain tone, but with the various colors that tended to cast long shadows of doubt and interpretation onto the walls, he could never be sure. It would likely benefit the both of them if 1337 could stop being so suspicious.

“Yeah, well… funny thing.” 1337 chuckled. “I was out there planning one night, and I couldn’t get any ideas for what to do in a certain situation… so I decided to call it a night. We were talking it up, him and I, and he mentioned that stupid painting in the bar.”

“The, uh…” Builderman snapped his finger. “That one, uh… of the people playin’ billiards?”

“Yeah. It reminded me of my platoon in the old days, out in the field. It reminded me of this guy who was damned smart… wicked fast guy, great reflexes… but he loved paintings. Loved art. Couldn’t draw a stick figure for anything, but he could make you feel for a portrait of a detestable guy. I wondered what he was doing in the war, until he told me he’s doing this for his country. As I looked at that painting, I realized how much I missed that. Not only how funny it was that such a guy ended up on the battlefield, but what we’re doing it for. Art. Music. The stuff of life.”

“Love.” Builderman said pointedly, but while gesturing with his hand in a way that made it seem like nothing at all.

“Yeah. The real stuff of life.” His chest ached for those days, now. They rattled around in his ribcage, sometimes: the billiards balls they’d poked around and laugh at. When nothing was as serious as war or was as silly as someone busting their ass from a spill on the floor could be. Back before he died. Back before they both died. “During meals, or at night, we would play Blackjack, actually… never Poker. Probably because our dealers weren’t casino owners, and none of us knew cards for shit. Pretty sure we made up half the rules. Anyway, reminded me of how me and the guys stayed up half the night trying to get a ketchup stain out. Brought me one hell of an idea, though, so… can’t fault him.”

Builderman let out a chuckle at that. “As long as you were all havin’ fun.”

As long as he got out of the conversation about his frequent vacations to 007n7’s cabin, he was more than happy— even if he had to share embarrassing stories from his youth. Anything to get Builderman’s knowing looks away from him. “Matt and I definitely did.” He snickered. “He’d make up something like ‘everyone must show their cards for a split second’ and I’d back him up, just for shits and giggles. He was always the more charming one out of the two of us, always optimistic for one reason or another…”

“Funny, they’ve got the same name.” Builderman hummed. “Though, I don’t think my Matt is much like yours.”

“Yeah. Great guys, though.” 1337 reminisced on those days— sunlight filtering through trees, grass tickling his shins as he ran through meadows, mulch and raw rubber scraping his knees raw of skin. He hadn’t seen the sun in ages. The closest he’d gotten recently was candles and the lights that were cast from the manor to 007n7’s floorboards. “He stood up for me, inspired me to be a much stronger man than I was back then. When I told him I was joining the army, he enlisted that day. He called up my recruiter and everything.” Matt deserved to live. Matt wouldn’t have been forsaken by the world; left to rot away in some crag of code. But even thinking that seemed to nag at his brain, and 1337 was a damned fool if he didn’t trust that nagging feeling.

“I remember Matt.” Builderman clicked his tongue. “I remember. He had your note.”

“He delivered that old thing?”

“He did. He tore himself up after your death.” Builderman shook his head. “You should’ve seen him, looking after Daisy and trying not to tear up telling Charlotte the news.”

“So he’s not dead after all.” That weight seemed to drop off his shoulders. “Good to know.” The nag seemed to resolve itself as he pondered that. No matter the guilt he suffered, he did it so his own death wasn’t in vain— so he can help them like Matt had once helped him, like everyone else had helped him. There was no more sense in being guilty about it. He had an eternity now to make up all of the good deeds that Matt had done.

“Yeah, no. He made a great recovery. Hardy guy.”

“It’s good that he’s looking after Daisy, too. I know she’ll need it…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hopefully…” He couldn’t make himself say the next part, so he merely heard the words emerge from something else in his throat. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t him who was saying that— the reliable, family man. The one who married a woman and had a kid. He looked to Builderman, hoping once more to escape the conversation, but found only concern and well-meaning. The words crawled towards the engineer with every intention of burying themselves in his ears. “Hopefully she finds what she’s looking for.”

Builderman paused, then looked at him with a strange, mistaken sort of kindness. Mercifully, he didn’t say anything. He left all of it to 1337, who spoke anyway. He always had all of his words on the tip of his tongue, balancing them on tightropes, sine waves oscillating from opinion to opinion, changing with each bit of new information. Even now, his mind still couldn’t make itself up what he thought of his situation with Daisy— months after he’d arrived and befriended 007n7, he still couldn’t bear parting with her until he’d looked into 007n7's eyes during that match.

When 007n7 died in his arms, he was looking into his soul with a strange expression… melancholy, maybe. 1337 couldn’t identify it, even as he thought of it now. It made his chest burn with confusion; how someone could bear looking at someone else that way and not even address it or acknowledge it in the slightest. Everyday after, he’d been searching for that spark in 007n7’s eyes, as if he’d find it again— as if he’d find his strangeness again, as if it’d come back so he could turn it over in his hands and see the light in his soul.

“We were. We ended up divorcing… about six months into my service. When I learned I was going to be on the front lines.” The information seemed to come out in bursts— like his father had asked him once more how his first day of school was and he was sobbing into his mother’s shirt again.

“Oh.” Builderman’s face dropped, and he stepped a stair down to be closer to 1337. “I’m sorry to hear about that, Guest, I am.”

Right. They had a mission. They were going up the stairs. Builderman’s kind words had distracted him. “No, it’s fine… total lifestyle difference. It’s a choice, you know. I made a choice, and she made hers.” 1337 nodded his head towards the top of the steps, and Builderman nodded in agreement. They fulfilled their silent contract and moved up the stairs. “We couldn’t make it work then.”

“... I see. I’m sorry, son.”

“No…” 1337 shook his head. “Things happen, you know? Maybe… We’ll see to… getting back to it when we get there.” Builderman raised his brows at that in what 1337 interpreted as surprise, maybe at the fact that he wasn’t as eager to go back to his wife as he’d been telling. “This experience has probably changed both of us past the people we were when we met, all of those years ago… and though she’s seen me through everything, I don’t know if that necessarily includes marriage anymore.”

They reached the top of the steps and looked upon the hallway. On the floor, above the worn lacquer of the oaken floors, laid a single faded oriental carpet— sprawling lazily in its roll, conquering the hallway with its intricate woven patterns and winding shape. Deeper into the hall, it bent at an angle that suggested there was another hallway or more survivors to be housed in eternal torment, but the wall ended abruptly in a long mirror that now faced the Noob’s bedroom. The survivors had agreed to save that bedroom for whoever seemed to come next, and the house seemed to agree. Even Shedletsky had stayed in that bedroom— the ‘new bedroom,’ the bedroom door that was always facing the mirror. The new survivor that was being tormented by the house had always stayed in that bedroom, even if they didn’t want to. Chance once moved his room down to an empty one down the hall, and recounted to everyone with a boisterous grin how he had woken to find his shit promptly scared out of him. He walked out of his room in the middle of the night for a late night snack, and lo and behold, the face of some idiotic middle-aged man wearing sunglasses and a hat in the middle of the night in a dark, creepy, eerie hallway in some dark, creepy, and especially eerie mansion in the middle of a dark, creepy, and eerie village in the middle of nowhere, mouth halfway agape and drool crusts still sticking around the corners and crevices of his lips, face wrinkling with fright… caused him to yell for Telamon and wake up half the mansion. Builderman was, understandably, and with nothing short of the word, pissed. They learned no new information. They knew that the manor could shift on a whim— allotting them beds when it saw fit, taking away their living spaces when it deemed them unnecessary. It folded them into itself like a mom folding butter into store-bought pastry dough: perfectly unnecessary to exacerbate the suffering inflicted by not just making the dough at home with the time it took to painstakingly fold 3 pounds of butter into the most stubborn croissant dough ever. They knew that the manor was unnecessary and stubborn. They knew that tomorrow, all of their belongings could be gone. Whisked away. Into the dough. Into the belly of the Spectre. Into nothing. Into whatever it wanted to be. They, too, could be whisked away. It only happened when they weren’t looking. Someone could disappear.

1337 was getting distracted. He was lingering on the step, now, halfway between the (currently) two floors. Builderman had walked ahead of him, standing decisively on the top floor, looking at the light streaming in from the windows that opposed the stairway right now. Sometimes, the light was behind them. Sometimes, the light was ahead of them. Sometimes, there was no light, or there were lamps tossed haphazardly about everywhere by some being who didn’t quite care what tasteful decoration was. The belongings they had seemed to stay the same, but the rooms in the house shifted behind walls. Overall, the house maintained its shape from the outside, but the inside seemed to shift how it wanted. He could never be sure that the house didn’t look different, but when he ran outside really quickly to check once he was sure the inside had changed, it seemed to be the same as it was before it changed. That was good enough evidence. In exchange for them occupying the house, the house occupied them— it took up space in their minds, made them question if they would wake up to a wall blocking their door, or windows rather than a wall. The others had grown into the habit of carrying their treasured possessions with them, if they didn’t already; 1337 and Builderman found this considerably easily (or, so he assumed, judging by the jingling toolbelt ahead of him), but he knew survivors like Noob were less accustomed to the idea of picking up and moving.

The idea of the bedrooms being removed when they got back from matches was more a torment to solitary survivors or those who were more prone to letting their anger overtake them. It had already caused quite some fights in those survivors who needed their quiet time more than 1337 thought— for the less confrontational, they simply feigned excuses to leave and excused themselves outdoors even though everything had already been seen top to bottom. On more than one occasion, he’d observe Elliot slipping into the kitchen to bake more pizzas. Telamon knows they had more than enough food, and 007n7 could always duplicate the food that they had (though, nobody ever seemed to ask him to do so.) Duplication would’ve been a useful skill in times of war or famine, back on the battlefield when hot food was scarce. But this was no battlefield, and hot food was bountiful if they were going to be forced into confined spaces with each other more often.

1337 turned to Builderman. The light of the stars twinkling outside just barely illuminated the stairway, and 1337 stepped into the grace of the window to make his point.

"Hey, listen. Builderman. You'd... tell me if anything important was going on, right?"

Above all else, he had to remind himself that Builderman was his friend, not the president or mayor— that which made the world go round, that which inspired them to think and use their minds. That kind of power was nowhere near them now, and especially couldn’t reach them 9 layers deep here, but it made 1337 hesitate thinking about it. Still, he steeled the trusses of his resolve and pushed onward with the idea he’d been stewing on.

"Of course. Do you have any questions for me?" Builderman smiled at him with the warmth of the hearths of home, or maybe of the campfires that his dad used to light. He didn’t doubt that if he put a marshmallow to that smile, it’d come away with a golden crisp.

"Kind of." 1337 lowered his voice as he noted the intrigue that crossed Builderman's face. "At the table, back there— is there something you all have been hiding from me?"

Builderman stopped in the middle of the hallway, shifting Dusekkar’s plate from hand to hand. He sighed, and that's how he knew he was either in the worst trouble of his life, or going to hear outrageous, unbelievable gossip. Turns out that it was both.

"... Chance and Shedletsky were discussin’ if you'd be going to see 007n7 tonight."

