This chapter goes REALLY deep. Maybe too deep. BE WARNED

This is a really dumb thing to be doing a warning about when I don't do warnings for freaking suicide (Scott)

Also, I'm going to change the name of all three stories. This is probably the absolute WORST time to do it, but I don't really like the names I have, and they don't really fit the story. So ya.

Three Hearts --> Life Hearts
Broken Hearts --> Evolved
Lost Hearts --> Alone

~~~

Blackness.

There was blackness, but also color.

Color was a strange thing. It existed even in a white void, but separated to create the world we knew.

Am I dead?

Falling. Falling through blackness and color, darkness and light. Falling through existence.

Existence. What a strange concept; almost as strange as color.

What was the point of living if we would just end up dying?

What was the point of existence if it would only end?

Am I dead?

The question circled, around and around and around until it had no more meaning.

No meaning, like life. Like existence.

We were microscopic dots in the universe. The elements, the sky, the earth, the entire world wouldn't care if we were gone. It would just soak up our dead bodies and use it to grow new life.

Life that also had no meaning.

Faces. There were so many faces. Large eyes and a green hoodie. Cyan hair interrupted by golden antlers. The red robes of a traitor who hadn't deserved to die.

Did I deserve to die?

Every rose certainly had its thorns. But did the thorns exceed the beauty?

Every rose. Red, or white, or yellow, or pink, or Wither. Except the weird genetically modified ones.

Colors... they could represent good or bad. Purple was a good example of that. It could mean safety, wonder, magic. Or it could mean power, dominance, tyranny.

The faces flashed again.

Have I joined them?

Colors. Falling. Existence. Faces.

The faces were gone forever, their existence as meaningless as mine.

Who was I?

Was I good or bad? Was there really a difference?

If white was good and black was bad, then why were there so many colors in between?

And where was I on that scale?

Am I dead?

Colors.

The blackness started to fade, first to grey, then to a multitude of colors. Red, yellow, blue, everywhere in between. I couldn't think of the name.

Colors. Pink and green. Crimson and dark grey. Orange and teal. Blue and red.

And purple. So much purple.

Am I dead?

Falling.

I was starting to slow.

Am I dead?

Existence.

It had no meaning, no purpose. The only thing certain about it was that it would end.

Am I dead?

Faces.

I saw new ones this time. I recognized them, and heard voices as well. They told me to hold on, to come back.

To keep existing.

Keep going. They're gone. You'll be okay.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

It circled. Like the question.

Am I dead?

Wake up.

Questions. So many questions.

Bluemoon. Wake.

Bluemoon.

The Blue Moon wasn't actually blue. It was silver. Why was it called a Blue Moon if it wasn't blue?

Blue, wake up.

Blue. A color. One of my favorites, in fact.

Wait, what? Since when had I had a favorite anything?

Remember.

Blue... my name. My name.

I remember.

I gasped and opened my eyes.

I felt terrible. There was a coppery taste in my mouth. Every part of me ached, and I found it difficult to move.

But I was alive.

I was alive.

I actually had mixed feelings about being alive. Everything hurt so much, and it kind of sucked.

But death was scary. Death was blackness and fear and unknown, and nobody knew what would happen when it came knocking at their door.

But I was alive, so I didn't have to worry about that for now.

I examined my surroundings, trying to ignore the throbbing in my head. I was in an unfamiliar room made of endstone and purpur. The only ways out were a ladder in the ceiling and a staircase going down. An End City, but it was very clearly inhabited.

I yelped and accidentally rolled off the bed into the floor. it was dangerous to sleep in the End. What had I been thinking, going to sleep here?

And then I remembered. I didn't choose to go to sleep. I had been knocked out by... something.

And then it all came rushing back.

A choked sob escaped me as I remembered.

FWhip and Gem were probably devastated. They were probably beating themselves up over it, thinking it was their fault. It wasn't, though. It was mine, all mine, and all I had now was my memories of them. It was for the best, though.

Well, I was still trying to convince myself that it was the right thing to do.

I looked around more, examining every groove in the endstone, every piece of furniture and every fold in the blanket on the bed. It was the only alternative to thinking. And thinking would be very bad right now, both because I would probably cry and the Watchers could read minds.

I don't know how long I laid on the floor, trying not to fall back asleep. Eventually I got uncomfortable and got back into bed, groaning softly.

