amnesiacgrian

[amnesiacgrian]

Quick question: When is Bound To Darkness chapter 10 coming out? Do you know?

Well currently I'm working on a lot of editing and re-writing, and my life is occupied with a multi-author Percy Jackson AU over on Wattpad. So whenever I get time to focus on editing and rewrite the first 9 chapters, then chapter 10 will be released. Sorry to have these out so slow, I just wanna take my time and make this story good.

[amnesiacgrian]

Chapter 2 - Abyss

Part 1

I hardly slept that night, for obvious reasons. The only thing running through my head was the note I had found. Trust no one… what an ominous message. I wonder who would’ve left that with me.

With the rising sun came Mumbo’s awakening, slowly but surely. I pretended I had been sleeping as well, slowly forcing myself to stand from my cramped position and stretch. The note crumpled in my hand, reminding me to store it away. Keep suspicions away for now.

But why was that note so… terrifying? It was words on paper, basically nothing, yet somehow it felt so much more sinister than just that. I dunno, I guess it bothered me. It felt like it should be a secret, something closely guarded.

I could feel Mumbo’s eyes on me, watching my thought process go down quickly, so in response I blinked up at him tiredly. “Hello Mumbo. How’d you sleep?”

He shrugged, not speaking right now. He looked about half-awake as he wandered to a chest, pulling out some eggs and pork. Those went into a furnace, laid overtop coals and left to cook up.

I glanced out the window at the sun rising over this small island, reflecting off the vast ocean right outside. It was blinding, the waves reflecting crystals of light into my eyes. I could see a boat in the distance, half-built and partially shrouded by early morning mist.

“Here,” Mumbo held out some of the eggs in my direction, a small smile on his face. “Breakfast.”

“Thanks.” I smiled back, taking the tray and devouring the food. I was much more hungry than first imagined… but then again, I can’t remember the last time I actually ate anything. Like, I could remember eating food obviously, but no actual meals.

As the last bites were taken care of, a small knock came from the floor entrance of the treehouse. Mumbo popped open the trapdoor with a foot, his plate still in his hands, and in came a new person.

She was honestly adorable. Dark brown hair with pure white ends, bright eyes the same shade as the oak bark to my left. Her pink and white cardigan went well with her white blouse and blue skirt, and her smile made me blush.

“Oh, hello!” She saw me, grinning. “Glad Iskall warned me you were awake. I’m StressMonster, but call me Stress.”

“Oh, uh… I’m Grian.” I waved a small bit, trying not to fumble too much. I turned down to the floor, kicking at it a small bit.

“And I’m chopped liver,” Mumbo helped Stress up the ladder and into the treehouse. Her wings were pure white, larger than you’d expect for a person her size, folded tightly to her back. She giggled, running a hand through her hair mindlessly.

“So it’s obvious that the few hours I took to actually sleep were when everything exciting happened. Glad to be of use.” I enjoyed her thick accent, the teasing lilt making us all smile.

“Stress-” Mumbo sighed, shaking his head. Stress giggled, winking his direction. “Whatever, is there any progress?”

“Sadly no. No exit Portals can be opened.” Stress shifted from left to right, seeming unable to stay still. Her smile became a little more forced, voice turning serious. “I have a daughter that I need to go see, I need to get out of here-”

“We know, Stress. Everyone has family out of Hermitcraft.” Mumbo pulled her into a hug, making me feel suddenly like I was… intruding, on a situation I knew nothing about. “I’m sure we’ll get out of here soon.”

“So from what I’m understanding,” I butted into the conversation, “The only way out of this place is blocked, and… no one can fix this?”

Stress and Mumbo shared a look, knowing something I didn’t. I pretended not to notice right away, letting Stress say something.

“For now, it’s… better that we let the Admins suss this one out. Speaking of which, X asked me to bring Grian over to his base for an Admin Scan.”

The slight brow crease of worry in Mumbo’s brow making me wonder what an Admin Scan exactly meant. “I thought X was going to come here and do that.”

