That one time I woke up in prison

Chapter 2

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He wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious for, but it seemed Quackity had long since left.

He supposed he should take a minute to think over what little information he did have.

The lost boy looked around at his surroundings.

Every surface of the room was completely obsidian, with the far wall being lava. Since there were no other holes in the walls, he guessed the lava must drop to reveal an exit. Other than that, the obsidian box simply held a chest, a desk, a water basin, and a clock. There wasn't even a bed! Damn, this place was like a prison.

...

A prison. Holy shit, he was in a prison cell. When the fuck did that happen?

He shoved down the panic harshly. This must be a mistake. What else did Quackity say when he was being crazy and maniacal?

He had asked Dream to reconsider; apparently there was some book he wanted. A Revival Book. That couldn't be real though, right? Once someone is dead, there's no coming back from it. That's what logic told him, but the crazed man seemed pretty damn certain this book existed, and that Dream had it.

He'd also accused Dream of being a liar, or having gone insane. The man had claimed Dream had been taunting him about the book just minutes ago, but he couldn't remember anything from before Quackity attacked him.

That was really the only information he'd been given from the encounter. It didn't help much at all, so he turned to his memories.

What was the last thing he could remember before this?

He could recall the void; the weightlessness. But he couldn't have always been there, he had knowledge from before that.

Memories swam up from the depths; he could remember being with people. Pandas and Gogy. The image of their faces brought a smile to his face. But there were others, too.

He could recall two kids, one who was loud and boisterous and the other who was easygoing and optimistic. He plucked their names from old memories; Tommy and Tubbo.

From them, other faces were recognised too. Callahan, Sam, Alyssa, Bad, Punz. There were other names or faces he didn't quite recognise, but he'd vaguely heard of most of them. He didn't remember ever letting many of them onto his server though.

He obviously recalled starting the server; it was the Dream SMP! He'd started it for fun at first, but it had turned into something he wanted to share with others. He could picture the Community House, and smiled as he remembered building it with his friends.

He also remembered something about the child and...Wilbur something; the musician-bard guy? He remembered Tommy and Wilbur being unhappy about some kind of rule on drugs, and wanting to make their own part of the SMP or something. He'd thought it was funny, and had wanted to let them play their games.

...

Right? He recalled someone telling him to stop them, but he'd blatantly refused. He could remember that quite clearly.

But then why couldn't he think of anything that happened after that?

Hmm...

Actually, he could recall something else.

It was only a few minutes of time, but he remembered two people - Tubbo, and...furry? nO- Fundy. Tubbo and Fundy. He remembered Tubbo and Fundy acting weird; they were trying different methods to dispel demons. They were acting like he was possessed or something!

After those few minutes, it was just blank again.

He looked across the small expanse of the cell. His eyes landed on the smiley face mask.

Maybe he imagined it, but tendrils of purple smoke crawled forth from the cracked plastic.

He felt like they didn't exactly do a great job of expelling whatever demon they were hunting.

He shuddered, and shuffled back against the wall, away from the somehow threatening smiley face. It was then that he noticed the lava dropping, and his head snapped up to see two new visitors enter his cell.

At first he didn't recognise them. His vision was hazy and they weren't exactly looking him in the eyes; instead they were hiding their faces from him.

It took him a second, but his eyes widened as their clothes presented their identity to him.

When the lava dropped again, they stood before him with closed off postures. The boy with goggles simply crossed his arms and refused to even look in his direction. The other boy with a bandana and darker skin stood awkwardly, but did face him even as he wore an uncertain expression.

They seemed hesitant or flat-out uncomfortable to be here.

For now though, that didn't matter to Dream. His face lit up at their arrival. Familiar faces who didn't immediately seem dead-set on killing him!

He spoke up almost instantly, not waiting for them to start the interaction, "George! Sapnap!" A grin split his face and he trotted over to them without hesitation.

Sapnap immediately backed away from him, and even George shrank back defensively.

He felt his own grin falter. "Guys?"

Sapnap blinked, realising Dream's arms were open for a hug instead of trying to hurt them. After a moment, he went against his better judgement and walked a bit closer, opening his arms for Dream. The prisoner immediately lit up again, and accepted the hug easily.

The boy with the bandana couldn't help but be wary. The last time he'd visited, Dream had been refusing to even speak. And now suddenly he was bouncing up and down with joy to see him?

Quackity was right, something had definitely happened to Dream. Sapnap was determined to figure out what. "Hey, Dream?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened?"

The irony of Sapnap's question was recognised only by the prisoner. Dream should be the one asking that.