I heard footsteps walk into the room a few minutes after I did. I closed my eyes, hoping they would just go away. Thinking was bad, but people were bad as well right now.

"I know you're awake," a voice said.

I didn't respond.

The voice sighed. "You accomplished quite a feat there on the main island. Drink this potion. it'll help with the pain."

I grunted and opened my eyes, figuring there wasn't much use in pretending anymore. A Watcher stood next to the bed, holding out a red potion. I took it and drank it, not even caring of it was harming or something else bad. I didn't really care at all anymore.

However, instead of rotten watermelon like harming tasted like (don't ask, FWhip dared me to drink it), it was bitter and salty. Regeneration.

I felt the pain fading.

"You feeling any better?" The Watcher asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I'm fine."

I got out of bed and promptly fell over.

The Watcher helped me back into bed. "Obviously not. Get some more rest."

I didn't want to get some more rest. I was afraid of the nightmares that I knew would come.

But I felt my eyelids drooping now that they had permission from someone to close again.

And before I knew it, I was asleep.

I found my sleep dreamless and quiet, which did nothing but worry me. Surely it was the calm before the storm.

When I woke up, the room was exactly the same. Then, another Watcher came in, looking surprised to see that I was awake. Obviously, she wasn't supposed to have her mask down, because she hastily pulled it up. "Oh. Hi. Oh, gosh, you're awake. Hi."

The stuttering reminded me of FWhip.

"Hi," I said. "Do you have water?"

She grabbed a bottle on the desk - my bottle, I realized - and handed it to me. I gulped the water inside down gratefully and tried to stand up again.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't do that-" the Watcher started, but stopped when I managed to stand. I was a little wobbly, but I stayed upright.

"The connection," I said. "Is it closed?"

"What connection?" she asked.

Frick, I thought. Of course she didn't know. Of course the Council didn't tell their subjects anything, of course they were trying to keep it quiet.

Instead, I tried a question (or three) that she was more likely to know the answer to. "Who are you? Where am I? And where's my stuff?"

"I'm Zihra," the Watcher said nervously. "We're in Chorus City, the closest city to the main island. Your 'stuff', as you put it... well, I'm not allowed to tell you that."

"Why not?" I said.

"Your things consisted of a sword, a pickaxe, a golden apple, and a bunch of potions that we didn't know what they were," Zihra argued. "We don't know if you're dangerous."

"I'm not," I assured her. "At least, not to my friends."

"That's the problem," Zihra said. "We don't know if you're a friend or not. Which is why the Council wants to see you."

Fear shot through me. "Who?"

"The Council. A new one. There was a battle that we were all watching between the original Council and Hallene, and Hallene won. She was always more powerful than they were."

She admitted it with distaste.

"What do you mean? What happened exactly?" I said attentively.

Zihra shrugged. "I'm not a battle nerd like my friend Quinn. I don't know all the fight terms and the moves and stuff. But there was a lot of magic involved. There was a prophecy, Grey and black will clash in an epic battle that was planned since the beginning of time. That was a fulfillment of that prophecy. Hallene won, even against both of them, and even though most of us were invisible she pointed you out and told us to take care of you. We did, because even though she's a fugitive, most of us don't like the Council either."

I didn't respond. Maybe the Listener does care.

"What happened to the old Council?" I asked.

"Oh, they're as much of outcasts as she is now. They're back at their home cities. Their political power is gone for attempted execution without trial. And imprisoning an entire world with no real purpose. And this thing called Third Life. They've done some pretty bad things that nobody could do anything about."

"Execution?" I asked.

"Xelqua," she replied. "Another fugitive. I wasn't there for that, so don't ask."

"N-no..." I said. "I don't need to ask. I was there."

I was the reason he wasn't actually killed.

"Anywaaay," Zihra sang. "I need to get you to the new Council. There's three members again, and we've done away with the Watcher One Watcher Two Watcher Three stuff. It's very confusing, and Watcher Three has always been bad luck."

Still chattering, she tugged me out of the room.

I didn't exactly feel like a prisoner, even though I was technically being taken in for interrogation. There were no chains or locked doors or cold claustrophobic cells like there had been in the Downside-Up.

The Watchers seemed to have settled into the End pretty well since the warning Gem and I had given Rege. The city was completely furnished with everything people needed to live and a little bit more.

"What happened to the Downside-Up?" I asked.

"After the battle, the Council decided to move here permanently," Zihra said, then laughed. "Our friends over in the Overworld are going to have a little bit of a surprise when they next come to get elytra."

I laughed nervously.

