Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Yellow.

It was once his favorite color.

More often than not associated with sunlight, energy and optimism. Naturally appearing lighter and more attention-grabbing than many other hues. Emotionally and symbolically, naturally evoking feelings of happiness, cheerfulness, curiosity and creativity.

He liked sunflowers the most.

In nature yellow showed up in things like sunflowers. Or even the turn of the seasons in the falling autum leaves, reinforcing its connection to warmth and vitality.

Bright and warm, comforting.

Usually, at least.

The yellow doors in front of Derek coudn’t be explained by anything natural.

They looked like the entrance to the pits of hell.

The yellow gates were foreboding in their presence, everything else blacked out around them. As if their sheer existense was sucking the light right out of everything they‘ve ever touched.

Derek cound’t tell what exactly it was he felt while he stood in the dark corridor. Too overwhelmed and flooded with sensations and feelings he couldn’t even begin to explain. The intensity of it all exceeded what he was both comfortable with or felt manageable for his senses.

One thing was clear though, the one emotion he tried to ignore and deliberately denied to have felt for his entire journey now took him over completely. It was a fear so strong that it became the only thing he could think of.

It crowded out every other thought, tightening its grip on his mind until the world shrunk to a single point of terror.

His eyes slowly trailed to the slightly ajar doors on his screen and directly at the small crevice just out of his point of view.

Heart racing and beating in his ears he could feel himself tense. Derek sat at his desk frozen.

Outwardly it appeared as though nothing had happend, but Derek knew in his very being that danger lurked behind that corner.

Time suddenly felt distorted. Whatever it was behind those doors, it was absolutely impossible to escape or ignore. The nagging inside of him wouldn’t stop if he just shut off his laptop, not even if he deleted this world or the game itself.

A war was raging inside of him.

Leave and never know why he ever even decided to go and search for whatever this was. Why he was lead here. Continue to be followed. Never find out who it was that conducted this wild goose chase and burn all ends.

Only to go and still have his gut screaming for answers?

The finger on his mouse twitched, his little game character turned left.

Then, as if possessed, he swallowed the lump in his throat and took a forceful step forward.

And there it was, the burning curiosity.

There was a beckoning.

The call for a small look.

A tiny peek.

Crack a hole through the place of concealment, it whisperes.

Take a furtive look behind the curtains, it lures.

Find out about all the secrets you desire to know of, it coaxes.

So irresistible. So tempting. So enticing.

He took another step and then another. Only one left, he thought dimly, fleetingly.

Weightless in the featherlight embrace of this siren song.

His mind lost between crossroads.

His joints locked taut as steel. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.

Then, he was one final step closer.

And the spell was broken.

With instant certainty he knew that he‘d just made a terrible mistake.

Fuck.

The black ink of the darkness around the crass figure disappered gradually, not at once. What he then saw looked like an ornate throne and on that throne sat a figure unlike anything that should be possible in simple Minecraft, not to mention in real life.

It looked human, but at the same time not. Ethereal in its impossiblity. Clad in tattered and ragged yellow robes that hung down on its bony shoulders and pooled on the floor. Decayed and wrong in a way that made dread pool low in Derek‘s stomach. His eyes followed the cloth futher up and where usually a face should be, sat the blank, smooth surface of a yellow mask.

Theatrical, slightly mocking. Fitting the performative eeriness of the chamber. It sat on the throne unmoving but flashed sporadically, the stillness exuded an authority, the flickering looked corrupted. But the figure just sat there nontheless, regal and still. The whole silhuette stuttered, like a skipped frame.

It looked like a King.

Wearing a golden crown so bright that it momentarily blinded Derek. He closed his eyes in a flinch and when he opened them again the creature was in the middle of reaching to pull off the mask oscuring its face. Approchingly slow and full of intent.

When he looked directly into the figure’s eyes he was stuck there. They were humaniod enough to recogize, wrong enough to terrify and they had a presence that paralized him.

They flashed for a second, vanished. Then appeared fully. Then grew and merged into one giant eyeball.

And what he saw in it, was everything all at once.

In a moment that only lasted what must have been a couple of seconds, his consciousness expanded to the point where the boundary between himself and the world dissolved. Not in a metaphoric or spiritual sense, but literally. He became aware of every point in space, every moment in time, every hidden mechanism, every emergent pattern.

That knowledge wasn’t learned.

It was simply present, like a memory that always existed.

Every natural law, every particle, every constant became intuitively obvious, like instinct.

There was no warning. No buildup, no crescendo. Just a moment, ordinary and forgettable, and then everything.

Not an explosion. Not even a sensation, at first. Just… expansion. As if the walls of his mind had never been real, only suggested, and now something had quietly removed the suggestion.

Not piece by piece. Not in a flood. There was no sequence. It was simply there, fully formed, as if it had always been there and he had only just noticed.

He felt the turbulent winds of saturn on his skin.

Saw the pathways electrons would take before they moved.

Every point in space, every flicker of energy, every particle in motion. He was aware of all of it, not as separate things, but as a single, indivisible structure. Distance vanished. Size meant nothing. The smallest and the largest occupied the same immediacy.

At first, the amount of information was unimaginable. It wasn‘t like suddenly having sharper eyesight. It was like having every form of perception layered over each other.

His field of vision was so enormous that seeing no longer had a direction.

There was no back or forth. No left or right.

Space was everywhere at once.

Time stopped behaving like a sequence, it just collapsed.

Every moment existed simultaniously.

Derek walked through centuries the way someone could walk across a room.

Past, present, future. Those words lost their meaning almost instantly. He didn’t see the beginning of the universe. He contained it.

The birth and death of the entire universe.

The beginning and end of all life.

