Stars in the Sky (SkyDoesMinecraft Fanfic)

Chapter 16 - Farewell, this body of mine

“Welcome to Bulgaria!” Martin said. The plane ride had gone without a hitch, and Martin had met up with us at the airport, laughing as always. His car was parked a short distance away, and he would then drive us to our final destination – or so he told us.

“Why do I have to be the one carrying all the bags?” moaned Ty, trailing behind us.

 “You’re too slow,” Darren laughed. “Hurry up.”

Martin laughed with them, but I didn’t even smile. All I felt was a burning envy. That should be me exchanging funny comments with my friend. That would all change in a few hours, though. Everything would go back to normal, and it would be fine.

Or would it? I still wasn’t sure. Under the surface, I was incredibly nervous. What if this didn’t work? After all, it was all just a convenient theory Darren had come up with. There was no guarantee it would work.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll go fine,” Darren whispered to me, as if reading my mind. “Stay positive.”

I looked up at him and fake-smiled. “…Okay.”

Suddenly we stopped, and Martin ran out in front of us. He looked at our little group with a serious face. “Guys, I have something to say.”

“What?” I said worriedly. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Martin said, and I saw him smile. “There was nothing from the beginning. There is no animium. You’ve… been… trolled!”

“What?” I tried to say in disbelief, but the words wouldn’t come. My heart fell into my stomach. There was no way this was happening. This couldn’t be real. I fell to my knees just as I heard a thump. Darren was on his hands and knees, staring at the floor. I could see his lips moving, but just like me, he didn’t make a sound.

Had this whole journey been for naught? We had been through so much. I had thought that after all this hell, we had finally found a lead, but it turned out to be yet another disappointment. Despair flooded my entire being. There really was no way out. I was stuck like this forever, and to top it off, we had wasted so much time and money on a pointless wild goose chase.

The world started spinning around me. I shut my eyes tight, but all I could see were visions of a dark future. A future where I was just another person on this huge earth, living a mundane life and having no reason to exist. This time, there was really no way out. It was all over. 

I heard a voice filter through the darkness. “I’m joking, I’m joking,” Martin said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was laughing like a madman, like he’d just made the funniest joke in the world. “Not far to go now. We will reach my car soon, and then we will go to the animium.”

I tried to say “What?” again, but I was too confused to speak. I felt sick. Was this all just a joke? Couldn’t Martin read the atmosphere? This was a potentially life-threatening situation, and Martin was just making cruel jokes.

Ty grabbed Martin’s collar and pulled him close. “This really isn’t the time,” Ty snapped. “Do you even understand the gravity of the situation we’re in right now? Look what you’ve done to Adam and Darren!”

Martin simply replied by laughing even harder. “But… their reaction was just so funny! I couldn’t resist!”

“You’re a sick man, Martin,” Ty said in a low voice.

And at that moment, I had another look at the situation and saw the funny side of it all. Half laughing, half crying, I realised how stupid everything was. Ty looked at me in astonishment.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” I said between laughs. “It’s just that… I’m trapped inside the body of a fourteen-year-old boy, and my whole life is on the line here, and I’m almost about to have a major breakdown, and we’ve just been trolled by a mad Bulgarian who just can’t stop laughing.”