Work Text:
Born with nothing in my hands
I stumbled upon this place
The first time Karl meets Sapnap, the sky is bleak. He is surrounded by tall trees and small hills inside immovable walls, and there is a man on top of it clad in purple glowing armor.
The first time Sapnap calls Karl ‘sunshine’, it’s an offer for help.
“Hey, sunshine! Wanna get out of here?” The man had said, jumping down from the walls, like the weight of his gear and himself is nothing. He stands tall and broad, like he had built himself from the ground up, and his eyes are hard like he had seen war. Maybe he did.
There is, however, a softness in his tone as he asked. One might take it as kindness but Karl thinks he hears pity. Pity for what, he isn’t sure.
The man comes to stand in front of Karl, and Karl tries to meet his eyes. His eyes are the color of burnt forests and residues of soot.
“Where am I?” Karl had asked that day.
“You’re in the Dream SMP.” The man gestures around the small clearing, high walls lined with dirt, wood, and cobblestone, a tiny kindle of flammable rocks and fire behind them. “This is the spawn area.”
“Oh.” Tiny crackles of fire hiss from the light rain, and Karl thinks he sees a flash of a deer behind some huge rock.
“I’m Sapnap.” The man says, stashing his bow behind his back before offering a hand.
Karl takes it. The handshake is short and firm.
“I’m Karl.” He remembers nothing but his name. “Why am I here?” He had asked the man, eyes flicking down his shield mindlessly.
“I don’t know.” replied Sapnap.
“Why are you here?” asks Karl.
The man’s gaze is piercing, before he shakes his head. “I don’t know either.”
Sapnap leans his weight by a huge tree, armor clanking as he places his shield down, hand stretching back to fetch his leather-bound quiver. He assesses the arrows one by one, stroking the feathers with precise care. Karl watches him with rapt attention. “No one knows why we’re here. We all just wake up, in the same place you are standing right now, with nothing in our hands.” He had explained, tone careful, as his eyes stared off into the far distance.
Karl stares at the man’s calloused hands as it skillfully fixes the loose tip of an arrow. There is a short pause before Sapnap speaks again.
“We might be in the beginning of time. We might be at the end of it. Who knows?” He places the fixed arrow down and fetches another, before looking at Karl who is still standing idle from where he had spawned. Sapnap nods to the near huge rock, gesturing for Karl to sit down. He does.
“‘ We ’?”
Sapnap nods. “Yeah, there are others.”
“Are they kind?” asked Karl.
There is a quirk of an eyebrow, and a look given to Karl that he does not know how to decipher.
“Define ‘kind’.”
Karl hesitates. “Like you.”
“I am not kind.” Sapnap says with finality.
Karl cocks his head to the side. He flicks his eyes all over the man, from his armored boots to his head gear, the shield by the ground and the bow on his back. To his face. To his eyes.
“You are to me.” Karl says slowly.
The indecipherable look is back. “Maybe.” Sapnap admits.
“But I have slain before,” he adds.
Karl stares at him, eyes firm, unmoving. Sapnap stares back. It’s quiet; the drizzle has passed, the clouds remain bleak. After a few moments of persistence, the first crack of a smile makes its way to Sapnap’s lips.
“Your stubbornness will get you in trouble around these parts, sunshine.” Sapnap had snickered.
Karl ignores the name and every other foreboding consequence of it in favor of asking, “Why?”
Sapnap gathers his arrows in one hand, placing them back onto his quiver. He straightens up, shouldering the weapon. Their eyes meet on uneven ground. “When you start with nothing and you know nothing, you are bound to create something of your own. A lot of people being here means that there are a lot of dreams. Hopes. Goals. Sometimes, those don’t align.”
“Is there conflict?” asks Karl.
“War. Yes.” Sapnap answers. “There was." He nods. "There will be.”
Sapnap angles his body as if to leave, and so Karl can’t help but ask quickly. “Whose side are you on? The good side?”
Sapnap stops, giving Karl a quick regarding look. He straps his shield to his forearms, shifting in his feet, purple armor glowing.
“I'm on the side of those who want order. Chaos. Control.” he answers honestly. And then, Sapnap repeats, “I am not kind.”
