I was supposed to do this test on Saturday and I couldn’t cuz I had been suppressing flashbacks all week and going to class EVERYDAY, and that’s like incredibly epic of me but so exhausting. Like I usually take a day off, to just crash. I just spent the entire day in my bed bc I’m so exhausted. But going to class everyday helps my grades so much. And now I have a zero for that stupid test and I have to talk to the teacher and ask if he’ll grade the late one and if not I’ll just take a freaking hit I suppose but I hate asking for things and I really don’t want to annoy anyone, but like grades are unfortunately heavily associated with my “primary purpose” like why I split off and I’m taking this way too hard and like I don’t feel like my response is reasonable.
Someone took the 4th assessment instead of the 3rd and failed the 4th, bc we hadn’t gone through class. And the stupid proctorio is so freaking stupid too bc it glitched and kicked me out and now I have a stupid zero for that too. And I don’t want to be a bother to the teacher, but like I’m failing the class at this point and it’s literally a be alter every single time. And I don’t know them, I’ve never met them, and yeah there are accommodations n stuff but it’s still really hard and the reason its so freaking hard to take these test is bc I guess we have trauma around cameras(like this and a couple other things that are adding up to some serious stuff and I’m REALLY not liking where all this is going). Like all the evidence is pointing to things I can’t handle and I know I can’t handle but I’m so curious and my headmates are displaying some symptoms that continue to add up to some disturbing stuff and I’m trying not to dig, I am.
Don’t even get me started on how bad these flashbacks are like I thought, “oh my flashbacks can physically get any worse.” And they somehow pulled it off. Somatic flashbacks are THE worst, I’m freaking stuck there for like 5 hours when I should be sleeping. And if I misjudge if the flashback is done or not and go to sleep? I have a horrible nightmare and am so out of it all of the next day, until I have a flashback and it like runs it course so I can break the horrible loop I’m in. And apparently my experience is so “niche”(it’s not) or like I’m explaining it so incorrectly that I can’t find anything on google and I can’t find any articles on how to help or even if anyone has had the same experiences. It so infuriating and I hate it. And I’m going to therapy but it’s hard and I’m with a new therapist so I need to build trust but I don’t want to share my flashbacks bc they are so gross and I hate everything about them. Like I thought the ones where I almost dislocated my shoulder where bad.
Also I have to be moved out BY THURSDAY. and the move in date for my other place? I can’t move in til sept 9th. So I have to say at my sisters place for like a week and sleep on the couch (and try not to have a flashback in front of anyone bc I couldn’t bear how’d they’d see me) and try not to do my passy outy flashbacks as well bc I don’t want to hit my head or pass out in front of anyone.
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They're burning.
Etho feels Joel's alarm before he steps through the portal. He's awash in it, staggered by it, before he even knows what it means. There is the blistering hot of the nether, the blistering hot of panic and indignation, the knife-twist of betrayal, and then Etho realizes they're burning.
Time slows. This too, is a sensation he wasn't prepared for. Humanity is amazing. Humanity is amazing. No wonder Joel survives so long every time they play this game. So long and always so red. The seconds turn to years turn to eons. Etho is used to living years quickly, watching stars form from nebulas, devouring time like a wolf devours bone. He has never felt a second move so slowly before. This is human, determination, the refusal to end, clinging to the sparks of life as they flicker in and out in the instants between heartbeats.
He turns to Joel, whose face is too furious to show pain. He's backlit in the murder-red of lava and fire. Black traces his skin where Etho's own burning inflicts itself on him. It's too hot for smoke, nearly too hot for words. One breath in and their lungs are searing, their voices hoarse.
"Go back Etho! They've trapped the portal!" Joel screams. He digs his hands through is pack, trying to find anything that will save them.
Maybe it's in Etho's nature to admit defeat too soon, but even in the bullet-time of Joel's panic, of human tenacity struggling against every second to survive, Etho recognizes there's no getting out of this. Like every star, like every galaxy, like their home, it is in their nature to burn out. Maybe if he'd known the Relationship would be so symbolic, he would've taken better care of it. He would have kept himself from getting lost in Joel's emotionality and made it of something stronger. He could've hollowed out the world and filled it with iron, gold, diamond and stone. Gravity might hold them together a little longer. They're splintering apart like dying stars and there's nothing he can do about it.
Almost nothing.
There is some good to being mostly void, partially human. To recognizing sometimes fate hands you futility because the moments before it are bright and vibrant and worth the view. Etho is awash in Joel's anger and panic, they are surrounded by the bruising colors of a nether portal unable to send them to safety. They have only each other and a handful of fading seconds.
For the first time since their souls have linked, Etho pushes back against Joel's emotions. He refuses to bask in the glory of feeling everything all at once, with everything he has. He draws Joel's hands from his desperate searching in his pack and cups them in his. Joel looks up at him, and his eyes are full of indescribable things, colors and feelings Etho has barely felt the prickled edges of. His mouth is open to protest. His skin is blistering. The fire makes embers of the red streak in his hair.
They are burning, and they can no longer feel it. That is the void, after all. It is nothing. It is the complete and utter absence of sensation. It is an endless ocean, drowning. It is cold. It is quiet. They stare at each other and they're floating in nothing. Around their furthest edges, muffled sound and light persists. Purple red and orange mingle in the impressions of the world they're dying in. The black and blistering of their skin still prickles like goosebumps. The ticking of their lives, slowed to a crawl by Joel's panic, continues. There isn't much of them left.
Joel doesn't seem nearly as enraptured by Etho's nothingness as Etho has been of Joel's everythingness, but maybe that's to be expected. Maybe Joel doesn't know what to do with so much void, so surrounded by it that even all his everything can't fill the gap anymore.
"They betrayed us!" Joel shouts at him accusatorially, like it's his fault. "What a stupid way to go!"
"No kidding," Etho chuckles at him, their hands still cupped together. Joel's fingers are warm compared to his, vibrant and sparked full of life even now. Etho is going to miss that warmth when it's just him again, just like he missed BDubs' when he lost him, and The Red Army's before that. Such beautiful, vibrant sparks, all of them more beautiful than stars, all of them vanishing in instants like the embers of a kicked campfire.
Well, he may not be able to do anything about their dying, but Etho can do something about their time spent listing in between living and death.
"Do you wanna get out of here?" He asks.
Joel laughs at him, harsh and high, and he's grinning. "Is that a pick-up line? I'm married you know!"
And they were soulmates. Were. Time has never seemed to pass so quickly. Just moments ago they were the present, vibrant and full, and somehow like it always does, the past has crept up and devoured Etho whole.
"And where is she?" Etho chuckles. "Someplace close?"
Joel looks around, taking in the endless horizon, the edges of their loss, and the distant stars beyond it.
"She's in Empires, wherever that is from here."
"It probably doesn't exist yet."
"What?"
"Which was made first Joel? Empires, or Life?"
"But that's... How long are we going to be stuck here, Etho?"
Not long. That's the thing about nothing. Its absolutely no time at all.
Joel respawns on a floating island, familiar, a place he's made and adored. He is a god. He is surrounded by the works of his hands.
His hands are cold.
Somewhere in the void, in the space between stars where Hermitcraft exists and doesn't, Etho slips his hands in his pockets and smiles.
"GG buddy."
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