⛓ My beautiful caged songbird ⛓

Chapter 7: Second discusssion

“Everyone sees who I appear to be, but only few know the real me. You can only see what I choose to show, there's so much more you just don’t know.”
— unknown.
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—night, community house—

There was a collective gasp echoing in the hall after Sapnap announced that Ranboo was Dream’s accomplice. People who were hearing this for the first time had their expressions turned into disbelief and shock. Tubbo was upset when he found out from Niki that they found evidence in his best friend’s home. Ranboo was the last person they’d expect to go and free the tyrant. Sam and Wilbur decided to join this meeting while Phill looked after Fundy. The British man comforted his younger brother, holding him as he stroked his hair while Tubbo silently cried.

“Where is he?” Eret questioned as he scanned the crowd of people.

“We… don’t know,” Punz admitted. “Sapnap said he wasn’t in his house, and there was no sign of Dream being his place once. Starting from tomorrow, we’re going to send different groups of individuals to look for Dream and Ranboo. Each group would  take turns every alternate day until we find them. Techno is going to help us. Well… sort of. He says that if Dream comes up to him for that favor, Techno’s gonna report to us the moment he spots him.”

Tommy raised his hand. “Uh, is my brother still planning to repay that favor even after sending us a message?”

Quackity sucked his teeth as he answered, “I… don’t know. Maybe. The blood god just gave us vague answers, and that didn’t help us clarify anything. And he is nothing but  a REAL. PRICK. IN. MY. ASS!” He gritted the last part as he glared at Technoblade.

Techno gave an insufferable smile as he casually shrugged his shoulders.

Eret cleared his throat. “Okay, Team C? Find anything odd back at the prison that helped Dream escape?” He looked at Puffy, George, Antfrost and Punz.

“...Yeah,” George hesitated. “We found something… creepy… but no, we didn’t find anything that helped Dream escape.”

“What do you mean you found something creepy?” Sapnap brows raised. “We saw something more disturbing back at Ranboo’s place.”

“Did it have crazy/possessive writing?” Ant pulled torn papers and handed it over Niki and Karl. “There were a couple of these under the mattress of Dream’s bed, and it took everything I had to not burn something this horrifying.”

“This is….” Niki’s eyes widened in shock, so did Karl. “The writings, this handwriting and scribbles, too… we saw the exact same message painted on the walls of Ranboo’s home!”

“What!?” Tommy snatched the paper from Karl. The blood on his face drained, he shook his head. “It’s the same…” he looked up to everyone as he shook his head. “IT'S THE SAME!!” He yelled.

People shifted uncomfortably, and started  murmuring to each other as George distributed the papers that contained the same repetitive journal entries..

“You said the messages on Ranboo’s walls are the same as what’s written here?” Punz questioned the C team.

“Well, most of them.” Karl answered. “Uh, if i remember correctly, most of what’s written were, “They will die, they will die, they will die; mine, mine, mine; my Songbird,” then a bunch of smiley faces drawn here and there, along with ‘Tick, tick, tick’, which I’m guessing was the sound of some clock, but was was scratched off many times.”

“It’s the same here,” Quackity said, reading it. He frowned. “Wait, did Dream write all this?”

“I think not,” Niki said contemplatively, all eyes were locked on her, “I mean, other then the messages and scribbles, the handwritings are identical. Dream may have had these papers in his cell, but i don’t think he wrote them. The painting and messages drawn on Ranboo’s walls were done a couple months back. I know this because there wasn’t any smell of fresh paint anywhere in the house.”