Karl nods to this. “What does the other side want?”
“Home.” Sapnap says, simply.
Karl does not have a home. You cannot want what you were not given a taste of.
“Can I come with you?” Karl had asked that day.
Sapnap had peered at him, head to toe, eyes to—
Sapnap’s eyes don't leave Karl’s. After a resolute silence, he shrugs. “Sure. Come on, I'll show you around."
When those who make it in this age
are only those who learn how to take
and everyone is giving up
Where do we all take a breath?
Greed is a fickle thing. The SMP is nothing but a carcass of what once was a nation. It is nothing but a field of unlivable dreams, of the putrid desire for control, the desire for a home. You cannot build a home whose lands have been bathed by blood. Your ancestors will haunt you. History will repeat itself.
Karl is a fickle person. His first days on the SMP were days of stealing and creating chaos. His next days (or weeks, or months, or years) are days of siding with the victors. He flits from Manberg and Pogtopia in a single flip of a coin, no regrets, no guilt, no remorse. There are sides and there are hearts on the line and there is trust to be broken, and Karl knows nothing.
Sides are foolish. You are only ever on the good side if you think you are. To the other side, you are the antagonist. Everyone is right in their own eyes, and figuring out which is the real truth is the same as figuring out why they are here in the first place. No one knows.
Karl has friends, but friends pass.
Nothing stays.
Trust is an illusion meant for weak-willed individuals who cannot do anything by themselves and so they rely dependency on another. Such folly. Karl knows better than to put his heart in the hands of a person that is not himself. That is self-abandon.
Nothing stays the same in this world. Except Sapnap.
The man had taken it upon himself to call Karl ‘sunshine’ every time their roads diverge.
The path Karl had taken ever since that first day at spawn is a treacherous path. He had lied, he had betrayed, he had cheated, he had grieved. He is not a good guy.
But Sapnap, when they stand on opposite sides, both undiscovered villains with different purposes, even when they have only known each other briefly, offers him a smile.
“Sunshine, why are you on the wrong side of history?” would be the only thing Sapnap will say, and Karl would nod and cross the bridge. It’s that easy. Sapnap flips the coin.
“I’m not. I’m on your side.”
He doesn’t know why. Karl doesn’t know why he wants to side with Sapnap, but perhaps the grin directed to him as they stand side by side would be explanation enough, for now.
I see you still standing there
Glowing in your innocence
You were always standing there
When the world turns its back on you
You find a way to stand and fight
One thing that stays is Sapnap. The city blew up. And it blew up again. And again.
Heroes are outcast.
Heroes have returned.
Heroes understood are glorified.
Heroes misconstrued are jailed.
Peace, as they believe. The crowned villains have been put to prison.
But villains like Karl, villains like Sapnap, who are fickle and quiet and creeping, stay alive. They stay free. They are not the main characters of this story. Perhaps they are and everyone in the SMP are their own leads, but people would always, always just look for two things.
Who do we glorify for this peace and who do we blame for this chaos?
Their names don’t get to be an answer in either.
It all came to pass, but Karl— who once knew nothing — wanted to build a home. He never had a home.
And yet there is a boy who has grime in his eyes and fire in his heart that makes Karl feel like he does.
So he asks Sapnap to come with him.
Sapnap agrees.
“Why?” asks Karl, once they’re in a barn somewhere far north, festering in the dark of it as they watch their mushrooms grow.
"Why what?" The man asks, bone dust in the palm of his hand, letting it sink beneath the warm soil.
Karl watches as the fungus goes up, up, until it reaches the wooden ceiling of the barn. "Why would you come with me?"
Sapnap takes the axe in Karl's hand, striking the thick flesh of the mushroom. "Why not?" he asked, after one particular heavy blow.
Karl goes around and collects the broken chunks, letting it sit in his inventory.
"I just don't get it." He sighs. "You had people back there. You have Dream. You have George. I don't understand why you would drop them to come with me."
He kicks the ground beneath his feet, unable to meet the other's eyes. Trust is an illusion and doubt is something that swallows.
