Work Text:
ARCHIVIST
Do you think this one will work, then?
RANBOO BELOVED
[voice shaky]
Yeah. Yeah, I um… I really hope it will.
ARCHIVIST
Even if I’m sitting here?
RANBOO
I’m not really sure, honestly. Maybe this time if I close my eyes I can pretend you’re not here.
ARCHIVIST
Because of your….
RANBOO
Yeah, my issues. The things I’m here to talk about.
ARCHIVIST
Alright. So, then, we can begin?
RANBOO
We can.
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Ranboo Beloved, regarding his memory loss-
RANBOO
-and sleepwalking.
ARCHIVIST
Regarding his memory loss and sleepwalking, then. Statement recorded 1st May, 2021. Statement begins.
RANBOO
[taking an audible deep breath]
I guess the best place to start here would be the beginning, yeah?
My memory’s never been the best of things. I still can’t remember my own past, anything before I arrived on the server. It’s all just kind of one big blur. Once I got here, though, things started to actually stick. Not all of them did, though, which is why I made this memory book right here. I wanted to know who my friends were, what I’d done before, what had happened with the others. It helped! It did! For a while, at least! Then came the day I lost it.
I still swear I never put it down. It always stays with me, I never put it in a chest. One day, though, it was just… gone. I had to search anywhere I’d been in the past few days just to prove it to myself, and then I found it in my house. I knew I didn’t put it down. I still know I didn’t. I don’t know how it was there.
That was the first time it happened, I think. I can’t remember anything that happened after I picked it back up, and the next day all I was doing was fixing up the land.
I was also building a panic room that day. I was so convinced I needed it, then. I didn’t know why. Now, I guess I do.
I didn’t even have the real book. Dream – our server admin – did, and I don’t know how he got it. I don’t know why it vanished, and I don’t know how he got it. Thinking back on that, I’m pretty sure those were connected. All the signs were there, I just… I didn’t connect the dots until it was too late.
I started hearing Dream’s voice in my head. I was so convinced he was real, but he told me he wasn’t. That’s what the panic room was for, at least. That was where I heard him, always, and that was where I’d wake up when I’d blacked out. Always just there, in those obsidian walls. They were the same as the ones in the prison, did you know that? Even once the crying obsidian was added, they always felt the same.
Back then, I wasn’t exactly having the best of times with people, either. I thought they all hated me. I thought I was a traitor. I thought I was better off if I stuck with the only people I thought I hadn’t betrayed, because they were the first ones to talk to me while I was panicking, although I don’t think Phil – Philza Minecraft, my friend and the man who invited me over – knew at the time. My home was gone and they offered me a new one. I thought I had lost everything and they still gave me something to care about.
I feel like I’m getting sidetracked, though. The voice, Dream’s voice, it, uh. It told me things. Things I didn’t believe, at first, but the longer this goes on… the more I’m starting to believe them.
It told me I was the one to blow up the community house. There. I’ve finally said it out loud, on recording, somewhere anyone can listen to me. I was the one who blew up the community house. I don’t remember it and I don’t know if I ever will. The day before it was gone, I don’t remember going back home. I don’t remember anything until I woke up in the panic room the next morning.
That wasn’t the only time this has happened, though. I’ve heard music coming from nowhere. I’ve hallucinated entire visits to the prison, enough that Sam banned me from the place. On my own request, of course.
I think something is messing with my mind.
I don’t think this is natural for me. I don’t feel like I’m in my own control. It’s like there’s something wrapping strings around my wrists, pulling me along like I’m a puppet in the hands of a god slightly too angry to be playing with the little mortals. Sometimes I barely feel like myself because of it.
I’m still keeping the memory books. They’re the most useful thing I have, even if I keep them locked away as much as possible now. I can’t let them get taken again: not now, not ever. They have too much written down in there. They have things I’ve never said out loud. They have the things I’m saying right now, actually.
Honestly, I’m afraid of myself now. I don’t think I should be around the people I care about. If I can’t remember what I do, and I do bad things when I black out like that, I should be focusing on keeping them safe, right? Because they’re in danger when they’re around me.
