Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with yet another chapter from the juggernaut of a fanfic: Hourglass!

I'M NOT DEAD, I SWEAR! XD Sorry, sorry. I would make the normal excuse of just not feeling it or being distracted lately, but this time some different things are happening. So, I've been getting into animation a LOT recently, working patiently on a handful of projects at a time in the hopes that I'll eventually be able to show them on my YouTube channel. Thing is, a couple of weeks ago one of my videos legit blew up and now it's at 500 THOUSAND VIEWS! And with said views came over a thousand subscribers, so now my audience has grown to a pretty big number.

I'm trying to get myself to draw more and do generally artsy things along with my now-thriving animation channel, especially as I get closer to the end of my high school career (I'm a junior), so obviously I've been just focusing on art-related things. And less on this story.

But the thing is, I still love this series beyond comprehension. And I still, STILL want to see it through 'til the end. Which is why I haven't given up on it after the near two years it's been up on this site. SO, although it's a short one, I made this transition chapter to keep everyone who's still around up to date on what's been happening. :)

Replies to Reviews...

Marshman101: Thanks! And heyyy, that sounds like a plan to me! :D

AngelBlade117: Yeah, considering this story is 95% dead and also nearing its conclusion, I don't think I'll be putting in any more OC'. Sorry, dude! Maybe I'll sneak him in as a very, very brief cameo in one of the last chapters. If I can think of something good. *le wink*

Laner: It sure was a break for me, yeah. This story's been nothing but angst so far, so it's nice to kick back, relax, and watch everyone unwind for one last time. :) Legit, thank you for the compliment, though. It means a whoooooole lot! (Also, the thing about tenderizing the meat: if that were true, that scene would've been so much darker. XD)

Thanks to everyone who's still around, seriously! I know I've said that before, but it still means just as much now as when I first said it.

Now, let the story commence!

Chapter 55: Pack Up, Everyone!

The sound of a Nether portal's whispers and gurgles forced Norman to open his eyes. Although a little hazy, he quickly assessed his surroundings to figure out where he was before he could get up. His hands, which supported his head from beneath, were both palm-first against an arrangement of cold tiles. Ahead of him, tilted sideways thanks to his position, was a counter that stood about five feet tall and was colored pure white. He could see some strange shapes poking upward into view atop the table along with others that simply hung over the side. There wasn't a whole lot for Norman to see from where he currently was, so he shifted an arm underneath the rest of his body and pushed, hoisting himself off the floor.

When he managed to get himself to a standing position, he glanced to his right, towards the source of the sounds. Standing against the back wall of the room—said room being Professor Explotar's dimensional experimentation lab in Berlin—was a towering black frame of quivering plasma. Norman was startled even more awake when he realized that, along with the red liquid that usually filled this frame, the whispers had suddenly stopped.

Just a few seconds passed with him staring at the empty portal before he felt a vague force tugging on his side, causing him to gravitate to his left. He gradually turned the rest of his body around as he walked across the room, eventually turning to face one of the lab's two main windows. Many tens of feet tall and wide, it was plenty big enough for Norman to see all the surrounding buildings, roads, and various other impressive manmade structures. As Norman's eyes began to focus, however, he took a second to blink after reaching the window and cleared his vision completely. What he saw then was far from the magnificent metropolis from his last visit with Liz.

It was total destruction, for lack of a better phrase. Fire covered every inch of concrete that built up the city and its streets, red and gold sulfur spilling violently out of the jagged holes cut into the countless crumbling skyscrapers. He could see no sign of human life left in the wasteland of fire and brimstone, though the screams of human agony could be heard by his ears, suddenly heightened by the effects of his nightmare. He tried to understand what caused the entire city of Berlin to become a literal hell, though his mind stayed blank. Eventually, he turned away from the window and faced the rest of the lab.

Somehow, he wasn't startled by the pair of tall silhouettes in the room. They were identical, standing facing each other with their horned heads lowered. He blinked sluggishly, trying again to figure out what was happening, and stared in between the two figures, unable to focus on one or the other. After a few seconds, the two dark bodies raised their heads and looked at each other.

