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When Mumbo first dreams, it’s a normal night on the Hermitcraft server.
He is in bed - as one tends to be when they’re dreaming - with his husband curled into his side. There is nothing to say that the dream is anything but normal, no indications that it could ever be anything more than it seems.
It goes like this: he is standing next to a tower of boats overshadowed by a giant, upside-down ship, both of which hover over a hole that he is - for some reason - certain leads to the void. The world is being pulled apart around him - dirt and gravel and blackstone and copper, all dragged upwards by some force that Mumbo can’t see. It’s as though everything has suddenly become magnetic, drawn up into the sky by a giant lure disguised in the clouds.
He feels a little magnetic too, like he ought to be following everything else.
In the dream, Mumbo looks over his shoulder slowly enough for it to feel like the moment should carry more weight than it does - like there should be some realisation dawning over him, something so strong and abhorrent that it knocks him off his feet.
Instead, Mumbo simply feels a mild sense of interest as his eyes graze over a giant mossy mountain, covered in vines and bamboo and specklings of cute houses. It’s colourful. It’s pretty.
He can’t make himself stop to look at it though, no matter how drawn to it he feels, as his dream-self keeps turning, eyes raising towards the dark, starry sky. It’s bright enough to hurt his eyes, bright enough to make Mumbo wonder how it’s managing to hurt his eyes. It’s nighttime, isn’t it?
Then, he sees the moon - big and imposing and terrifying and awful and gorgeous–
He wakes up only a moment later.
—
He tells Grian about his dream, naturally.
It’s while he’s helping the avian bathe, the pair of them enjoying a slow, warm moment together. His husband concludes that it was simply one of those weird, nonsensical scenarios that your brain makes up when you’re stressed, nothing to be dwelled over, and then demands that Mumbo get back to threading his fingers through soapy hair.
He doesn’t say anything then – chuckling a little distantly and getting back to work until his lover is nothing but a gooey puddle of purrs and chirps – but letting the events of the dream go feels… wrong.
The sort of wrongness that creeps up your spine; that has you peering over your shoulder and expecting someone to be there. It’s like an insect, all sprawling black with too many legs; creeping, scratching, seeing. It’s unavoidable and consuming, like the Void is licking at his heels as he runs away from something truly terrible.
He can’t forget about it.
Gods, how he wishes he could.
—
The next time that Mumbo dreams, it’s something closer than it was before. Like the scenarios that his brain is making up are… nearing.
He wakes up, after another encounter with a moon that is far too big to be anything other than his own imagination, and Mumbo can’t help but dwell.
It’s a little more off-putting than the previous one was, because, this time, he recognises Boatem for what it is – a Boatem pole, a Boatem hole, and five completed megabases that aren’t anything more than plans at the moment.
He had thought it was a little strange, after the first time, that his unconscious mind had come up with the Boatem hole before Grian had suggested the idea, but he brushed it off as the man taking inspiration from the bare bones description he had given of the first dream.
This time, he couldn’t help but think that it is a little strange that the bases he is seeing are ones that only exist as plans that his friends have shown him. It feels harder to brush off, for some reason. It feels more eerie than it did before.
He’s certain that the Boatem featured in this second dream looks identical to how it did in the first, but- well, he hadn’t yet seen the plans before his first dream took place.
Maybe he’s misremembering it, and his brain is simply filling in the blanks now that he knows what his basemates are going for this season. Maybe, the first time, they looked totally different to how they do now.
Yeah, that’s probably it.
It’s probably nothing.
—
It feels a lot less like nothing when he and Grian are stood in the centre of the village at dusk, chatting as it steadily turns to night.
It feels a lot less like nothing when Grian raises his eyes to the sky and makes a puzzled noise, before asking, “Is the moon big?”
In that moment, the redstoner honestly can’t tell. The pair of them debate it for a few minutes, a nervous back-and-forth as they try to recall the size of the moon on a normal night. Maybe their banter is more lighthearted than it should be, interspersed with chuckles and casual touches, but the easy conversation doesn’t let Mumbo ignore the growing pit in his stomach.
Something is wrong, but- but it seems so absurd to say that the moon is growing. It seems insane to claim that he predicted it was going to happen. It’s daft, it’s so ridiculously stupid that he can’t even bring himself to really ponder it, shaking his head frantically as if banishing the thoughts.
Grian squeezes his hand and makes a joke, something casual and inane, and Mumbo decides then and there that it’s fine. It’s nothing.
The moon isn’t getting bigger, and, even if it was, Mumbo has certainly never seen anything like it before. It’s just a… trick of the light. They’re just seeing things, making something out of nothing.
Mumbo squeezes back, and hopes that this will be the end of it.
—
It’s not.
The dreams don’t stop, they don’t slow. They remain as recurring and terrifying snapshots of panic and destruction that replay in his mind again and again whenever he closes his eyes.
He watches his friends run from the overhanging moon, he watches their hard work as it’s ripped to shreds, he watches as they make plans to leave, one by one.