I’m sorry. This is… a lot, I think. I should stay on topic.
[There is an audible pause, filled with the sound of paper flipping, as if turning the pages of a book.]
Right. So, before the really big incidents from the past few weeks, there were a couple smaller things. I apparently found one of Tommy’s discs buried in my yard once? Tommy – Tommyinnit, I keep forgetting you want full names – loves those things. He wouldn’t have left it anywhere near my house. I have it noted down here that I remembered talking to Dream in the Nether, although I don’t remember anything like that anymore. I couldn’t remember the entire day of January 20th, and the next thing I knew Dream was in prison. Apparently I visited him and had no idea. My waivers weren’t signed in English. It wasn’t even a language I recognized immediately, but I’ve figured it out since then, and not entirely by choice.
Once Dream’s friend Sapnap passed me a note and the next thing I remember I was waking up in the snow. I couldn’t tell you what was on the note. I just remember feeling scared. I remember a chill down my spine, and a feeling like getting stabbed in the chest, but not physically. Then it’s all just… snow.
I got tired of this after a few months of this. I got really tired. I wanted to be able to trust myself, and I wanted to be able to just exist as myself. So I, um… I may have started experimenting on myself? Just a little? I wanted to know what this was. I wanted to know where it came from, and most of all I wanted to be able to trust my own memory.
I think I’ve figured some things out. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, exactly, but I know something is. I’m trying to figure out how to control it, but it’s all just going wrong.
One of the experiment’s side effecs was that, well, I’ve started remembering bits and pieces of things? Nothing really major, nothing like where I came from or anything, but… the language. The one I didn’t recognize? It’s ender, like what the endermen speak. And I’m half enderman, so….
I’ve kinda started calling my sleepwaking the enderwalk because of this. I think it’s enderman related, but I don’t think that’s the only thing about it. I still know something’s wrong. There’s something wrong with me.
I didn’t really start to regret this, though, until… about a week ago? I think it was April 23rd. I don’t even know what triggered it but…. I started remembering these… words. Lessons, really. And they scared me. They scared the hell out of me, actually. I was in mid conversation and had to leave right then and there. I didn’t know what they were, I didn’t know where they came from, I just knew that they were big and they were real and there was a whole extra layer to me that I didn’t remember. I couldn’t trust myself all over again.
That was when I tried to get myself locked up.
ARCHIVIST
Hold on. Pause, for a second.
RANBOO
Yeah? What’s up? Felt like I was just getting started there.
ARCHIVIST
These… lessons, you say. They were numbered, right? Phrased like commands?
RANBOO
….yeah, actually, they were. How did you know that?
ARCHIVIST
[quietly]
Well, that isn’t good.
[normal volume]
No reason, there. No need to worry. You can resume.
RANBOO
Alright then… I guess.
[Silence for a few seconds.]
I was up to the prison, wasn’t I? Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I was.
So yeah, I did try and get myself locked up. I couldn’t trust myself. I still can’t, honestly. I walked right up to the Warden and told him I needed to go in. He thought I meant as a visitor. Told me I was banned, everyone was banned, because of Tommy’s death. I was extra banned because of the previous, well, incidents, you can call them.
I tried to tell him what I did. I tried to tell him why I deserved it, why I should never be let out. The words wouldn’t leave my mouth.
Do not let them know what you have done was the last lesson I got. It was lesson 94, the one that finally broke me. It was the one that made me go to the prison. I couldn’t break it. I physically couldn’t. It was like I was trapped, caught by my own memories.
For the first time, I just wanted to forget. I wanted it to all go away. I wanted to take the memory books and toss them off the nether bridge.
The Warden refused to put me in the prison, no matter how much I begged. When he pulled his sword out I knew I’d never get in there. I left, and I went home.
I tried the only thing I could think of to get answers. I wrote a question to myself and triggered a blackout. Thanks to the experiments, I’d figured out how to do that, and it was entirely connected to negative emotions: sadness, anger, pain, and fear, mostly. So I just…
[he mimics the noise of glass smashing]
And I didn’t remember anything else.