Their bodies suddenly swirled to life with many shades of red, better showing their individual shapes. The figure on the left had all its reds flow up the length of its body, filling up in three patches on its face to form two eyes and a mouth, which quickly formed an evil grin. The colors worked in reverse on the right, filling up the entirety of its body and leaving its face alone, leaving three gaping black holes to show the same features. Norman blinked a second time, eyelids still heavy, and opened his eyes again to see the two towering silhouettes now standing directly in front of him.

"Don't trust me." said the one on the right.

"Youths make the story." spoke the left.

"Kill it? Happily."

"One more soul for me."

"I will be able to see…"

"My waves are hungry…"

Norman turned his head slowly to the right and looked up at it, eyes suddenly widening.

"…from where I may flee."

And then—turning—to the left.

"For that girl Bailey."

Norman froze in place, stiff as a board, and stared at the two of them collectively. They both had the biggest smiles on their faces now and were staring him down, unmoving. He was eventually able to unstick himself from the white tiles beneath his feet and slowly spin in place, again facing the window. He walked towards it very deliberately, raising his hands up when he got close so he could stop himself from falling against the glass. He gazed with wide eyes down at the fiery carnage once more, feeling sick as some familiar shapes began to form in the flames below. The sulfur and chunks of rock swirled together to form two faces.

Bailey Creeperwhisperer, massive black cracks through both eyes and mouth open wide.

And the Glitch's devilish head, its evil expression sliced through the middle by a bright red streak.

The moment he recognized both these shapes, they disappeared in a waves of brimstone that washed over it all. The fires below seemed to be rising now, speeding up the side of the lab. He stared in silent horror as they came closer and closer, heating every part of him until it hurt. When the blaze was just starting to lick the other side of the glass, he felt a hand on either shoulder and turned around.

Norman gasped, raising a hand quickly to defend himself and instinctually reaching for Shatter with the other. A much gentler hand in contradiction to the claw from before caught his arm, steadying him there in the grass. Norman looked around, seeing that he was back in the forest with his group; everyone else was still asleep, though judging by the sunlight that was moving across the bark of the many trees surrounding them, it almost time to get everybody up.

Norman suddenly realized that someone was still holding his hand and he lifted his head past his forearm, catching the gaze of familiar lime-green eyes.

"Norman, yeesh!" she said, letting him go and looking legitimately concerned. "Are you alright? You were sweating and jerking around a lot in your sleep. It was a little gross, but…"

She chuckled a bit, but stopped herself swiftly and let down her hand again, grabbing him by the fingers and pulling him to his feet.

"Really, though! I'm almost 100% sure this has to do with the Glitch. I'm not the pushy type, you know that, but…well, y'know, if it does have to do with the Glitch, I think I should hear about it."

Norman had learned plenty about keeping important Glitch-related secrets from his friends during his old days of adventuring. As much as he hated to admit it, it never turned out very well when he did that. He took a breath, hurriedly trying to figure out if the nightmare was credible or if the Glitch was just trying to scare him. He lifted his bony teenage arms—good Lord, how he hated being stuck in this body without Liz to share his awkwardness—and grabbed Bailey by the shoulders, giving her a look of importance.

"Okay. I'm not sure if I should be taking this seriously, but I had the most unnerving dream I've had in a while…"

He took a minute to explain the whole thing in as much vivid detail as there was when he was still in it. As he told the story, he kept having to ignore images of Kelsey and Liz being killed from his mind. It took him less than a minute to retell it all and when he finished…well, his expression couldn't be more full of horror.

"You get what this means, right?" he asked her, fingers gripping the edges of her iron chestplate tighter yet. "The Glitch is looking to kill you, Bailey. Just like he did to Kelsey and…and, ah…oh…"

He took a shuddering breath, unintentionally reminding himself of his late wife—or glitched wife; whether or not she was really dead, he wasn't sure—just seconds after pushing the thought away. Bailey put her hands over Norman's and took them off, setting them down at his side.