Guest 1337 also stopped. He turned, eyebrows raised, mouth agape. He would've dropped the pizza plates, had he not vowed to keep his arms as still as possible.

"They what?"

"Yes, you heard me. Didn’t wanna feed into it.”

“... Really?” 1337 shook the confusion off his face and resumed his serious composure. “What were they saying?”

“They were just curious, that’s all. What you were doin’. I told ‘em, ain’t nothin’ goin’ on over there nobody knows about…”

For some reason still, a pit dropped in his stomach. “Builderman. I’m hoping you can give me a straight answer on this— you out of anyone.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Why won’t Elliot just go deliver the pizza to him like he’s any other person?”

“1337—” Builderman sighed, and that seemed to mark the end of any sort of coherent answer to this. The thought of it brought heat to 1337’s face and made his knuckles turn white around the plates. He was starting to get tired of the cryptic bullshit. “There’s a long, rich history between the two of ‘em.” Builderman’s eyes gleamed, as much as he was surrounded in the growing shadows of the hallway as the night passed them by. They gleamed, and he wanted more than anything for Builderman to say it with the moon watching. With someone watching. Nights spent watching over their home base had taught him that the night was full of unforgiving promise, and this was no different.

“A history that makes everyone treat someone with disrespect? Like they’re subhuman?” Except for Chance, but that was Chance. Chance had hung around enough rough people in his life to know that hacking was not the worst thing someone could do. “Elliot’s a nice guy, I’ll give him that. But there’s one thing I don’t like watching, and it’s kicking people when they’re down.”

Builderman stepped forward and lowered his tone of voice. The light washed over him, and he could almost see the Builderman that stood at those podiums all those years ago, giving all of those speeches. The look he gave him when he stepped forward immediately commanded his attention, and 1337 was well familiar with the weariness that Builderman wore like a badge of honor; running around, managing responsibilities that weren’t his to bear alone.

“Listen, you and I, we may not see eye to eye on him, but we are goin’ to be mature about this and recognize that that’s because we come from two entirely different places in life. There isn’t a world where I wouldn’t listen to you, because in order to keep the peace in this place someone’s got to talk to someone else. Someone’s got to cut through the shit.”

“Yes, sir.” Though he stood headstrong, like he was trained to during his early boot-camp days, he was sure that if he wasn’t, he would’ve crumpled under the weight of a scolding by Builderman. He understood now why Telamon had to have been a god in order to bear the burden of Builderman’s scorn— no mortal could withstand this forever.

That sentence seemed to elicit sympathy from Builderman, because his face immediately softened. "Listen, I don’t—” He sighed, placing an index between furrowed brows and rubbing the tension out from between them. His face wore the outfit of an engineer— squinting, leering eyes at small print and tiny details. “I don’t mean to… to tell you off. I know you wanna help. You have good instincts, and you’re a helpful person. I’m sorry it came off the wrong way.” Builderman put a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me, I don’t like either that Elliot won’t just hand the damn man his pizza—”

“You see that too?” 1337 glanced angrily out the window and back to Builderman, who let out a half-hearted breath, like it was easier to be on the brink of death than to witness this.

“1337, I see a lot of things around here. It’s my job to see things and get something done about it.”

“Why won’t anyone say anything about it, then?” It seemed like the rucksack of heroism was borne upon his back once more, and there it would stay. “I fought my whole life against an empire who wanted to do nothing but snuff my existence out. I sacrificed myself to make sure evil met its swift end. I’m starting to think that the punishment isn’t that I have to attack crazed murderers all of the time, but that I have to talk around this—”

“You and I agree on one thing: respect. Right?”

Begrudgingly, he agreed.

“Respect and fairness. We aren’t the same kinda person. That’s what bein’ an admin and moderator is all about, and I know you follow that rule too. That’s the one rule we had in mind when we built Roblox: your imagination could take you everywhere you wanted it to go, but when you go wanderin’ in other people’s imaginations, you respect them. Most importantly, you can’t fight fire with fire. You can’t beat good manners and maturity into someone, you just gotta hope life hits them hard enough for them to know. And life hit him. It keeps hittin’.”

“He shouldn’t have had to suffer for you to recognize that. He shouldn’t have had to wait 10 years for you to recognize he was doing well now.”

“You’re talking about it like you know what was happening.”

“Fine. Even if you did interfere back then, why was he working three jobs to support a child?—”

“I wish we could’ve helped everyone, you know. But you can’t imagine for a single second that we’d go from battlin’ this enormous threat to the entire infrastructure of Roblox to payin’ child support because he made a mistake and got his retribution. There’s only one of me, Guest. There was only one of you once, too. Isn’t there a time you wished that you could’ve been everywhere?” Builderman’s eyes searched for the thoughts that were swirling in 1337’s head.

Damn the socialite; he’d played his cards well. To play with Charlotte on the playground without fear. To get one more chore in without fear. To bring lunch to Daisy’s work without fear. Yes, there’d been too many of those occasions. What 1337 was more familiar with now, in Builderman’s eyes, was the hint of defeat; that Builderman had given up on something, either long ago or just now. Either that the god he’d tended to would come, or that they would get out of here. That there were so many people to help and only one Builderman, or that he had helped too much and now nobody could find their way. It made him listen. He’d given up too many times.

“Okay.” 1337’s tone grew flexible with forgiveness and understanding, but still remained the plastic issue of Elliot. “That doesn’t explain why Elliot’s treating him like he doesn’t deserve to be looked at.”

Builderman sighed, and 1337 swore a chessboard of textures and variables had made its home in his eyes— as if toying around with the information he wanted to release. “I’ve been reached with concerns about some comments Elliot has made.”

1337’s eyes blew wide open. “What?”

“He does give pizza to him like anyone else in matches, but I personally advised they minimize contact for now.” Before he could speak, Builderman raised a hand. “Now, before you go… bringin’ the axe down on his head, I know it’s a miscommunication. Elliot’s in a rush, says things that can be misconstrued.”

“Misconstrued?” 1337 raised a single brow.

“Told ‘im to get on his way after he handed him a pizza. Next thing I know, 7’s at my dispenser apologizin’ a storm for even steppin’ near it, and I’ve got to wring the reason why outta him. Not like he didn’t do that before, but he was askin’ permission and everything.”

1337 mulled it over. That didn’t necessarily sound aggressive, but it did sound like something to bring up to 007n7 later to get more clarity on.

“Listen. I think we’re all miscommunicatin’ here. I don’t agree with 7n7 actin’ all friendly with everyone, but that doesn’t mean I think his punishment for what he’s done should be cruel and unusual.”

1337 couldn’t think of anything to say. Builderman was right in those regards— maybe he’d been too hasty.

“I know yer upset about the card games. I think you have a right to know that I told him he can come whenever he wants.” 1337 raised his brows in shock at that. “I told him— just us four, Chance, John, him and I. He got this nervous look and asked if you were gonna be there, and I said no because I thought, like an idiot, that he was terrified of you.” 1337 didn’t know why his heart leaped into his throat at that. 007n7 was asking about him. “You’ve got a strong head on your shoulders, but you have to think clearly. We did that. We tried all of that.” Builderman shook his head. “I’m sorry if it felt like we’ve been keepin’ things from you, 1337. I know that seems unfair.”

“... I still don’t understand why everyone’s so apprehensive. Clearly, he can’t do anything. He would’ve done it by now.” He sighed. “Builderman, I don’t… know what to do. I don’t see an awful man. I see a man who maybe was immature and stupid, but what I see most is the result of a man who wanted to change and did that. I don’t know if it’s the right way forward, but I know that… I trust my instinct, and I trust him.”

“... Did you ever hear the myths about 1x1x1x1? The old myths, before all of this.”

1337 gave Builderman possibly the most disgusted, offended look he’d ever given someone. “I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me about the history of Robloxia while I’m asking for—”

But Builderman was looking around warily, and 1337 was starting to grow curious.

“Hold on, son, let me get there.” Builderman raised his brows multiple times, before pointedly looking downstairs. Eerily enough, his voice maintained its perfect, warm composure even despite the contorting of his face. Begrudgingly, he agreed, only because one of the creators of Roblox itself was telling him rich history. “1x1x1x1 was… mentioned in a footnote of a document made by Telamon himself, yada yada yada… all that’s really important is that his ultimate goal is destroyin’ Roblox, out of a hatred for 3-dimensional objects. He's 'The Adversary,' essentially... loathes 2x2, et cetera.”

Guest 1337 nodded, settling down and trying to remind himself to stay calm. “I remembered learning about Telamon, at least. Not 1x1x1x1.”

“Really? Thought Telamon became some… old wives’ tale, like Santa Claus or somethin’.” Builderman seemed to chuckle to himself. “‘Telamon is comin’ to town…’ that ole song.”

“Ah, wait…” 1337 hummed it to himself, before responding. “My dad sang that song before the Giftsplosion every year. Honestly, I hated it… got stuck in my head.”

“Aww. I remember… Telamon loved it. Well, I mean… I think he liked anythin’ with his name on it, makin’ him seem all big and important… Anyway, the way we’d ended up describin’ it one night—” Builderman said that quite casually, as if it didn’t matter that he personally knew and befriended a god— “Roblox exists in three dimensions, right— you got your x-axis, y-axis, z-axis, so a fourth-dimensional creature hates it, et cetera.”

“How would a fourth dimensional being even work?”

“That’s the thing. It’s scary because it’s incomprehensible to people who don’t know how it works. How do I…” Builderman snapped his fingers for an explanation. “Right. So, imagine… a person who lives on a flat sheet of paper. Two-dimensional— x-axis, y-axis. They can’t see us three-dimensional bein’s, but we can see them. They can’t even imagine a third dimension because they don’t live in it. They can’t imagine where that… third, z-axis is gonna go. So we can’t see a fourth-dimensional bein’, because we can’t imagine where that fourth axis would go. To us, three axes is all that will ever exist.” He got the sense that it was much more complicated than that, but he appreciated the conciseness of the speech. “I think Telamon would probably explain it in more detail, if he would—” Builderman glanced briefly towards the stairs, then looked back towards 1337. He paused, then continued. “If he was here.”

“Right.” 1337 narrowed his eyes as he mimicked Builderman’s pose, shifting his weight onto the mirroring leg. “Continue.”

“Lots of people think 1x1x1x1 is a… a hacker, or another god, maybe. This came from an incident where it literally started raining heads while some guy ran around chantin’ about how 1x1x1x1 was comin’ for them. I think… one of us old admins investigated it. Don’t really remember who.” Builderman chuckled to himself. “I don’t remember what the issue was, a… script, or a kind of injectable. That’s how much we laughed it off. Scared John shitless, though… he took a week off, actin’ like a maniac on the Heights… did that a couple times, actually. The last time, he, uh...” Builderman sighed, a burden of his own coming right up before he swallowed it.

