Three Forces Empowered | Dream Team

Chapter Thirty-Eight

George was frozen in shock. He couldn't move. His limbs were unresponding. He couldn't get up and take a step forward towards the man in front of him. His friend. A friend who was covered in blood.

Someone else's blood.

Dream stood in the center of the dead bodies surrounding him, his gaze downcast. His knife was held loosely in one hand. For someone who had taken on really bad odds, twenty-or-so to one, he was remarkably unscathed.

"Dream?" There was a wobble in his voice, but he tried to hide it.

The assassin raised his head, making eye contact with George. Once before, George had mentioned something about how it was terrifying to have the smiley face on Dream's mask be the last thing a person saw when they died. But the eerie feeling of knowing the face of your killer was even worse.

For a minute, all that George saw in Dream was a cold, fierce determination to get his revenge. In front of him was the assassin that had plotted to kill him and his father. No mercy. No questions asked. No feelings needed.

But then that all disappeared as the person below the facade took control again. Dream's eyes widened with realization as everything that he had done hit him in a wave. His gaze swept from the bodies at his feet to the blood on his knife and hands, then up at Sapnap before finally coming to a rest on George. George hurriedly tried to hide his fear, but it was no use. Dream had seen it.

Dream's grip on his knife loosened. It fell out of his hand, clattering onto the ground. His hands went up to his mouth as he took in the damage that he had done.

"Dream---" George began again, but his friend shook his head, his hands still clamped tightly over his mouth. He took a step back, then another, putting more and more distance between him and George and Sapnap.

"Don't blame yourself," Sapnap said softly, taking a step towards him.

Dream shook his head again, letting his hands fall to his side. He looked so lost that George wanted to divert his gaze, but he couldn't. He needed to be there for his friend.

A strangled sound came out of Dream's mouth. "I'm sorry," he whispered, tears starting to pool in his eyes. "I---"

George's heart fell as Dream turned and fled from the scene.

***

George wandered out of the courtyard, taking the exit that he had seen Dream use. They were in a castle so much like the one that he had grown up in that he couldn't help but feel homesick. But there were differences, too. The warm glow of his home wasn't present, instead replaced by a cold, heavy air. The corridors were unfamiliar from the ones that he had spent his whole life wandering around in. Just when he thought that he recognized something, he remembered that it was all wrong.

His heart ached. He had so many fond memories with Sapnap and Dream of them being in halls just like the ones that surrounded him now, but everything was wrong. Dream wasn't with them, and he couldn't ignore the dull, throbbing pain inside of him.

He turned and went down a flight of stairs. A few more twists and turns later, and he found himself standing outside in the open breeze. They had come out from a back door, not the main entrance. A few patrols were milling around, but nobody paid any attention to him and Sapnap.

"So this is the castle of Suspiro," Sapnap said dully. "Castles all look the same in the end."

"It's what's inside that's different," George agreed.

He glanced up at the rosy streaks running across the sky. It would be nighttime soon, and he wanted to get to somewhere safe before then. And, Dream....

"Do you ever wonder about what life would be like if Dream didn't end up being good?" Sapnap asked suddenly.

George shot him a look. "You wanna talk about this right now?"

"Yes, right now," Sapnap said, a pained expression on his face. "I... all of these possibilities are running through my head. After seeing Dream like that, morphing back to the person he had been, it's like I'm peering into the future of all these different timelines. Where circumstances would've been different."

"Dream always would have ended up being good," George said, putting a hand on Sapnap's shoulder. "At heart, he definitely is. What we saw... that was him reacting out of pure stress. That wasn't him."

"I know that," Sapnap said, shaking his head. "George, I know that. But still...."

"I don't give a crap about other timelines, and neither should you," George said firmly. "We're living in this one, and there's no use thinking about all the others. What could've been doesn't matter." He sighed. "We need to find Dream."

Sapnap nodded wordlessly. George rubbed his arms and looked around. There was a large forest nearby, running around the entire back of the castle. It would be a good place to take shelter, and if he had to guess, he'd say that Dream had followed the same thought process as well.

"Is there anything useful nearby?" Sapnap asked.

George thought for a second. He turned to face the forest. "Well, on the left, there's a large lake and then another small forest. There should be a village over there as well."

"Do you think Dream went to the village?" Sapnap said thoughtfully. "Or would he hide in the forest?"

The word 'hide' struck a cord inside of George. It made it seem like Dream was a runaway criminal, even more so than he actually was. It just didn't feel right.

"I don't know," George admitted. "Right now... I'm not sure what Dream will do. He's not in the right state of mind."

Sapnap hesitated, then sat down on the grass. "I'm about as fine with killing people as he is," he said. "Killing a bad guy? Perfectly fine. One hundred percent, I'd do it any day. But Dream has killed innocents before. That sort of thing is hard to get rid of, and it's wired into him."

"This was a fight-or-flight response," George said, echoing what Sapnap was saying. "Seeing you and me in the position that we were in must've activated it inside of Dream."

"And he chose fight," Sapnap summed up.

George nodded. They weren't exactly in a good position. On top of having to figure out how to stop Peligro, they'd have to find Dream as well and try to help him.

Things were most definitely not going their way.