"Wrong." Sapnap groans, as the tall spore falls down sideways. He places the axe down, wiping his forehead to rid of the sweat that accumulated. They lock eyes when Karl looks up.
"They have each other. I have you. I think that's enough of an answer, isn't it?" There is a softness in his tone as he answered. One might take it as pity, Karl takes it as something else.
"I'm not…" He begins.
I'm not anything.
"Why would you want to stay with me? I'm not anything, Sapnap. I came here with nothing, as we all did, but years down the line and I still have nothing."
"You have me." Sapnap says, easily.
Karl forgets to breathe.
Doubt is something that swallows.
"There is nothing interesting about me." whispers Karl, eyes on his dainty hands. He wishes there were scars. At least by then, there would be something.
Leather boots pad across the ground and there is a hand on his hands, and calloused fingers under the side of his jaw.
His face is guided up. Sapnap is looking at him with undecipherable intensity.
"Karl, you are incredibly beautiful. And that's the least interesting thing about you." says Sapnap, like he means it.
Karl's heart threatens to break away from his rib cage and there are burnt umber eyes locked with his ashen ones and he has so many doubts. So many fears.
Karl has never been afraid before. Sapnap makes him to be.
"I've hurt people , Sapnap."
"I know. I've slain them."
Their eyes stay on each other. The sun is breaking down. A breath is shared. The sea hums. Something settles.
And that’s that for their conversation—
When all work for the day is done and kept, they take their rest by the bench in front of the barn, the sun folding in on the horizon. As it dives beneath the ocean and leaves a wonderful canvas in it’s trail, Karl leans his head on Sapnap’s shoulder. It’s serene.
— until Karl says,
“We’re villains, Sapnap.” A startling realization, perhaps a quiet epiphany. Either of which he chose to share.
The shoulder he’s leaning on shifts as Sapnap turns to him in attendance.
“What makes you say that?” asked Sapnap.
The wind blows towards their direction and the hooded lilac tunic Karl let adorn his body ruffles with it. He guides the long sleeves to hide his hands that sit on his lap, as he tries to piece together the fragments of thoughts he has come to realize over time.
Finally, he answers, “Because if you ask people to define a hero, I know we are not who comes to mind.”
Sapnap turns to look at him. Karl can feel him nod.
“Then, we are the bad guys,” he settles for saying. “Do you hate me, then?” Sapnap adds.
It makes Karl sit straight and regard the boy with surprised curiosity. “For what?”
The sun paints Sapnap’s face an expression Karl can barely recognize. “For making you this way.”
“You didn’t make me into anything.” That’s a lie.
Sapnap cocks his head to the side. “My question stands.”
“No,” Karl answers quickly. This is the truth .
“Do you hate me?” It’s his turn to ask. Sapnap does not even ask for what or why. He simply says a resolute, “No.”
A lone bird passes overhead, it’s wings flapping in the darkening sky. A smile gets given, a smile gets returned. Sapnap takes his hand, warm palm gliding along his, solid fingers slotting together, and there is something more shared between them beyond the physical touch. They settle back into each other, as tendrils of teal fight its way to the sky. Dusk is near.
“Do we deserve to live like this? In peace?” asks Karl— who now knows something but would still like to know more— when the cerulean sky brings another level of quiet. The sun is asleep and there is dirt under Karl’s fingertips and Sapnap is there beside him.
Sapnap presses their hands together more firmly. After a while, he says, “Nobody in the SMP deserves anything. We all just take and conquer and call upon war for those who grief us. It’s a vicious cycle of tyranny and the pretense of home. Nobody in this world deserves a thing.”
This might be the truth . Karl doesn’t really know how long Sapnap had been here in this place. Karl just knows he’s seen a lot.
“If anything, I think you don’t deserve anything on this world, Karl.” Sapnap says easily, still looking at Karl. Karl doesn’t know how to respond to that.
And then, Sapnap continues, “I think you deserve more.”
A whisper to the heart is the stutter of another. The stutter of another is honesty returned.
“And if I don’t want that?”
“What do you want, then?” whispers Sapnap.
“You.” breathes Karl.
It’s sweeter the second time. “Then you have me.”
Doubt may be something that swallows, but Sapnap is something that burns.
