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It was a long time ago that the star was born.
There was a room. A large, dark room that was filled with tiny particles. Wisps of dust, strings of gas, just floating around.
And then one particle decided it didn’t want to be alone in the dark, and grabbed onto another. A different particle decided it liked the idea of clinging on, and stuck fast to the other two.
It took a while, but then there was a massive ball. Pulsing with energy, shining with blue light, filling the dark room and expanding, expanding, consuming the darkness and melting the cold.
It didn’t stop. The star was eager to light up everything in the universe.
A million years later, the blue star was still eager. It watched others form, and it saw others collapse in on themselves.
Ten million years later, so many eons, but the star was still hungry. It was a bit greedy, but it mostly just wanted to see.
And then it saw stars start to fight.
Some turned dark, crushing down with anger and hatred until they were compressed into a pinprick. So full of malice that they turned all light away. And over time, those black holes became thirsty.
They chased after the freshly formed children, the younglings, or attacked the elderly red giants.
Some stars began to rebel back. Factions formed, star clusters, galaxies, all ready to suffocate the black holes in light. So much light. Ready to fill the holes until they burst, ready to sacrifice lives to save the future.
The black holes formed their own armies. They pulled in nebulas, captured the young stars, bent them to support darkness while slowly absorbing their matter. The little stars grew, turning bitter, becoming hot yellow-whites, sharp white-blues, weaker oranges. These all rotated around the black hole.
It was a while before the independent star clusters realized that the black holes just wouldn’t be satiated. Too many were stretched, pulled, drawn out thin and smeared across the darkness before the black holes inhaled them.
The blue star watched. It had become too much. There was too much thirst for light.
The blue star was pained. Its core first developed a sliver of a crack. The crack grew quickly.
Stellar gas explosions reached out as blue ribbons into the dark.
Pain. Too much of it. Too much darkness.
The dark room, the blue star realized, had no walls.
There was no sound. Just bright light, white, and it was painful. The electrons were tearing, hydrogen was melting, and a sudden hollow sensation right before the blue star collapsed inwards.
Filled with anger, disgust, sadness, bitter emotions.
But it didn’t become a black hole.
The star collapsed inwards, and then its surface rebounded, expelled out into the void in all directions, spreading rapidly, growing, and everything was lit up.
The blue star’s core faded.
Its broken parts spread across the dark room.
Only after a death was there finally light.
The star itself was at peace.
Wilbur couldn’t breathe.
Exiled from his own town, separated from his people.
He had it all in his grasp.
The election was just to satiate the people’s will for a ‘democracy’. It was just him and Tommy running. They were going to win. They had so many plans.
After winning, Schlatt had looked down right at him from the stage. Wilbur shivered as the President’s empty, inky eyes met his.
Blue eyes with light frilled around the iris stared solidly back.
“Exiled…”
The ocean-eyed man swung his fists against the wooden post. His knuckles split open.
The wood was red in some spots.
His brother watched him, scared, unsure, before simply fleeing the scene.
Wilbur fell to his knees, curled himself up against the ravine’s wall.
Water inched out of a crack in the walls. It flowed down and drenched his jacket.
He was fine.
…he was fine.
“I need you go in there and kill Schlatt for me.”
Techno backed away, hands held up in protest. “Woah, slow down there. I ain’t yer slayin’ machine, got it?”
Wilbur dropped a bulky, dirtied pillowcase on the floor, tied up with a broken shoelace. He watched as it rolled to a stop at his estranged brother's feet.
Techno reached down and untied it, spreading open the cloth to let out a golden light. "Gapples," the elfin piglin breathed out, and inhaled the golden fruit's crisp aroma. He quickly tied it back up and hesitated before speaking.
“Will…” he started. Then he paused and sighed. “Fine. Only if ‘ah get a clear opportunity, ya know? Only if I can make it look like an accident.”
Wilbur frowned and stiffly removed the sack from Techno’s calloused fingers. “You’ll get these after he’s dead, Technoblade.”
The man scratched the back of his head. “Alright then, I’ll try.” The piglin-elf extended a hand to seal the agreement, and as Wilbur took it, crystalized ruby met a stormy blue.
