Sam's Back || Book 1 of 2 in the Sam's Back series

5

Ten minutes passed while Sam talked to 'Yuki' about how heartbroken he'd been when she left him. Grian sat there awkwardly.

"This is a conversation you're meant to talk back!" Sam said, sitting up and pulling away from Grian to stare at him accusingly.

"Sorry, I just don't know what to say, I'm not Yuki." He said quietly.

"But you are Yuki now, Gree-on, and you need to do better." His words bit into him and made him feel powerless. He was going to be stuck there for the rest of his life.

"I'm sorry." He whimpered.

"You will be." Sam said. "In fact, why don't I demonstrate just how sorry you'll be right now? It might make you better." Grian's eyes widened as Sam reached for the blade on the cabinet.

"Yuki gave me this one, do you remember it?" He asked, Grian gave a short nod as he stood up and backed away to the other side of the room. "She had a matching one. She was so sweet, I miss her, Gree-on, no one else would ever get me a matching knife." Sam approached him and soon he was pressed against a wall.

The metal was cool as Sam pressed it against his neck. Grian sucked in a breath. Sam was staring at him, their eyes locked.

"This is just a demonstration, if you do anything I can give you much more painful deaths." He whispered, before turning the knife suddenly so that it cut into his neck deeply.

Grian cried out in pain before his voice wore out as Sam shoved the knife all the way through him. Then he pulled it out suddenly and blood spilled from him. Grian fell to the ground, putting his hands to his neck wishing the overwhelming pain to stop. It was the only thing. It was like no one else was in the room and the room didn't even exist. Nothing existed other than pain. In those moments, pain was all he knew.

It lingered, getting worse and worse until he started to feel light headed from blood loss. Within minutes (although they felt like hours) he was unconscious. Within more minutes, he woke up in the bed, a metre and a half away from where he'd been dying moments before.

He drew in a shaky breath, before breathing out shallowly and putting his hand to his neck. The skin was healed, but he could still feel the ghost of pain. He looked at Sam, who looked scarily satisfied, and regretted it when he looked back with such... joy that it scared him. Sam moved towards him and he pulled himself back and off the bed to stand against the wall.

"Gree-on! Where are Yuki's clothes?" He asked threateningly, holding up the knife again. He stared at it, panicked.

"What?" His voice came out as a sob and he only realised then that he was crying.

"Your clothes! Where are Yuki's? What did you do with them?!" Grian spared a glance down at himself to see that he was wearing his usual red jumper and black jeans again.

"I don't know." He said quietly, trying not to anger Sam more even though it was a useless effort. "I don't know respawn mechanics." He said.

"I was trying to be nice! I was trying to be patient with you Gree-on but you're just asking for trouble!" Sam said, moving towards him again in a similar way to last time.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Grian helplessly cried before the knife was up against him again. This time it was by his ribcage. Sam cut him about a centimetre deep, drawing the blade down to leave a line. It was a warning cut.

"What did you say?" He asked innocently.

"I'm sorry!" Grian said, finally stopping his tears but having them replaced with uncontrollable breathing patterns. Maybe he'd die of suffocation before dying of anything Sam did.

"Sorry isn't good enough!" Sam screamed, deafening him a bit and shoving the knife powerfully into him. Grian screamed back but for entirely different reasons. Sam took out the knife and rammed it into him again two more times, before pulling it out for good and leaving Grian to sink to the floor again to cough up blood until he died. It hurt. It hurt beyond what was believable.

He respawned in the bed again. Sam grinned at him as he curled up into a ball to try and protect his internal organs. Grian knew Sam was enjoying this, and it made it all hurt more.

"Come on Gree-on, don't be like that," Sam said teasingly like it was simply light banter and not murder, "it's not as fun." Grian didn't move. "I said it's not as fun!" Sam yelled, grabbing Grian's arm and pulling him off the bed, throwing him against a wall. Then he delivered a powerful punch to the face, leaving Grian's nose bloody, before kneeing him in the chest. He hunched over, whimpering, before Sam grabbed him again and pushed him against another wall. He sank down to the floor for the third time, this time not dying and only in excruciating pain.

Sam left, locking the door. He wanted Grian to be in pain for the next few hours while he got imaginative. He wouldn't just let him die and wait in perfect health.

***

"Don't worry, we'll find him." Scar said as he pulled out another stack of rockets from his inventory. Mumbo stayed silent, scanning the ground for any signs of life.

They'd looked all through the last night and the day, and now it was nearly night again. Scar glanced at the setting sun.

"We should sleep though," he said.

"We can't, we don't have time." Mumbo said.

"We're going to sleep, Mumbo." Scar said firmly. He could see bags under the redstoners eyes and imagined that he also had them. "We won't be able to find Grian if one of us crashes because of tiredness." Mumbo looked at him, reluctance written all over his face. "You don't get a say in this, we'll land in half an hour." He said. Mumbo sighed but didn't say anything more.

Half an hour passed and Scar flew down to the ground on top of a mountain. It was large, one of the largest he'd ever seen. Mumbo followed him and landed a lot less gracefully. He was definitely too tired to be flying.

"Give me your elytra." He said.

"Why?" Mumbo asked.

"I don't trust you not to keep looking through the night." Scar said simply. Mumbo did as he was told.

They built a small, makeshift house out of birch wood they'd picked up in a forest after realising they had no wood and placed two beds down inside it, as well as a chest to put their armour and belongings in.

Mumbo sighed as he collapsed onto his bed.

"Hey, we'll find him, it'll be okay." Scar said, the other hermit looked so worried it worried him. He was also worried, but Mumbo looked worried to completely new levels.

"But you can't know that," Mumbo said, "what if something happened to him? Why did he fall to death twice in such a short space of time? What if he thinks we don't care about him because we haven't found him yet? What if we never see him again? I couldn't deal with that, I love him too much, I couldn't just never see him. I need to know he's alright. What if he-"

"Don't make up the consequences before anything's actually happened." Scar said, going over to sit next to Mumbo and give him a hug. Mumbo hugged back and started crying.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so scared for him." The moustached man said. Scar hugged him a bit tighter, hoping it was soothing.

"Don't be sorry, you're being an amazing friend to him." He said. Mumbo sniffed.

After a while, they went to bed, although it took them both a number of hours to actually fall to sleep.