GoodTimesWithScar suffocated in a wall

MumboJumbo suffocated in a wall

MumboJumbo fell from a high place

GoodTimesWith Scar fell from a high place

MumboJumbo drowned

GoodTimesWithScar drowned

GoodTimesWith Scar went up in flames

MumboJumbo went up in flames

Grian stared at his communicator as the death messages kept on going. Sam was warning him, he knew it. He knew he'd do much worse when he turned off their death messages, but for now he was making his presence known.

He'd flown the rest of the way through the tunnel when the heat of the nether became too much and had taken a random portal, ending up in the shopping district. Now, he was sitting on the stairs in the Barge, watching as his friends died.

At first, people had been making comments in chat, asking what they were up to, but eventually they seemed to dismiss it as some sort of trap or game and hadn't said anything for a while.

GoodTimesWithScar died

"He's getting imaginative now." Grian said under his breath, before biting his lip in a miserable attempt not to cry. He'd been refraining from it for the last half hour since he'd started watching the messages, he was in public after all and couldn't let anyone know something was wrong. It would make it worse. He couldn't find the energy to go somewhere more private, so it seemed simpler to just not cry.

"Grian, tell me what you mean by that." Xisuma's voice startled him, and the admin sat down next to him.

"I can't." Grian said.

"Why not? Something is obviously going on and I need to know what it is." Xisuma said.

"I can't." Grian said, going to stand up. Xisuma grabbed his wrist to try and stop him. Grian flinched at the contact that had been more forceful than intended. He let go immediately but Grian sat back down, like he was too scared not to. This only worried X more.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but if you know anything you should tell me. I can help."

"You can't. It'll make things worse. He'll take you too if he finds out you know, and he will find out. He always will." Grian said. 'Tell them or anyone anything about me and I won't hesitate to kill them and the rest of the people on this server permanently.' Sam's words echoed around his head.

"Who?" Xisuma asked. "Grian, who?" Grian didn't respond, instead, he looked down at his communicator as it buzzed.

MumboJumbo died

That death message was only assigned when the server didn't have any other message to use. It meant Mumbo had died in a way that wasn't recognised by the world's coding. It meant Sam was having fun.

<MumboJumbo> Take the hint Grian, come and find them -S

Grian stared at the device in his hand.

"Who's S?" Xisuma said, reading the last part. "Is that the Sam person you mentioned earlier?" Grian nodded slowly.

<GoodTimesWithScar> get moving -S

Grian didn't need any more prompt, he stood up and went over to the chest containing rockets. There were a few diamonds where people had bought some, but he looked past them and put the remaining rockets into his inventory.

"Where are you going?" Xisuma asked.

"I don't know," Grian lied, taking off through the hole in the roof and leaving the admin.

***

Mumbo sat on the bed after waking up there for what seemed like the millionth time. He put his head in his hands, wishing for it to go away. He'd died so many times, and although the pain didn't carry through when he respawned, he still experienced it. It was still an echo. He'd died over and over again, and although he'd been in his fair share of death loop pranks, this was different.

This time, he didn't know when it would stop. If it would stop. He didn't know what new death he'd experience each time. He didn't get any time to recover from the last death before being dragged back out of the room to die all over again. The cycle repeated time and time again, and there wasn't any end in sight.

Scar huddled into himself in the corner of the room.

Sam entered the room again, and they both looked up, wondering who he'd chose to go first this time, dreading both possibilities.

"Gree-on's looking for you, you'd better hope he gets here in time." He said. "Next time I kill you it'll be permanently." He exited and closed the door, leaving them in silence. They looked at each other.

"This can't be happening." Scar said, his voice broken. Mumbo slid off the bed and onto his knees on the ground, shuffling over to him and putting both arms around the mayor.

He wasn't sure why he was trying to comfort him, it wasn't like it would do anything and it wasn't like he was the human incarnate of optimism, but he hoped the gentle and warm contact would make it just a little bit better. Besides, it was probably the last hug Scar would get, and the last hug Mumbo would give.

Scar shuffled closer to the redstoner, wishing his arms were safe, but they weren't. A few tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't know how Sam was back, and he wasn't sure he cared anymore. He just wanted to get out. He just wanted to go to meetings with Bdubs and feed his cats and spend time with Cub and terraform his builds and wind people up and go to the servers weekly meetings to pretend to listen to Xisuma's announcements and forget to mend his tools and continue to add to his chest monster and just go back to normal.

But he couldn't.

Instead, he was going to die here, and no one but Grian and Mumbo would ever know what happened, and they'd probably die too.