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Golden gates stand before him now, towering up to the ceiling. He swallows. His heart is thumping somewhere in his neck and he’s terrified and horrified and intrigued. His gut tells him not to go forwards, but his mind has been caught like a fish on a hook and it says, Eat the worm. Eat the apple. Apple? Fish don’t even eat apples.
Whatever. There’s no reason to be afraid of a door. It’s just a door. Just-a-door. He takes a cautious peek around the golden doorframe - a bit like a child might do, eavesdropping on adults. He is a child, really - eavesdropping on matters he shouldn’t know, matters for the greater beings out there.
(How fearful it must have been to fall into a realm of which you do not belong...)
Nothing. Just void. “Come on,” he says, and his voice feels offending, unwelcome. He takes a few steps forwards, glances into the void and-
infinite
unending
boundless
unknowable
It is-
the birth of a galaxy from a million swirls of stardust
the quick chase of electric impulse from neuron to neuron, synapse to synapse
the purple-orange-red-yellow supernova exploding a million light years away
the spark of beautiful impossible fire burning down a planet
the rustle of leaves below a blue sky
It is the long dream, in all its terrible splendor.
A million images follow each other into his mind, a rowdy lineup of pictures stored in his long-term memory and it’s all burning and hes dying and it all hurts so so so much and its so beautiful and impossible and painful and-
He just needs to hold it together long enough to
Tto warn
Avery
Run run run ru n gegt away from that thing get awy from it
Wrute write inth e book ager y has to know
Dont durn left at the crossroads
Dont turn left at the crossroads…
Dont turn…
…
He is passing a tree. Why is there a tree? What is a tree?
…
He's thirsty. Maybe he’ll go for a drink.
…
Like an animal
…
That’s pretty funny
…
Where are the birds? Were there birds here? Why not now?
…
A book. Oh. It’s empty.
When Derek writes in his little to-be journal for the first time, he’s curled up against a tree in a nasty damp cave. He obviously wouldn’t have been there if he could properly think, but apparently he can’t think.
Darkness
no think
It’s some messy, messy words, but they’re words.
…
hes been tirkced hasn’t he
Tr-icked.
Yes. that’s right
Its so odd
He cant thin kright
…right
Hy not?
Akl he knows is he fell for ti
What?
The apple
Tes
Yes
The apple
It tastes terble
the apple is disgusting, he writes.
It s not very god
God?
Aoh yes
God
Iyt tastes terrbile
…
He walks.
If he thinks back on it he can’t really remember what he saw back at the… the… the golden gates, yes. He couldn’t tell you what he saw.
He saw something, yes. Something… honey?
Apple.
It wasn’t red, though.
He’ll leave it be
It hurts his mind to think about it
…
He has a book in his inventory. He doesn’t really remember when he got it, to be honest. But it’s there, and he has two entries in it
God,i ts embarressing.
Thats what he gets for being too curious
…
He finds a pen.
Its begging him to write itn the book
So he does.
His words are clumsy, misshapen, wrong.
He doesn’t like how his words look.
Unfortuantely, pens can’t be erased
…
He’s finally got it together again. Well, mostly. Enough to think right, if a bit slowly.
Unfortunately, his fingers are odd and twitchy and…
Funny
He doesn’t have the word for it. He knows everything that ever was, is, and could be, but he can’t think of a word.
That’s what infinite knowledge does to a person, he guesses.
Anyways, he can’t write well.
I can write agin
Almsot
I can think but it feelsl ike slurring
aowrds in my head.
He doesn’t know if his message - his warning, that’s the word - arrived, and it feels too hard to probe inside his head for the information.
Funny. His head isn’t hurting as much anymore.
…maybe he should try.
A stab of pain shoots through his head at the thought.
Actually, on second thought, he probably shouldn’t.
…
The date just slipped inside his mind today. November 19, 2025. What was it last time? September? Something around that time.
