Chapter Text
When the boy wakes, he is alone. It's just him and the buzzing strain of silence between his ears. An empty and hollow aching. He doesn't remember how he got to this place, where the sky seems to stretch on forever past the grass. There is a sharp twist of muted panic in his gut when he realizes he doesn't remember much of anything at all, and his head throbs with what seems like a personal vengeance when he tries to.
His body feels wrong. Like someone took everything out from under his skin and then shoved it back in, but backward, or inside out. There is a void where all the answers should be. Like a child with a lost tooth, he is running his tongue over the space where something once was, but isn't anymore—left with the startling sense that something was stolen from him.
In a strange way, I suppose it was.
He shifts to a standing position, wobbling on unsteady legs before righting himself. His hair falls into his eyes, long and overgrown, and he brushes it away. It's then that he realizes he has no idea what he looks like. He touches his face, runs his fingers over his lips, his nose, his eyebrows, searching for a trace of memory. Even a flicker would suffice. What a terrible thing it is, to know nothing of yourself at all.
He eyes the edges of the clearing. His gaze trails over trees and overgrown shrubs, searching for a sign, a clue, something left behind so he can begin to pick up the pieces. There's nothing.
Overwhelmed, he retreats, takes a step backward into territory just as unfamiliar as the space before. An object cracks under his heel, and he freezes. The sound of broken glass is so loud here.
The boy bends down to examine what he has stumbled upon. It lies face up, toward the sky. Though fractured, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the glass face. A boy stares back at him, shaggy-haired and tired-looking, with sallow skin and red-rimmed eyes. Maybe he was once bright, but he certainly isn't anymore. That version of himself is far off, so distant there is nothing left to commemorate it. But more than anything else, he is startled by the fact that he has no recollection of the reflection boy. He could be a stranger on the street for all that it mattered.
Swallowing back the thickness in his throat, he looks past the reflection, to the inside of the case. A small arrow, bright red in color, points dutifully in one direction, and doesn't move or wobble.
A compass.
He's momentarily surprised he even knows what a compass is. His mind offers up no answers on where he could've gotten such a thing.
Hesitantly, he reaches down to pick it up. It's cold and worn, but sits heavily in his hands as though it has been there before, a million times over. Something in his chest aches as he stares at it. He instinctively, without reason, knows that it belongs—or did belong, in the time before this one—to him, but he also knows that whatever the reason he has it... hurts.
There is a gentleness about him as he inspects it. Something boyish and young and hopeful. He flips it over and is surprised to find something shakily carved into the metal. The handwriting is messy, but it's clear enough.
Your Tubbo.
His face screws up. He doesn't know what a Tubbo is, but it's painful, just like the compass itself is. Is that what he named it? Tubbo? He doesn't see why he would do something like that, but he also doesn't see why he would do much of anything, so this compass is as much an indication of the boy he was before as anything else might be.
He turns, eyes glued to the compass face, and the little arrow spins in the opposite direction, pointing back to the way he was just facing. He rights himself, and follows its line of sight. His heart skips in his chest when he sees it.
There, through the trees, is a spot of blue. Something so vibrant it couldn't be anything but man-made. In the midst of his panic, is a beacon of hope. Maybe he isn't alone after all.
He makes his way toward it, stumbling over lanky legs he has seemingly forgotten how to use. Waist-high grass brushes past him as he walks, tickling his skin in the places that his clothes have grown threadbare. It's then that he realizes how dirty and disheveled he is.
His shirt was perhaps once red, but now barely any of the old color shows through. It's more a dull maroon, stained with mud and dirt and littered with holes. His trousers are no different, no less worn. They're folded at the bottom, pressed tightly against his calves as though he'd been previously wading through shallow water.
He tugs at the fabric, confused, and sees how dirty his fingernails are. Whatever his fate was before this, he knows then it was not kind.
The boy ducks under tree branches, pushes aside hedges. The forest is overgrown here, a threat to his unsteady gait. There are a few times in which he nearly falls flat on his face, but every time he rights himself, determined to reach the blue object hidden between the old oaks.