1337 never imagined hearing anything like this in any of his history classes. Whispers, maybe, about the evil 1x1x1x1 who was going to steal you away into the fourth dimension in your sleep if you misbehaved. Nothing ever related to old Roblox. It sounded like old Roblox— before all of the renovations, before the wars— when you could walk down the street and shake the hands of those figures you’d learned about in history class. Homemade scripts worked like magic in those days, from what 007n7 had told him. Magicians, making secrets, making illusions and grand fantasies of nth-dimensional beings… all of that had somehow snowballed into a war that cost him his life and plunged him into an eternity of suffering. Magic and thought had cast the fates of millions into a spiral on some Greek-lettered axis, a spiral that only a fourth-dimensional being could cackle violently at, that only new and young Robloxians with glassy, living eyes could stare up at and imagine as their home. New Roblox was a nightmare in Fitzgerald’s wildest dreams, born of West Egg and raging with possibility. They spiraled, spiraled, and spiraled downwards, wax running down their fingers as wings flailed to catch the wind pushing hard against their bodies. The Egg Hunts would continue, marching forth against the will of the people they oppressed with the iron fist of the future, with their grip on a weapon stronger than the fated Banhammer: technological development.

“Some people who were there that day kind of passed it off as if it was nothing. Others believed it with their whole hearts. That a fourth-dimensional bein’... was going to hunt them down personally. Not that Roblox hadn’t been proven safe, but that something could circumvent its safety and strength. Some chose to believe in that strength. Some lived in fear.”

It certainly did sound believable, until he remembered that the only reason he’d been hunted down in his life was because he was a Guest. The average Robloxian had nothing to worry about. Fear, like anything else, was a choice. A choice made mostly on instinct— the raw, unbridled fear that choked him in his bed when he woke hearing gunshots, or the terror he experienced as a boy getting out of bed to use the restroom at night— and never with an ounce of consciousness. It was a choice rather than a default because he’d actively denied his fear before. It still sat and fermented in the sour pits of his stomach, but he denied it command of his senses.

“… Over the years, any news about 1x1x1x1 went quiet. He didn’t make an appearance, so nobody said anythin’ about it, and the lot of us workin’ at HQ chalked it up to the actions of that ethical hacker. I don’t blame the people who thought 1x1x1x1 was real, though. We certainly didn’t know—” A look of fresh guilt came upon Builderman’s face, like an open wound— “They were just… believin’ what they thought was right, trying to protect themselves. They weren’t investigatin’ the kinda system that’d allow a flaw like that to get through, where objects could be spawned in and messages could be broadcast to the whole server without permissions— that wasn’t their responsibility to know. Their instinct told them what was right. You know a lot about what people think threats are. How those threats can be misguided. Misinterpreted. All this fear about the security of Roblox founded their fear. The incidents with hackers… I don’t blame them for feeling scared. They just wanted to be in control of something, and they could control their fear.

When someone makes a point to stand for something, you have to listen to their cause. And, sure… there are lots of hackers and exploiters that are just stupid kids wantin’ to get an edge on others, not really coverin’ their tracks or doin’ their research, downloadin’ any old script just for a laugh or for some ‘advantage…’ But when someone wants to demonstrate that security vulnerability in front of others, it means they care about how the system works and how to exploit it. I choose to believe that the user wanted to make the system better, and was tryin’ to help us patch all the stray vulnerabilities and soft spots. I believe that that person who was responsible for that 1x1x1x1 incident… was tryin’ to do somethin’ right by all of us. I don't think he intended those consequences.” Builderman’s voice went soft, before he continued on.

“Everyday, you can’t imagine how much I regret that people had to see how shabby our system was. It takes a while for that kind of ambition to get off the ground, but… I didn’t expect it to take so long that we’d be stuck fightin’ the same battles even now. I think about them sometimes, when I get reports of people usin’ exploits… and I think about those days of fear. I think about the dangers of how much the things we made mean to people. How much they love them, and how much that hurts for them. Roblox was meant to… make imagination real for people, but that power comes at a cost that not everyone knows how to handle.

The unreality of it to me doesn’t make it any less real to others. I may not be able to speak for others, as it’s certainly much more real to them than to me, but this much is obvious to someone in my position: most people aren’t evil people, they’re just… people. There’s nothin’ to be scared of.” He sighed. “They do annoyin’ things, like… god forbid, get crumbs everywhere, or eat with their mouths open. They say annoyin’ things, things that are wrong, things that are mean. We’re human, so we look for someone to blame rather than thinkin’ everything’s out of our control. Whoever the fingers get pointed at, they become less of a dynamic human bein’ and more of a static idea. Our… frustrations, uh… anger, rage, disappointment, sorrow… all go into this stock husk that we’ve convinced ourselves we hate rather than the actual person or the actual idea. A person who does somethin’ awful becomes a representation of all people who do that awful thing. Not that thing. That’s what 1x1x1x1 became.”

“That’s… oddly merciful.”

Builderman nodded. “We can’t really hate other people. We’re not made for it. Nobody is. We just like each other so much we get obsessed with this idea of responsibility because we don’t want anyone to get hurt, and it… tears us up. If we never face those awful feelings, we will always run into those blamin’ circles… and they get us hackin’ incidents. So, I try to think that everyday is a day to be better… to improve ourselves not only for others, but because it is the right thing to do for ourselves. We are the ones who are forced to live with us, not others. We are the ones who live with the things we do. We can’t escape that.”

Even if that ending sounded more like one of his speeches, it stirred hope in Guest 1337’s heart. It felt better to hear it from him, mostly because Builderman could exude this passionate, secure self-assurance and confidence that he was wholly unable to tell if it was real or not. For once, he chose to believe it was.

Someone needed to know what they were talking about when his entire life and thoughts were doing a tailspin after one little match.

Builderman patted his shoulder and released it. "You get absorbed in it too, is what I’m sayin’. It feeds on you, and you on it. That becomes a part of your identity that can feel like torture to tear away, because it feels so real to you." There was an imperceptible shift in the light— maybe Builderman had tilted his head and oriented the shadow his hat cast on his face, but Guest 1337 couldn't be sure. "Some people need to talk those things out. Some people can’t. They can’t face it." He repeated, slightly softer, as if to himself. “Someone has to do the talkin’. They can’t just fight all the time.”

Those words were nearly inaudible, so Guest 1337 nodded. "I understand."

"I hope you two can… teach each other somethin’. God knows nothin’ is gettin’ through that thick skull of yers…” Builderman laughed. “I'm... I'm happy he has someone like you. I'm happy you have someone like him."

“... I just…” 1337 looked towards the window. “I remember… hearing from a guest how a Bacon had helped them set up to cross into Roblox from Bacon-occupied territory.” When there were two guest families left, of course. Him and three other people in Robloxia: the only ones in the entire world, entire generations of culture and hope and art and love and life massacred just to satisfy petty grievances. "I see your point, is what I'm saying... I'm just tired of everyone acting like people can't change. That people can't be different." Before he went to bed at night, sometimes, he replayed the memory of the General’s face twisting in surprise as he pulled the grenade from his vest. He looked to the floor, replaying that face—

“... Builderman.”

“Yeah, kid?”

“... The carpet.”

Builderman looked at the floor. Where they stood, the carpet decals clipped onto each other, glitching violently before his eyes. Builderman was on one side of the carpet, presumably where the decal or the asset of the original carpet had been copied and placed on the floor.

“... Ain’t that funny. The two things…” Builderman shifted his weight onto one leg and pointed at the carpet assets clipping into each other. “I think they, uh… well… they’re definitely not supposed to do that. Probably a mesh error or somethin’.”

“Another one of those admin things?” 1337 chuckled.

“Probably. I’d blame John for it.”

“Hey. For once, I had nothing to do with this,” said the man of the hour, chuckling as his footsteps thumped up the stairs. He spoke just two-thirds of the way to the top, and as 1337 came to lay eyes on him, he saw an exhaustion that belonged to none other than the losers of card games; their last companions on the verge of destruction in some alleyway somewhere in some dark city.

“Are you really sure about that?” Builderman spoke, crossing his arms while still holding the plate upright.

Shedletsky came to rest at the top of the stairs. It was abnormal that the swordfighter should ever come to rest, but when he came into the light, 1337 could see that a flame still burned deep within as he looked to Builderman. “Nah. Can never be too sure.” He turned to 1337. “You find Two Time?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “They were, uh… I think coming back from the kitchen, but I couldn’t be sure.”

Shedletsky and Builderman gave matching glances to each other. Builderman had the benefit of media-training— he, at least, kept a straight face when the subject of those two came up and looked away. Shedletsky kept eyeing Builderman with a thin-lipped smile, almost like a laugh was about to escape from his throat, or like he was keeping a frog in his mouth.

“That’s good, then.” Builderman gave a warm smile. White swarmed Shedletsky’s irises as he kept looking at Builderman, who was trying his damned hardest not to look at Shedletsky. “The pizza was still hot when we got it, so—”

“— I’m sorry, is there context I’m missing out on?” 1337 spoke up, glaring at Shedletsky.

Finally, Builderman looked back at Shedletsky. “You keen on explainin’ yerself, John?”

“What? Me?” Shedletsky chuckled. “Nothing to explain. Nothing at all. We’re happy for the lovebirds. Really happy. Really happy for, uh—” He glanced at Builderman— “any couple—” Builderman glared at him— “of friends that want to hang out together, totally casually. It’s perfectly normal and fine.”

Builderman glanced sideways at him again, then sighed and looked at 1337. “Elliot and Two Time have been spendin’ a lot of time in the kitchen together. Two Time doesn’t know how to cook, we think… so they’ve been learnin’ some basic things. I think it’s a valuable skill.” He spoke the next part through grit teeth: “John doesn’t know what he’s talkin’ about, especially about what friends typically do.” Builderman raised a hand and put it on Shedletsky’s back. Shedletsky looked at 1337 with a look that could only be described as pure and absolute terror for his life. Builderman resumed a normal tone of voice and plastered a smile on his face. “You’ll have to forgive him, he really needs to get his rest. Sorry about that.”

“Wait, before I go—” Shedletsky spoke, and Builderman shot a pointed glare at him— “Chance wanted to see you. Something about a game, or whatever.”

1337’s curiosity was admittedly piqued by that, so he decided to let whatever tomfoolery Shedletsky usually spoke slide.

“Come on, now. Up to bed, John. We gotta go see Matt.” Builderman gestured with his head to the room, then smiled at 1337. “Goodnight, Guest 1337. I hope that you two keep givin’ that creative spark to each other… the greatest things are never made or done alone.”

Before 1337 could question what that meant, Shedletsky and Builderman turned and walked away. Their footsteps echoed in the hall, until nothing remained but 1337 and the moonlight through the window. His mind swirled with implications, but his body seemed to autopilot itself towards its next task— Chance’s conversation. He heard his boots thudding down the stairs, though his mind was picking apart all of the things that Builderman said to him.

In this instance, as his eyes roamed and looked for new cracks to explore in the structurally-codependent logs that made up the walls of the stairwell, his eyes caught on an advertisement for ‘team c00lkidd.’ If it had always been there, he wasn’t aware of it, or maybe it had been that he wasn’t looking for that particular thing after all of this time. It had the team’s mascot on the front: c00lkidd. The c00lkidd. That killer. Not with the Firebrand— the sword Shedletsky got so upset about— but with the c00lgui. ‘team c00lkid, join today!!1!’ sprawled across the bottom quarter of the poster, while its mascot was holding his arms out. Bright colors embraced c00lkidd, who seemed to be having the time of his life. Whether or not the poster was real was another thing— as far as 007n7 told him, people wanted to join team c00lkidd more than team c00lkidd wanted people to join— but those colors swirled in his head, oil tainting the dark ocean waters of his mind.