Many of the dreams are the same now, after so long, and it’s almost become a little uneventful. Strange still, but not unexplainable- the part of his mind that denies every weird coincidence argues that he’s simply thinking about the looming moon too much, so it’s manifesting in his dreams. It makes sense; far more than his justifications did when the dreams first started.
They aren’t all identical though, and they aren’t all explained by stress. Sometimes he sees a rocket, hanging upside-down above the Boatem hole. Sometimes he sees Scar building a railway through the village and using it to transport animals into a broad, metal capsule. Sometimes, he sees the Hermits abandoning each other; scrambling frantically for their own safety as the moon comes crashing down.
Those ones always shake him the most, sending him springing up in bed with his pulse pounding in his ears and his heart breaking in his chest. He knows that it’s not real, because the Hermits wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t ever sacrifice another Hermit to keep themselves safe.
But… but the dreams- they show everyone, from all across the server, building their own ways out. They hoard their own exit strategies like letting anyone else in on their plans will make them ineffective; like allowing someone else to come with them will lead to their own demise.
They always look tired, so stressed and paranoid that they’re probably barely thinking anymore, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. Maybe it’s a little unfair of Mumbo to expect that the others would sacrifice their own safety to protect their friends, but… he can’t ignore the little voice in the back of his mind that hopes that, no matter what, the Hermits will always be there for each other. So, seeing them like that in those dreams, scattering like rats in the face of an exterminator- it hurts.
He tries to ignore it, tries to ignore the way that everyone seems tense nowadays; the way that the moon grows and grows, hanging imposingly in the night sky.
Mumbo doesn’t want to acknowledge it – he’s tried so hard to refuse the change, to ignore the recurring dreams of destruction and fire and chaos – but the difference is obvious now; unavoidably unignorable. He pretends that it isn’t happening, but the evidence is right there, even as he refuses to acknowledge it.
He just- doesn’t know what to do about the moon, the dreams, the constantly nagging worries and fears. He doesn’t know what to do about the leaves and dirt and pebbles that start to float in the corners of his eyes, tugged towards the giant in the sky.
He tries to talk to his husband, but Grian has been so stressed with managing the businesses within Boatem, with the progress of his own base and the feud with the Big Eyes. Mumbo knows that he tries to listen and be supportive, but he’s got far too much on his plate to really process what the redstoner is trying to hint at: that the dream he had so many months ago was an exact mirror of what is happening now.
It’s an insane thing to claim anyway, so- maybe Mumbo should be grateful that Grian isn’t really listening when he starts to steer the conversation towards his own worries. Maybe he should be grateful that he isn’t telling him the things that might make the builder worry about just how much the whole moon thing is getting to him. Maybe he should be grateful, and he should move on; ignoring the implications of having seen such images in his sleep. Maybe he should just carry on with his days, working on his projects and properly finishing the back of his base.
It might be a good idea; healthier than lingering on all of the confusion connections and terrifying implications. Healthier than continuing to just flat-out refuse to acknowledge all of the signs around him.
Instead, Mumbo forms a cult.
He calls it the Mooners, takes an oath to stop sleeping and prattles on about appeasing Gods and lunar neighbours whenever one of the other Hermits ask. He manages to get Grian in on it (though he suspects that’s mostly so that the avian has an excuse to work more and continue with his own moon studies), and Scar follows shortly after.
And- maybe he’s trying to distract himself. Maybe he’s just trying to cope, in some weird, spoon-y way.
It hardly matters, really. After all, the Mooners are a good reason for him to throw himself into his work! Not being able to sleep frees up a good chunk of his schedule, and the redstoner certainly uses it to the best of his ability. He works and works and barely comes up to breathe, it feels like he’s underwater for days at a time, wearing blinders that prevent him from looking away for a single moment.
It means that he doesn’t dream anymore, either.
—
The Hermits meet up to talk about the moon.
Everyone agrees to be responsible for their own escape plans, sharing tearful goodbyes as the moon shakes the earth beneath their feet. This may be the last time that many of them see each other, and they all know it.
Eventually though, they have to leave. Their time is undeniably limited, and Mumbo wants to cry as Scar proposes a giant rocket over the Boatem hole as their escape method.
It will be built upside down, Mumbo knows without the other man saying a single word. He wants all of their diamonds in exchange for his work, Mumbo accepts before the man even asks.
He’s tired, and the moon is big. There is no point in denying it anymore, as the members of Boatem – Mumbo included – all renounce their membership of the Mooners.
The moon is big, and it watches them as they empty out their hourglasses, forfeiting all of their wealth to the notorious conman who says that he will save them. Mumbo knows that he will; he can’t bring himself to doubt Scar for a second.
The elf says that he’ll have it done by the end of the week, then takes off towards his base to get started. Impulse gives a wavering smile and concludes that they all better get to work, if they want to get their projects done before the end of the season.
Mumbo knows that they will.
