high rise hearts ☆ lifesteal smp au

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 ✶✯✫

𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲: angst
𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀: swagdoons? (platonic or romantic, up to you)
𝘁𝘄: panic attack
𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆: ink_splotches
𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁: the wormhole event, as seen from ash's pov

─── ⋅☆⋅ ───

𝐏𝐎𝐕: ash

Today was the day. And regardless of what Spoke had said, confidently reassuring him about the strength of their plan, Ash was worrying his head off.
He currently sat in a normal-looking cellar beneath an ordinary apartment building. The concrete floor was cracked and water pooled in the corners, creating a musty, dank smell. The only light in the dim place came from the two small windows on the wall just behind him. He crouched beneath a tangle of pipes and wires, the lit phone on his knee casting sharp shadows on his worried face. He kneeled in front of one of the storage lockers that had been placed in the basement, the metal door ajar to reveal nothing inside. That was about to change.
A notification, then another pinged on his phone, and he jumped. He'd been on edge for the entire day, and receiving random notifications unrelated to the plan wasn't going to help. Even so, curiosity tugged at him, and he checked the message. It was from Redd. With a sigh, he slid off Spoke's group chat to see what he'd been messaged.

> redd: hey
> redd: ik youre probs busy but
> redd: spokes been going around saying how hes gonna take over the world or sm
> redd: how our days are numbered or whatever
> redd: i havent seen him like this ever, be careful man
> redd: hes been doing it for a while but today he sounds kinda serious
> ill be fine
> hes our friend after all
> redd: i hope youre sure abt that

It gave Ash a guilty feeling, the more he stared at the text messages on his screen. He hadn't told Redd that he was working with Spoke, and because his friend was working against them, he felt even worse now. So he opened up Spoke's group chat again, trying his best to distract himself from Redd. A few new messages awaited him:

> spokee: ash ur in position right?
> spokee: u better be bro, im abt to activate the thing
> yeah im ready
> spokee: good
> spokee: if you mess this up
> i wont

Ash took his time in sending the last message. It brought to mind what was at stake for him, doing this. He ran the risk of jail time, as well as much, much worse. And there would be nobody to save him from it. He would not, could not, mess this up. He would not drag down the dream he'd been trying to reach for so long. That of power.
His glitches were buzzing around him, getting in the way of his vision and clouding his hearing with static. He cursed and tried taking a deep breath, tried to calm himself, but it only seemed to make the feeling worse. So he gave up and let the purple haze fracture the image of the storage locker, let himself continue to overthink as he waited for the long-hailed, long-dreaded message. And finally, after what felt like forever, it came:

> spokee: activated
> spokee: go go go

Sure enough, the sky outside the two windows of the cellar had turned dark almost instantly. Faint screams echoed from outside as panicked city-dwellers tried to make sense of what had just happened. Ash knew what had happened, though, and what he had to do next.
A little hologram screen, bright purple and shimmering in the darkness, appeared in front of him. It read only one sentence, but it held a choice with gravity Ash could never comprehend. "ACCESS SERVER?" The text was so glitchy Ash could barely read it through the fog that had grown to cover almost his whole face.
He took a deep breath, thinking about why he'd signed up for this. Thinking about what would happen if he failed. He looked at the two buttons on the screen, labeled with strange code. Ash knew one was right, and one was not. He knew which one he had to press, yet he feared doing so. He knew what it did, yet at the same time didn't know a damn thing. The uncertainty would kill him if he stared at the godforsaken buttons any longer.
But he knew what he had to do, and that was what mattered, he told himself. So he pressed the left button.