"But, Norman…okay, you might be right. It sounds like you're absolutely right." she replied, more trying to reassure Norman than herself. "That's good, though. Any time the Glitch has sent you some kind of subliminal message…sure, you waited forever to tell us, usually, but it always came true. And that means now…well, now I can intentionally keep my guard up. No one had any idea that Liz and Kelsey would die because no one knew about the virus inside of…um…"

She and Norman turned their heads, glancing ten blocks across the clearing at Adrian, who was snoring away with his face buried in the grass; rather adorably, Astrid had fallen asleep right up against him unknowingly and was currently holding onto his arm. They looked back at each other, paused for a moment, and then just nodded.

"Right." he said, eyebrows furrowing.

"And now that you basically exorcised that thing right out of Adrian, I'll be able to prepare for attack. The other times we were caught off-guard. EVERY time. This time, we won't be, so…I'll be okay. You get what I mean?"

Norman understood her, alright, but there was still something bothering him about what the Glitch said—at least, who he thought was the Glitch based on the colors of the two figures; the other one must have been Satan, he had decided.

"There was something else that it said, though…something about waves. I have no idea what that means." he admitted, staring up at her.

Bailey pursed her lips, legitimately trying to search for an answer, but eventually also coming up with nothing. She huffed a single breath through her nose and shrunk into her armor, disappointed that she couldn't think of a single connection.

"I don't either."

A few more seconds passed where neither of them said anything, just sitting in a dreadful silence. Eventually, somebody piped up from behind them and snapped them out of it.

"When are we heading out?"

It was Auconi. He was standing there impatiently, looking kinda antsy at the moment, and had all his gear on. In addition, he was holding an iron axe and occasionally glancing up at the ceiling. Clearly, he was ready to tear it all down and get a move on. In response, Norman raised a hand and said,

"Soon, Auconi. It's about time that everyone else get up, too."

Auconi nodded, still looking unsatisfied, and turned around slowly to grumble down at the rest of his softly-sleeping companions. Knowing how easily they tended to dawdle during certain points in their quests, Norman momentarily sided with him and suddenly became very interested in waking everyone up. As he was turning around to walk over to Adrian and Astrid, Bailey caught him by the arm so that he'd turn back to look at her.

"Hey," she said, a beautiful tenderness in her tone. "I'll be okay. We'll all be okay. Thinking that we won't is exactly what the Glitch wants, right?"

She smiled quite genuinely, though Norman returned it halfheartedly. He was sure she didn't mean to, but she was looking at him in the way a parent would comfort their child. And it was really, really demeaning.

Did he already mention that he hated being thirteen again?

"I still can't believe we actually made it!" Evan breathed, staring up at the beautiful blue sky with wide eyes. "I was sure I was gonna die…now I'm not sure why I decided to go back, then."

JB, who was munching on some bread atop one of their furnaces, half-choked as he laughed and shouted,

"Hey!"

Evan snickered along with him, hurriedly raising his hands in defense and replying,

"Nah, nah! It was worth it, I just…sheesh, that was close! I've never been that scared in my life! Not even compared to all those times the Mistress called me to her room…"

He shuddered, struggling to push the image of the necromancer's wrinkly, nasty expression out of his head. In their makeshift home of mismatched dirt and wood blocks, Jeff was looking out the window at the rising sun; he wondered why any of them were carrying glass panels on them to begin with.

"It looks like the sun's coming up, finally." he noted aloud, turning around to face the three others in his group.

Amya, who somehow seemed to feel Jeff's gaze settle on her, sat up hurriedly off her back in bed and looked him straight in the eye.

"Are we actually leaving now?" she asked eagerly, so full of energy that her covers were quivering visibly.

Jeff rolled his eyes a little, but smiled anyway. Sometimes, Amya just had that special effect on the people around her that brightened everybody's mood. Even in the most desolate, depressing of situations. To her question, he nodded and replied,

"Yes, Amya, we're leaving. So, pack up anything you've still got and help me take down this gross-looking shack."

As Jeff started punching at one of the dirt blocks overhead, Amya leapt from bed and rushed to their single chest, doing exactly as he instructed and checking to see if she left anything in there. When she didn't see anything, she turned around to face Jeff and said,

"Hey, why don't we just, like, blow the house up? You said we need all the time we can get to get to higher ground, right? Well, maybe we shouldn't waste time taking down everything and just go! I've got the necessary *ahem* firepower if you want to make it a quick and easy takedown."

