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Avery respawns in his base.
Maybe it should be comforting, finally being somewhere familiar. Maybe he should feel a little embarrassed at it after wandering through all those gates with those huge, insane builds. He should feel something. Anything.
But all he feels is this horrible, bubbling dread in the pit of his stomach. Just like d3rlord3, just like Derek, he can't leave his screen. Avery wants to throw up, but the guilt seems to crush him when he so much as tosses a throwaway glance down the quiet hall.
Somewhere out there in the world, maybe here in eastern Mass or way over in the Midwest somewhere or even overseas, Derek is dead. It's almost an insult how he'd tried to fool Avery one last time and say he wasn't sure if he was going to. Sure, he's never prided himself on his intelligence, but he's not dumb as rocks.
He appreciates the last-ditch attempt at making him feel better, but it didn't really work.
Derek saved him, but Avery wasn't able to save anything. All he has is a stupid fucking 15 hour recording saved to his computer. Fifteen hours is plenty of valuable time. If he were a little stronger, a little smarter, maybe Derek would be alive, and maybe they'd be laughing together about how easy it was to take the king down when they joined forces. You know, like those corny cliche superhero stories where everyone becomes friends and uses the power of their bond to defeat the big bad. If only it could have worked like that.
If only he weren't so dumb! He should have known not to check his inventory—what the hell would Derek have needed that for, anyway? At the very least, he shouldn't have done it so close to the edge. It was all so easy to prevent. It was so easy to save him.
All Avery had to do was be a little smarter.
Fuck!
Oh, fucking hell. There was so much he could have done. There were so many opportunities to, well. To not blindly trust every word Derek said just because he thought he was so much smarter. To not follow every trail of breadcrumbs thrown in the wrong direction.
"I'm sorry, Derek," he sobs at his screen. "I'm sorry that I wasn't smart enough to save you. It should have been anyone else… If it were, maybe you'd be here. I'm just… I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you were so unlucky… a—and I'm sorry it was me who ended up with this world. If it were anyone else, they would have done it. If it were anyone else, they could have done it. But it—But it had to be me! I just… I'm sorry it was me."
There's no response. His character idles in its little wooden box of a home. It doesn't know anything but to wait for someone else to tell it what to do, and Avery's no different. They're both so useless.
"I was okay with it," he mumbles against his sleeve, wiping his face. "I didn't mind dying. I really didn't. You should have let me. I know you were trying to save me, give me a chance to live my life, but you've given me something I can't even hope to live with. How can I ever forgive myself? I've killed someone, Derek. It could have been me. You would have made more of your life, since you've got enough knocking around in your head to make something of it. I just… wander through life, and bump into things, and don't do much else. What kind of a life is that, huh? It can't be one worth giving yours up for."
Maybe this would be the part where the camera pans over to a handgun on the desk, a rope in his garage, a bottle of meds, a knife in the drawer. But there's nothing that convenient anywhere around here.
Avery sits there for a while, head in his arms and wondering what to do now. Eventually, he leaves the laptop running and stumbles out of his chair. This weight like a rock in his stomach seems to drag him down with every step, and he collapses barely out the doorway of his room.
Ah, what is he doing? He's such a coward. There's no way he'll be able to do it. He'll lay on the tile of his tiny little kitchen in his dingy apartment and hold the knife for hours, but he'll never have the balls to do it.
But he can't do much of anything now.
His mouth is dry, and beneath that sinking feeling in his stomach is something sharper like hunger. The room stinks of piss. Probably a product of that twelve-hour stretch of nothing. Behind him, his laptop pings with a notification he won't ever read. It's January 1st today, and Avery's army crawling down the three-foot hall to the kitchen to commit a suicide he isn't brave enough for.
He grabs a handful of the carpet in the hall and pulls his upper body out of his room. His hair clings to his forehead in greasy clumps, getting all in his face as he struggles to pull his knees forward and push himself fully out. The cold air burns the back of his throat with his heavy breathing.
