Chapter Text
Tommy stared blankly. His fingers traced the uneven surface of obsidian. In the broken faint reflections of the black glass, he saw the lava bubbling in the background.
And also the towering shadow of a man.
The blond closed one of his hands into a fist. Nails left crescent moons in the skin of his palm.
Maybe it was good the reflections on obsidian were so bad. He has to look like shit. Who knows how long he has been here. Days, maybe weeks… Dream had been taunting him that it was more. That all his life was slipping between his fingers.
Why was he even called Dream, Tommy wondered. ‘Mister Projection’ would suit him better. All the fucker does nowadays is project his shitty life on Tommy.
Tommy smiles a little at that.
Right now, the man is angrily growling at a wall like a bristled cat. Perhaps finally a moment of self-reflection?
The man in white tank top with the top of his orange overall tied around his waist looked absolutely furious. His face was hidden by a curtain of musty mattered dirty-blond hair that now reached below his shoulders.
He must have felt Tommy looking at him, because he muttered angrily. “They are going to start again. By gods they are.”
“Mhm.” Tommy hummed.
“I can feel it.”
Tommy rolled his eyes.
“Do they really bother you that much?”
Dream’s head whipped to him. Through the curtain of hair he barely made out a green eye giving him a withering glare.
“Every. Single. Day. Tommy.” Dream spits with anger.
Tommy narrows his eyes. Small crooked smile cracks on his face.
“I thought you appreciate music. After all, he had an entire war just for my discs-”
Dream angrily steps towards him and Tommy feels words die in his throat. Long shadow is casted over him by a figure that suddenly towers so close.
“Still so immature,” Dream breathes so close, Tommy feels his hot breath on his skin, “I thought I taught you better .”
Tommy feels his limbs start to shake. Suddenly he feels the sand under his bare feet once more. Bright toothy sun makes his eyes burn. Dream, clad in his green cloak and porcelain mask, pulls his hand back. Readying for another hit. For another burning slap that will slam Tommy’s head against the ground. Tommy can’t wait- And a kick in the ribs that will leave him gasping for breath-
But neither comes.
By all means it should have. Tommy felt like he deserved it anyway. Instead, Dream’s attention is suddenly drawn somewhere else.
The man’s teeth are now tightly clenched as he once again stares daggers into that same obsidian wall. Tommy quickly shuffles himself further from the man.
From beyond the wall, a voice can be heard. A shy melody weaving its way through the prison.
“What did I say ?!” Dream proclaims angrily.
The singing is one of the things that surprised him his first night stuck in the prison. He thought Dream’s cell was really deep in the prison, so deep no outside sound could reach it. It turned out he was dead wrong.
The chorus from beyond the walls was the only thing giving him some sense of time. They sang in the same intervals, and if he was right about them singing at night the first day he was here, that means that it was night also now.
As far as Tommy could tell, the singing consisted of four or five voices. All male. Some sang high, some sang low. But all somehow added to a consistent wordless melody.
Melody, which to Tommy’s chagrin, seemed to be driving Dream completely mad.
Soon enough, Dream was banging at the wall. He was shouting, screaming for them to shut up. Countless brutal threats spilled from his lips and he screamed and screamed until his throat started getting hoarse.
Then he slid down, against the obsidian wall, and curled up into a ball. He was still shaking with anger. So much fucking anger. As if those voices personally attacked him.
He probably couldn’t sleep, Tommy realised.
The dark circles under the man’s eyes only confirmed it. The singing was annoying him and he couldn’t sleep.
Universe works in mysterious ways. Spicing the snake’s punishment up.
Unlike Dream, Tommy didn’t have such an issue with the singing. Yes, it was kinda annoying, but so were the sounds of lava and Dream’s constant erratic shuffling.
When he listened to the chorus, he could forget where he was for a moment. The cell no longer mattered. Dream no longer mattered. All that mattered was the sweet melancholic song wrapping around his ears and gently pulling him under.
He didn’t notice when he leaned his cheek against the wall. Neither did he notice, when his eyelids suddenly grew so heavy.
Tommy was too weak and tired to keep them open. Despite the environment, despite Dream, despite all the danger, his eyes slipped shut.
Gentle breeze caressed his cheeks. Wind rustled in the leaves. Warm sunlight prodded at his eyelids.
‘ Open, open ,’ as if it asked.
Wait.
Sunlight?
Tommy blinked his eyes open. At first he didn’t know what he was looking at. Then the realisation had set in.
That wasn’t the prison.
He could swear just a moment ago he fell asleep in Pandora's Vault. Where the fuck was he?
The teen was laying slumped against a tree, his cheek pressed against the rough bark. He sat up properly and traced his cheek. Pieces of bark and dirt clung to his fingers.
He looked around with a frown.
Surrounding him weren’t the three obsidian walls and a curtain of lava. He was sitting on soft grass. The soil was warm. It must have been the middle of summer. Rays of sun seeped through the crown of the tree above him.
The blond took a closer look at the tree he used as a pillow. It looked old. Thick dense dark bark twisted into odd but seemingly natural shapes. Fruit hung from its branches.
