That one time I woke up in prison

Chapter 15

"Because he visited Las Nevadas two days ago! "

Sapnap felt his blood turn to ice, electricity sparking under his skin. He felt the world rock around him, his heart aching to believe his ex's words. But he just couldn't. He couldn't rid himself of the feeling of cold skin in his arms, the limp figure held close to his chest. "But that can't be..." he tried weakly.

"Well, clearly it can be," the beanie-wearing boy snapped back, blood boiling, "because he was here ."

Sap shook his head helplessly, unsure of how to convey just how impossible that was. Eventually, he mustered up a few words, "We haven't... had a funeral yet. You can see him."

Quackity rolled his eyes - of course, once they got there, the body would have "somehow" disappeared, huh? Whatever, he figured he'd humour this bastard, just to prove a point.

The two returned to the group, dragging the rest back to the prison, where the body was temporarily held. Sapnap grasped Q's hand as they walked through the door, and sure enough, there it was.

The beanie-wearing boy swayed on his feet, letting the battered figure burn itself into his vision. He stumbled over, reaching for the limp hand, the corpse's skin freezing against his own. There was no denying the scene. He let his eyes slip over the boy.

A large chunk of skin was rotted away in the middle of his face, withering at the edges and covering the larger part of his face. His arms were covered in mild burns - Quackity's hands balled into fists as he shot a glare at the blaze hybrid - and his multicoloured jumper was shredded from the debris.

His chest was still, his mouth parted slightly and eyes closed peacefully. Except it wasn't peaceful. Q could find no way to make it peaceful. It was a horrible waste of life, a case of thievery that could've long been avoided. Just a little more attention could've been paid.

The beanie-wearing boy turned to his only living ex-fiance, and simply slapped him, harsh and furious. The blaze hybrid took it without complaint, keeping his sullen gaze on the ground. With a watery fury, Quackity's voice shook, "I haven't forgiven what you said. I haven't forgiven you for letting this happen."

Then he let his voice break fully as he collapsed into the bandana-wearing boy, grasping his ex lover as if he might disappear, " But I'm sorry, I'm sorry for leaving you- I'm sorry for leaving him - I'm so so fucking sorry, Sap. "

With trembling arms, the blaze hybrid wrapped himself around the beanie-wearing boy in return, slowly lowering the both of them to the ground yet pulling each other closer. They simply sat together in a tangle of grief, letting themselves overflow until they ran out of tears. Finally, they simply breathed, even through the suffocating atmosphere around them.

"How did..." Q spoke up, his voice barely a whisper as he laid his head on his ex(?) fiance's shoulder, "How did Karl visit me then?" Sapnap remained silent, having no good answer.

The ex-prisoner, who had decided to give them space until now, piped up with his own hopeful whisper, "I think he was saying goodbye."

Neither turned to look at him as the answer was silently accepted; it was slightly comforting. Only slightly, though. There was nothing truly comforting about any of it. Their hearts ached, and would ache forever. Maybe the ache would lessen if they held the burden together. Just maybe.

.
. . .
. . . . .

"Okay Dream, are you ready for this?" The bee-loving boy chirped, "You don't have to do this yet if you don't want to."

The ex-prisoner took in a deep breath, before giving a thumbs up to the boy on the other side of the lava lake, "I'm ready, Tubbo." I have to do it anyway, to make it up to them.

"Alright, mask on then!" Tubbo gave a thumbs up back and nodded a signal to the warden as the ex-prisoner did so.

The ivory plastic in his hands was uncomfortable, miraculously still in one piece despite the cracks. After a long moment, he put it back on. Seconds stretched into years as he waited for anything to happen. Then the world melted around him, colours blurring to the ripped fabric of faded red curtains, creaking wooden boards under his feet.

With wide eyes, he stepped back a bit, uncertain as he looked around. The place felt familiar, but he didn't recognise it at all. Suddenly, two smokey hands were cupped over his eyes from behind, a voice cooing at him. " Guess who? "

He inhaled sharply, tensing as he pictured exactly who was talking. It was an easy enough guess; this was what he had been aiming for anyway. "It's you again. The Dreamon."

He vaguely felt the figure frown, " How would you like it if I called you 'the host'? " After a second it simply shrugged, " Whatever. I'm assuming there's a reason you decided to visit me? "

He nodded, "Just here to talk." Moving away and turning to face it, he waited for the go-ahead from the Dreamon before continuing.

" Just to talk, huh? " It murmured, amused from behind the ivory mask, " I really hope this means you're going to politely ask me to leave. "

The ex-prisoner half shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck, "I guess that too. There's something else I was more-of hoping for though."

The Dreamon snorted, " You came here not only to ask me one, but two things? " It whistled, " Bold. "

"I'll get to the main things in a minute, but first..." He swung at the shadowy figure, a resounding crack echoing through the theatre around them." That is for all the damage you caused with my body."

The figure hissed, but didn't lash out back. He figured he could hit it, but perhaps it couldn't hold its own physicality when trying to hit him. His voice was low but harsh, his eyes a cold window to the past as his hands balled into fists at his side. "You ruined everything for me. You killed, destroyed, broke down everything I and everyone else worked so hard to create."

