Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Kel woke up, the first thing he did was take in as large a breath as he could, sit up, and start to count to ten.

One.

That wasn't real.

Two.

Weird as hell, completely different to any other nightmare he'd ever had, but it wasn't real.

Three.

That wasn't Sunny, that wasn't Aubrey or Hero, and that wasn't real.

Four.

Hero and Aubrey were safely in bed in this room, and Sunny was hours away, adjusting to some big city.

Five.

(And Kel had no reason to care about the wellbeing of a person who'd killed someone.)

But before he could get to six, the lights in the room flicked on.

Aubrey was standing up from her place on the floor, hand on the light switch, her hair a mess and her breathing heavy.

Hero was sitting straight up in his bed, looking just as shocked.

All of them seemed to be glancing between each other, an unspoken, panicked conversation, where the only thing said was 'did you see it too?' Over and over and over again.

They did.

They all saw it.

Sunny, lying on the strange, rubbery floor, a knife buried deep in his chest.

He hadn't even looked scared. Or upset, even. He'd looked like that had been any other day for him.

Kel was shaking.

They all were.

The silent conversation ended.

There was a long pause, during which Kel and Hero each took a deep, shaky breath.

Then, Aubrey spoke.

"...So." Her voice shook.

"Yeah." Kel replied.

Another pause, and Aubrey left the room.

The brothers glanced at each other.

"Was that... Did you- Was there-" Hero tried to start.

"No. Didn't feel weird. Normal dream, just... Uh... What's the word?"

"Lucid. And- Well- ...Magic? I guess?."

"...Yeah." They looked away from each other.

After a long pause, Hero sighed, "We should check on Aubrey."

Kel nodded, and they started getting up and out of the room. Kel didn't know what to expect. He just hoped she wouldn't commit any major crimes in her efforts to deal with... Whatever just happened.

When they got downstairs, all they found was Aubrey, standing by the phone, waiting for them.

Oh. Right. The phone.

They were supposed to call Basil's house, so that Basil could call Sunny, so that they could tell if any of that had really happened.

But couldn't they tell already? If dream-Hero and dream-Aubrey had actually been real, why wouldn't dream-Sunny have been? Then again, there were two dream-Sunnys. And they'd both seemed to have much more of an idea of what that place was than anyone else did.

Okay. Yeah. They needed to call.

Once Hero and Kel were down the stairs, Aubrey turned, and pushed several buttons.

It rang once, twice, three times. Dial tone.

Aubrey, looking suddenly ready to fly fully off the handle and potentially throw their phone across the room, punched in the numbers again, this time violently.

It rang once, twice. Clicked.

Thank god. Kel thought he might've had to stop her from smashing the thing against the wall.

Then again, that would've been a nice distraction from the still-present image of his oldest friend, bleeding out with no blood.

"Hello? Th-This is Basil?"

Kel shook his head. Cleared away the picture.

Focus on the phone call.

-----

Sunny woke up.

What the hell was all that?

No. Stop. Don't worry about that right now, the phone is going to ring at any second, and Sunny couldn't answer it himself if he wanted to keep his presence back in town a secret. Which he very much did.

He untangled himself from the blankets, and rushed to Basil's bed, prepared to poke him awake if need be, but...

But Basil was awake.

He'd woken up at the exact same time as Sunny had, and was giving him a confused look, probably having just realized the same thing.

Oh.

Oh no.

If Basil woke up at the same time as Sunny, then he'd probably been woken up by the Stab function. He was in Headspace, too, just not Neighbor's Room.

Oh, god.

Derailed from his original topic of 'you're going to get a call in like five minutes', Sunny asked, "Did you have a weird dream? It's important."

"Uhm. Y-Yes? It was about that little shoe house you drew. Why is it im-Important?"

Sunny slumped.

He was kneeling on the floor right by Basil's bed, and his face was smushed uncomfortably into the sheets.

This was not good.

"S-Sunny? Are you okay? Why was that important?"

Headspace was in no way safe for real people, how was he supposed to deal with this?

The only reason it was safe for his Headspace friends to exist was that Omori could wipe their memories if anything too bad happened. They couldn't have that safeguard for real people.

What will happen when they get into a fight they can't win? If they become Toast? Do they become Toast? Or do they just black out until they choose to persevere, like Omori? Or do they Refuse to Succumb like Omori?

"Sunny!? Are y-you okay? Do I n-need to wake Polly up!?"

Sunny glanced up at his best friend, who was looking terribly nervous. He sent him a thumbs up, to ease the worry, and then went back to his own worrying.

"Okay? Y-You're alright, then?"

What if one of them meets someone who knows too many secrets? What if they meet Branch Coral, and, because they're more real than even Omori, are given the same offer as he always is?

The phone started ringing.

Basil sat there, not moving, for much too long. Sunny gestured vaguely toward the living room, unable to get his point across any clearer.

Basil stayed still, biting his lip, undecided, until the noise stopped

What if they wind up somewhere too real, too close to Sunny's reality? The Lost Library, the Barn? Deeper Well, or - God forbid - The Abyss?

The phone started ringing again. This time, Basil left, flipping on the lights for Sunny as he went.

Oh, lord, what if they meet Abbi? What will they think of him then? If they find out what he did to her?

What if they manage to get to Black Space?

That thought was too much.

Sunny made a mad dash for his sketchbook.

He needed to do something, he needed to- To keep them somewhere? Away from anything dangerous, away from Headspace's many, many threats.

But there wasn't anyplace that was secluded enough, not unless it was somewhere the Truth was stored and that was not an option.

So, he needed to make a place.

No, multiple places. One for everyone. They'd fight if they were together. And then, because teamwork, they'd get out, if they were together.

So, pencils in hand, Sunny flipped to the back of the book, and started sketching out some little diagrams.

The action calmed him, just enough to think properly.

He fell, easily, back into the familiar motions of building Headspace.

-----

Basil was... More than worried.

Should he have left Sunny alone like that? He'd seemed really freaked out, but he'd also seemed insistent on Basil answering the phone, so...

And what was up with asking about his dream?

And what was up with the dream in the first place?

He took a breath.

He picked up the phone. No going back now.

There was silence on the other end, for a moment. He had to open, then.

"Hello? Th-This is Basil?"

More quiet.

He looked at the clock above the stove. 1:43 AM. He'd only been asleep for a couple of hours, but it only felt like maybe thirty minutes. Besides that, who would be calling this late? Or- Early?

A prank call? A weird prank call. Why just stay silent?

Then, quietly, he heard; "God, how the hell do I even start?"

Oh.

He knew that voice.

"...Aubrey?" Why would she be calling? She'd seemed pretty hell-bent on hating him forever earlier today.

"...Yeah. I'm not happy I'm calling you either."

"Wh- No! No that's not-"

"Shut up- We have some shit to talk to Sunny about- And we don't have his new number."

Oh. Okay.

That must be why Sunny wanted him to pick up so much. He must've known that they were going to call.

(How could he possibly have known that?)

"Al-Alright. Um. I'll just- Go grab some paper? To write it down?"

The only response was an impatient-sounding exhale. Okay then.

Basil grabbed an old, unused composition book with a blue, striped cover, left over from a time he accidentally bought one too many while back-to-school shopping. It was stored in a little cupboard under one of the bookshelves, with the rest of his old school supplies.

Then, he rushed to the kitchen junk drawer for a pencil, when the distinct sound of a foot tapping impatiently came over the phone.

Finally, he sat by the phone, flipped the notebooks cover open, and held the pencil at the ready. It took him longer than he'd like to admit to realize he would need to speak for Aubrey to know he was back.

"Uh. I'm... Back?"

"Finally."

He winced. It was not fun to have Aubrey be annoyed with him. Not after everything.

He stayed silent until she continued.

"You- ugh." She sighed, and Basil was getting increasingly uncomfortable. "I shouldn't have to explain this to you."

There was a long pause, and Basil realized she wanted a response.

"Oh. Well. You don't... Have to?"

"God- Yes. I do. Look- I, and Hero, and Kel, and apparently Sunny, all had a weird dream last night."

"...Oh ...Kay?" Basil was a little curious as to how she could possibly know what Sunny had dreamt about, given that they hadn't spoken since the hospital.

"The same weird dream."

Oh. Well.

That made Sunny's concern over his dreams make a lot more sense.

"Oh."

"Yeah. And he seemed to know a lot more than we did. He had a name for where we were and everything."

"Oh."

That was impossible.

Like literally, physically impossible. How did four people, who weren't even near each other, all have the same dream?

And how was his own related?

"So we have to talk to him."

"Right! Right. ...W-What... Did you? Want to ask?"

Basil cringed. His voice always came out so weak. So unsure.

(Especially when he was talking to her.)

-----

Eventually, after a long talk, during which Basil discovered that Kel and Hero were also present, and Aubrey had called from their house, Basil had a list of questions. None of them made sense to him. When he'd asked, Aubrey had paused, and given some vague statement about not having to explain anything to him.

Which, yeah, fair. But it really only gave off the impression of her not knowing how to answer.

The questions, written neatly on the first page of the composition book, went as follows.

-What was with the "stab thing"?
-Smaller, maybe evil Sunny (??)
-What was that place?
-What the hell (in general)

The questions had largely been paraphrased, as Aubrey's whisper-shouted rant about the tiny, glaring version of Sunny hadn't exactly made much sense.

That last one had only come about when the other three had already been written down.

There'd been a pause, and Basil had awkwardly asked if there was anything else they needed before he hung up to 'call' Sunny. Aubrey, somehow offended by this, had spit out; "Yeah- Ask him what the hell in general! He wouldn't answer when I asked him directly, but maybe he'll listen to his boyfriend." Before the line went dead with a click.

Basil... Was pretty sure she didn't mean that. Not certain. He couldn't be certain of anything with her. But she wasn't the type to make fun of someone for... That kind of thing. He was pretty sure she'd go for literally anything else first.

Besides, even if she did really make fun of him for that, she'd be wrong.

He took a breath. Move on.

Notebook clutched close to his chest, Basil went back into his room to talk to his best friend.

-----

Sunny was brainstorming.

If he wasn't so stressed, it might've been fun.

He could hear Basil stuttering in the other room, and could barely make out Aubrey's whisper-shouting if he really tried. Mostly, he could hear the scratch of his pencil on paper.

Everyone needed somewhere to go. He was working on Basil's right now. It was easiest. A sprawling garden, fun to walk around in, to take in all the sights, with a central, large tree to sit under, for relaxation.

A bookshelf nearby, to dodge any boredom. Make the tree more interesting to look at. How? Add flowers in between the leaves. What kind of lighting? Basil had always enjoyed a nice sunrise. What else, what else? A section for water-plants. Lily pads and such. Enclosed in a bright, geometrically patterned glass dome. What else, what else-?

Sunny blinked.

He pulled the sketchbook away from his face.

Looked at it.

Hm.

It was. Disjointed. To say the least.

Vague, half-finished scribbles of half-finished ideas. Short notes scattered all around.

This would take some work.

Sunny heard footsteps. Basil was coming back. He flipped the sketchbook over. It wouldn't do for him to see it before it was ready.

Basil knocked, which was strange, considering it was his room. Still, Sunny hummed a short affirmative noise, and his best friend came in.

"Hey, are you- Are you doing okay?"

Sunny, from his place on the floor surrounded by art supplies during what must've been the middle of the night, gave a rather unconvincing thumbs up.

"A-Alright, then. Um, I've been, a..." Basil held up two fingers pinched almost together, "A... Little? Caught up? But- Um. Aubrey and them have-" He gestured at the blue, stripy notebook in his arms. "...Questions."

Sunny nodded. Held his arms out to take the book, where he was sure his best friend had written down whatever questions the rest of the group had had.

One thing about spending four years with nothing but imaginary versions of your oldest friends to keep you company is that you really get to know their mannerisms well. At least the ones that didn't change. Like Basil's everlasting tendency to put anything he cared even a little about on paper. Anyway.

Basil handed him the book, and sat down on his bed. He stared at Sunny, which was only a little unnerving. Sunny flipped open the cover, to see a short list of questions, in Basil's (no longer familiar) handwriting.

-What was with the "stab thing"?
-Smaller, maybe evil Sunny (??)
-What was that place?
-What the hell (in general)

The first thing Sunny noticed was that Basil didn't dot his i's with hearts anymore. The second was that each question had a generous few lines in between, probably meant for writing the answers. Okay, he could do that.

Sunny picked up one of the pencils from the floor in front of him. Started writing.

-What was with the "stab thing"?
->sorry, it was the easiest way to wake up.

-Smaller, maybe evil Sunny (??)
->his name is OMORI, and he's only sometimes evil.
->he's also too hard to explain right now. Sorry.

-What was that place?
->if the thing i'm planning right now works, you won't have to worry about that

-What the hell (in general)
->i don't think i have to answer that one

He felt bad, kind of, to be so avoidant in his answers. But, as he'd written, if these sections worked out, then he and Omori could ask around, and figure out how his old friends were there, and how to get them out. If all went right, they wouldn't ever have to worry about Headspace, or any of the things it entailed.

So, not particularly happy with his answers, Sunny passed the book back up to Basil.

Basil took it, glanced over the responses, and...

And didn't get up to call them back.

Instead, Basil continued to stare at Sunny, and Sunny, no longer preoccupied with the questions, stared back. He, slowly, figured out that Basil was gearing himself up to ask a question.

"So... What're y-you? Working on?"

Sunny blinked up at him. Basil should really be getting back to the phone right about now, shouldn't he?

After a while of being blankly blinked at, Basil looked down, and gave the smallest of sighs. "Okay. Will... Will you tell me later?"

Sunny, still a little bewildered, gave a thumbs up. Of course he would. At this point, it would be rude not to. Basil wouldn't be getting the full truth, about Headspace, that would not be helpful, but he'd be getting something.

Basil sent him a shaky smile, and got up to leave. Sunny watched as he opened the door, glanced back, and stepped out.

The moment the door clicked shut, Sunny turned back to his sketchbook.

Realized something.

The tree. With the flowers in it.

It looked a lot like the tree from Basil's Meadow.

Oops.

Sunny knew, distantly, that Basil's Meadow hadn't always been used for the truth. He didn't quite remember what Headspace was like before Omori. (Before Abbi was banished, before he'd tried to escape himself, rather than just what he'd done.) Sunny knew, somewhere in there, that Basil's Meadow had once been only a location. A comfortable place where he could go on walks with his best friend, and pretend that nothing had changed between them.

Maybe, now that he remembered what had happened, he could change it back.

He set back to work.

-----

When Basil came back into the bedroom, Sunny had a diagram of where everything would go in the newly restored Meadow. He was about to flip to a new page and start brainstorming someone else's area, when he noticed that Basil was visibly unhappy.

Not currently able to talk, Sunny grabbed a sticky note from the pile of supplies around him, and scribbled down a 'how did it go?'

He peeled off the note, stood up, and - hoping to make him smile - stuck it straight onto Basil's forehead.

The mission was a success! Basil gave him a bewildered look, before giggling, peeling the note off, and reading it.

"Oh... Um." Basil's smile fell, and Sunny would've frowned if he didn't know that it would just bring his friend's mood down further. "...Not. Good? They were- Uh. Hoping for clearer answers, is all."

Sunny nodded, with what he hoped was a sympathetic expression. He sat back down. Back to his project, back to brainstorming.

But Basil was staring at him. Sunny looked up. He tilted his head.

"Oh! Sorry, I was just- Uh-" Sunny shook his head. He wasn't mad, or weirded out, just curious. "...Okay. I just- I wanted to know what you were working on. Again."

Sunny smiled. Took another sticky note. He wrote 'later. you need sleep. I'll go work in the living room, so you can turn off the lights.'

He stuck it to Basil's bedside table, and started gathering up his supplies. Basil read the note, and protested, but Sunny was already leaving.

When he closed the door behind him, he hoped Basil would get some sleep. But Sunny had work to do.

-----

Polly woke up to a distinct difference in the usual sound of the house.

There was just something slightly off, and in her sleepy haze, she slowly pieced together that there was a rustling noise, that wasn't usually there. So, someone was up and moving already?

It was only six. Basil usually got up at seven, and Sunny hadn't exactly seemed like much of an early bird the day before.

So, she got up to investigate.

The lights in the hallway were already on, and she could see the light from the archway leading into the living room as well.

When she entered, she was met with the sight of Sunny, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, furiously sketching, or writing, or maybe just scribbling, in his sketchbook. He was surrounded by various art supplies, and when he looked up to see her, he had prominent eyebags, betraying just how long he'd been up.

He waved at her, as if to say good morning, and turned straight back to whatever he was working on, as if she'd just be okay with his obvious lack of sleep.

"Sunny? What happened? Could you not sleep?"

He looked back at her. His face lit up in a realization of... Something, and he started scribbling on a nearby pack of sticky notes.

When she walked over to read it, she saw; 'don't worry, the bed is fine, i just had stuff to do, so i stayed up.'

"That's not..." She sighed. It seemed like taking this kid on was going to be a bit more work than she'd expected.

Still, there was no point in scolding him for this if it was a one-time event. If Sunny made a habit of staying up this late, then it would be a problem, and it would need to be addressed. But for now, she should start on breakfast.

-----

Aubrey, Kel, and Hero stayed together for most of the day.

At first, she just stuck around to use their phone. Then, she stayed because none of them wanted to sleep, and it would be weird to go somewhere else this late at night.

Then, when morning came, she had to admit that she just didn't want to go home.

So, she stayed at their house, and the three of them mostly lazed around, each probably having their own minor crisis in response to the night's events.

At one point, perhaps the highlight of the day, the group was sitting in the brothers' bedroom, Kel on his bed, Aubrey on Hero's bed, and Hero in a desk chair. Kel piped up with, "Y'know what sucks?"

"Almost everything?" Aubrey guessed.

"We somehow figured out how to dream in multiplayer, which is totally magic. We figured out magic, and instead of like. Flying around or anything cool, we're just gonna sit here and be annoyed about it. Maybe like... Work through our issues while we're at it."

Hero snorted with laughter. Kel continued. "How lame is that?"

Aubrey laughed, too. "We're such losers, huh?"

Kel joined in on the giggling.

Maybe she was just a little hysterical, maybe they all were, but it was, despite everything, a pretty decent day.

-----

Sunny, when he'd finished with whatever he was drawing, or writing, or both, had gone to lay in bed.

He wasn't sleeping, even. He was just lying there, staring at the lightbulb above him, and presumably thinking about something or other.

Whenever Basil asked if he was okay, which was often, Sunny would just nod, or give him a thumbs up, but he wouldn't look away from the ceiling.

Basil hadn't asked yet, but he was pretty sure this had something to do with the dream world all of their friends had been in last night.

The reason he hadn't asked was because he still didn't know whether he was crazy or not. Sunny was pretty freaked out when Basil said he'd dreamt of the shoe house, which seemed like confirmation that he was part of this (whatever 'this' was) just as much as the other three.

But also... People dream of that sort of thing all the time, don't they? It's not that weird to dream about a place from a drawing you've seen, is it? It doesn't necessarily indicate that you're included in the wacky, magic situation all your friends are, does it?

Basil didn't know.

He'd almost worked up the courage to take Sunny up on his earlier offer to explain, when there was a knock at their bedroom door.

Both boys looked up, Sunny for the first time in over an hour, and Basil for just about the millionth. Polly poked her head inside.

"Basil, could I talk to you?"

He glanced at Sunny, and got up. Sunny returned to his thinking.

When the door closed behind him, Polly looked concerned.

"Is Sunny okay? He woke up before me today, and now he's just been staring at the ceiling for almost two hours."

"Oh... Y-Yeah! He's f- He's fine, I'm pretty sure. Just. Uh. Thinking, I guess."

She seemed uncertain, which was honestly fair. If you didn't know Sunny for ages, it was hard to tell what was normal-quiet, what was thinking-quiet, and what was upset-quiet. Most strangers tended to pick that last option, if they were forced to guess.

"He's always been quiet. I don't... I don't think this has anything t-to do with... Things."

She searched his face for a moment, and whatever she found caused a defeated sigh. "Alright, then. If you're sure."

She left, and Basil went back into their room.

-----

That night, Aubrey went back home before dinner.

Home. Ha.

Back to trash, back to beer-smell, back to sleeping in a lonely attic. Back to her mom.

Today, she didn't want to even see her. Sitting on the couch, half-passed-out already, drunk. She didn't want to bother.

So she climbed in through her bedroom window, instead.

She fed Bun-Bun, and wished she could take better care of her.

She kicked off her shoes, and changed clothes.

She sat in bed. Thinking.

What kind of bullshit will Sunny pull in their shared dream tonight? If it happened again? If they weren't crazy?

What will she do about it? Could she do anything?

She didn't need to think about it. Not yet.

She'd worry about that if-slash-when she got there.

Aubrey flicked the light off, laid down, and closed her eyes.

-----

Kel and Hero went to bed in a similar fashion, minus the home life issues.

Kel went out to feed Hector, Hero took out the trash. They sat down for dinner, and it was just as chaotic as usual.

After that, Kel watched TV for a little while, and Hero did the dishes, something he was not required to do, but that he did anyway, because it got him extra points with their mom. Like he needed any.

When they went to bed, Kel turned to Hero.

"Do you think we're gonna have another dream like the last one?"

"...Probably."

They looked at each other, for a while, Kel's hand on the light switch.

Then, Hero continued.

"But it'll be okay. Whatever happens, it is just a dream."

Kel smiled, and nodded. He flicked off the lights, and made his way to his bed, in the dark.

It took uncharacteristically long for him to get to sleep. He could only imagine how bad it was for everyone else.

-----

When Basil and Sunny were going to bed, Basil kept glancing over at him, like he wanted to say something.

"So..." He started, as they were getting situated, "Are you gonna explain the... The stuff?"

Sunny blinked at him. After a moment, his face lit up, remembering his earlier promise.

Moving from his bed, he snatched his pack of sticky notes. This would be a longer note. Might need two.

'dream world i built. over the four years. called Headspace. a while ago all the little versions of you guys-'

Yep. Not enough space. He peeled the note off of the pad, stuck it to the wall of the bookshelf, and started writing another one.

'-disappeared. now the real ones are there. but there's some really personal stuff in there and I don't-'

Oh wow, he'd need a third one too? Sunny glanced up at Basil, who was dutifully watching him write. Sunny peeled the second sticky note off, and placed it on top of the first. Then, he held up a finger toward Basil, to signal that there was still more.

'-want you guys to see. i have a plan. don't worry.'

His hand kind of hurt.

Still, he rearranged the small pile of sticky notes so that they were in order, and passed it to his best friend.

As Sunny set himself back up in bed, Basil carefully read through the notes, nodding to himself all the while. Once he was done, he set the little stack down on his bedside table, and smiled at Sunny.

"Okay. Thanks." He paused. "For telling me, I mean."

Sunny tilted his head. Why would that matter?

But he was tired, and he wanted to see how his new sections tuned out. So he didn't ask. He just smiled back, and rolled over to get some sleep.

After a while, he heard Basil flick off the lights.

Chapter Text

Aubrey was not at all shocked when she woke up dreaming again.

They'd all figured it wasn't a one-time event, so when she blinked her eyes open and saw a peach-colored, cloudy sunset sky, she knew that it wasn't real.

The soft grass underneath her back did little to dissuade the annoyance of being here again. That was, until she remembered that the floor in the Room she'd been in before had been rubbery, not grass. And the sky had been starry, not cloudy.

Okay, different place, then.

Aubrey sat up.

Huh.

This was the hangout spot.

She was wearing her hair-drying clothes again, for some reason.

Lying in the grass by the lake, for some reason.

Then again, the place they were in before had been vaguely treehouse-like. Maybe Sunny just based everything in his head off of places in Faraway?

But this wasn't just based on the lake, this was the lake. The sky was realistic, the statue in the water was just as old and dusty as usual, the damn trees were all in the right spots.

The whole place was a direct copy of a place she'd spent much of her life in. The only difference was...

Was the picnic blanket.

It was red. Ouch, man.

That was Mari's blanket.

She tore her eyes away from it. No need to get all sentimental.

(Why did that hurt to think about?)

One of the pinwheels was off-color. The one that was usually white was yellow.

That was weird. Not weird enough to be interesting. What else?

The dock had something on it. White. Paper?

She walked over to it. Sure enough, it was a piece of paper. Laminated, for some reason.

She sat on the dock, and picked it up. It read;

Aubrey,

First off, I'm sorry about the stab thing, I didn't mean to scare anyone. As Basil said earlier, it's just the fastest way to wake up. Sorry.

The world you're in is called Headspace. It's a dream world I created over the four years I was inside.

But it's not safe for real people to be in. There are too many dangerous things, and too many personal things. I'm sorry, but I can't let you guys explore it.

So I made a little area for each of you, to stay in until I can figure out how to get you guys out of Headspace altogether.

Yours is, as you can see, the hangout spot from Faraway. I thought you'd like it, since you stayed with it even after everything.

I don't know your friends well enough to make copies of them, so you're going to be alone here. I'm sorry for that.

There is more to explore than the hangout spot, though. I made you another section where the park would usually be. I hope you have fun with that.

Again, sorry for everything,

-[][][][][][][]
-Sunny

A smudged word. If she'd looked closer, Aubrey might've been able to figure out the word 'Dreamer'. But she didn't. Because she was too annoyed.

What the hell did he mean his fucking fantasy dream world was 'too dangerous' for 'real people'!? What gave him the right to think of her like that? Like some delicate little thing that couldn't handle a few spikes or goblins or whatever the hell the 'dangers' were.

And 'personal'!? Some things here were too 'personal' for her to see? Sure, she'd had some dreams she wouldn't want other people to know about, but she wasn't a- A-

She knew the word.

She'd called Sunny that word in her head before.

She knew that word.

But she couldn't remember it.

It just-

It wasn't there.

She tried to think of a synonym. She couldn't.

She tried to think of the next sentence in her little internal rant. Sunny lost the right to 'personal' things when- When-

When.

The latter half of the statement seemed to be locked behind a screen. She just couldn't get to it, no matter what she tried.

And the harder she tried, the faster her anger faded. Seems that feeling like an idiot just made her feel much less righteous-fury-mad, and much more blushing-embarrassed-mad.

Still. She couldn't think of the word. Couldn't even remember why she'd wanted to call Sunny that.

She knew that she hated him, knew that she was right to, but she couldn't, for the life of her, remember why.

It was weird. Really weird.

Probably some strange, upsetting effect of the dream world. Headspace? Yeah, that's what he called it.

Okay. Review. She was in her own little section of Sunny's dream-world, apparently called Headspace. Sunny made it for her, which sucked, although she had no idea why it sucked. It was a copy of the hangout spot, and he'd said it had another area for her to explore.

She looked around.

It was an impressive copy.

He'd managed to capture the exact curve of the lake, the placement of the old, scattered puzzle pieces, the way the water looked almost purple in the orange sunset light. It smelled faintly of pine needles, and if she tried, she could catch a whiff of chocolate chip cookies.

It was pretty. Really pretty.

For a reason she couldn't remember, she hated it.

Not the place, the place was gorgeous, just the fact that he'd made it. For her.

Aubrey shook her head. No use thinking about something she couldn't remember.

She glanced down at the paper in her hands. With the way she'd been holding it, it would've crumpled beyond recognition if it hadn't been laminated. Maybe that was why. (Maybe Sunny knew her well enough to plan for the way she'd hold it. Maybe Sunny still knew her.)

She tossed it carelessly into the water. She had no need for it, and she did still hate its writer, despite not quite remembering why.

What to do now?

The hangout spot was quiet. Too quiet. Aubrey had only ever been here alone in real life a few times, and none had been pleasant. She was beginning to understand why Sunny apologized for not being able to make the gang for her, even though dream-versions of them would've been creepy as shit`.

There wasn't even any music, like there was in the Room she'd been in last time.

Honestly, she might be grateful for that. The music in the Room had been weird.

Anyway. The music didn't matter. This place sucked without her friends, old or new, and she wanted out.

So, she turned away from the dock, and headed toward the entrance.

Instead of seeing anything identifiable through the gap in the trees, it was just a dark spot on an otherwise colorful landscape. Huh.

She parted the branches in front of her, and stepped through.

...

What?

There was a massive, maybe-wooden sign reading 'Junkyard' in big, pink, blocky letters. Her bat, nails included but suspiciously pink, was leaned against one of the posts.

She walked over to look at it closer, and saw a piece of paper, haphazardly nailed to the post above the bat.

This one wasn't laminated. A poor choice on Sunny's part. She ripped it down before she read it.

'I thought you might want to break some things. Don't worry, it doesn't smell.'

...

If that wasn't so condescending, Aubrey might've laughed at it.

Still, she was not against smashing some shit right now. The fact that she couldn't remember why she was mad, really only served to make her more mad. It was kind of funny, really.

She picked up the bat. Held it up in front of her, pointing into the junkyard.

The weight was right. It fit her hand just as well as it did in real life. The only difference was the color, being a soft, vibrant pink. Her favorite. The color she'd have dyed her hair, had the neon not been cheaper.

Sunny did have a good memory.

In her other hand, she crumpled the paper. Tossed it aside.

Letting her bat rest on her shoulders, Aubrey started walking under the sign and into the junkyard.

Sure enough, it was unscented. No garbage smell to dissuade kids like her from. Well. Coming in and smashing random junk. She'd have done this sort of thing in real life several times by now if it weren't for the stink.

Most of the trash was unidentifiable. Shapes and blobs that held no real meaning. That made sense, actually. They were only here to be broken. Some of the shapes were more solid, though. A lamp here, a car door there, old tube TVs, picture frames with blurred, colorful smudges as the only subjects.

She walked until she turned a corner, the space opening up into a bulbous area walled by trash. It was just big enough that she could stand in the middle and hold out her bat and, depending on where it was pointed, it might not hit anything.

She took a test-swing, hitting nothing but air, and then whirled around with her bat extended, just trying to see what she'd hit first. A green blob shattered on impact, breaking into thick, colorful shards.

She smiled.

As much as Aubrey hated Sunny, he was damn good at coming up with things for her to do.

A word came to mind. Entertainment. He was trying to keep her entertained.

Her smile fell.

That thought was uncomfortable. It made her feel... Weird. Like an animal. Like a pet. Needing to be entertained so she wouldn't hurt herself. It was dehumanizing, almost.

Before she knew it, her bat was flying into a nearby lamp, now swinging out of anger, rather than fun.

The base of the thing shattered, and a neon yellow liquid leaked out. Gross.

She kept walking.

Every few steps, the thought of Sunny would pop back up with a vengeance. Her arm, and bat, would lash out, smashing some new bit of scenery.

Entertainment. An angled shape of indiscriminate purpose, a swing, and a satisfying squishing noise. A better feeling

The fact that she didn't know what he'd done. A car door, a swing, and the crashing sound of shattered glass. A better feeling.

What he'd done. A round object that stretched out in strange directions, a swing, and porcelain looking shards littering the ground. A better feeling.

Entertainment. Picture frame. Lesser anger.

She couldn't remember. Strange blob. Lesser anger.

What did he do? Pile of empty soda cans. Lesser anger.

Repeat.

Think about it, feel worse, break something, feel better.

Repeat.

Think, break.

Repeat.

She was so sick of this.

Eventually, the pathway of garbage opened up.

And she was back at the start.

Now seeing the back of the junkyard sign, Aubrey came to the startling realization that the entire place was one big loop. Fuck, man.

...

She was tired.

Aubrey took a few steps toward a post.

She saw a crumpled piece of paper lying casually in the dirt.

She sat down, back against where her bat used to be.

Closed her eyes.

Angled her head upward to lessen the pain in her neck.

Breathed.

In, out.

In, out. Like Hero and Kel did when shit went down. Like she always forgot to do when shit went down.

In, out.

Her hair draped over her comfortable yellow shirt, given to her by Vance. A thin curtain of purple brushed against her knees, tucked tightly into her chest.

In, out.

She reached up a hand, and ran her fingers through. Feeling the strands as they shifted.

In, out.

Calm down. You don't have time for this.

(Technically, she did. It wasn't like she had an urgent meeting to get to in an ex-friend's fantasy dream world. But that wouldn't be helpful, now would it?)

In, out.

She opened her eyes.

A lightly clouded, peach sky.

In, out.

She stood up.

Time to find a way out of this hellhole.

-----

Four more loops of the junkyard, and Aubrey stood in the part that she'd been guessing was directly opposite the entrance.

In her previous go-arounds, she'd discovered quickly that the trash recomposed itself - And its broken pieces disappeared - Basically the second she turned her back.

The loop was exactly the same, every time. The garbage was always the same, and in the same order, no matter what she did to it. If she moved a piece over, it was back in place on the next loop. If she broke it into a fine powder, rather than just a pile of shards, it was back in one piece just the same the next time she saw it.

So it was strange, then, that there was a picture frame here.

It wasn't there on the last five rounds, so what had changed?

Also, the picture wasn't quite as blurry as they usually were. She still couldn't tell what the dark smudge was supposed to represent, but she could potentially be convinced that it was meant to be something.

Well, she thought, it's worth a shot.

Smashing the glass, the frame fell dramatically onto the ground, and she bent, to take a closer look at the image through the broken shards.

...

Oh.

Oh that little bastard.

It was a picture of Sunny.

A happy, smiling Sunny, sitting on a couch with Basil.

And Aubrey had just broken it.

What a fucking guilt trip!

Putting a picture of himself in here just for her to ruin it? Just to make her feel bad? Well tough shit, Sunny! She felt fine. She was fine.

She hit the picture again.

And again.

Bits of glass flew off in different directions but she couldn't bring herself to care because how dare he try to make her feel guilty after what he did.

She bashed the stupid thing in again, and again, and again.

Until the picture was ripped, and dirty, and could barely be recognized.

Until the frame was splintered, and barely present anymore.

Until there was no more glass to hit.

She straightened up, breath coming in heavy and burdened.

Oh fuck him. Aubrey was done with this.

She'd just finish this loop and go back to the hangout spot to sit in silence and tick herself off even more. Or maybe drown herself, if the mood struck.

She stormed forward, bat in hand but not touching anything, determined to get back to the lake and laze around until they all woke up, but...

But.

There was a new pathway here.

The rest of the loops had been completely linear. No branching pathways, just one large, misshapen circle for her to walk around in.

But this.

This was new.

Aubrey took a breath. Collected herself.

She was shaking. She felt unacknowledged tears quickly drying just around her eyes.

She stepped onto the new path.

After a while of walking, the first change she noticed was, of course, the smell.

The stink of rancid food and wet cardboard reached her nose just in time for her to think 'that lying asshole.'

He had said, pretty explicitly, that this junkyard wouldn't have any kind of scent. But, lo and behold, the place smelled like shit. Fuck off, Sunny.

Then, she noticed the lighting. The piles of trash scattered all around were no longer bathed in a sunset glow, no. Now, they seemed to have a brightness all on their own, with no source in sight.

She looked up, toward the sky. It was a rich purple. Covered in stars, and simple drawings. Just like the one she'd glimpsed the night before.

When she looked back down, the junk had taken on a purplish hue.

Huh.

She didn't dare to hope, but maybe, just maybe, she'd get to tell Sunny off after all.

Because this seemed more like his Headspace than her own little section ever had.

Aubrey took a breath, through her mouth to avoid garbage-stink, and set herself forward with a newfound energy.

Eventually, the narrow path opened up. She found herself face to face with a strange, spindly tree. It was short, only a few inches taller than her. Its trunk was, for some reason, the same neon teal color as her usual bow, and its leaves were a bubblegum pink.

'Leaves' might be a strong term. They appeared in little cloud-like bunches, a branch leading to each of them, and they seemed a little more like fluff to her than any kind of individual leaf.

She looked away from the tree, turning right, only to be met with a tree that was- Get this- Completely identical.

Sunny's dream world was weird.

Stepping away from them, Aubrey glanced around.

A random toilet, seemingly unconnected to any kind of piping. Bizarre.

Aubrey, for reasons unknown even to herself, walked over to it. When she looked at it from closer up, she could see a whole-ass package of already-made cup noodles just. Sitting there. Under the toilet water.

She was met with such an overwhelming feeling of utter repulsion that she took about ten steps back in rapid succession. Gross gross gross gross gross. Gross.

Holy shit that's disgusting.

Aubrey spent a while calming herself down from. That.

Gross.

Anyway. Her back was against a wall, now. No, not a wall. Flimsier than a wall, and metal. It felt kind of like a garage door.

