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It had been two years.
Two years.
Two years of not knowing, of the only comfort being wherever his mind took him, the imaginary scenarios he pictured him being.
Two years of radio silence, of his messages being ignored.
Two years since he went missing.
Two years and Mumbo was no closer to finding out what happened to him than he was on day one.
Two years.
Seven hundred and thirty days.
Mumbo wasn’t sure a number had even haunted him as much as it did. It loomed over him and his every move, because why was he doing something other than looking for him? Maybe that nunmber would have been lower if he hadn’t given up looking, if he hadn’t listened to Xisuma.
Deep down he knew the admin only wanted what was best for him. But part of him wasn’t sure he could accept it. He wasn’t sure he could accept the fact that Grian was gone.
He had struggled to accept it when Xisuma had told him.
“Mumbo?” Xisuma called out, his voice echoing throughout the walls.
Mumbo hummed back, shoving his stuff back into his chests and turning to face the man. He frowned, taking in his admins appearance.
He stood tall, communicator in hand, thumb rubbing up along its edge. The other hand was tapping against his leg, a shaky exhale following him. The man had a haunted look in his eye, lips parted and-
Mumbo wanted to leave.
He didn’t want to have whatever conversation Xisuma was trying to have with him.
“I’m a little busy right now, X. Can it wait?” He chuckled nervously, stepping back towards the growing piles of chests behind him.
Xisuma shook his head. “Mumbo, you should sit down.”
Oh.
He wasn’t sure why he did so, but he found himself sitting down on a nearby chair, Xisuma next to him.
“You can’t continue like this Mumbo.” Xisuma muttered, outstretching a hand as he placed it over Mumbo’s own.
He let out a dry laugh. “I’m fine X. Honestly, you’re wasting your time.”
Xisuma sighed, “Mumbo, he’s— He’s gone.”
He almost laughed.
Because it was funny. It was funny how wrong Xisuma was.
Grian wasn’t gone.
He wasn’t.
The man was just ignoring him for some strange reason. And the portal to Evo flickering to a close was just a weird glitch that Grian hadn’t fixed. Which maybe that was why he had stopped responding to Mumbo’s daily messages. He must’ve gotten wrapped up in his admin duties.
“Some news came out about Evo.”
Mumbo’s eyes widened, hope fluttering back to him, the once extinguished flame flickering with the ounces of remaining hope.
“The portal flickered up and opened earlier this week. It spat out some of the members and then closed.” Xisuma took in a deep breath before he met Mumbo’s glossed over eyes.
“Grian wasn’t one of them.”
No—
“Grian’s gone.”
Mumbo shook the memory away. He didn’t want to think about that. In fact he’d done everything to never bring that day up again with anyone.
Mumbo was grateful that the Hermit’s didn’t push him into speaking about it. They knew how much he had mourned the man, and the Hermit’s had mourned with him.
But it hadn’t helped.
Not when he was still dea—
“Mumbo?”
His eyes flickered back up, Xisuma’s worried face drowning out the thoughts.
“If you want to go home you can. I can send you the notes for this meeting when you’re ready.” Xisuma offered. And whilst Mumbo appreciated it, he couldn’t spend the day rotting away. He wouldn’t want that.
He shook his head. “No, continue, sorry I just… got lost in my head.” He let out a weak smile, hoping it would convince the other.
Whether it worked or not, Xisuma went back to whatever he was talking about.
He tried to listen in but his mind didn’t want to listen. Every time he tried to focus it seemed to float away, his vision became fuzzy and everything seemed to far away.
Maybe it would just be easier to float with it, to sink into the feeling as everything seemed to grow further away.
He wondered if—
Mumbo was brought back down to his own body as the word shuddered. He let out a yelp as the room shook, papers falling from the table as the walls shook. His hands tightened around the chair, fingers going white as he held the wooden arm.
Then it stopped.
Before Mumbo could say anything, other voices were filtering out into the room, drawing out any thoughts he could have come up with.
“What was that—”
“I thought we turned natural disasters off!”
“Xisuma didn’t—”
“They are turned off!”
“What was—”
“Mumbo?”