The first expansion, the cooling, the forming of stars, the long drift toward chaos. All of it existed simultaneously, layered without contradiction.

He took the last breath of a dying star.

He knew how every star would die.

He knew which ones already had.

Everything that would happen had already happened.

And worse-

It always would.

He knew the exact shape of every life that would ever emerge, every thought that would ever be thought, every choice that would ever feel like a choice.

And that was when it started to hurt. A sore ache that turned into pure agony.

Not physically.

But something in him, some leftover fragment that still tried to be him strained against it.

There was no learning, no process of understanding. No discovery. Just certainty, absolute and unyielding. Every question already answered before it could even form.

Every moment was equal. Every life carried the same weight as every other, because he could see all of them entirely. Every joy already paired with its ending, every beginning already hollowed out by its conclusion.

He felt the thoughts of every conscious being. Not as mere noise, but as structured patterns.

Like a deer fleeing a predator, he raced through the information.

The mournful songs of a whale.

The microscopic decisions of a neuron.

The hopes of a young man finding his place in the world.

His own existence seemed so much less important in the face of every other being.

And yet, he didn‘t just read their minds, he understood them from the inside, as if their mind was a chamber inside his own. Loneliness shoud’ve become literally impossible.

But instead he felt more alone than ever.  

Because knowledge like this didn’t expand him. It would erase him.

He feared that his identity would dissolve.

That he, like the universe, would become transparent.

For a split second he moved and his gaze flickered away.

Freedom.

But not really.

The King remained fixed in his position.

Derek‘s eyes burned as though they had been open for an eternity, he could feel tears gathering. He blinked intuitively and the giant eyeball disappeared.

He took a deep breath, in and then back out. Everything snapped into place.

And then he sprinted away as fast as humanly possible.

As fast as the game would allow.

-

He stared unblinkingly at his screen. There was no time to process what had just happened. He needed to move, but even while he maneuvered the terrain of the game he kept thinking.

He could still remember what it was like to be a singular self, but it felt small, like a childhood home he has outgrown. He had lived every life, held every emotion inside of himself at once. Joy, grief, cruelty, kindness. The good and the bad. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It was like a shifting tide, where different emotions rose and fell away. They blended into a single feeling, too vast to name.

He was bleeding on the inside. The tides of feelings scabbing the wounds over, only to rip them open again. Derek was rigid with an alert awereness. Ready for the next wave.

So powerful and visceral in a way. A cycle of tearing and healing, never fully closing because another life, another emotion, another memory always came. He was being flooded, trying to breathe but struggling to stay afloat, ultimately drowning.

It hurts.

He didn’t want to lose himself.

The terror that he would vanish, swallowed by infinite experience consumed him.

He could hear them.

Not voices. No, that would be too simple. Voices end. Voices could be shut out.
This didn‘t end.

It layered.

A million, million moments folding into each other until there was no silence left for him.

He didn’t learn them. He didn’t meet them.

Instead, he just suddenly knew everyone who ever existed on levels that exceded his own fragile mind, but only throughmemories. Sometimes his own, maybe others’ and at the end when the tides settled again, perfect, complete knowledge. It was everything, their past, thoughts and habits. He instantly knew the reason behind every action, every fear, every flaw, every mistake. Every mind stuffed into his own, each as complex as the depths of an ocean. Every thought as it formed. Every regret as it rebounded. Every fleeting, meaningless thing that was ever meaningful to someone.

Derek tried to hold onto something, anything that was his, but even that thought splintered because he knew where it came from, who else has thought it, how it would end.

There was no edge to it. No boundary. Just… people. Endless people.

I can’t breathe-

…

Wait.

There-

Something quieter.

Not silence. Silence didn’t exist anymore. But… less.

One thread that didn’t pull in a thousand directions at once.

He focused- No, he clung onto that person.

Just one.

Not louder than the others. Not inherently more important.

But… muffled.

How he hesitated before speaking.

I know why.

How he looked at someone and looked away.

I know that too.

His thoughts didn‘t scatter, they lingered. Like they were allowed to exist for more than a fraction of a second.

It doesn’t hurt to stay here.

That was new.

Derek wanted to know more even as his head began to explode with pain again.

The tides rose and fell, pulling memories, emotions, joys, and grief into one infinite current, but he remained. Stretched, expanded and alive.

He stood at the edge of himself, feeling himself warp, while simultaneously touching every being he has ever been. There was fear, yes, but also a strange awe at the scale of it all.

He felt lighter somehow. Shimmering and shifting, like a kaleidoscope of all lives.

A presence that was boudless, constantly stirring into something new. Surges of countless lives flowing through Derek, yet underneath it all, a quiet core still existed. Trembling, fearful, and yet relieved.

Every mind, there, in his own.

But one stood out.

One mind with so much potential, special somehow. Derek focused his spiraling thoughts on this one person. He was aware that he now just knew everything on principle so it should at least bore him, but weirdly it didn’t. He had to wonder why. His total knowledge still existed, but his curiosity didn’t let up. Like there was something to discover. A mystery just waiting to be explored. Maybe because attention and experience happened over time.

Why this one?

He should know the answer.

Of course I do. I know every answer. That’s the problem.

This was different.

When he laughed, it didn’t fracture into a thousand echoes. It stayed whole.

When he doubted, it didn’t dissolve into statistics and outcomes and inevitabilities.

It just… is.

He stayed longer than he meant to.

He told himself it was because he needed something stable. Something small enough to hold.

That was all.

But when he pulled away-

He came back.

Not because he had to.

Because I want to.

He dove deeper. He needed to find the answer.

No, not the answer.

He needed to find the meaning.