She looked behind her. Purple. She was leaning against what looked like a purple version of that wavy metal roofing some people have over their driveways. Just a big block of purple corrugated metal. Weird.

Looking around, that seemed to be the norm, here. All of the landscape in this junkyard was just massive blocks of driveway roofing. Really weird. Actually, wait, they might be shipping containers. Like for boats? She didn't know. Didn't particularly care, either.

Right now, she was staring at a substantial pile of them, forming a sort of mountain.

Most of them seemed to have garage doors, although when she walked forward and tried to lift one of them, it didn't budge.

Some of the doors were open, with miscellaneous trash spilling out. Piled on top of the blocks were scattered satellites, tires, and several full-on cars in different colors, just sitting, stationary, somehow not crushing the thin-looking metal underneath them.

Also, there were several ladders leading further up the mound. When they drew her eyes upward, She noticed something she managed to miss when she looked at the sky earlier.

The whole fucking moon.

Bright, glowing a vibrant yellow, and way too close.

Like. So close. Like she could probably throw something from the top of trash mountain and actually hit it.

This whole place was fucking insane. Aubrey started looking for a way out.

First, she walked back to where she started. Ominously, the pathway back to the lake had completely disappeared. Also, she noticed that the floor seemed to switch at random between concrete and squishy, light pink moss.

Then, she took two left turns, and found a long-ish hallway, stopping abruptly with a dead end. The only way out from there seemed to be a ladder, which would have to be a last resort.

Finally, she looked at a pathway blocked by. Plants? Ferns?

They were purple, or maybe pink, and made up of very few leaves, all of which were ridiculously tall. They sprouted impossibly out of the pavement and were actually taller than the cotton-candy trees from earlier.

Still, they were blocking her only way out.

Aubrey parted the leaves, noting that the rustling was terribly loud in the silence. Then, she paused, Belatedly noticing that there was still no music.

Good riddance. She hadn't even liked the music in the Room from last time. She shook her head, and continued clearing the way.

The plants reshuffled themselves back into place the moment she was on the other side, and somehow, she got the feeling that they were a little upset that she got through. Unsettled, Aubrey gave the plants a look, and kept going.

A wide pathway interspersed with more of the odd plants, and she was in front of a gate. She blew past it, walked a little further, came to another. Weird.

She kept walking, and was definitively in a new section of this junkyard.

There was a crane, and way more cars than there had been back on trash mountain, and, hey, another crane.

When she turned a corner, she saw, bizarrely, an absolutely humongous wheel of cheese blocking the path forward.

What the fuck, Sunny?

Her eyes squeezed shut in bewilderment, and she took a moment to wonder just how her life got this insane, and to think about how very, very stupid this entire thing was turning out to be.

It was a tight fit, but she managed to squeeze past the cheese.

More cars, another turn, and she was somewhere else again.

The following was a series of winding paths and a lot of annoyance. She had to push past some more strange plants, and took more turns and curves than she could count, but eventually, she reached the other side.

God she was frustrated. This whole thing sucked.

Then her path was framed by a huge wall.

It was made of the same blocks as everything else, just way, way taller. When she looked to the top, she saw what might've been the backside of about a million TVs. Weird.

She looked behind her. Saw something she hadn't noticed before. A glimpse. Just a bit. It was too tall to see it clearly but...

On top of a plateau of blocks, was a familiar picnic blanket. Putting progress aside for now, Aubrey made her way over to the way up. For the first time all night, as she'd been avoiding them, she climbed a ladder.

...

Sure enough, It was Mari's blanket. And a whole roast chicken, but that wasn't exactly the most important part.

It was Mari's blanket.

Aubrey still didn't know why that made her so sad.

She knelt on the fabric. Spent a while staring at the basket.

Took a breath.

She felt a good amount of that frustration leave her.

Took another breath.

Stood up. Walked back over to the ladder.

Time to keep going.

She climbed down, shook herself off, and walked through the gap in the wall.

There was a line of hazard tape, and writing on the ground. When she angled herself awkwardly to read the text, it said 'DO NOT CROSS' in large, messy handwriting.

...Was it bad that Aubrey's first thought was 'don't tell me what to do'?

Probably. Whatever. She crossed the line, and nothing happened, so it really didn't matter.

She walked through a circle of more TVs that were facing away from her. When she looked back, the screens were just. Orange. But why? She shook her head. Again, it really didn't matter. She kept moving. Through some more weird plants, and-

Why is there a conveyor belt here? Why does it end in an oddly shaped wall of cardboard? Why is Sunny's head so damn weird?

Ugh. She'd come this far. Why not?

Aubrey stepped onto the conveyor belt and, to exactly no one's surprise, found herself moving forward. When the belt dropped her off, she was right in front of the cardboard wall. Experimentally, she lightly poked the thing with the tip of her bat.

It fell over.

Well. Good to know this place subscribes to at least some laws of physics.

She walked through some more fucking junkyard, getting really, really sick of it at this point, and came to a stop when she passed underneath a sort of archway.

Looking up, Aubrey saw a sign almost identical to the one from her original junkyard. The lettering was a neon teal, like her bow, that faded to purple at the bottom. But aside from the difference in color, the sign was the same.

It had marked the entrance to her junkyard. If this was the same, then was she finally out?

Sure enough, when she kept walking, the trash around her grew more and more sparse. Eventually, she entered into a narrow path framed by rocky formations in the actual land, rather than weird shipping containers-slash-garages.

After a while of walking, the path opened up into a wide area. Aubrey closed her eyes, and took in a massive breath through her nose. God, it actually didn't smell like garbage! It smelled like air! Clean air! And maybe dirt, which wasn't all that bad after smelling only rancid food for what seemed like hours.

Sweet, sweet relief.

She actually took quite a while to just stand there and smell the damn air. What the hell did that junkyard do to her?

Once she was used to the lack of terrible smell, Aubrey opened her eyes, and looked around the new area.

Fork in the road, and she couldn't see where either direction went. Fuck.

Okay, don't bother. You'll get more progress moving in any direction than in standing around trying to choose. Even if that progress is just figuring out which way not to go.

(Granted, she wasn't quite sure what she was progressing toward. Finding Sunny to tell him off? For what?)

(She tried not to think too hard about it.)

So Aubrey had to pick a random direction. She didn't have much choice. She closed her eyes again, pointed her bat away from her, and spun. Totally unsafe, for sure, but hey, this was a dream. She didn't even know if she could get hurt.

Opening her eyes, the bat was pointed in a direction that might've been east, if she had to guess.

Yeah, alright. She started walking.

On the way to wherever she was going, Aubrey passed a ton of stupid shit. These included:

Hay bales, in little piles.

A whole ass waterfall leading into a tiny, perfectly circular lake. Not how that worked but okay.

A truly ridiculous number of radio towers.

More of those stupid cotton candy trees.

Several smaller, less smelly piles of junk.

More of those dumb fucking trees.

A bigger lake, about the size of the one in Faraway, with a little island in the middle. The island contained a watermelon, for some reason.

And a telescope, perched dramatically on a tiny mountain with stairs leading up to it.

By the time she reached more of those dumb tall plants, she'd observed a few things.

First, there was still no music, and it was bothering her way more than it should've been.

Second, this place felt like it should be a lot less empty than it was.

And third, she was really sick of walking.

So, figuring it was a dream and she could do whatever, Aubrey sat down against a lamp post, and took a short rest.

-----

By the time she stood up again, Aubrey was feeling significantly less pissy at the world.

She shook herself out. Arms, each leg separately, twisted her neck from side to side, and started moving again.

She turned back to the plants. She couldn't make out much through them, just that there was a thin pathway to move through.

She started walking.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she noticed the difference.

Her vision darkened, just a little. And it almost seemed like it was snowing. Small, round, almost shiny objects kept falling and falling in front of her eyes.

Music started up, finally. It was slow, and its notes seemed to ascend constantly. The tune was simple, but bass came in every once in a while to make it more complex. It was nice. Really nice. Much better than the music from last time.

Another lamp post. A fork. She turned right.

The pathway brought her into a little alcove. Red and white wrapped gifts were scattered around. One of them in the distinct and obvious shape of a violin.

Oh. So that's how this was going to be, huh?

Was this Sunny? Was he trying to make her sad so she'd be less angry with him?

Well. It might've been working.

The memory of that Christmas was... Unhappy. Now that she knew.

(Except she didn't know. Not here.)

She turned around. Kept going. She walked down winding paths for a while longer.

Eventually - Unfortunately - She found something else.

Scattered puzzle pieces. Three toy cars. A pile of building blocks. A pinwheel.

The lake. The hangout spot.

She took a breath in. Turned around. She'd go entirely in the opposite direction this time, how's that?

When she came to another opening, Aubrey knew what to expect.

Four umbrellas, carelessly left overturned on the ground. Puddles of rainwater.

A rainy day, years ago. A day Basil took pictures of. A very, very good day.

Turn around. Leave. Don't think about it.

She passed a picnic table on her stormy way. Didn't look away fast enough not to see it.

A strawberry cake. Party hats strewn about. Basil's birthday.

She kept walking. A few more unfortunate turns, and she found another goddamned alcove.

Playing cards. Shoes, that wouldn't fit anymore if she tried them on. A stack of old cookbooks. A stuffed toy.

A plate of cookies.

Mari's cookies.

Aubrey nearly cried right then and there.

But she didn't.

She turned around, and continued in her storming about.

A fork. She turned left. Traveled down a long, long pathway, walled in by more of those plants.

It opened up again.

Two beachballs. Two inner-tubes. And a fucking watermelon. Hollowed out, a spoon still stuck inside. The beach.

Purely on impulse, Aubrey's bat lashed out at the rind. It met only empty air, as the objects faded away into nothing.

This time, finally, she did cry.

-----

That soft, inoffensive music continued until Aubrey finally found the exit.

She came out into a clearing, with a hole in the center. A ladder stuck boldly out of it. She glanced around. Nothing but plants and rocks. And the music was gone. She took a deep breath. One of many, from the last few minutes.

God, was this place trying to emotionally wreck her?

She shook her head. There were three ways she could go, here. She could turn back, which, fuck no, she could go down the ladder into who-knows-where, or she could turn onto the new path to her left.

She wanted to get out of here.

Who-knows-where it is, then.

Still shaky from her earlier ugly-crying, she made the decision to leave her bat up here. She wouldn't be able to carry it while climbing - A lesson she'd first learned while trying to scale Kim's house in the real world - And she probably didn't need it. There wasn't much to smash outside of her own little area.

Regretfully, she laid it down next to the edge of the little crater. She'd miss it. Maybe she could borrow some spray paint from Violet - Angels Sister - And change her real life bat to match. Then again, It would probably look silly. And it was Sunny's idea, so definitely not.

Whatever. She was stalling. Aubrey shook her head, and slowly lowered herself onto the ladder.

-----

It was cramped. Smelled like dirt.

It made sense. Aubrey was probably underground, after all. But it was cramped, and it smelled like dirt, and she was unhappy with that.

She also had no idea how her arms weren't tired yet. She'd been climbing the stupid ladder for a while, and sure, she'd been swinging around a bat for a few years, but her upper body strength wasn't that good. Her arms still looked kind of like noodles.

Eventually, and this was really weird, she came out the other side.

What.

What.

She did not just climb through the core of a whole-ass planet.

Did she?

Still climbing, she looked up above her.

Vague, purplish shapes made up the bottom of the planet, but judging by the curve, it was a planet.

Damn.

With nothing she could really do about all that, Aubrey kept climbing.

Accidentally looked down.

Holy shit she was high up.

Like really high up.

She was no Sunny when it came to heights but damn. This would scare anyone.

She shook her head, heart pounding a little harder than before, and kept climbing.

Down, down, down. This was monotonous.

Eventually, green grass and trees came into view, and she was at the bottom. Fucking finally. When her feet touched the ground, she let go of the ladder in a rush, and took a look around.

Mostly, the new place was just trees and grass, in varying shades of soft green. There were a few shrubs around, some colorful mushrooms and flowers huddled close to the ground. And an absolutely massive pinwheel sprouting up from the grass. Huh.

Overall, it was nicer than the Other place. She looked back at the ladder and-

Oh.

Suddenly, a pink, spiked bat was leaning up against it at the base.

Sick.

She picked it up again, and draped it across her shoulders. Honestly, what had she been expecting? It was a dream, of course things could teleport if the dreamer really wanted them to.

She took the only path available, passing another giant pinwheel, before coming to a stump. Its rings were iridescent, and shimmering. There was a little hole between its roots, too.

Aubrey, once again utterly tired of walking, sat herself up against it, and waited.

For what, she didn't know.

Chapter Text

Hero was lying in an incredibly soft bed.

Very soft. So soft it almost felt like he was floating. His eyes blinked open, and he knew he was dreaming.

There was a canopy above him. Thin layers of blue tulle draping downward overtop each other. All eventually gathering above him in a massive bunch. Tiny silver patterns lined the material, so light he could barely make them out. They almost mimicked the sky in the Room from last night, if he looked close enough.

A similar idea, but different designs. Instead of a bed, a planet, a satellite, potted plants, and other random junk, there were various cooking tools, and different foods. A fried egg, a spatula, a kitchen sink, for some reason.

Sunny was hanging on to Hero's chef dreams more than Hero himself was, huh?

Looking down at himself, there was a blanket pulled up to his chin. It was a soft blue, and lifted gently with his breath. When he moved his arms to get them out, he felt the loveliest, softest fluff on the underside.

It was warm. Comfortably warm. The blanket, the bed, the room itself. It was all warm, and comforting, and decidedly not real.

Because beds couldn't be that soft, and canopies couldn't gather like that without something to hold them up, and no one made tulle with cooking-themed designs, and beds couldn't be that soft. Or warm, or comforting.

Hero sat up.

He pushed the blankets down off of him, looked around, and realized that he couldn't see anything through the canopy. So, he pushed it out of the way, and got out of the bed.

Hm.

This was just a bedroom.

A nice bedroom, for sure. But just a bedroom.

It was also very blue. It was Hero's favorite color but. Seriously. Very blue.

The bed was pushed into a corner, and was actually really pretty. What, with the draping fabric forming a canopy that straight up floated above it.

The bedside table had a lamp on it, which was projecting a soft blue light across the room, making the walls appear blue even though Hero assumed they were probably white.

The window was covered by blue curtains, with the same silver patterns as the canopy. When he pulled the curtains up, he saw a bright blue sky, as clouded as it would be in real life, but several shades bluer. When he tried to open it, it wouldn't budge.

The floor was a dark wood, but with a fluffy rug which was - Get this - Also blue.

A wide bookshelf was pushed up against the wall, covered in (Thankfully not blue) books he'd probably look at later, once he was done exploring.

There was a white desk, opposite the foot of the bed, and a blue plush desk chair. The desk had two things on it, and Hero sat down to look.

First, a picture. In a frame that was not, actually, blue. It was a pastel purple, which was kind of a nice change. The picture itself was...

Was-

It was Mari.

It was just Mari. Standing with her picnic basket, seeming happy to be there.

It was just Mari.

So why did it make Hero want to cry?

Slowly, he reached out. Held the frame carefully.

It hurt to think about. Why did it hurt to think about?

Gently, he laid the picture face-down on the desk.

He didn't want to think about it.

A moment of staring at the overturned frame. A couple of deep breaths.

Hero shook his head. This was a dream. Whatever was making him so sad could wait.

He looked at the piece of paper. No, he looked at the note. He started to read.

Hero,

First off, I'm sorry about the stab thing, I didn't mean to scare anyone. As Basil said earlier, it's just the fastest way to wake up. Sorry.

The world you're in is called Headspace. It's a dream world I created over the four years I was inside.

But it's not safe for real people to be in. There are too many dangerous things, and too many personal things. I'm sorry, but I can't let you guys explore it. So I made a little area for each of you, to stay in until I can figure out how to get you guys out of Headspace altogether.

Yours was hard to make. I don't think I ever knew your interests as well as I knew everyone else's. I'm sorry for that.

Since I didn't really know what to put in here, I just did my best to make it comfortable. I hope you enjoy it.

Again, sorry for everything,

-[][][][][][][]
-Sunny

One word was smudged out. When Hero looked closer, he could just barely make out a few letters. He shook his head; it probably didn't matter

This place was made for him, huh?

He could kind of see where Sunny was coming from. It was his favorite color, and it was certainly comfortable. But was this really it? Was the color blue really the only thing Sunny knew about him?

No. No, Sunny very much knew other things. He knew that Hero liked to cook, and to read and- And-

What else would Sunny know about Hero?

...That might be all, actually. Hm.

Hero... Kind of liked it. It sort of reminded him of his dorm, back at college. Nicer, and bluer, and no second bed where his roommate - Oscar - slept. But small enough to be cozy, and to feel more like his dorm than his room back home. Still, there was very little to do. Was there anywhere else to go?

Hero looked around again.

Oh. How had he missed that door?

It was right there. By the bookshelf. Parallel to the desk. He should've seen it on his first look. Or maybe...

This was a dream. What if-

What if it only appeared once he read the letter?

Hero nearly shivered. Creepy.

Still, he didn't have anything else to do, and he'd rather not just sit here until morning. So...

Hero reached out, and turned the doorknob.

...

Really, Sunny?

Wow. He had not been kidding when he said he didn't know much about Hero's interests.

Because it looked like there were only two rooms here, and one of them was just a kitchen. A really nice, very big kitchen. But it was just a kitchen.

Hero nearly laughed with his sigh, just because it was a little ridiculous at this point.

Aside from the kitchen, this room was big. There was another blue table lamp next to a blue chair across from a TV set right by another window covered in blue curtains and-

God. The whole place was just straight blue.

Hero moved to turn on the TV, hoping to watch something mindless and wait until morning but-

But when he pressed the button, it made a buzzing noise, and started to rapidly switch between several colorful screens. None of them displayed anything actually entertaining.

God, this place was weird.

With nothing else to do, Hero walked into the kitchen.

It was big. Also, blue.

The left hand wall from where he was standing was lined with cabinets, and the kitchen was walled off from the rest of the room by a counter stretching across three sides. The floor was classic black-and-white checkerboard. There was a stove, and a sink, and all of the usual amenities present in kitchens. There were also three whole fridges, which. Yeah, okay.

The space between the counter-walls was occupied by buffet tables with soft blue tablecloths draping over them. There were nine total, four were empty, and in the center, and the other five were arranged carefully along the edges of the space. Those had ingredients placed on them in regular increments. The kind of stuff that would usually go in a pantry. Bags of flour or sugar, canned stuff, several kinds of bread, the usual. Notably, there was no pantry in sight.

Hero walked over to the line of fridges, just to see what he was working with here.

The first one contained several different kinds of meat. Some of them (A few raw steaks, some ground beef, a string of sausage links cartoonishly dangling from nothing in particular, an entire raw chicken, etcetera) were identifiable. Others were just vague red-or-brown blobs of no distinct origin or purpose. Hero reminded himself that this was a dream. Also, thank the lord, the meat fridge did not smell like a meat fridge would.

The second fridge held just about every piece of produce a person could imagine. Celery sitting next to cilantro and ginger, several heads of lettuce all lined up in the back, containers of mushrooms and beetroots, bags of carrots, all shoved to the right side of the fridge. There was almost a perfect split between the two sides. The right had vegetables, and the left had fruit. A lot of fruit. Oranges, apples, nectarines, plums, blueberries, strawberries, basically any fruit he'd ever seen Sunny eat. Plus a bunch of exotic fruits that he probably hadn't. Strangely, there were no bananas.

The worst part was that half of the produce in the fridge was actually not supposed to be stored there. And there was no crisper drawer. Ah well. Hero didn't expect Sunny to know that stuff.

The third fridge looked the most like a normal one. Something you might find in someone's actual house. Eggs, milk, cheese, and so on. Quite a few different kinds of cheese, several of which Hero was pretty sure didn't actually exist. Whatever.

He closed the last fridge, and noticed for the first time that all three of them were a very light blue.

He nearly groaned. It really shouldn't be bothering him so much.

The cabinets, when he looked through them, seemed to be the most normal part of the place, aside from the fact that they were blue.

One held dishes, all of which were light blue, and porcelain. One held spices, and the normal bright red McCormick caps were bright blue, instead. One held an assortment of mugs. Guess what color they were? Yeah. Blue.

It really didn't matter.

He had a large kitchen, full of ingredients, and nothing to do. So, Hero started cooking.

He let his mind drift as he set to work.

It was stupid. Everything being blue was stupid. And it was stupid that it was bugging him as much as it was.

But it was. It was bugging him, and he couldn't figure out why.

Something about the thought of Sunny just not knowing him was really annoying him. And that was weird, because while the whole friend group had been close, Hero had mostly been in a supporting role with the kids. He was older, so he took care of them with Mari, and he didn't ask for anything in return.

It made sense that Sunny didn't know much about him aside from basic stuff. Sunny had only known Hero for cooking, and playing with him, and being his sister's boyfriend. So why was it bothering him so much?

Before he knew it, the meat was cooked, and the gravy was done.

He pulled out one of the blue plates, and set the meal onto it. Carefully drizzled some of the sauce on top, and placed a few leaves of lettuce onto the plate for some color. The vegetables probably didn't need to be washed, since this was a dream, but he did it anyway. It felt right.

The food smelled amazing. Way better than the same meal would in real life. A lovely steak, cooked to perfection.

A lovely steak.

A steak.

Oops.

Hero had, without thinking about it, made Sunny's favorite food.

...And he had no idea why he was so upset about it.

It just- He just-

Why was he so mad at Sunny?

Hero blinked.

And heard a satisfying shattering sound. Then, a wet thwap. Then, an awful clatter.

Without realizing he'd closed them, Hero opened his eyes.

A shattered plate, lying underneath a shattered window. A perfectly good steak lying on the ground. Curtains, and a curtain rod, lying in a pile on the floor, having been knocked off.

His own arm, extended as if he'd just thrown something.

Oops, again.

...

Hero had just reacted, essentially, with violence, to an anger he hadn't even known the cause of.

What was wrong with him lately?

And it was lately, because this was not an isolated incident.

He knew that. This wasn't the only time. He'd-

...He'd hit someone. Hadn't he?

Why couldn't he remember that clearly?

Hero was not the type to resort to violence. He should remember hitting someone, shouldn't he?

Unless he was a much worse person than he thought. Unless this wasn't all that rare.

And wasn't that scary?

Hero realized he was on the ground.

And that there were tears on his face.

And that the steak, and the shards, and the curtains, were all gone.

Leaving only an empty window frame, with a beautiful sky shining through.

And Hero was on the floor, sobbing.

Because he knew that he'd hurt someone. Physically. But he couldn't remember it.

And what did that say about him?

-----

After god-knows-how-long of sitting on the floor feeling sorry for himself, Hero stood up, and faced the window. He took a deep breath. Just the way you're supposed to. There was no use thinking about it right now. It wasn't like him to forget things like that. Something seemed off about it.

Hero was pretty sure that maybe, that memory would come back when he woke up. So, he needed to find a way to wake up.

Yesterday, when Sunny woke everyone up, it had been... Less than pleasant. He'd confirmed in his note that... Stabbing himself was the fastest way to wake up, and there were knives in the kitchen but...

Yeah. Let's leave that for a last resort.

Now, there wasn't a door out of this place, just the one in between the bedroom and the living area/kitchen. The window in the bedroom hadn't opened when he tried.

That just left one exit point. The window he was standing in front of right now.

Getting closer, Hero looked over the edge.

He couldn't see the bottom.

It just went down for a while, and then a thick layer of clouds obscured his vision.

It was a long way down. He had to ask himself if he really wanted to jump.

[ > YES]
[ NO]

He did.

He wanted to get out of here. He wanted to find a way to wake up. And this was a dream, he probably couldn't even get hurt from the fall.

He lifted a knee, and got it up over the edge.

He jumped.

-----

And then, Hero was standing on a balcony.

Maybe you don't understand. He did not fall from the window and land on the balcony. He jumped out of a window, fell for a while, and then he was standing on a balcony.

Huh.

Well. It was a dream.

He looked around.

Oh, wow. He did not have to worry about everything being blue anymore.

Everything was pink.

Well, there was some purple, and some red, but really? Everything was pink.

There was a single chair with a heart shaped back. It was pink. There was a tea set on a little round table. It was a pinkish purple. There were pink roses on bushes in pink flower boxes. There was a massive pink banner with a heart shaped symbol in the middle. The letters on the symbol might've been an S and an H, but the writing was too swirled and fancy to tell for sure.

The floor was cobblestone, but somehow, it was pink. The wall behind him was pink brick. The extravagant curtains behind the banner were a pinkish red.

The only thing here that wasn't some shade of pink was the sky, which was the same purple as the Room from yesterday, with all the same designs as well. And a watermelon by the table, which was blue. But honestly, at this point? It was whatever.

The archway leading into whatever building the balcony was connected to was big. It was also darkened. Hero couldn't see what was on the other side.

One thing was certain: he was not jumping off of something again.

So, Hero walked through the archway, and found himself in a massive bedroom. On his left was a king sized bed with pink and purple bedding, a sheer canopy, and the most gaudy, elaborate headboard he'd ever seen or imagined.

Actually, gaudy and elaborate described much of the room. The floor was purple tile, there were flower pots everywhere, stained glass windows along the side walls, and an actual full-blown statue was placed by the bed, demanding attention. When he rounded the thing to look at it, it seemed to be Sweetheart, a character from one of the movie series he'd watched with the kids.

Also, from this new angle, he could see a framed picture of someone who he couldn't make out. He couldn't make them out because the painting was covered in a red liquid, and had a gaping hole in the middle where the poor guys face should be. Someone had ruined that picture on purpose.

Trying not to think too hard about that, Hero checked out the other side of the room. Another statue. This one was blue, and showed Spaceboy, from that comic that he'd actually really liked when he read it with the kids. It'd been fun, the characters were well fleshed out, and it was pretty hard to go wrong with space adventures.

Actually, now that he thought about it...

The ruined picture, if he looked at it too long, looked like it might've once been Spaceboy, too.

Hm.

Yeah, let's not worry about that.

Also on this side of the room was a grandfather clock, a vanity, and an extravagant chair pushed into a table. The table, along with a few normal bedroom things, had a pearl about the size of his head. Huh.

This room didn't seem to have much that would help him wake up. He should go somewhere else.

When Hero walked past a couple of rose-shaped lamps to what seemed to be an exit, he found himself in an elevator. Yeah, okay.

There was a whole phonograph playing some obnoxious song in the corner, and he suddenly realized that there hadn't been any music in any of the places he'd already been.

Also, an enormous design of Sweetheart was displayed on the wall. And, when that drew his eyes up, he noticed the chandelier. Gaudy and elaborate.

He pushed the down arrow, because the balcony had seemed pretty high up, and the elevator began to move.

Then it dinged, and the doors opened. He stepped out into a long, long hallway that was decorated much the same as the bedroom had been. Stained glass windows, theatrical curtains, roses, hearts and banners. Plus the statues. There were a lot of statues.

Like a lot of statues. They lined the hallway's carpet.

Hero reached out and poked one.

Holy crap it moved!?

...

The statue, which had previously been holding a fan up to its haughty-looking face, suddenly turned to the side, and took a hand to its chin in mock-contemplation.

Carefully, he poked it again.

It changed to be holding an umbrella.

Now more curious than freaked out, Hero poked another statue.

It switched to be crouching, with its hands pressed into its skirt as if to smooth the thing down. Marylyn Monroe came to mind, and he realized that that's what the pose was mimicking.

Huh. The statues could move. He really, really, did not want to think about that.

He kept walking.

Eventually, the hallway took a sharp turn. He passed some more statues, which he didn't touch, and a few tall Grecian pillars with vines curled up around them, and the hallway opened up into a wider area.

Another little table, chair, and tea set, like on the balcony. Another elaborate chair like in the bedroom. More of those rose shaped lamps. And, of course, the absolutely giant rug showing Sweetheart's face.

Either the person who lived here was Sweetheart herself, as she was pretty self-obsessed in the movies, or they were the biggest fan in all of existence.

Also, given the size, layout, and the sheer amount of banners, this place was probably a castle.

Wondering where all of the staff were, in that case, Hero wandered over to stand on the rug. And then he noticed the sign.

The large, glowing sign, with marquee-style lightbulbs glittering all around the perimeter, positioned over a small (in comparison to the rest of the place) doorway, with shimmering pink letters reading 'THE DUNGEON'.

Wow. Definitely a castle. One he really wanted to get out of right now thank you very much.

Whirling around, Hero realized for the first time that he was on the second floor. So, he walked to the edge and looked over the railing for an exit.

The first thing he saw was a fountain, spurting out some red liquid that somehow managed come out in something like a heart shape. Then, he noticed the large pools of a similar liquid on either side of the lower floor, each of which had plastic flamingos sticking out at irregular intervals. Yeah, okay. Sure. Third, he saw the door. It was big, and just as pink as the rest of the castle, and it probably led outside. Exactly what he was looking for.

So, after a moment to locate the stairs, he made his way towards it.

Except he was a bit tired of walking. So he stopped to sit by the fountain for a while.

After a bit, he started to wonder what the liquid was. Probably just water, dyed red to match the vibe of the castle. But he did want to know for sure. So he dipped a finger into it. He hadn't been expecting it to be so warm. Or to be thick enough to cling to his skin in a spotted coating.

Now, this next part came about almost entirely because he was tired, and confused about the whole situation, and just generally disoriented. But at the end of the day, Hero would always think back to this as an example of him not being quite as smart as everyone thought.

He licked his finger.

Oh my god oh my god holy shit that was blood what the fuck that was a fountain of blood that was a blood fountain what the fuck.

And suddenly, Hero was on the opposite side of the room, with his back pressed to the door.

What the ever-loving hell, Sunny?

-----

Quite a while later, Hero had regained his breath, and was no longer completely incapable of looking away from the fountain.

Okay. Okay.

It wasn't real blood. This was a dream.

It was just really startling to see a fountain of blood after so long of looking around a cutesy pink castle.

Okay.

Calm down, Hero. It's gross, not mind-shattering. He mentally kicked himself for all the swearing, even though it'd all been in his head, he was alone, and he was a grown man.

He stood up.

Okay, time to get out of this place.

He turned around, and opened the door.

And was instantly met with more blood pools. What the hell? It was just a long cobblestone walkway, lined on either side by more of those pools of blood with little flamingos sticking out.

God, this place was creepy.

Eventually, he passed through another archway, and the space opened up.

Now, he was in what looked to be a courtyard. Which would've been fine, for the fresh air, if not for the continued presence of pools of blood.

Hero rushed through the area, passing under several archway-lattices, and having to avoid a large, intimidating statue. But eventually, he came to a spot that looked like it should be an exit. Except that it was thoroughly blocked by thorny vines. God damnit.

The view beyond the vines was completely dark. Creepy.

Well, he wasn't going back inside. Hero found the spot with the thinnest vines - Coincidentally right in the middle - And stepped right over it.

Instantly, he was overcome by a strong scent of rosemary. Trees blocked his way. Their leaves were a dark blueish green, and they created a thick forest. Hero could hear something skittering in the distance.

When he turned around, the castle was nowhere to be seen.

...This might be creepier than the blood.

Still, it seemed that the castle was no longer an option, and the foliage was thin enough to move through.

He started moving.

At one point, he came to what looked like a bush, but bigger than the trees around it, and with massive pink leaves draping down from the top.

Then, with absolutely no warning, he broke through the tree line. It was weird. He hadn't seen any light from the other side. It had been just as dark as the rest of the forest, and then, when he'd expected to see more trees, all he saw was a railroad track, on top of a wooden bridge.

He looked behind him.

The castle loomed overhead.

Hero shivered, and started walking.

The bridge was long, and lit by lampposts, impossibly sticking up from the water beneath him. There were also giant flowers the size of a small boat, that each had a hole in the middle that seemed to beam light straight up into the sky.

Hero kept walking.

Eventually, he came to the end. Of the bridge, not the railroad. That seemed to continue for a while. A few trees dotted the area, two of them dead, as well as a couple more of those bushes, and some odd flowers that spiraled upward. Hero had a vague recollection of Basil talking about those flowers, several years ago. Something about Aubrey.

The pathway narrowed, quite a bit, and he couldn't quite see what was on the other side. So, he walked through. And immediately came to a blockade of slimy purple stuff, covered in cobwebs. Strange, cartoonish faces peeked out from it. Against his better judgment, he poked it. It was too hard to get through. And his finger came away with a thin sheen of lavender slime, and a small, shiny string connecting his hand to the lump.

Ick.

Dusting off a skill he hadn't even thought about for years, Hero climbed a nearby tree to get to the other side. He had to keep going so he could find a way to wake up. Non-violently.

Anyway, he continued to follow the railroad tracks. They twisted and turned, and there was a gap where a piece of track should've been, but they were as close to a direction as he had to go in at the moment, so he followed them.

And then-

And then...

He saw a picnic blanket.

Mari's picnic blanket. Mari's picnic basket.

Mari.

Mari.

He'd almost forgotten where he'd started in this dream.

A bedroom, with a young photo of his girlfriend, that had made him inexplicably sad.

And he hadn't wanted to think about it.

And he'd stopped thinking about it.

And he'd forgotten.

And then, he remembered why he'd been trying to find a way out in the first place. He'd been forgetting things.

He'd wanted to wake up so that he could tell if it was his fault that he'd forgotten so much, or if it was an effect of the dream.

Because what he'd forgotten was bad. Really bad. And if he didn't remember it, then there was really something wrong.

Hero found himself kneeling.

Kneeling before Mari's picnic basket, tears streaming down his face.

He took a moment to let himself cry.

-----

By the time he'd gathered the strength to start walking again, the tears were long dry.

Hero continued to follow the tracks, noticing a few more gaps along the way, until they ended, abruptly.

Suddenly, he found himself having to make a decision for the first time in quite a while.

There was a fork in the road. He could keep going straight, or turn to the right, and he had no idea where either path led.

He turned.

After a short pathway, he came to a dead end, and a small lake.

Well. This wasn't exactly progress, but his face felt weird from his earlier crying, and he hadn't washed his hands from the blood or the purple goop. So this was great, actually.

He knelt again, and rinsed his hands and his face in the water.

Suddenly feeling a lot better, Hero dried himself off with his sweater, and went to take the other path.

When he did, he noticed the grass and the trees gradually start to lighten in color. Eventually, the strange bushes were no more, and all of the plant life was painted in pastel hues.

Suddenly, he was in a Vastly different Forest.

Eventually, a stump came into view, with shimmering rainbow rings, and little flowers surrounding it.

Then, Hero noticed a familiar head of purple-and-pink hair peeking over the stump.

"Aubrey!"

She jerked around, startled, and visibly relaxed when she saw it was him.

She'd moved to stand up by the time he'd gotten closer, and was leaning on her bat casually.

"Hey."

"Hi, how are you doing? Did you get through your... Initial section okay?"

"Uh. Yeah. You?"

"I'm alright."

Then there was a long pause. Neither of them seemed to know what to say to the other. That was fair. This was a weird situation they'd found themselves in.

"...So-"

"Can you fucking believe him!?"

Okay, Aubrey's talking first then.

"How goddamn condescending do you have to be to just- Just- Put us in little enclosures! we're not zoo animals! And how come I can't even remember why I hate him so much? I've just been-"

"Woah, woah. Wait a second, you don't remember either?"

"Oh cool! Me too!"

A new voice had joined in, who wasn't present earlier.

Hero looked in its direction, and saw his little brother, as smiley as ever, and smelling like the ocean.

Chapter Text

Kel was lying on the ground in a basketball court.

Which was really weird, because the last time he showed up in this funky little dream world, he'd been in a purple version of the treehouse. But now, sitting up, he could very much see a basketball hoop. Also, it was night.

Glancing around in the dim light, there was another hoop on the other side of the court, and trees everywhere and- Oh this is the court from the park. Cool.

His clothes (Jersey and shorts, as per usual,) seemed to give off their own light. Actually, all of him was glowing. Hm, well not quite glowing. He wasn't lighting up anything around him, but he could see himself perfectly, despite the low lighting.

Kinda weird. Not weird enough to pay that much attention too, though.

There was a piece of paper under one of the baskets. Kel walked from the center of the court to look at it. Oh, a note.

Kel,

First off, I'm sorry about the stab thing, I didn't mean to scare anyone. As Basil said earlier, it's just the fastest way to wake up. Sorry.

The world you're in is called Headspace. It's a dream world I created over the four years I was inside.