Jeff chuckled, but shook his head.

"Thanks for offering, but we don't really have a lot of resources in general right now; it would be smart to take all of it with us instead of just incinerating it."

Amya shrugged, looking a little disappointed, and turned back to the chest, kicking it with her foot. It opened without her even trying, startling JB as he was going to reach for the handle. He gave her a look—not an angry one—and paused, then immediately couldn't remember what he was going to say and started pulling things out of the chest. Amya watched him for a few seconds, one eyebrow slowly raising higher than the other, and eventually she raised a finger.

"Hey, JB?"

"Erm, yeah?"

Amya snickered, curling the finger down with the rest so she formed a fist. She put it up to the edge of the chest and then asked,

"Why don'tcha just do it like this?"

Without another word, she started wailing on the chest like their was no tomorrow. The random aggression caused JB to yet again become startled. A second or two later, the chest burst apart and released all its contents in item form on the ground. Amya stepped back and let him absorb all the floating blocks and foodstuffs while he stood there in stunned silence. She let out a single laugh, putting her hands on her hips.

"What? You never did that before? …did you really always just take stuff out of chests manually?"

JB raised his hands slowly in defense, a little bit wide in the eyes. He had genuinely never seen his dad, his grandpa, or anyone else who used to own the Bed & Breakfast do that with a chest.

"Uh, yeah! Is that weird?"

Amya smirked and turned away from him, lifting her still-curled fist and beginning to help Jeff break the house down block by block.

"I dunno! It's only weird to me cuz you find it weird. Does that make sense?"

Evan, who was standing just a couple blocks in front of them, raised a hand and said,

"It makes sense to me."

Jokingly, Amya turned her head to look at him and half-shouted,

"Shut up, Evan!"

Evan realized she was kidding and chuckled back, shaking his head as he turned to the left wall to start breaking it apart. As he lifted a greenish fist, he recognized the weight in his other hand and looked down, remembering that he was still holding that tailbone he yanked out of that one Wither skeleton. The few arrows that had hit it before had disintegrated thanks to its poisonous properties, leaving it mostly intact. He lifted it up and down, pursing his lips; he didn't have his bow anymore—sadly enough—so maybe he should just keep using this thing instead. It did make a pretty awesome shield!

After he got his mind off his weapons, lost or not, he went on to help Jeff and Amya take down the house. JB eventually joined in as well, allowing them to take down their pathetic little shack in under a minute. Once all outside, the four of them took a good look at their surroundings again, trying to figure out where to go.

"What do we do now, huh?" asked Amya, biting some loose skin on her lip. "I mean, it looks like you guys have already fulfilled all those goal-journey whatevers you had before. Jeff, you got your leg back; Johnny, you just helped him do that, and then the two of you helped Morgan get where SHE was going—though that turned out pretty bad in the end, I guess. And you rescued me and Ethan out of that Notch-awful place! …so what's left?"

Now gazing at the magnificent mountains in the distance, Jeff paused a moment before saying,

"What's left? I'm not sure about you three, but I still need to find out how I was able to get out of the Aether when I fell."

Evan turned his eyes away from the river, glancing sideways at their leader.

"How do you suppose you're gonna do that?"

Jeff answered his question by lifting a hand to the mountains in front of him—or rather, what was a massive, looming, silent volcano.

"Logically, I should find out where I am first. And what better way to do that than to get to higher ground?"

Besides the very beginning, this chapter is mostly filler. I really, really, really, really, really, REALLY want to get to the part with the Unforgiven Spawn, but I'm having a little trouble. So this is hopefully going to help break me out of my writer's block! :)

Who were the two towering silhouettes in Norman's dream? Is Bailey truly safe anymore? Will Jeff ever be able to find out how he was able to fall back into the Minecraftian Overworld? What will Evan, Amya, and JB do now that they've finally escaped the wrath of glitches, witches, and other villains alike? Find answers to these questions and more in the next chapter of Hourglass!

This is Pastrinator64, your fellow writer and reader, signing out!

*throws sugar bomb and disappears behind its cloud of fine white sugar*

...Goodbye for now...

~Pastrinator64 [~]