Hello everyone! I just wanted to say that this story is part of a series called The Lost One! I recommend checking out the first book, Xelqua Rising, and the other fics that come before this one before reading just so that you don't get lost.

With that out of the way... I just wanted to say that I was so, so excited to write this finally! I've been waiting pretty much since I started writing TLO to get to this arc of the story! I know I usually add bits of trivia or song lyrics or stuff like that before chapters, but for this first one, let's just jump in!

♡『♡』♡

Grian wasn't sure how long he had been lying there. His memory was fuzzy, but he could tell just by how the cool breeze ran through his hair and the sunlight warmed his body that he probably wasn't on Hermitcraft anymore. He couldn't recall everything exactly, but he knew that the world was nothing close to this peaceful when he had left.

He let out a muffled yawn as he slowly sat up, or at least he had tried to. He had sat up much faster than he had expected to, with an odd absence of weight behind him. He hummed in confusion as he reached behind his back and patted around. When he couldn't seem to find his wings, he gasped, jumping up to his feet. He tried to look behind himself and stretch his wings, but he couldn't stretch the muscles that just didn't exist. "What-- what happened to my wings?" he cried. He looked around and thankfully found a pond nearby. He rushed over to it as he pulled off his jumper. It slipped off without any tug, just like when he used to change before he was turned into a Watcher.

Staring into the pool's reflection, he was more easily able to see his bare back. Sure enough, there wasn't even a trace of his wings. What was more, the power-sapping bandages he wore to conceal most of his powers was gone as well.

Grian had hated being a Watcher. When he had first ran away from them, he tried everything he could to get even the slightest trace of them out of his body. Still, he was unable to get rid of one of his pairs of wings. He had hated them. He had even debated whether it would be possible to cut them off if that was what it took to rid himself of the wings. And yet now, all of a sudden, they were gone as though they had never existed to begin with. As ironic as it was, he couldn't help but feel as though he were incomplete without them now.

Nearby, a chicken clucked. It wasn't too loud, but it was enough to bring Grian back to the present. "Right... Where am I?" he asked to no one in particular. He pulled his shirt back over his head, noting once again the absence of his wings. Thankfully, while he may not have his bandages, he at least had a communicator. He opened it up and tried to drill into the server information. He couldn't help but note that options were available here that weren't here on Hermitcraft. Would that mean he was some sort of Admin? He frowned, tucking away that piece of information for later. For now, he just focused on getting the world's name.

"Third Life?" he asked, tilting his head. That was a rather... odd name. He shook his head, it probably didn't matter. Next, tried to drill down into the list of people currently on the server, but for some reason, he couldn't find it where he usually could. He frowned. Was this because he was the Admin for some reason? Or perhaps some sort of glitch? Did different worlds configure their panels differently? He didn't think the last one made sense, but then again, he hadn't seen any modern worlds except Hermitcraft until now.

Well, he decided to deal with that later. For now, he would get started before the monsters came out. Maybe he would be lucky enough to stumble on one of his friends. And so, as most players did, he headed for the nearest tree and gave it a nice punch.

When his fist made contact with it, he cried out. He shook his now erythematous hand, frowning. He really wasn't used to it hurting so much. If he had to guess, this server didn't have the same mods Hermitcraft did to help make tasks like these a little easier.

Ah well. He had it worse before. With that in mind, he went back to punching the tree.

♡『♡』♡

When Scar opened his eyes, he couldn't help but notice a strange sensation running through his body. It felt oddly familiar, in a way in which maybe it had been all those years ago.

He told the edges of his fingertips to move, and they did without complaint. Next, he tried his wrist. Same thing. He thought for a moment before reluctantly deciding to use his arms to push himself up into a sitting position. His core held him steady, no aches or weakness like usually had.

"What...?" He asked, blinking. He moved one hand to his abdomen, finding that there was now muscle when there had been atrophy before. He looked down at his legs, slowly moving them. They too looked so much stronger than they had before. Enough to support himself, even.

He stared up at the sky, glaring at it. He took a few deep breaths, noting just how much deeper he could breathe now. But he noticed something else: the hint of Vex magic hung in the air, mixed with... something else. He wasn't quite sure what.