It's much bigger than he originally thought, and, coming upon it, is surprised to find that it's a house. It's made of pale blue stucco and stone, sandwiched between a wall of chopped logs. He searches for a way in, but the windows are too high to reach, and there's no front door.
He follows the curve of the log-wall, and the tree line breaks, revealing a glass sea, and a well-loved campsite. A white tent sits at the place where the dunes break against the dirt, nestled in a meadow of seagrass.
"Hello?" he calls. His voice catches on the words, hesitant and uneven. "Is there anyone here?"
No reply.
He swallows and turns back toward the log-wall, searching for an entrance. The blue house has grabbed ahold of his attention, and he is curious to know what's inside of it.
Shortly thereafter, he finds the gate. A weathered sign is nailed beside it. The boy leans in close to make it out. The handwriting is barely chicken-scratch, and it was obviously carved long ago.
Logstedshire, it reads.
Then, under that, Population: 1.
Except the 1 has been scratched out almost beyond legibility, and instead, has a deep, fresh mark beside it that says: 0.
So he really is alone. The boy's shoulders sag under an invisible weight, and a biting kind of loneliness settles into the place it has carved from his chest. He looks back down at his compass—the only relic left from the time he cannot remember. Its arrow points back toward the beach, urging him to turn around, but he's too curious about the house to leave it now. He tightens his fingers around the compass, and pulls it to his chest, before taking a step inside the log walls.
The space is small, but by no means cramped. A faded blue tent sits off to his right. Like everything else here, it's worn and weathered, having lost most of its vibrancy. On the opposite side, there's a stack of old barrels. Something—most likely an animal—has broken through one of them, and the contents spill out into the dirt. He bends down to inspect them.
Small transparent crystals lie in a heap. They aren't sharp, but their edges are raw and unpolished. Sunlight glances off their declivities, creating prisms in the dirt. The boy grabs one of them and holds it gingerly. He watches, enamored, as the crystal slowly shifts to an opaque blue. For a moment, he worries that he somehow ruined it, but the thought is quickly ushered away. The panic that nested in the concave of his chest settles, as though put to sleep, sent away to rest.
He awkwardly gets to his feet, tucking the crystal into his back pocket and venturing closer to the house. It looms over him in the way that haunted things do. Large and dark and foreboding. But in the same breath, also dejected and lonely.
I was not always this way, it seems to say. I was once full of light and laughter. Now, I am a pathetic shadow of the way things once were, and never will be again.
Of course, the boy is too out-of-sorts to articulate such a feeling in words, (and even in-sorts, it might be a thought too large to rectify in his mind) but he does feel it in his chest. That heaviness and grief.
The door swings in on itself against the slightest pressure of his fingers.
A beam of light stretches across the floor, his shadow blocking a good deal of it. He steps inside, and the room seems to brighten. Everything is covered in a fine layer of undisturbed dust, save for tiny paw prints across the wooden floor.
It's a modest place, with meager decor. There's a bed, sheets tossed across the mattress haphazardly, as though the last inhabitant had no time to straighten them out. The rest of it is inconsequential—a furnace that appears older than the house itself, and an old, sturdy chest.
Evidence from the home's lost loved one is written all over the walls. Pictures are tacked across the blue stucco. The boy takes a closer look. One is of a Christmas tree, lit up with candles and glass ornaments alike. It fills him with a sense of melancholy, and he quickly moves on. There is another of six people—all of them in matching uniforms. Blue jackets with shining golden buttons and black caps. It takes him a moment, but he realizes the reflection boy is in this one. Albeit, brighter, and definitely happier, but still there all the same. There's a smile slapped lazily across his features, unencumbered and as though he was caught mid-laugh. The rest of the people look happy too. Beside the reflection boy, a tall man has wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Dark hair curls from under his hat and hangs in his eyes.
He has no recollection of the picture having ever been taken. It leaves him feeling hollowed out. He would've liked to remember it.
