Acrylic Waves (Bk 1)

I. Floating

Darkness. That's all I see. It's all I've seen for the past several... Months? Years? Nothing is here but myself and the Void. It rips at my being, tears my mind to shreds. There used to be another here. Usually, the banned are isolated from each other, floating in the voids of different dimensions and servers. It had happened at the beginning. I had somehow managed to break the system. Not quite unbanned, but I managed to see another person. We spent time together, helping each other survive the tearing of the void.

I came to like him. Love him. Just a little bit. He loved me back. I remember the night before the 1.15 update, the night before Mojang patched the glitch I had exploited. Both of us were in pain as the void screwed with our minds. He held me close. Nothing could make him let me go, we thought.

He whispered, "I love you, Xenelis. As who you are. The watchers hurt you, your fight with your brother hurt you, and the void hurt you even more. I will never hurt you. Someday, we will be free. We will be able to live together. For now, take this gift of mine."

Hels folded a small, red crystal on a necklace into my hand. He reached up and put it around my neck, the gem sparkling against my lightweight armor. He folded me in his arms again, and we stayed there. The void couldn't touch us in our small world together.

Suddenly, new pain rips through the two of us. I clutched him closer, but we are dragged apart. I can feel the tears running down my face, soaking the collar of my turtleneck shirt. "I love you, Hels!" I scream as the void folds between us. He yelled something in return, and then silence. The void tears in my mind. It rips it to pieces. I don't know what's real anymore.

I snap out of the flashback of the time I lost my one love. That's one of the things the void likes to do. It pulls at my memories and forces me to watch them. Bittersweet and painful. Even the ones that hurt, like the last time I saw my brother, have a tiny grain of sugar in them. Tiny, but still sweet.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

The wallpaper of flowers. The gray carpet beneath my feet. My running feet were no older than three. The other set of running feet, right next to me. Your feet. My beloved twin brother's feet. Our mother's voice, counting to ten as we scrambled to hide. We jumped into the same toy bin, scattering the bin's inhabitants on the floor. I remember your heart beating at the same rate as mine. I hear mum looking through the playroom. We have her fooled, she'll never find us here. The timer in the kitchen goes off and she exclaims, "Oh no! I can't find my tricky little double-crossers! I guess I'll have to eat their cookies!"

I remember the look we shared. Nobody could keep our cookies from us. We had leaped out of the toy bin, yelling like the tiny hooligans we are. We circle the kitchen three times before we get our cookies. Mum's cookies were the best. What would she think of us now?

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

We stood facing each other. Each of us holds a wooden practice sword. Doomguy, our foster father who cares for us now that mum is gone, tells us to begin. We spar, Doom giving suggestions from the sides.

He's such a good foster dad. He's taught us the finest points of swordplay, teaching us to care for and protect ourselves. Sometimes he has us gang up on him, two vs one. He almost always wins, but we are tipping the scales in our favor.

I remember you won that time. I remember you bonking me on the head with the sword when we were done and then Doom reprimanding you for doing that. "Be nice to your sister!" I remember him shouting. I remember the day he gave us our matching sets of armor, your set green, and my set red.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

I remember the day you left for Hermicraft. I remember all the tears I shed, both in joy and in sadness. I was happy you got this opportunity to make friends, but I was sad you were leaving. You were all I had left. Doomguy had perished in the Nether while rescuing some young demons from a ghast. Mum had been killed by monsters in the night when walking home with us from the grocery store. The same monsters had given us our matching x-shaped scars before Doomguy showed up to save us. I remember hugging you goodbye before you stepped into the whitelisted portal. I was not listed; I could not follow.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

I remember when the watchers came for me. Both of them are in dark cloaks with their masks over their faces. I remember the long hours I spent training with them, learning to dual-wield swords like Doomguy used to, how to use watcher magic, and after my wings grew, how to fly. I remember how they taught that all players are inferior to us, the watchers. I remember them telling me how you had wanted to leave me, how you couldn't wait to leave me behind. How lucky I was that the watchers had found me. I remember not wanting to believe them before doubts filled my mind. I remember learning to hate. I remember hating.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

I remember ducking under the stream of purple magic, rolling to the side clutching my swords: Silence and Tacet. I remember returning the blow with my black magic, the second strongest magic, right after gold. I remember seeing the magic connect and throw my challenger against a wall. This was the fifth time I had been challenged by my classmates. This was the fifth time I had won, the second time I had won on the first hit. I looked over at my instructors. They nodded in approval. I remember receiving the cloak of a graduated watcher that day. By then, all I felt for you was smoldering hate.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

I remember taking players from their home servers just as I had been. Dragging them away secretly or leaving behind a pile of dead bodies. I remember teaching them and taking away their memories of their former lives with a spell I designed. Only one of them was able to resist. I remember being commanded to "take care" of him, but he had escaped. He had escaped one of the most powerful watchers. That night, I had lost my place with my watchers. Finally, I could take my revenge.

/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\

The most recent memories from the overworld burst into my mind. I remember hating you with such a passion. You had left me. You had been glad to leave and get rid of me. You were facing me, a bleeding cut on your arm, asking who I was and why I was doing this. I remember staying silent as I charged forwards to deal the fatal blow. I had used the enchantment on my sword to ensure permanent death. Only watchers knew this enchantment. You could not come back after all you did to me.

I remember you rolling out of the way, typing a command on your watch. I felt the clear-inventory command take hold, wiping my perma-kill sword out of existence. Only my dual blades, which you had forced me to drop, remained: abandoned on the ground. I remember you typing the next command that would change my life forever: /ban EvilXisumavoid. I remember seeing that command on your holographic screen and throwing off my helmet.

"I'm your sister," I shouted angrily, seeing the shock on your face as my helmet rolled to a stop next to your feet. The process had already been committed. The system registered the command and there was nothing you could do to reverse it. I remember the pain on your face. I remember Doc landing next to you and looking into my eyes with the hate of thousand suns. I remember falling down a hole that sealed itself above me. Falling, falling, falling, into the deep dark void of the banned.

I remember madly trying to escape. You could not do this to me. I remember the void glitching ever so slightly so that I could slip through. I remember meeting Hels and getting to know him. I remember him talking with me about all the things the watchers had taught me, how they had twisted my mind. I saw how wrong I had been to want you dead. I wish I could go back in time to correct my mistakes.

I let out a howl of pain. The wave of memories is too much. I break out into sobs. The void beats me down to half a heart. It never finishes me off, it just leaves me in that excruciating pain until I pass out. The pain is too great. A sentence forms in my mind, used long ago by the two of us. I can almost remember it, but it comes from the section of memories that were tampered the most with. The part that was tampered the most with by the watchers. I lose consciousness before I even finish the thought.