Anyone who must have walked up the stairs would have seen the poster.

… He balanced the two plates on one arm, just like he’d done with Daisy and Charlotte’s plates when he used to have to carry three. Before he knew what he was doing, a satisfying rip emerged in the air, cracking the warm silence of the stairwell. He found the ‘team c00lkidd’ poster lying limp in his hands.

He’d ripped it nearly in two. The rip at the top of the paper stopped just barely where the c00lgui met c00lkidd’s hand, severing the two permanently. He shoved the piece of paper into his pocket and walked downstairs. Chance was apparently asking around for him to come back, and he couldn’t deny a personal conversation with the house himself.

Chapter 4: Enter Daedalus

The front room was empty, but still the hearth burned with the warmth that it wanted to see in the world. From his stop at the front of the stairs, he could see Chance shuffling a deck of cards, but more than see he could hear it— cards interlocking, intertwining, interleaving with the grace of a practiced man. There he sat, the homemaker of the hour, observing every card. Watching. Reading. Probably counting, but that was none of 1337's business. He'd learned to watch for it after a particularly math-savvy corporal tried playing him out of all his cash. For catching him, 1337 threatened to send him on his commissary runs, but left it merely a threat. He wasn't even sure if both of them would live, anyway, and there were better things to do than needlessly waste both of their time. Still, he let him off with a warning.

 

“You needed me?” He stopped at the entrance to the room, hearing the soft whooshes of the cards falling into each other, needing each other. They clutched like there was no other life left to live. Chance merely watched, their gaze fixed on each face before their attention was caught by 1337's voice.

 

“You left me cold.” Chance smiled, looking up at him beneath the shades. “Had to admit, I was beginning to think chivalry was dead.”

 

He turned and set the plates down in the far corner of the bar, right in front of where the chalkboard sat on the long table. He then crossed his arms. “I’m sorry that people need to eat, Chance."

 

“Wha—at? Eating? Stop making things up, people don’t need to eat. That’s ridiculous.”

 

Guest 1337 rolled his eyes, walking over to the table and standing by it. He shifted his weight onto one foot, crossing his arms. “Don't be ridiculous."

 

“You’re not gonna take your armor off, hot stuff?” Chance raised a finger and vertically wagged it up and down— like a slot machine lever, hoping for the jackpot. One more quip, one more little piece of unique Chance verbiage, and maybe, just maybe— “It’s just you and me, y’know. Ain’t like John’s gonna pop outta nowhere, screamin’ like a red-tailed hawk with that stupid sword of his."

 

“No. You never know when we could leave for a match.”

 

Chance glanced up in contemplation, then shrugged. 1337 could tell Chance knew he was right: at any moment, the Spectre could whisk them away. They always needed to be prepared. “Alright then. Y'know, that guy's really been pissing me off... but Builderman says I can't just kick him off the table. I caught him, the other day, y'know—" Chance put an elbow on the table and pointed at 1337— "you'll never believe this, but I caught him indenting cards with those little talons of his so he could keep track of pairs. And I'm like, 'dude, are you serious?' And he pretends like it's really not that big of a deal, but it is. Like, you're messing with the cards. So I played with a new deck that night and he was like 'it's just a strategy.' It really isn't just a strategy, it's unfair. That's poor sportsmanship, is what it is." 1337 really didn't like to indulge in gossip, but with Chance, it was hard not to provide a listening ear. He supposed most people couldn't help it; they'd simply been conditioned to act that way to make friends, or to think that their social life was a battlefield. He supposed it was better to make a gossiping friend that actually confronted the sources of their problems than one who was all talk no bite. That was mostly why he tolerated Chance's snide chatter: they could actually bite. "Why aren't you sitting?"

 

"Sitting? I'm not going to sit, what did you want to talk to me about?"

 

"Nooo." Chance gave a warm smile, ear-to-ear painted with ceramic promises. "You just set your plates down. That means you’re gonna play a game with me.”

 

As much as Chance was right, he hated it. “What?” Everyone had been plenty cryptic for one night, and he was starting to get fed up with it. Chance, though, seemed to notice this, and shot him a smile to ease his nerves.

 

“You set the plates—” Chance pointed to the lone plates at the strategy table— “at that table. So, you came to play a game with me. Right?”

 

1337 gestured his head towards the plates of pizza. “No way. I’ve got dinner to deliver.”

 

“Let me see the plate.” As he stepped away, picked it up, and lowered it to Chance’s line of sight, Chance shrugged. “Ain’t gonna get much cooler.”

 

“How could you tell it was cold?” 1337 put the pizza back on the long table.

 

“Dude, cold pizza looks way different than hot pizza. Hot pizza is greasy and kinda shiny.”

 

“Are you one of those freaks that likes cold pizza?”

 

“Are you telling me you aren’t? Come sit. I’ll make you a bet—”

 

“No bets, man.” 1337 shook his head. “Sick of bets. I’ll sit.”

 

Chance rolled his eyes as 1337 pulled a chair out and sat. "Whatever, man. We're gonna play War. War is one of the simplest card games." He organized the deck of cards. "It’s a shuffled deck, and the cards are split evenly amongst the players. Do you know how to play?”

 

“... Yeah. We used to, uh… play it in the barracks. When things were peaceful.”

 

“... Good game. I guess it kinda fits, y’know. The name. I like the name, it always kind of reminds me of… y’know, those old cops and robbers games. This game is the closest to actual 50/50 chance besides…” Chance kept prattling on, so 1337 busied his eyes by surveying the game table, making sure there were no tricks waiting for him.

 

Chance’s drink still precipitated water on the table, ice floating atop a bed of whiskey that would surely soothe him to sleep once this night was over. God knows how he managed to drink every night and still do so well in the matches— maybe a hangover was nothing in comparison to the magical bets that the Spectre seemed to bind him to. Then again, they all had their methods of escape. If Chance’s was alcoholism, he could only feel the deepest, gut-wrenching of pities for him. It was an awful method he’d seen far too many people fall privy to; 1337 himself had been lucky to escape it, but he was sure Chance’s glass had been refilled 4 times that night alone, and there were a couple of glass bottles he was sure his foot kept hitting beneath the table.

 

At the very least, Chance knew a life outside of the war 1337 had been accustomed to. For the longest time, he had been hunched behind Matt’s concrete barrier, bracing for impact. Sometimes the debris hit him, and sometimes it didn’t. There, at the table, it struck him that his ex-wife was right: he lived in a world where he could be shot dead at any moment. He lived in a world where the only acceptable outcome was that he didn’t come home at the end of the day, and everyone was just supposed to be okay with that. He’d never gotten up and looked anywhere beyond the concrete barrier. He’d tumbled out of the highest rafters filled with the itchiest hay, exchanging warm discomfort and needles for nothingness and cold constructs. Neglect of his senses and covering of those unfortunate desires that wracked his flesh was no fate for a meat shield. 1x1x1x1 was right: how curious of him to pride himself on protection when all he protected was his own vulnerability. He wasn’t even sure what to be afraid of, just that he was afraid, and he was hiding behind concrete. He had no idea what the world was like beyond that barrier; he’d caught glimpses of it on Daisy’s breath, but for a while his only purpose had been to die.

 

He’d heard stories of the long, green grass, swampy marshes, bright blue sky, and smiling faces, but he had never once stood up from behind that concrete barrier and seen over it. He’d manufactured strength in his dreams like those long steel cables that held up skyscrapers much taller than him, knew strength like the myopic knew the bottom of the Grand Canyon, knew it like a poet knew the insides of an industrial machine that would run him over. He knew himself like a cave diver knew life— grasping for it in the bottoms of everything, searching deeper for something that would swallow him and never release him. He could not face the music. He strode in his sleep, elbows to his waist and straight-legged as a majorette with the pointiest, frilliest baton, to the doors of generals and told them those plans they’d laid out on the table, and he’d dreamt of finally emerging and breaking the surface tension that held him drowning in the depths of the pool that was covered with his concrete barrier. On 007n7’s grave, he’d yearned to dream once more of a war that held his lungs in a tight grip— the dreams that revealed the knowledge he still did not know, repeated it in his ear, told him that the war was continuing because he let it. Those plans didn’t work— stupid things. He was drowning. He was dying under the weight of the war. He was being smothered by the embrace of the concrete barrier. He didn’t know what getting up felt like anymore, and was partially convinced he had no more legs to get up with.

 

Once the war was over, he would be nothing. Its fantastical machinations of dying glory would pick up and move on, and take him with it. He was a product of that war. They would find his corpse in a statue of Jesus Christ and pull rebar from his body, blood spurting like thick, hot wine. He’d die a martyr and live a martyr, but he couldn’t be anything but. The burden that he carried was the knowledge that he couldn’t be anything else. If he laid down and died, someone else would pick up his burden— there would be someone else after that, and after that again… and people would suffer unnecessarily until it was all over. The war would end.

 

At least in the war, he could describe the flurries of emotions as a deep panic that woke him in pools of sweat that tried to drag him into their depths. It was too late for someone to wake him up now and tell him that the war was over, because he hadn’t lived half his life. He had gotten married, but the precautions they took for that marriage were too great, and the day was wrought with terrible grief. They both knew death was going to come before it even arrived— it hung like a specter over their lives, foreshadowing seeping into every seam and crack in the wall, making up the foundation for the home they built. They were too busy knowing the end of the story to appreciate what was happening now. Neither of them lived in a world where there was allowed to be a happy ending, so there was none. No matter what delusions they fed themselves, the ending stayed the same, and 1337 did not marry for love: he married because he knew it would end. Even though she didn’t know it, he did. He married because he believed he would never get another opportunity to. When he told her that he was enlisting, their marriage was over. There was no safe place in life, not even in their marriage— which made the emergence of one so important to him, because for once, he was not feigning escape. This was no cheap imitation. 007n7’s cooling touch invigorated him to run headfirst into 1x1x1x1, and it hadn’t left him. The thought of the man had flitted into his head all night, like cleansing drops of water dripping across his forehead in a hot summer day.

 

Here he was with another opportunity. The Spectre could strip him of any special tools, but he had one thing: ambition. Though he should have feared the certain future of death as he had done in the past, now, giddiness filled his chest at the idea that there was no certain thing but his eternal, pointless suffering for sins he fumbled to find. There was a static environment, and there could be any match composition, and any killer with any number of people to help out. There was any direction that the games could go and one certain end: his head on the floor. The question of if he would be trapped there forever loomed over him, but he knew its true shape: he was no longer afraid of that future of death, because he knew that he had to suffer to live. Evil forces beyond his comprehension killed him, but he returned to suffer. The mistake he’d made before was that he’d believed that his life would definitively end in a golden nail through his heart, hanging by his hands on a pine cross— but now, he knew her face to be warped and certain with the passage of time only, not her outcome. Her wrinkles shifted as the future did, and the future marched on without him.