Tommy pushed himself up from the ground and wiped his hands against his khaki shorts. He raised his hand up and easily torn the fruit off the branch.
The teen examined it closely. It looked nothing like any fruit he had seen before. It had a strong ripe aroma. But it was completely white. As if it was modelled out of white clay.
Looking just slightly up from the strange fruit, he noticed another thing.
He pocketed the fruit and started making his way through the meadow. Tall grass tickled his ankles. His bare feet padded against the soil. Birds sung in the trees, crickets cricketed. He caught the sound of a woodpecker pecking into a tree.
The teen combed his hand through the flowers. From somewhere, a peacock butterfly flew and sat on his nose. Tommy’s eyes crossed to see it. He couldn’t help but giggle.
What kind of place was this? It looked like a paradise. Was he dead? Hopefully not.
The last thing he remembered was falling asleep in the prison. And suddenly he was here.
“Sus.” he muttered to himself.
Based on that logic, this was a dream. But it felt so real! Everything about it- It was almost as if he was really there.
He finally reached the spot where he was walking to.
In front of him stood a statue. With a deep sigh, he recognized it.
So he was even here , Tommy’s shoulders slumped in exasperation.
The statue was tall. It belonged to a man with short hair and a porcelain mask, from below which a sneer peeked out. He was dressed in a long cloak.
Dream’s statue strikingly smelled of rot. A book was depicted in the statue’s hand. Tommy had never seen the book before. The title was written in runes. The teen was never good at reading runes. Every time he needed something enchanted, he just asked Ranboo.
Needless to say, ugly green mould was spreading from that book. It crawled up the statue’s arm, up to where it started covering the statue’s face in a thick layer of awfully smelling green rot.
Tommy blinked and sharply turned away.
Off in the distance, he noticed more statues.
A statue of a short man with half of his face shattered. A perfect tunnel went straight through his chest.
A statue of a tall figure, twisted and bent down. Long fingers were covering their face. Their mouth open in a soundless scream.
Tommy gave the two statues a long look. He walked over to them. The two statues were turned towards each other. As if the shorter statue was trying to comfort the other.
The blond touched the shorter statue.
A distorted ear-drum-burstingly loud reverberating echo tore through the silence. “Boo?! ”
Tommy stumbled and fell back down on his ass. Primes, that was really fucking loud! If this was real life, his ears would be bleeding.
He blinked a bunch of times and crawled back onto his legs.
It was definitely Tubbo’s voice. Which could only mean the two statues were Tubbo and Ranboo.
The statue Tubbo’s voice sounded a little different to his real world counterpart though. It was breathy and croaky, holding an ambient background sound similar to cracking of fire. Weird.
The blond looked at Ranboo’s statue. He slowly put his hand on Ranboo’s shoulder.
A new voice came, just as distorted as the previous- no- not voice. Voice s. Two different but same voices talked over each other, as if not aware of the other’s existence. They talked in the same volume, tone and speed. It was basically impossible to pull them apart and understand what either of them was saying.
Tommy pulled his hand away. Enough of that.
The next statue he found was Sam. The creeper hybrid was hard to recognize at first. The statue lacked a head. The body part was laying shattered in half nearby, a blue liquid leaking from inside.
He was dressed in his casualwear, depicted with a sword piercing straight through his heart. A sword seemingly pushed in by his own hands. The same blue thing was oozing from the wound.
Tommy didn’t want to think about what it meant.
Off to the side, six statues stood. Badboyhalo, Skeppy, Antfrost, Hannah, Ponk and Punz. Tommy wondered why Punz wasn’t back there with Dream, but closer inspection of the statues gave him the answer. All statues in the little circle had a similarity.
Some sort of red vines were draped over them. Skeppy’s statue was mostly covered, Bad and Punz had vines covering their eyes, Anfrost had vines covering his mouth, Ponk had vines wrapping around their throat. But the worst was Hannah.
Her hands were clasped, tied in prayer. A crown of the same red vines sat to her head. Or rather, what was left of her head. The vines seemed to be digging into the surface of the statue and ruining the structure. Her head was cracked and pieces were scattered on the ground. Bloodred tears were training down to her chin.
Tommy frowned at the statue.
When he really paid attention, not a single one in the small circle of statues wasn’t cracked if even slightly.
Crack.
Crack.
The vines were moving. The vines were alive.
Tommy loved plants. He could name almost all that grew in the local lands. But the vines- he had never seen them before. Not even in a book.
They didn’t seem to be interested in him at least. Instead, they were wrapping stronger and harsher around the statues. The facade cracked more and more.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack .
The faces of the statues were cracking at the seams. Held together by a little more that power of universe’s will, Hannah’s face finally broke and the faceplate fell limply to the-
Tommy averted his eyes.
This was just a dream. A mere dream. Not real. But something primal inside him told him that looking at Hannah’s face would bring him nothing good.
Something took a laboured wheezy breath.
Tommy’s eyes widened where he stared into the grass.
Curiosity gnawed at his mind. ‘ Turn around! See it!’
No.
There was a hissy exhale like air leaving a balloon.
‘ Come on. What worst can happen? ’
Tommy swallowed dryly.
