Chapter Text
Parrot was falling.
It was dark, empty void surrounding him completely.
He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He could barely think. The deafening silence drowned out almost everything as he fell.
And fell.
And fell.
And fell.
And–
Parrot gasped, sitting up and grabbing his chest with one hand. His eyes darted around the room, his breath slowly returning to normal.
He nearly stopped breathing again as he realized that this wasn’t where he had fallen asleep.
Where was he?
He pulled off the sheet covering him, fully intending to stand up before he saw the bottom half of himself and realized something was very, very wrong. He bit back the urge to scream, slapping his hands over his mouth. With wide eyes, he shakily brought his hands back away from his face, examining them. They were much smaller than what they should be, smoother and younger-looking as well. He looked down at his legs again, finding the same thing.
Parrot also appeared to be wearing some sort of green onesie—a dinosaur maybe? Why would he be wearing that? And why in the world was he a child?
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. This was fine. Completely fine.
Okay, he told himself, trying to stay calm. Just list out the facts. You’re currently about seven years old, in a dinosaur onesie, in an unknown… bedroom?
He cracked open his eyes.
Yeah, it was definitely a bedroom. It was almost completely undecorated, only a small handful of things occupying the room, the most notable being two bunk beds. The one Parrot sat in allowed him an almost perfect view of the door if he looked straight forward, the only obstruction coming from the ladder leading to the top bunk. The other bunk bed looked identical to his own, separated by an almost empty bookshelf and sitting kitty-corner to the door.
He squinted, blinking as he tried to glimpse the person under the sheets. He was sure there was someone else—three someone elses actually, assuming the two top bunks also held players—but why couldn’t he see a nametag? He reached down to open his inventory, but instead of pulling out his spyglass, his hands simply waved through the air.
He tried again. Nothing.
No item appeared in his hand, and now that he thought about it, he couldn’t see his hunger bar or the amount of hearts he had either. He knew there were ways to disable the use of chat, but inventories and nametags as well? How was that even possible?
Parrot felt his pulse beginning to rise. Nothing was working and he was trapped with presumably three other players he didn’t know the identity of and had no safe way of finding out. He carefully pulled off the sheet again, praying that there was no trap as he stood up. He still couldn’t see the player in the bed next to him, but as he moved closer to investigate, a bright reflection stopped him.
The morning sun streamed through the window between the two beds, bouncing off a mirror and temporarily blinding him. He blinked, turning his head away for a moment before realizing what that meant.
He hesitated, then decided he should probably figure out what he looked like before doing anything else.
He walked over to the mirror. It was mounted on the wall parallel to the bed he had woken up in, positioned just far enough from the door to avoid being hit when it opened.
His breath hitched as he took in his reflection, fearful, disbelieving, and amazed all at the same time.
He was definitely seven years old.
And he was, in fact, wearing a bright green dinosaur onesie.
Turning slightly, he found himself almost disappointed as he stretched out his wings. They were still too small to do anything exciting with, and by the looks of them, would grow to the same size as his wings on Unstable. He still wouldn’t be able to fly without an elytra.
Parrot shook himself. Why was he so saddened by this? He’d never been able to fly on his own, so why would he be able to now? Besides, that was the least of his worries. He still had to figure out a few more important things, starting with finding out who else he was trapped with.
Wiping his face, he turned the rest of the way, slowly creeping over to the second bunk bed. He looked down and found–
“FlameFrags?!”
Parrot immediately winced at his own voice, hoping the noise hadn’t just alerted anyone he was awake. After listening for any footsteps and hearing none, he leaned down slightly, looking the kid in front of him up and down just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Flame’s blindfold had somehow made its way off during his sleep and was now abandoned near the edge of the bed next to the wall. A small tail peeked out from under the sheets, flicking back and forth every few seconds. An even smaller horn poked out from Flame’s hair on the right side, confirming that this was indeed the Immortal Demon himself.
Parrot glanced at the bunk above him, wincing. If Flame was the first person he found, he almost didn’t want to know who else was here with him.
