That one time I woke up in prison

Chapter 4

.
. . .
. . . . .

He found out more about things he wished had remained unknown, and didn't find out enough about the events he really hoped were being exaggerated.

Bad had long since left Dream alone again. He supposed he was happy about it, but there was also no way to estimate how long it would be until another visitor. He didn't do well alone, even if time passed differently for him now.

With his back pressed against the cold obsidian wall, his eyes eventually landed on the journal he'd thrown across the cell before Bad's arrival.

No. No way in hell. He refused to go pick it back up and finish reading the scrawl of insanity strewn across those pages that was supposedly written by himself.

Instead, he cast his gaze back across the cell for something else to do.

His focus landed on the water basin. It might just depress him, but in all honesty he really wanted to check out his reflection. He'd already noticed his hair was much longer than he remembered it being, and he was probably covered in a lot of bandages from Bad's aid, but overall he wanted evidence to prove that this was really him.

As he looked down into the water, he didn't want to think the man staring back was really him.

His golden brown hair was long and tangled, reaching halfway down his back, and he was wearing a torn orange jumpsuit - typical prison-type wear. As he'd guessed, his body was wrapped in bandages, and a few were already blood-soaked. His remaining exposed skin was littered with scars, some of which he recognised from manhunts and others which he had no recollection of.

There was still a constant though. His face, though now scar-covered, was still his own. A faint sprinkle of freckles decorated his cheeks, and his eyes were almost exactly as he remembered...except a bit blanker and paler.

He also remembered his eyes being a bit darker, more of a jade green, but now they were a light mint. It wasn't exactly a bad change, in fact it seemed more natural - his eyes had been like this when he was younger. Actually, they had only gone darker a bit after he'd started the SMP.

His SMP. The SMP that was now apparently crumbling.

It had been about 8 months, and in that time, everything seemed to have fallen. By mostly his hand.

Just on its own, 8 months didn't seem like a long time, but in perspective... He'd apparently just closed his eyes and lost 8 whole months of his life. If that wasn't bad enough, he supposedly did a ton of things that somehow even persuaded his best friends to believe he wasn't capable of being truthful or sincere.

How do you come back from that? How do you apologise for things you don't even know you did? And how are you meant to earn a redemption if you don't remember why you even need one in the first place?

Even more importantly... How are people meant to forgive you?

In all honesty, he was far less concerned with himself. He was more worried about the relationships he'd had. From tidbits he'd gathered, he'd helped a nation get blown up - twice. He'd traumatised some minors too.

Wait.

Traumatised some minors... Tommy needed to be revived... Dream was associated with a revival book... You don't generally treat someone horribly if they revived a kid. And you definitely don't revive a kid for a good reason if you treated said kid horribly in the past.

His eyes trailed back over to the journal in the corner.
. . .
Fuck it, he needed to know.

Dream headed across the cell to retrieve the book, and sat back down as he reluctantly flicked through to find the page he left off on.

He didn't have to read too much further to find what he was looking for.

. . .

What the fuck. What the actual fuck. He couldn't do this anymore. What kind of a sick person does this kind of shit? And then proceeds to rave about it like some kind of magnificent show of power?

That's all it fucking was. Some crazed idiot who thought they were above it all. Some fucker with a god complex who decided he was the messiah to all by solving problems he created himself.

This couldn't be him. This just couldn't be. He just couldn't comprehend that the writer was supposedly some form of himself. It just... It didn't make any sense.

A sudden presence in the cell sent a chill down his spine. He launched the book across the cell as a fear response, coincidentally taking out the immediate issue.

"oW-" The figure stumbled backwards, clutching at their nose and letting the book thud to the ground. "What the honk, man?!"

The prisoner blinked, confused and startled by the shout, "How the hell did you get in? I didn't see the lava get lowered."

"Wouldn't you like to know, sea pickle?" The figure pulled his hands away from his nose to cringe at the blood now dripping onto his fingers. "I actually got out of a travel without dying for once, and now immediately you go ahead and break my nose. Thanks."

"Sorry?" Dream shrugged, chuckling a bit. He wasn't entirely sure who this guy was, but his multicoloured jumper was certainly a lot brighter than anything he'd seen since waking up here. And aside from Bad, he was somehow the friendliest, even with his strange entrance and passive-aggressive comment. "Who the hell are you?"

The boy in the multicoloured jumper looked about as confused as Dream felt, before he shook his head, "I refuse to believe I somehow erased myself from this timeline - I'm like 80% sure this is the same timeline I've been returning to for like a month."

Thank you to the nameless rando who just made everything even more confusing. "What the fuck do you mean 'timeline'??" The prisoner questioned in exasperation, simultaneously grabbing a tissue from the basic med-kit Bad had left for him earlier.

"I have no idea which one of us is the idiot right now." The stranger sighed, taking the tissue from the prisoner and using it to stop the blood still dripping down from his nose. "I'm gonna need you to give me a run-down of events."

If the journal wasn't already across the cell, Dream would've thrown it at the boy again. "At this point, the world is just fucking with me, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"I'd normally say you wouldn't believe me, but since you somehow got in here and managed to increase the weirdness tenfold, I guess there's not much point."

