"Jesse, stay with me. Help is coming you're going to be alright. Gonna be fine, just stay with me."
It feels like every bone in my body's broken, but that might not be too far from the truth at this point. Each breath I take is agony, like my lungs are full of broken glass. I can't help but whimper at the pain.
"Jesse..."
Lukas is kneeling next to me hands frozen in the middle of reaching out to me, as if he was afraid touching me would finish me off. He didn't know what to do.
You're probably wondering why I lay dying at the bottom of a cliff, and the answer to that is...anticlimactic at best. Some madman pushed me off in revenge for killing the Wither Storm. No, it wasn't Ivor. Apparently there's some cult who worships the Wither and I ruined everything for them. What a joke.
This whole mess left a bitter taste in my mouth or was that just the blood? Is- Is this what... what Reuben felt when he was... Is this what that feels like? Broken and bleeding and feeling alone despite your friend right there next to you? Did he feel alone...?
"Lukas...I-I'm Sorry..." I don't know why I felt the need to apologize. I felt my eyes getting watery as I reached out to take his hand, he grabbed it himself after such trouble I was having doing it.
"It's not your fault, Jesse." He rubs his thumb across my palm soothingly.
"What...happened to...him?" I ask.
He stares at me bemused for a second before it clicked, and he stared up at the cliff. "Axl got him."
I pity the man who pisses Axel off. I smiled faintly my eyes slipping closed.
"Jesse?"
My eyes shot open.
"Don't fall asleep."
I hacked violently spewing blood on the grass, my lungs screaming at me. "I-I can't."
"Jesse, please!"
"I don't know...Lukas. My body's s-shutting down...I- I can f-feel it."
"You can't leave me, man!" He sucks in a breath, I can see tears rolling down his cheeks as he tries not to sob. "I need you."
I frown. His normal cool personality is gone, replaced by overwhelming grief about to overflow.
"Hey," I said, "Do...Do you remember...when I gave you -Huf- g-gave you...m-my cookie during...the...wither."
He smiled with watery eyes, remembering. "Of course I do. That was...really sweet of you. Man, I didn't expect you to be so nice."
"S-Same to...you" I smiled.
He gazed up in thought. "Then Olivia asked the chicken sized zombies question," he continued on.
My eyes gently closed and my hand slipped out of his.
"Jesse?"
...
Just as quick as my senses left me they came back. I sucked in a breath shaking my head. Did I respawn? That's what it felt like, you just disappear and reappear instantly, it's disorientating.
But everything was black, this was not my world. Was this the afterlife, was this all there is for the rest of eternity?
I heard a click and in front of me appeared a screen. "Game over! You cannot respawn in hardcore mode," I mutter the words on screen. There is also a button below that says exit world.
What do you mean I can't respawn in hardcore? What is hardcore? I-
"JESSE!" Someone shrieked my name in a howl of grief.
My blood ran cold. No...Lukas.
Behind the text I could see my body lying there cradled against him as he wept. I walked over to the screen placing a hand on it. He tightened his grip as he cried silently.
"It's okay I'm here, I'm here. I'm okay," I said softly, wishing he could hear me. How could I hear him when he can't hear me? It's not fair!
I heard footsteps rushing over and a worried woman's voice. Petra?
"Is...Is Jesse?"
Lukas didn't acknowledge her. Everyone was quiet, not a sound was heard except for Lukas' soft sobs.
"Lukas, I- ...I'm sorry." Was that Ivor? Did he blame himself?
I shook my head. Don't, please don't.
"I didn't even," Lukas sobbed. "Didn't even- D-didn't say that I- that I..."
"I know, I know." I laid my head against the screen, letting my tears fall.
Someone touched my shoulder and I turned around. A dragon stared at me sadly, her scales were teal with blue markings and her legs were adorned with gold cuffs.
"You can't go back. I'm sorry."
I blinked. I heard that in my mind like some sort of telepathy. Then, I realized. The dragon was talking to me in her own special way, somehow.
We stared at each other for a few more seconds before looking back at the screen. Lukas was still clinging to my body, Olivia trying to calm him down despite her own tears, Axel kneeling in front of him crying as well, Ivor and Petra stood some ways away from the group, Petra crossing her arms almost hugging herself and Ivor looking away, unable to bring himself to make eye contact at anyone.
I shared another glance at the dragon wondering what to do next. She seemed to understand as she softly grasped the top of my hand and pressed it gently to the exit world button, not taking her warm yellow eyes off mine.
I shared one last look at my friends before everything faded to white.
"The game is over."
Based on a headcannon that the world of Mcsm is set on hardcore. I made Jesse's gender ambiguous for a reason, so you can imagine any Jesse. That dragon near the end was the Aether Dragon (Death in this canon basically) Man this gives me some ideas for a sequel and something else...
PS- Sorry...