Nothing hurts as much anymore.
…maybe he’ll be able to look away from the computer.
I do’t know how its’;
getting better but it is
. Something about this
World?
…
The date is December 3, 2025.
He went looking for it this time; it’s just a dull ache, now.
Maybe he should revisit the question from what…
October 29, the Knowledge informs him.
Yes.
What did he see, after all?
He remembers…
Glowing eyes
yellow
glowing
a pari of them
yes
They belonged to a
Huge shadowy figure
crown
It had a crown
If He smiles, you’ll see His teeth, the Knowledge informs him.
His head hirts
Hurts
He reall y shouldn’t be doing this
There were glowing eyes
Two yellow glowing eyes
Little dots in the darkness
And there was a huge massive figure behind it
Its odd how he refers to Knowledge with reverence
And so deos the Knowledge when talking about it.
Almsot like christiatn swhen they
When they praey
A god tehn?
…
He passed out last time he thought about him.
He won’t do it today. Maybe tomorrow.
The Soylent bottles are getting old, fast. What he would do for a plate of rice and chicken…
…
He writes down his discoveries.
His memories feel like sand through his fingers - water through a net. They pour out of his mind and leave him too easily. It’s better to write it in a tangible real book.
I remember it
I remember I saw it
It ws a god
And he is just a man
Maybe a lord, dare he say.
How long has it been since he’s made a joke?
I am insignificant. I
cannot stop it
…
Why can’t he stop it though?
Why not?
Gods can be defeated
At least that’s what the Knowledge tells him.
Because…
It isn’t real
Not in the normal sense, anyways. It’s not… physical? That’s not the right word.
It knows everything.
- correction.
It is everything.
because there isn’t an
it to stop. It is beyond
physicality. It knows I
am nothing. Everything I will do. I am nothing.
…
It’s getting boring, fast.
With the secrets of the King somewhat unraveled, there’s not much else to do. To pass the time, he walks. He walks until his legs are sore and aching and ready to give up.
It distracts him a bit from his headache.
Keyword: a bit. He’s had a pretty nasty headache ever since… when?
It doesn’t matter, at least it’s manageable now. Not as bad as when it first came and he felt like he’d been blasted to outer space.
Damn, he really got to the brink of madness, didn’t he?
Hm. He really is lucky.
This Avery guy, he’s pretty lucky, too.
Well, that is, if Avery finds this mine. There’s a lot of worlds where he doesn’t, and maybe Derek will just be left to wander this cave forever and forever. He doesn’t want to. It’s incredibly selfish of him, but he wants Avery to find him. How selfish.
He just wants to be remembered
That’s a lie. He just wants to have an ending in sight, or some variation in his days at the least.
If Avery doesn’t come, he guesses he’ll just explore. And once there’s nothing left to explore, he’ll die. Or he’ll try to kill the King. He’d rather die than face the headache again.
…
He started recording today.
He figures he’ll upload it to Youtube once he’s ready to die, just so some random person can find him and watch it and maybe realize what happened.
Pretty selfish.
Aw, man, he’s doing it anyway.
Who is he kidding? No one will find him and no one will ever know about the King in Yellow and he’ll be forgotten and he’ll die in pain and alone a failure.
Damn, he’s really selfish.
Selfish selfish selfish.
He distracts himself from his thoughts by writing.
If only he had a bigger book to write in - then he’d write stories and sketch and…
But the pen doesn’t have much ink and the book is small.
I finally feel good
enough to record.
Most of my faculties
are back but I can
tell
It’s strange. I feel like
I know far more than I
did before. yet it
doesn’t hurt like it
used to. Somehow I
feel alright in this
place
Time to get this over with, then. He’ll go start the recording.
…
It hurt. a lot
Thankfully its over now.