His eyes left the spot on the floor they had previously been glued to and met Scar’s wide eyes.
“You alright, Mumbo?” Scar tilted his head ever so slightly, his hand hovering above the chair he sat at.
He nodded quickly, “Yeha ‘m fine.” He murmured.
Scar nodded slowly, still staring at him. “You sure? It’s just… Your eyes are… y’know… red… Which is fine but uh, I don’t think you losing yourself to your instincts right now would be… great.” Scar spoke quickly, wincing as he continued.
Oh.
He hadn’t noticed they had turned.
“I hadn’t… Sorry, I’m not gonna fall into them.” He muttered, blinking a few times hoping to rid the colour from himself.
He wasn’t sure if it worked but Scar had turned away, along with most of the group who were making their ways outside. Mumbo exhaled slowly before bringing himself to his feet, following the group.
Maybe the lack of sleep last night had gotten to him. Or maybe it was because of what day it was, or how he hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning or lunch in the afternoon.
Because surely he was hallucinating.
Because the sky was a deep purple.
It was as if an ink cartridge had fallen into the sky and leaked, sending the deep purple around the endless void centre. The ink sprawled out as far as it could, before it finally evaporated at the ends, bleeding out into the familiar pale blue sky. It was a firework of different shades of purple, exploding across the sky and painting the players with a sense of horror.
What. The. Fuck.
Mumbo shuffled around, eyes settling on the ground a few metres away from them.
There was a crater.
Thick smoke grew upwards and out of the hole. The earth around it was jagged and sharp, as if it were ready to get up and fight, ready to protect whatever had caused this.
But Mumbo was more focused on the dense copper smell that floated out from the crater.
Blood.
A lot of it by how strong the smell was.
As the silence grew, Xisuma eventually stepped forwards, leaning his head over the crater, peering down. The man froze for a second, head locking onto whatever was down there, before he promptly jumped down into the crater.
It seemed to break everyone else out of their trance as others stepped forwards. Mumbo hesitated to follow, watching as Joe followed Xisuma and Doc muttered something Mumbo knew he wasn’t really meant to. Mumbo watched as Impulse stood in front of him, as his eyes set foot on the scene in front of him he seemed to stumble back, eyes wide with horror. Scar stood beside him, watching over it all as confused as Mumbo seemed to be.
“What’s… What’s going on?” Mumbo wasn’t sure if his voice shook or not but he wasn’t sure it really mattered. There were bigger problems.
It also didn’t matter because no one seemed to want to answer him.
Joe was climbing out of the crater, moving past the people staring into the hole with ease. Then he paused beside Scar. Joe leaned closer, whispered something to the man and continued, moving past them without another thought.
Mumbo turned to the other but before he could speak the words were lost in his throat.
Scar was staring over ahead, not meeting Mumbo’s gaze of curiosity. “We should go, Mumbo.” Scar said, swallowing a lump in his throat. “They— They other’s have it covered.”
What?
“No— Scar!” He yelped as Scar had started moving, a hand firmly gripped onto his wrist. He pulled back, shaking the hand from him. “What’s— What’s going on? What did Joe tell you?”
Scar pursed his lips. “It’s best we go home and I tell you there.”
“Wha— No!” He protested, stepping back from Scar and closer to what had gotten people to act so… odd.
“Mumbo—”
He was stopped by a firm hand being placed on his shoulder. Impulse was standing there, no longer haunted but determination bleeding through his face.
“You should go with Scar, Mumbo.”
No.
He didn’t want to do that.
He wanted to go to it.
He wanted to go to the bl—
“There are blood bags at Scar’s you can have and I’m sure people wouldn’t mind if a few cows went missing. You don’t need to—” Impulse spoke carefully, purposefully moving his body to block Mumbo’s view.
The offer did sound good, but Mumbo’s curiosity was hungrier.
A low broken moan of pain interrupted them.
Impulse’s head snapped back and while he wasn’t proud of it, Mumbo did take advantage of it to feed the curiosity.
Everything went cold as he saw it.