They weren't going to come to get elytra. Ever.

But what made me a little more uncomfortable was the fact that she just threw the word "friends" around even though she didn't even know who they were or how this would affect them.

We eventually got to a room that would once have held a chest and an Ender chest. But now both containers were cleared out and the floor was filled in so that we could actually walk around. There were no shulkera in sight.

"Lords, Lady, the visitor's alive," Zihra said cheerfully.

Three Watchers turned to look at us. "Thank you. You may go, Zihra."

The lesser Watcher looked disappointed but left.

There was a long silence where the three Councillors just kind of stared at me, and I felt like they were dissecting me, trying to figure me out by the way I stood leaning on one foot, the constant twitching of my hand to my empty belt as I felt endangered, and the awkwardness that probably showed on my face.

"So," one said finally. "You're the one who gave the previous Council so much trouble. You're Bluemoon Tay."

"I am," I said.

"And you cut off the connection between the End and the Overworld."

"I did," I said.

"You befriended two fugitives of the Watchers."

"I wasn't aware of that when I met them," I said.

"And not only that, but you helped Hallene and Xelqua try to stop us."

"Not Watchers as a whole. Just the previous Council. They did things to us that we never recovered from. We just wanted the Council, and the Listener, to mind their own business and fight their own battles."

"Are you aware," another Councillor said angrily, "That you trapped eight of our own in the Overworld without magic?"

"I-" I muttered.

"Are you aware," the Watcher continued. "That Admins started the war in the first place?"

"Yes," I said loudly, before he could finish his rant. "And I refuse to apologize for something my ancestors did. But I do apologize for the Watchers in the Overworld, and the loss of their powers. It was for the greater good."

"You-" the Watcher started.

The third one shushed him. "I'm sorry," she said. "He's still bitter that he can't get spruce wood to build with anymore."

That surprised me. There were builder Watchers? If there were builders, there were probably also redstoners and terraformers and parkour professionals, but the war had prevented them from getting any of the exotic materials they wanted to use.

I wondered if any of them were as obsessed with birch wood as Gem was, or as enjoying of explosions as FWhip, or as hilariously murderous as Joel, or as clumsy as Scar, or as teasable as Jimmy.

No. Those thoughts wouldn't get me anywhere. I wasn't ready to think about the friends I had lost yet.

Thinking was bad. Don't think. Just go with it.

"But-" the grumpy Watcher protested.

The first Watcher to have spoken gave him a cool glare that shut him up.

"We only require one thing of you," he said.

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Okay."

"Tell us your story. Actions speak louder than words, and since we didn't see those actions, we need to hear about them."

"The best way to tell if you're a friend or not is to hear your story and the choices you made," the female Watcher added.

"Yeah. Okay. I can do that," I said, even though internally I was screaming. My past was none of their business.

But for the moment, it seemed like the only good thing to do. Otherwise it would be a very long time before I left this room.

I stared at my feet and started with X Life, quietly at first, but getting louder and stronger as I went on. I recounted the events right before the creeper explosion that had put me into a death coma and started it all, and then moved on to Third Life.

Memories. Creepers. Trees. TNT. Crowns. Banners. Enchanters. Battles.

The small period of peace in between.

Empires. Family. Dripleaf. Music disks. Masks. Demons. Dragons.

Last Life was harder to talk about it, but I powered through it as if I wasn't scared of what they would think.

Ghosts. Watchers. Lives. Spells. Nether Stars. Betrayals.

The Downside-Up was the next major chapter, and it sucked even more.

Dreamstone. Claustrophobia. Prisoners. Labyrinths. Escape. Unexpected revelations...

The shattered remains of a world.

Searching.

Reunion.

More crowns.

War.

Ice.

Plants.

More searching.

Endbusting.

Visions.

Panic.

Flight.

Murder...

Curses.

Another betrayal.

Another battle.

Pushing my own siblings off a cliff.

Pulling the lever.

And...

I didn't realize how much I had spoken until after I was done. Then I noticed that my throat was dry, my legs were tired, and there were tears in my eyes.

There were a lot of bad times. But there were also a lot of good times, good times that I would never have again.

The Watchers were quiet.

"...So?" I said.

They exchanged looks.

"Leave," the female said.

"What?" I said.

"You're no threat to us, but you'll probably make the inhabitants of this city nervous or angry. You'll have to leave."

I hastily nodded. "Where are my things? And is the connection really closed?"