But it's not safe for real people to be in. There are too many dangerous things, and too many personal things. I'm sorry, but I can't let you guys explore it. So I made a little area for each of you, to stay in until I can figure out how to get you guys out of Headspace altogether.

Yours is the park, with the addition of a pool, because of Cris. I know you like her. Also, there's a secret entrance somewhere around here that should lead to a surprise.

I don't know your friends well enough to make copies of them, so you're going to be alone here. I'm sorry for that.

I know you get bored easily, so I tried to add a bunch of things to choose from. And don't worry, this was easy to make. I've built the park before.

Again, sorry for everything,

-[][][][][][][]
-Sunny

...He should probably be concerned about the blurred text and 'dangerous things', but really? All Kel could think was 'I like Cris?'

Well, no, he didn't. Not like that. But apparently Sunny thought he did? Weird.

Also, the note reminded him that this was Sunny's dream-world, which explained why it was night time. Sunny and him used to sneak out around this time to go to Hobbeez! Which ran really late hours, for some reason. Shopkeep really needs to get more sleep. Hey, when did he and Sunny stop doing that?

Almost four years ago.

...Why did he and Sunny stop doing that?

...Huh.

That's weird.

The only answer to that one that Kel could think of was 'Same reason Hero's always sad.' But Hero wasn't always sad.

Was he?

...

Kel shook his head. He didn't want to think about that. He looked around.

It was the park. Oh yeah, the note did say that, didn't it?

He looked again. Yup, sure did.

The park, with a pool, and a secret entrance that leads to... Something. Something fun, hopefully.

Kel dropped the note and walked off of the court, dodging the two bushes that separate the court from the playground, just like they did in real life.

There were the swings, the slide, and the monkey bars, their red and blue coloring hard to make out in the starlight. There were the buckets and shovels perpetually lying in the sand, abandoned by kids who got bored of them. There was a bench, some trees, a lost old stuffed cow, all the things that were usually scattered around at the park.

Oh, and the cat. The rusty, metal, yellow cat with the mildly creepy eyes. The one which was, Kel now knew from experience, way creepier on a larger scale.

Thankfully, this one was the size of the one in real life. Taller than him, still, but barely. Still kind of scary, honestly.

Anyway.

There was the tetherball pole, boring as usual. Kel didn't get the point of a ball you couldn't throw. Or, y'know. Not really throw. Whatever.

Looking past the picnic table, and past the trees, there was, indeed, a pool.

It was big. Taking up most of the space between the other picnic table and the fruit cart. Anything that would normally have been in that space had been completely removed to make room for a massive pool in Sunny's head. Or, y'know, however dream-world-building worked.

Anyway, what might've been utterly destroyed to make room for an incorrect crush assumption wasn't that important. The only things in that area anyway were a ton of trees and bushes, and an old picnic basket. What's a little deforestation for a nice big pool?

Woah. That was. Really sarcastic? For Kel at least. Why was he being all bitey toward Sunny's dream-world again?

Hm. Kel found himself not wanting to think about that, either.

Well. He wasn't really interested in the pool in the first place, really. That was Cris' thing, not his. Sure he knew how to swim, and it was kind of fun at the beach and stuff, but it wasn't something he wanted to do all the time. Swimming had been quite a bit less fun after that time Sunny almost drowned when they were kids.

It did have a big ol' diving board though. Much taller than would be safe in real life. That was kind of cool. Not cool enough to care about, though.

So, he didn't want to go in the pool, and the park was boring all alone. So... Time to look for a secret entrance!

Of course, the first place Kel checked was the real life secret entrance. The small, barely noticeable gap between trees that led to their old hangout spot. But when he managed to inch around the pool to get there, those familiar trees were ever-so-slightly closer together, and it was near-impossible to squeeze between them. Message received, Kel made his way back across the park.

Looking around with more searching eyes, Kel finally noticed a few key differences to the park in real life. Namely, the lack of an exit. The fence, which usually had a nice wide gap to walk through, had sort of grown closed, with the sign that usually blocked the path having shifted, heel-turned to the side so as not to get in the fence's way.

Weird. Kel walked over to read it. As per usual, or, as per real life, the sign read "THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE [][][][][][][][]!" In big blocky, all-caps text.

Wait. Why was a word missing? Like visibly missing. Like there was a blank space where the word was supposed to go. That doesn't make sense. It's a perfectly normal word. There's nothing to hide in that word.

...Kel knows that it's a perfectly normal word. So why can't he remember it?

Hm. Starts with a d. Or maybe a b? He always got those mixed up as a kid. Bs and ds. Why are they the same letter but backwards? It'd always felt silly to make it like that, but he supposed that it wasn't up to him, or the teachers who taught it to him. No, it was up to a bunch of old guys hundreds of years ago. What was he thinking about again?

Oh, right. Word missing from a sign. Wait. Why did he care? Maybe it was reminding him of something. Of what? The note that Sunny left. Why the note that Sunny left? What did that have to do with anything? Well the note had a missing word too. It did?

Woah. Hey. This thought process is seriously scattered. Even for Kel. What's going on?

The missing word on the sign had how many letters? Maybe eight judging by the space left. Or somewhere around eight. How many in the note?

Kel found himself running across the park to get the note, and running back to the sign.

Seven. There are seven smudged letters on the note, and room for eight on the sign. Couldn't be the same word then.

Could it? The word on the sign was... Was... Something that makes that work? What would make two words with a one letter-difference basically the same? If the longer one was plural.

Plural! That works! So the word on the sign starts with a D or a B, and ends with an S because it's the plural version of the one on the paper.

Wait, why did he care?

Anyway, looking real close at the smudge on the paper, Kel could make out a couple of letters. Oh, so it was a d!

Okay, what he had so far was D[]E[]M[][]S!

If he could only remember what the sign said in real life... Something about... Creativity? What word with something to do with creativity would be spelled like that?

Oh... Maybe.

The word was 'DREAMERS'.

...

Huh. Where did that come from?

He'd spent too long thinking about something that didn't matter. Why did that work? That usually just leads to him not getting his homework done in real life. And not figuring out the thing that didn't matter anyway. So why did this absurd game of Hangman work so well?

Well. This wasn't real life.

Hey, why did Sunny almost sign the note as 'Dreamer'?

Huh. Well, this was his dream world. Maybe that's just sort of. His title here?

And why did Kel spend so long trying to figure out this sign? It really wouldn't do anything, and wasn't he supposed to be finding a secret entrance?

...Hey, what if completing the sign would open the secret entrance? That would be so cool! Like a video game!

Wait, he didn't have anything to write with.

Well, this was a dream. What if he could just... Make one?

Kel held his hand out in front of him, and focused really, really hard on the idea of sidewalk chalk. It couldn't hurt his efforts to try and fit with the playground theme, could it?

Oops, got off topic.

Anyway, Kel held his hand out in front of him, And focused really, really, super hard on the idea of sidewalk chalk. He pictured a dry stick of white, writable material, a little less than an inch thick, circular, with one end practically untouched, and another worn down into a dull point. He pictured one side of it, flattened from being used to fill in a wider area, darkened from smudges of dirt, or asphalt, or whatever turned sidewalk chalk black when you press it too hard into the street. He pictured a stick of chalk, one he probably had more than ten of sitting in his garage somewhere, that he hadn't used in ages.

And then, to his excitement, he wasn't picturing it anymore. It was sitting in his hand.

Oh, hell yeah! Dream superpowers!

Kel nearly jumped up and down, happy that this impulse decision, this last-ditch effort actually worked!

Then he remembered why he'd figured out how to summon a piece of sidewalk chalk, and made himself be at least a little serious. Time to solve a video game puzzle!

...What was the word again?

Oh, no he didn't want to do this again! The word was... The word was...

...Dreamers! The word was dreamers! In big, blocky, all caps letters! Oh thank god, if Kel had to play detective for that again, he might've just given up.

Okay. "THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE DREAMERS!"

The word seemed to slot in perfectly, seemed to belong there and, Kel knew, it did.

So, when he was done writing, He fully believed that he'd hear some small noise, and the secret entrance would open, and he'd be a genius because who else would've thought of that?

Then, nothing happened.

There was no sound of something slotting carefully into place, there was no sudden glow from somewhere, and there was no dramatic flash of lightning. Kel was forced to remember that he had completely made that up, and that he had no idea if it would work or not.

...He might've been so caught up in the excitement of having dream-superpowers that he'd forgotten.

Well. Oops.

Realizing that he'd just spent far too long sitting in front of a sign and trying to magically summon chalk, Kel got up to continue the search for the secret entrance.

Hey, why had he come over here in the first place?

Oh right, the fence was blocking the exit. Was it a little taller, too? To make it harder to scale? It might be. Creepy.

Anyway. Secret entrance!

He checked the usual 'door' to the lake, since maybe fixing the sign had changed something and it just hadn't made a sound. But it was still more overgrown than Kel could get through, so he kept on with the search.

After a failed attempt to see if ducking under the slide would do anything, trying to squeeze between a tree trunk and a chunk of fence, and a considering glance up at the diving board, Kel found himself sitting, wind taken from his sails, in the sand in the playground.

Because ducking under the slide only made him hit his head. The gap between the tree and the fence wasn't wide enough to get through (and all he saw on the other side was black). And the note had listed the pool and the secret entrance separately, which probably meant that jumping into it from high enough wouldn't do anything for his goals.

So where the hell was the entrance?

He didn't even know why he was doing this. He didn't even know what was on the other side of the secret entrance he'd been looking for! What was the point?

Ugh. This was getting boring. Kel looked behind him, wondering when he could wake up.

Oh. So he was just fucking stupid.

Because it had taken him however-long-it-had-been to remember that the little door into the hollow Yellow Cat was usually much smaller than it was here.

In real life, there was no chance he'd fit anymore. That train had left the station when he was fifteen, a little over a year ago, which he found out on a dare from Jay. Jay had bet that he wouldn't be able to fit, Kel had bet that he would. He'd gotten stuck for almost an hour, and lost a dollar.

Here, It looked like if he tried, he could squish himself into it without much trouble. It had to be at least a foot bigger than it was normally. The top of the entrance reached in between the things arms, almost getting into its face above them. In no universe would he not have to crouch, but he could certainly fit.

What a dumbass, him. He already knew that, though. So at this point, he mostly found it funny.

Standing, with almost a sigh, Kel started the process of squishing himself into the cat.

Once a leg stuck in, hands clinging to the cat's arms for balance, Kel realized that there was no floor to this thing. At least, not one he could feel. It was just a straight drop from the entrance to... Wherever it led.

Well, no need to squish himself if there was that much room. And could the fall even hurt him in a dream?

Kel carefully got his other leg next to the first one, and let go of the cat's ears.

Oh my god it's a slide. It's a slide. It's a slide!

A really long, adult-sized tunnel-slide, that took twists and corners and curved and somehow didn't make him motion sick and it was so fun. It pretty much fixed his mood instantly because holy shit, he hadn't been on a slide like this since he was, what, twelve?

It smelled like plastic and crayons and a McDonald's play-place, but there was no weight limit because it was built for Kel specifically, not a bunch of kids, which meant he could still go on the slide even at his age, even at his height, and it was the best thing. He hadn't done this in ages.

Slowly, color started to come in, light shining through the plastic. Orange, his favorite, and wow, this place really was built for him, huh?

It didn't take long after it started lightening for the slide to come to a close, and when Kel popped out the other end, he was instantly back on his feet. For a second, he kind of wanted to shout 'Again! Again!' like he would have as a kid, but he wasn't a kid, he was sixteen years old, and he was probably too old to shout 'Again! Again!'. Also, there was no one to shout it to, so it didn't really matter.

And anyway, Kel was finally on the other side of the secret entrance, and he could finally see what he'd been searching for.

Oh. Oh! That was cool!

The room he'd opened into was a big circle, with the last bit of the slide poking out of the wall behind him. The walls were a warm white, with fun little neon orange basketball outlines in a pattern along them. The floor was the softest carpet he'd ever felt, and it was white. Wait, actually it was a very light yellow. Still white, basically.

There were plush orange couches and beanbag chairs, all in a sort of semi-circle around the thing he'd said was cool.

It was, and he couldn't exaggerate if he tried, an absolutely massive gaming collection.

Like. So big.

A yellow counter stretching across the curved wall opposite the slide, with the single biggest TV Kel had ever seen sitting in the center. It had to be at least 40 inches across! Below it, in glass-doored cabinets, was practically every game he'd ever seen in his entire life.

Some pretty new ones, mostly, which made sense, because Sunny built this place, and he'd always had the newest ones when they were kids. Tomb Raider and Resident Evil and... Was that Super Mario 64? A couple older ones, like DKC2 and Zelda for the SNES and oh! Chrono Trigger, that brought him back! Final Fantasy VII! That hadn't even come out yet!

And on the counter, a little ways to the right from the giant TV, was a full-fledged PC, already turned on with Myst and Dungeon Keeper and Total Annihilation and Duke Nuke'em!

There were just so many, and dimly, Kel registered that most of them were games that he'd described to Sunny a while ago, when he'd been talking his ear off to catch him up on everything that'd come out while he'd been gone, but it didn't really matter because half of these Kel didn't even have in real life, and now he could play them all! Or at least, dream versions of them all.

(Wait. 'While he'd been gone'?)

And that wasn't even it! Over on the left, where the counter ended, was an actual standup pinball machine. An old-fashioned pinball machine with a plunger and flippers and flashing lights. And on the other side of the counter was a coin-op standup arcade game, the kind with four different games on it, PacMan, Jash Bash, Frogger, and Sprout Mole Eater.

And, sitting on top of the machine, a neat little pyramid of rolled quarters to feed it.

Upon closer inspection, the pile had a tiny, yellow corner sticking out from under it. When he moved the quarters, he revealed a sticky note.

Good job finding this place!

The quarters will respawn if you run out.

-Sunny

...Wow, okay! That was great!

The issue was what to do first. He found himself sort of overwhelmed. Like, there were a million games here and yeah, it was super exciting and he was totally jumping up and down a little because oh my god, there were so many games here, and yeah his chest felt sort of fizzy and bright with happiness but also it sucked because there was no way he could get to all of these, and he really really wanted to because they were all so cool and-

Okay. Calm the hell down, Kel.

He brushed his hands down his jersey, smoothing it down. Smoothing himself down. Squishing his face out of its dopey smile.

There was nothing wrong with being so happy, but-

But...

He was supposed to know something, wasn't he?

Something... Something...

This place was supposed to be... Bad?

There was something wrong. Aubrey and Hero were both mad at Sunny. Aubrey was mad at this place too.

Why was that?

There was a reason. Kel knew there was a reason.

Why couldn't he remember it?

There was a reason that this place was bad, but...

It really didn't feel like it.

It was almost like he was twelve again. Every little thing exciting him almost to the point of a goddamn heart attack for no reason because he just liked so many things.

But he wasn't twelve. He wasn't a little kid. He shouldn't be struggling so much to keep his head on his shoulders just because, what, there were a ton of super awesome video games ready to be played in a place specifically designed to keep him entertained?

There was something wrong, and he should remember what it was, but he couldn't.

And he sort of didn't want to think about it.

...Well maybe his head could be a little bit off of his shoulders. It wasn't like he had anywhere to be.

So, with a restored grin on his face, Kel sat down in one of the bean bag chairs, and watched the TV turn on automatically, because that was just how cool this place was.

-----

So, as it turned out, Kel could, actually, get to them all. At least, all the ones that were interesting.

He wasn't like... hating on Sunny's imagination or whatever, but video games weren't quite as fun when they're just made up by some guy who hasn't played them. Sunny really only knew about most of these from Kel's descriptions, so maybe it was his own fault, but...

Yeah, most of them sucked.

The two (Count 'em, two) console games that Sunny had actually played lately, on Kel's system, were decent. They played basically the same as they did in real life, if only because Sunny had actually, Y'know, seen them. The older games were pretty nice as well, but a little foggy, since they'd likely been created from memory alone. Sunny's memory was great, but...

It wasn't Sunny's fault, probably. There was a good chance he hadn't played any games in, like, four years.

Wait, what?

...Anyway, the point was, the only games that were accurate were the ones that Kel actually owned, and the ones on the arcade machine. That last bit made sense. Sunny had spent like. Hours on those things the last time they'd seen each other.

So yeah, the games were all poorly made except for the ones that Kel could play all the time, if he wanted.

He hadn't even used all the quarters.

So, mood mostly ruined and super bored, he looked for a way out.

Right next to the slides exit, there was a weird... Green... Thing. It was glowing, and Kel honestly didn't know how he hadn't seen it before.

It was in the floor, a circular green patch against the fluffy yellow-white. Green circle inside a different green circle inside another green circle and on and on, with a couple of strange little rings of green light bobbing up and down above it.

Huh.

First interesting thing he'd seen in a while. So, Kel stepped onto it.

There was a weird buzzing noise, and then it was dark.

Not like, black screen dark. It was nighttime dark. Because he was back in the park. Or at least, he was behind a tree, so probably the park.

Woah.

Teleportation!? Hell yeah! Teleportation!

Excitement kind of renewed, Kel stepped off of the pad, glanced around, and- Yep, sure enough, that's the basketball court! He'd gotten back to the park!

That was so cool. Like- Like so cool.

He glanced behind him.

Oh, this pad wasn't glowing like the other one was.

Oh maybe it only works one way?

Well. Wanting to test out teleportation was certainly enough reason to go on a slide again!

-----

Okay, that got boring slower than the massive gaming room. Almost impressive, actually.

Kel must've gone on the slide and the teleporter like twenty times before he got sick of it. And hey! You would too! Going on the coolest slide ever after being too big for most of them for years, with a cool way back up and no chance of motion sickness was fun goddamnit, and Kel would not be shamed!

...Wait, was he arguing with himself right now?

Anyway. It did get boring after a while. Even the most fun thing in the world would eventually succumb to monotony. Or something.

Point is, Kel was bored now. There wasn't anything left to do. Most of the stuff in the park was either boring or too small for him, sometimes both. The games room had been a massive disappointment, and the pool...

Well, he didn't really like swimming, but there was nothing wrong with it. And it was better than nothing, at this point.

Picking himself up from the sand of the playground, Kel started walking over to it.

Wait. Wouldn't he get wet? This was the only set of dream-clothes he had! It would probably be harder to make a new set of those than it had been to make chalk.

...It was a dream though. Maybe he wouldn't get wet at all. Maybe it wouldn't even be an issue!

Now at the pools edge, Kel stuck a hand in.

It certainly felt wet.

He pulled it out again, disappointed. But then, It was dry. His hand was dry. Oh, that was cool.

So he could only be wet when he was in the water; If he was on land, he'd stay dry. Nice! Now he didn't have to worry about the clothes!

As with most things, Kel jumped into the pool with a stupid grin on his face, and zero hesitation.

The feeling of jumping into a pool with his clothes on was not at all unfamiliar. Sure, he hadn't done it in a while, but the sensation of water soaking in to the fabric was always the same.

Water surrounded him, and he wondered if he could open his eyes in dream-chlorine without it stinging like it would in real life. Before he could stop himself, he was testing that theory. It was a really good thing that it worked out, or else he would've really regretted it. But no, it didn't sting, and he looked around the pool.

It looked mostly normal, actually. Just a regular, tiled rectangle. There was the ladder to get out, a shallow section, and what looked like a million of those little neon sticks scattered around the concrete floor. You know, the ones that an adult will through in a pool and the kid'll have to go find them? Those. Didn't really seem like much to do.

Turing onto his back, Kel expected to see the waters surface creating a blurry, blueish view of the sky.

What he actually saw was an entirely different sky.

For a second, because of the purple, he thought it was the same sky as the Room from the night before. But there were bluer, watery patterns, and some of the little doodles were different. A jellyfish, a fish-fish. General ocean-y stuff.

A dolphin slid across his view ever-so-slowly and for some reason, that was kind of really funny. He snickered. Then he panicked because he was underwater and snickering was a very bad idea. Then he stopped panicking because he remembered that this was a dream and he could, actually, breathe just fine.

Smiling a little at his own dumbassery, Kel swam to the surface. He was sick of the water already. He climbed out of the water, marveled for maybe three seconds at the fact that his clothes were dry, and wondered what else there was to do.

He'd tried everything, hadn't he? And it'd all sucked.

Well, there was a diving board. And he was so bored. It was unrealistically high up, but hey, we'd just established that he could breathe under water, why wouldn't he escape the fall unharmed?

Having thoroughly convinced himself of his safety, Kel began the climb up the ladder.

He couldn't make out the color of the ladder, since it was so dark. Maybe blue? That'd match the pool. Or orange 'cause it was his favorite and this place was made for him. Or, along that line, black? Sunny's favorite? Wait, was that still Sunny's favorite? Kel hadn't asked, the last time they'd seen each other, and it had been a while before that. Wait, why had it been a while?

...

Why had it been a while?

...

Kel realized that he'd stopped climbing. He should probably get back to that.

Hanging from his arms on a ladder rung was bound to start hurting eventually. Even though climbing the thing wasn't hurting at all, and it usually would. Weird. Well, whatever. Dream logic, probably. If he could breathe under water, why would he be subject to muscle fatigue? That's just stupid.

Oh hey he was at the top. When did that happen?

(He'd been forgetting things a lot today.)

Standing on a diving board was something he hadn't done in a while. Their school had a pool, duh, there was a swim team, but that unit in P.E. had been way at the start of the school year, and it was mid-summer now, so yeah, it'd been a while.

He stepped to the edge, and looked at the water below.

The surface didn't show any signs of the patterns he'd seen from the other side of it. But it hadn't done that from the ground, either.

He wasn't scared of heights. Not really, not like Sunny was, but this was really high up. He was almost a little afraid. Huh.

It wasn't really a bad fear though. Just like...

Ugh. Words. He wasn't good with them.

Like a rollercoaster? Not real fear, just. Tenseness. There's a good word. He wasn't scared. Tense. In a good way.

The water was sort of fun to look at. Tempting him downward. Kel got ready to jump.

Then, he was standing on a dock.

It was cold, the vague staticky sounds of the ocean were just a little too loud, and he didn't recognize where he was at all.

There was a distinct feeling of emptiness.

But none of that mattered, because through the light fog, he could see someone standing in front of him, facing the water, And it was Mari.

Sick! She was here too? That made sense! Everyone else was! Why hadn't he thought of that before?

Oh he'd missed her so much! Wait, why? She wasn't gone. But he hadn't seen her in a while. She was... At college? Like Hero?

No, no that didn't sound right. Or- Feel right? He hadn't said anything out loud, it was just a thought, so did it really count as sound? Wait, what was he thinking about?

Well, whatever! It was Mari, and he hadn't seen her in ages, and he wanted to talk to her!

Kel rushed up, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, a smile already on her face and her skirt and hair swooshing with the movement. Then, she paused.

"Oh, Kel! I wasn't expecting you!"

He tilted his head. "Why not?"

"Well... Anyway, um. There's a thick fog enveloping the entire forest... Wait, no there isn't? Everywhere, except here. That doesn't make sense."

She was talking weird. Disjointed? That was a word. Was he using it right? She seemed confused. Mari paused, for a second. Processing, like he used to need to do as a kid. Sort of like she was lagging.

"Hm... We're too early in the cycle for this. But didn't the cycle break? Why am I here? What's going on?" She muttered under her breath. Kel wondered if she knew he could hear her. Also, what she was saying was kind of super concerning. Was she okay? Could he help?

"...How would you like to go for a swim, Kel?"

That sounded awesome.

"Sure! Let's go!"

She smiled, still looking a little confused, and motioned him to jump in. He, without missing a beat, cannonballed into the water with as much force as he could muster.

She got splashed, and laughed, and climbed in after him. He was glad he could fix her mood with his usual antics! Her being all confused just didn't seem right.

Kel swam, and Mari followed. There was a whole ocean of water, with waterlogged, blueish trees sticking out of it every once in a while. He could see their roots through the water. It went on for a while, and he kept swimming under the water and screwing around. She laughed, every time. He'd missed that laugh. Wait, what?

After some time of that, they came across a little island, with a house lost to age and water damage.

Like with the trees, everything had a heavy tint of blue, like he was looking through colored glass. Except for the ladder up to the island, which was a contrasting bright pinky-purple. It kind of shined.

Kel climbed up, and Mari followed. It was weird. As a kid, she used to lead. She was older, so she knew more. Looking behind him to see her, she still looked the same as she always had. Huh. She aged really gracefully, then. Ha, silly Kel, she didn't age at all. Wait, what did that mean?

The houses roof was flat, and there was a whole chunk missing from a corner. One side of the window was busted, and the whole little island kinda sorta reeked of wet dust, moldy fabric and seaweed. The trees looked climbable, though. Hey, he could probably-

No, no. Mari had a bad knee, they should go inside so she could sit down. Climbing weird blue trees would be rude.

Dashing forward and leaning into the door, Kel held it open for Mari to walk through, a big, goofy grin on his face.

"Oh, what a gentleman! Hero's taught you well, while I've been gone, hasn't he?" She teased. Her voice was so giggly.

"Actually, he's been mostly at college! We don't talk as much as we used to." He followed her through into the house.

She blinked at him, her smile fading a little. What did he say wrong?

"Well... I'm- ...I'm sorry to hear that, Kel."

"Oh. Ohhhhh! No, no it's fine! He's just kinda quiet now! It's not like we don't get along!"

She paused, "...That's nice."

Thinking quick, Kel picked up an overturned stool and set it back on its legs. "You should sit! Your knee must hurt from all the swimming."

She smiled brighter again. "That's very thoughtful of you!" She smoothed down her skirt as she sat, "So, basketball?"

"Huh?" He looked down at his jersey and remembered that he was bright orange, "Oh yeah! I've been playing for real for a while, and I'm gonna try out for the team at school next year!"

"Oh that's wonderful! I remember you always wanted a hoop of your own!"

"Oh yeah! I have one now too!" Kel almost sat on the old, unmade bed to talk, but some of the unidentified stains were still wet, and that was too gross, even for him.

Jumpstarted into action by the water damaged sheets, Kel started looking around. An old TV, an overturned plant pot, an end table that wasn't actually at the end of anything, another half busted window-

"Oh, looking around?"

"Mhm! I don't know where we're going so I figured exploring wouldn't hurt."

"That's nice."

Some very crooked photos of blurry people who probably don't exist because this was a dream-

"So Mari? How come I miss you so much? I mean- You're right here."

The walls were almost impressively damaged, considering they were brick. Do you know how hard it was to put that big a crack in brick? Kel hadn't been able to. And he'd tried. Multiple times.

"And why do you still look my age? Is that just how you see yourself so that's how what your dream-avatar looks like? And why do you still see yourself as sixteen?"

Wardrobe- Ooh, what's inside? Cobwebs and darkness, boring. The bed he'd already seen, pillow on the ground, table lamp on the ground, hey maybe that's where the end table was supposed to go-

Why hasn't Mari answered?

"Mari?"

He turned to her.

She wasn't smiling.

"...Kel..." She looked so sad for him. It didn't make sense. He hadn't really even said anything. What did he do wrong?

"What? What did I say?"

"Do- ...Kel, do you think I'm-"

She cut herself off.

"Nevermind," She said, summoning her smile back onto her face, "How about we get going?"

"Um... Okay." But he still didn't know what he'd said.

Mari got up, and held the door open for him. He laughed.

"Oh hey, role reversal!"

She laughed too.

But on the way out, Kel could've sworn there was a drooping figure watching him leave from the other side of the old TV screen. It almost looked like-

The door swung shut behind him, and Mari followed him out.

The trees still looked very climbable, but Mari started heading to the ladder, so Kel figured he could do that later.

They climbed in, and started moving past the island. More water, more trees, more roots that were barely visible through the water. Kel continued his watery hijinks, swimming around Mari with shark-fin-hands, just like he had as a kid. She kept giggling at it and- And-

Why did it feel so sad?

Not the sound of it. No, that was normal. It was just-

God, every time he heard her voice he just wanted to cry. Why was that? It didn't make sense. He didn't like it. He didn't like it. He didn't like it. He didn't like it. He didn't like it-

"Kel? Are you alright?"

She looked down, worried. Down? He was taller than her. Oh, she was on land and he was at the base of another pink ladder. Seems he'd switched to following her at some point. When was that?

"Kel?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm okay." He started the climb up to the island. Oh hey this one had two levels. Cool.

Another quick, worried glance at him and she was stepping towards the other, taller ladder. The one that led to the higher bit of the island and- A lighthouse? Sunny's head was pretty cool. They used to play lighthouse together at the top of the slide. Shining flashlights at people. People who were in their cars. Hey, how come they never caused a crash?

Oh. That's why they'd gotten in trouble for playing lighthouse.

It was kind of embarrassing that it took him until he was sixteen to understand something that'd happened when he was nine. Oops.

"-t's barely holding itself together..."

"Huh?"

Kel realized a couple of things. For one, they'd gone into the lighthouse sometime when he wasn't paying attention, and two, Mari had been talking and he'd completely ignored her. Jeez, why was he so out of it all of a sudden?

"What did you say? Sorry, I zoned out."

"That's alright, Kel. I was just taking about this poor photo..."

What photo? He followed her eyes and looked up.

A family. A mom, dad, and two kids. One boy, one girl. It was in a fancy, detailed frame, but it was water damaged, and all the faces except for the little girl had been ruined. Scribbled out? It was hard to tell.

Wait. Hang on, wait, that was-

"Mari- Mari that's... That's you. Mari that's you. And Sunny and- and your parents- Mari do you not know them?"

She stared at him. Just a blank, endless look. What the hell?

That was her! that was her family! Why the hell didn't she know that? What was going on?

First he can't remember random words, then he can't remember where Mari is in the real world, then Mari starts acting weird, then he's seeing weird shit in TV screens, and now she can't remember what her own family looks like?

"-might be more aware than Sunny ever was-"

And what was with the muttering? And why was she purple?

Wait. What? She was purple? How did he not see that before?

But it was true. Her hair had a bluey-purple tint to it. No, not even a tint. It wasn't its usual black but just, kind of purple. Her hair was purple. Her skin was paler than real life. Almost white. Like Sunny's had been when he left the house for the first time. What? Sunny leaving the house for the first time? What did that even mean?

What the hell was going on!?

"-el, Kel, Kel can you hear me?"

Oh. Mari was a lot closer than she had been before. She was looking at him with such a serious expression that he sort of had to listen, even if he had to make himself. He nodded.

"Good, good. Can you breathe in with me?" She took an exaggerated breath. Oh. Kel knew this routine. He did this for Hero sometimes. He breathed with her.

In.

Out.

"Good job, Kel. One more?"

In.

Out.

"Okay, okay. Do you want to take a walk? That helped when you were little."

That sounded really nice actually. He stumbled to his feet, (when did he sit down?) and started for the door. He paused. There was a flower, by the photo. An important flower. The one that looked like a bird. Basil liked it. Or- Basil talked about it a lot? Was there a difference?

"Kel? A walk?"

"...Right- Yeah. Walk. Let's go."

She smiled at him, and followed him out the door.

A few laps around the lighthouse, and he was feeling a lot better. What was he even freaking out over in the first place? Colors? So what if Mari was purple! He was orange! Granted, the orange was a little less literal but... Whatever! Mari was here, and he hadn't seen her in ages, and he was going to have fun.

They left the island without much fanfare, and Kel was swimming aimlessly, trying to remember which direction they'd been going. Eventually, after circling a random tree a few times, Mari laughed from behind him and pointed in the right direction. He laughed too, and started moving.

Eventually, they found a spot where the trees were clustered, and a pier poked out from between them. A ladder that matched the others he'd seen extended into the water. He grinned, and climbed up. Mari followed.

"Kel... It's been so nice to see you." Her voice was kind of sad, and he stopped to look back at her. "I think... Kel, I think you know, somewhere in there. That this isn't real."

"...Well yeah. It's a dream. All of us are here though, so I'm just enjoying it!"

"Kel, no. All of you are here, I felt it when you appeared. But that's all of you."

"I... I don't get it."

"...That's alright." Then, quieter, "You will."

"What?"

"Nothing. Don't worry, Kel."

She smiled, and gestured forward. Signaling that they should keep going.

Well. That was- What's the word- Ominous? Yeah, That. Weird.

He kept walking forward on the pier. No point worrying about shit that Mari just said he'd figure out soon.

Fork in the road. Well, the path ahead seemed to stretch on for quite a while longer than the one to the left, so he kept going straight. Same process with the second fork. He kept walking. And walking, and walking. Mari was strangely quiet behind him.

A lamppost stuck out of the water, and Kel wondered how it wasn't rusty and/or covered in barnacles. Then there were more lampposts. Like, everywhere, and he remembered that this was a dream and rust probably didn't exist here.

A little island, just to the right of his pathway, had a couple of trees on it. Until he actually looked at it. Then, three shadowy figures appeared. They were kids. Sitting on the grass, maybe playing cards? If he squinted, he could make out a few features and-

Oh. Oh, that was him. The one closest to the pier- It was him. Kel. And the furthest one was Aubrey, and the other one was Hero and suddenly Kel was really, really freaked out because what the hell.

But a childlike giggle rang through the air and all three of them just straight up disappeared.

Kel, almost, wanted to turn around and absolutely book it back to the ocean. Full sprint. No looking back. But when he turned- To make sure Mari saw that shit too- She was just smiling. Soft and warm. Comforting. Knowing.

"It's alright. Those are just Strangers. They don't bite."

"...Strangers? But that was- Those were us-!"

Except... There was something there. Strangers. That name. Yesterday, when they were all in that room, Sunny had said something about them, hadn't he?

'And they can't be Stranger variants, 'cause, I mean. Look at them.'

'What the fuck is *that* supposed to mean?!'

Stranger variants. Variations on one specific kind of creature.

Something clicked in Kel's head.

"...Okay. Okay, yeah, let's keep going."

Mari smiled. They kept going.

The pier took them through a long pathway. It twisted in on itself, turn after turn after turn, and every once in a while, the pier would just circle another small island, with another creepy figment. He was in all of them. Or at least, all the ones that he saw. Mari was only in one. He wondered if she felt a little left out about it. She seemed fine, probably.

(You thought that same thing four years ago.)

What? What the hell did that mean?

But then they reached the end of the spiraling dock, and he heard Mari stop behind him. She passed him on the narrow pathway, and stood in front of him.

Suddenly, there was a large, curtained window, just past where the pier ended. Just behind her.

"Well, Kel. This is my stop."

"What? What's going on?"

"This didn't go like it usually does. For one thing," She laughed, "You're not who I usually go with! But I can't stay forever, Kel. And I think you know that I'm not the real Mari."

She glanced to the side, looking sad. Kel had no idea what she was talking about.

"No, no. She left. Last time both versions came here. At least, I think she did." Mari(?) sighed.

Kel, with horror, realized what was happening.

"No, no wait- Wait please don't go- Mari please- Please- Not yet please-"

"I'm sorry, Kel. I love you. I love all of you. But I can't stay here anymore. Sunny-" She inhaled. "all of you, you need each other. You need real life. And Kel, you know that I'm not that."

"Mari- Mari I haven't seen you in so long- Please- Please I just need a little more time-"

She shook her head. The curtains behind her opened.

"It's time." She turned around, and suddenly she seemed to glow- "I have to go. And Kel-"

He was crying, he realized.

"I love you. All of you. Remember that. Always."

"PLEASE-"

She was gone. And Kel wasn't on the pier anymore. He was on the dock. The same damn dock he'd started on. And he was sobbing. Real, ugly sobbing like he hadn't in years, like he hadn't in four years because Mari was dead and Mari was dead and Mari was dead and Mari was dead and he'd never ever see her again and there was nothing he could do about it except for sob and cry and sit on the dock on his hands and knees keeled over because there was nothing he could do and-

-----

Kel had no idea how long he was there.

At some point, he'd rolled over. He knew that because he was staring at the sky, instead of wooden planks.

He'd stopped crying. He didn't know when.

Do you know how to keep it from being too obvious that you've been crying? Kel did. There were a few steps.

For one thing, don't cry in front of people. Kind of hard to hide it when there's people right there.

While you're crying, don't rub at your eyes. At all. That's why people's eyes are all red and swollen after they cry. Its 'cause they were rubbing at them, and if you've ever had any sort of skin abrasion, you'll know that skin does not like to be rubbed at, especially when it's been coated in salt already.

Once you're done, wait a minute for your voice to go back to normal. That's the easiest bit.

Also, if you can, either dry off your face or find an excuse for it to be wet. That's usually the hardest bit, but Kel was literally sitting on a coast right then.

