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Etho is running. Their boots score the earth, fox ears pressed flat to their skull, panting hard enough to make the fabric of their mask pull into their mouth with every inhale. An arrow whizzes past their face and Etho flinches too late. The plink as another glances off their armor is lost in the scream of the Enderman at their heels.
Red death looms from Etho’s left. The horde is whooping and screaming, woven together by cursed bloodlust. Grian and Cleo’s cries echo behind Etho as their eye is set on their only salvation: the lake.
Scar cuts too close as Etho sets foot on the deepslate bridge and the front wheel of his chair finds Etho’s ankle. His arms pinwheel wildly, and Scar’s sword slices his arm before Etho topples forward into the water.
For a single moment of blessed silence, Etho sinks, a stone making ripples. But there is blood in the water and sharks afoot; no time to rest. Etho kicks and paddles, trying to stay down as arrows break the water’s surface and zip past at a dulled speed, but the air in his lungs is not enough.
Etho yanks their soaked mask away from their face when their head breaks the surface, and something glints. They’re halfway up onto the Heart Foundation’s platform when a weight throws them onto their back. Scar’s wheel presses into Etho’s chestplate, and it cracks. Scar’s eyes are red — they shouldn’t be, they shouldn’t be, but Etho knows this curse.
“Scar, please,” Etho babbles uselessly, opening his palms. Anything for an extra moment to think.
Scar says nothing before he plunges his sword through Etho’s chest.
Etho is running. They dodge and weave through zombies barely finished spawning, rapt on the heels of their prey.
“ Joel!” Etho shouts, in the voice of a desperate soulmate. “ Joel, help!”
The pack is on Etho’s heels, raving in need of blood. Etho’s hands shake with the vicious need to sate newborn bloodlust. It’s been a long time since the Boogeyman curse has lit Etho’s veins aflame, but never has Etho forgotten how to kill.
Joel’s step falters, and Etho grins, baring sharp fangs.
“Joel!” Etho shouts again.
“No, Etho!” Joel returns, and Etho ducks past another zombie, its claws skimming Etho’s cheek. “I know you’re — I know you’re one of them!”
“I’m not!” Lying to Joel comes far too easily. If Etho wasn’t in the thrall of the curse, he’d hate himself for that, but right now, that is his strength. He’s gaining ground. “They’re gonna get me, Joel, help me, please!”
Joel turns just enough, and Etho pounces. He hits Joel fully in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. Their swords lock, Etho’s blade managing to draw a line of blood across Joel’s cheek. Joel’s eyes are wide, aghast and desperate, and Etho laughs in his face just before Joel kicks Etho to the side.
No matter. Moments later, Joel is dead on Gem’s blade. As his corpse slides to the ground, beginning to dissolve, the horde laughs, and Etho’s adrenaline begins to wane.
In its place there is only emptiness.
There are only three Players left. Scott, Grian, and Cleo.
Joel smiles when he respawns, death in his eyes, and none of the hatred there should be for the cruel trick Etho just pulled. Joel sharpens his sword and stands sentinel at Gem’s left hand as they attempt to organize a plan.
Etho is sick to his stomach. His sword is in its sheath on his hip, but the idea of laying his hand on it makes him shake. Etho doesn’t know why he’s awake, why the death of his soulmate (not his soulmate anymore) helped him to shuck the Boogeyman’s Curse from his mind, but Etho is awake, and the others aren’t.
Etho is a sheep in the wolf pack. If he’s lucky, they’ll tear him apart instead of Cleo and Grian.
Bdubs smiles too widely as he watches the gathering from his mount. Whatever pain Joel felt in his heart when Etho jumped him is washed away by the need to spill further blood. Etho has betrayed the people he loves for these games again, and again, and again.
This time can be different. This time can be different.
“Etho, where would they go?” Etho doesn’t even know who asked. He stares dumbly at the dozens of red eyes, waiting for his answer.
“Cleo and Grian.” Joel prompts.
“I don’t know.” Etho lies, and their voice cracks. “I won’t … I won’t hurt them.”
“Etho knows where they are!” Pearl interrupts. The gazes of the wolves immediately grow sharper, and the pack begins to circle.
“Tell us where they are.” Gem commands.
Etho’s head hurts.
“No.”
Metal sings as Gem raises her sword in a single smooth motion, and it kisses Etho’s throat.
Etho merely tilts their head back a half-inch, giving Gem the space, and resists the screaming instinct to move.
“I will kill you.” Gem vows, and that voice isn’t Gem. It is, technically, but for everytime that Gem has stood across from Etho, or above them, with Etho at her mercy, she always breaks character and smiles. She laughs, and offers Etho her hand.
Etho waits for Gem to smile.
Her mismatched eyes glare back: one the color of red death, and the other the color of unimaginable void.
“No.” Etho repeats in a whisper.
He doesn’t know why Gem doesn’t end him then and there. He supposes he should be thankful.
Hands make sure to tug and shove Etho along when the pack begins to move, howling again in search of blood. Refusal or not, Etho is one of them. Etho belongs to them.
The pack corners him only moments after Cleo and Grian vanish from the base.
Etho can only pray that they slip beneath the horde’s notice.
“Where are they?” Martyn demands as the others fan out, checking everywhere. “I heard them.” He turns his sharp red gaze onto Etho.
Etho doesn’t answer, which only prompts the pack to close in.
“I don’t know.” Etho says, and Martyn snarls in his face.
“They were here with you. Where are they?”
“I don’t know where they are right now.” Grian had said he had a few minutes left on his potion, and Cleo had ducked out of Etho sight only moments after Martyn’s voice had carried into the room. Etho doesn’t know how far they could have gotten.
Hands shove Etho against the wall, and again, Etho wonders if this is where they die.
They decide that if they do die here, it will have been worth it. For once, to return home with some amount of his pride intact, to finally not die a traitor.
The Secretkeeper sings a word of recall within all of their minds before anyone can end Etho’s pathetic life. They trail to the statue as if enthralled.
Grian is standing there, beneath it’s Watchful Gaze, observing as the wolves come to heel. Etho finds Cleo as she walks among them, no longer afraid, and Etho goes to her.
She takes his hand and he buries his face against her shoulder.
When the three of them leave for home, Etho feels the hateful gazes on his back. Even if the task’s command is gone, the wolves are not defanged. Even if red has faded from the eyes of those on their second, yellow, chance, every victim to the Curse knows who is responsible for their failure.
Etho knows what is coming. Their head is the target for the ire of everyone’s bloodlust now, and he knows better than to believe he will escape Gem twice.
When he dies (when, not if, because Etho has no illusions about winning), he only hopes Cleo and Grian have a headstart.
And when he gets home, he hopes those whose hearts he has broken in the past will forgive him for choosing against traitorhood now, and not before.