Letters Lost in Time - Karl Jacobs

I'm Tired.

I'm tired.

I'm so fucking tired. I don't want to travel anymore. It's too much, it's too taxing, it's nigh unbearable at this point. I don't want this. I never asked for this anyway, to be subject to such a cruel fate and have no escape whatsoever. I didn't fucking ask for this, and yet I got it. I got it for no real reason. Out of all the people on this godforsaken server, it had to be me.

What do I have to offer, anyway? I'm just some regular guy. I'm not exactly good at... anything. I have no specialty at all, but I'm not some jack of trades either. I can't fight, I'm too clumsy to be stealthy... All I really have is my intellect and maybe charisma, but even in that there are clearly others better than me. I have no real redeeming qualities in comparison to all these other people. Why me? Why not someone more resilient, like Phil? Why not someone stronger, like Technoblade? Why not someone more persistent, like Tommy? Why not someone smarter, like Tubbo? Why not someone who isn't just a mess of mediocre qualities with no real drive to improve in any aspect of life?

Why not someone who isn't a total failure?

Well, there's nothing much I can do about it if I've been handed that role. Couldn't I at least have gotten a way out of it, at least? Like, I sure wish there was a time out button somewhere. I sure wish there was a way to clock out and take my well-deserved break. I sure wish I had proper working hours and a flexible schedule. I sure wish the universe sent a representative for me to negotiate with, somehow. I sure wish I was given some contract with all the full details of what exactly this time travelling business entails. I'm not quite sure I signed up for memory problems, hallucinations, and endless self-doubt.

Just what exactly will it take to free me from the shackles of time, to loosen the chains that bind me so?

I don't even have the option to take a break. I have no control over it. I'm almost entirely at the mercy of whatever higher being is up there, if those do exist in the first place. I could drop the projects at any moment, leave the books in some old chest somewhere and never touch them again and still end up getting pulled back into a new travel once the universe demands it. I could mess up as much as possible, could wreak as much chaos and havoc as I wished and still end up forced to fix my own mistakes. I could do whatever, I have done whatever, and yet I would still be pulled back to the time-space conundrum without fail.

I know I said I wouldn't back down, but is it really so bad if I just want a moment's respite?

It's so cold. It's so cold, and I hate it. The inbetween, the portal, the numbing emptiness of my heart. Everything I touch feels like ice creeping up from frostbitten fingertips, everything I see feels like it's permanently clouded by misty haze and rampant blizzards. Every breath I take feels like frigid spikes pressing into my lungs, every step feels like brittle floe spreading out from the soles of gelid shoes. I can't remember the last time I wasn't in such a fervid snowstorm, with incessant hail biting at my skin like sharp icicles digging deep into me.

Whenever I'm forced to travel, a feeling of coldness washes over me before bathing me in particles of green and purple light and taking me away to times and universes I honestly couldn't care less about. I don't like it, I never did and I never will. The cold reminds me of solitude. The cold reminds me of nights spent alone, trembling and shivering and with no one else by my side. The cold reminds me that I'm going far, far away, that I'm going there alone, that I'm staying there for an unknown amount of time against my own will. The cold reminds me that I'm slowly losing my memories, slowly losing myself, slowly losing all I hold dear to me. The cold reminds me of the inevitable, of the uncaring, of the unforgiving.

I miss the warmth. I miss fire, and the comfort it brings. I miss Quackity and Sapnap and all their ancestors and descendants and reincarnations. I miss the captivating flame that draws me closer to them, that gives me temporary comfort in a time of distress, that makes the cold world around me melt into nothingness as I can pretend for a second that everything is alright.