No One gets Left Behind (Adopted from ZecoriTheWeirdOne)

Chapter 3 (20)

"You hit the target twice," Syra reassured Grian, but he just shrugged off her comforting hand.

"Out of over 100 tries," he pointed out, sighing.

"Magic's difficult to learn," she argued, looking down at him as he rubbed his forehead.

"It's been 8 months," he stated, his voice monotone. "You'd think I'd have made a little more progress than this.

"8 months involving you attempting to not only balance an ordinary life on two servers, one of which infamous for long grinding sessions, but being admin of one of those servers, constantly fixing bugs and keeping the server running. Then on top of that obsessively trying to find your friend and somehow finding time to fit in training your powers. I think your lack of progress is reasonable."

"I don't need sleep," Grian muttered, rolling his eyes as he looked up. "Besides, it's still 8 months. That's a long time." Syra sighed, squatting down slightly and squeezing his shoulder and locking eyes.

"I think you're doing incredibly. You might not see it, but you're doing incredibly," she praised, standing up and looking down at him with almost a sense of... Pride maybe? No, that didn't make sense.

"Sure," Grian muttered, shrugging off her arm and walking off, waving at Netty as he walked towards the portal, dropping his stuff in the chest stationed near and pushing through the portal, feeling a tingling sensation as he stumbled through, noticing that it was late morning. He pushed back a yawn, stepping out into the bright sunlight and seeing his communicator buzz with messages, checking a couple of them and noticing his name pop up a couple of times.

Xisuma: Did Grian head back to Evo last night? I can't find him in the player list.
Mumbo: I dunno, I've not seen him since the start of the season
Scar: He pranked me last night, and I assumed he just went to bed, but it's highly likely that he just went to Evo.

Xisuma: Is it just me or does he seem a lot more stressed recently?
Doc: It's probably just trying to balance two servers, you can probably check with him when he comes back
Xisuma: Yeah, I guess.

He sighed, turning his communicator off as he flew to the shopping district, a few diamonds in hand as he looked around for a basic wood shop, which someone had probably built already knowing Hermitcraft.

Suddenly he turned around, noticing Xisuma for the first time, and Xisuma noticing him a few seconds after.

"Grian! I didn't realise you were back," he said, and Grian gave him a weary smile.

"I always come back Xisuma, did you expect me to suddenly die or something?" he laughed, but Xisuma seemed to pick up on the forcedeness of it. He shrugged.

"We don't see you around as much these days," he said calmly, a concerned look on his face.

"That's not intentional," Grian said, turning away to grab some spruce wood, avoid Xisuma's eyes.

"When was the last time you slept? In either server?" Xisuma asked, studying Grian's face.

"I dunno, probably last night or the night before," he muttered, crossing his arms and turning around.

"I know you've gone without sleep for longer though," Grian argued, ignoring that it had been the first time he'd slept in about a week.

"For how long?" Xisuma pressed, and Grian sighed, eventually muttering

"An hour or two." Xisuma sighed, biting his lip.

"Have you been looking for him?" He asked, taking the following silence as confirmation as he sighed.

"Grian, get some sleep," Xisuma said, resting a hand on his shoulder and locking eyes, giving a supportive smile as Grian slowly nodded, spreading his wings as he prepared to fly. He gave Xisuma a tired smile, taking off and eventually reaching his house, tucking his wings away and reaching his bedroom. He admittedly was pretty tired, and he sunk into the bed, drifting asleep within a couple of minutes despite the bright sun.

"But Grian, they give us free stuff," Netty said, laughing as Grian shrugged.

"Can't argue with that," Grian laughed, staring up in wonder at the Watcher tower. It wasn't really that pretty, and it was a fairly basic design. Bedrock never really looked that great in builds, and in this one it clashed against the stone, being too dark of a shade to properly blend or add texture. But still it was ingrained in Grian's mind that it was incredible. The building seemed to reflect the watchers in that sense.

Taurtis laughed, walking in without hesitation, and Grian followed without hesitation, but he felt himself detach from his body, managing to float about like he was in spectator mode, future memories flashing into his mind.

This was a dream.

No, it seemed too precise to be a dream, more like a memory. But this had never happened to him... But when he focused, he could remember this happening. But none of this lined up at any point.

Netty didn't hesitate either, but the way she walked in felt slightly off, cementing Grian's certainty that this was a dream, but he didn't know why it was like that. After a few seconds, the world started to fade, being replaced instead by a world on fire, then to a rooftop with a figure falling, to each time they shouted at him for not being good enough. Grian let a tear slip down his face as he closed his eyes, curling up into a ball.

Grian woke up, his face soaked with tears as he blinked at the sudden sunlight, groaning as he looked at the time, feeling slightly refreshed from the few hours of sleep. He sighed, getting up and feeling his hands warm slightly.

Time to go again.