-

He‘s in a medium-sized lecture hall, sunlight spilling in from tall windows on one side. The walls are a soft beige, lined with posters of past events and the occasional motivational quotes. Rows of wooden desks are scratched and worn from years of use, each with its own slightly tilted chair. He fidgets with his pen, spinning it around his thumb.

Chairs scrape, bags zip, the usual noise after a lecture. He is packing up a bit slower than usual.

The whiteboard at the front still has remnants of equations from the lecture, and a faint chalk dust hangs in the air. Near the windows, a few students linger, chatting quietly or packing their bags. He stares longingly at them, he knew them once. The hum of a ceiling fan mixes with the scraping of chairs and soft footsteps on linoleum floors.

The classroom empties until he‘s the only one left behind.

At the back, he notices a few empty desks, some notebooks left open, pens rolling occasionally across the surface. The air feels slightly warm, tinged with the faint smell of old paper and coffee. He inhales deeply, maybe the smell of coffee would help him stay awake? Lectures like these always make him sleepy.

Everything is ordinary, almost forgettable, but the small details give him something to drift around. Then he remembers the laptop still inside his messenger bag.

He balls his hands into fists, a nervous habit.

The teacher lingers too, just enough for a brief, almost accidental conversation.

He always forgets his name, he’s bad with names in general.

The teacher sighs when he sees him staying and rubs the small crevice forming between his eyebrows as though steeling himself, the glasses sitting on his nose push up to his forehead at the action. “Avery. What is it?“

He scrambles to pull out the laptop from his bag and walks down towards the teacher, almost tripping over his open shoelaces. “I wanted to ask something.“ The teacher huffs in barely veiled annoyance and motions for him to continue. „There’s this Laptop I found in my locker, I don’t know why it was there in the first place. But for some reason I can’t find the owner. Do you know annyone who might’ve been in your lectures with it?“ He tentatively sets the closed laptop down on the Teacher’s lectern who proceeds to glance at it with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t. If you want I could give it over to the Janitor?“

A sudden panic squezes around his heart. He hastily pulls the laptop out of the teacher’s reaching hands and stuffs it back into his bag. There’s something clearly personal about this, something Derek  doesn’t fully understand, but can tell means something specific. “No! No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll take care of it.“

An even half-smile etched into his face when he says it, like he forgot for a second that the teacher wouldn’t get it. At least he isn‘t as tired anymore he thinks privately to himself, the small burst of fear really helped in that regard at least. He clutches the straps of his messenger bag a little tighter as he looks at his teacher with a small strain in his smile.

There’s a tiny pause after. Maybe the teacher realizes it. Maybe he doesn‘t.

The conversation ends quickly after that. Nothing dramatic. Just a normal goodbye.

But the moment lingers.

-

It started quietly, almost disguised as novelty.

That was interesting.

A slow thought in his now focused mind.

Not Avery was interesting. Just the conversation, his thoughts, his mannerism. The way he phrased things. Anyone would have noticed that.

Still, it lingered a little longer than usual.

I mean, it’s normal to be curious about people.

He replayed the sentence Avery had said, testing it from different angles, like it might reveal something hidden if he just looked at it right.

It’s not about him, it’s about understanding. I like understanding people.

There was something else though. The laptop seemed important, it had a familiar sticker in the outer corner of the screen, barely visible.

He looked scared for a moment, but why?

That’s when the reasoning began to sharpen.

Well, context matters. If I knew more I’d think about him less. This is just unfinished information.

He considered looking for more. Not in a dramatic way. Casually. Efficiently.

Derek refused to think more on it and dove in again. Searching for something he wouldn’t know he was looking for until he found it.

What makes you so special Avery?

-

He swings his locker open, wondering what he should have for lunch with a grumbling stomach. After a long day of lectures, he’s already dreading the amount of assignments awaiting him once he gets to his dorm and he can’t wait for the day to finally end. He freezes for a second. A laptop is sitting there in his locker, sleek, slightly scratched, definitely not his. He takes it. There’s a twitch in his hands.

“Uh… what the hell?” he mutters, holding it up like it might bite.

His friends gather around, grinning.

“Maybe you finally got an upgrade,” one jokes, nudging him.

“Yeah, maybe it’s one that actually does my homework for me,” he shoots back, smirking despite the confusion.

“Seriously, though… whose Laptop is this?” he asks, tilting it like inspecting a fragile artifact. It looks used, but still functional. He wonders why anyone would just give up their laptop.

“No idea. Maybe it’s a sign from the universe, your secret benefactor,” another friend of his says.

“Yeah, the universe wants me to… what? Solve its riddles?” he replies, voice playful but curious.

Even from the distance of space and time Derek can feel the magnetic pull, this person is not just alive but actually living, engaging, human in ways that draw attention without trying. And, just like in the quiet moments alone, he can’t help thinking.

I want to know more.

To be around the part of Avery that’s so vivid, so real, even in ordinary moments like this.

And just like that, his friends hand the laptop back to him, his grin still lingering, and the moment slips away, but the pull doesn’t fade.

-

Derek noticed how effortlessly they had bantered, even in an awkward situation. How Avery‘s grin stretched to cover the flicker of surprise, how his friends’ laughter seemed to draw out the lighter, playful side of him.

Derek took note of little gestures. The way his eyes scanned the hallway, flicking nervously but still sparkling with humor, the subtle shrug of his shoulders as he handed the laptop to a friend to inspect. The small laugh he tried to stifle when someone suggested ridiculous theories about the laptop’s origin. Laughing, gesturing, rolling his eyes at some ridiculous theory. The way his voice bounced off the busy hallway, the way he teased without even trying. He made it look effortless. Like he belonged there.

And Derek was just there quietly observing. Learning. Wondering. Why he tilted his head when he was pretending to be annoyed. Why he handed the laptop over without hesitation, trusting, joking, alive. So unapologetically himself. He was clearly well liked, so why was he all alone in the first memory?