After a brief inner debate on whether or not he should wake Flame up (he decided against it, thinking it was probably smarter to get a better idea of what he was dealing with before doing anything potentially dangerous), he climbed the ladder leading up to the top bunk, popping his head up and–
“Oh my god, you have gotta be kidding. Spoke?”
Spoke didn’t answer him, sprawled out and still lying peacefully in dreamland. He, of course, was also a child. Of course. Because that made perfect sense.
Although, Parrot internally noted, Spoke looked just a little younger than himself and Flame, maybe six years old?
Well, it didn’t really matter. Parrot was just glad everything had been pretty consistent so far, including the dinosaur onesies. Spoke’s was black and fully on display, since his sheets had apparently been thrown to the side sometime during his journey to do a one-eighty in bed. Miraculously, his rainbow headband had managed to stay on. Interesting, maybe it was enchanted somehow? Parrot wouldn’t put it past Spoke to find an exploit for that.
Parrot slid down the ladder, mentally preparing himself to see who was in the bunk above his own. But apparently, he didn’t even need to move, as the last person was already staring at him.
“Parrot?” Wemmbu rubbed his eyes, voice still full of sleep. He blinked, yawning as he looked around and stretched. “Where are we? Did Horace change up the entire place while we were sleeping or…?”
“Uh, no,” Parrot responded. Okay, so we have Flame, Spoke, Wemmbu, and myself all as children in an unknown location. Inventories don’t work and I can’t see my health bar. What am I supposed to do with any of this information? This is genuinely just straight insanity. “I don’t actually know where we are.”
“Huh?” That seemed to get Wemmbu’s attention. “What do you mean you don’t know where we are? Aren’t you supposed to be the smartest player or whatever?” He squinted at Parrot. “Uhm… Parrot, are you aware you are currently a little chungie?”
Parrot nodded. “Look in the mirror, bro. This situation is actually cooked. I think we should probably figure out how to open our inventories first. Well, after we wake up–”
“WHAT?!” Wemmbu yelped. His hands lowered as he presumably attempted to open his inventory, failing just as Parrot had. “I– my maces!” He waved his hands around again. “This isn’t a permanent wipe, right? We get all of our stuff back after this funny little prank, right? Right?”
“You’re seriously six years old right now and you’re worried about your maces? Bro–”
“Yes!” Wemmbu interrupted. His eyes were growing wide and glossy, almost as if he was going to begin crying. Was their new age affecting their mental state as well? Surely not. “Bro, I need my maces!”
“And I need my spyglass! But neither of us are going to get any of our items back if we don’t even figure out where we are, so get down from your bunk and help me come up with a plan!”
“Fine,” Wemmbu grumbled. He scooted his way to the edge of the ladder, climbing down with as much dignity as a kid in a purple dinosaur onesie could muster. He caught his reflection in the mirror, looking himself over briefly. His mouth fell into a little “O” shape as he seemed to finally grasp the gravity of the situation, walking over to Parrot. “Well, mister smartest player, what’re we doing?”
“First,” Parrot said, gesturing to the bed behind him, “we’re waiting until Flame and Spoke wake up.”
“Flame and Spoke?” Wemmbu echoed, looking over the other bunks. “There isn’t an Eggchan here as well by any chance is there?”
Parrot shook his head. “No, and Theo isn’t here either. It’s only us four as far as I’m aware. There could be more people outside, though. I haven’t looked yet.”
“Why not?” Wemmbu questioned, glancing at the door.
“I wanted to explore this room first, and I wanted to see who I was stuck with. And waiting until everyone is conscious seems more efficient.”
“Ah, well.” Wemmbu eyed Flame’s sleeping body, tail flicking with just a little too much excitement for him to be planning anything good. “I call waking up Flame!”
“Wait–” Parrot moved in front of Wemmbu as he threw himself onto Flame’s bed, something that proved itself to be completely useless as it just landed them both on top of Flame, the only difference being that Parrot could no longer breathe. “Wemmbu, bro,” he wheezed. “Why…?”
Wemmbu pushed himself up, glaring at Parrot. “What was that for?”