Sapnap says it first.
“I love you.”
It was easy. Loving Karl was easy, he says.
“I’m not kind.” Karl would then say. Again. Return. Callback. They’ve gone full circle and the foreshadowed consequence of that hits Karl straight in the gut.
“I know.” Sapnap would then reply.
Sapnap had seen him steal. Sapnap had seen him lie. Sapnap had seen him betray.
Sapnap loves him.
Karl had seen Sapnap lie. Karl had seen Sapnap destroy. He had never seen Sapnap betray.
“I love you, too.” The truth. To love Sapnap is the truth.
You are the one who found my courage and I knew
I wanna pay it back to spend it all on you
“Why did you call me ‘sunshine’ on that first day?”
They lay above the roof of a library, the stars as finger destinations, in the ethereal halo of the moon as the mushroom kingdom lays beneath their fingertips. A home they’ve built for them.
“Who knows?” Sapnap had teased, arm around Karl’s shoulders tightening.
Shifting his eyes from the stars to the man beside him, Karl places a firm hand on the other’s chest. Something thumps and he knows who it burns for. The cold of the night is nothing to that warmth.
“Tell me.” says Karl, staring at his lover.
The lover scoffed fondly. After a quick glance, the softening of eyes, and a gentle kiss landed square in Karl’s forehead, is when Sapnap says, “There are things you don’t know about me, Karl.”
“And there are things that I do,” was what Karl said, looking up at eyes that steal the moon’s glow.
Said moonglow eyes crinkle when punctured by a deep chuckle, chest rumbling that Karl feels at the pads of his fingers. He clenches the fabric of Sapnap’s clothes lightly, breathing in his musky scent.
“Like what?” was what Sapnap would challenge, looking down at eyes that adore him.
Karl smiles and shifts up, up, up and near til their mouths are hair’s breadth apart. Karl grins at him softly— “Like this.” — before placing a small kiss in the middle of Sapnap’s lips.
Sapnap smiles against his mouth. The leaves rustle and cicadas hum, the moon is sighing and the stars are singing, and nothing, nothing could compare to this .
It’s a languid kiss, more grins pressing together than lips sliding against each other. It’s unhurried, and slow, and easy, and warm, and home. It’s something gentle, Karl’s hands flat on Sapnap’s chest, Sapnap’s arms snug around Karl’s waist, and history is beneath them, the universe above, and nothing could compare to this.
When they separate, sunshine eyes and moonglow gaze merge into an eclipse, and the word love would be jealous if compared to the feeling that’s brimming on the rooftop.
“Sunshine.” Sapnap calls.
Karl hums, eyes closed, as he falls back to rest his head on the other’s chest, feeling it rumble as the other speaks. “I called you ‘sunshine’ because it was cloudy that day. And it rained, didn’t it?”
A short memory of bleak skies and light drizzles filter in Karl’s mind, and he nods. He understands the sentence too late.
“That doesn’t make sense, Sap.” he scolds. Sapnap chuckles, and Karl feels it in the span of his palms.
“It was a bad day for me,” Sapnap starts to explain, “Dream and I fought for a reason I don’t even remember. And I was walking by spawn and I saw there was someone new. You just looked so lost and confused. With everyone back then recently having stared at death in the eye and lived, you were a breath of fresh air. I called you sunshine because you may not have noticed it, but the sky opened up to where you were standing exactly. Like you somehow beckoned it.”
Burying his grin on the other’s chest, Karl mumbles something that Sapnap didn’t quite catch.
“Come again, sunshine?” Sapnap says, easily.
Karl groans. “I said that it doesn’t make sense.”
The laugh Sapnap lets out echoes through the valley. “It makes sense to me.” He would say as he pulls Karl closer by the waist, Karl almost entirely on top of him. Karl sighs in contentment.
And then, inevitably, because he is who he is, Karl sighs in newfound doubt.
“What if the same way the sun sets, I’d be gone, too?” He voices it out in verity.
Inevitably, because he is who he is, Sapnap would assure him. “You would always come back.”
“But what if I don’t?”