 

To suffer, he had to be conscious. If he was conscious, he was sure that he would never let go of the people that briefly graced his mind with gentle words and kind fingers. That was the thing that inspired fear in the old general. To strike him down, he would have to be completely dead. Tortured and gasping for his final breaths, he’d seize life with his teeth and let it bleed and gurgle in his throat. He’d choke on it forever to taste the few delicious, hazy thoughts in his head. He’d choke on it to taste 007n7’s delicious, bloody name in his throat— all the sharp edges of the sevens digging into the tongue and coloring his eyes rainbow, all the zeroes warping his soul as they passed through his ribcage. And the n— the n, the letter n, to taste such a sweet letter, dripping in gold. He embraced that future as the past’s skeletal claws dug into his biceps and ripped his third and fourth ribs clean out. He broke in a dead run away from the concrete barrier, and ran into the bright sunlight of no man’s land. Away, he went, from military commanders and jargon— away, from certainties and numbers, away… away from all of it, away from hiding behind unbreakable concrete barriers. His soft body would run into the sun he shaded himself from, and he would kiss the bullets entering his body only because he knew they were meeting their end too, and to die was the only certain thing.

 

And he would rise after he died and do it again, alive. He was alive. He was always going to live. He was going to be alive for as long as he lived, and he would suffer, and suffering was not cleansing— it was living. As long as he suffered, he would seize joy by the throat and kiss it. He would know its sweet, golden taste like he knew the air entering the deep cavities of his lungs. He’d suck ecstasy from the holes of his own rotting teeth. Penitence and repentance in misery was no way to live. Monks tied their mouths into knots trying to be beautiful before the Lord, but 1337 had died enough to know that the Lord did not observe anything but the sweetness of blood and kind, cleansing good words. He had felt those healing words wash his worries clean— he had known 007n7’s gaze as the sun on his back when rain had pelted his marble figure from the clouds that swarmed the lateral muscles behind him. He needed no sweet words to sing him to sleep when being awake was a cause of splendid celebration. He lived knowing they were going to see each other again. He loved his job. He loved dying. He embraced it. He tasted wine on his lips.

 

Suffering made life worth living, because without it, there would be no life to live. His teeth and lips would crust in a maroon smile as he licked his dinner off of the floor, and he would enjoy every inch of it. He hadn’t enjoyed life enough when he lived it— he hadn’t counted every blade of grass, hadn’t kissed someone in abandoning joy. The opportunity was in front of him. The opportunity was always in front of him. He just needed to seize it.

 

Atlas threw off the sky.

 

“Buddy. Your turn.”

 

He looked at Chance. He thought he could hear himself gasping for air. When had they started playing? The cards laid on the table in front of him, like his body had done the duty of playing for his mind. It seemed the game was being played, even when he wasn’t mentally participating in it. That he hadn’t run his mouth was something to be extremely proud of, even with his rumination. The King of Spades leered at him, an ominous reminder of the match tomorrow. He would have to get going soon, or he would never make it to bed on time.

 

“... Looks like you’ve made up your mind about somethin’.”

 

“How did you know?” 1337 smiled like he hadn’t.

 

“Just knew. I’ve seen many men steeped in shame, and some not. You wouldn’t believe how many of them play it up in front of others… big, masculine men, gettin’ all the girls… then they lose at the tables and go live it up even more. It’s a familiar look.”

 

“Was it that obvious?”

 

“Nah. I wasn’t even thinkin’ about it until you sat.” Chance flashed him a smile. “I was kind of just guessing. Don’t wanna invade your privacy. Just wanted to… y’know, wait ‘til my good friend Guest 1337 wanted to talk. I just kinda did my thing in the mean time.”

 

This confessional booth was built out of cheap and shitty driftwood. It smelled like Jack Daniels— finally, he was able to identify it, sigh it out of his nose with knowledge. Chance’s shades saw him, but his eyes urged him to go.

 

“I forfeit.”

 

Chance raised his brows, then collected the cards from the table.

 

“You wanna see what your play would’ve been?”

 

“Isn’t that a tactic to get me to keep playing?” 1337 snarked, and Chance chuckled shortly.

 

“Nah, just a curiosity of mine…”

 

Chance went ahead and flipped the cards over. The Queen of Hearts sat in Chance’s deck, while the Jack of Clubs sat leering downwards.

 

“Well, you would’ve lost anyway. Things tend to be like that.”

 

Though it may have been just to get him to keep playing, the cards provided a certainty he would not have found elsewhere. His back straightened in resolve.

 

“Settles it, then.”

 

1337 went to collect the pizza plates from the booth. His own slice was long since cooled off, and 007n7’s slice was only growing colder.

 

“You’re leaving me for your mistress?”

 

“Oh, shut up.” 1337 rolled his eyes. “You have lots of friends.”

 

Chance went quiet for a minute at that. “Yeah. I do.” His tone stood stark and bare against the joyous, clothed warmth of the manor— cold, shivering, and lonely.

 

He turned and looked at Chance’s shades. With effort, he could see those eyes through them, cast downward towards the losing table. “Hey.” With that bark, Chance looked up towards him. Too much hope shone in those eyes. “I’ll see you later.”

 

Chance’s face twisted into a certain smile. This seemed to be an odd he was betting on. “I’ll see you.”

 

The air seemed to thin as he walked out of the bar. It grew fresher, almost. He never knew what Chance liked about the bar (to 1337, it smelled like nothing but cheap liquor), nor why he hung out so often there, but if his friend enjoyed it, he was no person to judge. The air shifted as he opened the door to the outdoors, and in flooded the scent of the marsh, welcoming him in its embrace. He was familiar with its dance around him, and a sense of rejuvenation entered his bones; he’d sneak out every morning to run circles around the huts, looking forward to the earthy scent inundating the air. The mud would stick to the tan boots laced up to his mid-shins, and he’d have to stomp out his shoes on the steps leading up to the porch. As he shut the door to the porch and made his way down the steps, he could see the crusts of dirt on the porch making up the vague shape of his feet. He’d left a mark, then, from how often he’d had that little routine. The truth of him and Daisy’s marriage weighed like stones in his stomach, but… the footprints comforted him. Dirt could be easily crushed and misshapen, made into many forms and reused as the earth saw fit. Its nutrients supported each plant that dotted the surface. Dirt, in its many grains or chunks of humus, was insignificant by itself. Here, it clumped. It made something. It was something. It was something besides dirt— it had identity, a form, a shape, a face. It had his face. He was leaving a mark on something without it being tied to his identity from the past. He was impacting and changing the world around him without intending to at all.

 

He stepped out into the dirt of the yard between the house and the manor. This space between seemed to hold so much potential— as a yard, as a garden, as a running track… but for now, it stayed as a patch of grass that happened to sever 007n7’s home and the mansion where everyone else lived. He looked towards the night sky. The stars above had no purpose either, and yet they made him feel so similarly liberated, freed of purpose. Although 007n7 had told him that the stars were only part of something called a ‘skybox,’ he couldn’t stop seeing their dull twinkling even if he tried. Even the most brilliant shining couldn’t be erased by a couple of words. The stars looked differently than they did from within the house, that was for sure. He could only see them through the windows, before— now, in the field, it seemed he was being bathed in their radiant, beautiful light. He knew now why the house seemed to shift, shrouding their living spaces in eternal darkness; the stars were beautiful when there was so little light pollution to suffocate the village. At times, the darkness that smothered them was something to be celebrated. This was one of those times.

 

The creaking of a door woke him from the slumber of his thoughts, where he’d been baptized in the starlight. 007n7’s back was illuminated by the warm light of the inside of the cabin.

 

007n7 held him in his eyes. He held 007n7 in his eyes.

 

“Beautiful night tonight, isn’t it?” 1337 called, stepping closer.

 

007n7 nodded, then stepped down the stairs leading to the doorway of his home. “It’s getting warmer outside.”

 

"That it is." 1337 smiled sheepishly. The grass crumpled under 007n7’s foot, crinkle-cut waves sending soft crackles against 1337’s ears. His loafers made plush dents in the grass, yielding to the declarations his steps made in the yard.

 

The cold night air tended to carry more than it intended to, delivering sounds to him with warmer intentions than as they arrived, like harmonies of crackles he’d only hear when Daisy made bread and cracked it open against his ear for them to listen to alone. Its partner, the warm air, always insulated sound and kept it safe in its grasp, buzzing and shaking the hives of desire that sang sweet melodies of adoration and freedom— the whispers of a lover in his grip kept captive by the warmth of his body temperature, the mumbles of delirium-ridden heatstroke patients he’d seen on the deserts of the battlefield and the body heat beneath his fingers as he dragged them into the medical tents to be looked over. 007n7 was right in front of him, the light of the empty home warming his back like a heating lamp for those reptiles kept in glass enclosures: a gaslit lantern hanging on carved wooden stakes painting the medical tent walls in the fiery glow of manmade sun. (It seemed unfair to call it artificial. Nothing about it suggested the sterility of manufacturing: industrial, wiped with antiseptic, and coated in stainless steel. Watched by overworked employees and underpaid engineers. CEOs sitting back, feet propped on the desk, huffing and puffing away at a cigar that cost more than a floor worker's salary. It was the furthest it could get, actually.) 007n7 waited in the shadows of uncertainty, watching the billowing curtains of leaves shuffle and rustle around them in dances with the wind.

 

He could not have been further from 007n7, and yet his breath was hot on his neck, smoke clouding his nose from the scent of the swamp air in front of them. The light of the house loomed over them; windows caging in judgmental gazes and silence left behind locked and closed doors, secured with a deadbolt. Despite the manor being lively and filled with the laughter of the poker night, silence fell thick and heavy in folding spades, cards towering them. The outdoor section of the manor seemed to be held in this little bubble— a bubble he swore he could pop with the grinding of his jaw or a blink of his eye. Everyone inside the house never left unless they needed fresh air or really, really truly wanted to get away. Even if they did want to escape to the swamp outside, usually they just… watched. Their eyes would linger on a reed or cattail swaying in the wind. For a moment, in their chest, something strange would bloom. Something that made them turn their attention away from whatever they might've been doing to observe the arcs of the grasses, or the splashes of fish that laid just beyond an outstretched hand. Even now, he was sure someone was watching. Someone was yearning. Someone’s gaze trailed down 1337’s back, leaving a blazing wildfire of shame from the panopticon windows behind him as his back faced towards the house. The guard’s center console flickered over the jail cell for a brief moment, finding his misgivings forgivable. Ice ran down his back, healing the burns left by brief judgment and silence.

 

A sense of vertigo washed over him when he remembered Builderman’s comment about how 007n7 asked about him left him dizzy with confusion, turning himself in a stormy, swirling ocean and reaching his hand to any surface that might allow him temporary shelter. The clouds churned in a tempest, hungry for destruction, ignorant of the presence of the eye at its center. He wondered now how complicit he was in isolating 007n7— his mind pondered the differences between inviting 007n7 inside to his room to look at the maps or going outside to meet him where he sequestered himself. If he invited him inside, maybe he would’ve felt like 1337 supported his integration into the manor’s culture. The worst part was that if he turned around, he would have to look up to see his own window. The window he’d spent more than a few nights staring down into the village at. It was now that shame crept into his stomach— he’d participated in the very action that isolated 007n7 at all. He’d been watching. He’d sat at that poker table, watching the picture on the wall and wishing he were anywhere else rather than going anywhere else. However much of it was actually his fault, he wasn’t sure: he was no mathematician. But he was complicit. There was nothing to be afraid of out here.