"Can we sort my nose out while you get into it?" The stranger smiled sheepishly, the nose-tissue already quite soaked with blood.

.
. . .
. . . . .

"Well...That's a situation."

The prisoner snorted, "Thanks for the reassurance."

"Hey, you just threw a hardcover book at my face, I'm allowed to be unhelpful." The stranger - who'd claimed his name was Jacob Karls - cracked up, seeming rather unconcerned with his plastered nose. "I also haven't filled my shenanigans quota for the month."

"Usually I'd respect that, but I kinda need the help today." Dream chuckled too, though he wasn't sure he found anything too funny right now, unless he was laughing at his own horrible luck. After his laughter trailed off, he decided to finally get some answers from Karls. "Why'd you even come to visit me today? From what I gathered, we weren't exactly friends."

"Oh you have no idea," Jacob snickered, seeming in on some joke Dream wasn't aware of, "And since you asked, the only reason I came was because Quackity and Sapnap were acting weird. I asked some questions and got the feeling it was something to do with you. Guess I was right."

The prisoner nodded in understanding, not entirely listening but not actively ignoring the boy either. It was silent for a bit.

"So um," the boy in the multicoloured jumper cleared his throat, shifting his weight between legs, "what did you say about Quackity...torturing you?"

"Well, I more-of experienced being straight up attacked and threatened, I don't actually remember much of the earlier stuff. But from the injuries I ended up with, I can guess it wasn't exactly a nice time for me."

Jacob went silent, not making eye contact as he stared down at the ground, suddenly finding an interest in the small pools forming in cracks of crying obsidian embedded in the floor.

"...What is your relationship with Quackity?" The prisoner asked carefully.

"He's my fiance." Karls didn't look up, he just stared bitterly at the ground, "Sapnap is my fiance too. Things haven't been going smoothly though."

"Do you wanna," Dream rubbed the back of his neck a bit awkwardly, "talk about it or something?"

He cracked up, "While I appreciate the sentiment, I think there's a few bigger problems in this server than my relationship issues."

"Speaking of that, can I get updated on all the events that happened since July 30th?"

Jacob hummed in thought, "Well there's certainly a lot to catch up on, I doubt I can get through everything before Quackity pops back in for another round of torture."

"Thanks for treating it so casually," the prisoner grumbled.

"Well sorry, but what do you want me to do about it?" The boy in the multicoloured jumper seemed pretty desensitised, "I'm just a time traveller, I'm not gonna go rewrite history so my fiance stops torturing you." He paused for a moment, "Actually I guess I could do that."

"Something tells me you're not going to do that though."

Karls simply grinned, shooting finger guns at his lowkey annoyed frenemy. He clicked his tongue twice before speaking, "Yeah, no way in honk am I gonna go do all that for you. No offence, but I'm gonna need more than just your unfortunate memory loss to forgive you. If we find a proper cause for your blank patch, I'll consider."

Dream was a bit disheartened, as he didn't even remember meeting Jacob, but he felt it was fair and gave a hopeful smile, "Does that mean you're going to help me in other ways though?"

"Yeah, sure," He shrugged, "I'll even help you break out."

Okay, that was farther than the prisoner was expecting. "...You don't forgive me but you're ready to break me out of the inescapable prison that will certainly make everyone else on the server hate you?"

"This isn't my timeline, I don't exactly care if I ruin it." The time traveler explained carelessly, "I have no clue what happened to the Karl in this timeline, but he's probably dead or isn't returning either way."

"Wait- Karl? I thought your last name was 'Karls'. And why the last name usage?" He asked skeptically.

The boy cracked up, but waved him off quickly. "It's nothing, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

The prisoner huffed, but couldn't do much to figure out how the time traveler was fucking with him if he still wanted the help. "Yeah okay, whatever." He was silent for a bit before speaking again, "So what are we going to do first?"

"I can do a bit of 'research' on the past to find more evidence of what happened to you?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Dream nodded, happy they were getting somewhere, "what about getting me out of here?"

"I'll talk to Techno and Phil. Or Ranboo could probably do it, if you remember what the specific key is to getting him into that hypnotised state?" The time traveler suggested hopefully, but Dream was only hit with more horrid information.

"Who's Ranboo? And why the hell am I expected to know how to hypnotise him?"

"Oh right, you wouldn't remember meeting him," Karls rubbed the back of his neck before giving a basic explanation, "He's one of the newer minors on the server. He's part enderman and you kinda reconditioned the honk out of him."

The horrified look on the prisoner's face made it clear there was no way Dream remembered the key to the hypnotisation.

"Alright, guess that's out of the question. I'll just have to convince Techno and Phil to bail you out. Shouldn't be too hard, but I'm not exactly a prominent anti-government figure."

"Wait a fucking second, Technoblade's on the server? Philza's on the server?? " The prisoner whispered under his breath in exasperation, realising he'd skipped over something as his companion had said it so casually.

"Anyway, I'll get onto doing that," the time traveler gave a quick salute, "have fun in another torture sesh while I go pull some strings!"

Just like that, Karls left Dream alone again as the floor opened to let him fall through and escape.