The Crew's Book of Hermitcraft Season Six Oneshots

AU Concept III

Get ready for the long haul.

The crowd of trainee guards watched in a mixture of awe and horror as something was brought to the pedestal before them. That something turned out to at least vaguely resemble a someone. It... No. He acted like a someone too. As he stood on the pedestal, he shed a single tear. A machine was hooked up to him, like snakes biting at his limbs.

And then it was activated. Bolts of electricity arced across him as ruby-red flames seeped into the air around him. As they were drawn up into the massive ball of energy that powered the entire civilisation that the trainees knew, a very someone-ish scream of pain escaped the person. The machine released him, and he fell to the ground, weakened and barely conscious.

"Now that you know the truth," the voice of the commander came over the intercom. "It's your last chance to back out. We can make you forget this, and you can live a happy life."

Needless to say, the crowd of trainees had thinned considerably by breakfast the next morning. And those that were left could stomach what they were doing to this person. Lovely.

Time skip, by like 10 years.

There were no new trainees this year. Perhaps the complement was full or something. Either way, soldier 219, also known to civilians as Evelyn Winters, was glad for it. Maybe she could finally make some sense of the prisoner's deranged mutterings this year.

The cycle was always the same. His magic would be drained to power Esploi. He'd be unconscious for a week or so, and then spend the next few months on the brink of madness. A month after that, he'd try and break out. And then he'd settle into apathy until it was time for the cycle to repeat itself once more.

Evelyn was most interested in those months where he fought to keep his sanity. He'd often repeat some strange, nonsensical, mantra, which Evelyn had learned off by heart. She ran though it in her head once more.

BDubs, Biffa, Cleo. Cub, Doc, Etho. EX, False, Grian. Impulse, Iskall, Jevin. Joe, Keralis, Mumbo. Python, Ren, Scar. Stress, TFC, Wels. X, Vintage, Zed.

She wondered what this could mean. Maybe some ancient language. Maybe a song from his childhood. Evelyn was curious, and he never answered her when she asked. She realised it was time for her shift, and got up, to change places with the guard downstairs. And so, it seemed, everything was working like clockwork.

Meanwhile, in first person...

I woke up rather suddenly. Everything was blue, and misty. I realised I had some kind of mask on over my mouth and nose. As I took it off, I also noticed how cold I was. I reached out ahead of myself, pushing at something freezing cold, and the mist cleared, swinging away like a door.

I fell out of the tube, onto my hands and knees. Looking around, I saw walls of concrete, dyed cyan, a bed of the same shade, a wardrobe of rough spruce, and the thing that I'd woken up in. As I stared at it, a name came to me. Cryosleep Pod. I'd been in a Cryosleep Pod. Why had I been in a Cryosleep Pod? Who was I, anyway?

I slowly stood up, limbs slow from unuse. I must have slept for a while. My reflection greeted me in the foggy, frosty glass of the pod. A man with scruffy brown hair, and large green eyes. His face was littered with long, rough scars... Scars... Scar. Scar! That was my name! I had some identity to hold on to now.

I surveyed my outfit. A brown coat over a pale yellow collared shirt, with darker brown jeans to match. I had long brown boots and a belt with a golden buckle. But something was wrong, something was missing. I looked in the wardrobe, and saw my hat. And it was definitely my hat. It may have been a little old and moth-eaten, but it was very much my hat.