“He was. Initially.” Stress shrugged a bit. “But now he’s needing Grian to be in his base to actually do the Scan. Something about closer to the Data Center?”

“Where is he holed up these days?”

“Some farms near the coast. He showed me around before I came here.”

Mumbo huffed, turning to dig in a chest. “I’ll take you there then. If something happens to Grian on the way there it’s on my head.”

“I’m right here,” I quietly protested, slightly cross at the way these two talked like I wasn’t here. Stress giggled, flashing me a grin.

“We know,” She opened the trapdoor to the ground, “That’s the problem.”

Before I could ask anything else, she had dropped. She launched into the air, wings spreading around herself gracefully. I watched in awe, before getting a nudge from behind me.

Mumbo was there, holding two pairs of wings. “Everyone gets an elytra this season. You wanted to fly?”

~~

Flying was so much easier than I could ever imagine.

We had started out at the very top of Mumbo’s treehouse, where I learned how to strap the wings to my body. As I connected the final strap, the wings morphed into a dark brown, reddish streaks at the very tips giving the impression of feathers.

Mumbo’s wings were black, specked with white like flecks of paint. They were long and wide, while mine were short and angled.

“Ready?” He smiled, holding a rocket in his hand. I glanced to the sky where Stress was lazily doing loops, blending in with the clouds in the infinite blue.

“Yeah. Just… jump and light, right?” I held the rocket in my hand as well, the pull-tab ready for release.

“Right,” Mumbo looked forward, determined, “One… two… three!”

We leapt off the tree at the same time, fumbling in nearly the same manner to unfold the wings. I pulled on the tab a bit before Mumbo, letting the rocket shoot me up into the sky.

Like it was natural, I pressed a button near my chest, and the elytra expanded behind me. I felt my ascent slow, angling forward into a glide easily. The breeze blowing on my face, the way the land below was so far yet steadily rising up… this all felt so…

Familiar.

I was laughing, doing loops carelessly. The air felt fresh, untouched, unchanged. I glanced down, gliding upside down, to see ^V^80 shaking 4!$ head at my antics.

“Grian!”

I gasped, realizing my fall had picked up, I was heading down headfirst to the ground. I fumbled for another rocket, but it was too late. I crashed into the ground hard, dust flying around -

- And I shot up in the middle of some small island. I sat in the middle of a beach, warm sand below my legs. The elytra that had been pinned to my back was gone, along with the note that had been in my pocket.

I panicked, checking everywhere on me for the note. Nothing. The note was gone, gone, gone-

“I knew you didn’t sleep last night!”

I jumped a solid meter in the air, turning rapidly to see the moustached man named Mumbo coming in for a landing. In one hand was the rocket he was using to fly, the other holding the back-to-grey elytra I had worn a moment ago.

“Uh… wh-what do you mean?” I grinned sheepishly, walking towards where he touched down in the sand. The elytra was thrust in my arms, and I was quick to strap it back on.

“You would have respawned in the treehouse if you had slept last night. It’s just how this works. Instead you popped up here.”

I shrugged, finishing attaching the elytra. “So what if I didn’t sleep? Does it matter?”

“Not currently, but give it a few nights.”

“What does that-” Before I could finish my question he had taken off, leaving me to fumble with another rocket and launch into the air.

I followed Mumbo’s lead back to his base, where Stress was pacing on top of the tree anxiously. Her eyes locked onto us as we came in for a landing, a relieved smile taking over her face when I stumbled forward.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Stress walked forward, fussing with my sweater. “One moment you were fine - better than any newbie has the right to be - the next you’re falling to the ground headfirst!”

“I…” I shrugged, pulling back from Stress quickly. “I don’t know. It was weird, I saw…”

What exactly did I see? It was like I was looking down at someone, but they weren’t there. Not really, at least.

“It was like… someone was there, but not.” I looked back up at the duo before me. “The ground was different, and I wasn’t flying down. I… I dunno.”