So basically, if it'd been long enough for his voice to be okay, Kel was good to go if or when he needed to. Which meant he could just lie here for as long as he wanted. Stewing. Usually a Hero or Sunny activity. Kel was better at running full tilt away from a problem that'd been solved than just sitting in it. But here he was. Stewing.

He should...

He should probably get up.

He was in a new place, and he hadn't even glanced around. And besides, it was getting harder to remember what he was so sad about. Something to do with Mari. She was... Hurt? Huh. He really couldn't remember.

That was fine. Remembering had sucked, honestly.

So, he started moving. He sat up, and saw... A really generic beach. Sure, the sand was pink or whatever, but other than that? It was just a really small beach.

Woods on either side, shovel and bucket stuck in the sand, long pathway between trees leading further into the forest. That was it. Aside from the dock he was sitting on.

Well, nothing else to do then. He followed the path.

After a while, tiny wildflowers started poking out between blades of grass, and voices started filtering through. Aubrey and Hero's voices.

"-ot zoo animals! And how come I can't even remember why I hate him so much? I've just been-"

Oh right, he'd been all mentally snappy toward Sunny earlier, too. Why was that?

"Woah, woah. Wait a second, you don't remember either?"

Okay, okay Kel, quick smile and loud voice. Fake it till you feel it. Let's go!

"Oh cool! Me too!" He burst through the tree line and saw both of them, standing on opposite sides of a... Rainbowy stump? Yeah alright.

"Kel! Great. Now we're all here!"

"Oh hey Kel."

"I just went for a suuuuper long swim! How 'bout you guys? What did you do?"

"Tons of garbage, then a long ladder. really annoying."

Kel laughed, and only half had to force it. Hero hadn't answered yet. Hm.

"Hero? What about you?"

He looked down. That was a little concerning.

"Creepy castle... Then a..." Hero trailed off into incomprehensible muttering.

"A huh?"

"...Spider forest."

"Oh jeez. That must've sucked."

Hero nodded, still looking down in some combination of fear and shame about the fear. Typical Hero stuff, really.

Aubrey just snorted.

"...Soooooooo," Kel started, "Where to next? Now that we're together, I mean."

Aubrey pointed behind her. "I came from there," In front of her, "Hero's from there," And to her right, "And you from there. There's only one direction to go."

"Well alright then!" Kel hopped over the stump to start heading south, and yeah he might be overplaying the character a little but they were buying it so it was whatever, really. "Hero, you coming?"

His brother nodded, and joined Aubrey in walking with Kel deeper into the forest.

Chapter Text

It took Basil a long time to fall asleep. When he did, his first thought was 'Wow, this grass is really soft.' His second thought was 'Oh, I'm dreaming. This is what Sunny was talking about.'

He sat up, and the grass was so tall and fluffy that there was a distinctive imprinted silhouette where he'd been lying. He felt kind of bad for crushing it. No, scratch that, he felt really bad for crushing it. Poor grass.

He tried, a little upset, to ruffle the grass back into place. He wasn't really expecting it to work- Years of childish experience told him that flattened grass would only heal with time- But to his surprise, the patch of grass slowly puffed back up, blades standing, just like the surrounding ones, to move gently in a slow breeze.

Oh. This dream was going to be nice, wasn't it?

Basil didn't usually have dreams, aside from the nightmares, and even those were fuzzy and hard to get a grasp on. He had trouble visualizing things, too. That's why Sunny drew pictures, and Basil only took them. Or- Used to.

Enough staring at grass, he should look around. This is Sunny's dream world, right? He built it while he was inside for so long, he doesn't want anyone else to see it, and he had a plan to keep all of them out. That's what he'd said- Er, written on three sticky notes- Before they went to bed. Okay. Yeah, okay, Basil could work with that.

He was in the grass just before the start to a long, long path, made of white gravel. The gravel wasn't painted white, the rocks themselves were. Little bits of marble or calcite, maybe. Or they were just white rocks in a dream and no one had put in details about the specific kind of rock. That was probably more likely.

He could see the path extend far into the distance, but the section he was in - The start - Was coated in a sort of soft, white haze. It was nice, sort of comforting, even though he wasn't quite sure why he liked it, but it made his vision a little fuzzy, and he couldn't quite make out anything but the path and the grass.

So, he walked forward a bit. Got himself out of the blur. And when he did...

God, this place was gorgeous.

The pathway seemed to stretch on forever, flanked on either side by a thick layer of trees. Green ones, turned a little orange at the top by the slowly rising sun in the distance. The grass was the perfect shade of green, healthy and thick, with the cutest little daisies dotting the landscape. The path branched off three ways somewhere up ahead, and Basil honestly couldn't wait to see what was down those other paths.

And then- Well he could barely make it out from here but- There was a massive tree in the center of a clearing at the end of the path forward. A blur of green and orange and a tall, brown trunk. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it would be beautiful. He couldn't wait to see it up close. Those other branching paths would have to wait.

As he walked on the path, the occasional butterfly greeted him. They were white, and moved gently, much slower than real ones. He found himself watching them as he came closer to the tree, no longer really looking where he was going. He could faintly hear birdsong. Warm air tickled his skin, smelling like lilies and pine needles, and at a temperature that rested on him like a blanket. Yes, it was nice here.

He passed the fork in the road, glimpsing several flowerbeds, before eventually coming to a stop when the forest opened up into the clearing.

Oh, he was already there? Watching the butterflies must've distracted him more than he'd thought. Still, he'd gotten to the tree, he could look at it closer up.

It was framed by the smaller trees marking out the clearing, but especially by the colorful sunrise behind it. Oranges and pinks danced around the leaves. Its trunk stood tall and proud, casting a healthy shadow at the ground in front of it. Leaves bunching nicely at the ends of strong branches, backlit beautifully by the sunlight. It filtered through, making bright spots on the grass.

Little flowers poked their way out in between the leaves - Nonspecific flowers with no distinct species - In purple, pink, yellow, blue, and orange. A picnic basket sat in the grass, and a little bookshelf behind it was filled to the brim with books, a lot of which he recognized as ones he'd read with Sunny before. The tree's shadow created a perfect mirror image on the ground below. The wispy clouds in the sky casted shadows at just the right places to add depth, without taking away from the colors of the sunrise.

The whole thing was breathtaking.

Basil was then startled out of his mind by something just suddenly appearing at the base of the tree.

For a moment, he'd worried that he'd started hallucinating again. Then he realized that this was not his Something, nor the crude drawing of Sunny's Something that he'd seen in the hospital. This was a different monochrome smudge. And also, he reminded himself, this was a dream. There was a good chance that it was literally impossible to hallucinate in a dream. He didn't know. He should ask Polly, she went to medical school. She might know that stuff. Then again, he'd have to explain that he'd been hallucinating basically all the time for most of the time she'd known him. That would be uncomfortable.

Wait- God- Oh no he'd completely forgotten about the smudge- Um, no, don't call people smudges that's rude. And it was a person. Probably. Actually, was that...?

"Sunny?"

The person shook their head. Okay then.

They did look like Sunny, though.

Like really, really looked like Sunny.

Actually...

They (he?) looked like Sunny... Before.

Before what?

Before Something.

What did that mean?

Something was the thing that both Basil and Sunny had hallucinated for the past four years.

Four years? What caused that? What happened four years ago?

Oh. Right.

That little conversation with himself had brought up some things he'd have rather avoided.

But... Wait. Why didn't he remember that right away?

The person was still staring at him. He was sitting, with his knees pulled into his chest, and his arms crossed on top of them. Just like Sunny used to.

Oh no, this was so weird. Basil walked over, finally, and sat crisscross next to the person.

He just sort of... Stared at him. For quite a while. It was as if he was trying to talk to him, but without moving his mouth or making any sound. Maybe he couldn't talk? Like Sunny sometimes? It was probably rude to compare this kid to Sunny, actually. He should stop doing that.

The person was still staring at him.

"Um...? Hi?"

Basil's voice sounded so unsure.

"...Oh. You can't hear me."

"Huh?" Oh Basil sounded so dumb.

"My Basil can usually hear me. Without my voice."

...Huh. That was weird. What did he mean his Basil?

"...What-" He took a breath. Don't mess this up. "What do you mean?"

"I am Omori. I am a part of the Dreamer. He asked me to introduce you. The others got a note."

"O-Oh... What?"

Omori looked off into the distance for a moment, and Basil could see his jaw working. Like his mouth hurt already from what little he'd said so far. Like Sunny's voice had hurt every time he'd spoken those first weeks in the hospital.

Also, the Dreamer? Was that Sunny? It sounded like a title that could be given to Sunny, since he'd built this place. But then wouldn't Creator, or some other sort of- He didn't know- Vaguely godly title work better? Except that this was a dream, so Dreamer made sense. Yeah. Okay. Dreamer.

"He told you the name of this place, right?"

"Uh- Uhm... Yeah? Headspace?"

Omori nodded. A short, decisive thing. Basil started to pick up on the differences between him and Sunny. Omori seemed... Stronger? Mentally. And a little scarier, but that might be more of a matter of opinion than anything.

"He built it over his years inside, and it's personal to us- Him. To him."

"He... Uh. He said that much." Basil chose to ignore that little slip up, and talk about it to Sunny at a later date.

Omori looked at Basil, for a while too long. He seemed to almost be glaring. Annoyed, but maybe... Maybe not at Basil? He couldn't read Omori nearly as well as he could read Sunny. Eventually, Basil looked away, seriously uncomfortable. The moment he did, though, he heard a sigh.

The kid abruptly stood, and walked around Basil to the bookshelf.

He grabbed a book - A wide, flat one - Walked back around, and sat back down.

"Uhm-"

Omori held up a finger. Okay. Basil would shut up then.

Omori pulled a piece of paper out of... Somewhere. There was what looked like a multicolor drawing on it, so he flipped it over, set it down flat on the book, and started drawing on the other side with a black crayon that he also got from... Somewhere.

No, not drawing. Writing.

...This was starting to feel extremely familiar to a scene he'd been in just a little while ago. Basil, sitting quietly. Watching Sunny, or - "Sunny" - Scribble down notes that would eventually be passed over.

And then, the note was passed.

In handwriting that was shockingly neat, considering the crayon, were a few simple sentences.

There are too many secrets here. Too many dangers, and too many things that the Dreamer would rather you not see. He built you each a room to stay in until we can get all of you out of his head for good. And I guess this takes the meaning out of you getting a personal introduction instead of a note.

After scanning the writing, Basil looked over at Omori.

"Oh... Kay?"

Then, surrounded by gorgeous scenery, Basil sat and tried to avoid eye-contact, as Omori stared at him for a truly uncomfortable amount of time. His eyes were narrowed. Studying him. It was really very disturbing, even though Sunny had looked at him like that before. Like he could stare straight through his skin and vivisect his entire being just with his eyes. Okay, maybe that was a little much. He was always observant, let's leave it at that.

Sunny had never been the best with social cues. He'd always had a bit of a staring issue. It made sense that a... 'part of him' would too. And it wasn't like Basil didn't also stare sometimes! He'd barely taken his eyes off of Sunny at all on his first day back! It was just something about the way Omori- This little version of his best friend- Was looking at him that just- Just-

It just scared him.

He didn't know why.

"And this is supposed to be for you."

Omori held out a flower.

No, a hair clip. The kind the kind with a wrapped-up wire that bent around the back of your ear instead of clipping on, so it looked like you'd just picked the flower out of the ground and tucked it behind your ear. The kind that didn't look as fake. The kind that Basil had always preferred, even though they were harder to find.

And it was a white tulip.

Sunny's flower. Simple, modest, comfortable, perfect.

And, although he hadn't talked about its real meaning quite as much back then, forgiveness.

Tucking the flower right where it went, Basil acknowledged the gesture. Whether it came from Sunny or Omori, it was still very kind.

"Thank... Thank you. Very much, Omori."

Basil smiled warmly, trying to get across that he was being genuine.

"Are you going to die?"

"Am I- What!?"

His smile fell quickly, replaced by a fearful wariness that was honestly much more familiar.

"My Basil dies sometimes. It's unfortunate. Are you going to die?"

"I don't!? Think so!?" His voice had gotten shrill and panicked.

"That's nice." Omori looked up at the sky, through the leaves of the tree above them. "I should go check on the Dreamer. Bye."

"Good-" Omori seemed to dissolve into thin air. "Bye?"

...

Wow.

That entire interaction was incredibly strange.

What did he mean by 'His Basil'? Like- Like he had his own version of him?

Well... Sunny's explanation earlier had said something about that, hadn't it? 'All the little versions of you guys' scrawled on a sticky note. It- It made sense, didn't it? That Sunny would've made a mini Basil for his nostalgia dream world? That wasn't... That weird, was it?

If Basil could've made his own world like Sunny's done here, wouldn't Sunny be there?

Basil should- He should look around, probably. Get his mind off of it.

The bookshelf was still there. Well, duh, but he'd half expected things to disappear with Omori. They didn't, though. The book and note were still in his hand. The bookshelf and the picnic basket were still sat on one side of the tree, which was still beautiful.

He could- Um- He could read a book? Or- Maybe? Have a picnic? By himself? No, that would kind of suck, wouldn't it? And besides, that basket wasn't his, he shouldn't touch it. Wait, what?

This place was built for him, right? Why would the picnic basket not belong to him?

Because it was Mari's. He should know that. He'd seen Mari's picnic basket more than enough times to recognize it. Why hadn't he known? Why hadn't he known it was Mari's? And why, earlier, had he forgotten that Mari was dead? What else was he missing?

Mari was...

Basil had to stay focused. He had to remind himself of this stuff, even if he didn't want to.

Mari was... Mari was dead. Basil and Sunny... Basil and Sunny had been the... The cause of that. And Sunny had locked himself inside for four years as a result. And Basil had kept going, and kept lying, for four years. And then Sunny had come clean for them both after...

After...

After what?

What made him tell everyone?

It was something big. He'd come out of his house the first time, and three days later, he'd revealed a massive secret. At the start of their hospital stay. Hospital stay. Hospital stay. They'd been in the hospital. They'd both been injured, but Sunny was worse. Why were they injured? Why couldn't he remember?

Why couldn't he remember?

...

This train of thought was unsafe.

Basil realized that at some point, he'd stood up. He was facing the tree, now. When had that happened?

And there was a mark in the wood. A knot, like a branch had been cut off and healed over wrong. Except that it must've been an oddly shaped branch, because the round shape sort of draped down into a few sharp tendrils, that lengthened and thinned until they blended in with the pattern of the bark.

He didn't know why he was so fascinated by this knot, even though he'd been thinking about something entirely different just a minute ago. But the spiraled pattern where the branch might've been sort of got lighter as it went inward. Then darker again. Almost like an eye.

Almost like an eye.

A vertical eye.

He'd seen that eye.

He'd seen Sunny draw that eye. He'd seen Sunny draw that knot.

A tall, rounded, black shape with pointed tendrils hanging down, and a vertical eye peeking out.

'It looked like Mari,' He'd explained, looking a little ashamed to have let Basil see the drawing, 'When she was in the tree.'

Basil hadn't known how to respond. But now he was seeing it. Seeing Sunny's Something, and the way it inserted itself into Sunny's dream world. Into his only safe place.

It was horrifying.

He-

He needed to leave. Right now.

Basil turned around and walked away as fast as he could. He didn't run. Nobody knows how scared you are as long as you don't run.

-----

By the time Basil realized he'd never put down the book and the paper, he was already back to the white fog at the start of the path. He'd sat down in the gravel, ignoring the way it dug into the fabric of his shorts in favor of not crushing any more grass. He'd still feel bad, even though he knew it'd get back up quickly.

Basil looked at the note again.

Really, the handwriting was impressive for being done in crayon. Neat and small. It looked a lot like Sunny's, which hadn't changed much over the years. But something was different. It was... Sharper. The uppercase 'd' in Dreamer looked almost like a strange triangle, everything just angled a touch too much. Driving home a difference that Basil couldn't quite understand the significance of.

He shuddered.

Something about that difference was just so unsettling to him. And he didn't know why.

He flipped over the page. He didn't want to look.

Oh, right. There'd already been something on that side. A drawing.

...Not a particularly good one, either.

It was done in crayon, clearly by a child. Or maybe multiple kids? Orange scribbles made up a crude human figure. Large head, shapeless body. A scruffy pile of hair, and a face that was barely recognizable as a face. Then, overtop, a pink crayon extended the hair, and added little balled up scribbles in a band on the characters forehead.

Had... Had Omori made this? That didn't seem right. If that handwriting was standard for him, the drawing would've been much neater if he'd made it. It also seemed like the work of a much younger kid. Omori was, what, twelve?

Also, what even was the drawing of? And why did it sort of look... Familiar...

Oh.

It was him.

It was Basil.

Those scribbles of pink on his head were supposed to be flowers. A flower crown.

His flower crown.

It... Now that he thought about it. The drawing looked a lot like one he still had tucked away in the real world.

Hidden in the back of an old, old book, on the middle shelf of the bookcase in his room, was a childish drawing of himself.

They'd been nine. Aubrey and Basil had joined the group barely three months before, and Sunny's birthday had been two weeks previous.

They were at the park, someone's mom on a park bench nearby, since a thirteen-year-old Hero or Mari wouldn't be trusted to take care of the kids alone outside of one of their houses until Hero's fourteenth birthday. Playing make-believe had been - Except for Kel - A favorite game at the time. Kel preferred things that required running or throwing or other physical activities, but Sunny liked inventing stories, Aubrey liked acting in them, and Basil liked making them happy. Basil also wasn't the biggest fan of Kel's form of play.

So, Hero and Mari kept Kel busy, and someone's mom watched the (slightly, in Aubrey's case) quieter kids form a storyline. The three ducked in and out of the big yellow cat at the playground, interjecting each other with 'What about-!' and 'Wait pretend that-' until they had a semi-solid plot to build on.

This time, Basil was a missing child.

Whoever's mom was there that day - Sunny's or Kel's or maybe Aubrey's, if she was in a good mood that day - Had thought to bring along art supplies, which inspired the idea of missing posters. So Basil was missing, and Sunny and Aubrey needed to make posters to help find him.

Then, conflict.

"No, no! Basil doesn't look like that!" Sunny didn't even really react, just squinted his eyes annoyedly at her and turned back to his drawing.

"Guys... I really don't mind how it looks..."

"Well I do!"

Her voice was young and squeaky, as it always used to be. Loud as ever, too.

The fight had gone on, mostly one-sided, until the paper had pink and green scribbles creating a chaotic drawing of himself. It'd gone on until whoever's mom it was had stepped in and broken it up, sending Aubrey and Sunny to opposite ends of the park, and letting a now-stressed Basil curl against her on the park bench, just on the edge of tears.

Aubrey and Sunny never fought as much as Kel and Aubrey, but the few they did have slowed to a near-stop as they got older.

But that drawing had meant a lot to him.

Even though the shouting had upset him, it had meant, to an anxious, mostly friendless kid, that two of his friends would fight over how he looked on his missing posters.

It had confirmed, to him, that he had friends that would care if he disappeared.

So he'd taken it home, carefully folded it, and put it in between the pages of one of his Grandma's old books. And he'd kept it, even though he'd only looked at it a couple of times since then.

Even though he'd mostly forgotten about it.

Sunny hadn't.

Sunny had put a version of it in his dream world.

Sunny had changed the colors around a little, sure. But he'd remembered that drawing, and he'd put it here. He'd put it in Headspace.

What that meant to Basil...

He didn't really know.

His reaction was... Some kind of positive emotion, probably. It was a very warm feeling. He liked it. He'd felt it before, but not often, and he hadn't ever been able to grasp what it was.

He should check out the branching paths.

Basil started walking again. He carefully avoided looking up ahead. At the tree. At Something.

Instead, he watched the butterflies float gently past. He watched a few stray leaves fall to the ground, swishing side to side like loose sheets of paper. He watched daisies sway in the breeze just to the side of the off-white, gravel path. And when he got to the place where it split off into three, he'd barely noticed that the time had passed right alongside those butterflies. Basil had managed to get to the place of tranquility that he'd first come with.

And now, he was standing at the entrance to two places that he knew would be absolutely full of flowers. All he had to do was choose which one to see first.

Oh, he was never too good at decisions like this. What to do, what to do...

He closed his eyes, extended his left arm with a pointing index finger, and swung it back and forth. When he opened his eyes again, he was pointing at the path to the right. Okay then!

The first thing that greeted him when he crossed the threshold were a ton of forget-me-nots.

They framed the entrance, small, dainty flowers dangled off of thin, fragile stems, growing taller than Basil himself. That... Wouldn't have been possible in real life. They'd only get up to maybe his knees if this wasn't a dream. But that wasn't really important right now.

What was important was the colors.

Forget-me-nots in real life came in few colors, although their usual blue was rare in nature and interesting in itself, that light blue, pink, purple, or white was just about all you could find them in. A good assortment, really, and they went nice together, but there wasn't too much variety.

Here, though?

There were so many.

Ruby reds dangled above him, not quite forming an arch, but nearly. Sunshine yellow blossoms peeked out from a sea of stringy green stems halfway down, and when he looked a little closer, the tiny petals seemed to get a little darker at the center. In between the red and yellow was this gorgeous, unlikely mix of vibrant orange and a soft, forest green. Interspersed, intertwined, the bright and the dull complimenting each other perfectly. It was a combination he wouldn't have thought of, but it worked very well, squished between the red and the yellow. It did a good job keeping the two colors away from each other. Basil had always thought those two together looked a bit too much like condiments. He'd usually pick duller shades if they were going to be near each other. And then, under the yellows, was the prettiest assortment of pinks Basil had ever seen.

Okay, maybe that was a little much. But it really was gorgeous! Raspberry nearly-reds mingled kindly with baby pinks so light they looked almost white. Bright salmons and oversaturated neons bridged the gap, and slightly purple-tinged pinks brushed the bottom of the section, nearly blending in with the lowest forget-me-nots.

Sprouting up in small groups from the spindly stems closest to the ground, were the most realistic colors. Blues the shade of a midday sky, pure whites reflecting the sunrise, sweetened lavenders brightening up the bushels. Real colors brushed against his ankles, and the word grounding came to mind. Basil wondered if Sunny had done that on purpose. There was a chance he had, or he hadn't thought about the order of the flowers at all. Maybe he didn't even have that fine of control over his Headspace.

Basil didn't know. And faced with that, after rattling off plant facts he knew like the back of his hand for so long, finally brought him back to earth.

It was... Fine... Probably, to get that excited about the flowers. Sunny had probably known he would. But this place - Even just this section - Was so big, and had so many things to see, that Basil probably shouldn't just stand here and think about forget-me-nots until he woke up.

So, determined to see more of Sunny's hard work than just an almost-archway, Basil took a definitive step forward.

And stopped in his tracks.

Just off to the right, just beyond what someone could see from the entrance, just behind the wall of flowers he'd just been admiring, was an end table.

An intricate stool, something you might see on a platform at a small art gallery, or carpentry showcase. Tiny, sweet little butterflies carved into the sides of dark wood, weaving around five legs that held it up. It was only a couple of feet off the ground, clearly not meant for sitting on. No, it was for displaying. The small hill - More of a bump than anything - That the stool sat upon was the only thing keeping it from being overlooked. It boosted the height of the stool just enough to catch the interest of anyone nearby. It was very, very pretty.

The corners of the pentagonal tabletop had very small, five petaled flowers in little clusters, and scattered, wobbly lines of them connecting each group.

There was another, clearly floral design taking up the center, but Basil was more interested in what sat atop it. Going over every enchanting detail of the stand had given his brain time to catch up to his eyes.

Sitting on top of the table - On top of the display - Was a white and green polaroid camera.

It's blocky, shiny form was familiar, obviously. It'd been sitting on his bedside table for years.

But this one...

It wasn't covered in a thick layer of dust. It didn't have the smallest, thinnest cobweb connecting it to the surface it sat on, this camera had been taken care of. Touched, more than just the lightest graze of a melancholic fingertip.

It seemed to beckon.

Basil hadn't used the camera...

In years.

The last time he'd even held the thing was to carry it back home after he'd...

After he'd dropped it. After he'd dropped it in a doorway. At Sunny's house. He'd carried it home, picking it up as an autopilot-afterthought, and put it on his bedside table. And left it to gather dust. For nearly four years. And it had.

But Sunny had put it here.

Right next to the flowers with the world's most obvious meaning.

Don't forget, the flowers seemed to whisper.

Basil asked himself again if it was possible to hallucinate in a dream.

Did Sunny... Want him to take pictures? Why give him the camera back?

Well. There must be some reason for it.

He reached out his shaky hands, and held his old camera, or a version of it, for the first time in a long, long time.

The design underneath it was a daisy. It's petals had sprawled out underneath it, the center being completely hidden. The entire stool was stained a dark, elegant brown. But the center of the daisy was a deep emerald green.

Daisies.

Innocence. Loyalty. Secrecy.

There was a thin design alongside a petal, and Basil clutched his camera to his chest to lean closer. It was such a familiar movement, even after so much time, that it made him hesitate. Was it really okay to hold this camera again? Hold the thing that might've...

He tried to make out the little design. Running along the lightly curved edge of the thin petal, was small, neat handwriting. Not strangely angular. This was Sunny.

You don't have to, but I thought you might like the choice.

...Oh.

Basil straightened his back. Looked down at the camera. His camera.

He turned it over in his hands. Once. Twice. Five times. But he stopped himself after that.

Forget-me-nots were five petaled.

The stool, the beautiful, carved stool, had five sides. Five legs.

Don't forget, the flowers whispered.

It's in the toy box, his mind completed.

He shook his head. No reason for that. The toy box had been opened, metaphorically, and shipped off to a city several hours away, literally. No reason for that.

Don't forget.

He wouldn't.

Basil turned away from the stool on the little hill, and took Sunny up on his offer.

Things to see.

This time, his determined, grandiose step forward was not interrupted.

-----

The however-long-it-was that followed went by fast. Basil would walk up to a flowerbed, marvel at the unnatural size or color or shape that the dream-world had morphed the species into, take pictures, and move on.

So far, his favorite had been the mini-field of mixed sunflowers and daisies - The latter having grown to match the former in size. It was just big enough that if you stood in the center, you couldn't see the trees of the forest surrounding it, so you could pretend it stretched on into the distance for miles and miles. Then, when you looked closer, you'd see that Sunny had made some of the flowers into special little shapes. There were hearts and stars and cartoon-clouds, like when a fruit grows into a plastic mold, only you couldn't do that with flowers, not in reality, so it was extra special.

He'd taken a ton of pictures of cute-shaped sunflowers and daisies. Every time one printed out, he'd put it in his pocket, but his shorts never seemed to get heavier, and he could never feel the other photos when he put a new one in. Once, he'd gotten a little worried that they just disappeared in there, and reached in to check. The one he'd taken last came easily to his hand, and he checked it over carefully.

But then he'd worried that maybe it just took a while to disappear, since he'd only gotten his latest, and tried to dig through for the first one. Only there was no way to differentiate by touch, and he could still only feel the linty fabric of his pocket. Still, the first one he'd taken - A gorgeous shot of unrealistically red bachelor buttons - Seemed to appear in his hand as he took it out.

He tried again a few more times, thinking of different pictures each time, and the pocket always presented him with the one he was thinking of. It was neat.

The forest led him down winding pathways interspersed with wide patches or large pots of flowers he'd only seen maybe once or twice, sometimes only in books. Often, there'd be branching paths like the one that led him here, only this time, the centered trail was the only one that led forward, and the rest of them would lead to flowers, and then dead ends.

One of those led Basil to a small clearing with hydrangea bushes that towered over him, although the bigger ones did that in real life, so he couldn't really tell if they were giant or just a little above average. Still, the assortment of colors spoke to a wide variety of pH value in the soil, some bushels in colors distinctly not on the blue-to-pink spectrum they came in naturally. And in such a small area too, it sort of made him want to take samples, even though he knew it wasn't even real. And he didn't even have testing strips.

Another short pathway led him into an alcove, where some of the surrounding trees had been hollowed out, making tall stacks of high shelves, each of which had a large brown pot. Petunias spilled out of each one, colors mixing together and blossoms draping over each other in a radiant display. Those came in basically any color, even in the real world, but these ones seemed to glow. Basil could swear that the sunlight filtering through the trees dimmed just a little when he entered the clearing, just to show off those slightly illuminated petals.

And then, after what he assumed to have been quite a while of walking and flower gazing, he came to a clearing with more branching pathways than any of the others so far. A quick count led him to seven, and the biggest number before then had only been four.

So, after a bit of half-stunned staring, he headed down the path furthest to the left.

More butterflies greeted him the second he stepped forward, something he hadn't seen since the main pathway, quite a while ago, except these ones were pink. All the ones earlier had been white.

They acted the same, though. Floating slowly - Slower than real ones - Alongside the winding, thin road ahead.

At one point, he stopped to look to one of them at his side, and it flapped its little wings until it was right in front of him. Experimentally, he held out his hand towards it.

The sweet thing landed on his finger the second it was offered.

Basil just sat and stared at the baby-pink little butterfly, so delicate, so trusting, until it flew away a while later, and he remembered what he'd been doing.

He continued to follow the path.

Eventually, his shoes made contact with something that was distinctly not white gravel, and he realized he'd hit grass.

He rounded the corner, finally opening into the dead end, and saw a fenced in little plot of climbing, spiraling stacks of bright pink flowers.

Oh.

Oh, these.

That was why there were seven pathways. One to go forward, and six plots of some very distinctive - To him - Plants.

Because the ones in front of him?

Gladiolus.

He stepped inside the plot, and looked around.

Little bursts of color, darting out in tall spirals from the thick grass, symbolizing honor, remembrance, and yes - Kel - Stubbornness, in the wrong light.

The spikes - Which was the real term, actually - Came in speckled combinations of hot pink - Integrity, salmon - Strength of character, and yellow - Vibrancy. All perfectly suitable for the person they were here to represent.

At their full height in their bloom season, they would've been taller than him. Gladiolus could get to six feet up if they really wanted to. About the same as most sunflowers. But these ones only came up to his knees.

He crouched, and reached down, rubbing a thumb lightly across a thin, silky petal.

Aubrey was taller than him though.

Not by that much. An inch and a half or so. But she was. He knew very well that she was.

Basil found himself not wanting to take pictures of these.

So, he didn't. He righted himself, stared down at the flowers a little longer, then turned around, and left.

He walked back down that thin, winding gravel road, surrounded by sweet little butterflies that he did not reach out to or stare at, because now he knew exactly why those thin wings were pink.

And once he got back to the clearing that opened to all the other pathways, he considered just going straight to the one in the center. It would take him further forward, if the pattern continued the way it had been.

But...

But Sunny had only been back for a little over a month.

He didn't know how bad it'd been with Aubrey. He didn't know how hard it was to look them all in the eye at school - He hadn't been at school!

It wasn't his fault. He hadn't known the reason Basil had stopped planting those five kinds of flowers. He'd probably just thought his old ones had died. Sunny wouldn't have known that Basil didn't want to see a plot of gladioli.

And it would be rude not to look at the rest of them, wouldn't it?

Sunny had worked hard on this little forest for him. He wouldn't waste it.

So, Basil took the second entrance on the left, right next to the one he'd just come out of, and kept trudging forward.

He took the slight turns and twists that the forest led him through, and waved hello to the butterflies dotting the air. Blue, this time, a deep, royal blue. He took a breath just as deep, and let it out.

His sedate, content mood was back in place, now that he wouldn't be surprised by what he was walking toward.

The roses greeted him in every color he could think of. It did make sense. He'd never compared him to any rose in particular. There were more of some colors than others, though. Yellows, for friendship. Sweet light pinks for appreciation. Cream, for charm - Fitting. The more romantic colors were sparse, compared to those.

The roses grew tall and plenty on their bushes, thorns near-forgotten in their beauty. There were some, still. Hidden, behind wide blossoms of layered petals.

...Basil found himself wondering if it were possible for him to bleed, here.

...That was weird of him, wasn't it?

And besides, he probably couldn't. Everything here seemed designed to keep him happy, keep him safe.

(Contained.)

Still, he was curious. So he looked to a nearby bush - Whose blossoms were a vibrant blue - And reached behind those flowers to find a thorn.

The moment the pad of his thumb brushed over that sharp point, it bent underneath the touch.

When his hand was removed, the thorn returned right back to its previous shape. Like rubber.

Cool. Maybe. Also weird. But he sort of understood. At the time he'd picked these flowers out, Hero wouldn't have wanted to see any of them hurt.

Basil smiled - A little sadly - At the bushes. In reminiscence.

He greeted the butterflies on his way back down the path, and quickly ducked into the next little section. He didn't pause to contemplate this time.

This batch of butterflies were orange, and Basil smiled bright as he realized the pattern. He had a feeling he knew what would greet him at the end of this trail.

Sure enough, cacti of all shapes and sizes sprouted out from the ground in a smallish fenced plot of - Not grass this time - Sand. Like a little mini desert.

Big orange blossoms bloomed their way out of the tops of a few of them, and Basil winced.

He'd always felt a little bad about there being five flowers and one plant. He'd felt a little worse when he'd realized that none of the cacti he'd ever grown himself or gifted were the kind that could grow flowers.

But he'd picked them for a reason. Sturdy and resilient matched their designated person very well. Once, he'd fallen out of a tree and dislocated his shoulder, which was supposed to hurt a lot, according to several library books checked out soon after. But he hadn't even cried! Winced, a lot, and made little noises of hurt and discomfort during the car ride to the hospital, but not a single shed tear until it came time to convince his parents to let him stay home from school the next day.

(Basil strongly suspected those were fake, but didn't doubt that the pain helped his acting quite a lot.)

Basil reached up, to one of the many flat branches(?) of a tall paddle cactus, and saw that the little spikes bent under his touch just the same as the roses thorns had before.

Also...

The spines on a cactus made Kel's plant match with his brother's thorns.

The other set of siblings in their group both got white flowers, it only made sense to have these match too.

He'd been pretty proud of himself for that one, when he was eleven.

A neon orange butterfly landed right on his head on his way out. It startled a laugh out of him.

Crossing to the next path took him right past the way forward, but he didn't even glance into it. He'd forgotten how much he'd liked these flowers - Liked his choices - When he'd first picked them out. They weren't... Quite as fun, now. But he was enjoying himself again.

So when he was greeted with soft green butterflies, Basil happily readied himself for more bright sunflowers.

Optimism, wow. He'd almost forgotten how much that old outlook had meant to him when he was little.

An anxious kid. His Mom, then his Grandma, used to say that, when people would ask why he was hiding behind their legs at the approach of a stranger. So when he'd gotten old enough to be a little ashamed of that, he'd done his damndest to fix it. Told himself constantly that everything would turn out great, and that even if something went wrong he could fix it, or ask someone else to help if they weren't busy, and he would always wind up okay at the end of things.

Sunflowers. These ones were taller than him. The ones in the mixed-with-daisies field had only touched his chin. Multiple heads peeking out of thick stems, all in the same direction. Looking forward, looking to the light. The sun. Optimism.

One evening. A series of mistakes. An entire philosophy, abandoned. An anxious kid, once again.

He didn't spend too long with the sunflowers.

The next passage was decorated with white, near-glittering wings, flapping occasionally to let the sunlight dance on fragile scales.

These ones seemed to float closer to him, and a few landed on his hand before he'd even had the chance to present it as a perch. One sat directly on his nose, making him go cross-eyed in an attempt to see it, and he giggled so hard that all of them flew off. Aww.

He kept walking, right alongside them. And the white tulips came as no surprise.

Dozens of them, growing up from the ground in simple, white bulbs of delicate petals. Two little leaves on either side of each stem, sprouting sweetly to frame each blossom. Perfect. Each flower was perfect.

Admittedly, Basil hadn't put much thought into this one. It'd been the first one he'd picked, see. He'd just seen one at Fix-It and started thinking of his best friend. Never even thought about the symbolism until he started researching for the rest of them.

Well... Researching was a bit of a strong word. He'd just flipped through a few of some of his grandmas plant books. Picked the ones that felt right. But Sunny's flower had stayed the same throughout the process. It just seemed...

Perfect. For him. Simple, and comfortable. Perfect. So he didn't think about the traditional symbolism very much.

He reached up and touched the fake, silk tulip still tucked behind his ear. Ran his index finger down the wrapped-wire 'stem'.

Purity. Forgiveness.

That meaning related to Sunny now more than it had then.