I got the response days later. It’s still in the book.
[sound of pages turning once again]
I, apparently, said I wanted to stop conflict. I said I wanted to make everyone safe. How could I do that when I was the least safe person to be around on the entire server? I don’t even know if I actually wrote that. It looks like me, but how do I know if my hands got used to say something?
How do I even know if the strings are still around my wrists?
That’s not the end of it, though. Almost two months ago, Tommy died in the prison and was brought back. Yesterday, his brother came back from the dead. I’ve been thinking a lot about death on this server recently.
I don’t think it’s supposed to be like this. I don’t think there should be one man with power over life and death. That feels wrong in the same way I feel wrong. Like it’s not supposed to happen, like something in the universe got bent to put it into place.
When I think about Tommy’s death, though… I realize I can’t remember the day he got locked into the prison, as well. That one scares me more than anything, because when I can’t remember something that big, usually it’s for a reason.
Sam – the Warden – said there was an explosion set off on the roof of the prison, something that disabled quite a bit of machinery and left Tommy locked inside. He said he didn’t know who did it, but he’d kill whoever did as soon as he found out.
I think it was me. I think I killed my friend. That’s something I’ve never said to anyone either. I don’t know why I did it, or how I did it, but I… I think Tommy died because of me, and I don’t know how I can ever make that up to him.
And that’s proof, isn’t it? That I put my friends in danger? That I shouldn’t be trusted around them?
The enderwalk, whatever it is, whatever causes it, I feel like I need to get to the root of it. I feel like I need to stop it.
I’m not in control of myself. I need to cut the strings around my wrists. I need to be allowed to exist as myself and not as… whatever this wants me to be.
There’s not much more than that. Honestly, I’m surprised I wasn’t stopped at any point during that. I just gave up on pretending you weren’t here after you said something. I said everything, though. I said it out loud, and nothing stopped me.
ARCHIVIST
Yes, that’s… strange, for the circumstances I think you may be talking about. That’s everything, though? You’ve said all you wanted to say?
RANBOO
Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. It’s a weight off my chest, I think.
ARCHIVIST
Alright, then. We can look into some of the stranger occurances for you, but that was all we needed you for as of now. If anything is actually found, we’ll get back to you.
Statement ends.
~-~-~
ARCHIVIST
It’s the numbered lessons, more than anything, that make me think he may in fact be telling the truth. If we’ve found another one… or even worse, if he’s back… this could be a bit of a disaster. I’d hoped to never hear about that again.
That project file was closed a good few years back, but we may just have to reopen it.
With Mr Beloved’s other details, however, the facts may be a good deal shakier than he remembers. As he admitted himself, his memory can’t always be trusted. No other record has yet been found for this enderwalk or anything similar to it, although it isn’t like nobody’s looked.
It’s the lessons, though… those were too similar to be anything but the truth.
End recording.
ARCHIVIST
Now, I’d like you to start from the beginning on this one. Just state your name for me, quickly?
WILBUR SOOT
Wilbur Soot.
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Wilbur Soot, regarding the strange figure around his burger van and the strange actions of his coworker. Statement recorded live from subject 10th November, 2021. Statement begins.
WILBUR
Well, then. First of all, I just want to say that I regret it. I’d apologize to him if I could. He’s what I’m here about, though.
It was my father Philza who first pointed me in his direction. I’d run into him a few times before, of course. Ranboo. He was one of the first people I saw after I came back to life, you know. Tommy corrected me on his name. I don’t think he was happy with me, back then. Wherever he is now, I know he isn’t happy with me.
I needed someone else to run Wilburger with me. Couldn’t do it alone, never could. A president always has his vice president by his side, you know? Phil said Ranboo needed something to do, somewhere to go. I needed someone else. Wilburger became the Wilburger Ranvan, and we had a business.