Avery stills. Does he even have what it takes? Maybe it's just not worth the hassle to die. Derek definitely wouldn't want him to do this, and he knows everything.
Well.
No, he doesn't. So much for infinite knowledge, huh? For someone who saw all the past, present, and future, was it really so much of a stretch to see this outcome? If Derek really knew everything, he would know that the choice he made wasn't the "best" for Avery at all. But who knows what he was thinking.
Maybe he did know. Maybe he just wanted to believe that his death would fix everything, even if he knew the truth.
There's no way to know, because Avery failed to save him. No way to know, unless heaven's real.
He grits his teeth. On shaking arms, he pushes himself up and on his feet, managing a step or two only to fall forward and slam his head into the corner of an end table. Warm blood slithers down the side of his face. If he closes his eyes, it almost feels like the kind touch of someone's fingers, though it seems to itch as it drags agonizingly along his skin.
Back on the floor again. Through his swaying, blurry vision, he can see the trails his wound is dragging across the floor, spattering along the carpet in an ugly path to the kitchen. The landlord won't be happy.
Avery's fingers, weak and trembling, latch onto the space between the tiles, and he finally manages to haul his weight into the kitchen. The utensil drawer is too far, and all the stuff in it is mixed up. He might have to do it with a fork.
He grabs the handle of the oven and pulls himself to his feet again, ignoring the sick splatter of his blood on the tile. His chest heaves in a last-ditch attempt to keep him alive. His legs, heavy and uncooperative, drag him forward a few paces reluctantly, but that's all he needs. Avery shifts his grip to lean on his right arm and, with his left, just manages to flick a knob on.
It doesn't light. The foul smell of gas slowly takes over the numb cold that's settled in the back of his airways. Satisfied, Avery lets himself crumple onto the ground and lean against the oven door.
He takes a deep breath and tries not to cough. Maybe it'll make it faster. Through the small window, a sliver of moonlight makes the silhouette of a watching crow visible. His legs and elbows burn from dragging his limbs across the carpet, the angry red visible beneath the rolled-up cloth even in the darkness. He pushes his sleeves down, but doesn't dare to touch his pants.
His eyes wander up, to the bottle of champagne he bought for himself and intended to drink about two or three hours ago. Waste of money, really. It wouldn't have been any good anyhow, left out like that, even with no heating in his apartment. Not to mention it being way too much for one lightweight guy. In the haze of the gas, his imagination conjures up a pretty picture of Derek's avatar, in gleaming gold armor and a red cape, leaning against the table with a glass in his hand. Would he drink, and if so, how much?
Another picture. Maybe, if they were friends, they would go out to a bar together and laugh like normal people with normal problems like work and school and love and whatnot. Derek probably went to school, with how smart he was. Wonder what he majored, or if he had a job, or a girlfriend waiting for him somewhere. Wonder about his family, if he had siblings, if he could even have kids. Wonder what those people who loved him will do now that he's gone.
"I'm sorry," Avery chokes as he falls onto his side. The gas is beginning to seep into his nose and get into his head, and a painful headache blooms from his nosebridge. What an unbearable smell, and what a sad way to go.
It builds up in his lungs, collects in his chest and presses down on it. With what little strength he has left, he curls up on himself.
"You'll have to forgive me," he says, breathy and weak, "when I meet you again… I just really couldn't live with it. Will you be angry, I wonder… I hope you'll forgive me enough to answer a question or two…"
…
The end is near. Avery draws one last struggling breath—
"Happy New Year, Derek… We'll definitely celebrate together in the next life."
And he closes his eyes.
On January 5th, a welfare check is called. Avery's body is dragged out of his apartment, though a little effort is needed to separate the dry, cakey blood from the tile. His laptop is dead, and the document emailed to Avery on the day that he died is never opened.
Maybe things would have been different if it were.
You must have seen this coming, Derek.
So why are you unhappy?