Chapter Text
When they were children the adults from the orphanage always warned them to never go deep in the woods during or after the sun sets. They have warned them of the dangers that lurked in those very woods. They always thought of them as just things the adults said to scare the children into obeying them, they always did that especially on the smaller children. Well, they did until that happened.
Tommy isn’t a small child anymore, he’s already a teen for the Prime Gods’ sake; he doesn’t need to listen to those adults in the orphanage anymore. But apparently he still has to since he ‘owes’ the orphanage for keeping him alive ever since he was abandoned there as a child. Sure, he’s grateful for the matrons that cared for him but he doesn’t really like the orphanage that much, it’s so small it can barely fit all of them, there was not enough food half the time and there were a few incidents of children dying of starvation, the beds were small and they had to share it with someone else, and the wooden floorboards were rotting and creaky due to its age.
Tommy hated it here but he has nowhere else to go, sure he can sneak out into the forest and go on adventure but Tubbo disapproved of it since, for one, they don’t know jack shit on how to survive on the outside. And two, he doesn’t want to get eaten by the undead lurking around at night; he would rather keep his life thank you. Maybe it wasn’t so bad in here when you think about it you know?
It’s early in the morning, the sun has just peaked from behind the horizon and its light golden rays illuminate the surroundings with a soft yellow hue.
Tubbo opens his eyes briefly and squints as the sunlight reaches them, he puts his arm on his face to try and hide away from the sun and get some more sleep but that plan was immediately stopped by Aaron shaking him awake.
“Tubbo c’mon time to wake up, the matrons are gunna scold you two again”
He grumbles in protest “I don’ wanna,” He slurs, “Too sleepy…” he then proceeds to turn and decides to put his arm over Tommy who was sleeping like a sack of potatoes.
Aaron decides that he isn’t going to deal with this any longer than he should have and just decides to drag Tubbo straight off the bed by the foot. It was relatively easy to do due to how light the boy is and he falls off with a light thump followed by an annoyed groan.
“Get up Tubbo, go wake tommy up too” he then leaves Tubbo grumbling on the wooden floor as he tries to get up. He was slightly shivering from the cold but he’s used to it by now, There’s never enough blankets for everyone in the orphanage and their clothes were old and thin and aren’t enough to keep the night cold out.
He stands up and stretches his arms, satisfied when he hears his bones pop and proceeds to shake Tommy. “Big T it’s time to get up, were gunna miss the call time”
Tommy only grumbles in reply so Tubbo decides to shake him even more. The frail wooden frame of the bed creaks in protest as if it’s going to fall apart if Tubbo shakes Tommy even more.
“Toms I’m going to break this bed apart if you don’t get the fuck up now” he threatens tommy, although they both know that it’s an empty threat.
Tommy opens his eyes a little to look at Tubbo with an evil glare and he stops shaking him. He whines a little about how early it is and swings his legs onto the side of the bed and rubs his eyes. They proceed with the usual morning routine.
They meet with the nice local lumber jack Ren Doggerman, since he agreed to pay them if they work and the orphanage required them to get some job to help pay for the expenses. They walk up to the small cabin next to a pile of logs where Ren works and they spot him feeding his dog, Pamela.
“Hey big Ren! How’s it goin’ big man” calls tommy. Ren looks up and tilts his head to face the two teens.
“Hey Tommy, Tubbo it’s a pretty nice morning isn’t it?” he smiles at the two and puts the plate on top of one of the log piles. “You two have breakfast yet?”
“Yeah, just some bread Miss Pearl gave us” answers Tubbo as he holds himself tighter in an attempt to be a bit warmer (Prime gods today was colder than usual).
They would continue on with some small conversation. Ren hands a spare axe over to Tommy and the ropes over to Tubbo and they set off into the forest. Ren chops down a tree, the usual and they help Ren chop it up to pieces that are easier to drag or carry, whichever method they prefer.