We were more similar than I’d first thought, you know. He reminded me of myself. He was the version of me who refused to pick up a weapon, who didn’t want to fight, who preferred to just do what he was told. He was part of L’manberg while I was gone, on President Tubbo Underscore’s cabinet. He told me he didn’t know how much they actually needed him, but he was there anyway.
He told me he thought I was a better person than I was before. Nobody had ever said that to me. Not since I came back, at the very least.
Ranboo, though, the one thing I’d picked up with him at first was how nervous he was. I thought that was our main similarity back then. I thought he was braver than me. I thought he was more predictable. I thought, at the heart of it all, that the reason why people liked him so much and trusted him so much was because of how open he was. From the very start, I though I had him figured out.
I’ll admit now that I was wrong. Ranboo’s not an open book. He never was.
It wasn’t long after the van opened that I first noticed the figure out in the woods.
It was rather dark out when it happened. Ranboo had already left for the day, leaving me alone in the van to close up. I hadn’t even been there when he left, actually. He’d left me a note on the door. Left early today, sorry about that, was what it had said, I believe. I had just taken it off the door so I could move it somewhere else. That was when I first noticed the glow: something purple through the trees, unmoving. Usually I’d have assumed it was an enderman and moved on, but endermen didn’t usually come so close to the van. Something Ranboo did, maybe, I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen one with eyes that bright, as well. It all just felt rather wrong, so I went to take a step outside and investigate.
The figure felt strange, I thought. Just a silhouette in the distance, outlined in shades of purple, I was about to dismiss it all over again when it turned and I noticed the tail.
Endermen don’t have tails.
Ranboo, however, does.
In the dark I couldn’t tell if it was truly him. Any details were obscured in the black and the only light came from the moon and from the eyes, floating in the darkness between the trees. This was something he’d never mentioned before, not to me at least. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t blinking.
Then, suddenly, he turned to look directly at me. I made contact with purple eyes, and it felt like I froze. I couldn’t move. It felt like I could barely blink. Finally, though, between one heartbeat and the next he was gone.
Obviously I’d never heard of anything like this before. Ranboo’s eyes aren’t purple, they’re red and green, and I had never been frozen by making eye contact before. He didn’t like to look into anyone’s eyes, though. I wondered if that was why.
I hadn’t even seen him leaving.
This wasn’t the last time this happened, though. Over the next handful of weeks, I think it happened more times than I could even count on my fingers. Whether it was a purple glow backlighting dark trees, a figure standing in the distance, or me actively running into him, it felt like this strange version of my coworker was… everywhere, actually.
He never approached the van, though. He never spoke. He never even seemed to blink. Just that endless purple glow, like an enderman.
This started in August. It was October by the time I finally confronted him about it. He said he couldn’t remember any of it, but he seemed… scared. Sad. Disappointed. One of those three, or all of them. There was recognition in his eyes, eyes which didn’t freeze me like I thought they would. Like I knew they could. Like they had done before.
That was a month ago. All it took was a month for everything to go to absolute shit.
Like, yeah, it’s mostly my fault, I think. I’m the one that pushed it all to that point. I’m the one that let competition blind me yet again, I’m the one who put everything into motion. I’m the reason all that’s left is a crater instead of a van, again.
Ranboo, though. Oh, Ranboo. Ranbus. Ranster. Any other random nicknames I can make up on the spot, whatever, that isn’t the point. The point is that he’s dead.
He was acting weird again, that day. I was starting to notice a pattern, I thought. It wasn’t just any old day this happened on, rather it was days where we’d done something to sabotage the competition over with Quackity, who owns Las Nevadas, and Tubbo at Tubburger. Horrible name for a shop, I have to say. I should have kept mine as Paradise. Ranboo liked the pun.
He’d had an argument with Tubbo that day, I was pretty sure. I’d heard the yelling. Tubbo was trying to make the point that I hadn’t changed in all the time I was gone, that we weren’t alike at all, that I was just going to cause pain again. Ranboo pushed back. It was the loudest I’d ever heard him get. It felt good at the time, great even, but now thinking back on it…. Tubbo was right.
