He lay curled up in his bedroom, his head aching.
When had he looked away from the screen? How did he?
He didn’t quite remember.
He didn’t remember… much of anything.
He lay there, on his desk, his head rested on the keyboard of his laptop, his eyes heavy lidded as he watched the life go on outside of his bedroom window.
He was utterly exhausted.
He didn’t know how he’d managed to survive the altercation with the King in Yellow. Sure, it had all happened in a video game, but the effect it had on him was all too real.
He gazed at the book on his desk, unfortunately titled The King in Yellow.
He pushed it off his desk, the book landing in his waste basket with a dull thud. Nothing left to remind him about the horrors he’d went through any more.
As Derek lay there, on his desk, his laptop’s screen dimming with idle, his mind began to drift.
To Avery, no less.
Back when he first saw the King in Yellow through the screen, all the knowledge there was to know & comprehend in the world, both discovered & yet to be found, had filled Derek’s mind to the brim. However now, he seemed to be relieved of such a burden, as the King in Yellow had lost to him now. It was gone.
Back then, he’d known everything about Avery—the slime boy’s antics, his exact next moves, how he’d move to save Derek’s life that still had shocked Derek back then despite knowing every move the boy would make.
& the most important of all, he knew how the boy would’ve looked like in real life.
That may have been a little creepy, sure, but Derek didn’t find him forgetting the exact image of real-life Avery even now, when his crippled mind was already relieved of such burdens of knowledge.
He got up from his chair, trudging over to his bedroom window, looking out of it.
Maybe, just on the offchance, he could spot Avery out there? Amongst the crowd of people gazing up at the new year's fireworks?
There were so many people out there, many celebrating as they watched the fireworks, colours of dazzling green & golden painting the sky.
His eyes landed on one person that stood out to him from the crowd; the person had been pushed back, presumably by their own family. Derek had known that too—that Avery was neglected by his own caregivers, the reason why he’d been able to play for 15 hours straight, all in an effort to save Derek back then, on New Year’s Eve.
Derek’s eyes widened.
Yeah. It was Avery. The real man this time, not just some silly pixel Minecraft avatar; the real boy.
Derek didn’t even waste any more time dilly-dallying at the window! He unlatched it with hands that were rapidly beginning to tremble & clambered out, something which he could do given his room being on the first floor of his house.
Then, he ran up the small slope of a hill that the crowd had gathered on, straight towards Avery.