Chapter Text
The storage locker clicked shut with a finality that should have brought relief.
It didn't.
Darian's hand lingered on the padlock—cold metal, combination set to something they'd forget on purpose: 14-73-09. No, wait. 14-73-08. The numbers were already slipping, dissolving like sugar in water, and good. Let them dissolve. Let everything about that cursed laptop dissolve into static and white noise and blessed, beautiful nothing.
Except nothing dissolved. Nothing ever dissolved anymore.
Combination: 14-73-08. Padlock: Master Lock No. 1500D. Shackle diameter: 8mm. Lock mechanism contains 64,000 possible combinations. Storage unit: 3.05 meters by 3.05 meters. Monthly rental: $47.99. Inside: one laptop, Dell Inspiron 15 3000 series, serial number—
They turned away. Started walking. Then running.
My name is Darian.
Twenty-one hours, fifty-one minutes, and forty-nine seconds.
Darian knew this with the same certainty they knew everything now. The exact number of steps between streetlights (forty-seven at 1.4 meters per second), the precise temperature (2.7°C, dropping 0.3 degrees every seventeen minutes), the name of every street they'd crossed (Oak Street, Maple Avenue, the unnamed access road with 47 potholes requiring $12,847 in repair costs), and the atomic weight of the air they breathed (28.97 g/mol, composition 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon—)
My name is Darian. I am seventeen. I am—who am I?
Mt. Ebott: elevation 2,847 meters, located 41.2°N 74.1°W, geological formation dating back approximately 300 million years, Paleozoic era, composed primarily of metamorphic rock including gneiss and schist, local legends documented in 47 sources dating back to 1858 when—
"My name is d3r—" they whispered, then stopped dead.
No.
No no no no NO.
"Darian," they corrected frantically, voice cracking (vocal frequency dropping from 180Hz to 142Hz, indicating distress, vocal cord tension increasing). "My name is Darian. Darian. Not—not that. Not—"
But they could feel it. The other name. The username. The identity that had spent 547 hours in Minecraft, that had solved cipher after cipher, that had been smart enough to set two traps instead of one, that had looked behind those gates and—
d3rLord3. Account created March 17, 2021 at 2:47 PM. 847 hours logged. 23 achievements. Friend count: 0—
"No!" Darian gasped, stumbling against a tree (oak, Quercus alba, approximately forty-seven years old). "No, that's—that's not my name. That's a username. That's just—my name is Darian."
But was it?
The question wormed into their mind like a parasite. What made "Darian" more real than "d3rLord3"? They'd spent more time being d3rLord3 than being Darian lately. d3rLord3 had survived the maze. d3rLord3 had solved the cipher. d3rLord3 had written the warning in the book.
Darian had just... what? Run? Been scared?
My name is Darian, they thought desperately, but it felt like trying to hold water in their hands. Like the name was slipping through their fingers no matter how tightly they grasped.
Their sneakers hit pavement (asphalt, petroleum-based, aggregate size 9.5mm), then gravel (crushed limestone, particle size 12-19mm), then dirt (loamy soil, pH 6.8, 34% clay content). They knew everything about the ground beneath their feet. They knew nothing about the person walking on it.
What did their face look like?
The question surfaced like a drowning person gasping for air, and Darian—no, wait, were they Darian or were they—no, Darian, they were Darian, they had to be Darian because if they weren't Darian then who were they?
Brown hair? Black? Their height was 172cm, they knew that, their weight was 68kg, their blood type was O+, their social security number was—but their face?
Nothing.
Static.
A void where their own reflection should be.
All they could see were eyes.
Yellow eyes.
Milky. Pupilless. Bright as sulphur, as warning signs, as the flowers that would break their fall.
Yellow—why does it have to be yellow?
They squeezed their eyes shut (eyelids closing at 0.3 seconds, average blink speed, extraocular muscles contracting—) but it didn't matter. They could still see. Still knew the exact position of every tree, every rock, every blade of grass in a 50-meter radius.
When had they gone blind?
Optical nerve degradation began at 14 hours, 32 minutes, 8 seconds post-exposure. Complete loss of photoreception occurred at 19 hours, 47 minutes, 12 seconds. Current status: functionally blind. Retinal cells: non-responsive. Optic nerve: atrophied. Iris color: yellow (#FFFF00, RGB 255-255-0). Pupils: absent. Sclera: opaque, milky white.
But it didn't matter. Blindness didn't matter when you knew everything you would have seen anyway.
"My name is d3r—Darian," they corrected themselves again, voice breaking. "My name is Darian. Darian. Not—it's not—I'm not just a username, I'm a person, I'm—"
Are you?
The thought came from nowhere and everywhere at once. From the infinite knowledge itself, maybe. Or from whatever was left of them beneath it.
My name is Darian, they recited like a prayer, like a spell, like the only anchor they had left. I am seventeen years, four months, twelve days old. I am he/they. I used to like puzzles. I was good at Minecraft. I—
What else?
What else were they?
The information came easily: birth date (April 3, 2008), birth time (3:47 AM), birth weight (3.2kg), current height (172cm), current weight (68kg), blood type (O+), allergies (none documented), medical history (appendectomy age 12, fractured left radius age 9, routine vaccinations up to date)—
But who were they?
My name is—
The world tilted at 34.7 degrees.
Twenty-one hours. Fifty-three minutes. No food (last meal: granola bar, 190 calories). Minimal water (237ml). The human body requires minimum 2000 calories per day, glycogen stores depleted, ketosis beginning, blood sugar at 3.2 mmol/L and dropping—
Another step. The ground felt wrong (compression strength approximately 40% of surrounding terrain, give of approximately 2.7cm under 68kg body weight).
Too absent.
The earth simply ended.
d3rLord3 was falling—
—NO, DARIAN, I'M DARIAN—
—through a hole (diameter 8.7 meters, depth 42.7 meters, entrance to Underground, last human to fall was Frisk approximately seven years ago, before that Chara who fell in 201X—) and even blind, even with useless yellow eyes sealed shut, they could see everything.
Air pressure at each meter of descent (101.325 kPa at surface, 101.826 kPa at bottom).
Stone walls (metamorphic gneiss, 71% feldspar, 19% quartz, 10% mica).
Golden flowers below (847 visible specimens, Ranunculus, toxic if ingested).
My name is Darian my name is Darian my name is—
Distance remaining: 42.7 meters. 41.2 meters. 39.8 meters.
—d3rLord3—
—NO—
—Darian Marcus Chen—
—which one which one which one—
28.3 meters. 24.9 meters. 21.7 meters.
My name is—
The knowing threatened to swallow even that. Even their name. Even the last piece of themselves they were trying desperately to hold onto as everything else dissolved into pure information.
12.4 meters. 9.1 meters. 6.8 meters.
Darian. My name is Darian. Not d3rLord3. Not a username. Not just data. I'm a person. I'm—
Golden flowers rushed up to meet them (847 individual specimens, average petal count 5-7, current bloom cycle day 14 of 21—).
—Darian.
Impact: 04:17:28 AM exactly.
The world went soft and dark but the information didn't stop—impact force 2,891 newtons, 47 flower stems broken, soil compression 8.3cm, body position supine, heart rate 152 BPM and climbing—
Darkness claimed them.
But even unconscious, they still knew.
And forgot.
And knew.
And forgot who was doing the knowing.