I think I watched him cry as he left. It felt good then. It doesn’t now.
I’m pretty sure Ranboo didn’t sleep that night. I saw him walking Las Nevadas in the dark, silent, never wavering from his path. No purple, though. I never saw any purple. Only Ranboo, in the dark, walking without stopping.
He showed up for work visibly tired the next day. Normally if that happened, like if he’d been mining all night again, he’d at least try to hide it. I think he knew that day was the big one, though. It was the one I’d been prepping for for months. I’d finally upstage Quackity, my rival, I thought. I didn’t think about Ranboo and Tubbo. Whatever the two of them had going on, I was sure they’d figure it out on their own. I did try and leave them out of it, though. Even made sure Ranboo had a way to avoid the fireworks when they happened. He didn’t want to see the whole, yknow, explosion. And the horse guts. I don’t even think I factored Tubbo in, though.
It was all going to plan that day. I’d lured in Quackity’s horse. I’d lured in Quackity. But then, when I went to raise the lights so he knew exactly how much he’d fucked up… Tubbo was there instead. Tubbo, on the pressure plate, dead if he so much as jumped.
It was Ranboo who saved him. Ranboo, not me. It was Ranboo who took his place, and it was Ranboo, in the end, who set off the explosion.
Nobody could have survived that. Nobody was meant to survive that. I’d set it up together with Tommy. I knew every inch of the redstone, every stick of the TNT that was lit, every connection. He couldn’t have lived.
But he looked me in the eyes, and he smiled, and he jumped anyway.
I never saw him again. I saw the death message, of course. I think everyone did. But I never saw Ranboo.
was right then that I realized I didn’t know how many lives he was on.
I think I killed him. I think I sent him to the same hell I myself had only barely escaped from. I think I looked into the eyes of my friend and killed him, I think I looked at the creature from the woods and barely saw the cofounder of my own burger van, I think at the end of it all I forgot people aren’t predictable and never will be.
There was something strange about Ranboo from the start, and he never mentioned it to me, never explained it. I don’t blame him. I was a bit of an asshole, wasn’t I? Assumed I knew him entirely, went on huge rambling tangents without letting him speak, forced him into the situation where he died… what didn’t I do?
He had secrets, like the rest of us. I don’t know what was happening in the woods, and now I never will. I don’t know why his eyes went the same purple as an enderman’s. I don’t know why he froze me when I looked at him. I don’t know why he didn’t move or speak, or why he vanished without walking away.
I don’t know why he died for Tubbo. He was never as predictable as I thought he was. He didn’t actually hold his cards out for the others to see. He kept them close to his chest, like I said I did. At the end of it all, though, I was wrong. I had us reversed.
[He pauses for a few seconds.]
ARCHIVIST
End of statement?
WILBUR
End of statement.
~-~-~
ARCHIVIST
It’s interesting to receive what’s almost a companion piece to Mr Beloved’s statement from all those months ago. I’m not sure if Mr Soot knew he’d done this. After all, I’m sure Mr Beloved wanted to keep his whole… issue a secret. Going off this statement, however, I’m sure it’s not just him who knows, and it most likely never was.
The rest of the story, while largely unrelated and useless in this little investigation of ours, does put a bit of a damper on our plans. After all, it’s a bit difficult to follow up with Mr Beloved if he happens to be dead.
End recording.
TOMMYINNIT
And you’re sure this one is going to work this time? Think something’s a bit wrong with your laptop there.
ARCHIVIST
This happens occasionally. The tape recorder usually takes care of cases where things like that happen.
TOMMY
But you’re sure, yeah?
ARCHIVIST
I’m not exactly new at this job anymore.
TOMMY
If you say so. So, we’re getting this done this time, right? Because I’m not repeating myself again after this one.
ARCHIVIST
After this you’ll be able to get on your way, I swear.
TOMMY
Great. Great, that’s just… great.
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Tommy Innit, regarding his dead friend and what happened afterwards. Statement recorded direct from subject 3rd December, 2021. Statement begins.
