A Universally Accepted Truth
Two Akrasia; refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment
Mob stalls forty or so blocks away from his home. He looks at the blocks he placed, the windows, the wall he built, and the dirt blocking his view of the trap he set. Untouched, unchanged. His home. Mob grips his sword tighter. He takes a deep breath and marches to his door. Death is not his end, he should not be so afraid, he is a Player. Worlds can be changed by his hand, if he cares to change them.
He pushes the door open. The first floor is the same. Gentle sunlight filters through his windows. His bed, his chest, and the crafting table. It’s all the same. The air is still and quiet. The dirt he’d placed over the stairs has been cleared, and remnants of it are scattered about. He takes the stairs carefully. The metal of his boots clinking against the wood. He grips his sword tighter, ready to defend himself or run. He stands on the second floor and finds it empty. The dirt over Verity’s nest has been disrupted, as though something has climbed out. Climbed out and down his stairs, chasing after something (after him).
He doesn’t really have a choice, as he stares at the dirt, willing himself to turn back, to leave. Mob sheathes his sword with steady hands. He takes out his shovel and digs. The world inside his home is silent as he digs, but his thoughts race.
Verity told him the villagers were gone, that something was coming in three days. Was the Verity he knew the same as the Husk or were they two different things? Verity asked if he lived alone, but Verity knew that answer, no, Mob and Verity lived in the same house. Was he asking if Mob counted him as a person? Mob had said yes, he was the only Player in this world. He was alone, he hadn’t considered Verity any more alive than the villagers. Mob was wrong about that.
He’d placed Verity with the villagers, aware in some ways of the world. Someone he could have basic interactions with, but that had been an ignorant decision.
Nearing the end, after he asked Verity to play music, Mob had started to think differently. He had started to think about how to approach Verity as a person, not an all-knowing book he could search for answers in. He liked Verity, he trusted Verity. Could things have been different if he had seen Verity as his equal? It’s too late now, he’s made a grave and he must lay in it.
What haunts him is Verity's origin. When Mob first came to this World, he knew that it had been Modified, but he had not expected Verity.
There’s nothing in his house. Verity is gone. Where relief should lay in his chest, but there is only disappointment. He is alone. Mob drops his shovel, takes off his helmet, and sets it on the wood ridge of Verity’s nest. He’s breathing hard as he stares at the dirt and the floor of his home, and he collapses into it. It doesn’t seem possible that Verity is gone. It doesn’t make a lick of sense. All of that, the fear, the waiting, the chaos, just for Verity to vanish.
☺︎
The world is the same, but Mob is not. He’s more aware of the silence of the world. The lack of birds, rabbits, and sheep. His shoulder aches with his movements. Days pass in his home as he wanders aimlessly up and down, down and up. Half humming Verity’s song. His house is too quiet. It is too big now. Too empty. He takes down the cobblestone wall and fills in the trap. He breaks apart Verity’s nest. His shoulder heals, and the last physical reminder of Verity is gone. He pretends he doesn’t mourn that.
He plants wheat seeds and potatoes to pass the time, he looks up once, searching for Verity to ask what the radius is of a block of water that will keep the soil saturated, and then feels ashamed for it.
It rains, the first time since he asked Verity if it would. He is alone. He is alone in his world. He sits on his bed and watches it come down until night falls, and it finally comes to an end. Silence settles back around him.
It strikes him then, as he drags the blanket over his body. He has not seen a monster in nights, he has not even heard the warbles of an Enderman. He has not seen a cow or a sheep. That thought hits him hard, making his heart race. He sits upright, his chest heaving air in and out with a sudden rush of adrenaline. He scrambles out of bed, shoving his feet into his boots, and rushes into the night. Something should have Spawned in by now. Something should be out there beside his wheat and carrots. Something.
It’s stupid and desperate to run out into the night without his sword, in only his scuffed-up iron boots. He stares out into the darkness, straining to hear anything, the groan of a zombie, the rustle of a spider, the sound of an arrow being drawn back and aimed at his head. Anything. There is nothing. He is alone.
He stands in the dark, illuminated only by the waning moon that drifts above him, uncaring and distant. His heart rate and breathing slow. Leaving shame in its place. Mob scrubs a hand against his face. Frustrated with himself, did he seriously hope to find some proof of that Husk? He storms back inside, slamming the door behind him and kicking off his boots. It was stupid, he’s stupid. Verity is gone. He is alone. That is not going to change. He goes to bed angry.
One < ☺︎ > Three