“Because,” Parrot explained, after only a small fight for the return of a normal flow of oxygen, “I wanted to let them both wake up naturally like how we did. What if forcefully waking him up messes with something?”
Wemmbu scoffed. “As if this whole thing isn’t already messed up. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean–”
“What the hell?”
They both whirled to look at Flame.
“Flame!” Parrot said. “Wemmbu, get off of him.”
“You’re sitting on him too!” Wemmbu argued, but he thankfully still got up, allowing Parrot to get out of his awkward position on the bed and take a stand next to him.
Flame sat up. “Wemmbu?” He blinked, clearly confused. “Uh, what?”
Parrot sighed, pointing to Wemmbu. “Okay, so that’s Wemmbu. I’m Parrot, and Spoke is in the bunk above you.”
“Right,” Flame agreed slowly. He glanced down, grabbing his blindfold. He inspected it briefly, smoothing the black fabric out before putting it on. “So, like, are we just gonna stand around or…?”
“You don’t have any more questions?” Parrot asked, squinting at Flame. “Or concerns?”
“You’re currently six years old, just in case you didn’t know,” Wemmbu chimed in helpfully.
“Actually,” Parrot corrected, “I think he’s closer to my age. So, seven-ish, maybe.”
Wemmbu’s jaw dropped. “No way. He’s older than me? How is that fair? I’m clearly the more mature one out of the two of us.”
Flame scoffed. “Sure, bro.”
“I am!”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-uh.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-uh.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-uh.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Ha! You really think I’m falling for that one, bro? How stupid do you think I am?”
“You–” Wemmbu tackled Flame back onto the bed just as Flame was about to stand up, the two of them practically cat fighting as they somehow managed to also keep up a conversation about who was smarter and more mature.
Parrot took a nice, long, calming, oh-so-soothing, deep breath.
He took another.
Neither of them helped. His last thread of patience was fraying by the second, and he was seriously this close to hitting someone in favor of the greater good.
But then again…
Parrot eyed the fight. Yeah, no. He was not interfering with that. Instead, he opted to simply attempt to push away his incoming crashout, carefully climbing the ladder up to Spoke’s bed.
Miraculously, the voidling was still asleep, which was honestly pretty impressive, considering what was going on below him.
Parrot poked Spoke’s foot. “Spoke, you need to wake up.”
Spoke did not wake up.
Expected, but still disappointing.
Parrot sighed, pulling himself fully onto the bed. He leaned against the side railing, letting his head rest on the wall as he began to think.
As much as he tried, he really couldn’t come up with any logical reason how they could have ended up in this situation. He was almost completely sure there was no way someone could remove a player’s inventory, and the only way to get rid of a nametag was by crouching or an invisibility potion, neither of which being what was going on. He supposed it could be some sort of exploit, but surely Spoke would have discovered it already, meaning that one way or another, Parrot would have eventually ended up hearing about it. And why would Spoke be here with them if he was to blame? No, Spoke must be trapped here with them.
Parrot glanced at the door. He didn’t like that he wasn’t able to tell who was outside of it. The room felt much smaller with the unknown pressing in from all sides. He almost felt sick thinking about it too much. Their greatest enemy could be right outside and he would be none the wiser.
He looked away, fixing his eyes back on Spoke.
Where was he even supposed to begin with the deaging?
The missing inventories and nametags were passable, but going back in age was most certainly not. And what was weirder was that he still felt exactly the same. Well… almost. Something small in his mind felt off. In fact, something about this entire place felt off. Like the world was tilted upside-down, but he was too, so it almost felt normal.
Almost. Almost, almost, almost.
Almost as though he wasn’t on Unstable anymore.
He shook his head.
No. That wasn’t possible. Out of everything, he was confident that–
T̴̢͔͇̯̖̟͗̎͐H̸̢͍̯̞̉̅͗́͆̊E̶̻̍̋͊̀̇͝ ̸̯͕̜͕̄͛͛̕͝S̵̤͖̞̐ͅY̸͉̬̅͑̂S̷̩̰͉̻̳̥̀̈͑̅͝͠T̸̡̻̬̹̉̉̍E̷̘͙̬͑̈̍́̚͜M̶̬͈͍̤̟͌̇͝ whispers to you: You are correct.