“Wilbur… your eyes? Them irises look like a painting tha's been smashed with a boulder.”
“…”
“I’m fine.”
The masked warrior tossed a stick of dynamite at him. Wilbur caught it without flinching.
He turned it over in his hands. Under the moonlight, he could barely read the words. But his fingers danced across the paper, tugged at the long fuse.
Dream had an entire crate of the stuff, all for him.
“Thank you.”
Dream tilted his head, mask rotating eerily. “Do what you will, Soot. I know destruction. Chaos will eventually unite everybody, hatred will turn outward, and there will be no more factions, no more division.”
They stared at each other for a moment, Dream’s words sinking sluggishly into Wilbur’s head. His brow furrowed. “This is only a last resort.”
The mask smiled. Dream took a step forward, and Wilbur took one back. “I knew there was something different about you,” the warrior whispered.
Wilbur froze, looking as the man slipped his mask down, just a little bit to the right. Enough to expose one eye.
Dream’s eye was very bright. It shined in the night. But there was no center, no iris, no meticulously arranged frills. Just a mess of green, flooding the sclera, scattered particles. Some lime ribbons of color moving randomly about.
Dream laughed and swung his ax. The netherite blade severed the heads of several yellow dandelions in the grass. “Wilbur, your eyes. They’re almost like mine.”
His voice ran in Will’s ears, and the man stood still. The skin on his fingers tightened from gripping the dynamite. Moonlight sprinkled down at them.
The moon was shivering.
“They never understand people like us, Soot. One day, we’re fine. And then they look away… and we’ve suddenly exploded.”
The rubble cleared. Something was ringing in Wilbur’s ears. He gingerly touched them with the tips of his fingers, drawing them away quickly.
There was red on his hands. Dust surrounding him, still falling, stuck to the red liquid.
He looked around. Smoke, wreckage.
This was his fault.
No, this wasn’t his fault. Blowing up a corrupted town, that’s not a fault.
He looked up. The sky was so bright.
“What have you done!”
He turned to face the distressed man behind him. Long, mossy robes fluttered, and icy silver-blue eyes stared coldly at him. The eyes of a man who’d abandoned him after deciding the world needed him more than his own son did.
He laughed.
“I did it, Phil. I finally did it.”
“…but why?”
He spat on the floor, wiping his bloodied hands on the inside lining of his coat. “It’s mine, Philza,” he croaked. “They took it away from me, and I asked for it back. I was diplomatic. I was the essence of anti-violence.”
He turned away to gaze out of the exposed bunker, to witness the chaos he had created with just the small movement of his finger.
He smiled.
“They walked all over me. It’s their fault that I blew up my town. Phil!” he cried out. “L’Manburg, my unfinished symphony!”
His father suddenly grabbed Wilbur by the jaw, strong hands forcing the demented man to glare at his father in the eyes. Wilbur hissed.
Phil looked pained. “Your eyes, Wilbur… what have you done?”
The man stared at his son’s broken irises. He remembered carrying him as a child, the way precious blue flashed in happiness whenever they passed a flower.
Wilbur’s eyes now were just blue. Blue spreading, clusters of light and electric stardust spreading steadily against a black background.
He released his grip on Wilbur’s jaw, horrified.
The monster on the floor laughed. “Kill me, father. Come on. Phil. Kill me.”
It took no effort to swing his arm downward, to encase his sword with the creature’s ribcage.
Phil wondered what had happened to his son.
It was a long time ago that Wilbur died.
There was a world. The war had torn it apart, destroyed it completely. And from the ashes, the people decided to build anew. To heal.
The people were just healing, talking to themselves, too scared of betrayal, too scared to find a friend to be loyal to.
And then one boy decided that he didn’t want to be alone in the dark, and he grabbed onto his friend. And then another friend decided he liked the idea of clinging on, and stuck fast to the other two.
It took a while, but then there was a new nation. Flourishing with commerce, windows shining in the sunlight, breaking apart the local mistrust and expanding, expanding, consuming the enmity and melting the fear.
It didn’t stop. The nation, the people, they were eager to touch and discover everything in their world.