There were three statues he could see left. They were further into the meadow.
Better than to fucking stay here.
The blond at first walked slowly, but after a few steps picked up to a run. The laboured breaths were quickly lost in the distance.
As he passed by, he realised something. The meadow, the nature he was walking through, seemed familiar. As if he had been here before. But when?
Who knows.
First statue stood on a short pillar. A statue of an angel.
“Phil.” Tommy huffed.
The statue had wings spread wide, but legs tied. He was dressed like a generic angel, in long robes and with a halo around his head. His eyes were closed, hands clapped in a prayer.
Tommy turned around to face the other statue on a pedestal. The blond narrowed his eyes and sighed. None other than The Blade. Techno, mighty and heroic as always stood on a pedestal painted with golden ornaments.
Tommy’s lips twitched.
The statue was wearing a shirt, some leather and metal armor and a long majestic coat.
This is how they remember murderers. As heroes. Tommy almost felt like laughing.
This man destroyed a country, slaughtered hundreds, burned half of his friend’s face off . Yet he is celebrated.
And Tommy? Who fought in wars, gave his entire life for his country, gave and gave and received nothing in return- where is his statue?
No where.
His statue isn’t here.
“They will abandon you, child.”
Tommy blinked. And then he looked away and up.
Gazing down at him was the last statue.
A huge tall woman sitting on a sort of throne. She had long curly hair like clouds or thick curly vines. Her lips were slightly apart.
A talking statue. Just great.
“What do you mean?” Tommy asked.
The woman smiled. The red vines Tommy saw before were draped all over her. But unlike the statues before, they were not damaging her. But they all connected back to her.
“You think they care. But why should they care about you , hm?”
Tommy clenches his teeth. What a rude statue. “Because I am their fucking friend, you stone bitch!”
The statue’s lips curl up into a cruel smile. “Oh. But are you sure you are theirs?”
Tommy falters. He quickly recovers. “Are you fucking deaf?”
She only grins.
The blood feels his blood run cold.
His hands are shaking.
“Who- Who do you think you are?!” he shouts but there is less bite in it than he himself expected.
“You have been alone for so long. I can help you with that.”
“Shut up! I have friends!”
She snickers. “You mean those who left you in the prison? Those who are so nice to you in the evening and coming sunrise, barely think of your existence?”
“Shut it!”
“Like Jack who now absolutely hates you.”
“It isn’t like-”
“Or Purpled, who’d sell you out for a decent enough sum.”
“Purpled is just-”
“Oh, or Tubbo, who, we both know well, prefers Ranboo over useless trash like you .”
Breath catches in Tommy’s throat. The woman smiles in victory.
“Some way, some day, you will break, Tommy Innit. And none of them will be able to fix you.”
Thud. Squeal.
“So you will crawl to the only one who can.”
Thud. Squeal.
“And no one else can fix mortals like me .”
Thud. Squeal.
“And no matter how much you try to run from it.”
Thud. Squeal.
“Your fate will always lead you back to me .”
Thud. Squeeeeeeeeal.
“So, tell me Tommy Innit. What is your greatest fear?”
Tommy suddenly feels dozens of eyes staring at him. But he isn’t going to let some statue get the best of him. It is just a statue! In a dream! Yes, it had been a little- spoopy up until now but this is Tommy Danger Kraker Careful Innit. He isn’t going to let some stupid statue talk down to him.
“I am not afraid of anything!”
“Are you sure?”
He crosses arms over his chest and pouts. “More than sure!”
Her eyebrows twitch. “Well, humans can’t live without fear. So continue lying to yourself, if you deem it so useful. But there will come a day when that lie won’t work anymore.”
Thud. Squeal. Crack.
Tommy closes his eyes.
“And once that happens.”
Thud. Squeal. Crack.
The sounds are so loud! Tommy claps hands over his ears.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Silence.
…
…
The loudest silence he had ever heard settles on the meadow.
He can feel everything. The texture of the soil under his feet. The way his shirt is a little too big on him and how the fabric swooshes with each of his movements. The worms in the dirt.
But no wind. No birds.
Only the awful pressing feeling of the universe holding its breath.
He refuses to open his eyes.
It's childish, he knows.
Curiosity gnaws at him. Like thousands of little mouths with blunt teeth. Hungry. Digging into his skin. At first they tickle, but the longer he stands there, hiding away from the world, the more the teeth start to hurt.
But he isn’t scared!
He isn’t.
He isn…
Tommy takes a deep breath in and out.
Hands slip from his ears and he opens his eyes. He slowly turns around.
They are all staring.
All of them.
They had turned around, over dozen statues all turned and moved to be facing the boy. Thirteen pairs of lifeless stone eyes stare right at him. Not a single face is particularly friendly.
Sam is dismissive, Bad is disgusted, Tubbo so angry he is crying, Ranboo scared-
But the worst is Dream.
Nothing but pure unbridled venom leaks from his rotting eyes.
Tommy stares at the same eyes now. Moments before the fist collides with his head.
And his empty eyes stare into those same hateful eyes even long after blood trailed down his face and his body runs cold.