Parrot flinched, his heart stuttering to a stop as the message popped up in chat. A beat passed as his brain fought to catch up.
Wait, chat?
There was no way. Chat worked? He could’ve sworn he had tried to open it along with his inventory when he first woke up. And why would someone go through all the effort to find a way to disable everything but chat? Lack of communication with others was one of the main reasons so many of his plans hadn’t worked, or were never even able to go through in the first place.
Parrot couldn’t even remember the last time chat had worked. And whatever this “System” was had whispered to him as well. Being able to privately communicate with others would be a massive advantage.
Well, that was if it worked for him, that is.
Parrot held his breath, carefully bringing up his hands to type out a message.
You whisper to Wemmbu: Does this work?
From beneath him, Wemmbu’s sentence about how he had more aura faded into stuttering as he got the message.
Oh my god. He got the message!
“I– Parrot?! What the hell? Does that actually–”
Wemmbu whispers to you: (✿◠‿◠)
Wemmbu whispers to you: (✿◠‿◠)
Wemmbu whispers to you: (✿◠‿◠)
Wemmbu whispers to you: (✿◠‿◠)
Parrot leaned over the opposite side of the bed just in time to see Wemmbu’s jaw drop.
“No way.” Wemmbu looked up at Parrot, eyes wide. “Did chat work earlier? I thought I checked it.”
Flame glanced up as well, tilting his head. “Chat?” He waved his hands, surprise taking over his face when it seemingly actually opened to something. “Bro, this did not work five minutes ago. Like, I swear, bro.”
“I know, bro. I know!” Parrot grinned. “I–” He hesitated, grin faltering. “Oh, well actually. Did either of you get a message from ‘the System’? The name was sort of glitched out…?”
Flame shook his head, Wemmbu doing the same as he asked, “What did it say?”
Parrot glanced down at the message. “It said: ‘You are correct.’”
Flame and Wemmbu exchanged a glance.
“You were correct about what?” Wemmbu questioned.
“I don’t know,” Parrot admitted. “It just messaged me in the middle of me thinking about–”
His earlier train of thought hit him like a punch to the face.
“Uh, guys?” Parrot let out a nervous laugh. “How do you feel about not– okay, uhm, well– not being on Unstable anymore?”
They both stared at him.
Parrot didn’t blame them. He winced. “Okay, well–”
“Oh fun! You know, really, I was getting bored.”
Parrot let out an embarrassing noise, nearly falling off the bed as he jumped. He whirled around wildly to stare at Spoke, who had apparently decided that right now was a great time to wake up and scare Parrot half to death. How long had he been awake for?
Parrot stared at Spoke, wings fluffed up. “Spoke?”
“Hey, Parrot!” Spoke chirped, waving at him. “Do you happen to know who discovered the exploits being used right now? I would love to have a talk with them. I feel like I could really learn a thing or two.”
“Finally,” Wemmbu said, dragging out the word, “you’re awake.” He gripped the edge of the top bunk, pushing onto his tippy-toes to try and get a better look at Spoke. “You took forever.”
Still sitting, Flame nodded at Spoke. “What’s up, bro?”
Spoke nodded back, grinning at both of them. “I had to wait for the right time to make my masterful entrance.”
Parrot sighed, moving to start climbing down the ladder. “I assume you’re aware of the situation then?”
“Pretty much,” Spoke said with a shrug, beginning to follow behind him. “Although I am wondering why we haven’t left yet. Can we leave?”
“Well, yes. But we need to be careful. We don’t know who’s out there, and– Spoke!” Parrot grabbed Spoke’s hood just as he began bounding for the door, pulling him back before he could get any farther. “Did you not just hear what I said? We don’t know what’s out there! We need to come up with a plan.”
Wemmbu groaned. “Ugh. Always you and your plans.”
“You were literally asking me for a plan earlier!”
“Well, I changed my mind. I say we go in guns blazing.”
“Bro, with what guns?” Parrot let go of Spoke, making a big show of trying—and failing—to open his inventory. “We literally have nothing right now.”