When Basil walked back down the path toward the little hub, he tried rather hard not to look at the sweet little butterflies, who all seemed to be vying for his attention. He kept his eyes on his shoes.

He wasn't having much fun anymore.

He glanced to the way forward, again. But he only had one left. And he knew whose it was.

It would just be disrespectful to skip hers, really.

So he walked in, down yet another long, winding forest road, and paid no mind to the shining purple wings that flitted around him. He feared that looking at them would hurt.

The little brown fence was taller than the flowers, this time. None of the others had been.

The fences had all been low to the ground, maybe a foot tall. They were only there to keep the flowers from growing outside too easily, not even really to keep critters out. Basil had had several little plots with fences just like them in his backyard.

The fence hadn't changed. Lilies of the valley were just the shortest of the flowers.

Little bulbs of white bells, round and soft, dangling off of bent over stems so close to the ground. Looking closer, some of them weren't white. Ever-so-light pinks and blues and purples added to the mix, soft and gracious, complimenting the green grass so nicely. They were beautiful. They were poisonous.

There was a reason they symbolized rebirth and redemption. To be redeemed, one must first do wrong. To be reborn, one must first die. And those sweet smelling, dainty little flowers would be reborn into berries that could do the job rather easily. A handful of those berries or really any amount of a leaf would put your heart into overdrive.

Basil had been thinking more on the symbolic side at first. Youth, humility, motherhood. Kind words that matched her well. It was supposed to ward off evil spirits, which had sealed it as her flower, and fairies could drink out of those small bulbs as cups - Wasn't that cute?

But rebirth, death, or sadness - Other meanings it could be attached to - Had wound up a little more relevant to Mari, hadn't they?

He didn't touch them. Didn't even step inside the fence. He took a long, deep breath, and closed his eyes. He turned around. He wanted to go now, please.

But when he opened his eyes to find the exit of the little alcove, he found something that hadn't been present in the other five.

Other flowers.

Six different species, little bushels of each lined up in a row, three on either side of the way out. And Basil only looked long enough to recognize asphodel on the far left before he was turning away, walking to the exit faster because he didn't want to look at the rest of them, not when the first one was asphodel-

A row of six different flowers. In Mari's section.

Asphodel represented death.

He could only assume the others did as well. In six different ways.

Staring straight at the forest floor, he could've sworn there was a little purple butterfly, off to the side, halfway down the path. Lying on the ground. Motionless. When he tried to look, it wasn't there anymore.

When he finally got to the end of the path, to the clearing he'd started in, Basil leaned up against a nearby tree, folded himself to the floor, and hid his face in his knees.

-----

When he finally stood up, he prepared for the damp, raw feeling of a face after crying. Except when the air hit his skin, it didn't feel like much of anything. None of the cold wetness of air hitting tear tracks, none of the dull sting that came with reddened eyes, none of it. A quick touch from his fingertips made it clear that it wasn't red or heated at all.

There was no sign that he'd been crying. His vision wasn't even blurred with water.

Huh.

That was nice. Sunny's world accounted for feelings and worked with them, to remove some of the terrible parts. Basil appreciated that, and he might end up making more use of it, if things kept going like this.

He should keep moving.

Basil looked to his right, toward the path in the center. It would take him further. There would be more flowers up ahead. He could get his mind off of...

What had he been upset about?

Hold on, where had his camera gone?

He'd... He'd decided he didn't want to take pictures when he was in the first of these plots, right? and then...

Nothing. He didn't remember even looking at his camera since then.

Basil patted the sides of his shorts - Cursory, really, it's not like the thing would actually fit in his pocket - And when he brought his hands back in front of his torso, there it was. A blocky shape, white and green, sitting between his hands like it'd been there the whole time.

Oh. Like the photos. It would disappear unless he wanted it, like the photos in his pocket.

Oh-! he thought, with a bit of a laugh, pocket dimension!

And wasn't that cute? Sunny's little world had physics based around puns.

Levity renewed, Basil set himself forward to the path ahead.

It was the same as every other, really. White gravel crunching under his feet and warm air filtering through the trees. It wasn't quite as winding as the others he'd been through so far, going pretty much straight ahead. No butterflies.

And it ended in a much smaller little clearing than any other had so far.

It was little, maybe five feet across, and no flowers he could see.

All there was, a little signpost about his height, wooden, the kind you see in shows, just a tall pole with little arrow shaped signs sticking out. Only one of them was at his eye level. It pointed right behind him, its pointed tip turning away from the rest of the sign to look right over his shoulder.

It read 'MAIN PATH' in all caps.

Well. Yes. He sort of already knew that the main path was behind him. Did this whole place really just lead to a dead end?

But when Basil glanced over his shoulder, he didn't see the path he'd taken to get here.

He saw that big, pretty tree he'd sat under before. The one whose leaves seemed to glow in the light of the sunrise, with those multicolored flowers peeking out from between the branches, and with a bookshelf sitting just off to the side.

When he turned back to where the sign had been, bewildered, all he saw was that almost-archway of forget-me-nots, in impossible colors and heights.

The entrance, to the place he'd just reached the end of.

He was back at the start, where the three pathways diverged.

Huh.

Huh.

Neat!

His head was on a swivel, looking between the three pathways, two of which he'd already been down. That was so cool. He'd known it was a dream and things had already happened that wouldn't have been possible in the real world, but for some reason he just hadn't considered actual teleportation as an option!

He was almost tempted to go down that pathway again, just to see how it worked!

Wait, no, that was silly. He still had one path to go, right? and Sunny probably would've put the same thing on the other side! So Basil could go explore somewhere new, and then he'd get to teleport again!

Camera at the ready, Basil dashed across the gravel to the one path he had left.

Immediately, the air grew a little more humid, and he abruptly realized that there was a pond in front of him. A pretty big pond. Almost a lake...

And he remembered very suddenly that he hadn't actually taken any pictures of the forget-me-nots! He should probably do that.

Once more on the opposite side of the path, Basil snapped several pictures of delicate little buds, and took a moment to gather himself.

It was just a pond. It didn't even look deep! And he'd loved their lake as a kid...

But...

(Hands on his chest. Contact, for the briefest moment, then open air. Water, filling his nose, getting in his ears, his mouth, his eyes. He'd wanted to wait. He hadn't wanted to cause any more pain for his poor old Grandma but maybe-)

(Maybe this was okay.)

He shook his head. It was just a lake. Pond, actually. even if he fell in, it would be shallow enough to stand, and even if it wasn't, the damn thorns here were made of rubber! there was no way Sunny would let water hurt him, right? Right.

And now he had a small pile of cooling polaroids, each capturing a branch of dangling flowers.

Oops. He'd taken a ton of pictures. He'd probably run out of film soon. Except that maybe that wasn't a thing that could happen here, so...

Before he could distract himself any further, Basil spun on his heel and crossed the path again.

The pond was very pretty. Its water was a perfect blue, its surface rippling and shimmering. It wasn't even shaped the same as the one in real life. It was thinner and wider, a big oblong stretching out in front of him. Lily pads giant and normal sized dotted its surface. Some of the little ones even came with water lilies! In all sorts of unrealistic colors, as he'd come to expect by now.

The big ones though...

They were organized. In long lines all across; yet another pathway branching out into more decisions. They were big enough to stand on. Big enough to sit on.

They were for walking. Hopping from leaf to leaf like a cartoon character.

(It would've been cute, had he not been scared to death of the water.)

Staring at the glittering, blue surface, Basil tried to psych himself up.

It was just water. It wasn't even a long-standing fear of his! It'd only been, what, a month? Maybe five weeks? And he was dreaming for gods sake! If he got hurt, at worst he'd just wake up!

It didn't really help. It was really just making him sad on top of scared. His throat had started to hurt in that awful, stabbing way it did when you were close to tears.

Okay, new tactic. He took a big, sweeping breath in, (two, three, four,) held it, (two, three, four, five, six,) and let it out, (two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight).

Now that was working. Once more. At the crest of the inhale, he felt a threshold crossed. Felt the needles in his throat turn to the warm, fresh air of a summer afternoon, something smelling like pine needles and honey-baked-goods, something like the scratch of a friends hair on his neck as he pressed his overheated face into Basil's colder shoulder.

(As he exhaled, and looked back at the water, he could've sworn he heard the faint chime of a higher note on the piano. Whatever it was, the breeze drowned it out.)

Now feeling a lot more sure of himself, Basil took the few steps to the waters edge, and with a short shake of his hands, hopped the distance to the first big lily pad.

It dipped with his weight, a little slosh of water coating the slab of green, and he wobbled with it for a moment, but it steadied, and held firm. A little sigh, and a moment to collect himself. Then another moment to giggle with the relief of assured safety. Then, he hopped to the next one, and repeated the routine.

There were a total of seven lily pads before he got to the first branch. Looking ahead, it seemed like this section was smaller. Only two branching sections, five paths total. Two on each side and one straight ahead. The intersection he was at now, though, just had three. One on each side, like the main path that had led him here.

But Basil was a little bit sick of all the decisions today. So, he ever-so-carefully sat down crisscross-applesauce on the lily pad, and took a moment to himself.

He stared into the water, seeing it really wasn't very deep, maybe five feet, and wondering if there were any fish inside. He didn't see any. There were frogs, though. He'd seen a couple on the way here. Startling him as they hopped between lily pads just as he'd been doing. Now, one hopped straight up to him, just a sweet, tiny thing, and planted itself right at his knee.

"Hi there..." his own, quiet voice breathed. He didn't want to startle it.

"Waiting for something to happen?" said a creaking, croaking voice in response.

Oh.

Well that was horrifying.

He should move on now.

Basil stood on shaky legs, hardly keeping his balance on the lily pad, picked a direction at random, and hopped down the left four lily pads a little faster than he had the first seven.

Finding himself on solid, if mossy ground again was nice, even if the lake hadn't been as bad as he'd worried. He dusted himself off and looked to where the path had lead him.

A little entryway in the trees and he was in another garden clearing. At first glance, he'd thought it would be more flowers, but then there were pea-pods and cherry tomatoes and grapevines which were so hard to grow and oh this was a beautiful vegetable garden!

Also, no zucchini in sight. Basil had tried growing zucchini once, once, in real life. Never again. Also, notably, no basil. Sunny had made several cannibalism jokes about that when they were younger. It made sense he'd leave that out.

So he spent a while flitting around to various growing veggies (and even some fruits!) and taking pictures of the really pretty ones. Man, his pockets would be really heavy with photos of this were real. Where was he gonna put them all? Would they disappear when he woke up?

He shook his head. Sunny probably thought of something for that. Basil shouldn't worry about it.

Once he'd had his fill - Although memories of Greek myths told by his grandmother kept him from actually eating anything - Basil took a nice, satisfied breath, and crossed over to the other side of the lake. The hopping was starting to be really fun, if he ignored... The frogs...

Another break in the trees, but this time it was less of a clearing and more of just... a thinner forest. It took a second for him to look up enough to realize it was an orchard. Apple trees and orange trees and pears and peaches and basically any fruit he could think of. There was a raspberry tree! That didn't even make sense!

So another little while, snapping pictures of every pretty little fruit he saw, not eating any of them.

(Especially the pomegranate. He knew it was irrational; Sunny wouldn't design anything in here to hurt or trap him. Still, it was never a good idea to eat food from otherworldly sources.)

Feeling content and refreshed, Basil came back to the lily pads and hopped his way to the next decision. He was aware, vaguely, that he must look very silly. It wasn't as if there was anyone here except for some rather creepy frogs.

He came to the next branch, played a quick game of eenie-meenie-miney-moe, and went to the right. This next clearing was big. But all Basil could see were tons and tons of empty plots, and a shed in one corner. Seeing as it was the only interesting thing present, he went to the shed, and opened the little wooden door. It had a daisy-shaped window carved into the upper half, which struck him as downright adorable.

The moment he walked in, he was greeted with a whole wall just covered in seed packets.

One sharp, surprised inhale later, and he was looking around at all the tools and little potted seedlings scattered around the shed. A single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling shone warm light on the whole scene, and Basil found himself bouncing excitedly on his heels.

Before he could paralyze himself with indecision, he grabbed one of the seedlings and a trowel and rushed out the door. He dug a small hole in the first plot he saw, freed the seedling from its plastic, and set the lump of dirt inside. That done, he dashed back into the shed with the black, plastic pot to scoop some fertilizer into it, and got himself back outside. He knelt in front of his flower, broke up its lump of dirt as best he could, and sprinkled in the fertilizer around it. Finally, he packed some of the dirt he'd dug up back into the hole, and sat back on his haunches.

He really, really missed planting.

He'd been neglecting his real garden for a while, first because he wasn't going to be there much longer, then because he was busy with Sunny and... Well it seemed rude to call it all drama but...

Anyway. It'd been a while. He'd missed it.

Basil blinked at the flower in front of him, and realized the shades of the sunrise cast a very nice glow on the baby sunflower.

A short, breathy laugh, and he was also realizing that he'd done all of that with such a fervor that he was pretty much entirely out of breath.

He took a few deep ones, and reviewed his options.

He sort of wanted to stay in this section forever and ever. That was silly and childish but hey, he was having fun. But he did still have more stuff to explore. Maybe he could come back here once he checked on the other two paths? Yeah. That sounded nice. First, though.

Basil stood himself up, having regained his breath, and glanced around for a watering can. He found one in short order, noticing now that there was one next to each little plot, and carefully watered the ground at the base of the stem. Sunflowers didn't need too much, so he didn't spend long. He also snapped a quick picture of it, his first flower ever planted in this dream.

Then, before he could change his mind, Basil spun on his heel and quickly made his way to the other side of the lake. Again.

Small problem. This side was exactly the same.

Well, not exactly. This time the shed's window was shaped like a forget-me-not instead of a daisy.

And this time he found a book inside.

It was brown. Very nice leather, and a label on the front that just read 'Basil'. Nothing about memories.

But he knew what it was before he opened it.

Empty photo slots, three per page, dotted the book, the album, and a little note on the cover page read;

"i know this is maybe too much. just thought you might want it.

-sunny"

...And it was. It was too much.

Basil found himself sniffling for what had to be the millionth time tonight.

He wiped his eyes - Which were dry, but only just - And left the shed.

He didn't feel like planting anymore.

He went straight to the last path, and looked up at the structure he'd mostly been ignoring until now. A giant dome made of glass triangles in various pastel shades. It would be awe-inspiring, had he been any less bummed out.

So, he walked inside.

Oh. This was very nice.

It was humid, and he quickly realized why. The dome was stuffed to the brim with waterside plants. Cattails and lotuses and all sorts of grasses. His backyard didn't have a pond, even though his Grandmother had talked of getting one pretty often, so he'd never had a chance to grow most of these. He didn't even know much about them.

(He was still bummed, but not nearly as much. A common result of unfamiliar plants to look at.)

Also, front and center, what looked like floating, glass stairs, leading up to a big glass circle right in the middle of the dome. That was cool.

So, with only a cursory glance at the plants framing the stairs, Basil hopped up the steps, just like he had with the lily pads. And, also like the lily pads, they dipped with his weight, but recovered quickly, letting him climb the stairs with a speed he hadn't matched since he was a kid. And once he got to the circle...

Wow...

There was another pond. Taking up the majority of the dome, it was smaller than the one outside, but not by very much.

And there were fish!

Itty-bitty koi fish mingling with goldfish and betta's even though they needed wildly different conditions from each other in real life! Seaweed danced at the bottom, even though it was a pond. Nothing about it made sense but it really didn't matter because it didn't need to, it wasn't real and all that mattered was how very pretty it was.

Kneeling on that glass circle, barely resisting the urge to press his face into its surface, watching the blue-green water glitter in the multicolor glass. He could've sat there for hours watching the teeny-tiny fish of all different colors swim underneath him, watching the watery plants sway and logging them in his head to find the names of later.

Then, suddenly, he was staring at planks of wood. The air smelled like water and chocolate chip cookies, instead of water and flowers.

He blinked, then looked up. Then he drew himself to sitting and wondered what had happened.

Because he was no longer in a colorful dome of glass. He was sitting on a short dock and staring at himself.

Well, sort of.

There was a separation, between where Basil was sitting and the... Person... In front of him. A few feet of water between the dock and the... Raft? It didn't seem connected to anything. Just a floating bit of wood and a shadowy figure facing away from him.

The part that was sort of really freaking him out, though, was that the shadow looked just like him.

The little cowlick in his hair, the clear outline of overalls over a tee-shirt, the damn height matched perfectly with a childish, silhouetted version of himself.

So. That was creepy.

"He... Hello?" Basil heard himself say.

The figure turned around to face him, slowly, and glowing white circles where his eyes should be bored into Basil.

"...Hm," said the figure, in a terrible, high voice that Basil recognized, "You aren't supposed to be here."

"Um! ...Sorry?" He tried, and the shadow simply... Dissipated. Gone, with the ocean breeze.

It took a while for Basil to catch his breath after that. Because that voice? That shrill, desperate tone, that was his own. That was the way his voice sounded when he shook, and panicked, and clutched the things he loved with claws before he could stop himself.

It was how he'd heard himself sound when...

Basil cried.

-----

After god-knew-how-long, Basil found himself standing, and walking down a very, very long bridge.

Eventually, once he was feeling pretty much all better, he realized he must've screwed up somehow and wound up in the main bit of Sunny's dreamworld. Headspace, he reminded himself. So, because Sunny didn't want him here, the goal right then was to either:

A: Find Sunny so he could put Basil back in his gardens.

B: Avoid Sunny at all costs so he doesn't know Basil went into the place he was Specifically Told to stay out of.

Or C: Find his own way back and not worry about it.

Plan C seemed basically impossible and Plan B made him sad to think about. So find Sunny it is. The problem was, he had no idea where his best friend would be. So, when he got to the end of the bridge, (Which end, he didn't know. He'd picked at random, as he'd been doing a lot tonight,) and saw a little alcove off to the left, he ducked inside.

There was a rock with a face.

Basil blinked at it.

"Hi, I'm the Wise Rock!" Basil jumped about a foot back and squeaked embarrassingly in surprise. "I give solid advice in exchange for Clams!"

"Uh- Um. I-I don't think I have a-any of those."

"Shame. Come back when you do!"

"O-Okay!"

And then Basil got out of there as quickly as he could.

Blank faced and still reeling, Basil walked away from the creepy talking rock, away from the bridge, and in the only direction left. He kept walking for quite a while, passing oversized pinwheels and ignoring all of those little alcoves he saw. He really didn't like that Rock.

At one point, he passed a big wooden sign that said 'train station' in blocky, all caps letters. He considered it for a minute. Sure, maybe Sunny would be in there. But Sunny hated trains. Plus, Basil didn't have train fare. So, he kept going.

Eventually, finally, Basil came to a signpost. Just like the one that'd teleported him in his own section. Four little arrows in different directions, reading 'Train Station,' 'Pinwheel Forest,' 'Forest Playground,' and 'Basil's House.'

Basil stared at that last one for a while, until a lightbulb went off in his head. He'd been in that sweet little shoe house last night, the one Sunny had given him a drawing of and called 'Basils.' It stood to reason that the little shoe was supposed to be his house! That was so cute. But Sunny probably wasn't at Basil's house.

He'd already passed the train station. So it was between Pinwheel Forest and Forest Playground.

What's one more game of eenie-meenie-miney-moe?

Basil turned, and headed for the Playground.

Chapter Text

Like it used to be, before real people existed here other than Sunny, there were no words shared between them. Sunny and Omori, that is.

Even their sort-of-telepathic communication over the past few days had been strange. Usually they just stayed in silence. And so, today, when both of them were already shaken by the other presences in Headspace, they wordlessly decided to remain wordless. A return to form in that sense would help with the oddities in every other.

So when Sunny 'woke up' in Whitespace, it's muting effects barely present, much less suffocating, he simply turned to Omori, standing in his usual spot in front of the dangling wire, and they both walked toward the Door.

A White Door casts a faint shadow.

What would you like to do?

Sunny took a breath. Omori reached for the handle, and glanced back at him.

OPEN THE DOOR

Neighbors Room greeted the pair with a very noticeable difference. The stairs were still gone. Oops. Sunny had forgotten to fix that while he was building the new rooms earlier.

Let's see, if he remembered right, Kel would fall asleep first, then Basil, Hero, and Aubrey. Sunny used to slip into place either a while after Aubrey, or in between Basil and... In between Basil and Mari. Mari never liked to go to sleep if Sunny was still awake. She would, if he'd be staying up late, but she didn't like to. The past few years had changed that old order of events, however. He slept easier now, perhaps too easy, and he'd gotten here before anyone else.

Now, he wasn't too sure how this worked. Sure, he built Headspace, and could add or remove any aspect of it if he focused, but aside from that it seemed to have a mind of its own. If he or Omori removed something that Headspace dubbed necessary, it would reappear in Blackspace, and if it was important enough, there would be hints to it in the spot it used to be. Luring him down.

And, more relevant, he didn't decide where he spawned in. He'd tried, once, somewhere in the four-year blur, to wake up on a picnic blanket instead of Whitespace. It hadn't worked, and he'd forgotten to keep trying by the next time he fell asleep.

Still, it proved the point well enough. Even though he'd made them personalized little spaces, they'd probably still show up where they had yesterday.

Oh. Speaking of, hi Kel.

He'd appeared just then on the rubbery floor, on top of the pile of cards in the center of the room. Sunny glanced up at Omori, who was standing on the opposite side of the twice-sleeping friend. Getting the message, Omori waved a hand, and the stairs reappeared.

Sunny, with strength only found in his dreams, scooped Kel up and started toward the stairs. Omori was staying behind in case someone else got there before Sunny was back.

Kel was limp, cradled in his arms. It was weird to hold someone so much bigger than him. It was weird to see Kel asleep and not snoring. Sunny supposed the snoring was a physical thing, and he was probably doing plenty of it in the real world.

Snake didn't stop him on the way up. Most Headspace creatures wouldn't acknowledge the Dreamer unless he wanted them to. He hadn't been in this world himself in years, but all of his failsafes were still active.

The switch between Neighbors Room and the entrance to the Vast Forest was always jarring, even through the eyes of Omori, but on his own it was worse. He tried hard not to think about how the trees, from this angle, were no longer familiar.

Squeezing his eye shut, Sunny tried to remember how to do this without using Pluto.

Oh. Right, right. He'd almost forgotten.

One big stair-step onto the shimmering rings had Sunny leaning back a bit, unbalanced, and Kel jostling in his arms.

His eyelids fluttered.

Fuck.

Please don't wake up please don't wake up please please pleasedon'twakeupplease-

He didn't.

Sunny let out a terrified, shaky breath. Glanced around. Kel had settled back into double-sleep without fuss. Good. He'd have to be faster with the others.

Stay focused. The rings of glowing light that made up the top of the center stump seemed to be drawn to him. They marched inward, trying their best to climb up his legs even though they couldn't.

...The earlier bits of headspace had a lot of detail put into them. He hadn't exactly had much else to do at the time.

Okay. Let's see if this old system still worked.

Sunny closed his eye, standing still in the center of the stump.

He pictured one of the places he'd spent the day creating. Planning, drawing, closing his eye and letting his old worlds wash over him to build it. Treading that careful line between sleep and wakefulness, absorbing the thought of his world without letting himself get absorbed into it.

It'd taken a lot of effort, and a lot of time. Picturing Kel's new room didn't take much effort at all.

When Sunny opened his eye, he was there.

The middle of the playground, facing the original Cat, with some adjustments, and the basketball court behind it.

He looked behind him. The pool seemed alright too.

He'd check the games room, but he'd spent too much time already. It was a wonder Kel was still asleep. Sunny was pretty sure it'd never taken himself this long to wake up in Headspace.

Kel's eyes fluttered again.

No no no no no, please not yet i just need a little longer to get out of here-

He settled. Again. Thank god.

Walking a few steps to the basketball court, Sunny set his old friend down in the middle of it.

He shook out his arms, more out of habit than any physical pain or discomfort, and reached into his Pocket for one of his pre-made notes. As always, the one he was looking for - Kel's - Was the first one he got, and he set it down beside him.

He closed his eye again. Let his head go blank. Let himself return to neutral. And he was back on the stump.

An exhale. God, he'd been so nervous when Kel kept almost waking up. But now Kel was safe, in his room, away from Headspace's many secrets. He could wake up whenever he wanted, now, and wouldn't be in any sort of danger. Wouldn't be near Sunny.

He should check on Basil. He'd always been quick to fall asleep, and Omori was only keeping watch for Aubrey and Hero - In Neighbors Room. He couldn't travel using the stump like the Dreamer- Like Sunny could.

Oops. Was Headspace really getting to him already? Was he already finding himself referred to as the Dreamer? Should he be more careful?

Later. He'd be more careful - He'd reflect - Later. Right now, he had things to do.

Still standing on the stump, still letting the rings of light reach for him, Sunny pictured Basil's House. The little old shoe that Headspace Basil lived in, the warm glow that poured from the windows, that invited in guests so simply, so kindly. He pictured the little strings of photos too blurry to go in the album, clipped alongside little snipped off parts of plants that needed to be replaced every few days in real life but not here, never here. They'd never brown and rot here.

He pictured the single most comforting place in his world of comfort. And he was there.

But he was... Alone?

Basil wasn't here yet. That was okay. He'd be here soon. So Sunny stood in the single room of the old shoe, and admired the place that, apparently, the real Basil liked just as much as the fake one had.

The fake one...

Were the Headspace friends just... Gone, now? Mari hadn't been, when he'd watched from Whitespace in the woods a while ago. But the rest were just... Gone. Seeming to have been cleared out of the way to make room for the real versions. But if Mari was still here, were the rest of them just... Stored? Stashed away somewhere? Maybe... Maybe in Blackspace...? Where other forgotten or unnecessary things go? But they'd been there for... A long time? The past long while was fuzzy to say the least but...

A mental tug. Omori, signaling that someone new had showed up.

Before Basil? But he should've showed up second. No matter what. He'd get all soft and sleepy the second he saw someone else go to bed. So when Kel knocked out flat every sleepover, Basil followed near-instantly. The one notable exception were the few times the group had slept outside. Sunny's guess was that all the nature was too exciting for him to sleep.

But Sunny had just promised himself to be faster this time. So he forced his thoughts to calm, and found himself back at the stump. Ducking underneath it was an easy task, despite how small the opening looked. Things stretched rather easily here. Stumps. Faces, for the purposes of squishing. Thoughts.

Neighbor's Room greeted him with massive, yellow-framed eyes, and two people. Ish. Omori, standing characteristically blank above a sleeping, calm-looking Hero. At least that hadn't changed.

Sunny scooped Hero up, just as he had with his brother, and repeated the process. Hero's room was... Fine. Sunny hadn't really known what to do with it. Just sort of made the place fluffy and comfortable, with a couple activities, and a lot of blue paint. He'd apologized for that in Hero's note. He really did feel bad.

Enough. He had to be fast about this. At least Hero hadn't almost woken up like Kel had. Yet.

Sunny deposited Hero on the bed, fiddled with the canopy for a second to get it in place, and centered himself once more. Stump. Then he sent himself to Basil's house again. Nothing. No one was there except for Sunny himself, and several potted plants.

Okay. Okay, Basil's sleep schedule had changed. That was alright. Hardly Sunny's business. He shouldn't worry about it. He'd just wait here for him, and wait for Omori to tug at him again. Basil would probably still fall asleep before Aubrey, at least. She'd always had trouble. So, Sunny sat himself down on the chair from the table set, pointed it toward Basil's bed, and waited.

It must've been a while, before he felt that tug again. Sunny took a sharp breath in, blinked a few times, eye wide, and squeezed it shut again. He had to go get Aubrey. He could worry about Basil later.

He found himself back at the stump, and ducked under it once again. Aubrey greeted him, in the same spot on top of the playing cards that the other two had been in. Once she was safely on the picnic blanket at the hangout spot, and Sunny was safely back in Basil's house, he took a moment to think.

It was still weird that her hair was purple. He understood, of course, the reasoning behind it, it was just a little hard to update his mental image of her. Granted, it'd been hard to rationalize the pink hair alone, so he would probably get the hang of it.

Omori poked his head in the door. Looked like he'd come the long way around to Old Shoe. Omori waved, and Sunny waved back. Then, Omori sat himself down on the table, next to Sunny's chair. They stared out into space together, not speaking and barely thinking. Waiting for something to happen. It took a while.

Time was always strange in Headspace. Sunny couldn't have told you how long it took for Basil to show up, except that it was a very long time.

Once he did, however, Omori moved first. Sunny's head was still a little fuzzy from so much blank staring, and it actually took a moment for him to realize that something had changed in the room. By the time he did, Omori had moved to stand next to Basil, lying in bed.

Sunny walked over and lifted him, and it didn't quite feel as ridiculous as it had the first few times. Basil and Sunny were the same height. Aubrey, Hero, and Kel, however, were all taller than him. Omori looked at Sunny, and stepped back a bit. Sunny closed his eye, took a breath, and found himself back at the stump.

One more breath. He pictured Basil's new room. He pictured Basil's Meadow, and all the modifications he'd made to it. The forget-me-nots, the sunflowers, the daisies. The pond, with the lily pads and the cute little frogs. The orchard and the vegetable garden, in case Basil got hungry. Sunny opened his eye.

The familiar white haze of the start of the path forced Sunny's nerves to calm, and he began to wonder if it was related to White Space somehow. It didn't matter. He set Basil down in the grass, since it was much softer than the gravel, glanced around, and returned to the stump.

Omori met him there, having taken the long way around once again. Sunny stepped off of the stump and headed to the playground. Omori followed.

The usual denizens were present, including Mari, and they sat down on her blanket. She greeted Omori.

"Hi, Omori! Cliff-faced as usual, I see. You should totally smile more! I've always liked your smile."

Her preloaded dialogue made Sunny flinch, even as Omori nodded at her in his own greeting. It felt so strange, so wrong to hear her plastic, automated phrases. They used to be so comforting. Something was off about her, now. Maybe it was his newfound memories, maybe it was just that he was lucid enough to notice. But something was different, and it was sending shivers up and down his spine.

He turned away from her. Looked to Omori. Took a breath, because this was the first time he'd have to talk since last night. Chickened out, and sent vibes over their link instead. It wasn't really words, just. Concepts. It made it easier.

First, question?

Water. Best chance.

Failure, question?

Omori's nose wrinkled; he didn't like the idea that Branch Coral wouldn't work. He didn't like the idea that they'd have to put more effort in. Still, he answered.

Bug. Knowledge.

Failure, question?

Sand.

That made sense. Daddy longlegs knew a lot about Headspace's creation, but Mr. Outback mostly spewed out lore that barely made sense. He appealed to the Dreamers logic by providing explanations to the fantastical aspects of Headspace - Namely, ancient magic - And with Sunny's state at his time of creation, those explanations didn't really need to make much sense, as long as they worked. He could be a last resort. But there were others that knew things, weren't there?

Failure, question?

Deny.

Aka, shut up, that won't happen.

Structure, pink, question?

Deny. Deny knowledge.

Omori was right, Keeper of the Castle didn't know much outside of his own little corner. Still...

Hesitation. Water, deep, question?

Sunny watched Omori's eyes go wide for just a moment. Then,

Unsure. Possible.

Sunny's own eye went a little buggy at that. He hadn't expected a maybe on whether Abbi would know anything. She didn't know much of anything, did she? Not anymore.

Oops. He hadn't wanted to think about that. Sunny still felt bad for it. He didn't remember what she did, at least, he didn't remember while in Headspace, but there was no way it was bad enough to warrant her punishment. Poor Abbi.

Omori was staring at him. Still more to discuss.

Separate, question?

Omori shook his head.

Deny. Rock.

Right. He'd done a full reset; Pluto likely hadn't even run away from Space Boyfriend yet, much less started up Pluto's Spaceline. They couldn't split up because no areas containing intelligent figments were available to Omori yet, and even if they were, he wouldn't have transportation.

So, Sunny nodded, and stood up. Headspace Mari never acknowledged him. Not through their entire mental conversation. She'd greeted Omori, looked at him for a while, and started staring off somewhere else when she realized he wasn't up for conversation. Her eyes completely glazed past Sunny. Headspace denizens did not register the presence of the Dreamer unless he specifically wanted them to. And that's what she was. A Headspace denizen. Fake, fictional.

Sunny took a shaky breath. At some point, Omori had stood up next to him, and they left the Playground. Made their way to the stump together.

It was a tight fit. Both of them, standing back-to-back on the stump. They were holding hands, so Sunny could transport them both. It'd worked with his old friends, when he was carrying them, but Sunny didn't actually know whether he had to be touching someone to take them with him. Better safe than sorry, though, so they were holding hands. The rings of rainbow light reflected off of Omori's pale skin. It looked a little funny, him lit up all sorts of colors.

Enough musing. Sunny took a deep breath, closed his eye,

Wait. Oops. Oh god.

Note, urgent! Panic!

Sunny felt Omori try to turn around, realize it wasn't going to work, and step off the stump. He rounded to face him and tilted his head to the side.

Question.

Basil, deny note. Panic.

Omori nodded in understanding, and Sunny relaxed, barely. He'd forgotten to give a note to Basil, who was the most important one to give a note to, since his explanation in real life hadn't been the best. But Basil was probably awake by now, and he really didn't want to see him yet. He wanted them all to enjoy their rooms, and seeing him might hurt that effort. Maybe not as much for Basil as the rest of them, but it still might hurt.

Down.

Sunny stepped down from the stump, and turned around as Omori stepped back up.

Try.

Oh. Sunny could try to teleport only Omori to Basil's room, and Omori could introduce himself. It would probably be better than a note.

Thinking fast, Sunny quickly made a little gift for Basil. Omori might not be very good at talking to people, so it could be an apology, if he screwed up, or just a gift, if he didn't. A white tulip hair clip. White tulip because it was from Sunny, and because Basil did like those flowers, even outside of their association to him. Then, he corrected the object now resting in his hand from an actual clip to one of the wrapped wire ones that Basil always got excited to see at gift shops on their old day trips.

Once the fake flower was as perfect as he could make it, Sunny handed it to Omori, who took it with a little confusion but no hesitation.

Gift. Basil.

Omori nodded, and pocketed it. Sunny took his hand, closed his eye, and tried to see if he could send Omori somewhere without coming with him.

He felt the small hand in his own disappear, and opened his eye.

Well. He hoped Omori had gone to the right place, because he certainly hadn't stayed.

-----

Sunny sat against a tree, facing the stump for a while. Until it felt like enough time had passed for a decent conversation to take place. Then, he sent out a mental, questioning tug, which was about the most specific their communication could get from long distance. When he received another tug in response, he tried to summon him back.

Omori appeared, sitting on the stump, and shook his head as if clearing it. Right. Teleportation probably would be a little disorienting.

Question.

Positive.

It went well, then.

Silently, the pair resumed their position on the stump.

Sunny took a deep breath, closed his eye, took another, opened it, and was underwater. Woah. It'd been a while since he'd done that. It was weird. The sudden shift from dry to wet, light to heavy, with no feeling of submersion in between. Water in his ears without ever feeling it invade. The strange ability to breathe without a chance to hold your breath first to adjust. Weird.

It didn't matter. He glanced around, and watched as Omori turned himself from back to back to side to side. Omori looked up at him, and gestured forward as if to say 'you first.'

Right. Deeper Well. The two of them stood atop a pillar of solid, wet, blue sand. The entrance. A long, translucent pink bridge stretched out into the distance behind them. Hm. Sunny had tried to take them straight to the tunnel that led to Branch Coral. It was his own head, he should be able to go where we wanted, right?

Well, he had always had a little less control over areas in deeper water. Again, Headspace had a bit of a mind of its own. It was unsettling, but as far as he knew, he couldn't fix it. And even if he could, it was certainly a problem for another day.

So, he started forward. Coral and seaweed marked the paths to tiny whirlpools. Waterfalls and cave systems, neon creatures he avoided speaking to and lumps of black clay he avoided stepping on. Sunny knew the way very well, even if it wasn't the place he saw most often. Going about the route so fast, so practiced meant that the music changed frequently, like turning the dial of a radio, except without empty stations interrupting with static. Eventually, the noise settled into a warbling thing, notes going up and down in wobbly scales.

The tunnel greeted him from an angle he'd never seen. He'd already been watching from above for a long, long while by the time this place rolled around. Navy blue walls with electric markings, hands stretching across them, reaching for each other and always barely too far. This tunnel hadn't been a very conscious creation of his.