For some reason, he was stuck in prison getting tortured by Quackity, who seemed to have gone insane, and he had absolutely no context for anything that was happening. Oh yeah, and his two best friends also seemed to either hate him or be scared of him.

Somehow, he found it funny, in some disbelieving way. He breathed out slowly, but it hitched towards the end, which led him to start chuckling. And then he started full-on laughing.

Sapnap looked at him like he'd gone insane, which he supposed it probably did look like from an outside perspective. There was no way Dream could explain it to him though. And maybe he didn't even need to explain; this whole experience screamed some kind of a fever dream.

Perhaps that's all it was. Maybe he'd eaten some suspicious stew, and it hadn't been nice to him. Maybe he was at home in bed, passed out with a fever. Maybe the real Sapnap was trying to feed him something equally as disgusting as suspicious stew, with the real George trying to tell him it was a horrible idea.

Just maybe.

But maybe not.

A wide-eyed Sapnap reached out and hesitantly rested a hand on the laughing Dream's shoulder. The prisoner's laughter died as hot tears flowed freely down his cheeks. He was scared, and he didn't have the strength to deny it.

He had no idea how the fuck he got himself in prison. People seemed to hate him for no reason, and overall he felt completely fucking powerless. He didn't like that; this wasn't how it was meant to be.

He felt like he'd usually tried to keep his emotions pretty open, but Sapnap's shaken reaction told him he'd definitely fucked that up. Or he'd missed a lot. Neither of those options helped him feel better, in fact the dam only broke more.

All the humour he'd previously been able to find in the situation vanished, and he found himself sobbing openly in front of his old companions. Sapnap stayed close, wrapping his arms around his friend to provide some comfort, while George refused to come near.

The boy with the bandana slowly lowered the sobbing prisoner to the ground with him. It'd been a long time since Dream had shown such emotion, and despite everything he'd done; despite Dream claiming to not care about him and George; Sapnap couldn't help but care for him.

At one point, though it was ages ago, they had been friends, hadn't they? Though George couldn't seem to see that, Sapnap found it hard to let it go.

And so he simply let Dream cry. Even the prisoner deserved to finally have a good sob-fest after all the destruction. Maybe it wasn't fair for him to be upset, considering everything that he had done, but morally Sap just couldn't stop Dream from letting it all out.

Dream didn't notice George calling to be let out by Sam, he didn't notice the lava dropping, and he didn't notice George leave without looking back. Sapnap chose to ignore it.

After an eternity, the cell finally returned to quiet as the prisoner's cries died down. With Dream collapsed in Sap's lap, the more stable of the two ran his fingers through his companion's hair soothingly. The boy with the bandana stayed silent for longer, letting the prisoner be the first to speak. Eventually, he did speak up.

"Pandas?"

Sapnap stiffened at the nickname. He hadn't heard it in so long. Nonetheless, he hummed in acknowledgement, "Hm?"

The prisoner was silent for so long that Sapnap almost wondered if he'd forgotten to speak. "Dream?"

Dream opened his mouth to say something this time, but closed it again in the end, unsure how to explain anything he was thinking. Sensing this, Sap reached down to grab hold of his friend's hand - Dream used to rub circles into his palm when Sapnap was upset, so maybe Dream would appreciate it too.

Instead of giving comfort, he only felt dread creep into his stomach. He gulped dryly before speaking, "What happened to your finger?"

Dream felt his eyes silently widen. He'd forgotten what Quackity had threatened; and what he'd already done. He slowly shifted his gaze to his hand.

Oh fuck.

He wanted to throw up. He didn't really do well with the sight of blood, especially recognising that it was his own.

Surprisingly, it didn't hurt. It was just...numb. He felt detached from the actual pain.

He recalled what he'd felt when he'd originally awoken to being attacked. His entire body had ached, and his head had felt like it was splitting itself open. The floor had been so cold it burned, yet the heat of the lava felt like it was choking him. But now? He didn't feel much of it at all.

It felt like his mind had come back from nothing, and had been completely overwhelmed by his physical state, leading to a detach from his physicality.

"Dream." The stern tone snapped the prisoner back to the present. "Your finger."

He slowly stumbled through the story, cutting off sentences and stopping midway through words as he tried to figure out how to explain a situation he didn't even certainly know for himself.

He explained that someone had been coming in demanding the book, and hadn't been very talkative in their persuasion methods. Fortunately, Sapnap seemed to know what book he was talking about, and he also looked pretty horrified at the prospect of what Dream was implying.

Knowing this, he took a breath and decided to ask. "Sap," Said boy looked up, giving his attention to Dream once again, "what is the Revival Book that he asked for?"