“Then that wouldn’t make sense because the sun will always rise.” says Sapnap, tucking his chin on the crown of Karl’s head. Their chests align, and their hearts closer than ever, and both beat in staccato, an almost symphony not yet in sync but soon to be there.
“Are you gonna leave?” asked Sapnap. There is something vulnerable in his tone, a shake, hesitance, fear. He spoke softly but the frailty in his voice is almost tangible.
Karl shakes his head, hair tousling as it brushes Sapnap’s face. “No,” he answers quickly.
“I’m not going away.” Where would he even go if not towards Sapnap?
Sapnap nods. “You’re not.” he says, more of an assurance to him than to Karl. “I don’t want you to.”
Karl smiles to himself, snuggling deeper into his lover’s arms. The pads of his fingers are tingling, as he thinks, attuned . Their soft pounding pulses are in sync. The cicadas sing with it, humming a song sung to the universe. Their heartbeats are part of that symphony.
“I love you.” Karl says it first this time.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
A whisper of the heart is the scream of a soul aching to be shared. It tangles, and tangles, further, deeper, more complicated than ever, and it rests upon their fingertips. A breath is shared, and warmth is celebrated, and nothing could ever compare to this.
“I do.”
Lips meet again under the moonlight. It’s home. You can long for what you are given a taste of. You can long for it even when it rests in the palm of your hands. That is what love can do.
This love we raised together
Shaped by me and you
You are the reason
Let me live this love with you
The last time Sapnap calls Karl ‘sunshine’, it’s an unfulfillable plea.
The last time Sapnap calls Karl ‘sunshine’, the boy is dying in his arms.
The new war is over. The New Gods have won, the SMP is nothing but ruins. They’re villains, and they’ve been called back to the mainland, and they came to aid for old times sake, and they’ve fought well, but they were never the main characters of this story.
Karl is merely a casualty. He never had a part in this world. He is on the sidelines; no side but cast aside. No home but one. (Their kingdom has been burned to the ground. Casualty.)
No home but one. Sapnap.
You cannot miss what you have been given a taste of. You can, but it would be self-immoderation.
You cannot miss what you are about to lose. You aren’t allowed to.
“Sunshine, please.”
Karl cries, his heart breaking into a million pieces. He doesn’t have a home he would have to abandon when he dies. He has something more.
“Sapnap.” his voice breaks, one of the last of his remaining breaths dissipating into the cold of the war-stricken lands. The people in this world are watching them in grief. Karl can’t bear to look at them.
He has someone he doesn’t want to abandon. Karl doesn’t want to abandon Sapnap.
“Karl, come on,” a watery chuckle tumbles out of his lover’s lips, and it pains Karl more than the huge wound on his chest. “Stay with me, Karl.”
Karl shakes his head. It’s not enough. A puncture to the heart is something irredeemable. He is on his last breaths. His blood has already bathed this godforsaken land. He will join their ancestors. But unlike them, he would be forgotten.
They’re not the main characters of this story where they get to live until the end. He voices this out.
Sapnap pulls him closer by the shoulders, knees on the bloodied ground, as Karl stays limp, weak, fading. “Don’t say that, you stupid idiot.”
Karl huffs fondly. “It’s the truth I’ve long since acknowledged, Sap. The truth is that we are villains. I don’t think we deserve a happy ending. I don’t think that if all this would go down into history, if we ever are at the beginning of time— I’m not certain we will even have an ending in the records.”
Karl laughs bitterly, the taste of iron heavy in his mouth. He looks up. The heavens are dull, heavy with clouds as the smoke of the wasted lands rises up to meet it.
If we are at the end of time, I hope our love carries beyond it. If the world is at its end, then I hope our love would be its legacy.
“That sounds nice, doesn’t it? I hope our love is enough.” is the only thing Karl had the strength to say. Sapnap nods like he understands. Sapnap cries like he wants it, too.
Their tears meet at the ground, and soon enough the rain would wash it away.
But if we were at the beginning of time, I wonder if our names would be written down. If our stories would ever reach that far.
“They’d probably misspell my name in the history books.” Karl kids, but it falls flat. Sapnap is clenching his hand tightly. Just as they always do, Sapnap assures him. “I’ll correct them.”