 

He stepped into the light of a nearby window, seeing now what was inside 007n7’s cabin as he inched closer. 007n7 stood with his back to the light inside his own cabin, linens hung up on wood constructions. Those must’ve been constructed the night that they started making friendlier conversation. 1337 was trying to fix a hole someone had broken stumbling drunk into one of the walls of the manor (it might’ve been at the staircase, but he didn’t really remember). They didn’t really have anything professional to fix the wall with, and it wasn’t like Telamon was going to descend from the Heights to bestow upon him a spatula, so he borrowed one from the kitchen and ran out to the pier to see if he could find some netting or some paste to make spackle with. 007n7 was lugging logs up to his cabin, bending with his back and not his knees, and 1337 dropped the spatula to run over and help him lug them over. They made polite conversation, 007n7 being amicable enough to him to tell him he was trying to make a drying rack ‘the original way,’ by putting parts together from the environment. 1337 laughed when 007n7 mentioned doing it ‘the original way,’ (as if there was any other way besides that) and even now, the memory brought a smile to his face. Come to think of it, they almost seemed to have met by complete accident. Rationally, Guest 1337 knew that many little decisions, both from themselves and others, brought them together. Spider’s webs of choices colored their lives with yarn balls of fault, blame, and selflessness. That little meeting tied them together. Still, if he hadn’t made the smallest choice to direct his attention towards 007n7’s plight and had the desire to help him… he wouldn’t be here, light from the house on his back as he cast a long shadow forwards. He might have ignored those long-dead eyes; that hi-vis vest, that shirt of his. He might have ignored those dimples as 007n7 smiled at him. He really did have dimples. They ran in the family.

 

“You’re that happy to see me?” 1337 tilted his head, stepping towards the cabin. 007n7’s shoes creaked as he stepped off of the patio to meet 1337.

 

“You were the one smiling first. I figured there was just something to smile about that I was just, uh… missing.” 007n7’s face turned hot in his own shadow, cast in the cabin’s light. It ran in the meadow; stretching beyond him, stretching through him. Its hand twitched— itched, some unknown itch, some urge, some prospect, some beholding— and laid still. His head brushed the space just in front of 1337’s statue-still pose, the spot just where he’d kneel if he knelt. Where his knees would kiss the ground.

 

“No. I was thinking about something.” 1337 shook his head. “Something stupid.”

 

“Stupid?” 007n7 tilted his head, voice trailing off curiously. Two Time’s words echoed in his head— “Lovers adopt each other’s traits. They adopt each other’s methods of speaking and communication… they learn each other like the back of their hand. Lovers act like each other. Lovers become inseparable from the very idea of a difference between them. Lovers become one in death. It is a beautiful thing to watch and be part of.”

 

The very thought of it brought a blush to 1337’s face. “Well, I mean… not really. Just thinking about the past, y’know… old memories. It feels silly, thinking so much about it when there’s so much else to do.”

 

007n7’s smile faltered, before dropping off his face entirely. The canyons of belief began to sprawl in darkness before them, dreamlike illusions creating prismatic shadows, inkblots foiling the grass holographic green. There seemed to be galaxies of differences between how they thought of the past, now— so much so that any idea of similarity seemed cast far into the distance, parsecs away. “Old memories, huh…” 007n7 mouthed, though no sound came out. “Reminiscing?” He said, almost in wonder— voice coming out a light whisper amongst the breeze singing and whistling through the reeded grass, atonal in his ignorance to the beauty of the sound surrounding him. “I don’t really think that’s stupid. I mean…”

 

There must’ve been something else he wanted to say, but 1337 couldn’t hear it from how far away he was. There must’ve been something else that 1337 couldn’t see; as corporeal as the shadow in front of him, as cast as their fate in iron. He looked behind 007n7 and saw an empty kitchen. An empty dining room. An empty living room. An empty home, nest left barren of straw or string, left unwhole and unwelcome. Someone did live there, but with the way that 007n7 stood in the door, it almost seemed like he had moved all of his things out and was leaving. 1337 couldn’t quite see if anything occupied the empty home anymore, as 007n7 was standing watch over the doorway. He was the guardian of his own empty nest, now; watching over the past, watching over old memories of things and connections he might’ve had at some point in the past, dusting off picture frames with no pictures in them and cleaning rags that were worn with holes from long ago.

 

“Yeah, just, umm…” Well, he didn’t want to sound like some freak who was just staring into his cabin, even though he had been inside it plenty of times. “... I was thinking about… when you were dragging those logs in. You were…” He broke into brief laughter. “Staring up at the sky, about to run into your own porch. God, it was…” He shook his head, chuckling and raising his free hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I was wondering what you were thinking about then.” He was always… lost, somewhere. He always seemed to wander someplace in his mind that 1337 never got to go. There he was, that first night— staring after him in wonder, thrown aback by the sheer volume of his surprise that someone could be so occupied by the features of his own mind, even when performing physical labor. Guest 1337 did the same, but he was mostly wondering about the past, or thinking about what he was going to do next. Recently, he’d read a story about Daedalus, the mythological father who fathered both Icarus and the Labyrinth, imprisoned for the idea or concept of a betrayal that never came to fruition. When he looked into 007n7’s eyes, he saw the machinations of his mind turning… gears spinning in clockworking tandem with each other, clockwise and counterclockwise motions, reworking the labyrinth every night. Protecting the thing that ruined him. “It’s… the same sky as every night, isn’t it?” Everything was the same, after a while. His chest heaved with something he couldn’t name.

 

007n7’s voice interrupted his train of thought, derailing his mind deep into the pits and trenches of old wars. Back when he barely knew what a guest exactly was, or why they were so important— why his parents loomed over him, or spoke in hushed whispers over candlelight when the Bacons cut the power over living normal lives. “No—” 007n7’s voice caught, as if about to chuckle or even entertain a snicker, but he seemed to choke on his own amusement as he walked closer— “It’s not disrespectful. I don’t think so. I was thinking about the skybox. Here, it loops perfectly. You can’t even see where it repeats… up near the edges of the walls. There's minor changes night to night, but it's... constant.”

 

“Sky… box?” 1337 gave an awkward chuckle.

 

With a single ball of yarn, 007n7 began unraveling the secrets of the world around him. “Yeah. So, the sky is, uh… a hollow cube. Our world is in that cube. You can usually see where the inner walls meet the ceiling or the floor, if the baseplate is just kind of floating in midair.” 007n7 pointed towards the sky. “I’ve done the calculations.” If he wasn’t sure about anything else, he was sure about that— he’d seen those very calculations spattered across the backs of their maps, ink peeking through charcoal-covered paper, laden with signs and symbols he was painfully unfamiliar with. He remembered hearing from his recruiter that if he went to Robloxia University or the University of Bloxburg, he could enter the military as an officer. If he’d taken that direction, he would probably still be alive. Many others would not be, though. He’d have to be such a different person by the time he got there to make the decision to go to college… maybe he wouldn’t even hear it at all, and there’d be no reason for him to make that decision. “The sky should be somewhere over there, but you can’t see where the skybox ends. It’s perfect. Seamless. You can’t even tell where it ends. Where the… code peeks through.” He trailed off, looking up at the sky that had borne its weight onto his shoulders, as well as stolen everything from him. 1337 got the hint that 007n7 was troubled by more than the sky, as he gazed into that great night. Off his eyes, 1337 found the archangel Uriel and the constellation of the unicorn dancing amongst the stars.

 

“You’ll… have to forgive me.” Guest 1337 chuckled. “I’m not too familiar with code. I’m just—” ‘a guest,’ but the cold sting of memory stabbed him in the throat. He tasted bile as he remembered stomach kicks and sucker punches on that playground as those bullies beat him to a pulp; shirt stuffed in fists of sneering fury, proof for proof. They did it for the love of the game. There was an inherent danger in that, in passion itself. Duty and discipline maintained themselves as the key principles for which he guided his life, and the bullies became an example of the agonizing, stinging pain of frozen joy. Joy in kicking others became a hollow, Pyrrhic victory— standing on top of a mound of corpses and falling as skeletons and ribcages caved in on each other. Those who identified themselves as solely above or below others suffered the same— so much so that it was difficult to tell the difference between them. They wore the same face of false confidence, either a lack of or a surplus of. He was not ‘just a guest,’ similarly to how they were not just bullies, or Builderman was not just an admin, or Shedletsky was not just a swordfighter. Still, the language came up in his throat, and he struggled to swallow the complex nature his identity took on as he tried to fit his mouth around exactly why he hadn’t looked into code before. “I’m not really… I’ve never been able to see it before.”

 

007n7 paused, but not before looking to the manor and back to him. The resolve in his eyes relieved 1337’s back of the frigid stare of judgment that so often plagued him whenever he walked outside. “I can show you, if you want.”

 

“Really?” 1337’s mouth fell agape, and he shut it with a soft, audible click of his teeth. 007n7 had wanted him to, and he couldn’t say no. Sure enough, he couldn’t see it. He looked back to 007n7 to see if he was pulling a prank on him, but his face was dead serious. “Would that be a bad thing? You know, considering, uh…” Shame crawled into his brain, making itself home among the neurons that made his hands shake. Shame burrowed itself deep into his veins, contracting and expanding like hurried breaths, running from the images plastered on walls. His mind went back to the posters plastered on the walls advertising ‘team c00lkidd—’ and when the implication regarding guests and exploits came to light, he saw his own shame in 007n7’s eyes. After all, Bacons would blame guests for terrible exploiting incidents, influencing legislative changes to the Code of Conduct and administrator jurisdictions using their propaganda to eventually phase out the creation of new guest accounts. The poster in his pocket burned with his own guilt.

 

“Well…” 007n7 trailed off. “I’m not sure if it’s important. That, I mean. If you’re worried, we’re… not talking about the code. Just talking about the make of the world we’re in.” That was how everyone else addressed it, too. Shedletsky would talk to Builderman in hushed tones about admin permissions and ‘gooeys,’ whatever those were. On occasion, when he couldn’t sleep and kept a late night watch over the tiny village, he’d see Builderman and Shedletsky knock on 007n7’s door and disappear within the confines of the empty home for hours. Whatever they were talking about, only the gods themselves knew. 1337 wanted to be in the room, but only to look at 007n7’s back— only that, nothing else, and nothing more. The talk was none of his business.

 

He figured that 007n7 must’ve been uncomfortable with all of the code talk: either that, or he was sick of talking about it all the time. That similarity made his chest heave with a sigh as he found an out in the conversation to help both of them talk around it. “You like stargazing, then?”