He could tell by now that the memories formed sporadically, without clear order.

And he realized that the laptop was his own, though he had no idea how it would end up in Avery’s locker.

For some reason he needed to actively seek out the information when it came to Avery, everything else he just knew. But Avery was different.

It wasn’t enough. He needed to see more.

It’s not like I’m obsessed. I just don’t like loose ends.

There was a faint awareness that this wasn‘t entirely true, but it was easy to smooth over.

And anyway, what’s the harm? 

-

His shoulders are tense, trembling slightly. Hands clutch the edge of the sink as he mumbles  to himself, rambled words catching in his throat. “I can’t do it. I can’t, there’s no way. I’m sorry.“ He looks up. Charming, amber eyes stare back at him. But the mirror in front of him fogged by the steam reflects more than just his angular face, it shows the strain in his eyes, the lines of worry etched across his forehead. His thoughts are racing, Derek can’t decipher their meaning.

Derek notices the small details. Where he once stood upright, fairly fit in stature, now his shoulders hunch in on themselves, his chest caves in slightly. He looks thinner, sickly.

The way his breath comes in shallow, uneven gasps. The slight shake in his hands and the quiet hum of panic that seems almost like it could break the silence at any moment. And in that instant, Derek is internally frozen, not because he wants to intervene, but because he realizes how human and fragile Avery can be when no one is looking.

He wants to step back, Avery’s heart is speeding through his chest, Derek’s mind is turning over what he is seeing.

But he can’t move.

In this moment he is Avery. This is just a memory and he’s just an observer.

Every instinct inside of him is telling him to respect his privacy, but the bizarre curiosity, empathy, and a strange pull toward understanding intensify. In the quiet of the public bathroom Avery chokes down on his sobs and Derek can do nothing more but watch.

-

I shouldn’t have been watching him like this. I know I shouldn’t have.

That thought hit first, sharp and insistent. But he coudn‘t ignore what he saw. Not really.

Every tiny movement, the hands that gripped the sink, his shoulders tensed like they were holding something back, it said more than words ever could. Who was it he apolized to? Derek didn’t understand what had just happened, but seeing it made something in him ache.

It’s… human.

He told himself that, like it’s enough to justify looking into Avery‘s mind at all. But it was  not just that. His chest tightened, because he wanted to understand. He wanted to know what the whispered words meant, what thoughts were tearing through his mind, how he could make it better if he dared.

I just… want to see him wholly.

Even the broken pieces. Even the parts he hid from everyone else. Because he was not like everyone elses, not entirely. And maybe that was why he had been there at all.

But this knowledge wasn’t given by the King, it was taken by him and it wore down heavily upon his back as he scraped his resolve together like broken pieces of glass.

With that he slipped into memories again, guilt gnawing at his insides.

-

They’re sitting together like usual. Same table, same noise, same easy rhythm. But something is off.

The laptop is on the table. Not closed, not put away. Minecraft open on the screen.

He isn’t really part of the conversation anymore. Just half-listening, eyes trailing back to the screen every few seconds. Brushing a finger over the edges, trying instinctively to rub under the thin glue layer beneath a sticker. The sticker looked like a small, cartoonish sunflower.

“Are you even listening?” one of his friends asks.

He nods automatically, pulling his hand back as though burned. Too swiftly.
“Yeah, yeah- what were you saying?”

A pause. The kind that stretches just a bit too long.

“You’ve been like this all week,” another one says. Not joking this time.

He shrugs, trying to play it off. “It’s just… weird, okay? Someone put it in my locker. Don’t you think that’s- ”

“ -not worth this,” the first one cuts back in. “You’re acting like it’s some kind of message from the universe or something.”

A small laugh escapes him, but it doesn’t land right. “Maybe it is.”

That’s when the mood shifts.

“Dude.” Not joking. Not playful. Just flat.

He finally looks up fully, defensive now. “What? You’re not even curious?”

“We were,” someone says. “At first. But now it’s all you talk about.”

Another adds, quieter. “You didn’t even come out with us yesterday. You said you were ‘figuring something out.’”

His grip tightens slightly on the laptop.

They don’t get it.

“It’s not just the Laptop,” he says. “There’s someone behind it. Someone who- ”
He stops himself. Because he doesn‘t actually know what comes next, he hesitates too long.

“Someone who what?”

Silence.

And now it sounds hollow. Even to him.

One leans back, shaking their head. “You don’t even know who it belongs to.”

“I will,” he says quickly. Too quickly.

Another pause.

Then, softer, also sharper. “You’re acting like you already know them.”

That lands.

Because it’s not entirely wrong. He saw the recordings in the google drive. He’s so close, he just knows it.

He exhales sharply, frustrated now. “Why are you making this a big deal?”

“We’re not,” comes the reply. “You are.”

Something snaps inside of him and he sucks in a breath. They just don’t get it.

He actually laughs, but it’s harsh now. It feels meaner now. „Maybe I’d rather figure out someone real than sit here listening to the same- ”

He abruptly stops. But it’s too late.

The words hang there longer than they should.

No one responds immediately.

One of them lets out a short, disbelieving laugh, but it dies almost instantly.

“Wow. Okay.”

Another just stares at him, like they’re trying to figure out if that was a joke.

It clearly wasn’t.

“That’s what you think?” they ask. Not loud, not quiet.

He doesn’t answer. Maybe he can’t. Maybe he just won’t. Just sits there, hands still near the laptop like it’s the only solid thing in front of him.

It’s better if they don’t know the full scope of the story. He tells himself it’s better this way. Repeats it inside his head, as if his words weren’t born of frustration and hurt.

