a lump in the throat

Chapter 6

He was pretty sure his fortress was breaking. He was pretty sure the world was breaking. The mobs whispered about it in hushed tones outside. If he lifted his head from the wool pile he'd been laying on for the past few days, he could just see the edge of a black void where the world should be. Like when a chunk wouldn't load, but darker.

He laid his head back down and closed his eyes. It didn't matter. He was stuck in the Nether no matter what. Death, at least, would be a break from the tedium.

"Evil X."

Ex opened his eyes. Xisuma stood at the entrance to his fortress, staring angrily down at him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Ex asked, with barely enough inflection in his voice to tell it was a question.

"It looks like you're causing the entire world to glitch. Stop whatever it is you're doing and put the world back to normal right now."

"I'm literally doing nothing. And if you don't mind, I'm going to continue doing nothing."

Xisuma scowled. "This isn't funny."

"I think it's funny that you're wasting your time."

Xisuma punched the wall so hard that the netherbrick cracked. "Stop playing games with me!"

Ex blinked. Slowly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. "Games?" He stood, hands balled into fists. "Games?"

Xisuma stepped back.

"I can't believe you, of all people—"

"This isn't about me."

"It's always about you! What about your fucking games, huh? What about saying you'd give me a chance! What about banning me for no reason! What about isolating me from everything and everyone and not even bothering with an explanation! What about fucking up my life every time I'm at peace with it! What about that, Xisuma!"

Right as he finished shouting, the world convulsed. A huge spire of Netherrack erupted from the ground. It split the floor in half and knocked Ex and Xisuma clean off their feet. Ex hit his head on the wall so hard that he would have been dead if he hadn't been wearing his helmet.

Xisuma staggered to his feet. "Evil Xisuma, that's enough!"

"I'm not doing anything!"

A second spire erupted next to Xisuma.

Amidst the cacophony of rocks crashing and the fortress crumbling, fireworks sounded faintly.

"Who else is here?" Ex shouted. "Who else did you bring along to play your games with you?"

"No one is supposed to be here." Xisuma's eyes were wide with fear and surprise. "I told everyone to stay together in TFC's bunker."

Fireworks sounded again and someone rocketed straight through the entrance of the fortress. If it hadn't been for Xisuma grabbing their feet as they flew by, they would have rocketed straight into the netherrack spire.

As it was, they just fell flat on their face instead. They groaned and pushed their fiery orange hair out of their face.

"Cleo?"

She looked up. Her nose was at an odd angle—although it wasn't bleeding—and the thorns from her flower crown had scratched her face.

"H—" she began, but was interrupted by a second person flying into the fortress and running into the back of her head.

"Ow," groaned the new person, and rolled off of Cleo, holding their head. In the middle of fixing his glasses, he saw Ex and went very, very still.