—
Strangely, the last dream that Mumbo has is insignificant. So insignificant, in fact, that he honestly can’t recall it at all.
It was likely before he started the Mooners, a dream so benign and alike to all of the others that it fades into just that: one of the others. One of the unimportant ones, one of the repetitive ones, one of the ones that he has grown so used to that they don’t faze him anymore.
And really, that’s probably the most important part of that dream: that he has it, and he doesn’t know at the time that it will be his last.
The last time that Mumbo sleeps is a whole different matter though, because the last time that Mumbo sleeps, he doesn’t dream at all.
This fact is far more important than the contents of the last dream he has, because the last time that Mumbo made it through a night without some sort of prophesying stress-dream was before it all. Before the moon, before the earthquakes and the destruction, before the escape plans.
By now, Mumbo has been dreaming of the moon every night for as long as he can remember.
It’s a strange lull, to close his eyes and see nothing but darkness, and he finds that he almost prefers the dreams of destruction to the cold nothingness of that last night. He almost wishes that he was watching everything collapse around him, that he was seeing as his friends abandoned their home one by one.
The new desolation shakes him so badly that he finds himself awoken by nothing after only a few hours. He sits up in bed, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he shakes; quiet weeping the only sound in the peaceful night air.
He is alone. Grian is out working, or studying, or whatever other thing he has found to occupy his time. They’ve not spent long in each other’s company in the last few weeks, too caught up in the blur of looming destruction.
Hence, when Mumbo wakes up with tears on his cheeks, he is alone.
Their lunar neighbour is now so close to the Hermitcraft world that every building has holes in it, and Mumbo finds himself looking up slowly to meet the eyes of the moon as it peers through the gaps and watches over him.
The ever-seeing gaze upon him feels gentle, as though the moon is sweeping its long, ghostly fingers through the gaps in the ceiling and nestling Mumbo comfortingly in its arms. He shudders under the phantom touch, holding himself tighter as the moon softly brushes the tears from his eyes, cradling his cheek with a gentle touch.
It feels as though everything should be glazed in darkness, like the nighttime should be layering shadows in every corner of his room, but the silver light of the moon filters glaringly through its own destruction and coats everything in a soft glow.
It’s a strange peace, one so uncomfortable that Mumbo finds himself jumping out of bed and rushing down the stairs in his pyjamas. He throws open the door of the starter base that his husband built at the start of the season, ignorant to the way that the dewy grass soaks through his socks as he sprints through the foliage that Pearl has decorated their little village with.
He skids to a halt before the Boatem hole, under the shadow of a giant, upside-down ship, and pauses.
Slowly, slowly, his eyes pass over the Boatem hole, then the grass and dirt of Boatem village itself. He watches as the world is pulled apart around him, greens and browns and yellows being ripped from where they are rooted and tugged helplessly into the sky. He follows the trail of destruction – from Scar’s copper to Pearl’s stone to Grian’s moss to his own oak – until he is looking at Impulse’s looming factory; at the stream of blackstone being pulled from its walls.
His heart is in his throat, his breath stuttering in his lungs, as it hits him. Mumbo looks slowly over his shoulder, eyes stiltedly grazing along his own base as he looks towards the moon, towering and imminent.
It dawns on him, then, that this is the moment from that very first dream.
This is the moment that it all began.
This is the moment that it all ends.
—
Everything goes quickly, after that.
The members of the Boatem village board Scar’s spaceship in matching, colour-coordinated spacesuits, each of them crowding into a corner of the ship. The hatches they stand on open simultaneously, and they fall together past the Boatem hole, and into the void.
Mumbo watches the moon with a clenched jaw as they float downwards, holding Grian’s hand tightly as it seems to roar at their exit, before they pass the precipice of the hole and the whole world falls silent.
They are out of the moon’s sight now, and after that, there is nothing but void.
Mumbo isn’t sure how they survive in that place, stranded but together, and he isn’t too sure that he wants to find out.
All that he knows is that there is a permanent sense of guilt that has settled in the pit of his stomach, bubbling and growling and keeping his mouth closed as the five of them float there. He doesn’t join in with the others’ absentminded chit-chat; he doesn’t try to add to their forced banter as they float aimlessly.
All he can think about is that he knew this was coming. He could have said something earlier, if he wasn’t so damn– stubborn. If he wasn’t so determined to ignore that something was wrong.
It’s his fault, and everyone is paying the price.
He doesn’t know if they’ll ever escape this place, trapped in the void that they have been teasing with their presence for almost a year now. He doesn’t know if the rest of the Hermits have survived.
He exhales a shuddering breath, letting go of Pearl’s and Grian’s hands as he closes his eyes.
He knows that they will not let him get separated from them - no matter how much he might deserve to be alone in this place - but it doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that Mumbo closes his eyes, and he drifts off to sleep in the freezing embrace of the empty void.
He doesn’t dream, and he isn’t certain if that’s a good thing or not.