It’s also his resignation. Inevitably, death comes to those who never wanted it. Karl’s heart aches, and it’s not by the spear in his ribcage. He’s numb to the physical pain. But the emotional scar he feels makes him want to shout at the universe.
If death is inevitable, then why do I have to die first? He can’t imagine the thought of Sapnap mourning for him. It’s a punishment worse than death.
“I love you.” Sapnap says. Karl would have said it back, but he looks up, and the first drop of the downpour hits his face. So, he holds Sapnap by his cheek with a bloodied hand, and it stains him, leaving a mark on him.
Karl would pull his lover close, and he would whisper, right there, in the ground as the skies were bleak once again, “It’s raining.”
The strangled laugh Sapnap lets out is the most heart-wrenching sound Karl had ever heard grace this land. Sapnap holds Karl’s hand on his cheek, clasping it, before laying their foreheads together.
“I know, Karl.” he breathes. “You have to—” he’s choking up, “you have to stay, sunshine. The sun wouldn’t rise without you here to beckon it.”
Sapnap’s warm breath hits Karl’s face, and it’s the coldest sting that kisses him.
I’m sorry, Karl would say. But that is folly. That shouldn’t be his last words. That shouldn’t be their legacy.
As he feels his lungs give out, and his blood drains out, his fingers fall from the other’s grasp, and with his last sigh he says in finality, “I love you, too.”
An exhale. The last thing he sees is his lover’s eyes.
Peace, as it is.
I need to know
if there’s still anything that love can do?
Karl wakes up to the void.
A place with high obsidian pillars with hovering crystals overneath, built upon a floating island of white, solid stone.
There is a being of snow and crisscrossed halos, hooded with the color of deep grass, floating towards him. Upon closer proximity, it’s face is made of shining but cracked porcelain, marked with two black solid dots a far length apart, with a long embedded black streak serving as a mouth at the bottom. He seems familiar.
“Dream.” He recognizes.
“Karl.” Dream says. Karl. His name is Karl. That’s the only thing he knows. He knows something else, but he can’t seem to remember.
“Where are we?” asked Karl, looking around. The place is almost barren, empty, and silent. A few endermen parade the land, but no one pays any attention to them.
“This is the End.” Dream says, as he looms over Karl in his floating glory. Karl swears he remembers Dream having feet. Karl swears he remembers Dream not being a divine creature. But then when he thinks about Dream too hard, another pair of eyes flash by in his head, and they do not belong to the person in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” asked Karl, the faint traces of a land continuously fought over coming back to his mind in slow, dragging trickles.
The Dream SMP. Right. He gasps as a sudden pain shoots to his forehead.
“I live here.” Dream says, unperturbed.
“You do?” says Karl, once the pain dulls. He remembers something.
Long wooden paths that lead further down paved hills, and at the end, floating by the sea, a huge obsidian infrastructure looming in the distance.
“What about the prison?” he asks, memories foggy still. But he remembers this one. Heroes misconstrued are jailed .
Dream shrugs for an answer, “I don't really remember what I do when I’m mortal.”
Karl’s eyebrows furrow. “Are you saying you are immortal?”
“Yes. Along with the two.”
“Who?”
George, as Karl instantly recognizes, appears from the ground up. Sleep is rubbed from his eyes, tiny mushrooms sprouting from his shoulders to his forearms as he stretches, before regarding Karl with a knowing look.
“Karl.” he says, with a lilt of familiarity.
Karl cocks his aching head to the side. “I… I don’t understand. I thought you guys were…”
Dream’s laugh is condescending but Karl finds no offense to it. “Were what? Humans? Powerless? Stupid?”
“Alive.” he corrects.
“We are.” George answers vaguely. With a sigh, Karl shakes his head, trying to get his mind realigned.
“Why am I here? What are you?” A gesture to them both makes them nod, as if they’ve been waiting for Karl to ask.
George starts. “The universe, as vast and all knowing that everyone put it to be, is nothing but merely a player. It has its own game and we, her characters. You could say she’s a game master.” He gestures to the void all around them.
