Chapter Text
“Tommy, run! Follow me! We need to get you the fuck out of here!”
“No, Tommy. Stay.”
Two conflicting orders. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t know, so he did nothing.
Tommy lay still, sprawled on the warm, hard ground of the room he was in, in a pool of partially dried blood. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t remember. His heart was beating fast in his chest and his eye felt prickly. It was weird.
“See, Sam?” That was the same voice who told him to stay. He sounded smug. “He’s completely obedient to me.” That didn’t really mean anything, Tommy thought. He was obedient to everyone. Stay Man wasn’t special.
“No, Tommy! Don’t listen to him!” The person who told him to run–Sam, as Stay Man had called him–exclaimed. Tommy took it as an order. He would no longer listen to Stay Man. Got it. “Get up and follow me. You need help.”
Tommy obeyed Sam and stood up, walking toward where he had heard Sam’s voice coming from. His body ached. It made his throat clench and his muscles tighten.
He felt Sam take his hand and lead him…somewhere. He didn’t really know or care exactly where. He couldn’t see his surroundings, but he did know that this area was much warmer than the last place he’d been. And a bit brighter, too, if his now mostly useless eye wasn’t deceiving him. A part of him wanted to go off the path and to the warmth.
That part of him only grew stronger as he felt Sam let go and himself start moving. He wasn’t the one moving though–the floor was. That part of him was now screaming, ordering him to listen, and who would he be if he didn’t obey?
He took one step, two, barely listening to Sam’s apologies and panicked yelling as his foot fell short of the floor and he fell. He sank into the burning liquid, letting the heat and weight of the molten rock crush him.
A new message appeared in the world chat on everyone’s comms:
<Tommyinnit tried to swim in lava.>
Then another:
<Tommyinnit left the game.>
Everyone panicked.