The scene was burned in his eyelids, one that he was sure would haunt his dreams and flicker to life in his nightmares. He could feel the way his lungs deflated and muscles stopped working.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no—
Gri—
Mumbo had pictured this day many times. He’d seen it in his dreams, a sunny day in a field, a cool gentle breeze against the warm beams of the sun. And then, he’d see him. Mumbo had pictured them hugging when he saw him again. He’d imagined them running to get to each other, smiles on their faces and not a care about anything else. He’d imagined that the Evo portal would reignite and he would be thrown out at the same time Mumbo visited. He’d imagined his communicator would buzz while he was working on a redstone project. He would see the message, and then reread it, and reread it again just to make sure it was him responding. He’d imagined Xisuma calling him for something important and—
Mumbo hadn’t pictured this.
He hadn’t pictured seeing him, his best friend, Grian, curled in on himself. His hair was matted and too long, brushing just below his ears in some places. Grian didn’t like it when his hair got too long. His wings were patchy, splotches of feathers were missing, some having been cut. They were stained red, none of the ocean blue or shining golden was visible.
Just red.
Blood.
Mumbo was pulled from his thoughts as soft whimpers escaped Grian’s lips, occasionally hitching as someone hurt him more.
“Deep breaths, Mumbo. C’mon, in… and out… Can you—”
He wasn’t listening.
He wouldn’t listen to anyone when Grian was there.
When Grian was back.
He didn’t think as his legs finally regained movement and he was moving. Moving down into the crater. Moving towards Grian.
Grian, Grian, Grian, Grian, Grian, Gri—
Mumbo gasped, air finally flooding back into his once painfully empty lungs as his knees hit the dry smoky ground. He was sure ash would stick to his suit but he didn’t care.
Blood.
So much blood.
Mumbo ignored it as best he could, hands scrambling to Grian’s face. He wiped some of the liquid off, brushing his hair out of his face alongside it. Grian’s eyes were weakly scrunched up as staggered breaths came in and out.
Mumbo had missed him.
Blood.
Blood.
Then Grian’s lips broke apart, a pained cry escaping.
His head snapped away, turning to his side. Doc was hovering over Grian’s stomach where there was—
Blood.
So much blood.
Mumbo had never wanted to look away from something more.
Across Grian’s stomach was a gash, slitting it open, smothered in blood.
Blood.
Blood.
As Doc did something to Grian, he let out another unconscious cry.
Mumbo didn’t think twice as he bared his fangs, a low hiss leaving his throat. His throat was dry, sandpaper scraping against the burning sounds as they left. He didn’t stop though. Not when Grian was hurt.
They were hurting him.
They were hurting him and Mumbo wasn’t doing anything.
Another moan of pain left the other and Mumbo snapped.
He wasn’t sure when he left Grian’s side or when he had gone for Doc, but he knew that Doc had a fang shaped puncture in his neck and he was currently being held back.
Away from Doc.
Away from Grian.
It only got worse as Doc shook himself off, and moved closer to Grian—
Another low hiss left him, in sync with a cry of pain from Grian as Doc did something.
“Doc is helping, Mumbo.” Impulse grunted, readjusting his arms around one of Mumbo’s. He pulled tighter, trying to shake them off.
Tango groaned, “This’ll be easier if you stop pulling.”
Mumbo ignored them as he continued to flail his arms the best he could as Doc was hurting—
“Doc!” Joe called out as he approached, hoping down into the pit. Joe winced as he looked over at Mumbo, a look of pity thrown towards him. Mumbo didn’t catch it. “I have the potions.” He muttered, holding out a handful of colourful bottles.
They were going to drug him.
They were going to drug Grian.
Another hiss left him, quickly followed by a deep snarl as Joe pulled the cork from a bottle.
Joe’s eyes flicked between him and Grian before they landed on him. He crouched down next to Grian, holding the open bottle carefully. “It’s healing, Mumbo. If we don’t give it to him, he’ll die and we don’t know how he’ll respawn on the server.”
Oh.
Healing.
Die.
Grian would die if they didn’t do this.
Mumbo swallowed a lump, inhaling slowly, the haze he had been blinded by slowly dispersing.
