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The garden was a beautiful place, filled with flowers of all types. Endless rows of tulips, lilies, buttercups, roses, any and all flowers in existence seemed to thrive there. Fountains and hedges decorated the edges, closing it all in. Nicely kept white stone pathways weaved through it all, making the garden easier to traverse.
The sky there was always blue, with only ever minimal amounts of clouds in sight. It was seemingly a miracle that nothing ever dried up or seemed to have a need to be watered. It was a known fact that it hadn’t even so much as gotten cloudy, let alone rained, in the garden in at least thirty years.
Visitors came from far and wide to see the garden. They were always blown away by its endless beauty. People would stay there as long as possible, trying to make the perfect weather and endless rows of flowers last as long as possible. Everyone always said that the garden had a certain spark to it that attracted it’s visitors.
The garden had long ago lost its spark to Tommy though.
He was the reason that visitors weren’t allowed to come anymore. He was the reason why they’d built tall, black gates around the garden and had shut them, presumably for forever, fifteen years ago.
Tommy didn’t know why he’d caused all of that, just that everyone had always told him that this was his fault. That it was because of him that nobody ever got to enjoy the beauty of this place anymore.
———
It was sunny, just as it always was, as he walked down the paths in the garden. Tall, bright flowers brushed against his side but Tommy didn’t care.
It was hard to care once you were isolated for so long.
The last time he’d seen another person was on his twelfth birthday, almost four years ago now. It had been Dream, the person who owned the garden, telling Tommy that he was going away for awhile, and he’d be back soon.
Dream had gone on trips many times before then, so Tommy hadn’t thought much of it at the time. But Tommy regretted that now.
It was becoming increasingly obvious as the years passed that Dream wasn’t coming back.
Nobody was coming back. Not Punz, George, or Sapnap. Nobody was ever going to return.
Tommy sometimes thought about leaving. He considered trying to pick the lock on the gate or climb the high, black fences. He even considered flying, once, before he remembered that he’d never learned to fly. He had always been banned from even trying.
That was another thing. Tommy had always been aware he was different. He had always gravitated more towards flowers and plants than the average person. He’d never really needed to eat anything, only having to stay around flowers for long periods of time to maintain his health.
On top of all of that, he had wings. Bright red, orange, and black wings sprouting from his back, looking almost exactly like the wings of a butterfly.
When he was younger, he had thought it was a good thing to be so unique, to stand from a crowd. But as he got older he realized that the differences he had from most other people were a curse.
Tommy was a hybrid, someone cast out from society from the moment he’d been born.
Dream had always told him he was lucky that the garden owner had found Tommy, abandoned as a baby in a dirty alleyway, on the verge of death. Tommy assumed that he should be thankful, but it was hard to be when it always felt like he was missing something. He just didn’t know what it was that he was missing.
Sometimes, it felt like there was this empty pit in his chest. Like he’d been stabbed or shot. Like something incredibly important was missing. He’d lost count of how many times the feeling had gotten so bad that he’d fallen to his knees, crying and screaming, not knowing why he even felt so empty in the first place.
Tommy sighed, pushing those thoughts away. Today was his birthday. Even if he was alone, he was going to attempt to celebrate.
He walked around the garden, picking each of the most beautiful flowers he could find and putting them together into a massive bouquet.
When he deemed his work good enough, Tommy placed the bouquet next the other three, from previous years, all of which were rotting now, practically faded entirely into nothing but dust.
“Happy birthday.” Tommy whispered, despite knowing that nobody was around to listen.
The hole in his chest seemed to grow even bigger the longer he sat in front of the gate. Tears collected in his eyes.
He didn’t know why Dream left him behind. He didn’t know why everyone had left him here. He didn’t know why he couldn’t leave.
Tommy felt like he didn’t know anything at all.
For the first time in thirty years, dark clouds began to gather on the horizon. The flowers began to wilt, finally showing their true age. It was like a veil had been lifted. Like the fog had finally cleared after a long spring morning.
Right as the first tears began to trail down Tommy’s cheeks, the world became blurred by an intense downpour. Thunder echoed and cracked overhead.
Tommy let the rain soak him. He let his clothes get drenched and his wings droop with the weight of the droplets. He watched each of the bouquets be swept away by quick streams of water. He let the flowers in the garden wilt and crumble, quickly being swept away by the water invading their soil.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. He didn’t know how long he watched the rain fall. Something eventually broke the silence, though it wasn’t what Tommy had expected.
“Are you alright?” An unfamiliar voice said from somewhere behind him.
Tommy practically choked on his own breath, turning around as fast as he physically could from where he sat.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle now, allowing Tommy to easily see the person who had somehow entered the garden.
