Withered

Chapter 14

Pale moonlight glimmers on the amulet. The different colors sparkling in my hands, head bent towards it. The weak throb in my chest can't bare the sight in front of me anymore, just listening to the crackling flames makes it hard.

Sighing, I rub the sleek cyan glass with my left hand. Even after a week and in the gray light, the limb is obviously weak. Tendons sticking out like a sore thumb, and I can just see my veins crawling all over the pale skin. 

A cough plows through my lungs, heart buckling under violent lurches inflicting my body. I wheeze by the time it passes, blinking to refocus my eyes. The weak throb in my chest forced to throb a bit faster because of it.

"Just rest Jesse."

"We'll take of care it dude."

"You still need to recover. Rest."

"Psh, if you need help sleeping, I know a trick to instantly get you under."

Sighing, I let my eyes flutter close. I know, rationally, that I need rest. Not only did some common sickness quickly decide to move in once the Wither Sickness left me almost dead, but I was diligently working my exhausted body again in that time in between. Refusing to rest despite the parasites leaving my body, refusing to give myself a chance to actually think about what has happened.

The fire crackles in my ears, the night otherwise silent. If I look up, I know I'll be staring at the truth. But I don't want to. I want to believe I'm sitting in front of a campfire, back in the forest that I used to call home. I want to go back in time, just a couple of weeks. I could stop Petra from the deal or stop Ivor.

My eyebrows crinkle at the thought of Ivor. I've been told that without him, Petra couldn't make her super enchanted sword, which she doesn't actually like to wield, to destroy the Command Block. That apparently, he actually helped. That he saw what he did wrong and helped make it right.

Although that doesn't change the fact it's all his fault. It's the whole Order of the Stone's, Old Order now, fault. Soren should've done it, Ellegaard should've done it, heck, even Ivor should have been the one to destroy what he created. Bunch of cowards, the whole lot of them.

The flare of anger quickly dies down again, I just can't stay mad. I've been having a hard time feeling anything. I could fake it for awhile, and I knew I shouldn't be feeling this way, but one by one I just couldn't care. Completely unable to feel anything, just a void.

Flames crackle in front of me, almost urging me to look up. But I don't want to, I still don't want to. I wish I could work actually. If I could work, then I wouldn't have the energy to think about this. If I could work, I could improve other people's lives and ignore mine.

But the others threatened to chain me to my bed if I so much even offer to go shear sheep. I know they just want to help, but that is probably the worst form of torture they could give me. Even if that's the exact thing my body needs.

A raspy and half hearted chuckle huffs through my mouth, bitter irony making its way past all the chaos in my head. Earlier today, I was crowned leader of the New Order of the Stone, Axel's already teased me by saying I'm the King of the NOOTS.

But really? Me? I scowl at the glimmering amulet in my hands, the thing that kept us in jeopardy for the entire time. The Wither's parasites revenged my arm and all the while I had its beacon in my pocket. I really wanted to punch Ivor after I was told about that one.

And I did every little to actually stop the Wither Storm. I shouldn't be called leader, that was the one thing I never even wanted in the first place, I wanted to desperately push it to Soren or any of the other Order members before I knew they were liars and cheats.