TOMMY
It’s never easy to run into your dead friend, yknow? I mean. Most people wouldn’t know. Most people wouldn’t have had it happen to them three fucking times. It’s kinda obvious, though, right?
The day Ranboo died, I… really wasn’t having the best of times. There was this prison break, and Dream escaped, and I just…. I ran into him again, after all these months, and I couldn’t do it. He tried to kill me again, tried to mess with me, tried to trap me in exile again, and I ended up running to Phil’s. Phil came with me back to my house, helped me start building walls, and that was when I first ran into him. Or, rather, he ran into me.
I thought he was playing a prank on me at first. Ranboo never really did that. We spent so long arguing when we first met that I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t try pranking me like that. I mean, it was mostly me who was arguing. I though he fuckin’... stole Tubbo from me while I was dead, like, who even does that?
He’s not a bad guy, though. I feel like I’ve gotten to know him all over again since that happened.
[quietly]
I think I’d probably call him one of my closest friends.
Either way, what happened was that he just walked up to me. I saw him run past me earlier that day, before everything with Dream happened. He wasn’t wearing armor, which was never actually normal for him. I’d always see him running around in full armor, no matter what he was doing, aside from a handful of times. And he looked like he had a sheet over his whole head, which was just absolutely fuckin’ strange of him. The first time I didn’t get a good look though. I didn’t notice the blood.
Pretty sure it was Phil that told me Ranboo had died in the escape. I don’t remember, exactly. A lot of that day’s events are just kinda fuzzy to me, maybe a bit blurry. However that whole thing happened, it all just kinda sank in when he just… walked up. He said hi. He was loud. Ranboo was never that loud.
He was wrong. That was just…. he was wrong. That wasn’t Ranboo. That was a shadow.
Ghostbur had been the same. That hadn’t been Wilbur, and he’d been open about that. He’d admitted it. Ranboo, though… he was the same guy. He was so much, fuckin’, louder and more open about things, but he was the same guy. Had the same speech patterns and everything. Didn’t even really change his name, except he said I could call him Boo as a ghost pun if I wanted. Said no, there, obviously. I’m not calling him Boo. He is literally already married.
He just wouldn’t shut up, too. He’d always just say the most self deprecating shit, just keep rambling on and on. It’d always be like, oh, I’m so happy I’m dead, it’s so peaceful, Tommy you should try it! and all that. Like I didn’t already try, unwillingly, back in prison. I hated it. I hated every second of it. It hurt.
And he hated his living self too, apparently? He’d literally ramble about how much he hated his own speeches, while giving a speech. Absolute fucking hypocrite. He’d call himself weak and a coward, just keep going on and on and on. He never shut up. Ever.
I had to act normal around him that whole time, and I hated it. Every single second of it, I hated it. I think it would have been worse if it had been just me and not me and Phil and then Eryn later as well. If I’d had to deal with him alone, I don’t think it would have been pretty.
He literally told us to stab him if he started singing or dancing or even humming. Something’s wrong with him. He said if that ever happened he’d vanish from all of existence. I’ve never seen a ghost with a fuckin’ kill switch before.
What Ranboo basically explained was that he got broken out of the prison too, then stabbed by Sam after the guy had tried to use him as… bait? A hostage? One of those, for Dream. I mean, literally how stupid can you be with this? Dream isn’t going to care about anyone. He’s going to care about himself. He’s going to run and make sure nobody can follow. He’s not even going to turn back if you threaten someone else. Dream’s never fuckin’ cared about anyone but himself, and he’s never cared about anything but the level of pain he causes people. He just-
ARCHIVIST
Very sorry to interrupt this absolutely wonderful train of though, but I fear you’ve gotten a bit off topic.
TOMMY
Yeah, I um... I think I have.
ARCHIVIST
That’s alright. Would you like to continue?
