don't let time take you away. || dnf

one

clay sat in his black gaming chair. "GO GO!" he yelled to the 3 others on the call. "i'm sorry mr. dream.. but i don't want to leave." george said back to him, they always made playful jokes. this was just another one of the mindless jokes. "george! do you want to die? the lava's rising!" wilbur said light-heartedly. george, from his end, more aggressively started to hit the 'w' key on his keyboard. "georgee! come here, i'll protect you, don't stop moving, you have a hoard of zombies on you!" clay slayed all the zombies and then turned his character back to george. "thanks clay, you're a big help.!" george then left the vc, leave clay all alone. clay looked at his phone. the picture of him and george in front of george's mushroom house, shined in the background. the time was 12:23 am. he wasn't tired, but he was lonely, and getting bored of playing the game. he clicked onto his discord tab, and joined the other vc. loud screams erupted from the speakers once he joined. "WILBURR!" tubbo yelled. "I'LL TURN YOU BACK TO GHOSTBUR!" wilbur laughed a bit, then killed tubbo. since they were in hardcore, tubbo was done for. "oh, hey clay! didn't realize you joined!" george said. "yeah, i'm going to bed, so.. have fun with.. the rest of the game, and have a good stream." clay told them. he clicked out of the tab before anyone got the chance to say goodbye. he shut down his pc and grabbed his phone. he sat down on his bed. he then layed down, about to close his eyes, he got a text. he picked up his phone, and looked at the message. from george,

"hey clay.. you okay? i heard you a little upset when you left the call. i didn't even get to say goodnight! :("

clay smiled, and typed back, "yeah dude, i'm fine! nite!" 

george's face dropped. into sadness. he was expecting a more bubbly, sweet, answer. but instead he just got some response that a frat boy would give to a girl when she tries to call him back after a hook-up. this was not like clay. he wasn't normal, acting strange.

                                                                              -

8:00 am. on the dot. 

clay awakens from his slumber to his phone buzzing. his alarm is rather annoying, so he woke up quick.

he scrolled through twitter on the 'dream' hashtag. mostly there was people talking about how much they loved and missed him, but occasionally a few hate comments. and one thing that caught his eye. the user, 'dreamismydadmc' had gotten a tattoo, and posted it. she got the dream signature smile on her wrist. clay found it cool that people loved and cared for him enough to do that. he liked the tweet, and commented, "amazing! tysm for the support!" then scrolled away. he then put in a new hashtag, this time it was 'dreamnotfound fanart' he didn't like george in a significant other sort of way, but thought the fanart was nice, and the artists were talented. and george was his online best friend, so it was rather funny they shipped them together.

he got up around 10:27. he needed to do things today, be productive and such. he invited nick to keep him company at the store. then they would have a fake 'romantic dinner'. but it was only a joke.  

"hey nick, i'm going to the store today, can you come home around 12? because i want to leave by 12:15."

"sure thing, kid. be home @ 11:00."

"alright."

clay put his phone back down, then hopped on his computer. nick wouldn't be home for a while, so why not play with friends. 

he rang them all in a group, inviting them to play, but nobody answered. weirdly enough, they were all online though. he checked one of the many servers he had with them on discord, and seen they were all in a locked call, that clay couldn't get into. they were all playing minecraft on a server clay wasn't invited to. clay quickly closed out of discord, he didn't want to be reminded that his friends were slowly drifting away. he hadn't talked to any of his friends since last friday. it was now monday. not a super long time, but nobody even texted, or called to ask if he was okay.. was he oka-

"clay..clay!" clay looked over to see nick yelling at him. 

"hello? it's 1:00? i've been trying to grab your attention for like hours, man! are you good?" 

hours? clay wondered. it couldn't have been that long.

"what? hours? you must be joking! liar!" 

"i'm not joking, i'm also not lying! just get dressed, and hurry up."

clay got up and walked over to his wardrobe. he picked out a nice black shirt, and some black sweatpants.

then he grabbed his phone, to see 5 messages from george, 2 calls from him as well. 3 messages from wilbur, 10 from tommy, and 8 from niki. he didn't want to read it all, but when he pressed on each of their messages, they all consisted of saying "where have you been?" or asking, "are you okay, dream?" but the one that stood out was the paragraph from george, which read, "hey clay, are you okay? you haven't been active for days now..i was really missing hearing your voice, or you randomly popping on stream. please come back, i miss you more than anything clay." clay smiled down at his phone, then slid down to check the time. it was now 1:10. he needed to go get food, and meet nick so he wouldn't get mad. 

clay walked down, "yo where the fuck you been?" nick yelled.

"you were just in my room like 3 minutes ago.? i got up and got dressed immediately?" 

"what a deceiver. whatever, i already went to the store, just go back upstairs and stare at the wall for hours." 

clay didn't know what to say. why was nick turning against him, and acting like he's been in his room for eternities. 

once clay returned to his room, he opened his phone, to see if he could find an answer to his problem, but just george. 

consecutively every hour george would text or call. everyone else stayed the same with the amount of notifications. 

i texted george. after for what felt like minutes to me.. was really a week for him, i replied.

"hey."

"CLAY!! OMFG!" 

"that's me ahah!" 

"why did you wait 2 hours to text me back?"

"what? i just texted you.?"

"dude you take so long to reply..? are you trying to ignore me?" 

"no of course not! i love you.."

"i mean spending time with talking to u.."

"shit that doesn't make sense."

"what are you talking about clay? you just said something doesn't make sense and then proceeded to text me nothing before that?"

"you know what? i'll hit you up later."

"okay, bye clay."

clay looked at the time. had it really gone by that quickly? it was just 12:05 for all he could remember. now it's 11:32. clay went to bed soon after.

while clay was asleep, nick had different intentions..