The ex-prisoner paused for a moment, letting his eyes close as his shoulders hunched with fury. "I have to build everything back up, for all of them. You have done absolutely nothing to help anyone, and you know what?" He opened his eyes to stare into the Dreamon, "I hope you rot."

Silence settled on the stage, the drawn curtains hanging sullenly to hide them from the nonexistent crowd. The shadowy figure eventually growled out, " I really hope you're not still going to ask me something after that. "

"You now have a choice," the ex-prisoner blatantly ignored the figure, expression unforgiving, "either I can tell the Dreamon Hunters to expel you for good this time, or you can tell me where the Revival Book is."

It blinked back at him, before cracking an amused grin, " The Resurrection Book, huh? " It snickered at him, " How strange. You were all high and mighty about having to work hard to make it up to them, now you wanna negate that with a book? "

In response to his furrowed brow, the Dreamon simply shook its head, even more amused, " Alright alright, so you're giving me an ultimatum here, huh? You truly are interesting, to think my existence is in your hands. I'll play your game, but first I just have to ask... "

It found itself by the stage curtains, peering through a tear in the fabric as if looking out to the rest of the theatre. " Why a theatre? "

"Huh?" Dream couldn't help but be confused. He'd figured the Dreamon had picked the place, though a strange setting. "What do you mean?"

" Your limbo. Why did you choose a theatre? " It peered at him strangely, curious yet analytical, " One with the curtains drawn, especially, where the act is yet to start as the audience waits on? "

The unmasked boy couldn't answer. Finally, the Dreamon shrugged, " Think on it, perhaps. Come give me a visit again when you've gotten your answer. " It turned away from him again, " Now get outta here. "

"Hang on," he protested, "the Revival Book?"

" Oh, right. Whatever. " Suddenly it was gone, melting into the shadows of the curtains, and then it was slithering through his ears. "☊⊑⟒☊☍ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏚⟟☌ ⏁⍀⟒⟒."

What. The audio had been muffled, distorted so much he didn't know if it was even english; he figured probably not. Nevertheless, he repeated the overall sound in his mind - maybe Ranboo could translate, as they had spoken the same tongue while possessed.

" Ta-ta, now! "

...

He shivered, before opening his eyes to obsidian walls once again. For a second, he was thrown off-kilter, looking around dazedly as the haze of lava hurt his eyes after the darkness of the patient theatre. A hesitant voice startled him from afar. "Uh, Dream?"

Quickly, his head snapped over to look, spotting the familiar group of people across the lava lake. The one who'd spoken bore a white bandana, while the person next to him looked more hostile, sporting a beanie. Two others were there as well, being the creeper hybrid and the bee-loving boy.

They all looked a bit apprehensive, the warden and the blaze hybrid both having their swords in hand. After a moment of confusion, he realised quickly, and tore off the mask to ease their conscience. "No worries, I'm me."

This seemed to worry them more. "You're... you again? Already?" Several of them exchanged glances, "You're gonna need to prove it."

It had been a little over 10 minutes, hadn't it? That should've been enough time. But he also figured it was better safe than sorry, after all the shit the Dreamon had caused last time. "Alright, how should I prove it?"

Sapnap thought for a second, before a thought crossed his mind, "What did you say to Tommy when you built the obsidian walls? Word for word."

The ex-prisoner blanked. How was he supposed to know this? He hadn't been told exactly what he'd said and when! He knew this part was important, but they hadn't really gone into much detail. "I, uh, I don't know?? I'm not sure?"

After a few moments of the blaze hybrid looking over his face, he smiled. "As you should be." He nodded to the others, and they relaxed, before he looked back over to the ex-prisoner, "What happened there, Dream? That was like 20 seconds tops."

"20 seconds?" His brow furrowed, "No, it was like a 10 minute conversation at least."

"Really?"

"Mhm," he nodded, "I woke up in this theatre place and I talked with the Dreamon there."

Before he could continue, the bee-loving boy piped up, "Can we go somewhere more comfortable instead of yelling at each other across a lava lake?"

"Oh, right."

... ... ...

"Alright, so what happened?" They'd moved to the main lobby of the prison, having put the mask back in a quarantined area.

"So I mostly just talked to it for a bit, but I did punch it once," he grinned for a moment, "anyway I offered it an ultimatum between you guys exorcising it and... something else. It chose not to be exorcised, but the answer it gave me wasn't english, so it wasn't too helpful."

"Can you try to repeat what it said?" The warden suggested, noting Dream's hesitance to say what the something else was.

"It was uh, something like... ☊⊑⟒☊☍ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏚⟟☌ ⏁⍀⟒⟒?" It was definitely a butchered pronunciation, but hey, he'd tried.

"Well, I know the last word is 'tree'," Tubbo offered, gaining several questioning glances his way, "It's Enderman; Tommy and I are trying to learn it for Ranboo, but he's better at it than me. You could ask either one of them."

The ex-prisoner smiled, "Thanks, I'll go ask them. When can I come by?"

Unbeknownst to them, someone stood just outside the entrance to the lobby, already several steps ahead. Slipping up the hood of his onesie, he ducked away into the darkness.