#shawney gk999

[savebatsfromscratch]

No.1: Dying (In Minecraft)

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50460067

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Words: 1,969

Cws: Temporary Death, sort of body horror? I don’t know how to define it. Glitching in real life. Also temporary loss, specifically, and a bit of battle/war.

Notes: I’ve always wanted to know what happens when a User-Who-Is-Not-A-User loses all their hearts, and this was one crack at it! It’s not amazing, but it’s a shockingly difficult concept to write, so I’m okay with it. :3

Prompt: No. 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.” Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?” (I used all parts.)

Gameknight’s head spun as the battle raged on. He and his brave villagers must have been fighting for hours now, and his cracking sword hilts dug into his bare fingers with a vengeance as he held tight to the metal. But it wasn’t just his swords that were running low on durability, as each and every attack crashed into him, he saw the cracks in his enchanted diamond gear growing wider, threatening to let the arrows in at the moment the durability of his armor snapped.

His breath came hard and fast, and his HP was quivering dangerously low, but he knew he had no time to eat to replenish it. The waves just kept coming and coming, no matter how hard he fought. Every skeleton arrow in his side, every glancing blast from some poor exploding creeper, every small scratch of rotting zombie claws on his exposed face… it all burned, and he had no time to try and stop the dropping of his heart as he continued to fight.

He had to call his group to retreat, but their backs were already to the wall of the village. If they dropped back any farther, the innocent children and elderly inside the village would be swarmed just as he was out here. Gameknight coughed out some spit as he defended against an enderman’s fists with the flat side of his diamond sword. Just because these people were born of code did not mean their lives were worth any less than Gameknight’s, and it hurt him to hurt them.

To protect his friends, those in the village and those that bravely fought around him, he knew he had to keep going, even though he could eject himself from the fray if he really wanted to. But what would a cowardly move like that make him? No better than the monster kings and viruses that sent those they ruled over into a war that, with Gameknight in charge, had been all but unwinnable until now. (Though Gameknight really hoped it was still unwinnable for those evil forces.)

He sliced through monster after monster, feeling XP shower the ground around him and drift into his level bar as his enemies were destroyed. He had to be in the thirties now, too bad it did nothing to heal his dropping HP or dwindling hunger bar.

Gameknight continued to fight, his mind whirling like the windmill that was the two swords he held in his hands. He was like a machine of destruction, something that those that had seen his Greifer days would probably be able to attest to, and he tore through enemy ranks like an evil thing in his own right. It was just too bad that there was only one of him, then. But as it turned out, even he had to go. 

Gameknight let out a shriek as, without any warning, an arrow buried itself through armor. “A piercing bow-!” He managed to think, feeling his HP drop to about half a heart as he stumbled into a sitting position, searching madly through his inventory for any sort of food or healing item. He had to get one before an enemy noticed that he had fallen, because if they saw how low he was, the small circle that had drawn away from him would surely find it in themselves to pounce.

Gameknight felt dizzy. He didn’t think he’d ever been this low on hearts before, and as he frantically searched for the piece of bread that he knew was hidden between weapons, blocks, and shields, he tried to fight the panic that grew. If he died in Minecraft, would he die in real life? The villagers only got one chance, why shouldn’t he? 

And, on that horrifying reminder, the sharp mandibles of a spider found his neck, biting hard and deep as Gameknight screamed. It must have been only a second or two that he was down, but it took even less for the spider’s poison to seep into the half of a heart he had left, shattering it, and his body, in a shower of XP and items.

The sky of Minecraft seemed to dissolve into code, striping away hitboxes and blocks one by one as Gameknight felt himself dying. He had no time to think, he had no way to fight, only a last screech of pain as his pixelated eyes lost sight of the gorgeous world he had learned to call home.

Glitches and flashes of light, making way for an unending shadow.

_____________

Shawney screamed in horror as he saw his friend’s computer screen be overtaken by those horrible words. Those, scarily final, expressions of exactly what had happened. Shawney jumped away from his own laptop, his own digital battle forgotten as he raced to grab his friend. The basement was small enough that Shawn could reach Tommy’s real body in just a moment, but his sinking brain seemed to drag milliseconds into hours as those horrible words played on the screen.

Shawney shook Gameknight, feeling hot tears already dripping down his face as he did his best to revive his friend. Usually, if ejected, a User woke up right when they had been kicked from the game, why was it taking so long for Tommy to follow that rule?

If the villagers only got one chance, why would a User-that-is-not-a-user get any more?