Almost without thinking, he pulls the crystal from out of his pocket as he surveys the rest of the photos. His fingers trace over its edges. It grows bluer with every picture.
There is only one other photo with the reflection boy in it. He's by the sea in this one, with another fellow behind him—who has been in most of the pictures on the wall. He's much shorter than the reflection boy, with a mop of brown hair atop his head. His hands are stretched out from side to side, and a lazy grin tugs at the sides of his mouth. Reflection boy stands at the forefront, a playful scowl twisting his features—almost as though he's wishing himself anywhere but there. It's easy to see that they care for each other very much.
Cared. He frowns. Reflection boy is not here anymore. Whoever he was before this doesn't exist anymore. It's sad to say, but it's true.
Having seen enough of the house, (and, secretly, feeling too dejected to go on any farther with this one-sided reminiscing), the boy leaves the way he came. Though, not before taking those two pictures along with him. One, of the group, and the other, of the two boys.
He feels rather guilty for having stolen something that probably once meant a great deal to someone else, but the feeling fades when he remembers the sign.
Population: 0.
If whoever lived here before cared about the pictures, they would've taken them along on whatever adventure it was they set off on.
There's nothing else of interest within the house—just that old dusty furnace and a barrel filled with miscellaneous junk—and he leaves it behind in pursuit of something worthwhile. Something that might answer all his questions.
He finds himself at the sea. The waves are soft today. Gentle. As though they understand he could not bear harshness at a time like this. The sand gives way under his feet, and the water washes over his bare skin, a cool relief from the humidity. The compass between his fingers points dutifully out toward the horizon line. His gaze follows it, where the sun will soon disappear, searching for clarity where there is none.
He is quick to find that the water is not just cool, but it is frigid, turning his skin a harsh shade of purple. He stumbles back away from it, tripping into the seagrass. For a long and terrifying moment, he cannot feel his toes, but with time, the normal color returns, as does his feeling.
He reaches out with his fingertips and brushes them against the waves. They react in the same way. The longer his skin soaks in the salt, the more numb it becomes. The sensation travels up his hand, as does the color. It shifts from static, to fire. He pulls back as though burned.
He frowns down at the compass, feeling almost betrayed by it. There is a disappointment. Anger, too. How is he meant to follow it if it's leading him to a place he cannot go?
A gull cries out above his head, flies over the glass sea toward the sunset.
"Fuck you!" he shouts at it. It feels good to yell.
A little while later, he finally ventures to the white tent. It sits proudly atop one of the dunes, all alone. It offers no more clues than the house did. There's nothing much inside it. Just a bedroll and a weathered jukebox. There aren't any music discs to play in it.
His universe shrinks as the days go on, here in this deserted place. It stretches only from the sea, to the blue house, and back. He can't bring himself to leave it, to find a way to follow the compass. So he stays.
He spends most of his time by the beach. Time runs strangely in his backward-mind. He'll kill hours sitting in the sand, clenching it between his fingers in an attempt to feel something. The sun rises and falls. The moon watches from afar.
It takes him four days to realize he's a ghost.
The understanding comes after he notices for the first time that he has not eaten, or drank, or slept. He hasn't needed to. It comes after he realizes the translucent skin on his forearms and legs isn't just due to a lack of sunlight. He's had plenty of it now.
It comes after he finds the scar.
It's a silver mark at the top of his sternum, straight and pale. Just wide enough for a blade.
It comes after he finds the note.
The slip of paper was tucked inside the jukebox, just hidden out of sight.
I just want to go home, it reads.
He doesn't remember much, but he remembers writing it. He remembers the feeling in his chest. So heavy. So painful.
Looking back, it isn't as sharp, isn't as raw. It just sits with him, like a lost spirit, curling around his ankles silently.
He does not mourn his own deadness. In fact, the news brings a sort of sobriety to him. It answers many of his questions, and there is a kind of hollow contentment about it. Things make more sense now.
