Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Scar’s wrist begins to ache again. Tens of scrolls lay at his sides, torn and crumpled, from Scar’s sheer frustration. The same mantra drives him insane as he wanders this lonely world. “Win secret life” the scrolls tell him, but the only life scar has seen in weeks are the occasional sheep grazing the wasteland of their arena. Has he not already won?

He doesn’t understand, perhaps he doesn’t understand anything at all. The sun beats down on him, he blinks drowsily. Everyday seems to be the same, he hadn’t acknowledged how lonely being lonely actually was.

Sometimes after a long day of slamming his wrist on the succeed button, he’d take the remaining scrolls and burn them in a fire. Be it for warmth, or out of anger, smoke would billow out of the safe remainders of trader scar’s.

It was only midday, though. Brown hair draped itself into his eyes. He was tired, hungry. He had all the food he could ever want, but he didn’t want to eat. It didn’t feel right. The pure thought brought him only nausea.

He curled himself up against the cold stone of the button’s pillar, his torn cloak softening the pressure his back had against the stone, though it is not much.

He remembers sewing his cloak, embroidering the wilted sunflowers, lilacs and poppies into its dark purple fabric. He had thought it looked amazing, had shown it off to anyone who cared, but now there was no one to gawk at its beauty.

A bird flies overhead, and scar tilts his head upwards. Over him towers the secretkeeper, its cobblestone hood reminding scar of the experiences it had ruined for him. The secretkeeper had made him do it all, he said. Had made it so that everyone on the server hated him. Sometimes, on days like these, he wondered if that was true.

He lifted his arm, pressing his palm weakly against the succeed button. He waited for a few moments, and then a scroll came sparkling into his grip. He sighs. A fake sense of excitement fills him as he unrolls the piece of paper. To no one’s surprise, the words read out; “win secret life”

His chest heaves. He feels sick. Everything seems to be hurting, his body burns. He is so sick of being stuck on this server. Is this what every winner experiences? Is it always an endless, crushing loneliness? He should’ve asked. How could he have ever known? He has always seen himself as optimistic, to some extent anyway, but these conditions were unbearable.

Scar took a moment to reminisce on his fallen players. He’d taken many walks around this arena before. Buried remaining bodies that hadn’t had a grave built for them. There an alarming amount of them, really, it reminded him that he had never buried a body before. He felt guilty when he thought of it.

Endless days and nights he’d spent wandering the server, thinking, remembering, preserving whatever memories he could of his friends once they’d passed. But now, he realises, not many of them were his friends this time around. Why had he done all this for them, if they had done nothing for him?

He thinks of familiar Grian. He had memories of a time with Grian, where they were close as can be, he could remember sandy plains, sometimes he could see bamboo and pandas, but in this server, they hadn’t been much. The initial days were full of banter! Maybe…but by the time the final hunt came around, all scar wanted was to see Grian gone. He had discovered Grian’s body in a trench by the gem & and the scott’s, and he had buried it.

He thinks of radiant Jimmy. He can’t recall many memories of him, sometimes, a pufferfish floats around in his mind, but that is it. He hadn’t spent a lot of time with Jimmy this time around. There was that time he yelled at scar for wearing a diamond helmet! That was fun, sort of. He had been relatively nice as a green life, but with the yellow and red lives, well— things went as typical. He was happy for him when he broke the curse. It had haunted him for seasons on end! He seemed happy, and Scar was happy for him. He had found Jimmy’s grave in the mesa, hidden behind Baxter. He had planted a poppy for him.

He thinks of lonely Lizzie. The only other person on the server without an alliance. She had been…well, in all honesty, a bit intimidating. He had stolen from her a few times, but they had some good memories too! Like that time Scar toured the server with her on the camel! Fond memories, a weak smile plays on his face. He had felt bad for not coming to her birthday party, he had, in a sense, forgotten about it. He still ended up bringing a gift though! He can understand her upset now, but he didn’t back then.

He had felt pity when he heard about her death. She had freed Jimmy from his curse! But she did die, lost to the choking darkness of the void. He could only imagine how horrible that felt. Scott had told how traumatising it was to watch, to see someone get engulfed by a never ending abyss. When he asked Martyn how it felt for him to die in the void, he had said it was over quick. An everlasting scar, but an uncomfortably calm death. He said that he couldn’t recall feeling pain. He never had the chance to find her body, the bone he had sold off to Joel had belonged to a random Skelton.

He thinks of everyone else, too. All the memories he had formed with his fellow servermates, the bad and the good. He pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his chin gently atop them. Somewhere in front of him sits the mounder’s old base. Scar had tried to repair it to his best ability, and now Bdubs’s earth shone better than it ever had before, or perhaps he’s just biased.