“Weird,” Mumbo glanced to the sky, where the sun was rising higher and higher. “I would love to chat more about that, but we should get to Xisuma’s base before he has a cow.”

“Right.” Stress flexed her wings, looking to the sky as well. “Follow me.”

~

...Xisuma’s ‘base’ was a bunch of farms with a mineshaft heading downwards. Xisuma himself was interesting. His bright green armor, clashing with a grey and purple helmet gave off the aura of mystery.

“It’s not much, just to get me started,” The man in question smiled sheepishly, leading us to a makeshift dirt-hut with a bed, “But it’s something.”

“I like it,” Stress grinned, “Quite quaint.”

“Thank you Stress for pretending.” He ruffled her hair as she puffed her cheeks out in a pout. I smiled as well, adoring their interaction. Mumbo had taken up a spot sitting nearby on a pile of logs, tinkering with some redstone to keep himself busy.

“Anyways, we should start now.” X gestured to his bed in the hut. “Lie down there before I black you out on your feet.”

Well that didn’t sound bad at all.

“How… exactly does this work?” I questioned, settling onto the bed. I stayed sitting up in the bed as he pulled a holographic panel out of nowhere.

X glanced at me curiously. “Well… everyone has Data. You know what Data is, right?”

“Mate, I know jack about jack.” The snap had me a bit surprised, worried that Xisuma was gonna take it as an insult, but he just laughed a bit.

“Right. Mumbo warned me about the memory stuff…” He sighed. “Well essentially everyone is made of their own Data, which Servers use to identify each person. It’s kind of complicated, but really important to our very existence.”

I nodded a bit. “So… how does that fit into the Scanny-thingy?”

“Well when I perform an Admin Scan, I can have access to your Data. Your Data contains everything about you. Memories, most importantly. By seeing your memories, I’ll maybe be able to figure out how you got here. So lie down, and we can get started.”

With a sigh, I flopped back onto the comfortable sheets. I couldn’t see what X was doing over me, but Stress squeezed my hand from nearby.

“I hope it all works out. I have some base stuff to get back to, but give me a ring if you need me.” She pulled her hand away, before leaving the small hut. The door clicked shut behind her, leaving X and myself alone in the darkness. I knew Mumbo was just outside, but that wasn’t quite as reassuring as I had hoped it would be.

His tablet thingy glowed a faint blue as he paced the small area. “Alright, we’re about ready to go. Close your eyes, and try not to resist this.”

“Resist?” I closed my eyes as requested. “What do you mean, resist?”

He didn’t answer. Well, he might have, if I didn’t suddenly fall through the ground. My eyes shot up as I fell, arms and legs flailing for any kind of purchase. I tried to spread my elytra, but found it missing, along with anything else I had been carrying on my person.

“Try not to resist this.”

Oh. He probably meant this. I took a shaky breath, doing my best to still my body. I was still falling, but I knew I wouldn’t crash. I took another deep breath.

Images appeared around me. I had my eyes closed, and within the blackness I could see movement, color coming to life. Somehow I knew this was all me, or parts of me.

Yet every time I tried to focus on one of the scenes floating around my body, it vanished. It was like grasping at straws, coming up with nothing.

A dull pain came from my back. It was like something was shifting, pushing, breaking free of my skin from underneath. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream as the pain grew more and more.

The moment the pain grew too much, I jerked forward and out of the bed. My eyes were open, and breathing was still an issue through the pain. The stabbing, slicing ache slowly faded into nothing as I became more aware of the fact that I was awake.

“Grian.” X had been kneeling in front of me, hadn’t he? “What happened?”

“Back,” I managed to squeak out, another ripple of pain making me jerk, “Hurts.”

“Can I see?” Such a gentleman, asking for my consent amidst the agony. I could only nod a bit, wincing as his cool hands slid the back of my sweater up.

Or, tried to.

Something was trapped there, yanking on my back. I cried out, jerking away from X’s hands.

“Grian, I need to be able to see your back. I need to make sure it’s not a glitch or… something worse.”

