Inception {Dreamnotfound}

2 | Unsettlingly Crazed | 2

-George's POV-

"Well, that's certainly not the way I wanted you to find out."

Karl shakes his head, sighing deeply before stopping to push his hair out of his eyes. "But at least it saved me from having to do so later. Fundy killed me, that's why I was so hesitant once I realised he was still around, and with Tubbo."

He sighs, watching his soulmate and hoping he's thinking the same. "But I understand why now, and holding it against him won't solve anything. Doesn't make it right, but nothing is when it comes to killing someone."

Karl glances in the direction of the teen, who's been silent ever since the confrontation. The hazy expression on Tubbo's face suggests he's not paying attention, eyelids fluttering sleepily.

He blinks suddenly, rapidly, now aware that everyone is watching him. "I need some space," he mutters in explanation, quickly standing and rushing upstairs without another word.

Karl watches him leave, evidently contemplation going after him before deciding against it. "Will he be alright?" he asks instead to me, and a part of me is happy Karl always seems to look to me when asking about Tubbo.

"He'll be fine," I nod certainly, having learnt that Tubbo does this when he needs to speak to Tommy.

I've become all too used to that disoriented look, the one that clouds his eyes when something happens with Tommy. I remember him trying to explain it to me, despite not understanding it fully himself. He said that Tommy fades a bit sometimes, like he's not quite there, and neither of them have managed to work out why it happens yet.

None of us know how Tommy is able to exist the way he does still, or what he even is. Like a Devotion, but also like a ghost. Sort of a glitch, something that doesn't apply to the rest of the system's supposed 'rules', yet still connected to a band, matching how the system works with so many other things we know to be normal.

"So what next?" Clay asks suddenly, dragging me back out of my thoughts. Sapnap stirs too, also absorbed in his own before being forced back into reality. "What do you mean 'what next'?" Karl asks curiously, but I already know what Clay means.

Our plan was always to get Sapnap's soulmate back. That's what we'd been working on for weeks, and the plan finally worked. Now that we have Karl, Clay has gone back to his idea. The one he suggested to me ages ago, what we were originally going to do after I revived him, before we knew why Sapnap had really left him.

He told me we should leave this place.

That we could go back to how I used to be before I met him, and live in the forest again. It would be easier now that I have him by my side, we'd be self-sufficient again in no time. It would be peaceful there, safer, away from his hunter and anyone who could try to hurt us.

The idea came back again when we returned to the woods for a night only a month or two ago. That we could stay there, and never return to Central City. Help Sapnap get his soulmate back, then take them with us. Tubbo could come too, and bring Tommy, and that sounds even more possible now that Tubbo wants to stay with us.

I remember that I was the one to bring up the idea the second time. That I was the one to remind Clay of it, of the life he so badly wanted to have, dreamed of while we were stuck here. I told him that after Sapnap got his soulmate back, there was nothing keeping us in the city. We could leave it and never come back, and I thought Clay would be delighted to share the idea with Sapnap, then...

'I don't see your point here.'

'If you're suggesting we leave the city, that's near impossible.'