He cranes his head to the mounder’s right and, over the treetops, notices Joel’s fairground on the mound peaking through. He had struggled to rebuild the ferris wheel (Joel really was too intricate of a builder for him to replicate), but he believes he did a great job on the helter skelter! He idly taps his finger on the stone beneath him.

Alas, his head turns further right. Down, nestled in between trees and paths of berry bushes, lay Lizzie’s pumpkin house. He had remembered burning it, and he had felt bad. When Lizzie died, people went scrounging about all through her stuff, but scar would be a hypocrite to call them immoral. He had rebuilt it to its best ability, though the pumpkin on top never seemed as fresh as before.

His gaze lingers on the house for a moment. Lizzie, lost to the perils of the void. No one understood how the void worked, it was their first season with it being accessible, and Martyn seemed relatively ignorant of the topic whenever it was brought up. It is now that scar takes a moment to think. He lifts his head up off his knees and plants his legs diagonally in front of him. He stares ahead, more birds squawking from up above, but he was not worried about them. The world seemed to freeze up around him, the stone he had been resting his palms on now an excruciating cold.

Scar has not been able to leave secret life. The secret keeper tells him to win, and as he wanders the world alone, he insists victory is his. No one is alive anymore, he is the last man standing. He had seen every body of those who had died, their graves, living proof that they were no longer here, passed on to go await their next game. All but one. His eyes widen with the realisation, a shudder passes through his body.

Has lizzie somehow managed to stay alive within the void?

Chapter Text

He rises to his feet in his disbelief, and then lets out an exasperated “oh!” a squeal, of sorts. Was this an obvious conclusion? He recalls memories of Lizzie. She didn’t…feel like a human. Maybe that was why a pumpkin had naturally managed to stay alive atop her roof! He wasn’t able to do that himself, maybe Lizzie had some cool pumpkin powers he didn’t know of.

Though, well, things seemed less obvious too. How had she actually managed to stay alive in the void? He had heard it consumes everyone it touches, leaving behind nothing in its wake. He thinks he can recall the feeling of dying in the void, but in another world, perhaps.

He grips his hair in frustration. What is he to do now?

He walks around the success button in a circle, grazing the rugged stone with his fingertips as he thinks. He’s come up with some form of conclusion as to why he’s stuck here, but, even then, does it not seem like such an absurd claim? What’s he to do now, jump into the void and hope he maybe reaches her. What then?

Scar is more than desperate to leave secret life, but he had been so ignorant and distant to the concept of dying.

It felt wrong to him, sacrificing all his hardships and accomplishments at the end of the game in the form of killing himself. He’d thought that he would be magically pulled out, maybe through a portal, or by some other, more rewarding means.

Scar takes a long sigh, angling his head towards the left of the secret keeper, where a familiar pink cottage sits, hidden amongst trees and berries. He stares at it for a moment, thoughts and theories swirling around in his mind like schools of fish. Overwhelming, is the best way he’d put it.

Scar starts sprinting towards the direction of Lizzie’s old home, tripping over himself a few too many times. The locations of all the bases in this arena are like muscle memory to him, he knows exactly where to go.

His steps slow upon reaching the pink cottage’s path. Berry bushes prick and cling to him, but he pays them no mind. He walks up to her house, taking the steps up to her porch and gently placing his hand on the door handle. He creaks the door open and steps inside.

He feels like some form of detective. Why is he even here? He thinks to himself as he begins idly rattling through Lizzie’s old chests, finding them essentially empty except for some useless scraps.

He’s here to find any backing for his potential theory. Any clues, any hints that may suggest Lizzie could’ve actually stayed alive in the void. Like in the movies, he thinks a diary would be very convenient right now.

Scar feels like he’s going insane. He’s scavenging through a dead woman’s property in hopes that his nonsensical, wild speculation could possibly be true. He’s desperate now, desperate for any hope of escaping the arena, he’s already tossed death aside, maybe there’s something more for him hidden in this cherry hut.

He clambers down her ladder, riffling through her farms in hope of finding some secret chest! He gives himself a small tour of her strip mine, maybe, just maybe, there’s a secret tunnel down here that will lead him to his answer! He’s completely delusional, but he spends what feels like hours in Lizzie’s house, trying to keep himself from genuinely losing his mind.

Dusk comes around just as Scar finishes his pointless and frantic search. He slumps against one of Lizzie’s walls, the cottage falls into an eerie darkness and it becomes dead silent except for the sound of Scar’s heavy breathing.

