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When Gold was younger - so little, so small, he will never let him get hurt - he made a tiny pot out of clay at school.
It was an ugly thing, with too many lumps and a few holes - and a masterpiece because his son worked so hard on it and he was so excited and his smile could outshine the sun - and served no practical purpose.
Gold had left it on the edge of the table, not paying too much attention - like he hadn’t been paying enough attention he should have read the waiver he should never have taken him to the festival he should have told him no - and the pot teetered on the edge.
Mango - King - had been watching from a distance - couldn’t even hold him one last time - and Gold had turned just in time to see the pot fall.
Gold had cried out - screamed for his dad that couldn’t save him - and carefully taken every last shard of ceramic into his hands and blinked back tears.
Gold had been so heartbroken - nothing like King felt now because there was no pain to compare to this - but his son was nothing if not determined, and he decided to do something with it.
Mango - King - thought it was ruined - everything was ruined and wrong and torturous and a mockery and pain - but his son was about to prove him wrong.
Gold took every piece, and carefully - he should have been careful - glued it onto a piece of cardboard. It took the form of a heart - broken, bleeding, he wanted to rip it out and join his son please - and he wrote some words and gave it to him for Father’s Day.
I love you, Dad.
- DON’T TAKE HIM FROM ME -
That was how Gold learned he loved to make mosaics. He’d cut out pieces of colored paper that Mango - King - was still finding years later. He’d gather cool looking rocks and smash them into small pieces when he got home. He’d spend hours in the kitchen, perfectly arranging minuscule bits of tile.
Gold loved it.
And it never would have happened if the pot had not fallen.
Gold told him years later - an eternity ago - that sometimes he’d think about how that pot had wobbled on the edge for several moments. Chance. Random. Coincidence. A coin toss.
If that pot had stabilized, Gold never would have found out about mosaics.
That pot teetered on the edge, wobbling on the brink, swaying back and forth.
A world where Gold found a passion, a love of art. A world where Gold got third in an art show a few years later. A world where their home was covered with bits of broken glass so tenderly placed together it turned the world to magic and love.
Or a world where Gold kept his pot.
It’s crazy to think I might never have found out about this!
- COME BACK COME BACK PLEASE GOLD COME BACK -
That machine was a trap. An entrance to hell. An entrance he never walked through himself and yet it tortured him all the same.
This damned game, this damned world. He’d end it all. He couldn’t think. He could only feel.
The grief had swallowed him and wrapped around him like a noose. Death by suffocation. Death by a broken heart. There wasn’t much of a difference.
And it hurt. It hurt like a glitch, like a virus, like his code was corrupted.
Anger hurt less.
But holding this staff, holding the freezing cold metal as his fingers turned to ice, the hurt only came back.
He watched Purple - Gold, his son, his child - force her way towards him, trying to stop him - come to him, hug him, he’d hug him so tight and never let go - and watched her lose her grip - the dark’s tendrils dragging him away - and fly - be sucked in - to the void of light - to his death -
She tried so hard - like Gold had - because she was stubborn - Gold was determined - and full of anger - Gold had love - and her eyes were far too old - and Gold was far too young -
And Purple wasn’t Gold. She wasn’t. She never was. He knew that. He knew that. He knew that!
Purple was…
An opponent.
Desperate.
An obstacle.
Scared.
In his way.
Someone who didn’t deserve to die.
Not his child.
Just a child.
The pot teetered on the edge.
The staff was burning, his fingertips were frostbite.
A fifty-fifty chance.
He watched her - him - fall, scream, die.
Mango watched the pot wobble back and forth. Gold’s eyes were wide as he realized the danger.
A choice.
A choice.
A choice.
“No,” King Orange said, and the universe was his to command.
The pot righted itself on the counter.
Purple faded into the void, code disappearing into nothing.
Mango breathed out a sigh of relief.
Someone screamed. It sounded like that green kid.
Gold rushed over to his pot and held it close to his chest.
The other kids rushed at him. He barely even looked at them.
Mango told Gold to be more careful with it.
The green kid was acting the most reckless, so killing him first was easy.
The pot was fragile.
The blue one came next. The arrows weren’t any problem, but they were annoying, so she went down next.
It could shatter.
Then came the yellow kid. She made a dumb mistake, and bashing her head in was simpler than breathing.
You don’t want it to shatter.
The red one was a mess by this point. King didn’t even think he could see him coming through his tears.
And Gold never found out he loved to make mosaics.
And only the orange kid was left. He had fallen to his knees, head in his hands.
“You don’t understand,” King Orange felt himself say, “You don’t understand what true pain is.”
And the void of white swelled and expanded and grew, the light bursting out and destroying everything in this wretched, demonic game.
Gold had died surrounded by black. King - Mango - would die surrounded by white.
But then there was a flash and an orange hand against his throat and eyes of fury and fire burning into his.
He choked and his hands dropped the staff but it was too late.
He died surrounded by green.