Shoulder to Lean On

Hunted

A/N: This chapter gets a little violent. If you want to skip it, I summarized what happens vaguely at the end. All violence occurs within a nightmare, by the way.

TW: Blood, gore, knives, sharp weapons, falling, broken bones, murder, unintentional self-harm, major character injury, major character death.

He was in a forest.

He didn't know how long he'd been here, or where he had been before coming here. Had he come here? He wasn't sure. He couldn't remember a beginning, or a starting point. He was just here. He couldn't think of an end point either. A goal. A plan. Why didn't he have a plan? He always had a plan.

Where was he?

Dream reached up to wipe the sweat off of his face, only to have his hand hit hard porcelain. Oh. He felt around a bit more, realizing he was wearing a round disc on his face. His mask. He didn't have to take it off to know that there were two black eyeholes and a black smiley face. He didn't know why he knew that though. He felt like he knew where he was.

But he had no idea where he was.

He wandered through the trees. The foliage was so thick that very little sunlight came through. It made it difficult to see. Mobs will spawn he thought. Mobs? He looked around. It was like he was in Minecraft, but he wasn't. Nothing was made out of blocks. He wasn't a neon green blocky character. It was just him. Normal, human Dream. Seeing the Minecraft features without the square aspect was very unsettling. Surreal. It felt wrong.

Dark oak forest. This is a dark oak forest! he realized. He kept moving forward, suddenly aware of the backpack he was carrying and the shiny axe in his right hand. He noticed the axe was covered in blood. Why was it covered in blood?

He didn't have to look at his mask to know that blood was splattered there too.

But why did he know that?

He shifted his backpack nervously and broke out into a light jog. Where was he going? There was no end to the dark trees and the branches. No light to head towards. No markings to follow. Why was he headed this way again? And why did it feel like there was some sense of urgency to it? Like he needed to keep going?

"Oh Dreeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!"

Oh.

That was why. He understood now.

That was George. This was Manhunt.

He took off running, ducking and weaving through the trees as quickly as he could. The branches thrashed against his face and for once he was grateful to be wearing a mask that he knew he could not physically take off. Not here. Although his face was protected, the branches and thorns left little scratches and cuts all up and down his exposed arms. He forced himself to keep going. Logically, he knew he would travel a lot faster and more safely on top of the trees than underneath them, but realistically he knew that as the pounding of many sets of feet behind him grew closer, he would not have time for the initial climb up there.

"He's right here!" He heard Sapnap call. Willing himself to go faster, he rushed towards what he thought looked like a tiny speck of light. Please be the end of the forest, please be the end of the forest. He could hear the crunch of footsteps on the decaying leaves behind him. He realized that his pursuers were not being held back by the branches and thorns in their way, because Dream was plowing a path through the forest for them. Fuck.

Dream's heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he thought he might pass out from lack of oxygen. Still, he couldn't stop. No matter how sore his legs got, no matter how much his lungs ached, he had to keep going. He had to escape.