Shawney felt bile rise in his throat as he stumbled back, hitting his back against a desk covered with broken inventions as he did his best to process what was happening. There was no way it was true. He had to keep calm. That couldn’t just be the end, he and Gameknight had their whole lives ahead of them, and though he had never managed to get the words out, Shawney somehow knew that he wanted said lives to be intertwined, and if the Oracle didn’t let Gameknight out of that horror, that truth could never be a reality. 

But he had to keep focus, and he found it in himself to check on the other Users in the room. Jenny, and Gameknight’s dad. Both of them were breathing normally, both of their screens displayed alright numbers of hearts. Shawney’s legs shook as his knees threatened to give out. Why hadn’t he been paying attention to Gameknight’s screen? Could he have saved him if he had? Could he have saved him if he was in the game too.

Shawney felt frozen in place, even as his own minecraft character was destroyed, leaving the villagers in his area lost in the redstone front. Unable to defend their traps. Shawn wanted to help, but he couldn’t. His eyes were locked on Tommy’s unmoving body as Shawney’s mind replayed memory upon memory. There was no way.

It was then, as Shawney felt his eyes begin to fill with tears, that the first glitch of light flashed through the basement. It looked odd, like the world behind Gameknight was that of a corrupted Minecraft world, glitching with stripes and floating pieces and unloaded chunks. Gameknight contorted slightly as a wave of colorful sparks shot up from his spasming body. Shawney yelped and immediately he dove forward, trying to shake his friend awake while also trying not to hurt him, so scared he was.

On the positive end of things, Tommy was alive, on the negative one, there was no way that this clashing of worlds could be good for him. Shawney hadn’t interacted with the digitizer quite as much as Tommy and his family had, but he still knew enough to know that these “glitches” jerking through his friend were in no way normal.

“Tommy,” he called, shaking his friend once more as a particularly large shiver of corruption shot up his spine, “Tommy!”

_____________

Gameknight was stirring, but he felt lost in a pile of fiberglass shards as he looked up at the ceiling, blinking glitches and flashes of code out of his eyes. The world was blurry. It didn’t look right. He could vaguely register hands on his shoulders, but as he swooned from the pain still in his neck and veins, he couldn’t seem to place a face on who they belonged to.

His mind felt like it had been replaced by a fluffy mess, and every couple of seconds he could see a flash of unnatural light lighting up his vision, making his surroundings return to that horrible foggy place. A place of unregistered items, of glowing eyes and whispered words. A place that could infect you like the viruses, a place that didn’t want you to leave.

But he had broken out, hadn’t he?

That was why those hands were shaking him, that was why that voice was calling his name. The world was coming back into focus, but simple sounds still echoed like songs sang in mountain ranges, and every movement shot shocks of glitches through his body.

He groaned as he tried to focus on the person who held him. Familiar brown skin, curly hair, a show winning smile that Gameknight knew was hidden under all of that terror. Shawney. Gameknight’s best friend, and arguably the person that he was closest to. He was here for him. Of course he was.

Gameknight tried to focus on the words coming out of his friend’s mouth as he babbled fears and questions, but it was hard to catch much as the world continued to spin around him. He felt like he’d been through death and back, which, of course, he had been, but it didn’t make the fact that he couldn’t understand what Shawney was saying any easier. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. The world spun too fast for that.

All he could do was breathe.

As shocks of pain from every ghostly bite and scratch kept replaying through his nerves, it was everything he could do to keep himself from falling back into that horrible place. Each blow like a drum mallet to the head as he tried to regain his footing on the world that should have been most familiar to him.

Gameknight couldn’t even move his arms, which hung limply at his sides as Shawney continued to try and shake him into revival. But oh how he wanted to. He wanted to pull the arrows from his skin, though he could see they weren’t really there. He wanted to get back to defending the village, though he could tell he was too far gone for that. He wanted to pinch the poison from his veins, though he knew that that was impossible. But most of all, he wanted to hold Shawney’s hand. To tell him that, throughout all of this, he loved him. 

Those panicked screams that had echoed in his death, they had been for Shawney, even though he had not been there to help him. A final call for rescue, which there had been no hope of answering.

And yet…

He was here anyway, frantically asking all those first aid questions. Things like, “How many fingers am I holding up?” and, “Where does it hurt?” because it was the only thing he could do. He was trying. He was helping.

And as Gameknight felt his breath gradually reclaim its rhythm, he fought to move his hand. Anything to connect with Shawney, to tell him that he was okay. Every glitch through him fought to tear his mind away, but he fought it. He fought it for Shawney, and he knew he had to persevere. For himself, yes, and also for his family, and of course for his villager friends that he had died to protect. But, somehow, he found himself mostly fighting for Shawney.

Even as he swooned with dizziness, unable to answer the simplest questions, he fought.

He could do this for him.