Sunny took a breath, once again marveling at the way the water flowed in safely. He swam. Omori had stayed with him the entire journey, at his side, but the tunnel was narrow, and he trailed behind. Sunny led the way. Twists and turns, flowing like the water, led them to the only fork in the road. One more breath. Sunny turned right.

The long hallway opened into Branch Coral's cave. Waterfall behind it, neon blue sand below, seaweed sprouting up all around. Branch Coral's purples and reds reached in every direction, stretching and grasping for some unrecognizable goal. Black spots interspersed throughout, matching Omori's perfect monochrome. A neon green swing dangled from a low branch, inviting.

Omori stepped forward.

"You have returned. Sooner, than it usually takes. And long before this area should be available to you." The voice echoed from the general direction of Branch Coral. It was as if a speaker was buried somewhere within those branches, waterlogged and distorting an otherwise normal, male voice. If it weren't for the water filtering the sound, it might've sounded like Sunny's Dad.

Omori nodded, but...

Sunny got the distinct impression that Branch Coral wasn't speaking to Omori. It was speaking to him.

Sunny shivered. The intelligent Headspace creatures had always been unsettling.

"You are wondering about your new friends?"

Sunny snapped back to attention. So it did know what was going on. He nodded emphatically, matching Omori's terse equivalent.

"I am afraid I do not have the answers you seek. I became aware of their presence when they arrived, and knew that this world was about to change beforehand. That is the extent of my knowledge on the matter."

Omori glared ahead. He'd been so sure Branch Coral would have answers. Sunny, however, wasn't surprised. Disappointed, maybe, and so he looked at the ground, but not remotely surprised.

"And my offer, if you remember it, will not be available until the time that it is supposed to be. I do not control that aspect of it."

Sunny nodded, and placed a hand on Omori's shoulder. He looked up at him in response.

Time, leave.

Hesitation. Affirm.

Sunny nodded once again, waved an apologetic goodbye to Branch Coral, and they left.

Once they were back to the entrance of the tunnel, Sunny stopped, held onto Omori's hand, and centered himself. He'd thought it'd be rude to teleport in front of Branch Coral, an inherently stationary creature, but now they were away, and they could return to the stump.

But... After a while of distinctly not becoming suddenly dry, Sunny winked open his empty socket, realized that wouldn't do anything, and opened his functioning eye. He was still where he'd started, and Omori was looking up at him, blank faced, yes, but with edges of confusion.

Huh. That was strange.

He hadn't been able to teleport directly to the tunnel, but for some reason, he didn't think that it wouldn't work the other way around, too. he probably should have, if he was honest. Still. It was weird. He really should be able to get to and from this area without much effort, being the Dreamer.

Wait. Stop. It didn't matter. They were sort of on a time crunch here, with Sunny no longer able to spend full days asleep. He'd just... Head back to the Deeper Well entrance, and hope it would still work from there. He could worry about his brain's... Betrayal? When there weren't other people in it.

One long walk through twisting waterways later, and they were back where they started. This time, when Sunny held Omori's hand and returned to center, he found himself in the right place in short order.

Wet to dry teleportation was almost worse than the other way around. Headspace took pains to ensure that the Dreamer wouldn't be uncomfortable, so once he was out of the water, it dried him off immediately. That worked without teleportation as well, but with it, there was no moment of transition. No split-second before the water's surface tension broke, no feeling of sudden warmth as he dried off, no barest moment of having to remember how to breathe on land. It was weird.

Granted, he hadn't actually felt any of that since Omori's creation. It still bothered him, a little. He still had vague, staticky memories of traversing this world himself, of traveling the normal way through it. Of course, there were also the times he'd come up out of water in real life, one of which had been recent.

God, what was with him? He didn't have to, and didn't have time to, go through old, irrelevant memories like that. He had to keep going. Who had been next?

Right. Daddy Longlegs.

They were both still standing on the stump, and Sunny could feel Omori beginning to feel confused. They hadn't moved in a little too long. Sunny tightened his grip where their hands met, closed his eye, and focused. He had to get a grip, and he had to get them both to Pyrefly Forest.

When the floor under his shoes turned from wood to grass, he looked around.

Pyrefly's creeping, spindly music faded in and out slowly as it always did, and this time, he had actually gone where he'd wanted to. The entrance to the Lost Forest. Good. Great, really. It meant he could skip the SpiderCats.

They were only there to dissuade him. Somewhere along the line, he'd made Daddy Longlegs to hint at the truth, immediately decided he didn't want that truth, locked him away behind one of his worst fears, and promptly forgotten about the whole ordeal. That was how most of his creations had come about, actually. But now Sunny was lucid, and needed to speak with him, and had remembered how to skip past all of his own padlocks.

So, he stepped through the barely-noticeable gap in the trees next to the lantern, not letting go of Omori's hand. This area was, by nature, very easy to get lost in. Sunny knew very well that Omori was probably more suited to finding his way in there than Sunny was, but it still didn't feel right to risk a twelve-year-old boy running off, alone, in a creepy forest.

Omori, having felt most of that through their link, glared at him. He didn't pull away, but Sunny knew that it was a close thing.

When the pair shuffled through the tree line and into the first clearing, the first thing that caught Sunny's eye was the picnic basket.

He hadn't actually seen any since he'd been here, aside from the one in Aubrey's room. The bright reds and whites stood out against the forest, almost shiny in its contrast. It distracted from the figure next to it.

Daddy Longlegs was tall, and thin, and had long claws - almost talons - for hands. He was made of shadows, lengthened by sunlight at dusk, and seemed to habitually cool the air around him. He was almost hard to make out, against the dim lighting of the Lost Forest. His lantern, gripped in one of those claws, lit him up as best it could, but all it really did was add definition to the smoky wisps that made up his silhouette.

"Welcome to the Lost Forest, where you find things you never knew were lost in the first place..." He paused, and regarded them both with unseen eyes, "Or perhaps they're forgotten for a reason. You already know that, though. Don't you, children?" he finished, which Sunny thought was a little odd, because he was a whole fifteen-almost-sixteen and probably shouldn't count as a child anymore.

Upon getting no real response, Daddy Longlegs spoke again, in his raspy, sighing voice. "What have you come to ask me, children? You have not stumbled in here, intending to explore. That much, I can sense."

Omori moved to step forward, and promptly realized that Sunny had not let go of his hand, and that he was even less capable of speaking than Sunny was on any given day. Daddy Longlegs wasn't going to offer answers to questions he hadn't been asked, this time. Sunny's turn, then. He took a deep breath, and hoped whatever godawful force kept his lips sealed all day in real life wouldn't cross over to Headspace.

"We..." He trailed off, stumbling as his voice came out gravelly from underuse. A sharp, frustrated exhale, and he persisted.

"We've come for answers about the changes to this world," he started, "Are you aware of my new friends?" he asked, and maybe old friends would work better, and maybe he shouldn't have mimicked Daddy Longlegs formal speech but he'd already done it and it was way harder to mess with the memories of the intelligent creatures so there was no taking it back now.

"I'm afraid I am not," and he tilted his head to the side in confusion in a move that was much creepier than was probably intended because it tilted quite a bit too much, "My knowledge is in the realm of creation, of origins. Stories, long after they have taken place. A... Change, as you put it, would be the Pearls department."

And then it was Sunny's turn to tilt his head, because who was the Pearl? Or Pearls? Like the ones in sweethearts castle? Was the s plural or possessive? But then he blinked a few too many times, and it was gone. Lost Forest. Easy to lose track of your train of thought.

"Nonetheless, you will not find your answers here, children."

His voice was firm-but-gentle, like you talk to dogs, or really little kids. It sounded so final that Sunny didn't even think about asking anything else, just turned around and left, tugging Omori along with him. Another trip to the stump, and then there was brown-sugar-sand crunching solid under his shoes, and they were at their last stop.

They'd shown up already on top of the cliff, because neither of them wanted to take a trip to Sweethearts Castle to learn the super special slicing technique that would get them up here without directly teleporting. Mr Outback stood, swinging his arms strangely, a few feet ahead.

He sort of looked like a really well-made sandcastle. Solid to pat, but it sort of seemed like if you pinched too hard an arm might fall off. Every little movement shook off a few grains of sand, but he didn't seem to be falling apart any time soon. He moved too fast, almost like two pictures in different positions swapping places. Two frames alternating, rather than any sort of fluid movement.

One step closer, and he started talking with the sort of volume and twang usually reserved for cartoon characters.

"How d'ya do, buckaroo? The name's Mr. Outback..." He paused, just long enough for Sunny to interrupt, skipping the rest of his weird, extremely southern introduction.

"Um! We have. Uh. We have questions," Sunny said, wincing barely because that was really rude, wasn't it?

"Well ain't you quick to the point! Mighty rude to interrupt yer elders, but I'll let it slide just this once. Whad'ja wanting to ask, kiddo?"

"Um," he glanced to Omori, who shrugged back up at him, and Sunny got a twinge of annoyance over their link. Seemed like he wasn't over the hand-holding thing. "My- Uh. My friends? We were wondering if you knew anything."

"Oh! Ya mean the brand new youngins wanderin' 'round this here old world? What about 'em?"

Oh. That was nice. He was being much more casual about it, which meant he either knew a lot more than the others, or a lot less. Sunny hoped it was more.

"Uh. How to get them out, if you know. We've been asking around all night and..."

"Oh well that's just silly! Shoulda come here first, kiddo. I'm older 'an most folks 'round here, not to mention a whole lot friendlier if I do say so myself! Now, I can't tell ya how to get 'em out, but- Hey! Where r'ya going?"

But Omori had snatched Sunny's wrist and tugged him away, near-stomping in his impatience. Sunny would've tried to hear the rest of Mr. Outback's spiel, but the waves of annoyance and telepathic "Stupid, stupid, stupid-" were a little bit distracting. Omori had always sort of hated Mr. Outback. Sunny didn't know why. He'd been a little surprised when Omori had suggested him at all.

So, when Omori dragged him to the other side of the platform, and tugged at his hand impatiently, Sunny wasn't too surprised. He looked out over the cliff, preparing to teleport them back to the stump, and...

And saw an empty picnic blanket in the middle distance.

Mari wasn't there. Her basket sat, untouched. A cooler full of drinks and a plate of caramel apples, but no plastic, purple Mari.

Omori tugged again, with a little more force, but Sunny just pointed to what he was seeing. The barrage of secondhand-annoyance was swiftly replaced with a sharp pang of panic, and okay, so Sunny wasn't crazy. Cool, got it, nice to know.

Sunny forced them both back to the stump as quickly as he could, and they rushed to the closest picnic, the playground.

She wasn't there. A few seconds of terrified searching because Mari wasn't supposed to do that she didn't disappear like that it was kind of the whole point of Headspace and who knew how long she'd been gone and-

And then she was there again.

Sitting on her blanket, looking just the same as always except she was... Dazed? Leaning back slightly with a pinched expression. Blinking rapidly and seeming unsteady on her feet.

Omori rushed over and dove in for a hug. A shaky smile appeared on her face

"O-Oh! Well! You're not usually so cuddly, little brother."

But then she frowned, her eyebrows knitting together, and shook herself. She patted Omori's back a couple of times, soothing, and he pulled away to sit across from her. Sunny stepped a little closer, curious, because something was definitely up with her.

And then she looked right at Sunny and asked, "So, what's got the two of you so worked up?"

It was Sunny's turn to blink rapidly.

It had only been, what, a couple of hours? Since she'd looked straight through him to talk to Omori?

But Mari had asked a question, so Sunny answered without even thinking.

"You were... Gone. For a second."

"Oh! Well you know I like to chat with folks! I was just talking to some friends."

Which was. Even weirder. Because Headspace Mari couldn't really leave her blanket unless there were some very strange circumstances. And there didn't seem to be a fog enveloping the entire forest at the moment.

Sunny moved to sit next to her as well, kneeling on her blanket like he'd done earlier, except she hadn't been seeing him, then.

Then, he got an idea.

He carefully blocked off the link as best he could, because he was pretty sure Omori wouldn't like this. Clearly, Omori felt the connection cut off, because his head snapped to look at Sunny so fast he'd probably have gotten whiplash, had he been real.

"Mari... Do you..." She looked at him, so open, listening to him, in a way she hadn't in years, and he almost backed down. He wanted to savor this. This attention from his kind, loving, dead big sister. But he had a question to ask.

And she wasn't real. He had to keep thinking it, over and over. He didn't want to forget it again.

"Do you know anything about my new friends?"

Omori started glaring. He didn't like Sunny treating his older sister like just another intelligent headspace creature. That was what Sunny had expected.

"Oh..." Mari's face was carefully blank, but Sunny knew her expressions, and she was nervous. "...Well, first off, I'm pretty sure they're more like old friends," she started, with a giggle like ringing bells that was so very fake he almost flinched.

"And, well..." She pressed a fingertip to her mouth, considering, in a move that Sunny had seen the real her practice in a mirror once, and so knew that she thought it was cute.

"I think you just need them."

Sunny jerked back, as if poked unexpectedly. That was... A much more intelligent answer than he'd been expecting from perfect, plastic Mari. And really not the answer he'd been hoping for. He gestured, wide eyed, for her to continue.

"I know it's scary to have people here, so close to... Well, secrets. But I really think your friends - your real friends - are just what you need right now. It's gonna be tough at first, of course, and you'll all need time to process, but I know you'll be able to be friends again eventually."

And then she smiled, and Sunny knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"I don't think you're getting rid of them, Sunny."

And Sunny flinched as if hit.

She hadn't mistaken him for Omori. She hadn't addressed him as the Dreamer. Not even 'little brother,' although that would probably have hurt more.

No. She'd called him Sunny. His real name. And she hadn't looked away from him since he asked his question.

The only Headspace denizen who knew his name was Stranger.

But before he could ask about it, Headspace Mari's eyes darted to the exit of the playground - the one toward Basil's house - and widened.

"Oh dear. I'm so sorry you two, I have to go now-" and they both reeled back because what- "I'll see you soon, promise! Bye-bye!" and then she blinked out of existence like a snuffed candle and Sunny's mental grip on the connection between him and Omori slackened. Shockwaves of, well, shock, ran both ways like a ripple in a puddle, and neither of them had time to process before-

"Sunny!"

-Basil burst through the tree line right where Mari had looked and rushed up to them. Omori stood, looking fully ready to attack because he was startled and also insane, but Basil just sat in the grass next to the blanket and-

"I'm so- so sorry! I really didn't mean t-to leave the garden you m-made for me but it- it kinda just- just kicked me out? And then th-there was a shadow and I d-didn't know how to get back so I just tried to find you but-" Basil cut himself off, probably because of the very loud rustling from the direction opposite the one he'd come from and-

"-ero, you coming?" Kel's voice echoed and that first word sounded a lot like Hero and-

"Hey! You." Aubrey came through first, pointing at Sunny and Basil and raising her voice- "What the hell is going on here?"

And Kel and Hero came after her, just watching her tirade and-

"You can't just put us in gilded fucking cages like- like zoo animals! What the fuck were you thinking!?"

-She was shouting at him and apparently the others did not have that same immunity to being noticed by Headspace creatures because her voice was drawing attention and-

"And why in gods name can't I remember anything to do with-" everyone at the playground was looking at them, at him, normally happy faces turned curious and-

"-Mari! Or what you did-"

And then he was gone.

...

White Space greeted him like a speeding ambulance greeted a pedestrian.

...

Technically, trying to help.

...

His head went blank all at once.

...

Stuffed full of cotton wool to drive out any thoughts that might cross his way.

...

A quick glance behind him showed that the door was gone.

...

His heart beat fast in his ears.

...

A quick choice, a flash of red, and then it didn't.

Chapter Text

Aubrey sat straight up in bed, with a jerk, a groan, and a feeling that she'd be doing a lot of that in the near future.

She... Probably shouldn't have yelled at him so fast. He deserved it, obviously, but she knew it'd freak him out, and apparently when he freaked out nowadays he just fucking stabbed himself instead of booking it to another room like he used to. She should have started with just, you know, aggressive questioning and moved into the shouting when she lost her temper. Like she usually did.

But he did deserve it, even if the thought was petulant. He'd stuck them in their stupid little corners like animals and apparently given them fucking amnesia somehow so while they were there she didn't even remember that...

Oh God.

Holy shit.

She hadn't remembered.

None of them had.

Aubrey stormed downstairs and punched in the numbers for Kel and Hero's house, barely thinking about whether her mom was awake or not, and waited impatiently for them to pick up. When they did, Hero was out of breath and there was a faint clattering on the other side as Kel scrambled down their stairs after him.

"Treehouse, now."

"...Y-Yeah."

She slammed down the receiver and climbed upstairs to get dressed. Long day ahead, she guessed.

-----

Basil, on the other hand, woke slow and groggy. He looked at the clock above his bed, which was analog, and it was early enough to take a minute to parse it. He'd only gotten maybe four hours - pretty typical but not pleasant - and had been more than a little freaked out for some of it.

And Sunny was staring at him.

Basil was an only child. He wondered if he was ever going to get used to sharing a room. It'd only been like five days, though, so he should really give himself some more time.

"...Hi?"

"Hey."

Some more confused blinking as Sunny continued to stare.

"...Wha-" Calm down, it's just Sunny, "Whatcha looking at?"

"You were there."

Basil winced.

"...Sorry."

Sunny tilted his head. A little line appeared between his eyebrows.

"For what?"

"Uh. ...Leaving? Th-the garden? I th-thought you didn't want me to..."

Sunny's eye opened a little wider.

"No- No, no. It's okay. You didn't- mean to?" Basil shook his head no, "Then it doesn't matter."

His shoulders slumped.

That was nice. That was nice to know. Sunny wasn't mad at him.

"...Okay."

And then there was a long stretch of silence, because Sunny didn't mind silence and seemed to have deemed the conversation over. Basil did mind, but not enough to bother making a fuss. So he sat and stared at the clock, watching it tick away while Sunny sat and stared off into space, probably thinking up some new plot to keep people out of his head, because clearly this last one hadn't worked out.

And then, without noticing, nearly an hour had passed, and the silence had stopped being uncomfortable, even for basil, and it was seven o'clock. Polly's alarm clock went off faintly, so faintly he wouldn't have heard it had he not been trying to, from her room.

Basil slipped out of bed with soft rustling and just-woke-up dizziness. He poked Sunny because Polly would be making breakfast soon and it was rude not to be there while she was making it. If you just show up once the food is done, it makes it look like you only care about that person for what they can do for you. And everyone likes company while they're cooking, as long as you don't get in the way. Grandma had always been fond of table manners.

So, because Sunny was always a night owl and never a morning person, Basil had to half drag him out of bed while he pouted about it. But they did leave his their room just after Polly left hers, so he could count that as a win.

-----

Aubrey got to the treehouse last. She lived farthest. It was... helpful, that she burst in, already ranting the way she did, because Hero hadn't found it in him to respond to Kel's automatic attempts at conversation starting since they'd woken up. He'd said exactly one word that day so far and it was just a stuttered 'yeah' when Aubrey demanded their presence. Then, they'd gone back upstairs to get dressed and Hero hadn't spoken since.

So there he sat, not at the table because Kel had sat on the opposite side of the treehouse from it and Hero wasn't about to argue. Aubrey didn't seem capable of standing still at the moment. She was ranting, pacing, stuttering. Her hands in fists and her face red with anger. Or maybe lack of air. From all the ranting. Oh right, he was the adult here.

"Take a breath, Aubrey. You're going red."

And, to her credit, she did pause to inhale. But only so she could keep talking, louder this time.

"Take a breath?! Hero- How can you expect me to calm down when- We couldn't even-"

She kept up the tirade, but Hero mostly tuned it out. She wasn't saying anything he didn't know.

A sort of calm had washed over him like a thick, heavy blanket a little after he'd woken up that morning. He'd sat bolt upright, panicked for a moment, and then the world had seemed to be in a blue haze, like his bedroom in the dream. Everything seemed to fuzz around the edges and it got a little harder to blink or speak. He recognized the feeling, but something about it made it hard to remember where from. He couldn't quite bring himself to care about how he didn't-

How he couldn't-

How he hadn't known-

Aubrey's in his space all of a sudden. Crouched in front of him and waving a hand in front of his face. She seemed more annoyed than the rage from earlier. Oh, there was concern there too. Buried in the crease between her eyebrows.

Hero blinked rapidly, and registered that Kel was poking him in the upper arm. Probably had been for quite a while, since it was starting to hurt.

Oh jeez, how out of it had he been?

"S-Sorry about that..." a half-hearted chuckle and he was trying to shake himself, because getting too far into that headspace (ha) was not good for anyone, "...Just zoned out a little," and then he winced because that was really weak.

Aubrey seemed to appraise him, deemed his horrible excuse to be good enough, at least for now, and went back into the rant. She didn't keep pacing, though. She plopped down in front of them, forming a little triangle, and fiddled with the hem of her shirt instead. Hero tried to at least listen to her this time, if only to catch himself up on anything his dream-brain had missed.

"I just- I just-" her shoulders sagged, "why couldn't we remember? It's fucked up no matter what but I just don't get it."

Birds chirped. A breeze rustled some branches. Aubrey got up to start pacing again.

"Well..." Kel started, and it was the first time he'd spoken since the failed conversation starters earlier, "Maybe that's, like, ...What it's there for?"

"Kel, what the Hell are you talking about?"

"I mean-" he glanced at Hero, then at Aubrey, then at nothing in particular somewhere on the other side of the treehouse. Aubrey did not pause her stalking back and forth.

"I mean, if I... Uh..." Kel tapped his ring finger on the wood flooring woodpecker-fast, and then his voice started coming out in a rush, "If I killed Hero or whatever I sure as hell wouldn't wanna think about it, you know? And if I'd... Done that... And had a world in my head I could do whatever with..."

Birds chirped. Aubrey had stopped in her tracks the moment Kel said 'killed'.

"...Oh."

They'd both said it, Aubrey and Hero, at the same time. Really, what else could they say to that?

A breeze rustled branches. Some faint music played from someone's too-loud speakers and too-far-open windows in a passing car too far away to see. No one spoke.

Then, Aubrey sputtered out something about none of that being any excuse and besides we don't even know if that's the case because it's not like we can ask him and we're sure not calling Basil again and maybe Sunny's just a lunatic and none of that was true and-

Hero stood and dusted off his jeans because this wasn't going anywhere and honestly? He really didn't want to talk about it. Or think about it.

"Aubrey,"

"What?" she snapped back.

"Do you, maybe, want some time alone? I don't think we're contributing much."

Her face went red again, and she stomped off to a corner to grumble and sulk. Hero was pretty sure that was a "yes, but I'm mad you figured that out before me." It was a little comforting, really, that he still knew her signals. The childish ones, at least.

Hero headed toward the ladder, gesturing for Kel to follow, and he was also pretty sure he caught them sticking their tongues out at each other. He didn't know why, but he also didn't know if he'd even actually seen it, so he didn't bother to wonder.

Hero headed back toward his house, hoping he could have a normal day, and not worry about amnesia and lucid dreaming and repression. Just for a while.

-----

Contrary to popular belief, Aubrey was not actually a lone wolf.

She tried to seem it, sometimes, because it was cool, and kind of what was expected of a teenager with neon-dyed hair and a missing father. But, if we're going with the wolf thing, she'd almost always had some kind of pack.

First, a mostly happy family, plus a little boy from pre-school who liked flowers. Then, the family part dropped away a little, but was swiftly replaced with a group of friends so close-knit they might as well have been a family. Then that was gone. Then Basil was gone. Then her actual family was gone. For a handful of horrid months, she probably could have been considered a lone wolf. Then she'd scored herself a friend group of assholes who rode around on scooters scaring people they didn't like and affectionately annoying people they did.

Not really a gang, but close enough to make jokes about being one.

Still, when push came to shove, when things were bad, Aubrey did the very same thing she'd been accusing everyone else of. Running off and hiding. In her defense, the alternative was usually hitting someone. She'd gotten enough time-outs, and later, detentions for it that stomping off to sulk in a corner became the wise choice. Still, Hero using his stupid dad-voice to ask, basically, if she needed to go work out some big feelings had made something in her skull vibrate loudly, and it'd mostly knocked her righteous fury into a different, pettier variety.

Kel sticking his stupid tongue out had helped. She thought he was trying to make a joke. When they were kids, his general dumbassery had been what sent her to the sulking corner more often than not, and he'd almost always punctuated his antics with sticking his tongue out. So, she'd mimicked, and it had, actually, helped her mood.

Anyway, all in all, Aubrey was not a loner. She was alone right now though.

Her thoughts started to wander back to last nights dream. The shouting match with Sunny. Kneeling at picnic blankets and feeling the urge to cry but not understanding why because she couldn't remember God that was so fucked up how had none of them remembered-

Hm. Maybe she shouldn't be alone right now.

But she didn't want to talk to Kel or Hero, not after they'd left on a half-decent note already. And, besides, she hadn't actually spent much time with the gang lately. Too busy with murder and secrets and lucid dreams that came with amnesia.

Alright. Go down the list. Charlie needed warning for hang-outs during the day, and Aubrey did not want to go back to her house just to make a quick call. That ruled out whole-group shit as well as Charlie alone. Mav was an asshole. Angel was like six (Aubrey could practically hear him yelling 'I'm almost twelve!' from there) so it was always weird to hang with him without more of the group. That left Kim and Vance, which was really nice because they were her best friends. Especially Kim. Sorry, V.

Okay, it was a... It took her a while to figure out what day of the week it was because it was the middle of summer so who the Hell cared. Sunday, she landed on eventually. Weekend. First weekend of the month, if her mental clock hasn't gotten too bad yet.

Their dad's house, then. She'd never really stayed at their dad's for long. Just grabbed them at the door or threw pebbles at the window until they came out. And maybe they would just go to the park.

But it was getting really hot out. And she didn't like taking off her jacket.

Well. Maybe their dad wouldn't mind her staying over a while. She had fixed that pipe for him.

-----

Sunny had been drawing all day.

Not the frantic diagrams of the day before. Not even the laser-focus of the day he first started in his new sketchbook. Just the normal kind, like from the hospital. Only light pages, too, so Basil got to watch.

He was coloring in that page with the bigger, purple treehouse from before. Basil thought it might be a location in Headspace. Maybe all of his drawings were. Or most.

But Basil had kind of run out of plants to talk about for the day. So he was pointing at bits of the drawing and asking questions.

"Why's there a toaster?"

"Because Kel brought a toaster to the real treehouse. He thought it would work."

"Oh right! That's why the TV, too?"

"Mhm. It only plays a movie I've never seen."

Huh. Okay. There was a more pressing matter. Namely, the giant pair of soulless eyes, that seemed to stare at anyone who dared to even glance at the artwork.

"So. Um. What's with the... Cat?"

"He's my Favorite."

Oh! Well that was! An answer!

There was something about the way Sunny had said 'favorite' that seemed like the word meant something... Different. The immediacy of the answer, the emphasis of the word. The biting, almost angry tone it was said with.

Basil must've done his usual nervous chuckle, because Sunny's colored pencil stopped where it'd been coloring in the Cat in question.

"Sorry. That's- Um. Part of the world, I think. Some story beat I can't quite remember. My favorite is Basket Case."

And that last bit was so weird that Basil couldn't even wonder about the first part.

"What? What's Basket Case?"

Sunny grinned, which was weird on its own. Then he flipped to a clean page and picked out a new colored pencil, in a shade of pink that could only be described as 'fleshy'. He started outlining a little oval(?) that almost looked to be in the vague shape on a human heart(?!), before taking the yellow from the cat and adding a bumpy shape to the ovals top that might've been a melting crown.

"...What is that thing?"

Sunny grinned again and kept on drawing.

-----

So, as it turned out, Kim and Vance's dad did not mind her sticking around, and it was, in fact, almost entirely because she'd fixed that pipe.

Kim and Vance themselves took turns rolling their eyes while their dad raved about how fast and easily she'd fixed the 'damn thing' that'd been 'drip drip dripping' for like. A month, by the time she got there. Which was actually ridiculous. She'd given up on the rest of her house, but no leak stayed around for more than like three days in her attic room. That bucket is for rabbit feed only.

Anyway. He'd just been making it worse with his attempts to fix it. Layers of duct tape too thick to do anything anymore, too many spacers of too many sizes all stacked up on one duct. Most of her job was to take apart his job. And worst of all, he'd actually paid for all those parts he didn't need. When she did her own patching, she used the five finger discount. Which was a stupid term that she hated, but it sounded much less illegal than shoplifting.

And then the microwave beeped and the pizza rolls he'd insisted on making were done. She hadn't eaten yet today, so that was nice, but now an adult had made her food so she kinda owed him, less nice.

But he just set it on top of a water stained newspaper on the end table, told the three of them (or more precisely, "you kids"), to have fun, and walked out the front door.

Huh.

Their mom basically never left the house if she knew Aubrey was there. Not quite hovering, but she sure didn't want a delinquent like her making a mess or being a bad influence. As if Kim hadn't taught Aubrey everything she knew about that 'delinquency'.

Aubrey took a pizza roll.

Yum. She never got these. The microwave at her place was broken.

"So, um... You guys wanna watch something?" Vance piped up, which was basically his way of saying "I love you two but I want to go read my comics. If you don't think of an activity I'm leaving." Vance was weird like that. He could just say he wanted out.

But there's a routine to this, so Kim turned to Aubrey with a dumb smirk and asked, "girl time?"

"Sure."

And with exactly one word, the living room became a dramatic production that Aubrey had seen many times already.

Kim launched out of her seat and shouted "Shoo, brother! Shoo!" in a lazy attempt at a victorian english accent, and waved a pillow at him as if about to start not just a pillow fight, but an all out pillow war.

Vance bolted upright and fled into the hall, shouting, "jeez, holy- I get it- i'm going-!" as he was further backed through the doorway by the ever approaching fluffed weapon.

But Kim continued- "Back! Back I say!" -until Vance had retreated fully into the hallway.

One final yell of "you guys are the worst!" shouted through laughter, followed by the click-thud-click of their bedroom door opening and closing, signaled the end of the game.

And then Kim laid herself down across the couch until her legs were dangling off the edge and her head was pressed to the side of Aubrey's thigh.

"Hey."

"Hey. It's girl time."

That got a little laugh. "I noticed."

Self-satisfied smirk from Kim, and then there was silence, and Aubrey could breathe.

She grabbed another pizza roll, noticing that half the paper plate was already, somehow, gone. She was grateful for the food, and the company, and the weird little show she'd seen a thousand times, and the space that was not her house, or Kel and Hero's, or the treehouse. And the company, again. She'd been too distant from Kim lately.

It probably hadn't been all that long since they'd hung out, but that was when Aubrey's mom was gone. It wasn't really hanging out, just Aubrey leeching off her friends because she kinda didn't have much else. It'd been a long time since they'd been together without another motive. The space was nice, but she didn't need it, she could've stayed in the treehouse, or gone to the park. The food was nice, but she didn't need it, skipping breakfast wouldn't kill her.

The company was irreplaceable, though.

Oh God that was sappy.

Aubrey ate another pizza roll.

Maybe she was hungrier than she thought, because the plate was almost gone before she knew it and she hadn't seen Kim have any. Aubrey picked up the last one and reached down to Kim's upturned face. Her mouth opened without hesitation, and Aubrey popped the roll inside. Then Kim made a horrible throat noise and sat bolt upright. She coughed a few times, dislodged the pizza roll from her throat, paused, and then started chewing. Once she'd swallowed it, the fear faded and they both fell over themselves laughing.

When it'd settled to breathless giggles, Aubrey folded the paper plate and got up to throw it away. By the time she sat back down, Kim had settled into her earlier position and the laughter had passed.

Another few minutes of happy, calm silence. Every once in a while one of them would think of how dumb it would be if Kim died to a pizza roll, and another round of giggles would burst to the surface, and then even that slowed to a stop.

Then Kim piped up with, "so, Aubs, what the hell is going on with you lately?"

Aubrey tensed so much and so fast that Kim must've felt it, because she started sitting up and she was still talking while she did it, "because, you know. Guy I barely remember shows his face and then you're friends with Kel again, then Basil and Weird Knife Kid land in the hospital and you've been weird ever since?"

Kim was fully upright now, looking right at her and pushing up her glasses but Aubrey could only see that from her peripherals because she could not look anywhere but straight ahead. Kim's voice was trying to seem casual to avoid scaring Aubrey off from talking at all because that has happened before. But the worry and nerves were leaking through the cracks in her windpipe just like the water leaked through the cracks in the actual pipe except this one Aubrey cannot fix with a wrench. These cracks filled with worry for a friend could only be fixed with an explanation and Kim was still talking and had been the whole time

"I dunno, I guess it's not really my business. I just. Y'know. Care 'bout'cha. Wanna make sure my best friend isn't like. Hiding something I could help with, y'know?"

Kim's carefully concealed twang was coming through. They were from Texas, originally. But they moved here when they were young enough that the accent is subtle and strange. If it was showing, then this was a much bigger deal to her than she was trying to make it seem. But the explanation that was required was so insane that it could not possible be believed.

Finally, Aubrey shook herself from that odd frozen state, and looked at her best friend.

Aubrey could not possibly explain why she'd been so weird.

'Oh yeah, you know my old friend group? With the girl who killed herself? Kind of a big deal, in the newspaper and everything? Yeah so she was murdered. By her brother. Yeah the one who was also in the friend group. Yeah the one who was just in the hospital for getting in a really bad fight with that boy we've been screwing with for literal years. Oh bee-tee-dubs, that boy? Who we've been bullying relentlessly for reasons I never told you? Yeah he was the one who covered up her murder. Tied the noose and everything haha. We just found all that out. Oh and yeah, now the whole group is having magic dreams. Yeah it's the murderers fault about the dreams too by the way. Haha yeah, crazy right?'

Definitely not an option.

But then there was the other reason she'd been so weird. The reason she knew, and Hero knew, and everyone else with eyes half-suspected because they'd walked past her house with its trash covered lawn and seen her come to school in too-small clothes and shoes with holes worn in. The reason she turned down Mav's house party invites every time and smelled like beer whenever she didn't have time to shower.

Her useless lump of a mother. That was believable. That was true.

And it wasn't like Kim couldn't be trusted, right? She was the one who bought her new shoes for Christmas because she knew Aubrey wouldn't accept if it wasn't a holiday. She lent her bathroom for hair dye, kept a kitchen timer with her toiletries because she knew Aubrey needed it. She smacked Mav when he was being an ass because she knew if Aubrey did it, it'd be hard enough for him to feign injury. Kim could be trusted. She could, right?

Kim was just looking at her. They stared at each other as Aubrey took a breath.

"...My mom left. A while ago."

Kim slumped a little, seeming relieved that Aubrey was finally talking, and then processed the words and tensed all over again.

This would be hard, wouldn't it?

After Hero did nothing, she'd kinda figured she'd never have to have this conversation again.

Still. She'd already started, so she sorta had to keep going.

-----

To her credit, Aubrey did not cry this time.

A couple of close calls, because she really did not like talking about herself, especially with all this sappy, tragic backstory bullshit. But she didn't cry. Kim just sat and listened, until she got to the end of the story. Then, there was a bit of an awkward silence while Kim just seemed a little stunned, and Aubrey waited with bated breath to see what kind of reaction she would get.

It probably wouldn't be a bad reaction. She just hoped it wouldn't change things. Aubrey was supposed to be strong. Cool and collected, or heated and ready to fight. It was kind of her thing. If Kim got all weird and pitying about this, Aubrey might just keel over and die on the spot.

She was not expecting the casual, "dude, that blows," that she got.

A beat of silence. They looked at each other. Aubrey blinked a few times, Kim blinked back.

A sardonic cough of a laugh spilled from Aubrey's lips.

And then she was doubled over, awful little giggles wrenching their way from her throat because what? What kind of response was that?

And then Kim, hesitantly, joined the laughing party, and for the second time that day they were both finding way too much amusement at something bad that'd happened.

"S-Sorry, sorry," Kim got out in between bursts of laughter, "I- I didn't know what to say!"

"God, don't apologize, that's better than the last response I got to that story," Aubrey choked out, and oh, now she was crying, though mostly from the force her laughter was shaking her with. If the actual subject matter had anything to do with it, she politely ignored its influence.

"No, but- But seriously," Kim started, and her mirth died down, at least, "You know my dad loves you, right?"

"Y- Yeah? Of course I do. He bragged about that pipe I fixed all morning."

"Yeah."

"...Yeah."

