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Xisuma heard a knock at his door, and turned to it. He stepped out from behind his screen and walked over. He took a deep breath, preparing himself to speak.
He opened the door, putting on a fake smile.
But no one was there.
He narrowed his eyes and looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone nearby.
“Hello?” He said, but no one responded. He nearly closed the door when his eyes landed on a cassette tape on this porch. He knelt down, picking it up carefully. It was labeled “ For X”. The admin took it inside, closing the door with one more look around. Still nothing.
Xisuma walked to his operation screen and examined the tape. He rolled it around in his hands, brainstorming a way to get it to play. He moved the screen in front of his couch and sat down, opening the tape and running the ribbon to his communicator. Connecting the screen to his com, he saw a picture come into view. His eyes grew.
“Level 7: I have no doubt that time works differently here than it does on Hermitcraft. Just watching my com, I can tell that the minutes are much shorter, meaning that everything is off. By counting, I have found that one minute is basically equivalent to a fourth of a minute, not exactly of course. Though, by watching other clocks in the sixth level, the minutes were the whole 60 seconds. It is my belief that my com is still somehow reaching the time scale of Hermitcraft and my original timeline…”
Grian looked nervous, eyes wide as he showed the city around him, the clear and obvious sky box and the fuzzy textures that printed the buildings. There was a dark bite mark on his right arm, and dark red and blue covering his hand. By the time he finished talking, the recording clicked off and a new clip started.
Xisuma leaned forward.
“Level eight:... is just what I needed…”
Xisuma watched Grian talk to the camera, still smiling and laughing at small jokes and weird things he saw in the hospital. He was interrupted briefly by monster shrieks, but kept forward.
“Level eight, log two: this level has food and water and I won’t be leaving until I have eaten all of this food and found more to pack for later-- This hospital room probably have what I need to wack off this arm and I can’t tell if it would be funny to record it or not. Well, I can’t really scream or the weirdos will be back.”
“Level eight, log three: I think in order to get my arm off, I need one of the monsters to do it for me. They have large mouths full of serrated teeth, and that should do it. I’ll hit myself with the anesthetic shot, use a lighter I found, and pray, I guess… Wish me luck. I think If this works, I’ll still have hope of finding home.”
Xisuma watched intently through the next parts, forwarding through the days Grian stayed asleep. And he kept watching. Kept staring at it all. Eyes wide as Grian got back up, time and time again. His smile never changed. His voice only wavered for moments.
Xisuma wrapped his arms over his chest, leaning on his knees.
“You think this is karma? For wanting to find Evo? You’re right, I think I know what karma is. It’s the moment the world stops. It’s the moment that your luck goes sour. It’s not the lasting effects of your actions or of that one moment. It’s not liminal. It’s not hope. And I still have that.”
Xisuma must’ve been watching the footage for hours . Ignoring the outside world but for a reason he hadn’t had before. Each clip led into the next and almost every time Grian would start smiling. Speaking about how he wanted to go home. See home. Be in Hermitcraft. Be with them. About how much he missed them.
How his voice and face would break when he got back to the topic of feeling hopeless.
“But I’ve felt hopeless before. I’ve felt the crushing feeling of never wanting to move again. But I wasn’t in Hermitcraft. I had them to help me and fuck you if you think I don’t have them now. Do they think I’m dead? Probably. Have they come after me? Hopefully not. But I know that they’d do the same thing. They wouldn’t give up. This situation is, really, no different from when I first got to Hermitcraft… Well, there’s one big difference: I don’t want to give up. I want to live. And that’s something I couldn’t say a couple years ago. I want to live for them. I want to see them again. I want to hug them again. I want to fall asleep listening to Doc and Mumbo talk about shitty redstone stuff. I want to, I don’t know, turn Xisuma’s base inside out and get him involved in a second prank war! I want to be there. Be alive. Be with them.
“I’m not letting some rejected creepy pasta take that away from me.”
The rest of the tapes played. Hours of Grian talking, losing his smile, the warmth in his voice. It was just impressive how long it took for that to happen.
And once the recorder hit the ground when he made it home, the tape went dark and silent. There was a subtle buzz from the screen, one that rattled in his head with Grian words.
"The hermits don't give up."
The emptiness of his house felt ever-looming, a problem he could no longer ignore. The feeling mirrored itself inside of his chest, growing with each passing second of deafening quiet.
Xisuma brought his legs up to his knees, curling back into the couch and pulling his head down. He-- how could he do this to the server? The world stopped moving.
Karma? No.
"Hey, X. It's me, Grian. I know I look a fair bit different."
A new clip started. Xisuma slowly brought his teary eyes up to meet Grian's.
Grian, cleaned up, robotic arm, and warm smile set up the camera and sat down.
“I don’t know how much of this you watched, but I hope you’re at least seeing this part. I know you’ve been having a hard time and I wanted to reach out but… I couldn’t seem to do that in a regular fashion. So I hope it makes some sense why I’ve given you this.
“Actually, you’re probably the only person I want to see this recording. It’s a lot of me screaming and laughing maniacally and I hope you at least skipped through some of that. But there were some parts that I hoped you heard.
“I’m fully aware that what you’re going through wasn’t all my fault, but I’d feel like a fucking monster if I didn’t at least reach out to you.
"I didn't get to say this to you when we last talked, but I like the glasses. The frames look really good on you. For what I think is your first pair, it was a good choice. I wasn't so lucky with my first pair.
“I didn’t want to leave Hermitcraft forever. I wanted to see Taurtis and Evo, but more than anything, it wasn’t ever going to be permanent. Doc and I were gonna talk to you about it, talk to Mumbo and the server. That didn’t happen, sadly, but I just want you to know that. I think you’re an incredible admin, if that’s worth anything. You’re not only that, but a great friend and we miss you.
“X, this is an invitation to come start a prank war with me. We don’t have to do anything big, I just want you to come help me do something stupid and sign your name next to mine. If you’re interested at all, just send me a message. I look forward to seeing you again if you decide that’s what you want. I hope I see you soon, dude.”
~~~
Iskall respawned at his bed from a long end busting session and froze. His entire house was rebuilt with an assortment of pink blocks but mostly pink glazed terracotta--
A sign and a few chests sat in the middle of the room.
“Stress gave us the idea, but we think the execution was just *mwah* We left your old, less gorgeous house materials in the chests.”
“Your’s truly, Grian & Xisuma”