100 Songfics
[By TerraBird]
Pompeii
[Artist: Bastille]
Jake felt alone.
It wasn't the kind of loneliness you get from being the only one present on your planet after the apocalypse. No, this loneliness was shallower, but still existent.
Dirk wasn't helping matters. Jake wasn't even sure if he was really into him. He wanted to be, so he could give Dirk a chance, so he could believe in him and support him when he felt the way Jake did now. But he couldn't. Jake didn't know how to believe in people anymore and, if he was quite honest with himself, he didn't know if he ever really had.
He remembered when he'd met Dirk. Before he came into contact with all of his friends, he'd spent the days alone on his island, only leaving if he had to shoo some beast from the premises.
He'd recently installed a new chat client system called Pesterchum, just for the heck of it. It wasn't long before he'd been pestered by some random girl named Roxy, who ended up hooking him up with people like Jane and Dirk. It was almost like this girl had torn down his fortress of solitude, rebuilding something kinder in its place. Something like a prism he could focus his thoughts through, and for that he trusted all of them. He could love this, love them, because they were all he'd ever known.
Jake would stay up late through the night, passing the time simply by chatting with these friends of his. He would leave only reluctantly and only when the other person had to go. Besides, it wasn't like he had anything to do.
And when he would finally close his eyes at night, the quiet darkness and the feeling of alone would be there again. He knew it well. Sometimes he even dreamt that he'd never met his friends and still passed the days messing around in his room. It was hard to remain optimistic when Jake knew his friendships were based on a poorly established internet connection.
He grew more adventurous, straying from his home for days at a time on hunting expeditions and explorations. The island was covered in nooks and crannies and old pumpkin patches that had long since stopped growing. Jake believed in his friends, believed in them that they would be there when he returned. And they always were.
Just as he'd grown used to adventuring and talking to these people he called friends, his world had been turned inside out. Literally, if you considered the dents the meteors had made. And just like that, Jake's world changed again.
The universe tore down that wonderful magnifying prism Roxy had built so long ago. His friends that he loved so much changed so quickly, adjusting to this shift in their world. Their impending doom due to the fact that their session was never meant to be successful weighed on all of them, Jake heaviest of all. He was the hero of hope, damn it. Wasn't he supposed to give them some?
And in the Medium it was all too easy to remember that feeling, that loneliness from years ago. From before the world ended, from before he met Jane, Dirk, and Roxy. From before that prism was built and destroyed and from before he went on cool adventures. It was that same alone feeling he felt when he went to bed every night, the same one he had felt when he still had those stone walls up to protect himself from that very emotion. He'd ask himself every time: How could anyone remain optimistic with all that's happened?
So Jake rebuilt himself this time. He rebuilt his walls, his prism. He started from the rubble of the ruins, rebuilding the fortress with only the finest of sins. Might as well reveal everything, right? No point in keeping secrets from those you needed to trust.
And then insanity had struck. The sugar-high foursome of Jane, Roxy, Jake and Dirk went on a ridiculous rampage. There had been so much at once, Jake could hardly remember what had happened.
They'd died. He remembered that. All four of them, he and Jane on Prospit, Dirk and Roxy on Derse. They'd died and become gods of a universe that was never going to exist.
It all seemed rather pointless to Jake, giving hope and support to people who would just throw it away. It reminded him of an old saying he'd once heard, or maybe it was just one he'd made up. He couldn't recall the exact words, but it was rather deep.
His mind was a labyrinth, his life a Pompeii.