“We have chat,” Flame pointed out. “Like, we can just go out on a little scouting mission and use that, right?”
“A scouting mission?” Wemmbu echoed. “We should just go out there! We can still fight and stuff. And what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Do I need to remind you we aren’t on Unstable anymore?” Parrot asked. “We can’t just respawn—we don’t know if that works here. We don’t even know where ‘here’ is! We need to figure out what we’re dealing with before doing anything drastic. I’ll take Flame and we’ll go out. You two stay here. Quietly.”
“Why can’t I go?” Spoke complained. “I wanna go!”
“Yeah,” Wemmbu argued, crossing his arms. “Maybe me and Spoke should go instead.”
Parrot glanced at Flame, who just shrugged. “Fine! We’ll all go. But we have to be quiet, okay? It’s a stealth mission; we’re just scoping things out.”
“Yessir!” Wemmbu said with a mock salute, while Spoke simply said, “Yay!”
Parrot hesitated as they made their way to the door. He pulled up chat, eyes lingering on the message from ‘the System’. They could whisper to each other, but what about the public chat? Having to talk to Wemmbu, Flame, and Spoke individually would be both annoying and ineffective, but he also didn’t want what they were doing to be broadcasted to anyone else who may have access to chat. Was that risk really worth it just to be able to talk with less effort?
“Parrot? Hello?” Spoke wiggled his fingers in Parrot’s face. “Are we going?”
Parrot blinked, flinching back as he shook himself out of his thoughts. “Sorry, yeah, let’s go. But be careful, the door might be trapped.”
Both Wemmbu and Flame gave him a weird look, but neither said anything as Spoke shrugged, carefully opening the door.
Thankfully, nothing exploded. Nothing really happened at all. Not even an alarm went off. Odd, but lucky for them.
Directly ahead of the door they had just opened was another closed door, and a decently sized hallway to the left.
Wemmbu and Spoke crept out first, Flame following behind, and Parrot slowly walking out as well.
A much shorter hallway branched out a few feet down to the right, while a railing blocked off a drop on the other side. The floors were a nice oak, while the walls were painted a harsher white.
Parrot started down the shorter hallway. There were three doors at the end, one directly in front of him and two on either side, all of them in the same style as the one they had originally opened. He reached out for the one with a slightly more worn doorknob, but stopped, not wanting to set anything off. Or worse, what if he ran into another player?
SpokeIsHere whispers to you: ocme to th estairs
Parrot turned around, hurrying back to the others. He was curious about where the other doors in the area led, especially the double doors at the top of a small set of three stairs, but it was clear Spoke was referring to the actual staircase leading down to the floor below.
Wemmbu pointed, and Parrot nodded, assuming he was asking whether or not they should go down. Instead, Wemmbu seemed to take that as a sign to head down by himself. He skipped the first two stairs, creating a decent amount of noise and causing Parrot to wince.
Flame went down a step as well, punching Wemmbu’s shoulder. Parrot could practically hear the “bro” as Wemmbu turned to glare at him, rolling his eyes.
You whisper to Wemmbu: Let me go first
Wemmbu shifted his glare up to Parrot.
Wemmbu whispers to you: no
Still looking directly at Parrot, Wemmbu took another step down.
Then another.
You whisper to Wemmbu: Come back
You whisper to Wemmbu: We don’t know what’s down there
In response, Wemmbu turned all the way around, slowly continuing to descend the rest of the stairs. Spoke grinned, pushing past Parrot and following close behind Wemmbu. Flame glanced at Parrot hesitantly, then proceeded to continue walking down as well.
We are all going to die.
Parrot rushed down, passing Flame and reaching out to grab Wemmbu. Wemmbu whipped around to scowl at him, yanking his arm out of Parrot’s grip. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped at the last second, instead opting to just look away, clearly frustrated.
Parrot started to type out a message for Wemmbu, but stopped when he saw Wemmbu’s eyes widen in shock and slight… excitement? He followed his gaze up and over the railing of the stairs, looking into what appeared to be a kitchen and straight at a player he recognized.
MinuteTech...?