A glitch? I had no idea what that meant, but if X was mentioning it it was probably bad. He slowly slid my sweater off, making sure it didn’t get caught on my back again.

Whatever had been there before was gone. Supposedly, I had faint scars right next to each of my shoulder blades, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest pain other than the phantom memories I had.

“And the Scan? Complete failure. I couldn’t glean anything from your Data before you started screaming… and I’d rather not hurt you again.”

“So… there’s no other way for you to figure out who I am, or why I’m here?” I could hear the disappointment in my voice, and I hated it.

“Sadly no. I wish I could do more.” He seemed frustrated, but also… somewhat excited. “I’ll figure it out soon enough, but for now I should get you back to Mumbo’s.”

I nodded, standing and following him out of the dirt hut. The pain was but a faint echo in my mind now, but it felt like foreshadowing. Something big was going on here… and I had no idea who was responsible.

[amnesiacgrian]

So currently I'm working on the last bit of editing for Chapter 2, and also working out some things with other AU's. I like to keep myself busy with lots of AU ideas so I don't burn out as easy.

So send in any questions you may have about specific Hermits and I'll answer as in-depth as I can without spoiling too much. (Nearly everything I have written roughly is over on my Wattpad, so if you find that you can ask questions about that as well!)

~Parker

[amnesiacgrian]

Lore Talk: Servers and The Hub

So to give anyone that cares backstory about this world I’m building, I’m making a small series called Lore Talks. Let me know what you wanna know more about and I might dedicate a whole Lore Talk to it. For now, this one specifically is the world the Hermits are a part of. So let’s just get right into it!

Some Basic History:

Before there was a Hub, Servers appeared at random. Each was unique, with its own varying content, and these Servers might have random connections to other Servers through mystical Portals (think nether portals but with quartz instead of obsidian, and the misty shiz is like blue). Occasionally, a Server would spawn a player or two, but that was rare. Mostly it would just be mobs and villagers or whatever. That is, until a Server spawned eight different people. Each person that spawned had a form of control over the Server around them, from the land to the animals to magic itself. These people stuck together, discovering ways to protect themselves from death with inventions of new items through a process called Crafting. They discovered how to open their inventories, how to build, everything. Eventually these people learned how to make Portals connecting the Servers, setting them up in an area to find more people. They called this space the Hub, protected it with walls and light. They taught other people how to live like they had, learning more and more of the workings of Servers. This led to the eight leaving the Hub in the hands of other people, taking off to restart in their own world far away. They left the Hub in the hands of two people, two supposedly trustworthy people: Notch and Herobrine.

Who Created The Hub?

No one knows the creators as anything more than their titles, passed down from old people, known now as Players, to the new. The Baker - Created new ways to eat with plants and animals, said to make the first ever cake The Kipper - Said to have given the unlocked potential of the ocean to players, taught them to fish and to channel lightning with tridents The Astronaut - Taught the original players how to tell locations with the Stars, coordinating the constellations to his will The Guardian - Invented swords and shields and armor of all materials so players can protect themselves from the horrors of the unknown The Sorcerer - Invented potions and brewing, was said to be the first to soar on an elytra over the End The Necromancer - Gave players the power to respawn after death if they choose, without becoming a zombie The King - The leader of these eight, learned how to mine all sorts of precious materials to build the Hub empire

So yeah, that was my lore talk about the Hub and Servers. If you wanna know anything else please let me know! I’m eager to share info with everyone!

[amnesiacgrian]

Okay I completely forgot to mention this, but they are trapped on the Server. Imma make a post later talking about the Hub and whatnot, but for now just know that its a mix of Minecraft and Real Life

My friend recommended this blog to me, and I’m super curious to see this play out! Are all the hermits trapped on the server rn, or are some locked out?

Currently, I’m not using all the Hermits from S6. So people like Python, Jess, TFC, etc may be mentioned, but not really talked about extensively.

