Mayhem of Darkness: The Rewrite || A Find the Markers Fanfic

Chapter 7: His Failure [ENDING 2]

"Well, that's a satisfactory ending in my opinion," Time exclaimed, closing that dimensional portal of that timeline.

    "Wasn't that satisfactory to me..." Time Rune muttered.

    "What do you want us to do?" Time asked, turning to face their traveler counterpart, who was sitting in a relaxed position upon multiple small boulders. "Like I said, we can't—"

    "Change the direction of time; yeah, yeah, I know the drill." Time Rune rolled his eyes, brushing Time off with two waves of his hand.

    "You're not taking this seriously, Rune," Time stated with a disappointed overlay.

    Rune retracted his calm posture, now sitting up straight. "I do take things seriously! You just like looking at all the normal timelines!"

    Time sighed. "Would you like me inspect a more 'interesting' one for you?"

    "Oooh!" The rocks underneath Time Rune transitioned with his position; he was now laying down, hands supporting his face in an interested manner. "Yes, please! Could you make sure there's more — like, I dunno — death or something?"

    "Wha—" Time was about to say something, but he stopped himself. "All right, all right..." He pushed his glasses up in annoyance.

    "Yes! Thank you!"

•————————————————————•

As soon as the final bullet hit, Markery was called back. He was quickly filled with rage — both from losing and coming back to this hellish place. Ironic, how this is basically a god's residing area.

    The wooden walls of the maze towered from all around him, making him relive the fear he had felt when he came here for first time. Of course, it was lessened now — he's gone back and forth from this place for what? Two, maybe three years now? When you have the power of time and dimensional travel, with some added teleportation, it's difficult to keep track of time in your own universe.

    Well, nothing left to do except wander, I guess.

    Usually, coming to this maze either meant Markery had to find Wild Card himself, or Wild Card finds him. It was usually the latter, but this time seemed to be different. Strange... Actually, it felt... colder than it normally was. A bit foreboding, but nothing too severe.

    The maze felt eerily silent, which was starting to stir up some sort of anxious anticipation. This place was hostile, violent, malicious — much like the god it housed. Much like me now. Markery had the feeling that Wild Card was tuning into his thoughts, but he didn't care. The two would be meeting up soon enough.

About five minutes later, and no encounter. Did this deity want to make Markery's life worse, or what?! ... That was a dumb question. Of course, that's what we wanted. That's what Wild Card had always aimed for, ever since that fateful day — the first time Markery had been in this maze.

    After a while, he heard voices. Not like the arguing voices of Wild Card, Time, Time Rune, Zen — not like those. These voices were softer, more... gentle? Gentle and soft, in a place like this? That's... something he'd never expect.

    He made his footsteps silent, treading lightly across the stone floor. He was never really the curious type, but he needed to grasp who these people might be.

    "Hey, Draw 4—?"

    "Just call me 'Uncle,' Wild." Wild? As in Wild Marker? The representative of Wild Card himself? And don't even get started on that "uncle" part. Who even was Draw 4? He didn't know Wild Card had a brother...

    "Right, sorry, Uncle," Wild muttered quickly. "Is Dad... you know...?"

    "Yeah... He's busy right now." The supposed voice of Draw 4 sighed. There was a certain emphasis on "busy," but for what reason?

    "Oooooh...!" a third voice exclaimed. It sounded more childish, more innocent than the other two. "Busy doing what?"

    "Busy... playing a game," Draw 4's voice explained. Why was he being so vague? It's like he's explaining this to a child...

    "A game?!" voice number three repeated. "Can I play with him?"

    A chuckle, light and feathery, arose from somewhere in the room. "Sorry, Forbidden. This is a game that... only special, chosen people can play." Guess that chuckle belonged to Wild, then. Wait, Forbidden? Why did that name sound so familiar...

    Markery was about to look for the physical owners of the voices — especially Wild, even though Markery wasn't that fond of him — until he felt cold hands seize him from behind, pulling him off to the side and sending him into a wall. Well, great.

    "What do you want," Dark Markery managed to state. It was important not to show any weakness in this state — especially with Wild Card in this situation. It was best to try and remain stoic, unfazed.

    "You know exactly what I want, Markery." Wild Card's voice was blank, monotonous, yet still holding a large amount of threatening hostility.

    Dark Markery scoffed. "Oh yeah? Like what? You want to screw up my life again?" He knew he was risking everything with that sass, but if he was going to die anyways, he might as well take risks.

    "Don't give me that tone, Markery. I can tell that you know what's inevitable."

    "Would it be an outcome that I would appreciate? Because I remember someone saying that." Markery was basically testing Wild Card's patience at this point.

    "It's not my fault — I did what I could." Judging by the god's tone, which was now gaining a more harsh tint, his patience was running low.

    "Well, you were the one in control for the majority of the battles," Markery countered. "So really, my loss is your fault."

    Wild Card had apparently decided that was enough. He grabbed the lilac-capped Marker once again, holding him up with his left hand, tightly gripped. Markery couldn't help but feel like Foliage in this situation— No, now's an extremely bad time to think about them. "You really want to test my patience with you, don't you?" Wild Card's tone was still monotone, but now in a cruel way.

    "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. How would you know?"

    Wild Card extended his right arm behind him, hand splayed out. A swirl of green, yellow, blue, and red emerged from behind him. The colors spiraled alongside one another for a while, eventually connecting to one another to form a bat — the same one used by another on a murder spree. "Last chance, Markery."

    Markery himself felt all the anxiousness rise to his throat. He somehow managed to not have it leak through to his expression, but that was extremely difficult. This was his last chance to ask. Not about his life, not about anyone he knew, not even about his mistakes. "Who's Draw 4?"

    This apparently snapped something in the Card's mind. Without hesitation, he raised the bat and single-handedly destroyed Markery. The man had crossed the line, messed with time, angered a god — he deserved death.

    The entire time, Markery refused to show the amount of pain he seemed to be in — even with all the ink staining the side of his head. He managed to keep his immense joy under wraps, the least he'd let out was a small, victorious smile.

    The Card knew that the Marker was clinging onto consciousness like a distant beloved memory. Wild Card found it amusing how desperate this young adult was to keep his life. He knew that Markery would completely lose soon; the distressed glint in his eyes told Wild Card everything.

    Just before he lost connection with Markery completely, the Card sent him one last thought of his:

    You've seen too much, and done too little.

Word Count: 1259