“The SMP is the beginning of time. The universe had said to us three, start with this and build with this the world .” Dream explains, and Karl would begin to tear apart that statement word-per-word but—
“You keep saying three.”
They both nod.
“Yes,” Dream sounds, before pointing to himself. “We are gods, one might say. I am the guardian of the End. George is the deity of the Overworld. Sapnap is the heir of the Nether.”
“Sapnap…?”
As soon as Karl says the name, a plethora of memories flood his mind. A field of moments, of high walls and cloudy skies, feathered arrows and leather quiver, of war, of sides. He remembers questions of building a home, an easy agreement, a conversation as to why, of mushroom bits and birds flying overhead and the sea roaring in the background as heartbeats finally align. He remembers nights and nights under the same sky above a rooftop that holds a home, him being held by the arms of his home. He remembers war again. Blood. Sides. Death.
The excruciating pain that stabs his heart makes him stagger back, hands clasping his chest.
“Yes. You remember now.” George says, tone flat, but it curves high enough for Karl to think that he might be more affected than how he appears to be.
Karl can do nothing but nod. Sapnap… is a god?
As if Dream can read his mind, he says, “He is born of fire and cruelty, molten ichor in his bloodstream. Have you not known?”
A brief conversation fleets to his mind. There are things you don’t know about me, Karl.
Karl shakes his head. “No. Where… where is he?”
The two gods share a grim look. “He’s… gone.” It’s George who answers.
“What?”
“As long as you remain here, he doesn't exist yet.” Dream says, and it does nothing to soothe Karl’s agitation.
“What does that mean?” He begs.
Dream places a comforting hand— something a god probably should not do — on his shoulder. “When you died, he had grieved. And then he came back here, pleading to the greater gods. He had given up his immortality in exchange for another life with you. That was his request. For you to meet in another lifetime. The two of you can find each other again, and you are to be given another chance at life, and another chance for your love, even. All in exchange for Sapnap’s immortality. He was willing to let it go.”
Karl’s heart leaps to his throat. Sapnap.
“George and I, we… We love him too much to say ‘no’, even if we think that it’s… probably not the wisest choice.” Dream says honestly. Karl takes no offense again.
“With that, George and the Overworld, along with me and the End, agreed to his plea. But the Nether, cruel, mad , that you have taken their sole heir, petitioned to the universe to punish you.” Dream says, laying out the catch of this whole thing.
Punish ?
“What’s… the verdict?” he asks, voice merely a whisper, sanity barely hanging by the seams, heart barely hanging by the threads.
“The universe is a player. It has decided both.” claims George.
Karl remains unmoving, unbreathing, waiting.
Dream sighs. “Karl, George and I are here to give you your punishment. At the same time to fulfill Sapnap’s wish.”
“I don’t understand.” Karl sounds, hands clawing at his chest in pain, looking all around for a chance of escape. He doesn’t want escape. He wants Sapnap.
“Jump to the void, Karl.” George says.
Karl shakes his head. “Where’s Sapnap?”
“The void will lead you to him.” soothes Dream, like he, along with the other god, along with Karl, understands. Like this pains him, too. Karl shakes his head. They don’t understand.
“Karl.” George says, voice firm. “Trust us.”
Trust is an illusion.
“Trust Sapnap.” the god adds.
Karl stops. He gives both gods a long look, before looking at the huge void beside them.
With a shaky exhale, with wobbly knees, he runs.
And jumps.
His stomach flutters as he falls down, never ending, but the floating island decreases in size until it’s nothing no more. The void is black and cold and empty. It feels huge. He feels alone.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been falling, until a voice, so familiar, speaks from all around.
It’s the voice of Dream and George, combined, echoing, alike, so in sync it sounds like one. And there they lay upon him.
We are the universe. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin, and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known.
I shall tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a player.
The player was you, KARL.
And you have a soulmate born of fire and cruelty, a soulmate you are bound to meet and bid. The strings that bind you will be tangled across the fabric of time with a curse that will not be removed by death. You have been cursed, KARL.
The curse is to be destined as this. You are to be immortal, to die and to live again, relentlessly. And as you travel through time, you are to find SAPNAP every time, you will love him every time, you will lose him every time.
That is your curse. That is your fate.