A list of hermits that appear in the chaps I have written

Grian

Mumbo

Stress

Tango

Iskall

Xisuma

Impulse

Zedaph

Jevin

Scar

Cub

Joe

Cleo

False

Ren

Wels

Evil X

Biffa

(I am not tagging these names rn, but they’ll be tagged innchapters where they’re written)

[amnesiacgrian]

My friend recommended this blog to me, and I’m super curious to see this play out! Are all the hermits trapped on the server rn, or are some locked out?

Currently, I'm not using all the Hermits from S6. So people like Python, Jess, TFC, etc may be mentioned, but not really talked about extensively.

A list of hermits that appear in the chaps I have written

Grian

Mumbo

Stress

Tango

Iskall

Xisuma

Impulse

Zedaph

Jevin

Scar

Cub

Joe

Cleo

False

Ren

Wels

Evil X

Biffa

(I am not tagging these names rn, but they'll be tagged innchapters where they're written)

[amnesiacgrian]

Can I just say, I REALLY love your story?!?! I read it on Wattpad and when I saw the last chapter about there being a Tumblr for it I came straight here :D can’t wait to see what comes next!

Oh my god thank you so much! That means a lot to me, and I hope you enjoy the edits I'm working through and posting here.

[amnesiacgrian]

Open to questions!

Welcome to the official blog for my Bound to Darkness AU! I’m planning to slow down the pace of the story here versus my Wattpad by including chapters between chapters. More fun tidbits of the time Grian spends in Hermitcraft. Mostly filler stuff.

If you have any questions about this AU, feel free to ask! I am not an artist, so I will not be drawing stuff, but I do plan to write for any requests I get. So if you want Grian to interact with other Hermits, please send those requests my way!

(I made the header and icon myself, I know they’re trash but I like the color scheme :D)

~Parker

[amnesiacgrian]

Bound To Darkness: Chapter 1 Awakened

Prologue

~

I shot awake, panting heavily. My body was trembling uncontrollably as I vainly tried to remember moments before, the weird dream that I had. But nothing came up. Absolutely nothing.

“Uh… hello?” A soft voice came from my right, making me jump. I turned, arms raised to protect myself from the man with a big bushy mustache. He held his hands up innocently, backing away a step.

“I…” I lowered my arms, unable to stop the tremble in my shoulders. “S-sorry… habit?”

“Do you get… attacked often?” The man walked forward, shoving his hands into his black dress pants pockets. He looked ragged, white button-up shirt untucked and jacket shoved back.

I shrugged helplessly, not… not actually sure. No memories of mine were coming to mind, it was blank. I knew nothing about myself, or this person, or… anything.

The man took my silence as an invitation to step forward, lowering his hands slowly. I noted he had an iron sword tucked in his belt, and a helmet that sat crooked on his head. I felt suffocated by the red sweater that I had on, especially since I had no idea where it came from.

I got a glance around the room I had woken up in to see it was a simple wood house. It looked like planks mingled with leaves to make a treehouse, wherein chests were littered about and disorganized to the extreme.

“My name’s Mumbo,” The man redrew my attention, his hand held out to me. “Myself and my friend Stress found you nearly a week ago. We thought - well, she did - that you had glitched out.”

“Glitched… glitched out?”

“Yeah. Y’know… the code messes with your body?” Mumbo seemed to be trying to get some kind of information out of me. Information I didn’t have. His hand dropped as his smile did.

Yet the term Glitched Out sounded familiar. Like a forbidden term, or… something. Truly, I had no idea what this man was talking about.

“Well… basically, we’re made of something called Code. Everyone is. But sometimes, when entering doorways to various worlds called Servers, our Code can… glitch. It’s a deadly curse that is rare, but not rare enough.”

I nodded, following along the best I could. It was all extremely confusing, but also like something I had already known.

“What I wanna know… how did you get here?” He looked at me for a long moment before it clicked. I was supposed to answer him.

“Well if I knew that, I would be glad to know something.” I felt like… like I could trust this person. Something in me resonated with this guy, bonding us in a weird sense. “I don’t really know… anything. No memories, thoughts, nothing. I don’t even know my name.”

