#inkyfic

The Boatem members bridged the gap in the circle between Pearl and Scar with a whole lot of shuffling and panic- it’s harder than it looks to maneuver yourself while you’re falling into an endless abyss. But finally, Pearl and Scar’s hands met, and the five of them had made a circle within the void. All of the Boatem members breathed heavily into their suits as the world around them grew suddenly deafeningly silent.

After a while, it felt less like falling and more like floating. But they knew they must have been falling- they could see the moonlight of the Boatem Hole getting slowly smaller and smaller above them. It was almost like a moon of its own, but this one getting further, and further, and further. The five of them held on to each others hands for their lives. They breathed slowly in shallow, harsh breaths.

“Here we are,” Grian’s shaky voice rung out over the intercom between the suits.

“Here we are,” Pearl echoed. 

None of the Boatem members knew how long they floated like that, hand in hand, darkness surrounding them. But they all knew the moment it was over.

Pearl, Impulse, Mumbo, and Grian were all watching the Boatem Hole’s light slowly disappear- the circle being now about the size of a normal moon- when it happened. Suddenly, each one of them was blinded by brilliance none had ever seen before. It was eerily quiet- no deafening explosion, no shaking, no other evidence of their world being ripped to shreds- just this light, this brilliant, horrible light that cast them all starkly against the ever-empty abyss.

And then it was over. Each of them blinked away the afterimage burned into their retinas, but found they could no longer really see each other. The Boatem-Hole-Moon was gone, their reference point in reality, their connection to their home now snuffed out against the void. A slow shiver passed through the group as the void engulfed them- each person’s silhouette barely illuminated by the glowing vital lines on their suits and their wrists.

It was Pearl who finally broke the silence. “There is no home anymore,” she said, and a wave of dread worked its way through them all. 

All, that is, except for Scar, who was struggling to look at the display on his left wrist while still holding tight to Impulse’s hand. The display illuminated his face through his green-tinted helmet, and silent tears streamed down his face as he watched it. 

“Scar?” Grian asked, quietly, gently- although the audio from the intercom gave his words an unintentionally harsh edge.

But Scar, in turn, responded, so quietly the others could barely hear him. 

“I don’t think they made it.” It took the other members a minute to realize what he meant.

“Nugget,” Pearl said, more of a statement than a question.

Scar nodded, tears streaming down his face. Jellie had been on that ship. Goose, Gem’s cat, had been there too. Cub’s cow. Grian’s dragon egg- the hope for a new generation.

Scar’s display turned to static. 

They all sat there in silence, no reference for where they were in the endless void. They could be upside down, sideways, a million miles from Boatem or any of the s8 hermitcraft server. All of their friends could be dead.

They could float here forever.

--

Impulse closed his eyes, exhausted, weary; and opened them... to see the void... moving. It was impossible, of course. The Void was just an endless abyss, everyone knew that. 

And yet, something within the nothingness moved.

Impulse watched with horror as the cold darkness reached to Mumbo, wrapped around him, playfully, slowly, closer and closer-

He gasped, and something in his voice made all of the Boatem members quickly turn to look at him. He looked to Pearl’s confused expression, then back to Mumbo... but the thing, whatever it was, had gone. 

“Impulse, are you okay?” Mumbo asked.

Had he hallucinated it? “I... I thought I saw something,” he said. All the members looked at him with concern. “I swear... I thought I saw the void move,” he said. Everyone squirmed, slightly, subconsciously tightening their gloved grip to hold on to each other.

“Perhaps... you had imagined it,” Scar’s voice said, still scratchy from tears. 

“We’ve been here a while,” Pearl acknowledged. “Or... at least I think we have. I don’t actually know... we could’ve been here for only a couple of minutes.”

“So... what do we do now?” Mumbo said. 

Nobody responded. Grian had been uncharacteristically quiet, staring behind his shoulder to stare into the void. Finally, now, he turned back to look at Pearl.