So that was why his body had suddenly recovered from his condition. It didn't actually recover.

He looked around at his surroundings. His wheelchair wasn't anywhere to be found. He frowned, taking out his communicator.

GoodTimeWithScar: hey, is anyone around?

Server: ERROR. Messaging is not allowed on this server!

Scar frowned at the message he got in reply. He supposed that he could probably walk around, but he suspected that his body wasn't in as good of a state as it appeared. If he could only get some wood, he could craft a wooden wheelchair. That was assuming that basic accessibility mods were in place, however, and even if they were, the situation wasn't ordeal.

Against Scar's best judgment, he rose to his feet. He moved his toes, letting them wiggle in his shoes. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, taking note of how his muscles supported him without aching, weakness or feeling as though they would give out from underneath of him. Next, he tested out taking one small step. Then another. And another. He could... walk? He could walk! He covered his mouth, making a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry. "I never thought that I would ever walk again..." He spoke to himself. He wasn't sure how he felt in that moment. Happy? Sad? Guilty? Worried? Euphoria? Dysphoria? Maybe all of them, overlapping one another.

Scar took a shuddering breath, wiping his tears. He forced himself forwards, towards the nearest tree.

♡『♡』♡

The first thing Martyn sensed was the piecing light of the sun lasering into his skin. He hummed to himself, shaking his head as he tried to reposition his head to protect his closed eyes.

Then it all came flooding back to him — the explosion, the void tearing up the castle, Linea, Aerric putting him in without hardly any instruction... all of  it. He wearily opened his eyes, first a crack, then fully.

His vision blurred, quickly filling with an overwhelmingly pure white. He instinctively covered his eyes with his arm, shivering at the sensation.

No... he could do it. Aerric told him that he could. So, taking a deep breath, he pulled his arm away and sat up so he wasn't looking directly at the sun anymore.

The world around him was washed in a painful almost white light. Everything in him wanted to close his eyes, but no matter how much it burned, how tears began to roll down his cheeks, he kept them open. He let shuddering breaths and quick blinks ground him until he could get used to it again.

"I... really can see." He sighed in relief. He reached up, ruffling his hair with his hands until he found the scrap of fabric he had worn over his eyes for so long. He tore it out to observe it. It was just a simple black, nothing noteworthy. He laughed. "A memento. Let it be your guide." He recalled, rolling his eyes light heartedly.

He hated the cloth. It was nothing but a reminder of pain and suffering, all the training he had to endure. Yet, it was for that same reason that it was powerful, and that it was a part of him. Like it or not, it would remain with him. Perhaps as a good luck charm, if that fool of a king was to be believed.

In any case, Martyn certainly didn't have all day. He got up and punched down a few trees. He quickly found himself a rhythm, and before he knew it, he had a full inventory of wood tools with a few stone ones. Next, he began to dig up the ground around him, having decided to make a mine. He was just about to go underground when he heard a voice calling out to him.

"Martyn, is that you?!" The voice called. Martyn knew the voice well. He froze for a fleeting moment as he debated if it could really be -- but no, it had to be!

"BigB?" He asked, climbing his way out of the hole. "What are you doing here?"

Sure enough, BigB was standing there, laughing slightly as he rubbed the back of the head. "Well that's kind of the thing... I'm not really sure! One moment I was comfy cozy in my bed and then I wake up here." He shrugged. Then, when he noticed something, he paused with a frown. "Say... when did you get that scar?"

Martyn paused once again. Had BigB not remembered the Void, either? But also, what scar was he referring to? "That... scar?" he asked, blinking. He absent-mindedly traced a path down his right cheek and down his jaw. That was the last place he had gotten hurt, but it shouldn't have left a scar. None of his training should have, or least he had thought so. Had he been wrong about that?

"Yeah, right by your eye! With an injury like that, it's hard to believe you didn't notice it!" BigB exclaimed. He set down his shovel before walking over to Martyn and beginning to touch the left side of his face. Martyn tried to retreat, but the other hugged his waist to keep him in place as he studied it.