“Oh… oh, that is strange.” Mumbo turned away, pacing the length of the small treehouse. He pulled up a holographic screen from some kind of watch on his wrist, pressing various buttons. “I’m gonna ask X and Iskall to see if they would know anything about memory loss…”

“So you don’t know me either?”

He glanced back, hesitating a moment. His face scrunched up in concentration for only a second. “No… no, I don’t think so. Your tag on this server says Grian, if that helps any.”

I shook my head, jumping at the sound of loud cracks from outside. A window behind the bed showed a person gliding down on some kind of silvery metallic wings, armor crafted from blue gems covering their head and lower half. They pulled of their helmet, showing another man. Except, unlike Mumbo… this man looked to be half robot.

“Iskall got here fast,” Mumbo smiled, vanishing into a hole in the floor. I glanced back out the window to see him running to the man he called Iskall, talking to him about me judging by the way he glanced to my face in the window. I pulled, back, sitting on the bed anxiously.

Within a few minutes, the ladder leading up to the small treehouse creaked and groaned, and Mumbo had returned with his… friend? Iskall studied me for a long moment, only poking half of his body through the entrance.

“Why hello there!” Okay, that accent was definitely foreign… but I couldn’t even tell where it was from. Just that it was different from Mumbo, and different from me. “My name is Iskall! And you are?”

I shrugged a bit, letting Mumbo answer for me. “Their tag just says Grian, and they don’t seem to know either.”

“I see. This is why you called me in.” Iskall pulled himself the rest of the way into the room, silver wings neatly tucked behind his back. I found myself studying the intricacies of the foreign metal, how it interlinked and seemed to connect to various parts of Iskall’s torso.

He caught me staring, and laughed a bit. “I’ll hook you up with an elytra sometime. If you’re stuck here with us-”

“-So the portals are still blocked?” Mumbo sounded concerned, but I was just confused.

“Portals?”

“The entrances and exits to this Server.,” Iskall jumped in to explain, frowning slightly, “They’re supposed to be open at all times, but for some reason they’re blocked from the outside, preventing us from leaving.”

“Joe is probably still panicking then,” Mumbo was mostly talking to himself, but the small room allowed me to hear everything, “I know I am.”

“We’re all worried, but hopefully someone will get us out soon.”

“Now for the real issue…” Iskall moved towards me, reaching out and grabbing my wrist faster than I could blink. I shifted a bit, weakly trying to pull away as he pressed his fingers against where my pulse would be.

“He doesn’t remember anything,” Mumbo glanced out the window, “and I asked for X to join us as well, but he hasn’t responded.”

“He… doesn’t seem glitched.” Iskall ran his hand up my arm, checking for… something. “But there is something else…”

“Like?”

Iskall glanced up at Mumbo, shrugging. “I don’t know. Suma might, but if he hasn’t responded to you he’s probably busy.”

I inferred that this X and Suma were the same person, just different parts of a name?

“I’ll ask Tango as well to come over. Stress will be here soon enough, probably, and Jevin was going to pop by if Grian didn’t wake up.”

All these names Mumbo said were foreign to me, making me wonder how many people were trapped here. These two, this XSuma and Joe, plus the three Mumbo had just mentioned… it felt bad knowing that so many people were here. And none of them knew me, most likely.

“Did I miss something?” A man poked his head up into the treehouse, and I froze. Something in me screamed that the blonde hair and red eyes were familiar, something I knew! I shot to my feet, staring at the man.

“You…” I knew the others were looking at me like I was crazy, the tremble had restarted through my body, but I didn’t care. “You were in my dream!”

“Huh?” The man pulled himself up, the bright red jacket hanging off his shoulders served to cement my memory of him, the void, but… not everything he said stuck. A lot of it was jumbled, but it was the one memory I had.

“You were… we were in this void.” More thoughts of the vision arose, and I looked over at Mumbo. “A girl called you something starting with an O, I heard her. You called her Nat, I think. You were talking about me, but… but he…”

I looked back to the blonde. “You said something… dark was coming. Or was here, in this Server. You… did something, I think?”

