"You wanna go in?" Dream said quietly. Technoblade sighed. They were standing inside one of the rooms filled with armor and weapons, looking out the iron garage door into the arena. "Just a practice fight, there's not much else to do,"
"I dunno..." Techno muttered, his eyes fixed on the dusty earth in front of them.
"Techno, we live here now," Dream said. "We have this entire space all to ourselves, the only reason I'm not scared to go in is because Tommy had dragged me in there while I was asleep, so if you want me to drag you in there I will, and if you don't I still will," Techno turned to face him.
"Don't you dare," Techno hissed. Dream could tell he wasn't kidding and he stopped talking and raised his hands in submission.
"Fine, fine," He said. "Then just walk in by yourself,"
"Five years..." Techno hissed, staring out across the dusty surface. His pale blue eyes glistened with pain and Dream looked out across it as well. He took a deep breath and shook his head, slowing his eyes momentarily. "I can hear the voices now... I hear them," He breathed.
"What voices?" Dream asked tentatively after a moment.
"'On the left is Technoblade, god of blood...'" He hissed, opening his eyes. "And then I go out and kill them, go back in, people praise me, I walk back to my room and sit down and just... just stare... just stare at nothing for hours, sometimes days, until they come get me and then I have to go kill someone else again... and again... and again," Dream didn't really know what to say. "And then one day it's not just a random person in that arena, it's Phil, and part of me knows he's going to die even when I tell MrBeast I won't kill him... and then Vulture comes out and kills him right in front of me... and then I snap... I need to kill this man, he'll die at my hand and so will everyone else because they did nothing and just watched my best friend die... I'll kill them all, the people watching, the guards, the prisoners... everyone..." Techno trailed off, he seemed to be in some sort of trance.
"Ok- so maybe today isn't the day," Dream said after a while of just staring at Technoblade worriedly. Techno blinked and shook his head quickly, the glazed look in his eyes becoming more clear.
"No, it's never gonna be the right day," He turned around and walked back inside, setting his diamond sword down roughly on the table. Good God. Dream thought. That's a pretty terrifying story... mostly because it's all true. He thought, shivering and setting his sword down as well. He stole a glance at the arena one last time and he could almost imagine Technoblade, a slightly younger version of him, walking out there and killing someone with that stone-faced, glassy-eyed, look. Terrible things happened here. Dream hurried away, down the halls to somewhere at least a little nicer.
Dream had no idea where Technoblade had gone but he didn't really fancy looking for him right now. He probably wants to be alone. Dream thought. Recently, he'd been looking through the other rooms that lined the hall Tubbo's room was on, searching for anything interesting. He entered another room and saw at once a yellow sweatshirt made of wool. This has to be Wilbur's room. Dream thought, looking around. It was neat, Dream opened a few different drawers and found clothes all folded up nicely. One small drawer had some small triangular things that Dream just couldn't place the name of.
"Huh..." He muttered, heading over to a closet. He opened it and spotted... a guitar? Dream carefully picked up the item by the neck and looked at it. It was a pretty nice guitar. Does Wilbur play or something? He must. Dream carefully set it back against the wall and closed the closet. He wanted to leave everything as it had been originally, it didn't feel right to take or move things around.
He headed down the hall a ways until he saw one room. The door was slightly opened and Dream peaked inside, stiffening at the sight. The far wall had a big window overlooking the arena, just like the other rooms Dream had seen, but the wall... the far wall was littered with gashes and after a moment of staring at it Dream realized that they were tally marks... Dream wanted to lock the door and walk away, but there was something interesting about this. Who's room is this...? Dream wondered, tentatively walking inside. The gashed-up wall was terrifying, and the room looked like a hurricane had swept through it, but there was one part of the room that was perfectly clean.
Dream slowly walked over to a shelf and looked at each item. There was a chipped diamond sword that looked fairly old and beside it was a picture. Dream didn't recognize the two children in the photo at first, but then he realized who it was. He just wasn't wearing a pig mask. That's Phil and Technoblade. Dream realized, carefully taking the framed picture off the shelf. They were both smiling, looking happy, and at least eight years younger than they were now.
Techno had peachy blond hair and he looked just like a normal kid. So did Phil. Dream was about to put the photo back where he'd found it when a folded-up piece of paper slipped out from behind it and landed on the floor. Dream put the frame back on the shelf and leaned down to pick up the paper. He unfolded it carefully, it was yellowing and brittle and torn in some places, but Dream could just make out the smudged letters.
'My name used to be a normal one, and my life used to be the same, but now I've killed ninety-one people and Phil is dead. Now all I do is go out there and kill someone and then come back and that night I have a dream, a dream about what I did. About the person I killed. At first, I wanted to remember all their names and try to commemorate them, but there are just too many. The only thing I have left of those innocent people is this wall. The only thing keeping me alive is remembering how many I've hurt, if I forget there's no longer a point... the drive used to be getting out, and then it was to kill Vulture but I killed him, and now what? Now all I can do is remember. Remembering hurts but I just have to, I've got to remember them so that one day when I die I can say sorry to each of them. I'm a terrible person, but when God sends me to hell, I want him to hesitate,'
Dream stared at the note a moment longer before carefully folding it up and putting it back on the shelf. He turned and looked at the wall, eyeing each gash in turn. They were definitely tally marks. How many. Dream thought. How many gashes are there. The tallies were divided into groups of five like normal ones, and Dream started counting. He didn't care how long it would take. He wanted to know how many there were.
One-thousand-eight-hundred and twenty-three, One-thousand-eight-hundred and twenty-four, One-thousand-eight-hundred and twenty-five... Dream's hand brushed over the surface of the final tally. Techno really had kept track of every life he'd taken... Dream murmured the last number quietly, still a little bewildered by the amount.
"One-thousand-eight-hundred and twenty-six..."
YOU ARE READING
Redemption ~ Book 3
ActionTechno never dies. Those were the last words spoken by Technoblade before he vanished, leaving Dream and his friends confused and frightened. Where did he go? What even happened? Oh right, and there's still MrBeast to worry about. (P.s. guys, I'm a...