A chair scrapes loudly against the floor as someone stands up. “Yeah. Alright.”

There’s no shouting. That’s the worst part.

One of them grabs their bag, shaking their head slightly.

“You know what? If that’s how you see it… then why are you even here?”

Another adds, quieter and carefully meassured. “Go. Figure out your mystery person.”

They don’t wait for a response this time. One by one, they step away from the table, not rushed, not dramatic, just… done.

The space they leave behind feels bigger than it should. He feels shameful for pushing them away.

He is left sitting there, the laptop still open in front of him, the screen glowing faintly, like it suddenly matters more than the people who just walked away. His fingers curl into his palm, grip tight once they’re out of sight.

-

Derek knew the second it went too far. Felt it when everything fell into place.

That’s the reason he was alone.

He felt it in his chest for some reason, like he should‘ve said something, even though he was not part of this. Like there was still a second where this could’ve been pulled back.

I shouldn’t have been watching this either. I know that.

He chose something he didn’t even understand over people who had been right in front of him.

And somehow that made Derek want to understand it even more.

It’s not curiosity anymore. It’s… care. And something else I can’t name.

There was a deep rooted fear that someone like Avery, someone so alive, so vivid might slip through his life without him ever knowing the depths of them.

His eyes flickered over the edge of his screen where the sticker should’ve been.

It was a sunflower… his favorite.

How curious…

-

His room is silent.

Not completely, there are muffled sounds from somewhere down the hall. Laughter. Music bleeding faintly through the walls. Someone shouting a countdown too early. But in here, it’s distant. Unreachable.

The laptop screen casts a pale glow across his desk, the only real light in the room.

He hasn’t turned on the overhead light.

The sticker is now barely hanging on, half ripped off. He wants to reach out and touch the remnants, he doesn’t. It feels too much like mourning.

He’s fine.

It’s fine. He wasn’t going to go out anyway.

That thought comes easily now. Rehearsed.

Outside, a burst of laughter echoes, followed by a door slamming. For a second, he pauses, just a second, before his eyes drift back to the screen.

Folders. Files. Nothing obvious. Nothing that gives it away. There has to be something he missed.

He scrolls again. Opens the recording he’s already opened twice this evening. Maybe three times.

People don’t just lose something like this. They don’t just leave it in someone else’s locker.

His jaw tightens slightly.

Unless it wasn’t an accident. That thought settles in, familiar now. Comfortable, even.

He leans back, running a hand through his hair, eyes still fixed on the screen like it might change if he looks away.

There’s a reason. There has to be.

Another sound from outside, louder this time. A group passing by. Someone knocks on a distant door, shouting a name that isn’t his.

He doesn’t move. They wouldn’t get it anyway. One of his fingers quiver.

The words float around his head automatically. Not even defensive anymore, just… factual.

For a moment, the image flashes. Chairs scraping, that silence, the way they looked at him. He exhales sharply and shakes his head, like physically pushing it away.

No. This matters more. His eyes return to the screen, scanning faster now.

This is real. This means something. His fingers hover over the trackpad.

Someone put this in his locker. Someone wanted it to be found. Derek hears the thought as though spoken out loud.

The logic feels solid. It has to be.

Outside, a distant voice starts cackling again. Laughter. Others join in.

He barely registers it.

If he can just figure out what…

He clicks into another folder.

A file opens. Not what he’s looking for.

His shoulders tense.

He‘s close. He has to be.

For a split second, he hesitates.

Music erupts from outside, loud and sudden, filling the hallway.

He doesn’t look up.

The screen flickers slightly as he opens minecraft, the glow reflecting in his eyes.

He’s not wasting time anymore. One hand is clenched tightly in his lap, spams once and then releases the tension.

He leans closer to the laptop.

Derek was staring at that thin strip of light cushioning the room in an eerie glow, like if he stays long enough, he‘ll understand something he‘s not supposed to.

-

He had watched him again.

He was trying to understand Avery like there was something hidden underneath it all, something that would make it make sense if he could just see it clearly enough.

Maybe there is.

Maybe the laptop wasn‘t the point.

Maybe it was what Avery thought it would lead to.

Or who.

Whatever this is… it’s strong enough to break things. To pull him away. To change him.

Because it connected back to everything else, the way Avery had talked about it, the way he had looked at it, at the sticker. Like it was not just a thing but a person shaped absence.

Derek yearned for more.

Now Avery’s voice, real or imagined had more presence. He could fill in the gaps. Predict what he’d say, what he‘d think. Derek told himself it was pattern recognition.

I’m good at reading people. That’s all this is.

But the questions kept multiplying, not resolving.

What makes him laugh when no one’s around?

What else does he hide?

Would he think about me, too?

There’s a small pause. A moment where the truth almost surfaced.

This isn’t just curiosity or fondness.

It felt warmer than that. Riskier.

This knowledge that felt forbidden, but tasted so bitter-sweet.

I just want to understand him better.

And that sounded reasonable enough to continue.

-

It’s not a big deal. That’s what he rehearses while the upload bar crawls forward.

It’s just… something to do. Something simple. No expectations. No people to mess things up.

No one even has to watch it. That part almost feels like a relief.

The title looks stupid. He stares at it for a second too long, then leaves it anyway. It doesn’t matter. None of this really does. It’s just Minecraft, for once on his own laptop.

Just placing blocks. Breaking them. Moving things around until they make sense. Or at least… more sense than everything else right now.

He leans back in his chair, eyes flicking. Not to the door this time, not to his phone but to the other side of the desk. The other laptop is still there. Closed, but still there.

He’s not thinking about it. He isn’t.