The moonlight gently filters its way inside, illuminating the house to the best of its ability, Scar felt like the moon was pitying him. It wasn’t helping.

He grasps his face and sighs, hiding himself in his palms. He had hoped, he had thought that something in here would help him. But now he’s come to realise, there would’ve been nothing here he could’ve found. Scar must’ve clearly been watching too many movies, because the chances of Lizzie hiding some secret note or diary in her house which would lead Scar to figuring out if she’d survived in the void or not are about as high as getting struck by lightning. This entire thing, hopeless.

He resists the urge to cry. That too feels pointless, there’s no one here to comfort him, no one here to tell him it’s fine. Pointless crying, it wouldn’t help him in any way, it’d just make his face wet.

Scar lifts his head to stare out a window, the outside world almost completely pitch black except for the moon slowly making its way out of the frame. Has the world always been this dark? He’d swore he’d lit up the place more, zombies and skeletons becoming more and more irritating as the nights went on.

He stares out into the pitch dark for a moment, thoughts buzzing in his mind. It’s dark out, so dark, it looks almost like a void, endless and abyssal.

And then it comes to him. An obvious thought in a way, but why doesn’t he go to the end itself? All of his last visits were obnoxious, chaotic, he’d never taken the time to pay attention to the strange dimension, maybe he’ll find something there, maybe.

He’s on his feet in an instant, sprinting over towards the door and bursting out into the outside with a certain urgency, a feeling he hasn’t been familiar with for quite some time. It gets lonely here, boring, sometimes Scar felt like he was a zombie again.

He attempts to remember where the stronghold is as he runs, out of all the places on the server he’d been and memorised, the end wasn’t one of them. He never considered going there, never liked the idea of returning. The dimension irked him in a way, perhaps that would turn ironic very soon.

He passes by more and more bases as he treks across the server, passing by the roomie’s castle. There had been so much patchwork to be done on their base, sometimes, he’ll even spot some of Cleo’s wolves lingering, abandoned, searching for their master. He pities them, but never gathers the courage to do anything about them.

He catches a brief glance at the Mesa, Baxter standing atop the coloured hills as he always had. He had been one of the most untouched bases, forever preserving the memories of the red lives that resided there. Scar didn’t venture up there much, it was too hot for his liking, he wondered how the big dogs managed it.

He passes by hill of The Gem and the Scott’s hill, recalling all the fun memories he’d experienced there on his earlier lives. Gem’s scuffed diving board, all the fun endeavours of stealing from them. He thought they were a powerful team for the time they lived, and Gem particularly was someone who always struck fear into Scar. He remembers her final moments, her disgust and desperation, how she clung to her sword until the very moment. Poor Gem, he thinks, poor all of them.

He gives the heart foundation a quick glance. He had found them to be more of the lovable teams this time around, he thought everyone did. How they willingly gave away their hearts to the server. They were one mess of a team, he liked them, wasn’t it funny that he killed two of their members? Dropping Tango was a laughable moment, he struggled to feel bad about it, it held no meaning to him whatsoever. It’s upsetting sometimes, and he hates himself for not feeling as sorry as he should.

Eventually, after a long run down memory lane, Scar discovers the horribly made tunnel that led down into the stronghold. Somehow, throughout his journey, Scar hadn’t been attacked by any mobs. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t realise. The world felt like a blur when Scar was lost in his mind.

He heads down the awkward, head bumping staircase down to the stronghold. It’s another quiet journey, Scar humming to himself as he traverses the stone tunnels and peaks through a couple chests. The way to the portal was indicated by dirt blocks, but he thought there was no shame in finding any leftover loot, not that it mattered.

The hallway winding down to the Portal is illuminated unlike the other rooms. He walks inside, the hesitance he might have experienced other times now long since dissipated. He takes the stone steps up, letting his eyes scan the frame of the portal. 12 eyes, 1 taken directly from Gem and placed in the portal to ignite it. Scar never took a moment to appreciate it, whenever you’re around people, the small details become invisible, but he sees them now. The swirls of the void, welcoming you into another dimension. He heaves a breath, then takes a step forward, letting himself fall through the portal and hope to reach the other side.

The end is dark as ever. Void, empty, almost suffocating. Scar wobbled as he attempted to stabilise himself on the obsidian platform. He sneaked a peak over the edge of the platform, shuddering at the wide expanse of the void beneath him. Intimidating, and quite scary frankly.

Scar makes his way across the makeshift end stone bridge, stomping down onto the central island as soon as he hits it. He lifts his head, staring out into the vast expanse of the island.