Hes goddamned tired
Wheres iths book? He needs to ifnd a book
A bigger one to write in
If he gets this tired from just opening OBS theres no way he’ll be able to look away from the screen
His mom used to obsess over his eyesihgt
Months straihgt of staring at a computer screen will wrekc that for sure
Where is his moma nyways?
Why hasnt she called?
…actually derekdoesn’t want toknow
He won’t ask the Knowledge on that one.
…
I have a bit of food
and water within arms
reach, but I can’t look
away from the screen
for more than a
second before the
…
What was he trying to say?
Derek stares at the broken jagged sentence. ‘Before the…’
Damn, opening OBS really took a toll on him. He lets out a short, almost-hysterical laugh.
Sorry I just blanked
out fo ra moment
hetere. I feel absent
minded but gosh I
just looked at my
typing.
I need to put this
Bookdown
…
He thinks it doesn’t hurt as much.
Maybe. It’s just a quiet dull ache. Anyone could handle it. Still, he wishes it would go away so he could be “normal” and look away from the screen and get something other than Soylent!
Funny how he’s slowly rotting away in a chair playing Minecraft and the first thing he hates is Soylent.
Well… the body has its ways, he guesses.
…
He’s gotten his wish.
The pain has all but stopped.
Really his whole life used to be Minecraft before this. I have no life, he’d joke. All of the highlights of his life were in Minecraft. Sad, really.
Now he really doesn’t even have a life outside of Minecraft. It was forced on him. The joke turns bitter in his mouth, rotting there.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he’s bored out of his mind!
…
For moments I can
feel the heaviness
lifting. I can barely
describe it it just
feels lighter.
THe physical pain is
stopping as well.
Slowly. Looking away
from my screen hurts
my head. I can’t look
away from the screen.
He writes it, and then it’s back to boredom. You know what? He’s going to write in the margins, anyways.
…
The margins are filled with little notes and sketches. He thinks he’s getting better at drawing. He even wrote a few stories!
…they’re very short. Not as if he had enough space for it.
When is Avery coming?
Selfish selfish selfish selfish
The only thing he has to look forward to is Avery’s arrival and he counts on it, counts on Avery being doomed.
God, he’s so selfish.
…
He has a theory. He has a theory about the god he saw behind the golden gates.
It hurts a little to think about, but it’s nothing compared to what it was before.
He has a theory that it’s Hastur. The King in Yellow.
After all, only he could make people insane with a glimpse. Only he has smiles with too many sharp teeth. And he’s one of the more prominent gods that have yellow as their color.
It sends a shiver down his spine, thinking about him. But he certainly isn’t going to give the god the satisfaction of thinking with a capital h in he.
…
If Avery doesn’t come soon, he’ll just off himself.
Really, why does he want to stay in this world anymore?
It’s not as if he has a life outside of this computer.
This is unatural
So much nausea when
I look away.
This is no way to live
He lied, he’s not that selfish. He couldn’t let Avery die to the King in Yellow. But god it’s getting hard to keep going forward.
He should write that.
He doesn’t.
Maybe this is what Avery will feel like after he lives and Derek dies.
He’ll save that for Avery.
…
Luckily for him the Knowledge informs him that the last Avery to join this world comes in a week. He’s too tired to care about if he’s selfish anymore.
New Years’ Day.
Kind of symbolic - maybe he’ll make it to the New Year after all.
It’s nice to have a goal to work towards - helps him stay alive, ward off the depression.
Huh, funny to say, he is depressed. He never thought of himself as a depressed sort of guy but he guesses he is.
…
It’s New Years’ Eve
He’s waiting…
TheMostMayo joined the game
Finally.
…
In another universe, a few hours later, Avery never joins the game.
It’s New Years’ Eve
He’s waiting…
The clock strikes twelve-
He’s not waiting anymore
He’s done with this.
He rips his gaze off of the computer, forcing himself to gaze out into the night sky. A night sky that he will never get to see again.
Fireworks fizz and bang, colorful waterfalls against the stars.
Derek Hutchins dies alone.