The man walked over, looking me in the eyes. “I honestly don’t remember any of this. Mumbo, is what he saying true?”

Mumbo nodded, looking honestly shocked. “Yeah, Stress and I were talking just yesterday about him. Used our real names, and…”

“Okay, okay.” Iskall walked over, holding his arms out to break up the conversation. “This sounds like a lot to think about. Grian-”

I straightened up, somewhat instinctively.

“-whatever you can remember is probably important. For now, I think it’s best you stay with Mumbo for now and get introduced to the Server one by one. There’s a lot of people here, and any one of them could help you remember something.”

“I’m okay with that.” Mumbo smiled at me a bit. “Tango, Iskall, if you guys think of anything that could be important, please let us know.”

“Will do!” Tango smiled, waving goodbye before jumping out of the treehouse. I watched as his elytra, this one a blood red shade, opened and launched him into the air. A few pops later and he had vanished into the sky.

“I’ll head out as well.” Iskall followed Tango with a quick goodbye, leaving Mumbo and I alone in the treehouse once more.

“I think I wanna try flying,” I found myself speaking aloud, but didn’t try to hold myself back, “it looks like fun.”

“Well, I’ll introduce you to Suma, who can hook you up with an elytra.” He glanced outside at the darkening sky, sighing to himself. “For now, we should get some sleep. You can take the bed.”

“It’s your place, Mumbo.” I backed away, gesturing to the bed. “You take it.”

“Grian-”

“I’ve already intruded a lot on you guys,” I shrugged, shoving my hands into the large hoodie pocket. Something brushed against my hands, and I grabbed a piece of paper. I wanted to bring it out right now, read it right away… but I kept it there instead. “I don’t want to steal your bed as well.”

My determined look must have gotten through to the mustachioed man, who sighed and walked over. He landed on his bed, seeming to fall asleep instantly. I grabbed an extra pillow and blanket and took up residence in a corner of the room.

Once I was sure he was sleeping, I pulled out the paper in my pocket. The single sentence written on the white parchment sent chills down my spine.

Trust no one

[amnesiacgrian]

Bound To Darkness: Prologue

---

“-was passed out when I spawned in.”

“Who is he?”

“Tag name says his name is Grian… anyone ever heard of him?”

“...”

“Me neither.”

---

I felt myself floating amongst the universe, stars the backdrop to my body. In the distance, an unknown man in a dark red jacket had his back turned to me. An eerie melody came from the man, cold and unrelenting in its wavering pitch.

“It’s been days, Oliver. If he doesn’t wake up soon, he might have been caught out by a glitch.”

That voice was different, not coming from the man in front of me. I looked around the endless abyss, searching for the source of the voice.

Hello, Grian.

That was definitely from the male in the jacket. He turned, and amidst the darkness all I could see was a pair of bright red eyes.

‘Who are you?’’ My inner thoughts exploded around me, echoing through the abyss, dissipating into nothing. ‘Where am I?’

You are in the space between. Within the code of servers, here and there. I am here to bind you to one world, one server.

‘How did I get here?’’ I moved closer to the man. ‘Who am I?’’

Something… broke. Something dark is within the server you were meant to join, and I had to contain it somehow. The man glided closer to me, revealing his eyes glowed enough to light his blonde hair. Unfortunately… I had to bind it to someone. You.

‘What does that mean?’’ I could only look into his eyes. Nothing in me had the strength to move.

“Nat, he has to wake up somehow. He’s still here, still breathing. Let me have some hope.”

‘Who is he?’ I was looking around, for the worried person. ‘Who are you?’

You will wake up to them soon. For now I have to talk fast, before I also forget this happened. The man reached out, grabbing my shoulders. The passcode is 15&4\\BS, 57?355, 74^60, and his true name.

‘His true name?’

Before the man can say anything more, the void fades. I find the man has vanished, and my own body dissolving to nothing.

Then I woke up.

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