 

“Not as much as others. c00lkidd liked it more.” 007n7’s gaze flicked to the pizza slice in his hand. “I know we had a match recently. Is that what you’re here to tell me about?” Even if Guest 1337 wanted to turn the conversation away, it seemed 007n7 wanted to distance himself as far as possible from that close past; the past that crept up from behind him, the past that loomed over both of their shoulders. The past that crawled in shadows amongst the grass. It burrowed into his knees like ticks— itchiness and irritation soothed by duty. He seemed to avoid talking of his own hunger, instead focusing on everything larger than himself, and it was only now that 1337 was able to raise his brows, thoroughly impressed by how 007n7 skirted around the emptiness within him. He’d constructed this dome of artwork; a library of knowledge to pull and reference from whenever he needed to distract someone from what hid within the center of his soul. The worst part was that he couldn’t even look down on it. Everyone did it. Two Time, Builderman, Shedletsky, Chance… even Elliot. Unknowingly, 1337 had stared down that pit in the center of 007n7’s soul, and 007n7 had turned him around and gotten him occupied with the world instead, turning his focus from the interior to the mystical exterior. He’d shown him illusions, and 1337 had smiled like an idiot and bore it with the enthusiasm of a soldier scarfing down the lobster-centered, butter-laden feast before a war. Everyone offered redirections. He’d seen it, though. He’d seen the glimmers of stars hiding deep in the well of space that 007n7 spoke around. From their conversations, he’d seen what he was talking around— drawn sketches of it, seen its true face hiding in the subtext. Lights he’d seen flickering across the walls led him deeper into the labyrinth; promise grew in his heart, a commitment to finding out what face 007n7 was so terrified of. That face stared at him, even now. It knew him. His heart palpitated, and his throat spat out a terrified smile. Euphoria clouded his mind.

 

“Well, partially. I left it below, but we were having pizza down in the bar, and I brought you some thinking you’d be hungry…” He raised one of the plates; the hot one, in particular.

 

“Ah, really?” 007n7’s face didn’t ‘light up,’ per se— he was no Christmas tree, after all. Clearly, the man had been worn and stripped of his respect and affection for others. But inside his soul, one dingy, dusty little Edison light bulb flickered on before going back out again. “Thanks. I hadn’t eaten.”

 

“No problem.”

 

Guest 1337 went to hand the slice over. His hand reached towards 007n7— asking, once more, to be reciprocated. Asking for an open hand. Asking for him to take the only offering he brought, every night. Well, besides paper. 1337 brought the paper. He brought paper, and he brought himself, and he brought pizza. 007n7’s hand raised to meet his own, fingers grazing across 1337’s nail beds as he brushed against the plate, ready to hold whatever burden of survival 1337 offered to him.

 

Somewhere in him, a spike of pollen jutted out from his stomach and stabbed his lung. His breath seized, ribcage spasming as he bled out from within. His throat swelled with a cough, tears welling up in his eyes; as if he was allergic to the very idea of truly fulfilling his duty. His job was to deliver the pizza— and see 007n7, yes, but to deliver the pizza. The plate dropped from his hand, searing him to the touch. Both him and 007n7 reached for the plate at the same time, hands clutching and cradling in an act of desperate connection with the plate.

 

“I’m okay. I’ve— I’ve got it.” 007n7 mumbled, grabbing the plate with both hands and ripping it away from 1337. His hands grew aware of the absence of its warmth— the warmth he once cradled and centered his entire evening around. He grew cold without any trace of duty to fulfill. At the very least, 007n7 was satisfied now. He’d done it. Why 1337 kept glancing towards the inside of his cabin, then, he couldn’t tell; it pressed at the edges of his eyes, his soul preening away old thoughts stuck crooked in his mind for new and fresh answers. Not just solutions (which usually were ‘not the time, think about it later’), but true answers. As much as he wanted to find working solutions, his mind ached to find reason to sate itself with.

 

“I’m sorry, I think there’s— static electricity, uh—” he chuckled— “y’know, maybe I rubbed my shoes wrong on the carpet upstairs or something—”

 

007n7 gave a nervous laugh, holding the plate closer to his chest. “It’s alright, I didn’t feel anything, I’m sorry it hurt you more than it hurt me. I really should’ve, uh— should’ve felt it.”

 

As he juggled the other plate in his hands, he realized one thing. The plate that Guest 1337 was holding was cold. “Oh— shit, that’s the wrong plate. I’m sorry, your fingers must be burning—” Guest 1337 went to grab it, but he couldn’t find a way around the tangled embrace 007n7 had made for himself. He always seemed to find himself in the strangest positions and places: he usually stood hunched over and holding himself, as if his organs were going to spill out if he let go. He seemed to find the most odd ways to sit, shoes up on the edge of the upholstery of the couch (as if he loathed the very idea of dirtying the couch or even touching it at all) and knees touching his chest, back forming an arch that Stickmasterluke would feature as a map in and of itself.

 

“Uh— oops, I’m, uh—” As 007n7 stumbled over his own words, their hands danced a Homecoming dance, room left for Builderman between them. Those kinds of euphemisms seemed a little strange now that he actually knew Builderman, but by habit, he seemed to use them anyway. Once 1337 finally handed the right plate over, 007n7 coughed out something that could’ve (and should’ve) sounded like a laugh, but failed to be so. “I’m— sorry, I didn’t even realize you brought two. I usually just uh—” 007n7’s face exploded in a flurry of blossoms as blush grew thick on the vein-bushels of his face, garden blooming and growing fresh flowers that caught 1337's nose in its decadent smell— “well, I usually just take without really looking, I’m sorry, I really should’ve been, you know… paying attention, I just—”

 

“No—” 1337 surged forward in comfort and relief, free hand waving frantically as if to dispel the tension from the air— “No, I get it, we have a routine, you stick to that routine, it’s really my fault for not paying enough attention and handing you the wrong plate—”

 

It was then that 007n7 looked to his plate and back up to 1337, eyes squinting in question, brows raised in skepticism. The blaze of solar spotlights fell on him now from the center of the universe of his more imaginative mind— the one who all of his questions seemed to orient around. “You usually eat already. Is everything okay?”

 

Of all people, he certainly didn’t expect 007n7 to be asking that question. On the contrary, that’s exactly why he should’ve expected it— because he never should’ve forgotten who 007n7 truly was. His mouth opened and shut, invisible canonical babblings forming their shape in his mouth as he chewed on the idea he wanted to present. Words never formed, as much as he wanted them to; fickle things, hiding in the corners and shadows of his mind, corners of his brain laden with the bushes that hid exactly what he wanted to express. “You know, I was thinking we could eat together, maybe.” His face burned at 007n7’s intricate knowledge of his routine. In the battlefield, knowledge about the enemy’s routines could help plan an ambush. Deep in the marsh, gilly-suited soldiers were dissecting his every tremor and word with bated breaths and piqued interests, picking away at the seconds and hours and waiting for the perfect time to strike. Of all of the times possible, this one would probably be the most perfect, as he had absolutely no clue why he was acting like such a fool.

 

“Uh— oh. Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of time to eat. I was playing cards with… Chance, Builderman, Noob, and them.”

 

“You play cards with them now?”

 

Builderman’s words flashed in his head— “I told him— just us four, Chance, John, him and I. He got this nervous look and asked if you were gonna be there, and I said no because I thought, like an idiot, that he was terrified of you.” He didn’t really seem to be terrified of 1337. If he was, he wouldn’t be so close. He’d probably stay cooped up in his cabin, barely peeking out of the window— probably out of that little peephole he kept stuffed with paper. Maybe he was really that terrified of making a fool of himself while playing cards. Maybe he was terrible at poker, or keeping a poker face. “Recently. I used to play in the barracks… it helps build rapport, I think. It's a friendly competition. You really should come play with us sometime, you know, if you want.” His chest seared with the burning pride of joy at the thought of him being able to laugh alongside everyone else. A heavy dose of heady euphoria coated his brain in sanguine, sugary syrup, lulling him into a state of delusion and delirium where 007n7’s coughs and chokes on his own snickers looped distorted in his head. He realized his foolishness had multiplied exponentially, all because of a stupid proposition. His cheeks seared— not with color, he realized as he drew more attention to it… soft fibers of apples pulled taut in delight, eyes squinted and scrunched, the bridge of his nose crumpled into a stupid little ball… he was smiling. Smiling like an idiot. Like the world wasn’t behind him, watching. Watching him hope.

 

“I don’t know. Shedletsky and Builderman and I, we, uh…” He chuckled neurotically, as if that explained anything. “I’m not sure if it’s ready to… move past that yet.” Right— Builderman was saying something about that, wasn't he? They'd had some run-ins in the past, persecution and all. That probably made things a little awkward. Maybe he could get Chance on board with the idea; Chance did say he hated playing with Shedletsky. “Well— actually, we kind of… broke the ice recently. I was working, and— hold on. Maybe we should…” 007n7 stopped and started his thought erratically; jumping from one train to the next, barely thinking about his own survival, if he’d be caught beneath the tracks. He looked to the cabin. “Maybe you could come in and we could eat. I’m not sure if anyone’s listening. Not like there’s much to overhear, but… I’m sure they don’t want to really let it be known they associate with me. I'm surprised they even told you."

 

1337 frowned. “You really think that?” From what he heard, Builderman almost seemed watchful over 007n7’s progress to the point of personally interfering. Builderman had gone out of his way to notice just how little he saw 007n7 around the cabin and invited him out to play cards, as well as tried his best to resolve his conflict with Elliot. It couldn’t have been that he just didn’t know… right? Maybe he thought that just went away overnight. Or the alternative, that maybe, just maybe, 007n7 thought that Elliot still—

 

“I—” 007n7’s mouth opened for a response before he coughed again. “I don’t think you understand, uh… from their point of view, you know, it’s really just not… I wouldn’t really want to, uh—” He trailed off, an 'ah-' sound lingering sour and heavy on his tongue, curdling in the air.

 

1337 raised his brows at the implication as 007n7 never finished that sentence, and probably for a good reason. “What do you mean by that?”

 

007n7 took a step back and looked towards the door of the cottage. His mouth seemed to reach, corners outstretching their usual capacity to suggest a distortion of a smile. Even then, it was fired and warped by the heat of the sky, stars spinning in the celestial movements they dared not interfere with. “It’s hot out here, isn’t it? I didn't realize how warm it was getting. It must be closer to summer.”

 

“It must be. You’re sweating.” He hadn't looked that nervous in a while. 1337 made a mental note not to pry into 007n7's personal relationships. They were just getting along fine; this was his chance to get inside 007n7's head, figure out what he was really thinking. But now, sand was slipping between his fingers as he tried to clutch tighter onto what 007n7 tried to conceal. Somehow, whatever 1337 was prodding at seemed to make him nervous beyond repair.

 

As sure as prophecy, as their eyes met, 007n7’s face was shining with perspiration; eyes lit with an indescribable panic. Caged animal he was, ready to flee inside with every other word. Shame filled his throat; he’d gotten it all wrong again, acted too fast to make a change. He didn’t wanna make him panic. In fact, that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. But if the slightest provocation towards confrontation made 007n7 sweat bathtubs, 1337 was sure the pit he’d been staring into was larger than he could ever imagine. Deeper than canyons, full of unspeakable fathoms and creations of a mind tortured by its own existence alone. He wanted to know what 007n7 skirted around, but he didn’t care for ripping it from his teeth. There had to be a better way. Something less intrusive. Something different. Something kinder. “We can go inside if you want.” 1337 paused, softening his voice. “It is hot out here.”

