It is 2:34 AM. Grian is awake. Why is he awake? He doesnāt want to be awake. Heād been asleep a moment ago. Something is whispering in the back of his head. Heādā¦
An alarm sounds. Grian jumps about three feet in the air, wildly flapping his wings in his momentary panic, and then winces as he hears a lamp fall over. Dangit, heād thought heād finally moved all the fragile objects in his starter house so that he wouldnāt - why is an alarm going off?
He stumbles across his house to where a screen is lit up and thereās a siren blaring. Shut it off, shut itā¦ āWait, hold on,ā he says, as his brain finally processes which siren has gone off. āThe - the Rift! The Rift monitoring device! I didnāt even think that would actually work, I stole that from Doc two seasons ago,ā he babbles to himself, scrambling to read the numbers telling him that, across the server, the Rift heād started monitoring was apparently doingā¦ numberā¦ things.
Thinking about it, he has no idea why the Entity wanted him to study the unknowable this season. He has absolutely no clue what heās doing. However, look! Itās working! Maybe thatās why?
āOh my gosh,ā he says, finally managing to make the alarm stop alarm-ing. āOkay. Okay, to - to Scarās nether portal? Should I just fly? Maybe I should just, yeah, I shouldā¦ā He grabs the things the Entity had suggested he use for his studies off the table. One more monitoring thingy heād swiped from Doc, a set of tools Pearl had lent him, some things heād invented with a bit of prodding - okay. Okay! Time to go check out the rift between worlds.
He stumbles out of his house, clumsily avoiding hitting the door with his wings. He brushes his hand across the Entity to make sure the thingās paying attention, because, once again, Grian stole most of this from Area 77 and has no idea what heās doing, and then he opens his wings and stumbles into the air towards his megabase and the Rift.
The server at 2 AM is nearly quiet, Grian thinks. Not quite properly quiet, mind you - he can see Keralisās lights on at the log shop and hear the faint sound of axes, for example, and xB is doingā¦ somethingā¦ on top of his starter base (heās glowing? Grian has questions and no time to ask them), but itās quiet-er. Never quite totally still. Hermitcraft is never totally still. But itās quiet and still in a way it isnāt during the day, and it makes the anticipation Grian and the thing in his head are feeling even stronger.
It only takes a few minutes to get to his base. The cold night air has properly awoken Grian now. He swoops inside and stands in front of the glowing purple hole between worlds heād been guided to, and itās pulsating, flashing, burning in a way Grianās never seen before. No wonder whatever the thing was heād stolen had been going off. Itāsā¦ mesmerizing. Itās hard not to look at it. Itāsā¦
Wait, what - what does that mean? Of course itās wrong, Grian reasons with the thoughts heās learned belong to the Entity, but itās supposed to be! Thatās the whole point! Itās a gap between worlds! But itās also the wrong thing, something that isnāt supposed to - well yes, wasnāt that the point? Honestly! No, thereās something wrong wrong, the thing coming through wasnāt what theyād been waiting for. Oh, is that so? Thatās news to Grian! Grian didnāt know they were waiting for anything specific! Grian doesnāt know what heās do -
Every one of the devices Grian has with him briefly screams, in simultaneous human shouts, and then shuts down altogether. Grian stands, frozen.
The Rift looks at him. The Rift looks at the Entity, too, even though the Entity is only here in Grianās head. Grian subconsciously puffs his wings out, widening them and flaring the eyespots on them right back at the Rift, instinctively trying to make himself too big and scary to look at, not prey, he isnāt prey -
Then the world flashes around Grian, and he canāt see anything at all, and the ground is shaking, and Grian canāt see to keep his balance but his wings start flapping desperately to keep him upright anyway, and if this kills him heās going to kill the Entity right back and also will owe Mumbo so much money so this canāt be how Grian dies forever, it canāt, it canāt!
Desperately, he starts to try to use his wings to go backwards.
And then everything is still.
Grian looks up. All of the electronics are working again. The Rift looks like it did when Grian first found it. There are only two signs that something is wrong.
The first is the Entity in the back of Grianās head, expressing what can only be described as mute, baffled terror.
The second is that there is another Grian standing right in front of Grian, wearing thin desert clothing, wide-eyed, with his own wings flared out the way Grian had only a moment earlier, standing in front of someone who could only be Scar, if only Scar had ever been that grey-colored.
The two of them stare at each other. He recovers first.