Aubrey didn't really know where Kim was going with this one. Or maybe she did know, and didn't want to think about it just yet. Hard to tell, in the moment, whether she was just kidding herself.

"Aubs. Aubrey. Dude."

"What?" She asked, bewildered.

"This couch is a pull out. My dad is always lonely when we're at mom's. He wouldn't mind."

Aubrey blinked. All traces of humor, at that point, were long gone. Kim wasn't joking.

"Are- Kim, are you serious?"

A short nod, and an expression like she couldn't believe such a question could ever possibly be necessary.

"I- Really?"

"Yes, Aubrey, I'm serious. I'm not gonna joke about this."

"I-I know I just- Really? Don't answer that. Sorry. I just-"

"You don't have to decide right now. Take a week. Think on it. I'll clear things up with my dad, let him know you might crash here for a while. I don't think it'd be, like, permanent. But he'd love you to stay here."

"...Yeah. Okay. I will," and then, tacked on, because come on, was she really still mooching off her friends this much, a hesitant "...Thanks."

-----

Aubrey stayed over for maybe an hour or two more. Vance came out of their room, and they watched some shitty movie together. Horror, because Vance loved shitty horror movies.

Then she went home, in the early afternoon. She played with Bun-bun, because bunnies require stupid amounts of daily exercise and poor Bun-bun didn't get nearly enough, honestly. Aubrey's room was too small, and she wouldn't risk taking her through the rest of the house to get outside. She only got outside time when Aubrey carried her down through the window.

Then, Aubrey slept. She'd managed to forget about the dreams until her head hit the pillow, which was nice. But then she remembered, and sat awake for longer than she'd meant to, worrying about it. About other things, too, but those wouldn't be an issue until morning.

Chapter Text

Sunny sat on Basil's bed, sketching idly while Basil was out watering his plants. He'd been doing that, sitting in various places around the house, sketching idly, pretty much the whole morning.

His plan hadn't worked. That was easy enough to see. And apparently Headspace's memory effects worked on the others as well, if he believed what Aubrey had yelled in the last few seconds he'd been there. That was a surprise, but not the biggest deal. To him, at least. She'd seemed pretty upset, for some reason.

But what could he do now? Make new rooms? Clearly that wouldn't work. But what would?

He could just leave them in Neighbors Room. And Basil's House, respectively. But they'd complain, and Sunny knew he'd fold at the slightest word from Kel, or Basil. Not Hero or Aubrey, he was pretty sure, because they'd already complained plenty and he hadn't buckled yet. But he really couldn't think of much else to do.

Then, a simple truth came to him. Sunny was tired. Physically tired. His eyelids drooped more often than not, and he'd been using his eraser (a kneaded one, because Basil had that level of fancy art supplies just laying around, apparently) more than usual. Sloppy, slow hands making mistakes from exhaustion. He knew the feeling all too well.

He'd thought the hospital schedule had fixed his habits. He'd been woken up at seven every morning by the alarm clock, hidden, probably not on purpose, by the pot of lilies of the valley on his bedside table. He hadn't been able to figure out how to change, or turn off, the alarm. Then, even when he could go back to sleep, someone would bring him breakfast at eight. Before, it wouldn't have been a problem to sleep through that, but apparently losing access to Headspace had made him a much lighter sleeper, because it woke him back up every time. And the space between meals had been filled almost entirely with appointments, exercises, and visits from Basil. Safe to say, he wasn't sleeping all day anymore.

But then he'd gotten here, gotten safe, in Basil's house, and suddenly he was almost as groggy as his first few days in the hospital.

So, a simple solution arose. He could get more sleep, keep his old friends out of Headspace, and not fold at the slightest complaint. All Sunny had to do was not be in Headspace at the same time as them.

He'd just sleep during the day. It was Summer, so days were longer than nights (get more sleep: check). The rest of them wouldn't be doing that (avoid old friends: check). And he could just ask Omori to take the staircase out of Neighbors Room again (keep everyone out of his head: check). Easy peasy, right?

So, settled on a solution, he set down his sketch book, stole Basils alarm clock, set it to go off at nine, and settled in for a long nap. It was noon. that was only nine hours, but he'd get more tomorrow. It should be fine.

Remembering at the last second that he shared a room again, Sunny wrote Basil a quick sticky note explaining the plan. Wouldn't do to worry him. He worried enough as it was.

-----

So, Hero was freaking out.

Not uncommon, was it?

It's just that when Aubrey had been pacing and ranting, she'd looked just like she did when she was twelve, and silly, and only ever mad over Kel pulling her hair or whatever he'd done that day. And apparently, that gave Hero the right to act like a huge jerk.

He'd been so condescending, with his telling her, basically, to take a time out. And she hadn't even argued! Just stomped to a corner and sat there. It was just so embarrassing, talking to her like that when they'd barely spoken in years. She didn't deserve that. And Hero hadn't even realized until Kel looked at him funny, hours later, and said something about not believing that'd worked.

And then Hero had realized, and stalked off to a corner to sulk himself. And he'd called her childish for it earlier. Just in his head, but still. It was a perfectly reasonable reaction, he was realizing now.

...

He was in a closet.

Curled up in a corner, in a closet.

Sunny and Mari's old house wasn't exactly identical to Hero and Kel's, but it was pretty close.

Front door opening into a living room. Kitchen and Dining rooms off to the left. Hallway and stairwell straight ahead. Two bedrooms, one bathroom on the top floor.

The main difference was that Hero and Kel's room was bigger than Sunny and Mari's, and they didn't have a music room.

But they both had a closet on the left side of the hallway. Slightly different spots, but both on the left side.

That closet was... Important, wasn't it? He thought so. Couldn't quite place how, or why. Something in him said the closet was important. Something in him said something about Mari. The sound(?) was waterlogged, and he couldn't quite make it out. Was the closet important to Mari? Or was it important to what happened to her?

Something started to scratch at him. Something almost painful on the inside of his skull. It sent him scrambling to leave the tiny room.

Once he was out, the feeling faded. A couple minutes later, he couldn't even remember what had sent him running in the first place.

He couldn't remember. Like how he couldn't remember in Headspace. Like how he hadn't even known she was dead, much less who'd killed her.

Hero's heart was pounding, he realized.

Why? It wasn't what he said to Aubrey still, was it?

Ugh. Now that he'd reminded himself...

Hero decided to go on a run. Try to clear his head. He'd been skipping out on his morning runs, lately, for obvious reasons. On his run, he tried and failed to puzzle out what had panicked him so badly.

-----

When Kel appeared in Headspace, his first thought was Oh, this shit again.

Then he'd seen the picture again. That flickering image, rapid fire switching between Mari, and her corpse.

Right. Well then.

Looked like he'd figured out how to get their memories back.

Now that he'd thought about it, seeing that fake(?) version of her disappear last night had reminded him too. It'd only lasted for a while, though. He'd forgotten pretty fast once she was gone, he was pretty sure.

There was a question, then. If he looked away from the picture for too long, would he forget again? Would her memory fade like that one picture from Basil's album, sun-bleached and water-damaged from being left in the treehouse?

Hm. Did the picture also come with a sudden skill in poetry? He didn't usually think like that.

Maybe it did. Mari wrote poetry, sometimes. She did really well in her english classes, he thought. She wasn't as good in math. She and Sunny were opposites, that way.

That same dull pop from two days ago, and Hero was in the center of the room. Kel made a snap decision to turn around and block the photo from view. No use in bringing the mood down any farther than it was already going to be. Even if they might want to know.

-----

The night was filled with Aubrey's stormy silence, interspersed with the occasional burst of angry ranting. Hero didn't tell her to calm down this time. He'd taken up a spot by the watermelon in the corner, Kel stood in front of the counter, uncharacteristically still, and Aubrey switched between sitting across from the table and, again, pacing. She tried the White Door a few times, too, but it was locked. The similarities between this Room and their treehouse made her ranting a little too on the nose.

Still, he kept his mouth shut. No point in embarrassing himself again.

Sunny didn't show up this time. Omori did, every once in a while. Poking his head out of the out-of-place White Door, glancing around to each of them, and shutting the door again. Usually, while ignoring Aubrey's loud protests at both his presence, and his exits. Hero wasn't stupid. She was mad at the entire situation, and taking it out on anyone in range.

But Omori really didn't seem to be doing anything. Just checking in on them. And Sunny didn't seem to be there at all, he thought. Hero couldn't catch glimpses of him when the door was open, so wherever he was, it probably wasn't the unsettling white void that lay beyond it.

Most of what Hero did all night was hope that Sunny knew a way to turn off the amnesia. And, further, that he would use whatever that method was. Hero still couldn't remember why he was so mad at Sunny. And from Aubrey's rants, she didn't either.

Kel Interjected a lot. Little bits of helpful statements or just plain old insults. Enough to take her mind off of things. He was good at that, wasn't he?

Hero hoped the memory stuff wouldn't keep infecting his real life, which was what he'd settled on about the thing with the closet earlier. Aside from the general horror of it all, he did have classes to study for in a couple of months. He couldn't afford to be forgetful.

-----

Basil was fine with this. Really, he was!

It made sense, really, that Sunny would put him here. And he liked the shoe house. It was cute, and full of plant life, and the whole atmosphere was very relaxing. It was just, well, the wall of thorny vines completely walling off what he knew to be an exit. It just threw off the energy, is all.

But Sunny had stuck a note to his bedside table, explaining what he'd decided to do, and Headspace really wasn't any of his business, really. So Basil was fine staying here.

There were plenty of books, even ignoring the photo album. But they were sort of... off. He could open one, and see words, but they'd swim around on the page, like they were trying to avoid being seen. If he managed to catch them, though, they'd bring up images in perfect clarity. He'd watch the story like a movie, and without even realizing he'd been turning the pages, the book would be over, and he didn't feel like he'd actually read a single word. It was strange. But it let him get through the books much faster than he would have in the real world, even with his reading speed, which was nothing to scoff at.

Before he knew it, he'd 'read' around ten books, and couldn't remember a single story, even though he'd been able to follow them perfectly while they were happening. Something about a prince, he thought. A classic fairytale made new. Some kind of exciting twist.

So, he watered the flowers, even though he was pretty sure they'd never wilt here. He went outside and stared at the trees. Felt the breeze, and smelled the pine needles and chocolate chip cookies on it. Debated swimming in the moat. Decided against it. Made sure the grass around the little candles scattered around was nice and damp, to avoid a fire he was sure wouldn't catch.

Eventually, woke up.

-----

The night passed in silence. Sunny sketched, yawned, and tried to stay awake. Ate the leftovers from lunch and dinner. Stared at the clock. He actually finished that big drawing of Neighbors Room, and added hints of his new friends to it. Aubrey's teal headband, on the table next to the plate. A basketball, where that inaccessible plant by the staircase was supposed to be. Hero's shoe, gripped in Abbi's tentacle. It seemed fitting, was all.

Apparently, if Basil's note was to be trusted, Polly had seemed concerned, but had let Sunny sleep.

He was pretty sure he'd done this before. Staying up all night. There'd been the late-night Hobbeez trips with Kel, and staying up to practice with Mari, when he was a kid. But then, after everything, he was pretty sure he'd stayed up for a while.

It was fuzzy. Most things were, during the last four years. But he thought he might've stayed up for a few weeks, before Headspace.

He'd gone to school, he was pretty sure, every day for the first two or three weeks after what happened. He was running on autopilot, probably. Getting up from staring awake at the ceiling for hours on end when Mari's alarm clock no one had thrown away yet went off. Getting ready on his own, ignoring his mom's crying through their walls. Ignoring his dad, staring into space at the little table in the kitchen, a cup of coffee growing gold in his hands. Getting on the bus.

At first, no one else from his group showed up. At the end of the first week, someone else did. He couldn't remember who. Once everyone but Hero (and Mari) was back, well. He stopped coming to school.

He remembered his mom saying something tearful about him having to sleep at some point. But then he'd practically never woken up. She'd probably regretted saying it at the time. She probably didn't anymore. After finding out, she must've been glad that she hadn't had to talk to a murderer any more than she did.

Sunny flipped to the back of his sketchbook, then paged past all the failed designs for the new rooms. It was a wonder, really, that this one didn't have darker pages yet.

-----

Aubrey spent the day in her room. What else could she do, really? She'd spent all night with Hero and Kel, she hated Basil, and the gang, well.

How could she go see them with Kim's offer hanging over her head?

She couldn't. So she stayed in her room. Watched Bun-Bun run around for her exercise, or stared at the ceiling. Mulled it over.

She really didn't want to keep mooching. It felt so shitty of her, to keep taking from Kim and Vance, when they'd already given so much.

Everyone in town knew Aubrey was poor. It was never a secret. They could see the outside of her house, even if she never let anyone in. Angel, by virtue of being too young for family drama, and also dumb, was probably the only person in town who didn't know. So Charlie knitted more clothes for Aubrey than anyone else, because she was a little old lady at heart. Mav ignored it more often than not because that was the way he was, and she sort of appreciated him not treating her any different.

Kim and Vance, though.

They didn't do anything too overt. Any time she needed something, they'd wait for Christmas or her birthday to buy it for her. Easter, once. That way they were just giving her a gift, not condescendingly helping out the poorest kid in town. Her contacts. Her hair dye, before she started stealing it. Her shoes. Her jacket. They bought her necessities, because they knew she wouldn't get them anywhere else, and fun stuff, because that way she wasn't a charity case. They always gave her separate gifts, one from each of them, when everyone else got a joint one. That way, she got more, but it still felt fair.

She wasn't dumb. She'd noticed. But how could she tell them to stop when they went to so much effort to keep it subtle?

There were two friendship bracelet on her bedside. One, five different colored strings woven together, a set of six made by Violet, Angel's sister and Aubrey's cousin, after Angel begged. The other five were sloppier, because Violet insisted on teaching Angel how to make them, instead of just making them herself. Aubrey's was made first, though, as an example for him.

Red for Vance, dark blue for Kim, purple for Charlie, light blue for Angel, and bright ass yellow for Mav. Red was actually Kim's favorite, and blue Vance's, but they tended to wear each other's favorites, so it made sense anyway.

The other was simpler. Red, blue, pink. Just braided, because Vance didn't know how to do all the fancy weaving like the others. He'd made them for the three of them, because Mav was being an asshole about the original five strand ones, and Angel, as always, took his side. Charlie hadn't said anything, so she got roped into Mav's side of that particular argument. It was mostly a joke-fight, but no one wore any of the bracelets anymore. Aubrey kept hers, though. Next to the photo of her and Kim. She felt like she had to.

The TV made vaguely-human sounds from the living room. Reality shows, probably. The bad ones.

She looked over at Bun-Bun. She really needed more space.

Aubrey went back to her mulling.

-----

With Aubrey mostly chilled out, the night went smoother. She sat and fiddled with the hem of her yellow shirt, and Hero wandered around. He seemed to be exploring, with much less caution than he had the first time they'd been here, and Kel stood in front of the picture, babbling about everything he could think of.

He'd spent the day with Jay and PB, watching them dance around each other when he wasn't playing various sports against Jay, and wondering if they were ever gonna get over themselves and date. He didn't really get gay people, but he didn't really get most of that stuff. And he especially didn't get why people seemed to care so much about gay people doing gay things. It didn't really seem like anyone's business. So that's what he'd been chatting about, since as soon as he realized no one else was about to fill the silence.

Hero poked and prodded at stuff around the room, eventually making his way to the TV in the corner. Kel would've kept talking, but then Hero said "...What movie is that?" and Aubrey walked over too.

"Is that fucking Stand By Me?"

Well, now he had to see too, didn't he?

"Yeah, that's what I thought. But why would Sunny have put that here?" Hero added.

Kel walked over. It was four boys walking on railroad tracks. He remembered thinking about it the first time he'd been there.

"Oh! I remember that!"

"You've seen it?"

"No. Sunny and I snuck in when Mom and Dad were watching it. We were little. Got shooed out of the room pretty fast, though." Because they were like ten and it was rated R, "App-eeeerently, it was too grown up for us-"

"What the Hell is that."

Huh?

Oh. Oops.

Kel had left his post in front of the picture. He'd. Well. Sort of forgotten. That answered that question, he guessed. He had, in fact, forgotten it existed after looking away for too long. Nice to know.

But now he was in trouble. Oops.

Aubrey was staring at him, and Hero was staring at the photo.

"O-Oh my god. That's Mari."

"Kel, have you been hiding that? On purpose?"

"Heheh. Um. About that-" But this was not a spilled juice box, and there was no door to run through. This was a bigger fuck-up, and probably a worse person to be in trouble with than Mari.

Right. Shit. Mari.

He'd-

He'd forgotten her. A couple hours of facing away from it and she'd disappeared. Like she- Like she didn't even matter-

Oh right, Aubrey was yelling at him. Looked like he'd forgotten that too. Just like him.

"-Just- Kel, what were you even thinking?!"

"I didn't- I didn't wanna bring down the mood."

"Bring down the- We need that! We need that fucking picture to remember Mari! To remember what happened to her!"

"It wears off, though! Only takes a couple hours and you forget again. Why would I do that to you guys?"

"Guys-"

"I don't fucking care if it wears off, Kel. You need to tell us these things! You can't just keep us out of the loop thinking it'll help! That's exactly what Sunny's been doing keeping us stuck in here-"

"I am not like him. Aubrey, I just didn't want to hurt anyone-"

"Didn't want to-"

"Guys!"

Aubrey's head snapped to look at Hero, probably to tell him to shut the hell up, but he was looking past her, to-

Oh.

Omori was peeking out of white space again, a little wide-eyed, a little concerned, at all the shouting. Once the noise stopped, though, he just looked to each of them, one at a time, and disappeared back into wherever he went.

After a beat of silence, wind taken out of everyone's sails, Hero wandered over to the photo for a closer look. Picked it up. Aubrey walked over to join him. They muttered to each other for a while, about the flickering image, and Kel stayed in the TV corner, staring out at the Room at large. He really had fucked this one up, hadn't he.

"Yeah, I get it."

"Huh?"

Aubrey had taken the picture frame and set it back in its spot on the counter.

"That thing's creepy as shit. I wouldn't show it off either."

"O-Oh. Yeah. I guess."

She scoffed, "Oh chill out with the sad shit. It was a dick move but it wasn't the end of the world. Don't hide that kind of thing again and we're fine. Okay?"

He blinked. That was awfully forgiving, for her.

Well. Their fights as kids had been many, but never particularly long.

"Okay."

She nodded. It didn't take long for them to wake up after that. Hero was entirely silent.

Chapter Text

Hero woke up groggy. That'd been happening, since all the dream stuff started. It wasn't as bad as the second day, when they had their little adventure, but worse than the first, and certainly worse than yesterday. He'd barely felt it at all yesterday.

Hm. Maybe how out of it he was in the morning correlated to how much emotional turmoil he went through in the dream. That seemed to be how it was going so far.

He stared across the room at the wall, half-sitting up without realizing. His head was full of fog. The skin stretched across his skull felt tight and uncomfortable. Hopefully, it'd pass before it got as bad as when he'd first realized-

When they'd-

When he'd forgotten Mari.

"Hero?"

He glanced over at Kel. There was something strange about sleeping in the same room as him again. For the past year or so, it'd been someone Hero's own age in the bed across from his, at the dorms. Kel looked... Sheepish? Ashamed, maybe, but smiling. Covering it up.

The same way he'd-

"Are you mad at me?"

Hm. He thought about it. He couldn't really, well, access feelings like that when he was like this. He wasn't really numb, just. Further away.

"...A little."

"...Yeah, I figured," Kel's hand rose to rub at the back of his neck and yep, that was sheepish. Congrats, Hero, you guessed right.

Then a tense silence settled over the room. One that Kel would usually fill with random comments and rambles until the weight eased. Hero didn't think he could deal with that right now, and anyway, Kel didn't seem to be offering.

It was just-

He understood why Kel would hide it from Aubrey. From Sunny or Basil, had it not been their fault in the first place. But Hero? Really?

Because Aubrey, already mad about not being able to remember why she was mad, and about being stuck in the head of someone she hated, and about being confined to one space of it besides, would probably have busted down that White Door if she knew in the moment what was going on. Basil and Sunny, on the other hand, had retreated into themselves after what happened to her, and the reminder of what had sent them into hiding could hurt enough to cause a downward spiral. It was just that. Well. Hero may have forgotten to count himself in those ranks.

He tried hard not to ruminate on those times just after Mari's passing. To move past it. But who was he kidding, really? It wasn't on purpose, wasn't even his fault as far as he could tell, but he'd been backsliding. The urge to stay in bed and hide had been stronger lately, even if he hadn't listened.

Something about Kel recognizing it, acknowledging it before Hero had even let himself, it just felt-

Well. Being treated the same way as Kel would treat Sunny or Basil in his place. With the things those two did? That comparison?

It felt like betrayal.

There. Something clicked in his head, telling him he'd hit the nail on the head. And once he'd found the spot where the vague anger(?) had been coming from, it should've been easier to get over it, right?

He turned again to Kel, who'd already started sorting through his dresser of a floor to find clothes for the day. Hero opened his mouth to, what, apologize? Clear the air? It opened and closed a few times, trying to find the words, before Kel beat him to it.

"For what it's worth, sorry."

He didn't meet his eye. Didn't turn around, even. Just threw out the apology like it didn't matter, but Hero caught the shake in his jaw.

Right. Yeah. This was his baby brother, and he hadn't meant to hurt anyone's feelings. A situation Hero had helped him through a million times. Talk it out, make him a snack, move on.

"Kel, how did you think we were going to react when we found out?"

Kel started a sentence that sounded almost like I didn't think you would, backtracked, and said "I didn't think that far ahead," which meant the same thing, really.

"Right. Then, do you understand what you did wrong?"

"Oh we're doing the life lesson thing? Right, yeah, it's not my choice whether you'd want to know or not. Just because I wouldn't in your place doesn't make it right to hide it from you. Figured that one out pretty much as soon as Aubrey started yelling." Kel stood from where he'd been crouched, messy bundle of clothes cradled in his arms. "It only really made sense in my head."

"...Right, yeah," Hero nodded, then paused. There was a, well, more complicated problem that needed addressing, "You, um. You know that's not your job, right?"

Kel's head tilted in confusion like Hector's did sometimes.

"I mean. I fall asleep really fast. first come first serve, y'know?"

"No, no not that. Not just the picture. Kel- You don't need to hide things from us. You don't need to- I guess- try to protect us? That's not your job. You should know that you can trust me with things like that. I can handle it."

"...Oh," and then he was looking away, angled toward the door, on his way out to change in the bathroom. Hero was still in bed. Idly, he thought he should probably start getting up soon. This was more important, though.

"Hero, um. That's..." he looked back at him, "...Not your choice. I don't... Ugh. I don't wanna sound mean, but man, I don't have to tell you anything I don't want to."

Hero blinked. Because while, yes, that was sort of true, this wasn't really the time or place to be cagey. They were all stuck in the same situation, and it wouldn't help anyone for Kel to try and carry everything on his own. But he must've stayed silent for too long, because Kel gave a little sigh and said "Okay, I'm gonna go change."

He left before Hero could think of a response.

Well. If Kel really didn't want to talk this through right now, he could respect that. It could be a conversation for another day. Hero just hoped he'd remember to have that talk sometime. And that Kel would be okay with it.

He sighed himself, and got up to get dressed. Then he'd make breakfast. If Kel wanted to act like things were fine, he'd let him.

And hopefully, with a bit of luck, they actually would be.

-----

So, maybe Kel was a little less of a prick than Aubrey had thought.

Keeping shit from them, yeah, that was dickish. But it was in the spirit of the kind of self-sacrificial bullshit that most people only see in superhero movies.

That photo was creepy. It was Mari, yes, but it seemed to glitch between three pictures of her. A fuzzy silhouette, when you were looking from across the room. A picture of her in her favorite summer outfit, that she wore near-constantly in the hotter months, picnic basket in hand and smile on her lips, once you got closer. A close up of her pale, peaceful face, made up and painted to look more alive than it'd been at the time. Framed by wispy white flowers, and a black border that Aubrey knew to be a casket, though you wouldn't have known it from the angle of the photo. That last one showed up if you squinted, or looked too long. Creepy.

With the candles on each side, too? Like an alter? The frame being her favorite color? Again: creepy.

It made sense to hide it. Aubrey might have, had the stakes not been so high, and if she wasn't particularly mad about it.

But the stakes were that high. That picture seemed to cancel out the Mari-specific memory loss that came with Sunny's fucked up dream world. And if she'd seen it first, she'd absolutely have been mad about it.

And she had been, at first, when she'd glanced behind her after Kel stepped out of the way. She'd realized why he'd been standing in that specific spot for so long, realized what the picture did and gotten so mad so quickly that she didn't stop to consider why the Hell he'd have done that. It was a habit she really should work on, she thought, staring out at her lake's surface.

She didn't really like being here alone. Felt wrong, after using it basically as a clubhouse for two different friend groups. But she wanted alone time. She didn't like being home too much, for obvious reasons, and she'd gotten bored of the park. Sue her.

It was still morning, she was pretty sure. The rising sun had stopped coloring the water a while ago. She'd been there a good handful of hours, though. Just zoning out. Trying really hard not to take a nap because she didn't know if she'd show back up in that Godawful Room again.

Aubrey couldn't just stay here all day. Well, sure, skipping food for the day would be bad for her, the main issue was that once it got to evening, the lake spot would be identical to the one she'd been trapped in a few nights ago. She didn't want to still be here when that happened. Plus she had a pet to feed.

But for now, it was probably still morning. She could stay.

Where was she, in her thoughts?

Right, Kel's most recent idiocy. She'd been mad at first, but once she got a closer look, and once she and Hero had made a few comments, she'd gotten it. Kel had gotten stupid good at hiding stuff over the years they didn't talk. She'd figured that out when he'd lied to his mom on the fourth of July like he'd been born for it. So maybe that was just how he operated nowadays.

Definitely a problem. But not Aubrey's. And not really anything she could be too mad about, not with her constant stealing.

She stared out at the surface of the water. She wasn't on the dock, just on the shore next to it. She hadn't really gone on the dock since. Well.

(Why was she okay with Kel lying?)

Right. She should get out of there soon. Where to?

Aubrey ran through her frequented spots. Her house, no thanks, not right now. Any of the gangs houses were a no, since she'd only come here for alone time. Park, eh, too much chance of running into a friend and having to talk to them. Plaza, same issue. Church... Hm.

It was a Tuesday, she was pretty sure, so no service. But she hadn't gone to service since Kel and Sunny made her look like a violent maniac in front of all the old people that barely tolerated her anyway. The pastor hung around there pretty much 24/7, and he was pretty nice. Stuffy, though. Seemed to think of her as a 'troubled teen' which, while not entirely inaccurate, still ticked her off. The church piano was open to anyone who wanted to play when there wasn't anything officially sanctioned that needed it. But Aubrey couldn't play, and wouldn't really want to, after the role it played in. Everything. There were books, but in a church, they were mostly religious texts, and she was never as into the scripture as much as just. The atmosphere, and the cheesy life lessons, given in the specific way that the pastor talked.

That left one thing to do at the church.

Aubrey hadn't visited Mari in a long time.

She'd tried. Twice. The first time, between Sunny telling them everything and her mom leaving. She'd gotten halfway to Mari's grave, turned around, and left. She'd seen the stump behind it, and couldn't make herself take another step after the reminder. The second time, right before her mom showed back up, she'd gotten to her, but only managed a few choked out sentence starters before she'd had to leave, to avoid bursting into tears.

It, well. It hadn't been a very good time.

But now, there'd been so many new developments that the actual truth of Mari's passing was much further down Aubrey's list of ridiculous things that've happened lately, and she might even be able to talk about it without crumpling into a pathetic ball of tears. Maybe.

It really had been too long. She used to go see her almost every day.

Choice made, Aubrey stood, brushed the dirt and grass off of her legs, and set out for the church.

-----

Welcome To White Space

You Have Been Living Here

For As Long As You Can Remember

...

White Space.

...

Sunny hadn't been there the day before, when he'd slept all day.

...

He'd just gone to sleep once Basil came out of his room, and woken up sixteen hours later with a pounding headache.

...

No dreams. No Headspace.

...

Just feeling rested again, for the first time in a while.

...

So why was he here now?

...

Turning his head, he found Omori crouched next to him.

...

"Small problem."

...

Telepathy, instead of the vibes communication.

...

As much as someone can telepathically communicate with themself.

...

"What happened?"

...

"They're fighting."

...

Oh.

...

That was bad.

...

Sunny didn't want his old friends to argue.

...

That was sort of why he'd stopped showing up.

...

To keep them from fighting over his mistakes.

...

But if they still were...

...

He was getting more sleep, though.

...

No, that was selfish.

...

He could try and think of a new solution when he woke up that night.

...

But he'd already tried to brainstorm. Twice.

...

This was the best he'd come up with.

...

So, what could he do?

...

"What should I do?"

...

"Dunno."

...

Well, that didn't work.

...

A shifting sensation. Like the White itself was being moved from side to side.

...

Omori craned his neck to look at the ceiling, wherever it was.

...

"Hm."

...

"What is it?"

...

Another movement.

...

It wasn't really a shake.

...

More like a rocking. Like boats.

...

"Someone is trying to wake you up."

...

Oh.

...

Maybe it wasn't losing access to Headspace that'd made him a lighter sleeper.

...

He wouldn't have even felt it from all the way in there, a few months ago.

...

But White Space was fading.

...

His vision was going darker in the corners. Like it did whenever he'd passed out before.

...

Omori's stark blacks and whites fuzzed together into a muddled grey.

...

Waking up from White Space went a lot faster when he stabbed himself.

-----

Aubrey set down the little bundle of flowers.

She'd actually bought them, like she did every time, because she knew Mari wouldn't have approved of her constant shoplifting. The generic bouquets they sold at the front were cheap anyway. Two bucks was kind of a lot for her, but she only bought these on occasion, so she could spare it. And sometimes the guy at the front desk gave her a discount. Probably, he knew what they were for and felt bad. He also didn't seem to care even a little bit about his job. The dude spent a lot of time asleep at the counter.

She'd brought Mari some flowers as an apology for not coming nearly as much lately, and also because, well.

It was the least Mari deserved, after all she'd been through.

"Hey."

One of the trees in the thin strip of forest behind the graveyard swayed in the wind, and Aubrey thought it might be waving hello.

Aubrey sat cross-legged in front of the headstone. She always tried to interpret the world around her as responses from Mari. It was hard to tell whether she actually believed it, at this point. She had, at the start, when she'd been twelve and thirteen and reeling from the loss. Then she hadn't, for a while, when she'd been fourteen and angry. At Mari, for leaving, at the world, for making her.

She had a better target now. Someone who actually took her away.

"Um. It's been a while." Aubrey paused, wondering where she could possibly start. She kept an eye out for reactions from the world, ones she could think of as from Mari.

"Sunny told us. Everything, I hope." A gust of wind blew by, and Aubrey thought it might be shock.

"He, Uh. He came out of his house, which- Which you already know. Because he came here with me. Twice. Um." The sun shined a little hotter, and it felt like a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"He and Basil got in a fight. They- They landed themselves in the hospital. Then, well. Sunny told us what happened. To you."

"I- Well. I didn't come to see you for a while. Sorry. I was. Kinda. Not doing too hot. After finding all that out." The sounds of children at play carried over from the park. Little giggles that sounded like don't be sorry. I was just fine.

Then, because she'd just remembered, and Mari wouldn't be happy if she found out any later than this, "Sunny lost an eye. In the fight. Figured you should know that much."

The cemetery was empty today. Not even that old guy who seemed to always be hanging around. Maybe he'd finally kicked the bucket.

(He made that joke a lot. It was fine for her to make it too, he kind of encouraged it. They were the graveyard's two most frequent visitors. They chatted sometimes.)

"Then, um," Aubrey trailed off. She didn't really know where to go from there. Talk about the dreams? Where would she even start?

Rustling from the bushes, that Aubrey almost decided was encouragement from Mari, but then a tabby cat burst out from one right behind the headstone. Orange, and a fat little guy. It padded right up to her, and she leaned away a little because hello? Rabies? But it just butted its little head against her leg, the way Kim liked to lie down next to her.

"...Hey there," she started. Maybe it was hungry. Or just bored. She could relate. "...Did Mari send you?"

It stretched next to her, head pointed toward Mari's grave. Well. That was a yes, she supposed.

"Alright."

She took a breath, furry warmth sitting happily next to her, and let it out. It was a comforting presence. If it showed up again, she'd have to get it some food.

"...Then we started having these. Dreams. All of us. Apparently it's Sunny's fault." A pause, because the cat made a noise. Mari probably wouldn't want Aubrey to say something as mean as she was about to. She switched tracks.

"...Anyway. It's weird. Magic? I don't know what else it would be." The cat pressed against Aubrey's leg.

"It's this, like, world he made, I think. It's all purple and your picnic blankets are everywhere. Well. I saw a few. You get the point." The cat purred contentedly. Aubrey figured it was Mari's conduit at the moment. Certainly easier than interpreting the forest itself and the air around her.

"None of us want to be there. Sunny sure as Hell doesn't want us in his head. But instead of letting us help find a way out, he's just stuck us in this Room we can't get out of and gone radio silent. Asshole."

The cat pawed at Aubrey's leg. No claws, but she got the message. Looked like Mari wasn't too mad about being murdered. Just like her, to be more upset about someone insulting her brother than her brother literally killing her.

"Sorry, I guess."

The cat laid back down and curled up. That was that, then.

"You wanna know the worst part?" No response, but that was fine, she didn't really need one, "We can't remember you while we're in there. Well, we cant remember what happened to you. Not what Sunny did, not even that you're dead."

Aubrey waited a beat, but she didn't get a reaction that time, either. Well, she'd already gotten a bunch of pretty clear signs today. She didn't always get anything at all.

"And something's going on with Kel. I dunno what, but he keeps hiding stuff from us. Nothing too bad but like, protecting us? Trying. Not that we need it."

The cat yawned. The Hell did that mean? Old news? Maybe that'd been going on for a long while. She should probably check in on that. Anyway.

"And Hero is not doing well with the situation," She gave a little scoff-laugh, "Not like I'm one to talk."

The cat purred louder. 'It's okay' maybe? Comfort.

"...Well, whatever. We figured out we get our memories back if we look at this creepy picture of you. Kel says it only lasts a couple hours, and he saw it first so I guess he's right."

Aubrey heard the distinct sound of a woman chasing and shouting after her over enthusiastic dog in the distance. Kel had a dog. And he was excitable like one. Maybe that was Mari saying that she should trust him on this. Or the opposite, since the dog was running away. That was the issue with trying to interpret signs from the universe. They could mean anything.

Aubrey held out her hand, and the cat licked it. That was a clearer positive. Believe Kel, then.

Or the cat was just a cat.

"Anyway. You probably want to hear about the real world, huh? The weird magic dreams are probably getting old. I know they are for me."

And maybe Aubrey had come here with a more specific purpose. Maybe she wanted advice on something a little less ridiculous.

"You know how bad things have been with my mom? I mean, I know I never told you before, but I've talked about it a ton since you've been gone. Easier, when I know you can't do much."

She always started like that, for talks about her home life. She worried that ghosts might be forgetful, and that Mari might need reminding. Plus, it was an easy lead-in.

"Yeah, well. It got a little worse. And, uh. Kim offered me a place to stay."

The cat purred. Definitely meant to be comfort. Probably.

"I told her about it. Not the you stuff or the dreams. Just my mom. And her dad loves me 'cause I fixed a pipe for him. So she said she'd ask him if I could crash on his couch."

The cat got up and circled Aubrey, once, twice, it's green eyes never leaving her. Then it curled back up where it'd been before. Was that, what, excitement? For her?

"Heh. Thanks. It wouldn't be permanent. Just until I find something better, or, y'know. Suck it up and go home."

The cat made an angry coughing noise, like when she'd almost called Sunny names. Mari didn't like the thought of Aubrey going back to her mom? Or the cat had a hairball stuck.

"But I don't know if I want to. I mean, I take enough from them, right? They get me gifts and stuff. Pay for my share sometimes when the gang pools for pizza. And sure their mom's rich but like. I don't know."

The cat meowed. It stared at her.

Something in its eyes felt questioning. Like, what would you like to do? Like it already knew the answer.

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry for dumping all this on you. I just figured you might wanna get caught up. I dunno. See you."

Aubrey left the cat there. And the flowers.

Next time, she'd bring food for it. Her. Whatever.