That doesn’t fit. Not with everything Derek‘s seen before. The fixation, the way it pulled him under, the way he let everything else fall away before. It’s too neat, too contained. He’s trying to move on, Derek realizes. Trying to replace it. Trying to fill the space with something that doesn’t… take everything with it. He’s alone. Doing something harmless. Something ordinary. There’s nothing to understand here. And somehow that feels worse.

He tears his gaze back at the screen.

This is better.

No pressure. No guessing. No trying to figure someone out who isn’t even there to be figured out.

In the game, things respond. You do something, something happens. Simple.

Predictable.

Fixable.

He swallows the lumb in his throat, shifting slightly in the chair. He’s wringing his hands, knuckles white with a small tremor.

The silence in the room feels different tonight. Less sharp. Or maybe just… filled.

With something else.

He clicks into the channel page. It looks empty. Bare. No profile picture yet. No banner.

No one there.

Good.

No one to disappoint. No one to look at him like-

He stops that thought before it finishes.

It’s not like he needs-

That one sticks for a second. Not because it’s convincing, but because it’s easy.

Easier than thinking about-

He refreshes the page.

This is just temporary.

Just something to take his mind off things. Just until everything settles. Until he figures things out.

His eyes drift again.

The laptop hasn’t moved.

It’s still there. Like it’s waiting.

He looks back at the upload. A single two minute video of him how he plays skywars.

He can do both.

The justification slides in smoothly now.

This channel, it doesn’t mean he‘s stopped searching. It just means he‘s… pacing it. Being smart about it.

He’s not obsessed. The word feels heavier than others. He bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood on his tongue. He closes his laptop shut firmly and grabs the other one. The Minecraft launcher is already open.

It’s quieter than everything else he‘s heard before. No pacing. No restless movement. Just… soft clicking. Repetitive. Steady. Derek knows he shouldn’t notice that difference. The way his hands tightened around that laptop. The way he looked at it like it mattered more than anything else in the room. That doesn’t just disappear. It shifts. It hides.

There’s a faint pause where his eyes stray further up, bordering on the boundary of the sticker’s outline. A tiny smile forms on his lips.

Then the clicking resumes. The desk, the dim light, the way Avery leans forward when he’s focused, it’s… endearing somehow.

He clicks back into the game, the familiar world loading in. Blocks forming, landscape unfolding, everything exactly where he left it.

But not exactly how he made it. The thought haunts him day and night.

Maybe he should make another video.

Derek knows then and there, that this isn’t the end of it.

He exhales, just slightly shaky.

This is better.

-

He shouldn’t have been there, in Avery‘s memories. He should never have indulged in this morbid curiosity. That would’ve been the normal thing to do. The right thing.

So, what if he hadn‘t cut it off when this had started?

Did that mean he should stop now?

Like the thought of distance had made this any less intentional.

But it felt different now.

Did something change?

People don’t just change.

Do they?

The thought was quiet. Careful. Like it might break if pushed it too hard.

There was nothing to understand in that last memory.

Why does it feel like there is?

So what is this then?

A distraction?

Or just… another layer?

This should be enough.

Derek was not spiraling. He did not feel alone in the same way as before.

That should have been enough for him to stop caring.

Because part of him was still trying to trace it back. To the laptop. The sticker.

To whatever pulled him in that hard in the first place.

But this was all Derek.

I want to know… him.

Not out of concern.

Not entirely.

Something else.

Something closer to the same pull he‘s been trying not to name.

-

He ran. His pickaxe broke at some point, but he dug through anything in his way bare handed. He ran straight through the tunnel leading away from the yellow gates. Not stopping to craft another one.

Most people only ever lived under the idea that chance existed. That events, whether big or small, happened randomly or due to choice. Derek had once been one of those people. But now it simply didn’t matter anymore what he believed.

Everything was predestined.

Down to every action he took, every coincidence, every lucky or unlucky moment was part of some fixed plan.

This was supposed to happen to him.

Derek got cheated right out of his autonomy only to be a pawn to this grand sceme.

He felt violated.

His mistakes were unavoidable and unfairness didn’t matter. Not anymore.

He experienced what could only be described as loss. His heart clenched in his chest. It was not just anger or frustration, it was the grief for having believed in free will, for having lived cluelessly under the illusion that his choices mattered.

Looking back over his life before, the moments he celebrated, the mistakes he regretted, the paths Derek thought he had chosen out of his own volition and realizing that all of it was predetermined. That mourning wasn‘t for lost time, exactly, but for the innocence of thinking he had been free.

He was, despite all this knowledge he had gained, completely and utterly helpless to the inevitability of destiny marching forward regardless of which route he would choose.

That’s why the items in his inventory changed upon stepping towards the yellow gates. He was being led there the whole time. The wheel of fate had been already spinning, weaving the yarn, deciding for him before he even knew. Silent, turning in a hush. This whole journey was conducted for Derek specifically. Intelectually stimulating enough to not bore him, nonsensical enough for him to want to find out more. Roads stretching beyond his sight and him following blindly.

His curiosity doomed him, He saw the warning signs all along, but decided to keep going anyway. He had no other choice than to look deeper.

Now he was again lost on a path with only one direction.

The cruelest thing of it all was that in the end he would have to keep going in the knowledge that his own suffering meant nothing. That he was just another peasant to the King, unimportant. Fooling Derek and the plans for his next victim already set in motion.

Avery… he’s going to die, isn’t he?

It didn’t arrive all at once.

This- This spread.

It started as a pressure, somewhere that wasn’t really a place. Somewhere between his ribs. Something tightening, slowly, deliberately, like a hand testing how far it could close before something would break.

He knew what it was before it fully formed.

Knew every stage of it. Every escalation. Every way it consumed.

A cold, chilling fear.

And still-

There was nothing to stop it.

He didn’t even know him.

That was the first thing he told himself. The cleanest defense. The most factual one.