 

007n7’s face dropped all tension. His brows relaxed, if not raising mere millimeters near their bridge. His jaw, while not dropping to let flies in, slumped and slouched in the way it would if he was smiling. His eyes stayed trained on 1337, as if trying to laser their way into his mind to figure out what he was going to say. It wouldn’t go away— he wasn’t offering to make this issue go away and ignore it. The issue with that line of thinking was that nothing ever really went away. No past could be struck enough for it to buckle and fall at the feet of its master. Trying to catch guilt and stop it was like running after a boulder that rolled right down a hill; nobody could wrap their arms around it enough to stop it. They ran and ran and ran, hands urging themselves further, bearing them into the future, carrying in reverse. The legs carried the burden of the body, keeping itself from plummeting and keeping itself upright. Eventually, they would give out. Eventually, the boulder would keep rolling. On and on. On and on. Over and over.

 

He just wanted to talk about it later.

 

“That’d be… nice.” 007n7 gave an uncomfortable, grimacing smile. Then again, in some sort of way, he always seemed to look uncomfortable, so he supposed he should stop assuming he was. There seemed to be parsecs and planets between his eyes and the oxygen particles in front of his face; he seemed to view life in a fish-eye lens, constantly drowning while breathing in air. He belonged underwater, where he didn't have to worry about a physical body. “We should go.”

 

They began their trek inside— 1337 marching, 007n7 shuffling along, retreating into the place he'd cooped himself up in all evening. His shoes brushed the grass in gentle strokes, singing against each strand that rose from the earth to greet him. Although he didn’t realize it, the world met him where he was at. It seemed to sing to him; send beautiful things to him. The lightning bugs flickered, stars illuminating the only slice of Robloxia they owned. This was the peace they got; hidden in these moments. Hidden in the plots of land that nowhere else dared to go. As alienating as it was, to someone like 1337, it felt like home.

 

As they started walking in, 1337 picked up the conversation amongst crickets’ chirps— “I’m sorry if I interrupted you while you were working.”

 

007n7 looked away briefly, gait cast to wander and fish for answers far from 1337, then looked back to him, meeting his gaze. Somehow, even though he didn’t know all of 007n7’s signs, he was sure that translated to some degree of believability. “You really, uh— you didn’t. I swear.”

 

“You swear? Really, if I’m intruding on anything, just tell me to go away, I promise—”

 

“Just some personal projects. Nothing you should be worried about, though. I can pull up the console if you’re concerned—” 007n7 glanced away, only for his gaze to be caught on 1337’s hands raised in surrender.

 

“Hey. None of my business. I don’t care. Whatever you can do to help us get out of here…” 1337 smiled. Although anyone else might’ve been suspicious of his constant status of working, 1337 suspected 007n7 the least of anyone to be out for themselves. The busiest people never had any time for evil scheming. The strongest people always kept busy, and 007n7’s mental load was simply too high to think of cheating any of them. “I, at least, appreciate it.” He put a hand on 007n7’s shoulder, and 007n7 gave a hint of a smile. Though he would never say it outright, lest he be accused of any kind of dilly-dallying on duty, 1337 stole away mental pictures of those spectral smiles to look after.

 

“That’s good to hear. It’s… nice. Thank you, 1337.” 007n7 trailed off, looking away from the skybox. There was nothing to do about the sky, which is partially why 1337 was so upset that 007n7 was so drawn to it. Now that 1337 knew about the seams in the sky and the make of the box that they were contained in, he would never stop thinking about it. More importantly, he would never stop thinking about how 007n7 must have felt about it, which was far more important than his own insignificance. “And… the match? Oh— how’s your arm doing?”

 

1337 sat and mulled on it. He remembered, from somewhere, a show that Charlotte used to adore— in that show, people could fuse together to create one harmonious being. 007n7 was much too smart for his own good, and had too much of a heart for anyone to bear. If he remembered every detail of the game, he’d be too strategic and win. It was in the same way that 1337 was much too resourceful for his own good, so he was given nothing to use but his own body. If they combined beings, they would be too powerful together— 007n7’s intelligence and 1337’s strength… it would be perfect. He was a good companion to have in the games, then. Their sympathies would be overpowering, though. They’d want to do too much and feel far too guilty about not being able to do enough. “We died.” 1337 stated. “It was more of a team weakness. We were all distracted. Today’s match didn’t include you, did it?”

 

“No.” 007n7’s face softened, and 1337 hadn’t realized how tense he’d looked until he did. 007n7’s face always seemed to naturally air out its invisible laundry with others, leaving them ducking away from what must be washed eventually, dust particles eliciting cruel sneezes. Now, he looked in front of him, then let his eyes dare to dart to 1337. “Thanks for letting me know. Maybe we can look it over…”

 

“Thanks, Guest. You’re really kind.” 007n7 peeked around. “Did you want to work on the map for, uh—” He pursed his lips. “The new one?”

 

He went to say 'yes—' he always did, he couldn't really deny the opportunity to get to work with 007n7 again. Every chance he got to see him, there was always a new idea waiting, lurking in the depths of that mind he loved to pick. But as his mouth formed and tasted the words, he hesitated. His approval sat in his throat, vibrating and buzzing in protest. It would disturb the scenery; an invasive species. Beautiful, but dangerous. Killing everything that stood in its way. He'd fallen into a routine, somewhere. He'd fallen into a routine he hadn't meant to let into his life, and here it was, taking over his relationships, making his lungs grow lush green with bushes and shrubs that smothered the native flora he adored. A 'no' wasn't as pretty, but it sure did get the job done. He wanted to see what was in the pit. He wanted to jump.

 

"Not really."

 

"I already set out the pencils so we don't have to waste time, and we can—" 007n7 stopped in his tracks and looked back. Betrayal shone BSOD-blue in his eyes, reflecting all of the past mistakes that had led him here. He let out a cough, looking away as confusion clouded his freshly forming cataracts. It's not like they received medical attention, anyway- maybe the next respawn over, some maligned piece of code would reach its fingers around his eyes and clear the lenses. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed, that was rude... really, I'm sure you've got other things to do, and I have to finish up some projects I was working on anyway."

 

"No no no, I, uh..." For now, 1337's words would do enough for clarity. "I kind of look forward to this, you know." He smiled sheepishly, looking aside.

 

007n7's eyes widened. "Really?" Then, his face contorted in confusion— repulsion, even. Even then, beneath it laid the January blooms of a blush. "Why? Sorry, that sounds rude— I'm just confused. We're not really... the most productive team ever. Our win rate has only increased 14-percent since we started a few months ago."

 

"Yeah, I mean..." 1337 laughed. "I throw myself at things until there's nothing left, or I find a new way. I think you called it 'brute-forcing.' So, recently, I had the revelation that I should probably get my act together so I can better protect all of you, but none of the others, besides Builderman, are really that serious about getting a unified strategy together. I don't know if it's me, but... you think in a way that I don't. You have these ideas I would never even think of, but they just... they work! You're a genius! Evading the killer, connecting and communicating, getting everyone to operate alone but work together..." 1337's face grew hot just talking about it. He was making a fool of himself, but the kind words were the least he could do. "I don't know. I have training, I've got... years of experience, but you're something else entirely. I don't know. I like getting an extra opinion, I guess. You make me like the 'thinking' part. I didn't do that before you. If I just get an opportunity to pick your brain for a few minutes, I'm happy."

 

As he looked over, he finally saw that 007n7's eyes shone dinner-plate wide, reflecting his own pink face back at him.

 

"You really... feel that way?"

 

1337 felt his eyes crinkle with his smile.

 

"Yeah. I do. So... we don’t have to always be doing something to make our time worthwhile, I think. I mean, we're not really doing anything right now, we're just talking, and you seem to be enjoying it."

 

They faced each other on the porch, light swinging overhead with the breeze as their faces were coated in a warm glow. 007n7's eyes were much more visible in this light. Slipping the cloak off around its shoulders, then dropping it to the ground, a spark unveiled itself to him, just for him to behold. Even though he couldn't physically touch it, its warmth radiated in his hands, as if he was cradling the world's stars rather than staring into 007n7's eyes. 007n7's jaw flapped up and down, and then he got it— 1337 got it. He'd achieved his final dream— his one wish, his world-ending faith, the thing at the end of the tunnel, the light that beckoned him into the next stage of reality. The one true objective of his soul that transcended all wanting, all yearning— it crossed the river, bending it into the oxbow lake of necessity that curved around his soul.

 

007n7 chuckled at him. "Aren't we always 'just talking?'" Not a cough, not a yawn— a snicker. A chuckle. A giggle, even. The tiniest of laughs, and yet it was there. His ears had been graced by the finest music known to man. He could rest in peace, now, knowing he'd been serenaded into a soothing sleep by 007n7's voicebox. He would likely burn to death, as the mere thought of it set his chest ablaze. “Come in. I have a table and chairs in here… we can eat together, maybe." 007n7 beckoned him inside.

 

1337 tried to form the shape of a word, but he was stuck dumbfounded by the sneak of mischief that had lent itself to 007n7's soul. Something had surfaced from that ocean to greet him; something he didn't even know he was searching for, but had known for years in soft touches and gentle laughs by the golden light of the cooktop. A glint of trickery showed itself to 1337, and now he was hooked. He was sure his eye would start twitching if he didn't come up with something else to make him laugh again; he would shake and itch, tremble and start running around like a madman, eliciting fear from even the fearless. He'd survived war, for Telamon's sake! He'd been hunted by an entire nation of people who were hellbent on enslaving and imprisoning him! He'd been running around Robloxia, staying inside old and musty basements, breathing in mold and shaking with ragged, ratty breaths as his wounds turned to pus and rot, and here he was, struck with the lightning of life, blooming alive with ecstasy and infinite zest, all because 007n7 dared to laugh! Dared to strike him! Dared to slap him across the face with a chuckle! Dared to shake him awake, make him see the stars! How could he! What an injustice! The expectation was that he'd continue on like everything was normal, but it wasn't. It couldn't possibly be. He couldn't just go on. How it was that he wasn't buckling to the floor, grabbing onto the roots of the grass and tearing them up just to get some semblance of peace and grounding, even he wasn't sure.

 

1337 paused, then smiled. “Okay.” His smile spread across his face, melting butter on crisp toast in the bright sunshine of an early morning. "Yeah, okay. Alright, I'll do that."

 

007n7 stepped through the doorway. 1337's body willed him forward into the fresh light of the cabin; washing over him, ebbing and flowing, tides stealing his spirit away in the rich glow, spattering his soul with the colors of possibility. Though, as he stepped forward, his head turned to look at the house he was leaving behind. One window, on the second floor, was open. A curtain had been drawn, and someone was kneeling on the thin sill. A cloak flowed from the devoted statue of their body, an idol made of themselves to worship a god that was not listening. They smiled down, blessing the sacred entrance into 007n7's domain.

 

1337 shut the door behind him with a creak, hand closing around the golden knob. He knelt to untie his combat boots, placing them where they belonged: right next to 007n7's own loafers. He almost laughed at the picture of it; 1337's shoes had seen places 007n7 never would. And yet, the creases adorning each box of their shoes suggested similar lives of wear.

 

He raised his head to hear 007n7 speaking to him, choosing to forget the figure in the window.