= flip side = a cube smp fanfiction = discontinued

= six =

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Flip Side! c:

I'm terribly sorry that there wasn't an update yesterday; my dad has been messing with our internet and told me that I needed to stay off of my laptop yesterday, and even now I'm not even sure if I'm allowed back on--I'm posting this using Google Drive and the Mac in my Graphics class ^^" but my apologies, we're back on track now (hopefully)

It's been soooo hard for me to write Flip Side as of late, and I don't know if it's because Graser is so dang difficult for me to write 1st person from or because we haven't reached the part of the story I want to write yet. So I'm gonna apologize again if the chapter isn't the best. It's still  too short for my liking and the writing is definitely not my top quality work. It also hasn't been beta'd because of the internet thing over the past few days... D: but a few familiar faces besides Graser come back into play this chapter (yay!), so I hope it's alright.

The book Fangirl has inspired me, though, to keep at this, so I'm gonna try :) (seriously good book, highly relatable for me and I really do recommend you read it)

Remember to follow code_cherry on Twitter and Instagram, and to vote and comment for more! Enjoy!

= graser =

Though it was likely only minutes, I felt like I was lying there for hours, back pressed against the hard wood of the bedframe and head resting on the edge of the mattress, attempting to stop my muscles' incessant trembling.

"Is this some sort of prank?" I muttered to myself, not really believing my own words. "Because if it is, it's a cruel one." I let my next thought hang in the silence, unsaid. YouTube, and the Cube... are my entire life. I'm nothing without them.

I'm as worthless as I was back then.

Breath catching, I shook my head rapidly, desperate to regain control before my anxiety got the better of me. "Not true," I stammered quietly into empty air, my hands coming to grasp the legs of my sweatpants tightly, as if they were a lifeline. "Not true." And just like every other thing I'd said since I'd woken, it felt like an utter lie.

"Was it even real?" I whispered to the ceiling. "Did it all even exist?" The thought was dispelled almost as soon as I spoke it; it couldn't have been my imagination. There was too much depth, too much to the people that I'd grown to know over the course of the past few years, for it all to be fake. I knew each one, almost, like the back of my own hand.

My mind hung up at the word almost. Will. My emotions couldn't seem to decide if I was angry or guilty when I thought of the British boy, so I shook him from my head and gave myself a mental slap. Wake up, Graser. Think this through.

Eyes falling on the Macbook on top of the wooden desk, I stopped.

I knew the password by heart, even though it wasn't the same as my Mac's had been. It wasn't one I'd ever used, but I made a point of ignoring that little fact. My hand guided the mouse to the browser, and it wasn't long before TeamSpeak's homepage was blaring out from the tiny screen in front of me. A headphone symbol from a random chatroom reminded me that my headset was painfully absent; it took less than a minute for me to scrounge up some plain Apple earbuds from one of the desk's few drawers.

"There's no way this is going to work," I muttered doubtfully, staring at the text box that I'd opened, requesting the code to access private chatrooms. Before I could change my mind, I typed the familiar combination and pressed enter.

To my surprise, the code went through, and I found myself staring blankly at the list of rooms that had appeared on the side of the screen. None were recognizable, minus the general chatroom, which I had been automatically muted and placed in. Voices, however, made me pause.

"Come on, dude, I died for you! You have to win this one!"

"I'm trying, what does it look like I'm doing?"

Warmth rushed through me, hearing tones that I knew. Tones that I'd joked with myself over the course of these past couple of years, tones that could disprove this living nightmare. I checked the tab—besides myself, there were only two other anonymous users in the room.

Unmuting, I announced with a flourish, "Graser10 has arrived!"

The deeper of the voices cursed colorfully, and the sound of something slamming on a hard surface followed. "Damnit! That distraction made me lose the match!"

"Don't worry about it, Julio," replied the milder voice, though it sounded slightly annoyed. "We can win the next one!"

"Yeah," I agreed enthusiastically, throwing my enthusiasm at hearing familiar voices into my own. "If anyone can PvP around here, it's Tomahawk."

An awkward silence followed this statement. Something curled in my stomach, and I was about to speak again when the lighter voice spoke. "Um... are you talking to us?"

I frowned. Definitely not normal. "Who else would I be talking to? Devon?"

"Do I know you?" Devon sounded a little afraid. As if I shouldn't have known his name.

I clenched my fists.

"Of course! How could you forget your old pal Graser, huh?" I joked, though I was certain that my tone was flat beneath.

Tomahawk chose that moment to chime in. "Sorry, man, but... we don't know a 'Graser.' You must have the wrong chat." He was obviously still bitter about whatever match I had caused him to lose, his words clipped and frustrated.

"But..." I deflated like a balloon, what little hope that had flourished briefly in my mind vanishing in a heartbeat.

Devon cleared his throat uncertainly. "Sorry, dude."

My mouth felt dry. "..." Feeling tears welling up once more, I forcefully clicked the left mouse button, leaving the TeamSpeak channel, and shoved myself away from the desk, tearing the generic earbuds from my ears.

Had I been wrong? Were those not my friends that I had just talked to?

No. I was positive that I recognized the voices. It would be hard to forget the tones of people you talked to regularly, often with only their voice to go on.

What was the alternative, then?

They didn't recognize me. They don't know who I am.

Graser10... doesn't exist here.

I'm sooooo sorry that the exposition here is so slow and short. This introduction to the AU is taking way longer than I expected and I hope to get the plot moving as soon as possible. And I hate the last line of this chapter; it seems very cheesy to me and just almost every chapter I've written of this recently makes me cringe ._. I'm not proud of this at all.

I need to stop writing useless one-shots that no one will probably ever read and focus on what I'm actually updating regularly :/

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:

Are you guys even still interested? Am I boring you at all with how slow this is starting out (just like Virus, unfortunately... this seems to be a trend lately)? I feel like less and less people are commenting/voting, and that's usually my sign that people aren't as interested as they could be. :c

Any and ALL suggestions are always welcome, of course ^^

Vote and comment for more! Until next time!

~ Cherry