Clayton stepped through the front door of his old house.
He hugged his siblings and said
"sorry, I need a minute to do something."
He turned away and nobody followed him.
...
He grabbed the golden doorknob of the basement,
pulled the door open,
and swiftly walked down the stairs.
And then he paused.
...
Clayton's eyes scanned over the empty space.
There, that same chalkboard-gradient carpet,
there, those same gray walls.
The lights were turned off and did not buzz.
The basement was only illuminated by white rays coming through the windows.
All colorless and dead.
No red and black gaming chairs,
nothing on that night-colored desk
no blanket on the couch,
no box of sparkling water in the corner.
Has it really been a whole year?
It had.
...
He took a few more steps.
Pushed that good old tree-trunk-textured door aside,
and stepped into the bathroom.
He turned on the lights.
...
The bathroom had not changed.
Not a single bottle of shampoo had been moved in the last year.
The walls were still aquamarine.
He noticed the bathtub,
paused,
and shook his head.
All a joke, huh?
...
Right, the speedrunning stuff.
Well, it has been a while, hasn't it?
It's been a while since I stayed up late and all,
almost two years since I edited that file, right?
That's a lot of seconds and a lot of days and so on,
and yet I never said sorry.
I'll say sorry soon, right?
...
He wasn't ready to turn towards the mirror yet.
...
Live until seventy, huh?
That's a lot of years.
What now?
...
He had been thinking about something.
Maybe I could drop that whole mask thing
and do a face reveal after all these years.
Maybe it'll work.
Maybe I'll be a celebrity, just like in those fanfictions.
Maybe I'll invite my friends over.
...
Clayton turned towards the mirror after all.
His reflection had... changed. Everyone had.
He knew he hadn't, though.
...
Technoblade.
I'll raise money.
Crazy. Nobody else even knows that he's dead.
He shook his head
again and again and again.
How am I gonna sleep tonight?
...
Maybe his friends knew about Technoblade.
He had no way to check. No computer, no phone here.
It was strange, being so cut off from what he loved.
He still didn't even know what day it was.
...
He realized he didn't really care what day it was.
...
The reflection in the mirror breathed.
Birds chirped far away.
...
Screw tomorrow. I'm gonna start fixing it today.
...
Clayton heard people talking upstairs.
Maybe I should spend some time with them.
Yes. I will. I'll fix it. I'll fix it all.
...
The reflection still seemed to ask him that old question,
good or bad?
This time, they both knew the answer.
Clayton, are you good?
Yeah, narrator, I'm good.
Clayton smiled.
...
He could not hear any clocks ticking.
There were still voices coming from upstairs.
It was still a nice, bright day.
...
Clayton turned away from the mirror
and turned off the lights.
Flick.
And, while standing in the doorframe,
he looked back over his shoulder at the bathtub in the shadowy room,
one last time.
...
It was still June 2022.
It was the end of something, some repetitive sea of days.
But he knew it would be the start of something new.
Something different, something fun.
...
He stepped back into the beams of sunlight,
leaving the bathroom behind.
People can change, right?
He took one last look at the gray basement around him, the shell of a duller life.
...
And then he climbed back up the stairs,
back to his family,
step by brightening step.