He had never stood in the same room as him. Never heard how his voice carried through air, it was only ever reconstructed perfectly in his mind. He had never touched his hand. Only traced, with unbearable precision, the moment it trembled, every time it reached for something it couldn’t keep.

I don’t know him.

He knew the exact rhythm of his heartbeat. He knew the way he would hesitate before answering questions he already knew the answer to.

But that wasn‘t knowing.

That was just… data. Structure. Continuity.

It had to be.

Because if this was knowing-

If this counted-

Then he also knew how it would end.

And I don’t want to know that.

It seemed impossible, but Derek wanted to believe with all his heart that this couldn’t be how it would go. That the end was still unclear. Maybe, exactly, because of all of this information he could still influence the outcome.

He could only hope.

He dug through the stone at the end of the tunnel and ended up right where it all began, which shouldn‘t have been possible.

The idea of choice flickered briefly, like a habit his mind hadn’t yet let go of. But even as it appeared, he could see its structure, its illusion. Every decision, every hesitation, every possible path. It was all already fixed, not by force, but by inevitability.

Every loss before it happened.

Every love before it began…

Every regret before it could be avoided.

He tried to feel something about it. Fear, awe, grief, but even those emotions were already known, already mapped out in perfect detail. There was no surprise left in them. No depth. Just… recognition.

Like remembering something he had never forgotten.

The worst part wasn’t the scale.

It wasn’t the endlessness.

It was the stillness.

Did hope even exist anymore?

He knew every emotion he would feel.

Were they even real in that moment, or did they lose all meaning because he already knew they were coming?

His mind was a cage that held him hostage.

He was hyperventilating, he knew he was. There was too much knowledge stuffed into his brain, it felt like his skull might explode.

He pressed his hands harder against his temples like that would be enough to hold everything in place.

It was too loud. Thoughts were stacking on top of each other, faster than he could sort them, each one sharper than the last.

It hurt. It was too much. There was no way he could save anyone. He couldn’t.

It felt like he was watching himself carry out a skript.

It was too overwhelming, his mind filled with noise, was fragmented, almost breaking and simply infinite.

He was scared. Not for himself.

If he didn’t manage to get his shit together they would both be doomed, Avery would die.

Derek coudn’t do that to him. Not him. It sounded like a plea even if not said aloud.

Too much. It was too much. Every moment, every ending, every possibility-

Stop.

Just stop. Just- Focus on something else.

Anything else.

His breathing didn’t listen. Too quick. Too wheezing.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

And then-

Avery.

It came almost automatically.

He’d be sitting at his desk right now.

The image formed without effort. Purely imaginary. Clear. Specific. Grounded.

The dim light. The way he leaned forward slightly when he was focused. The small pause before he did something, like he was thinking it through.

He followed it.

It was still something real. Something he‘d seen. Something that didn’t shift every second like everything in his head right now. His voice when he hesitated before speaking. The way he clenched his fists in that nervous habit, when he was surprised, or overwhelmed, or anxious. Like he thought no one would notice.

His breathing stuttered, then slowed just a little.

I notice. I always noticed. I noticed before it even began, before he learned to hide it, before it ever mattered.

He makes it look… contained.

Even when it wasn‘t. Even when Derek knew it wasn‘t.

But there was structure to it. A direction. He was always looking for something. Moving toward something.

Not like this.

Not like him, right now.

He pressed his hand against his chest, trying to match his breathing to the rhythm of the image instead of the noise in his head.

In. Out.

He’d focus on one thing at a time.

The screen. A file. A detail.

Something he could control.

Derek tried to do the same.

One thought. Just one.

Him, sitting there. Quiet. Still. Intent.

In. Out.

The noise dulled slightly at the edges.

This works.

It shouldn’t. He knew it shouldn’t.

Derek shouldn’t need this. Shouldn’t need him, or even the idea of him to pull himself back together.

But it became easier.

Because he was real. Not just a memory. He was real and he was alive.

Because he had seen him. Watched him. Understood, at least a little. How he moved, how he thought, how he held onto something until it made sense.

And right now-

I need something that makes sense.

These stolen moments of Avery’s life, they made sense to him.

Even if they were not his.

Even if they were just… borrowed.

His breathing steadied, just enough to feel it.

The thoughts were still there. Waiting. Pressing at the edges.

But they were quieter.

Held back.

For now.

All it took was holding onto that image a little longer.

-

He felt an overpowering amount of revelation, beauty and tragedy. Because there was nothing unknown to fear, nothing uncertain to worry about, nothing hidden to suspect.
Everything had its place, and Derek understood his place.

He knew where he was supposed to be and what to do. His mind was instantaneously a place of a deep and quiet peace at the center of infinite information.

Derek didn’t have to bend to the King’s will.

He would try to change the future.

The given knowledge of free will only being a supposedly whispered wish in the storm of destiny unfolding. It could be a trick. Could just be another ploy.

He would be the storm and fight against fate.

The King couldn‘t be killed, but others could be saved from the same torture he would now endure for the rest of his life.

There still had to be a chance.

He knew.

Avery wouldn’t have to die.

He knew how preventable it was.

That was the detail that kept repeating. Not the event itself, but all the ways it would have to be otherwise to change it. Tiny deviations. A delayed step. A different choice. A distraction lasting half a second longer.

He could trace every path where Avery would live.

There were so many.

There were infinitely many.

There were even more ways it could go wrong.

With endless knowledge came endless possibilities.

But this wasn’t just a possibility, he knew it to be the truth. Wanted it to be.

He would save Avery. He had to.