It has been deserted for a long time, the ender dragon long since gone and her domain vandalised. The obsidian towers still stand strong, but they’re littered with blocks and streams of water. Really, now that he looks at it, it’s quite the eyesore.

His steps are heavy as he ventures across the barren wasteland. There is no breeze, no wind, just a weird, mild feeling to the air. He longs for the sun now, for the blue sky, he always found the end to be nauseating.

As he passes by one of the towering pillars, he runs his finger gently across the lavaborne stone. It’s ice cold to the touch, yet smooth like a diamond. He thinks that, if he snaps at it, the rock will shatter. If only it was actually that easy.

He approaches the edge of the island. It’s a rather slow walk, really. It feels much longer when adrenaline is pumping through your veins and you’re running for your life.

He stares down into the void. Empty, devoid of all life, of all movement. Just, well, just a void, really.

He gazes into its darkness. Why had he even come here in the first place? To search for someone long gone? To try and swim through a void meant to suck all the life out of you? He was really desperate, delusional, but desperate.

He tries to focus, tries to picture a head of pink hair. That’s all he remembers of Lizzie, really. Pink hair, that’s all that she was to him. That wasn’t true, it felt mean to think, it was hard to focus when staring out into a pitch black abyss, your mind would keep wandering.

Scar’s eyes drift to the belt around his waist. On it is nothing but a sword. He had a potion or two there once, some other miscellaneous wares, but his cracked and bruised diamond sword was all that sat there now.

He stares at it. He can’t see his reflection. He could’ve, once before. Scar had always kept his tools polished. He didn’t use them very often, his go to were his fists and a flint and steel, but appearance was always important to him.

It isn’t so much anymore. There’s no one to impress, no one to gawk at his beauty. He hated thinking about it.

Scar sighs. It’s a quiet, simple sound. No one around anymore. Just him and the secretkeeper, in a barren world. Scar thinks it’s about time he goes home now. Staring off into the void, into the darkness. Is that what everyone else is seeing? Is that what Lizzie is seeing?

He thinks of her again. A cherry cottage, with an ever living pumpkin roof. Berry bushes, torches that he stole. He thinks she had one of the prettiest bases on the server, way more appealing than the heart foundation, anyway.

He remembers his initial reason for venturing into the End. What was it? To find her, falling through the endless abyss? What had his goal been here, had he intended to follow her.

Follow her?

Follow her.

He peers into the void. Follow her. He doesn’t want to. The void is a strange concept. Scary, intimidating, what if it didn’t kill him? It did to Martyn, but that wasn’t his final life. He’s scared, what if it’s different now? He’s sick of secret life, he just wants to… he just wants it to be over with.

Scar hated the idea of killing himself. It made no sense, if he won, wouldn’t him dying signify that it was all for nothing, right? The point was to be the last man standing, but if you killed yourself, how did you know that someone wasn’t just hiding out there somewhere, waiting for you to take yourself out? Is that what Lizzie’s doing, does she even know about it? Is she even alive?

Scar realises that this is still all wild speculation, but he thinks he’s come to his senses. Winning, what was the point of it? Destined to walk a desolate wasteland forever, alone, and slowly going insane? It wasn’t worth the heartache he went through to get here, the pain he’d pushed through to be here right now.

But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about winning anymore, he just wanted to go home. To be with his friends again, to finally be able to speak to someone besides his sheep and the secretkeeper?

Scar glares at his diamond sword. He inhales a breath, then rips it out of his sheath.

It makes a cling sound as he swings it out. There is no glimmer to it, no light to emphasise it, its just…just a blue sword, really.

Scar holds it with his two hands in front of him, running his finger against its gentle structure. He swallows a lump in his throat, goosebumps build up on his skin.

Scar shifts his hand, placing one steadily on the grip of the sword, while the other goes numb at his side. His hand shakes, doubt builds up in him, but what else is he to do? How else does he get out?

The sword weighs heavy in his hand. He shifts the sword’s position again, flipping it around and placing the tip of it just at his chest, gently cutting into the cloth of his cloak.

He lifts his other hand to steady the sword. His chest heaves, the tickling tickling of the weapon now connecting against his skin, probably drawing a small bit of blood.

He hesitates. There is no one here to comfort him, no one here to tell him otherwise, just him and the end, him and the end of his life.

Scar brings the sword sharply forward, letting out a sharp gasp as it impales right through his stomach.

He’s alive there for a second. Blood begins pooling in his mouth, but he has no energy to cough. His body shakes, his hands drop.

And just like that, Scar is gone.