"Hey— wait a minute—"

"Seriously Martyn, what did you do? You were fine yesterday! Has Netty seen this yet? Oh, you know she'll never let you hear the end of it when she sees this!" BigB scolded.

The words made Martyn's heart flutter. What he wouldn't give for Netty to come and bandage him, lightly scolding him for being reckless again. His heart panged in his chest, a deep longing, a passing hope that just maybe -- maybe she was here too. "I... no... she hasn't." He replied, managing to break away from his friend. He found himself clutching his chest as he turned his gaze away. He couldn't allow himself to get his hopes up. That would only crush him that much more if it turned out to be a dream after all.

"Martyn? What's wrong?" 

Martyn took a few deep breaths to regain his composure. He was more than familiar with this sting, but that never made it any easier. Nonetheless, he had a mission to fulfill, a job to complete. He took an extra few seconds to decide how much he should say, before replying, "Listen, we... aren't exactly in Evolution any more. We... haven't been for a long time. They got bored of us, I guess. Threw us in the Void itself. And now, I guess we're both here, wherever here is. I don't know if the others are here; I don't really know much of anything." He explained. 

He watched as BigB's face grew a look of wary suspicion as he continued speaking. Thankfully, the man had always been mild tempered, and the suspicion waned from his face. Mostly, that was. Martyn had always been good at reading people, and apparently, even being able to read minds to an extent if he tried. "You do seem to know a lot more than me." BigB hummed as he stared at a point above Martyn's eye. With a scar like that, he seems to have gone through a lot, BigB thought. 

Martyn winced as he heard the thought. Just how bad was this scar? What did he even look like anymore? He set that thought aside for later, hoping that he would stumble across a pond or a lake later on. But for now, that wasn't the most important thing. What was important was that he really wasn't ready to answer any more questions BigB might have. And so, he turned back to the beginning of his mine. "In any case, we should probably gather materials to start over again. I'm going to go mining if you'd like to join me?" He offered as he turned back around, holding his old wooden pickaxe out to his friend.

♡『♡』♡

Scar had a sinking feeling in his chest as he stared at the crafting table he was sat in front of. He had gone on a mining expedition, but he quickly found that pain began to climb up his legs. That had only confirmed for him that his body was certainly not fine. He got out of there as soon as he could, but it took awhile to get back up to the surface. By the time that he had, the pain had climbed all the way up to his abdomen, he found his breathing getting quicker and he was light headed.

On the table, stacked high, was wood, sticks, cobblestone, iron, iron ingots, redstone, dirt, saplings, wheat and gold. It was stacked so high that, sitting down, the pile went above his head. On his communicator, he flipped through all the different crafting recipes on this server. The recipe for the wooden wheelchair didn't work. The stone chair hadn't worked either. And finally, iron hadn't worked. That was the three ways he knew how to make a basic chair. To get a custom one, he had to go off-server, he had known that. But a basic chair was much better than no chair at all.

In his panic, he had dumped most of his inventory onto the table in hopes that some way, somehow, there would be a strange recipe for a chair here. When even that didn't work, he had finally gone to the length of painstakingly flipping through every single recipe. But as he flipped to the very last screen, his fears were only confirmed.

"There... there is no way for me to get a wheelchair..." He whispered, a growing feeling of dread finally enveloping him. He couldn't even get a walker, or a cane, or any kind of aid. He had only been walking for an hour, if that, and he was already tired! At the same time, the day was not getting any younger. What was he supposed to do now?

♡『♡』♡

Grian hadn't seen anyone since he woke up in this world. A pit had begun to knit itself in his stomach, as his mind had begun to whisper to him that maybe he was alone in this world. Maybe, he was trapped here just like Evo, but this time, he had no one to lean on or to lean on him. And maybe -- just maybe -- the friends that had fallen in with him had suffered worse fates, all alone. 

He tried his best not to listen to the thoughts. They were just that -- thoughts. If the Hermits had taught him anything, it was that his thoughts weren't reality. His fears weren't true like they were in the Void. Still, that didn't mean that he was immune to his worries. For now, he tried to shove them into the back corner of his mind to deal with later, preferably when he had a shelter and safety from the mobs that were bound to spawn at nightfall. 