Grumpy looked, well, grumpy. "Thanks to you-"

"Yes," the first Watcher interrupted. "It's closed. You're stuck here for... a long time. But your part in this war is over. Now it's just between the Watchers. That's what you wanted."

"Your things are up there," the female Watcher said, pointing up into the tower.

"Thanks," I said, and reached for the ladder, but then I stopped.

"Why are you letting me go?" I asked, a little bit afraid that they would change their minds. "I've done some bad things to you guys. All of the Admins have."

"Everyone makes mistakes," the female Watcher said. "And we have killed more of you than you have of us. It's probably for the best that we're separated now."

"But spruce trapdoors," the grumpy Watcher whined.

I started to climb the ladder as they continued to argue.

At the top of the tower, where an Endbuster would usually find a shulker and some windows, I found my backpack and tools among other things. This was probably just a storage room because of its tiny size.

I grabbed my stuff and headed back down the stairs, and then the ladder back to the Council room. All three of them seemed to have left, so I proceeded down the other staircase to find a wide-eyed Zihra in the room below.

"That was quite a story," she said.

I tensed. "You listened?"

"I couldn't not listen. You're the first Admin I've met. And I think you were very brave. I could never be that brave. I'm a healer, not a fighter."

Okay, I kind of like her.

"They're kicking me out for my own safety," I said, swinging my backpack over my shoulder. "Thanks for... taking care of me, I guess."

"Oh, it wasn't just me," Zihra said, although she sounded proud. "Gwendolyn and Quintessence helped too."

I smiled tightly. "Tell them thanks, too." I feel kind of bad for them, having to write out those names. Maybe they go by Gwen and Quinn or something.

"I will. See ya... sometime," Zihra said. Then she flew through the door and out of sight.

I put on my elytra, which I had found in my backpack. I used the same exit she had, but went in a different direction.

Looking around, I saw a large island surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones in one direction, and empty Void in another. So, since I was a sane person, I went toward the islands.

I landed on a smaller one and stopped.

Where would I go?

The only logical thing seemed to build myself a base. After all, I would be living here for the rest of my life. I had to have somewhere to go home to after my adventures.

What adventures? I didn't know. The only thing to see in the End was endstone, chorus fruit, and the Void.

However, Chorus City was still in sight. Before I settled, I would need to find a place where the Watchers would at least have a slightly harder time finding me. I had enemies among them.

But part of me thought I had allies, too. There were good Watchers. They could help, if they wanted to.

I took off again because (a) I had nothing better to do sitting here because I still didn't want to think, and (b) that enderman was giving me a weird look.

I found a smallish island to settle on, one that was big enough to live on but not massive. Then I built an ugly little cave house out of endstone and purpur. There wasn't much else to use. I searched through my backpack and was happy to find a random seed, dirt scaffolding, and two buckets of water for endermen. With those materials, I made an infinite water source and wheat farm. At least now I had a food source that wasn't chorus fruit.

I placed a bed and laid down. Apparently, now that the connection with the Overworld was cut off, it was completely safe to sleep here. But I didn't fall asleep. I was still far too awake.

Was it day or night back at home? How long had I been asleep?

I hoped my friends weren't trying too hard to find a way back. Because pushing my siblings off a cliff wasn't enough to make them hate me, I knew that much.

I turned over in bed. I missed them. But it had to be done.

No thinking, I scolded myself. But I couldn't stop.

A horrible thought grew inside of me. What if other Admins in other worlds had been Endbusting, or defeating the Ender Dragon, or building an enderman farm when I cut the connection? What if I wasn't alone?

What if I had not only torn apart my family, but others as well?

I buried my face in my pillow. Ugh.

If there were other Admins here, I would find them soon enough.

My thoughts circled back to my family and friends back in Gateway, maybe even the Ninth World by now.

I didn't get a happy ending, but hopefully they did.

Hopefully they weren't alone, lying in bed and trying not to cry. Hopefully they were building and redstoning and goodness knows what else.

If anyone deserved a happy ending, it was them.

But wait... why couldn't I have a happy ending as well?

What was keeping me from making the most of this?

There were other people here, maybe with stories as interesting as mine. There were Watchers who were willing to help, like Zihra.

What was keeping me from finding them?

But noooo, part of me protested. You're supposed to lay in bed and wallow in misery and be depressed.

And I kind of wanted to. But I could choose to be optimistic. I could choose to change and make the best of a new life. A new chance.

The Void around me was dark.

But the future had never seemed brighter.