TOMMY
That’s what I’m here for, yeah? I’ve just gotta get this out.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually, like, properly talked about the whole Ranboo thing. It’s been nearly a week since all of this happened. I haven’t actually seen him since then, and I really have no clue where he could have gone. Like, I left him with Eryn, and then he left Eryn, and he was just gone. Not gone for good, I’m pretty sure at least, but still not anywhere I could just run into him like I used to.
Ranboo used to be everywhere. I used to see him, like, no matter what I did. Planning to take down Dream? Ranboo was there helping. My br- Wilbur’s just been revived? Ranboo’s there too, asking what the hell I just did. When I was exiled, he visited me. He was part of L’manberg’s cabinet at the same time. Even at the prison break, he was there, apparently on the inside.
Now he’s gone. It doesn’t feel right. I haven’t seen him at all.
I don’t know if him being gone feels better or worse than having him here, though. Because that’s not my friend. That’s a fuckin’ shadow of what he used to be. Bit of a wrongun, probably.
He said he didn’t even want to come back. He said he was happy. That’s what stuck out most. He said death made him happy. Not that he was suffering. Not that he was in pain. He said that death had finally made him happy and stress free, and that he didn’t want to be revived. I don’t think he ever stopped saying that. Barely even gave me room to fuckin’ breathe.
At one point he said he saw Ghostbur, and even Ghostbur was suffering in limbo. If there’s anyone who doesn’t deserve to suffer in there it would be Ghostbur. I don’t even know why Ranboo of all people would be the exception.
Maybe if I knew how it all worked I’d be able to say something. I don’t, though. I just know I got fucking tortured for two months, and Wilbur was abandoned for thirteen and a half years, and Ghostbur’s getting the same.
I don’t know why Ranboo isn’t. Maybe it’s because everyone loved him so much. Maybe it’s because he was the guy who planted alliums around my house when everyone else celebrated my death.
Maybe, just maybe, I might be a little bit jealous. He gets peace and I never did.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking something’s fuckin’ wrong with his ghost, though. Just the painted on eyes on his sheet, I can barely even look at them. It feels weird, man! Like if I do it for too long I’m just gonna freeze on the spot! They don’t move, they don’t blink, it’s downright eerie. They just stare, blankly. There’s no feeling in them!
I can’t even see his face anymore. It’s all blocked. Just those eyes…
[he makes a noise of disgust]
Not to mention the fact that he literally never stops bleeding! It gets everywhere! Like, alright, how am I supposed to get literal neon green blood out of wood walls? I’m not! It doesn’t come out! It’s stuck there! Ruining my house, once again, and I put work into this one, you hear?
But I just… I dunno, honestly. It’s nice to know he isn’t gone, but at this point he might as well be. At least Ghostbur didn’t try and be the same guy he’d always been, and I got used to him as his own person eventually, no matter how wrong it felt.
Ranboo, though…. I’m gonna miss him, I think. It’s not like Dream’s here to bring him back.
[deep sigh, like a weight off his chest]
I think that’s everything.
ARCHIVIST
Alright, then. Thank you for… all that.
Statement ends.
~-~-~
ARCHIVIST
Honestly, I’m not quite sure how we keep getting statements to add to the Beloved file. The Soot statement from last month reported that he had already died, and yet here he’s died all over again, and in a completely different way. Strange, to be honest, that such a simple thing as a death report could be so disputed.
There are details here that match up with the others. Both Mr Innit and Mr Soot mention being paralyzed by eye contact, even if this time it wasn’t expressly stated. Both imply a high level of self sacrificial behavior as well.
Referencing this with the original statement from Mr Beloved as well, regarding what he said about death especially, it’s slightly worrisome that a version of him would come back this twisted from the norm. However, since he does currently exist in one form or another, that means that at some point in the future we may finally be able to complete the follow up from the Soot statement. We’d just have to find him, or he’d have to find us.
Either way, this statement should be added to the Beloved file. I’ll have one of the assistants take care of it, and this time it better not be misfiled or I’ll-
[clears throat]
I’ll ignore the improper formatting and level of vulgarity in this case. Sometimes it’s simply more important to gather information.
End recording.