He sits in the dunes and waits for something to happen. Nothing does. He keeps waiting.
Little things come back as the days pass. A boy with a guitar—that same one in the picture of six—who he remembers he once loved very much. He sang silly songs that made everyone laugh. There was another one, too, with hair dyed pink after... well, he can't remember why, just that it wasn't always like that. It was once brown. They were his brothers. At least, that's what he thinks. It's a small comfort he allows himself, to believe it to be true.
He remembers snow, and mittens knitted by the man he called father. He remembers birthday cake. He remembers playing pretend, with paper crowns and wooden swords. He remembers the beach, building castles in the sand and laughing. He remembers laughter. He remembers remembering.
But most of all, he remembers music. It's so quiet out here, with only the sound of his breath to keep him company. The quiet makes him lonely.
On the tenth day, he rouses to the sound of screaming. He's nestled in the seagrass, curled up with his knees pressed to his chest and his hands against his heart. At first, he almost believes the sound is in his head, the remnant of a daydream from the time before, (one that he will not remember when the haze is rubbed from his eyes). It would not be the first time.
"Tommy!"
The voice is hoarse, as though on the edge of tears, on the edge of hysteria.
"Goddammit! Tommy!"
The boy gets to his feet, clutches the compass to his chest. It has remained in his hand since he found it. There is a shaky feeling in his fingers at the thought of setting it down, afraid it might be stolen, though there is no one here to steal it.
He finds the young man rifling through the cabin. He's pulling the pictures from the wall. The boy watches as he drops down against the bed, pressing his face into his knees. Photos litter the floor.
"Hello?"
The boy's voice is strangely soft. He clears his throat.
The young man starts at the sound. His hand jumps into his jacket. There is an icy fear in his features for a brief moment—they twist to make him appear much older, much more weathered—before it is washed away by disbelief.
"Tommy?"
Before the boy can manage to speak, he is smothered by arms, held tightly by a foreign body. It's the first time he's been touched by someone since he woke up. He's surprised by how warm it is. He hadn't realized how chilled he was until now. Despite it being a stranger, he finds himself not wanting them to let go.
"We all— we thought you were dead, Tommy. I thought—Dream said you were dead. He said you were gone. Tubbo—he's—he's a wreck, Tommy," the man says, face pressed into the fabric of his dirty t-shirt. He's much shorter than the boy. He pulls back first. "Holy shit, man, you're so cold."
The warmth dissipates when he steps away. He adjusts his beanie back over his hair. There is a relieved, expectant expression on his face. The boy doesn't want it to go away.
He speaks anyway.
"I'm sorry... I don't—do I know you?"
Just like that, the man's face falls. He tries for a smile, but it sags at the corners, slipping away.
"Come on, Tommy, that's not—that's not funny," he says, voice scarcely above a whisper. "You—you..."
The realization seems to come to him all at once. All the color drains from his skin, pale against the tan. His breath catches in his throat. Tears spring to his eyes. Time slows to a crawl.
"No, no, no—no, you can't..." he swallows. "Tommy—I'm so sorry."
The boy presses his compass even tighter to his chest. He can feel the metal through the thin fabric of his shirt. "Is that my name? Tommy?"
If it were even possible, the man seems to shrink even more before remembering himself. He rubs the tears away from his eyes, and straightens. The lines in his face are still there.
"Yeah, that's you. Tommy."
He tests out the name, tries to fit it over himself, but it's tight in all the wrong places. He feels as though it was meant for someone else, for the reflection boy, the one with the brightness still in him. It feels stolen.
"And who are you?"
"Quackity. Alex Quackity."
"Were we friends?"
"Yeah, we were." His voice catches. He clears his voice.
Tommy looks down at the object in his hand. "Then... wait, you said... Tubbo? Do you know him?" He stretches his arm out to Quackity, who takes the compass gingerly. "This is all I had when I... woke up. I want to find him."
Quackity stares at the compass for a long time.
When he looks back up, his eyes are wet.
"Of course. Let's go find Tubbo."