~ 𝙳𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚢 ~ [𝐷𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝑥 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟]

Chapter 6: Well Spent Time

"No, no, no..." Dream murmured, eyes sweeping the tainted snow. "No..."

You were still in shock. Frozen in place, with only your thoughts bouncing around your head. Who was that? Why... Why did they look like me? Or why did I look like them..?

"Dream," Ink sighed sadly, donning a white paint tube. "I'm... I'm sorry."

Blueberry ran over to a damaged citizen, their orange-feathered wings severed from their long body. They looked so much like Papyrus it hurt. You suddenly realized how many people had been slaughtered—or mortally wounded. Tens of thousands of pints of blood lay splashed upon the fresh snow.

You wanted to throw up again, for the third time that day. Hold it together, (Y/N).

The golden skeleton jumped from person to person, healing their wounds as fast as he could. Everything about his movements told you he was frantic. Then he looked at you.

Dream had a despairingly haunted look in his eyes, like he had seen this massacre before.

"...This was one of his favorite universes," Ink whispered, painting over the snow with fresh white paint. "He always admired how happy everyone was. The Underground here was much more forgiving than other universes. The human... the human here was happy."

You nodded absently. A thought surged in your mind: How can I help?

You closed your eyes.

When you opened them again, the world was engulfed in multiple lights. There was the bright gold light of Dream (was it dimmer than last time?), the silvery outline of Ink (was it just you, or was is more colorful?), and the blueish white of Blueberry.

All of the other colors, all white, were flickering out.

This world was dying.

Your breath caught in your throat, and you forgot you were in SOUL mode. You tried to take a step forward towards the nearest monster—and felt yourself peeling away from something else.

With a gasp, you turned and saw your body, in black and white, standing there with their eyes closed. The only things that were still in color was your SOUL, a thin outline of you, and the SOULs of everyone else. All of the black and white beings moved half as fast as you in SOUL form.

In a moment you were at the side of the Papyrus figure. Blueberry was patching up his back area. It was clear that he would never fly again. The very thought that someone—something could bring such misery to any creature sickened you.

Suddenly, instructions ran through your head. Take their SOUL. Heal. Concentrate. Put back together.

Your hands clasped gently around Papyrus' SOUL. A thin green aura stretched from you to him, wrapping around the heart. Papyrus' face turned from pained to relaxed, and he suddenly fell asleep.

Blueberry blinked, still bandaging the wing stumps. His light blue eyes darted to your still form, confused. Then he shrugged and (after giving Papyrus an adorable pat on the skull) moved on to a fallen bunny.

Ink was painting over the once pure snow with white, cloaking the crimson blood. Yet he seemed concerned, and was mumbling incomprehensibly under his breath. Not that you could hear him. You could simply see his mouth moving.

Floating from person to person, healing what was left of their SOULs. But you just couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss. Wrong. Crumbling.