They continue on their usual day, nothing really special and before the sun hits its highest point at noon they go to Miss Tay’s eatery for lunch. It wasn’t a lot of food but it tastes good and Ren’s paying for it so they’re not going to complain about free food. The day goes by without a hitch and they managed to bring a few more logs to the pile about half an hour before the sun has even decided to set.
“Hey Tommy, Tubbo, can you get me the spare axe we left in the clearing?” says Ren as he adds more logs to the pile next to his cabin.
Tommy only nods and walks off to fetch the hatchet as Tubbo puts a half log on top of the log pile to follow Tommy. They walk hand in hand for about 5 minutes to reach the clearing; it wasn’t far by any means since nobody wanted to go deep into the forest due to the threat of the undead. It doesn’t take that long for Tommy to find the axe leaning on a stump, he comes to pick it up but he hears a strange noise coming from the forest… it’s someone singing? That’s weird, he thinks why would there be someone singing in the middle of the woods He turns around to ask Tubbo if he hears it too but he wasn’t there behind him. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere in the clearing.
“Tubbo?” Where has he gone? I didn’t even hear him walking off! To Tommy, it was humanly impossible for Tubbo to run off without the leaves crunching beneath his boots.
He hears it again, this time it sounded sweeter, more comforting. It was almost a lullaby lulling him to sleep. Tommy blinks in confusion, feeling his eyelids fluttering shut from exhaustion. Why was he feeling so tired all of a sudden?
He almost falls asleep on his feet but he remembers that he needs to find Tubbo, He rubs his eyes in the hopes of waving the sudden exhaustion off but when he opens his eyes it’s already night time. Wait what? Since when it was night? It was barely sundown a moment ago! The voice! It must be the voice; He thinks to himself, I HAVE to find Tubbo.
He goes to scream for Tubbo’s name and instantly regrets it as soon as he hears the sound of crunching leaves accompanied by a low growl. He immediately searches for the axe that was nearby but he couldn’t see anything, so he decides to just try and feel any part of it but instead he’s met with a tree. A tree? Wasn’t I in the middle of a clearing? Tommy didn’t have much time to think about it as he hears the crunching come closer and the low steady rumbling that’s emanating from behind him.
White eyes. Small, glowing, milky white eyes are eyeing him from the distance. He stepped back a few steps and he decided to make a run for it. Sure it wasn’t the smartest decision; in fact, it was the worst decision he could’ve made that moment because whatever that thing is has decided to keep up the pace. Tommy sprinted through the forest nearly falling to his back each time he collides with a tree in the dark.
Here he was, stumbling in the dark, with a very hungry creature menacingly chasing him. It didn’t really run after him that much, it kind of just stalked him down, waiting… waiting for the perfect moment when he’s finally run out of stamina and he’s got no choice but to accept his fate. Tommy refuses to be eaten, so he runs, he runs as fast as he can. He’s got decent stamina after all; he and Tubbo have been hauling logs with Ren for almost 5 months now, so all that time he must’ve developed a pretty good endurance (that’s how it’s supposed to work right?). He nearly trips at an exposed root, causing him to get a sprain which would slow him down. He curses under his breath and keeps running. He has to run even if his left ankle hurts he needs to keep going.
But not even the great Tommy can run forever. He is a human after all.
He falls. He falls with a short scream interrupted by a loud thud and the crunching of leaves underneath his frail and small body. The height wasn’t enough to give him a broken bone but it left with a hot pain on his right arm, Tommy clutched it with his left hand and felt that it was wet. Shit. As if he wasn’t already being chased by a monster the smell of his fresh blood would surely attract any and all of the undead in the area. Tommy tries to stand up, his left foot nearly giving in on him but as he looks up and the clouds move away from the moon; he sees the faint shape of a boy, about a few meters from where he fell. He was just stood there like everything in the world has stopped for him. Tommy knew who the boy was so he shouts for him.
“Tubbo!” he forces himself to run towards him as fast as he could but he didn’t think about how to slow down and he crashes at him, causing the both of them to fall down the dried leaves of the forest.