-

The walls of the mine felt as though they were closing in on him. They seemed to tower over him. But he wasn’t claustrophic because of it, didn’t feel the need to escape, or to fill out the space. If he did, the mine would probably just re-matirialize on his screen. The digital world wasn’t safe, but it felt easier to just look at the surface of the screen motionlessly than do anything that might as well be irriversible.

He just wanted to dig himself a hole and hide in it, like every player did on their first night.

A humorless laugh ecaped him.

Stop being so obstructive.

He closed his eyes for a long moment and then focused back on his laptop.

Okay. Think.

If he rushed this, he would mess it up. And if he messed it up, it would all just… fall back into place.

With Avery alone and miserable and later dead.

I’m not letting that happen.

The plan was pretty straightforward. He would destroy the laptop and simply hope for the best.

That was all there was.

Just… removing a problem before it started to become one.

This is simple.

Take it. Remove it. Keep it out of his reach.

He doesn’t ever need to find it.

Avery woudn’t need to sit there night after night, chasing someone that didn’t even want to be found.

Do I want to be found?

A sharp intake of breath.

Avery didn’t need to lose his friends.

The image flashed before his minds eye, too quick, but sharp enough. The table. The silence. The way they walked away.

He swallowed.

This prevents that.

It had to.

Should he even destroy it at all?

Where would he even put it?

Not his room. Too obvious. Too close.

Somewhere no one would check. Somewhere it could just… disappear to for a while.

It doesn’t have to be forever.

Just long enough.

Long enough for things to stay normal. For him to keep laughing with them, for everything to stay… light.

That thought came in softer. Easier to accept.

He hesitated.

Just for a second.

No.

I have to destroy it for Avery’s sake.

The words felt necessary now.

Because if I don’t follow them through, if I think about what this actually is, what I’m actually doing-

Derek didn’t want to be found by him. He didn’t.

He shook his head slightly, more of a twitch than anything else, rigid.

This isn’t about me.

It was about Avery.

About giving him a version of things where he didn’t fall into that… spiral.

Before it blew out of proportion.

About stopping something before it took hold.

He’ll never even know what he missed.

And that was exactly the point.

He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.

I have to destroy it.

Because the alternative-

I’ve already seen it.

And I’m not letting it happen.

-

He left a book and quill behind in the chest. Just as a precausion. In case Avery ever found his laptop regardless.

He shouldn’t have to do this.

That was what kept looping in his head. The quiet, stubborn protest that this wasn‘t necessary. He shouldn’t upload the footage at all.

But it was, again, just in case Avery did find the laptop. A precaution.

There was generally speaking nothing wrong with the recording. No violence. No horror. No moment that would make any stranger flinch or turn away.

Except for the fact that the King was in the frame for fifteen seconds straight.

He covered all of that, of course. But there were still other things to edit.

Derek hovered over the timeline, watching the little waveform peaks like they meant something more than sound. Like they could tell him where it became too much. Where harmless footage turned into something heavier when he knew the meaning behind it.

Would he notice it?

That pause there, too long. That silence, too stretched. The way he stopped typing right before he reached the gates, like he was bracing for something that never came.

At least not in the recording.

I notice it.

And if I notice it, Avery might too.

Or worse, he might not. He might watch this and think, that it didn’t mean anything. He might accept it as normal, not realizing how much was sitting just beneath the surface. How close it all felt to cracking.

He might not watch it all if his plan worked.

This was tedious, it made his head spin all over again. But he had to do this. Because he cared. There was a small pang behind his eyes, like his brain was sore from thinking too much.

He dragged the cursor back. Played it again.

There. That part.

It was nothing. Just the steps were too rapid. But there was a weight to it if Avery would listen to it the way Derek did. If he watched like he was searching for signs.

Of course it would be noticeable, it coudn’t be more obvious that Derek had been absolutely terrified. The way he had run like the floor was on fire after should be indication enough. But for some reason he wanted to hide it regardless.

I don’t ever want him to see me this scared.

This was supposed to be simple. Clean.

His finger hesitated over the cut tool.

If he removed too much, it would become dishonest. If he left it all in, it became… revealing.

Not in an obvious way. Not something you could point at and say that’s it. Just a slow accumulation of small things that, together, felt like a truth he didn’t mean to show.

Do I have the right to hide that?

Do I have the right not to?

He backtracked again. Watched the seconds tick by in reverse.

That looked at least- convincing.

If he also cut out the part where he literally typed out that he had been scared.

Maybe he shouldn’t.

Maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was what he was trying to protect.

Not Avery, exactly, but the version of him that would get to exist without being questioned. Without being picked apart the way Derek was scrutinizing the video right now.

He exhaled, realizing he had been holding his breath.

It wasn‘t about what was in the recording.

It was about what someone might see in it.

What they might start to understand.

And once Avery would understand something like that… he woudn’t be able to unsee it.

You can’t go back to the simpler version of a person, the one who just is, without layers, without hidden fractures.

He clicked.

His headache had reached new heights, he let out an involuntary hiss of pain.

A small section disappeared. Barely noticeable. Just a few seconds shaved away.

No one else would think twice about it.

I will.

His nose began to bleed.

He kept going. Not removing anything obvious, just softening the edges. Trimming the pauses. Smoothing over the cracks.

It felt wrong.

It felt necessary.

And he hated that those two things could be the same.

He started to taste blood in his mouth. His head felt hazy.

When he finally stopped, the recording sounded… lighter. Easier. Like nothing had been ever at risk of slipping through.

Like it had always been fine.

He sat back, staring at it.

He’ll never know.

That should‘ve made it easier.

It doesn’t.

Because now Derek was the only one who knew what was there before and the only one who had decided it shouldn’t be seen.

Maybe he won’t see the video at all.

If asked he wouldn’t have been able to explain why his heart now throbbed more than his head.

And with that, he passed out cold.