The stranger was tall, almost to a ridiculous extent. He had curly brown hair that fell just past his warm brown eyes. He was wearing a, now drenched, fluffy yellow sweater. But what really caught Tommy’s eye was the fragile wings attached to the stranger’s back. The wings were a brilliant bright blue with black on the edges. Somehow, he seemed to be like Tommy.
The stranger took a step closer, drawing Tommy back to reality. “My name is Wilbur.” The stranger- Wilbur, said gently. “What’s your name?”
“I-I’m Tommy.” He answered, his voice cracking and breaking at the two simple words. “How did you get here? Wh-Why are you here?”
Wilbur took sat down on the drenched, cracked stone pathway. Tommy could help but flinch back a bit, shocked by the sudden movement. If Wilbur saw the way Tommy began to curl in on himself, he didn’t comment.
“I’m here to help you.” Wilbur replied, only answering one of Tommy’s questions. “How long have you been here?”
Tommy hesitated. He didn’t know anything about Wilbur, other than his name and that he was apparently ‘here to help’. Dream had told Tommy never to interact with outsiders. But Dream had been gone for years. He had abandoned Tommy, just like his parents did. The rules weren’t important anymore.
“As long as I can remember.” Tommy choked out, his response hardly audible.
Wilbur looked crestfallen at that, like the fact that Tommy had been trapped here for so long was actually important to him. “I’m sorry that you’ve been stuck here for so long.” Wilbur replied. “If you want, I can get you out of here. You can leave.”
Tommy shook his head, despite the large part of him screaming to accept the offer. “I’m not allowed to leave. Dre- He said it isn’t even possible for me to go anywhere.” He whispered, the words feeling heavy in his mouth.
“You’re allowed to leave, Tommy. Nobody is going to stop you and there isn’t anything keeping you here, not anymore. Phil, my dad, broke the magical barrier surrounding this place, which is what allowed me to enter in the first place.” Wilbur responded softly, a comforting note in his voice. “It wouldn’t be good for you to stay here, especially since all the preservation and illusion spells have been broken too.”
“What illusion spells?” Tommy asked, eyes widening as he began to realize that it might’ve not just been the rain that had degraded the garden so quickly.
Wilbur motioned to the now wilting flowers and once-pristine stone pathways. “The ones that kept this place looking perfect. They were the only thing keeping anyone from seeing how much this place had fallen apart.”
“Oh.” Tommy choked out, squeezing his eyes shut to keep himself from seeing how different the garden looked now. He didn’t know if he’d even recognize it anymore.
“You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to. If you’re ready, we can just leave now.” Wilbur said softly. “I can take you somewhere safe. Somewhere none of the people from this garden could ever find or hurt you.”
Tommy shivered at the mention of the others. He couldn’t help but remember the way Dream used to scream at him, pulling at Tommy’s fragile wings and pinning him to the ground like a bug. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the way Punz would scrutinize Tommy, eyes narrowed and always lingering for far too long on the bruises covering his beaten body.
He remembered how Sapnap used to laugh while Dream used Tommy as his punching bag, or how George always fell asleep whenever Tommy needed his help.
He wondered if Dream really had saved him. It almost seemed like he’d dragged Tommy into an even worse fate than he’d had to begin with.
The bad always outweighed the good when it had come to them.
For the first time in a long time, Tommy considered breaking the rules. Wilbur was right, nobody could punish him for it anymore.
“Please. Please take me there.” Tommy whispered, and with those words, his entire life would change.
———
The sky was blue, clouds dotting the horizon. It wasn’t always this bright everyday, not anymore, but Tommy found that he liked things better that way.
Birds chirped, their songs no longer a broken illusion. The sounds were real, no amount of magic fabricating them. The flowers were bright, stretching towards the sky. Their colors weren’t fake anymore either.
It had been four months since Tommy had left the garden. Four months since the rain had poured down on three deteriorating bouquets, marking the end of a cruel and lonely existence.
Today he was going to fly. He was going to known what it felt like to soar, what it really felt like to be free.
“Are you ready, mate?” Phil asked from where he stood beside Tommy on the roof of their house, his bright green butterfly wings twitching.
Tommy nodded, trying his best not to look down. His own butterfly wings twitching too, betraying his nervousness.
“Just go whenever you’re ready.” Techno reassured him, from where he sat at the edge of the roof. He was the only person in their family who didn’t have wings, but he never seemed to mind. He was also Wilbur’s brother.
Tommy waited for a few more seconds before he took a deep breath and jumped.
His wings immediately started fluttering, keeping him airborne. It felt amazing. It felt freeing. It felt better than anything had ever felt before.
He looked behind him to see that Phil and Wilbur had joined him in the air, and Techno was watching contently from the roof.
In that moment, Tommy felt the missing part of himself, the gaping hole in his chest, finally be filled.
Tommy was home.