Still, even with the fog gone, his eyes stayed glued to Joe as he poured the liquid on Grian.
He only stopped when the darkness took over.
— — —
Everything hurt.
His head sent waves of aches throughout his brain as they hit his skull and bounced off and back into the other side and arms were restless. His chest was sending spirals of stabbing pains down his back and his legs had fallen numb at some point.
Everything hurt and Grian had never been happier.
Everything hurt.
Everything hurt but he was alive.
He hadn’t died.
They hadn’t managed to kill him off. They hadn’t finished him off. They had failed.
Grian had beaten them.
Grian had won.
He had won.
Grian inhaled slowly and shakily but it was real.
Then he peeled his eyes back.
Grian didn’t know how long he had spent in the void with them but in the time he had spent with them he must have forgotten how bright it was in the overworld. Because his eyes burned.
But they soon recovered as he blinked the pain away. He had dealt with worse things anyways.
He was in what looked like a small shack. Wood made up the high walls, a few paintings decorating them and bringing some colour into the dull lifeless room. He was laying in a bed, soft white bedding. It was heavenly. Well, anything was compared to the ‘bed’ he had in the void.
And then there was a chair.
A wooden chair sat beside his bed, painfully close.
Which wasn’t the anomaly in the situation.
The anomaly was the person sitting in it.
But, fortunately, there's a one word answer to what he’s seeing: Hallucinations.
He’s hallucinating his dead best friend who they had ripped him away from because of course he was. Of course his mind would do that to him.
Or maybe his mind wasn’t doing anything and he was dead. Maybe this was heaven and Mumbo was waiting for him to join him. Well, Grian was fairly sure he wouldn’t be making it up there, not with the things they had made him do. He just hopes Mumbo will think of him during his eternity of happiness.
But the hallucination seemed to think he was real, which is odd but then again, Grian’s never hallucinated before so maybe this was normal for seeing things.
“...Grian?”
It hurt.
It hurt to hear that voice again, so painfully accurate it felt like this was their final thing, the final stab in the back. Which, maybe it was, maybe he hadn’t even escaped them and this was a huge ploy to get him to confess.
“Grian, can you… Can you hear me?” The hallucination spoke again and it didn’t hurt any less.
Grian didn’t know how just hearing that voice again made tears fall from his eyes but it did. He didn’t think he could take hearing it all again.
“Oh no— Does something hurt? I can go get Doc, although he’s not too happy with me at the minute but I’m sure he’ll be happy to help! Or Joe or Xisuma! They can help, or I can—”
Grian wanted to applaud his mind for how it managed to capture Mumbo’s personality, how it kept all of his little quirks, like how his leg was constantly jostling up and down and fingers intertwining with each other as he avoided eye contact, looking down to the ground.
He shook his head, wincing at how the aches ramped up in speed at the action.
Although it was worth it as Mumbo relaxed, shoulders losing the tension that had been caught in them before. “Good, good.”
Then it went quiet.
Grian just stared at the hallucination.
It looked real.
He looked like Mumbo.
The man was wearing that stupid suit but he had lost the tie for once. Grian had only ever seen him without it once and that was because he had stolen it before Mumbo had the chance to put it on. But his hair was still that jet black but it wasn’t slicked back, rather messily brushed as he let it fall over his forehead. There were bags under his eyes as well, deep circles around his eyes. They stood out on the man’s unnaturally pale skin.
Then Mumbo blinked and—
Grian leaned forwards and threw himself at the hallucination.
He prepared to fall, he prepared to face plant the wooden chair and suffer a worse headache than the one he currently had.
He didn’t expect for the hug to be returned, for his desperate grasping around the other to be returned with an equal amount of desperation. Grian just fell into the hug more, greedy and hungry for whatever Mumbo would offer him.
He was real.
Mumbo was here.
Alive.
“Mumbo.” He cried, the words burning his throat as they pushed through the barriers. “Mumbo, Mumbo, Mumbo—”
The other’s arms tightened, head nodded as it rested on his hair. “I’m here— Grian, I missed you— Gods, you… I— Promise me you won’t ever leave me like that.”
“I’m not leaving, ever.”
— — —