To his credit, he had made fairly good progress. He had gotten lucky, finding a mob with a chestplate. It wasn't much, just an old gold one that was sure to break sooner than later, but armor was armor when he had nothing. He had gotten even luckier later, managing to get his hands on a golden apple of all things. Therefore, he was looking decent in the defense side of things. His mining expedition had gone decently so far; he had gotten a handful of iron and various materials. 

Sure, he may not have found anyone yet, but, "I haven't really spent all that much time on the surface, anyway." he reasoned to himself to try and ease his worries. He spun the pickaxe in his hand as a nervous habit, stalling before he broke the next piece of stone. But to his surprise, the block broke itself.

"Grian, is that you I heard?" A voice called. It sounded... eerily familiar, enough to cause a shrill to run down his spine. But try as he might, he couldn't place it. It didn't sound like a Hermit, but then who could it be?

The block above it broke, revealing the face that Grian could recognize instantly. "Martyn?!" He screamed. It was such a shock that he fell over, just barely managing to land on his butt. Martyn invited himself inside the new cave, beginning to walk over to him.

"You know, Martyn, your hearing really is --" Another voice began to say. BigB appeared behind Martyn and he froze, his eyes going wide. "Wait-- did you say-- Grian?! But-- How?!"

"I should be asking the two of you the same question!!" Grian yelled back, pointing his pickaxe accusingly at the two of them. Martyn flinched at the sound, and Grian didn't miss how his hands almost went to cover his ears. Yelling in such an inclosed space probably wasn't good for such sensitive ears. "Sorry." 

"It's... fine." Martyn replied, his gaze lingering away for a moment as he frowned. He shook his head before offering a smile, and a hand to Grian which was gladly accepted. 

"But really..." Grian began once he was back up on his two feet again. "It's been... Gosh, I lost count of the years. Centuries? I thought -- I mean I was told -- how are you two still-- you know?" He stared each of them up and down. BigB looked as though he had hardly aged a day. Martyn, on the other hand, now bore a deep, distinctive scar from the top of his forehead that cut diagonally down to his left cheek, missing his eye by a few centimeters. Upon closer examination, He had a few smaller scars scattered on the visible portion of his body, which Grian suspected may have been caused by arrows or small slashes of a sword. How would he have gotten such permanent injuries in the first place? He now also wore a black ribbon tied to his forehead as a bandana, but given everything else, that was hardly worth mentioning.

"The Void, apparently." BigB replied. "Last thing I remember, I was going to bed at my base and then I wake up here." 

"The... Void...?" Grian echoed, blinking. Deep excitement and sadness was brewing deep down inside of him. His friends were alive! They were alive? They were alive! But the Void? Didn't the Watchers tell him that they were dead? They didn't lie! So then why did they lie? Had they not known the truth? But at the same time, didn't they control the Void? So then..? "But--?"

Martyn rested his hands on Grian's shoulders, moving his thumbs in deep, circular motions along his back. "I know, I know. It's a lot to process. It was for me too. But we're here now, yeah?" He grinned. "Go ahead, G. Listen to your heart and let your emotions flow; let yourself feel whatever you need to feel right now." 

"Ever the elf," Grian mocked gently, recalling the mantras of the elves and the Listeners. Martyn and Jimmy had always said them, but whether or not that was an intentional would always remain a mystery. Martyn let out a exaggerated huff, unable to wipe the warm smile off his face.

But regardless, even if Grian didn't fully understand the circumstances, he knew in the presence of these two, he was safe. The little encouragement was enough for his walls to come down and before he knew it, he was sat on the ground, sobbing even though he couldn't form the words to think of why that might be. Was it tears of joy? Tears of mourning and loss? Confusion? Fear? Maybe all of them, all at once. BigB had nestled in front of him, offering his shoulder which Grian gladly took. Martyn, meanwhile, remained behind him and continued to massage his shoulders. His two friends were there for him for as long as he needed.