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Fwoom.
The End portal fills with a glittering void as Dream shoves the last eye into its respective socket.
“Track him!” George bursts out suddenly, caught off-guard by the noise and hurrying Sapnap into action as well. With a water bucket and shield ready in his hand, Dream silently plunges himself into the portal, the eyes staring him down.
Dream has made the achievement [The End?] pops up on the players’ screens.
“There he is,” Sapnap remarks, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice. They’ve let Dream get this far, now it was time to stop him. Dream, however, wastes no time and begins bridging across with cobblestone, his feet barely catching on the blocks being placed just under him. One false move, one slip, and it’d be into the void for him. He can hear a small huff of annoyance through his headset from George as he equips his bow and begins shooting at crystals placed on high obsidian towers. He does his best not to look at the tall endermen that surround him in great numbers. This was their home, after all.
“This dragon is so agro!” Dream says, dodging fire blasts from the mighty creature as he continues shooting down the crystals. The dragon ignores the player’s complaints and lets out a fierce roar, sending yet more fireballs towards him. Dream winces in pain as one of them hits him and quickly flees the scene, not wanting to risk losing any more hearts.
“I found it, George. I found it!” Sapnap says, making Dream tune back in to what was happening on the other side of his headset. Damnit. He leaps past another fireball and barely misses a shot at a crystal-adorned tower. How many left?
GeorgeNotFound has made the achievement [The End?]
Sapnap has made the achievement [The End?]
Dream’s eyes widen despite the mask covering them.
“You guys are in? How are you guys here?” He tries his best not to sound panicked, but he's come so close to beating the other two. If anything messes up, it means game over for him.
“Hello, Dream,” George says between a small giggle. Dream does his best to ignore his friend’s voice and begins building up against a dark tower.
“I’m gonna win,” he assures them.
“You can’t. You haven’t even gotten all the towers,” Sapnap retorts, then adds a quick “He’s towering up over there!”
Too late, guys. Dream chuckles to himself as his last shot lands in the last crystal, setting off a small explosion.
“That’s the last one,” George grumbles. From his cobblestone tower, Dream can see his two friends heading towards the bedrock center where the dragon is descending to. He uses this as an opportunity to open his inventory and toss useless items over the side when he hears a splash of water and looks down to see Sapnap climbing up to him, clad in full iron. Dream sighs and pulls out his bow, hitting his friend square in the head.
“Oh, he’s got a bow,” Sapnap says, and quickly makes his way down. Before the water can completely disappear, though, Dream fires a few more shots at the dragon floating just above the end stone surface and jumps down past Sapnap into the water which breaks his fall. “George, help!” Sapnap calls out to his teammate. George immediately runs after Dream and gets a few hits on him. Dream, however, sprints towards the dragon. I’ll show these idiots. He pulls out his sword when there’s a sudden rushing sensation and he realizes he's been flung into the air by the beast. The obsidian towers and endermen and dragon grow smaller as Dream ascends into the air. It’s hard to breathe up here, and all he hears is the sound of his friends’ victorious laughter through his headset. The feeling is thankfully only temporary, as Dream begins to ascend rapidly towards an obsidian pillar. He places an apt amount of water under him before the fall has a chance to do any damage, then picks it back up for later use. He peers over the edge of the tower, of which his friends have realized he’s landed on. Dream backs away, then leaps off the edge into some water still placed around the base of the pillar. His friends are none the wiser. His feet pounding against the uneven end stone, he races towards the bedrock center where the dragon is floating above again. He sneaks under its wing, equips his sword, and begins slashing at its belly. It lets out a loud roar but refuses to move from its position.
“Wait! He’s down here!” George exclaims in realization. Dream can hear the faint running of his friends towards his position, but he holds his ground, continuing to attack the dragon. He should have escaped. The dragon whips around and tosses him into the air once again, landing him near the edge of the floating island. Dream breaks his fall with water and immediately begins clambering away from the edge. There would be nothing down there to save his fall except for the cold void. Finally, with his bearings, Dream begins piling up cobblestone next to another pillar to get a good vantage point. He can't risk being thrust into the air by the dragon again. A whoosh goes past his headset-covered ear as he realizes one of his two friends threw an ender pearl in an attempt to reach him. He watches to translucent teal orb fly past him, and the noise he first heard is promptly followed by George groaning, indicating that he missed his target and landed on the opposite side of the pillar. Dream takes this opportunity to water-bucket-down and run towards the dragon, but to no avail. He’s knocked away by the beast and is forced to run before either of his friends can catch up to him. Even from a new cobblestone tower, the dragon flies by Dream and knocks him off, forcing him to run again and notice his critically low health. Now he really begins to panic.
“Leave me alone!” he yells out in desperation, running along the edge of the ground.
“Why would we leave you alone, silly boy?” Sapnap shoots back playfully. Dream rounds another obsidian tower and builds up next to it yet again in hopes of escaping his friends. He manages to, and laughs a little when he sees them being bombarded with agitated endermen. His lightened mood doesn’t last very long when Sapnap suddenly teleports up to him and pushes him off.
“No!” Dream plummets to the ground and lands on his side, unable to place down his water in time. Hurt, he barely manages to stand back up and makes a run for another tower, piling up next to it and catching his breath. He consumes healing items, then quickly jumps back down, able to catch himself with water this time. He believes this is turning around for him.
Until it isn’t.
He’s running straight towards an edge, surrounded by nothing but void.
He hears George and Sapnap’s quick footsteps behind him as he attempts not to freeze. A sword pierces his back and he's thrust forward even more. Dream whips around and clashes back with his own, met with George’s determined face, partially covered by white goggles. Sapnap rushes in from behind, and soon Dream is faced with two opponents.
No.
He inches closer and closer to the edge.
No no.
He slips.
No no no.
He’s gripping on to the edge with only his legs dangling below him. He looks up to see his friend’s faces, almost no remorse seen on them.
But there’s one last save.
Dream tosses his water up onto the edge and lets it pour down over him. He breathes a sigh of relief in his head as he swims up.
He can’t swim up.
There’s no water to swim up to.
Sapnap picked up his water, and now he’s falling.
George and Sapnap quickly rush away from the edge, their laughter filling the otherwise silent End. They’d won.
But they didn’t know it wasn’t over yet.
They didn’t know of the pearl that had been thrown onto an edge, barely missing it,
They didn’t know of the half-gloved hands gripping onto the edge until their knuckles turned white.
And they didn’t know of the set of footsteps coming up behind them.
“Hello, George.”
George lets out a faint gasp, which is made inaudible by the hand that suffocates his mouth. The sensation of a metal blade against his back makes his blood freeze.
Sapnap spins around at the sickening noise of metal tearing through iron into flesh, then back out.
George is laying on the ground, red pooling around a sizable hole in his chest. Dream’s grip around his blade tightens as his mask tilts up to look at Sapnap.
Game over, guys. I win.