-----

The first thing Sunny felt when he woke up was someone shaking him gently by the arm. Which made sense, really, based on what he'd felt in White Space. But it was so early...

"C'mon. Uppy-get."

"P-Polly this is mean..."

Sunny opened his eye. From the light, it was still daytime. But Polly was shaking him awake, and Basil was standing behind her, protesting it. Hm.

He checked on himself, looking inward, and found himself probably able to talk today. He should double check, though.

"...'S somethin goin on?" He slurred, and it sounded really dumb but give him a break, he just woke up.

"Good morning, Sunny. Or afternoon. It's three."

"Polly..." Basil whined a little, which was kind of cute. Sunny couldn't really read Polly's expression, since he didn't really know her, but Basil looked worried.

"Why'd you wake me up?"

"You went to bed at seven, yeah?"

"...Yeah?"

"Then you've slept for eight hours. It's time to get up."

Hm. She seemed awfully sure of that. Well, she was a nurse, he was pretty sure. Something medical. She probably knew what she was talking about.

Still. Sunny knew himself.

He yawned, "I sleep a lot. 'S no big deal."

"It is absolutely a big deal." She sat on the edge of the bed, and Sunny could read her tone as concerned. Like parent-concerned, not Basil-concerned. He was better at finding emotions in voices rather than faces.

"Is there something you need to tell me? Some reason you'll only sleep during the day?"

Sunny looked over at Basil, who was sitting on his own bed now, looking defeated. There was a moment of panicked eye-contact, before Polly seemed to take Sunny's silence as a different sort of nerves than it was.

"Nightmares?"

Um! You could say that!

"Not... Really, no."

"Then what is it? I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

Sunny glanced to her, to Basil, to the wall. He tried to think of a good excuse, but nothing came to mind. The fact that the small version of him he talked to sometimes had just implied he should cut it out certainly didn't help.

Uh. Maybe he was crazy. That sounded pretty crazy.

"...Right, then," Polly started to stand, looking exasperated, "If you don't have any reasoning, then I can't let you continue."

Uh oh. That sounded like Sunny was in trouble. He hadn't been in trouble in a long while.

"Do you know how badly a reversed sleep schedule can affect you? Especially when you're still growing, which you very much are."

What followed was a long, drawn out ramble about sir-cade-ee-an rhythms, which Sunny knew nothing about, sleep schedules, which he'd heard quite a lot of in the hospital, and stunted growth, which was a startling addition that seemed more aligned with too little sleep, rather than too much. He didn't see the relevance, but he'd barely understood most of what she'd said. Eventually, without him realizing, she'd managed to make him pinky promise(?) to sleep at a normal hour from now on. Then she'd left to grab his leftovers from lunch, came back with a bowl of salad, and left again.

Wow.

What the hell was all that about?

Sunny blinked over at Basil, and the sentiment must've come through in his expression because Basil gave his patented breathy wince-laugh.

"Y-Yeah... She sort of- Uh- Does that."

Whirlwind you into healthier habits? Really? Weird.

Sunny glanced at the clock. It was three thirty, and he'd agreed to stay up until nine. So he had until then to think of a better option than screwing up his sleep schedule again. Hopefully he wouldn't get so tired again. Well, if he did, he could maybe just go to bed early and sleep in. Polly probably wouldn't be as pushy about that.

"Sorry."

Sunny turned back to Basil and squinted, because he didn't know what that meant.

"For what?"

"I-I mean... I know you wanted more sleep... I could've t-tried to stop her from waking you..."

Oh. Sunny tilted his head. "...Looked like you tried."

Basil winced. "Coulda tried harder..."

Now that was just silly. "That's not your fault Basil. And besides, Omori just told me to cut it out too. She wasn't the only one."

Basil blinked, looking surprised. "...Okay," and something else, quieter, that sort of sounded like a thank you, but a thank you wouldn't make sense right now, and Sunny didn't really hear it that well, so it could've been anything, really.

-----

Aubrey was at her desk, in her bedroom, writing a pros and cons list on the back of an old worksheet from eighth grade history.

She'd kept the worksheet because history was her favorite subject, that year's teacher had been her favorite, and she'd gotten a perfect score. Then she'd forgotten about it, and it'd rotted away in her desk drawer. Now, with many more perfect history scores under her belt, it meant very little, and could serve a new purpose.

Unfortunately, she was having a hard time figuring out what to list.

The column for pros had only one entry at the moment, "Mari said so??" and the cons list was completely blank.

It wasn't so much that she couldn't think of anything as it was that she couldn't put any of them into words. Or at least, not words good enough to put on paper.

Moving to Kim's dad's house for a while would help with the whole My Mom Sucks issue, but writing that her mom sucks in the pros list felt wrong. She wasn't the best parent, but she was an addict, not a monster.

(Maybe finding out a friend was a murderer had changed her perspective.)

It sucked for Aubrey, but just leaving it at her mom being terrible seemed a little too mean.

Aubrey's constant guilt if she mooched off of Kim and Vance's food and home was definitely a con, but Aubrey objected to putting "I'd feel bad" on the list because that was dumb and embarrassing.

...But she wasn't getting anywhere agonizing over stuff like that. And it wasn't like anyone was going to see the list other than her...

So, she scribbled down "The mom thing," under pros, and "leech" under cons. That way, even if someone saw it, they probably wouldn't know what the hell she was talking about unless they knew her really well. Or, for the leech thing, had read her thoughts. It wasn't like she'd ever said that stuff out loud.

And then she had to consider the dreams.

See, whenever Sunny had stabbed himself (seriously, that was freaky) so far, she'd woken up suddenly, and kind of panicked. Like waking up from a nightmare you can't quite remember. Sleeping in Kim's house, especially her living room, meant that she, or Vance, or God forbid their dad, might see her wake up like that. Which would lead to some awkward conversations and/or pity. It would also make her look like kind of a pussy.

So "dreams" went into the cons list. And now they were even. She was tempted to write down "wuss" under cons as well, since she literally only had to stay here two more years (a year, ten months, and change, but who's counting) before she turned eighteen and could leave on her own. She could stick it out.

But the-cat-who-might-have-been-Mari had made an upset noise when she'd suggested sucking it up and staying here. And Aubrey's eyes flicked back up to "Mari said so??"

She didn't add wuss. She'd been harder on herself than usual lately, but then again, things had been worse than usual.

Yawning and stretching, Aubrey glanced around, looking for something to add to the list. She couldn't just leave them even, that defeated the point.

Oh. Bun-bun. Right.

Aubrey's mom, drunk off her ass, has come home with Bun-bun the first time she'd disappeared. Aubrey had been thirteen, it'd been late winter, and her Dad had left a few months before. She'd only been alone for two or three days, but she'd been smaller. Hadn't learned all her usual tricks yet. Barely knew the gang.

So her mom came home with a bunny. Clearly meant to be an apology, but it was a lousy one. Aubrey had been shocked because, well, where the Hell had her mom gotten a bunny? But her mom had passed out too fast for Aubrey to demand she take it back.

The nearest pet store was too far to walk. The nearest shelter was farther. She could've tried to get a ride from someone - Violet, maybe - but no one had known about Aubrey's mom at the time, and she'd have to explain why her mom couldn't drive her. And then she'd looked at Bun-bun, a sweet, small white rabbit, with big curious eyes that sparkled bright and-

Well. It'd been three years. She still hadn't gotten that drive to a shelter.

She hadn't known how to take care of her. But she scored a ride to the library, which was much easier to explain as a scheduling issue, just out of walking distance, and checked out a book on care. She'd done her best from there.

The old Fix-It dude who didn't work there anymore wasn't as lazy as the new guy, but was easier to guilt. She'd gotten an old wooden bassinet for free, took it apart, and made it into a makeshift cage. It was a little too small, but not too bad. Bun-bun ate too many pellets and not enough greens, but fresh vegetables were expensive as shit. Unlimited hay and enough vitamins were the really important parts, and as long as she stuck to the brand of pellets that hadn't failed her yet, she'd be fine. Probably.

The biggest issue was space. Bunnies needed exercise, and tons of it, to be healthy. Aubrey's room was big enough for Bun-bun to run around, but...

It wasn't enough. She didn't get enough fresh air, enough enrichment. Bun-bun would be fine here, but she wouldn't be the happiest. Not for much longer. And she hadn't seen a vet in way too long. That was an issue.

But bunnies were prey animals. They freaked out at big changes, so a new place would be scary for her.

Was that enough to justify staying?

Aubrey circled the label for one column, shoved the paper back into her desk drawer, and stood from her chair.

She had packing to do.

-----

Sunny was drawing again.

It seemed to be all he did, lately. When he'd been inside for so long, he'd spent most of it asleep. And when he wasn't, it'd usually taken quite a large portion of his few hours awake just to get up and down the stairs to eat. He'd drawn some, sure, but not nearly this much. In the hospital, he'd drawn more, but he'd had appointments and physical therapy and exercises to occupy his time.

Hm. He should probably still be doing those exercises.

Glancing from his page to the scarred patches on his forearms, Sunny set his things down and stood up. He hadn't had any trouble moving around, except for his day in the woods when he'd been reeling from his long walk.

After repeating the first bits of the two exercises he remembered the steps to, Sunny deemed himself perfectly fine, thank you very much, and sat back down to keep drawing.

It was darker pages, today, but not really because he wanted to; he just had an unfinished drawing to work on. He liked this one enough to work on it when he wasn't really in the mood.

Watermelon Path. Not very clearly, but it was. A close up of a Red Hand (which had taken ages to get right) reaching toward the top of the page, surrounded by a black field, with a few watermelons half-visible around the edges. Two intact, one smashed. Then, a hazy image of Headspace Basil's head, smashed in much the same fashion. One of the flowers from his flower crown sat torn and bloodstained in the mess. Buttercups weaved in between the fingers of the Hand. He chose buttercups for no particular reason, except that he'd thought of Forget-Me-Nots first, and then wrinkled his nose at the thought. He'd made a display of Forget-Me-Nots for Basil not too long ago, and it just seemed like bad taste.

It wasn't likely that Basil would recognize the head for a copy of himself, but he would recognize the liquid coming from it as blood. It was, as he'd already figured out the hard way, a bad choice to let him see a drawing of one of the Basil Death Rooms.

So, yeah. Sunny was drawing. Again. And trying to brainstorm ways to avoid his old friends, coming up with nothing, getting discouraged, and trying to distract himself with his picture. On loop. He'd gone through that little cycle a few times now.

What could he do, really?

He'd tried compartmentalizing (literally) and tried running away from the problem (figuratively).

Those were. Pretty much his only skills, at this point in his life.

He could...

Sunny sighed, out loud, because it felt like the right thing to do.

He could explain everything. They already knew the capital-t-Truth. What was the harm in filling them in on everything else?

The harm was that he'd have to bare his soul for all the world to see. Well, for four people to see. Still.

It would be a very uncomfortable conversation. But, well.

It wasn't like he didn't deserve some discomfort.

Sunny glanced at the clock. He had about an hour until dinner.

That was enough time for him to start mentally scripting this particular talk. Maybe that way, it wouldn't go as badly as it had the first time.

He put away his sketchbook.

-----

Aubrey went over her mental list again.

Clothes: check. She'd packed them all into an old pink suitcase from the one vacation she'd ever been on. She'd had to dig for it, but it was sturdy. She'd only left the clothes that she knew for a fact didn't fit. Aubrey had very low standards for what fit or didn't fit. Still, though, it was kind of embarrassing to see how few clothes she had, and how many of those were gifted. Read: basically all of them.

Bun-bun's things: check. They'd all been stuffed into her cage, while the bunny herself played happily on the ground. Thank God she liked being handled, because Aubrey was going to have to carry her. Now that she'd thought of it, she didn't know if she'd ever even mentioned having a pet to Kim or Vance. Which meant their dad might not know. That could be an issue.

Well, she was in too deep now.

Blanket: check. She was just gonna carry that. A couch cushion could be a good pillow easily, but they might not have any blankets she could borrow.

Toiletries: check. Her toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and body wash were stuffed into the suitcase with her clothes. It occurred to her that it pretty much just looked like a long sleepover from the outside. Except no one brings their pets to a sleepover, most people just ask their parents to take care of them. Haha.

Personal items... Now that she was stuck on. She knew Kim's copy of the photo of them was at her dad's place, and Aubrey had a non-sappy reputation to uphold. So she'd leave that. The bracelets, for the same reason. She stuck those in her desk drawer. She wasn't about to put anything up on the walls in someone else's house, so her spaceboy poster stayed. Other than that, well.

The only other things in her room were an old TV and a series of stains.

With a huff of breath, Aubrey gathered her suitcase in her arms. One by one, she got everything she'd gathered set outside her attic window. Climbing up and down to the faint noise of her mother's trashy shows, until the only thing she had left to carry was her Bun-bun.

Right, then. With everything out of the house, she just had to figure out how to get all of it three doors down in one trip. She didn't want to come back here.

(She might change her mind if she did.)

-----

The first thing Kim and Vance's dad said to her was "Oh, hey there, kid. Kim said you might show up."

The ease he said it with, after she'd spent damn near three days agonizing over it, put a blush on her face. This was not a big deal to him. This was, in fact, a small deal. Mountains, meet molehills. It just made her feel kind of dumb, was all.

The sun was angling toward the horizon, but not setting yet. He ushered her inside, grabbed her things off of his lawn in one trip, deposited them in a corner of the living room, and made her a mug of powdered hot cocoa.

Aubrey did not like hot cocoa. And it was summer. Why did he have powdered hot cocoa still?

She drank it anyway. He was being really nice.

Too nice. Kim must've told him about her issues with her mom. Just because Kim didn't make it a big deal didn't mean her dad wouldn't.

He also told her to call him Daniel, and she nodded. She fully intended to still call him Kim and Vance's dad, just only in her head. He was an adult, it was weird to call him his name.

Once she'd finished her drink and gotten Bun-bun's habitat all set up, he made her a freezer meal, still chattering away about something or other, and Aubrey remembered that it was a Tuesday. Kim and Vance were at their mom's place. That was weird. Being at a friend's house without them? Weird. She didn't much like it.

Free food, though. And a house that didn't leak. Anymore.

Once they'd both eaten, he showed her how to pull out the couch. Turned out, there was a proper pillow for her, which was nice. She could've made do with a couch cushion. He offered a blanket, too, but she'd brought her own.

Then he'd said good night and gone to his room. And that was it.

Aubrey flicked off the lights and got in bed.

It was quiet. More quiet than it usually was at her own place. Her mom either snored, or forgot to turn the TV off.

Darker, too.

Oh. That was what she'd forgotten. She'd known it was something.

Her old nightlight. From when she was a kid. She wasn't scared of the dark, so she didn't need it. But she'd had it her whole life.

It was fine.

She'd be fine.

If the borrowed pillow turned out tear stained, it wasn't anyone's business.

Chapter Text

When Sunny peered around the White Door, he didn't see any of his old friends.

Then he opened it a little wider, and saw the three of them, crowded near where the staircase used to be.

Aubrey was stood on the ground, with Kel haphazardly balanced on her shoulders, and Hero standing behind the pair. He looked ready to catch Kel if he fell. Chances were, Hero had been against this plan the entire time it was being conceived.

Kel was reaching for the top edge of the wall, missing it only by a handful of inches. Clearly, they were trying to escape. It didn't seem to be working out very well. None of them were looking in Sunny's direction, so he stepped forward to let Omori through, and closed the Door as silently as he could behind the two of them. He sort of wanted to see where this went.

After some light arguing between Kel and Aubrey, and protests from Hero, Kel managed to get himself standing, a foot on each shoulder, instead of sitting piggy-back. He reached out and felt along the edge, still not tall enough to see over it. He didn't seem to be able to find purchase, because he leaned forward a little too far, swayed backward to compensate, yelped, and fell. Aubrey went down with him, crashing into Hero on her way, and then they were piled in a heap on the floor. Snake slithered across the pile, causing a grossed-out shout from Aubrey.

Possibly because of Snake, she was the first to disentangle herself. Then, she smoothed down her oversized, yellow shirt, spun around - probably to yell at Kel for screwing up - and stopped short.

Oh. She'd seen Sunny.

He'd almost forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be there. She hadn't.

"What the Hell are you doing here!?"

Her face had gone red.

"Um. Hi."

"No- Don't hi me!"

Hero and Kel were getting up now. They'd turned to look at Sunny the first time Aubrey had yelled.

"I'll- I'll put it back now I just need you to- Um." Sunny made a shifting-to-the-left motion with the flat of his hand in the air. Kel moved almost immediately, Hero followed, looking hesitant, and Aubrey stood there, fists balled, looking for all the world like she'd rather sink into the floor than move to her right.

"...You'll only have to be here a little longer. Okay?"

Her nose wrinkled, she made a throaty, frustrated noise, and then she moved out of the way. With a mild push of effort, the staircase reappeared. Talking as he walked, Sunny climbed up.

"Okay, I'm gonna get Basil, and then I'll answer questions. Please don't go too far from the Stump. There's some stuff I have to fill you in on before you can go explore."

Glares all around, or maybe Aubrey's glaring was just potent enough to feel like three whole people were doing it. Still, they followed him up without much delay. As the soothing tones of the stump's patch of forest floated in, he could practically see the relief from everyone else. He liked Neighbor's Room's music, but it could get grating after a while, and he really had left them there for too long. Another reason they deserved an explanation.

Jeez. He'd really screwed this up already.

Basil deserved to be filled in more than anyone, though, after keeping their secret for so long. So everyone else would have to wait a little bit longer.

Sunny hopped up onto the stump. He just had to hope that they'd stay here. Or Omori could corral them, but that seemed sort of rude.

He caught Hero looking bewildered, and remembered that he was standing on top of a giant glowing stump, for no visible reason.

"What're you-?"

But Sunny disappeared before he could hear the rest.

-----

"-Doing up. There."

Huh. That was weird.

Well, at least they weren't stuck in that purple Room anymore. The music was starting to get on Hero's nerves.

He didn't know how long Sunny would be gone, just that he was going to 'get Basil.' So he and Kel started up a quiet conversation, while Aubrey and Omori(?) played some sort of cat-and-mouse game. She was trying to get into that playground place they'd been in for all of maybe thirty seconds at the end of their more eventful dream a few nights ago. Probably, she wanted in just because Sunny had told them not to wander off. Omori seemed dead set on her not getting in.

It didn't go on for long. Sunny reappeared, holding hands with an anxious-looking, blushing Basil. They were awfully close, both of them standing on the stump. Then Sunny let go of the hand, stepped down, and sat on the ground with his back against the stump.

There was a long, tense moment where most people stared at Sunny, and Sunny's eye darted between everyone present. Hero kept his eyes on Aubrey, for the most part, because she looked very ready to do something ill-advised and probably violent, and Hero wanted that to not happen. Sunny just looked nervous.

Eventually, around the time Basil's face returned to a normal color and he climbed down from the stump, someone finally spoke.

"Um. Does anyone- Uh. Have any? Questions?"

Oh. Right. Sunny had said he'd answer questions once he was back.

Glances were exchanged. Aubrey slumped on the ground, giving up on getting into the playground, but still not wanting to talk to Sunny. Basil curled into himself. Kel gave an expression that said "sheesh," clear as day.

Hm. Hero probably should have thought of some questions.

Okay, think. Should he try to confirm things they already suspected first, or get newer information? Now that he thought about it, it felt like there was something he needed to ask, like he'd forgotten something important. It was something to do with the Room they'd just been in...

...A photo?

"...I'm gonna grab something. Be right back."

Hero ducked under the hidey-hole in the stump that, by all means, he shouldn't have fit through at all. Well, it was a dream. Once he was at the bottom of the stairs, he looked around, not really sure what he was trying to find.

Then he saw it, and things came rushing back.

For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught. Then he recovered, and figured out why he'd come back in. Remembering what he'd forgotten had also given him back the burning, obvious question that'd been aching in his throat for a handful of days.

Hero grabbed the picture frame off of the counter, accidentally knocking over one of the candles. He scrambled to set it upright because fire, and once it'd settled in place, he took a breath, and a moment, to stare at her face in the frame.

Once his eyes began to dampen, he forced them away. He'd been gone too long, he should go back to the others.

It didn't seem like much had changed while he'd been away. Everyone in their same positions. But when Kel got a glimpse of the back of the picture frame, he sat a little straighter, a little brighter.

"Right! That!" he shouted, snapping his fingers. Sunny flinched at the noise. Hero went around for a moment, holding it up so anyone could see it. Much like the way he'd hold up picture books to groups of children when he was babysitting as a teen. This particular picture was much darker.

Sunny looked up, confused. "The... The Photo of Someone Familiar? Why?"

"Is that what it's called? Oh how spooky." Aubrey piped up, dripping in sarcasm.

"Aubrey..." Hero scolded, because they really didn't need the hostility when they had real answers practically dangling in front of them. He probably wouldn't, but Sunny could change his mind at any second about taking questions.

"Okay. Sunny, first thing's first. Why can't we remember Mari when we're in here?"

Then, for a long moment, Sunny just blinked, slowly, like a particularly sleepy Mewo used to. His eyebrows shot up in realization. Hero noticed, with less concern than he should've had, that Sunny's hands were shaking at his sides.

"Oh- Um. Yeah that- That makes sense. That- That you'd- Um. That that would be. A big deal. For you guys. Um."

He was stuttering. Usually a Basil habit. Sunny had always been hard to read for anyone but Mari or Basil, but the panic was written clear as day on his face this time. Hero's brow furrowed. Had he really not expected this question? Really?

Sunny's breathing was speeding up. Hero should probably try to calm him down, anger put aside.

But before he could try anything more than saying his name in a concerned tone, Omori reached out and set a hand on Sunny's shoulder. He'd honestly forgotten Omori was even present. But he tilted his head when Sunny turned to look at him, and it really did look like they were talking. No words were spoken.

Hero settled in to observe, for now. The dynamic between Sunny and his own twelve year old self was a strange one. He probably shouldn't interfere unless he needed to.

Before long, Sunny took a breath in, shook his head shortly, and let it out. Turned back to Hero.

"Sorry about that. The memory thing. But I don't know how I'd turn it off-" Aubrey groaned loudly and flopped backward onto the grass. Dramatic, but understandable, "Since it's sort of what this whole place is, I guess, built on?"

Hero tilted his head. Pushed a little further, "What do you mean?" though he was pretty sure he already knew.

"I built this place to. Uh. To forget. What happened. What I did. That's what it's for."

Right, then. Exactly what Kel had guessed. Sunny was looking increasingly uncomfortable, but Hero glanced at Kel and saw him nod grimly to himself, self-satisfied and correct, and, well. He decided he'd rather not keep looking.

Sunny opened his mouth, to give more detail or to ask for another question, Hero didn't know, but Aubrey butted in.

"And who is he? Or- Why is he? What?" She was pointing at Omori from where she was lying in the grass. She seemed tired of this little chat already.

Omori glared at her. Which. She had just called him a what, so Hero wasn't particularly surprised. Aubrey glared back.

Sunny seemed relieved, though. Weird that he'd prepared for this question, but not the most obvious one. Hero didn't bother thinking much further into that.

"Omori started as... An avatar? He was an extension of me, at first. Someone I could be in this world that wasn't myself. Then he... Evolved, I guess. He's mostly separate from me now. He's part of me, but we think and move without each other's input. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's the best I've got for now. Memories are a little fuzzy around his creation."

Hm. Hero didn't think he'd ever seen Sunny talk this much before. He'd been more halted when he'd been telling them... What'd happened. Maybe whatever kept him quiet in the real world just wasn't present here.

(Selective mutism, his intro to psych class provided. Don't humanize it, the coiling cinders in his chest shot back.)

Hero shook his head free of cobwebs to ask about it. Kel spoke up before he could, "Is this what you were doing? When you were inside? Just building this place?"

Sunny hesitated. Blinked a few more times.

"Sort of. Building it didn't take the whole four years. Most of it was exploring. I could make myself... Forget. The details at least, sometimes whole sections. That way I wouldn't get bored. But, um, yes. This is what I did while I was inside."

"How much were you sleeping, then?" Hero heard himself say, unbidden.

"Oh, a lot. I wasn't really keeping, um, score? But I slept for most of the day most days."

That question he hadn't seemed at all phased by. Which was. Concerning? Maybe. Feelings were getting a little distant. That was bad, Hero knew, but it was a little hard to care about that when, well. When feelings were getting distant.

Kel piped up, "You kept saying it was dangerous? What's with that?"

"Oh, yeah. Well." Sunny paused and took a breath, "It's made of dreams. Some are nightmares. If you go the wrong place or do the wrong thing, sometimes it'll turn..." he trailed off.

"Spooky?" Aubrey suggested, mockingly wiggling her fingers and stretching out the 'oo'. Hero sighed.

"...Sure. I didn't want anyone ending up in the scary bits on accident." Another pause, another breath. Hero took a moment to appreciate the calming, slow music of the area as opposed to the strange sounds of the Room they'd been in before. It was nice. Then, "Also, um, It's my head? A lot of the things here are... Personal. And a lot are just kind of stupid? Jokes I thought were funny when I was twelve and half asleep. Embarrassing, is all."

...Which triggered a long, shouted rant from Aubrey. Apparently - and Hero was removing a lot of the more, ahem, coarse language used - Aubrey didn't care how embarrassed Sunny was, he couldn't just trap them in little habitats like animals while he tried to solve a problem that involved them all on his own. Reportedly, it was selfish and stupid that he locked them away when they could've been helpful with searching for answers, and, while she was on that topic, he had no right to keep them from looking around his head just because there might be secrets, not when his secrets had gotten them into this mess in the first place, and-

It was a lot. Once it started getting to the topic of Mari, Hero had to tune most of it out to avoid upsetting himself.

At some point, Aubrey had stood up. She'd gotten close to Sunny's stump, crowding him in against it. He hadn't said anything but stammering since she'd started yelling, and it was getting to the point where Kel looked uncomfortable and Omori looked ready to jump in when-

Basil, silent since he'd gotten here, wedged an arm between the two-

Shouting something short and tearful that Hero couldn't hear, still tuned out-

Aubrey jerking back in surprise, hair falling in a curtain as she took a step back-

Angry flush still on her face, duel afraid expressions on Sunny and Basil's but there was something else there, too-

Hero snapped back to dream-reality just in time to hear Basil scream.

There were no words to it. Just a piercing wail and the undeniable sentiment of away, get away-!

He crumpled to the forest floor, looking more frustrated and frantic than Hero had ever seen him. Hands clamped loosely across a red, teary-eyed face.

Jesus. This was... A lot. Granted, he hadn't really ever seen Aubrey that mad, either. But that, at least, he'd heard stories about. Basil's angry-crying on the ground was. New.

At least it seemed to snap Sunny out of his fear and into a different sort of panic. The hands-flitting-about, trying-to-help-but-unsure-how, kind of panic.

Aubrey though. Aubrey's eyes were darting around the clearing, every muscle tense and looking for all the world like she was ready to run. The guilt was visible in every part of her, something a little strange considering she'd pulled no punches yelling at Sunny. But the moment Basil got involved...

It was... hard. To look at Sunny or Basil. But Hero could help Aubrey.

...When he caught up. Looked like he hadn't been wrong about her being ready to run.

-----

By the time she got to the base of the ladder, Aubrey had already shifted from her horror at herself back to frustration and a much more common - for her - sort of shame.

She pressed her back against the ladder, the one she'd climbed down not three days ago, and shook. Knees tucked into her chest, hands balled into tight fists, she tried, tried, tried to calm down.

She just-

He'd looked so scared, and-

Ugh.

It wasn't like she hadn't seen him like that before. Usually, when she'd pick on him, she'd give some petty insult or pointed comment every couple of weeks, and he'd look like a deer in headlights. Staring at her like a kid with his hand in a cookie jar. Then he'd walk away just fast enough that she knew she'd gotten to him. And that'd be it.

The situation changed the past couple weeks before they'd all found out. He'd approach her, for one thing. Asking about the photo album out of the blue after not seeming to care much for literal years and when she brushed him off or pushed him away he'd-

He'd get weird about it. Really weird. Crumbling to the ground and sobbing frustrated tears until she'd be the one to leave because hello? Nutcase alert?

And it'd only escalated until-

(Until she'd pushed him too far.)

Until the day before his fight with Sunny, when the gang had tried to get him out of their spot and he'd just-

Screamed.

Bloody murder. As if they were actually hurting him. Crying for help from a threat that wasn't there-

It'd been weird.

And when he'd looked at her like that again, just now, for the sake of a literal murderer, after she'd promised not to screw with him anymore, she'd promised- she'd promised-

Deer in headlights, reversed. She'd panicked. Overwhelmed with a guilt she should not care about.

They were murderers.

it didn't matter that Sunny had actually done it. Basil had helped to cover it up, and that was what counted.

Why should she care about either of them?

Still, her hands shook.

At some point, she'd closed her eyes, so she didn't see whoever was approaching. She just heard the footsteps grow louder, and pulled her knees closer to herself as she placed the weight and speed as Hero. Aubrey heard him stop next to her, and sit in the grass by her side. She braced for his typical inspirational speeches, or maybe some disappointed scolding over all her yelling. But it never came.

He just sat next to her, taking deep, slow breaths that eventually, she remembered how to mimic. When she finally opened her eyes, he was looking at her, fondness and worry equally obvious, and he smiled when he saw her watching.

"Feeling any better?"

Aubrey looked away, back down at the grass through the gap between her knees, and muttered, "...Yeah, a little."

"That's good," Hero responded, impossibly soft in his tone and God, how had she forgotten this? She hadn't really seen him for so long, and then he'd been, well, less than helpful a couple of times, and she'd managed to completely forget how Damn nice Hero had always been.

A little while passed, in as close to silence as one could get in a forest with built-in background music, before Hero asked, "Do you want to talk about it, or should we go back now?"

No third option. Subtly saying that they were done here unless she was up for a heart-to-heart. Sneaky bastard, she thought, without any real annoyance.

"We can go back. Probably should. Been gone too long."

Hero nodded, and they stood. The two of them started the walk back without the need to fill the quiet with chatter, but Aubrey didn't miss the way Hero's fingers tapped against the fabric of his pants. Nervous? Or just generally upset from her outburst. Damn, she felt a little bad again.

When they got back to the clearing with the stump, Basil jumped up and-

"S-Sorry! Sorry, Aubrey I-I didn't- I didn't mean to- I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Save it. Stop- I don't-" She huffed out a breath, "I don't need your apologies."

She didn't. She didn't need anything from him, and even then-

(This had been her fault, hadn't it?)

Whatever. Aubrey split off from Hero to lean back against a tree. Took stock of the situation. Basil was looking guilty but significantly less freaked out than he'd been when she'd left. His tears were dried up and he'd shifted from collapsed kneeling to sitting crisscrossed. Sunny was right next to him, hand on his shoulder and mostly blank-faced, with a tinge of worry lining his features. She didn't want to keep looking at them.

Omori was just standing behind the stump, looking as numb as usual, if a little confused. Hero sent a glance her way when she snapped and left, but kept walking back to his spot near Kel who-

Who was sitting in the grass, tense. He looked... Pulled taut. Like a bow string or a loose thread, caught on some unseen snag. His jaw was locked tightly closed and his eyes were just a little wider than they should've been. Then he saw her looking, shook himself, and called out, "Okaaaaay, now that all that's done, anything else we should know, Sunny? Before we leave?"

Sunny's attention snapped to Kel in an instant, woken from whatever trance had kept him stuck on Basil, "Oh, right, um. About that," Sunny glanced around at everyone present, then several trees. Aubrey watched him take a long breath.

"Mari is here."

...

What.

What.

"What?"

She heard herself say it, but she couldn't quite process.

"...Sunny. What do you mean?"

Hero's tone was careful, stilted, every word selected purposefully.

"...Um. There's a- A version of Mari here. Well. There used to be versions of everyone but they- That's not relevant. There's a fake version of Mari here." He glanced at each of them in turn, gauging reactions like this had been a calculated risk of this conversation and-

Aubrey's hands had balled into fists at her sides without her permission. They shook.

Carefully, and with great effort, she made herself take a breath. In and out. Trying to ease the tense, contained fire burning at the front of her mind. In and out. She looked around. Sunny had gone quiet again, and she decided she preferred that. Better than his new habit of revealing horrifying details every time he opened his mouth.

Basil and Hero each looked sick to their stomachs. Kel seemed relatively unfazed, still freaked out, but not all weird and frozen like he'd been before.

It wasn't...

It shouldn't have been so shocking.

It was Sunny's dream world. It'd be more offensive if she wasn't there, really. And hadn't he said he'd built this place to forget what he'd done? If Mari was suspiciously absent, that'd probably make him remember pretty fast.

Still. Fucked up.

She couldn't get her thoughts together. By the looks on everyone else's faces, she wasn't the only one. She took another steadying breath through gritted teeth. No one else looked well. No one else was going to come calm her down. She had to do it herself. About time, honestly.

Right. What could she do here? What were her options?

She didn't want to go explore nearly as much as she had before. Being able to fall into a nightmare-realm at any moment seemed like a bad trade-off for an ounce more freedom. She'd still be stuck in Sunny's head, anyway. Just a larger area. But there was no way she was spending another night with that Godawful music. Hero probably wouldn't want to look around on his own, knowing he could run into his dead girlfriend any time. Or maybe he would? Want to talk to fake-Mari? Then, even if he wanted to, he probably shouldn't. There was no way that could be healthy. It was hard to tell anything with Kel nowadays, and then.

Sunny, Basil, Omori. Omori creeped her right out. Sunny and Basil she'd planned to avoid. But they had to find a way out of Sunny's head. Sitting around in a Room she hated, with music she hated, every night, while Sunny was suspiciously absent didn't really seem conducive to that.

Okay, review. Hero shouldn't be left alone, they had to explore whether they wanted to or not, but they had to be careful because evil scary nightmares were around every corner like the world's shittiest horror movie villain.

Oh.

Shit.

God damn it.

"Okay, let's go."

All eyes snapped to her. Ugh. She really didn't like that feeling.

Hero seemed to shake himself out of the stunned silence he'd been in for the past... However long she'd been thinking. Okay, noted, time was weird here.

"What... What do you mean, Aubrey?"

"We," she gestured at the non-murderers slash creepy children present, "-Can't leave each other alone. And they," she pointed at Sunny and Omori, "Know their way around, so they can warn us about all the creepy shit. And Basil's probably gonna tag along no matter what I say."

Aubrey shrugged, the gesture looking a lot more casual than she was feeling. She really, really hated this solution, but she couldn't think of any others, and no one else seemed to be offering any suggestions of their own.

"If anyone thinks of a better option I'll hear it," she tossed out, looking at each of the others. Nothing cropped up. "Then let's go. Unless there's any more bombshells you need to drop, Sunny?"

Looking very unsure, Sunny slowly shook his head no. Then, appearing to realize that he'd just signed on as a guide, he gestured to the direction the little playground had been.

"Um, we. We usually go this way first. Mari's right inside, though."

Aubrey moved in front of the break in the trees he'd indicated, still projecting quite a lot more confidence than what actually existed, and waited for the others to get up and follow. Slowly, one by one, they did. It did feel nice, to get to lead. She'd only ever really gotten this with the gang. And that hadn't been happening recently with all her. Issues.

Once everyone had grouped up around the entrance, she whirled on her heel and stepped through. No time to waste.

-----

Basil felt really really bad.

Not. Not for defending Sunny. That was something he needed to do. Just that he really could've gone about it better. He didn't have any right to yell at Aubrey, not after what he'd done. And she'd run off, all freaked out about it, which he really hadn't meant to do. He'd only wanted her to stop.

(And wasn't protecting Sunny what got them all into this mess in the first place?)

But she'd told him not to apologize. So he'd stopped. And then when she'd sort of told everyone but him to follow her, he'd followed as well. He felt bad. Then he'd crossed into the playground with everyone else and, well.

Mari was there. Sunny hadn't lied, not that he would've. She just sat there, on a red, checkered picnic blanket, like he'd seen her do a million times before. Four years ago. In the real world.

Her hair was purple. Dark enough to seem like her natural black. She was wearing an outfit he'd never seen the real her wear. It sort of looked like a school uniform, although none of their schools had ever required those. A purple sweater-vest matching her hair, white undershirt, magenta pleated skirt, and purple Mary-Jane's. Those, at least, she'd actually had. When she was alive, that was.

As he wandered closer, hesitantly, like the rest of the group was doing, he noticed her eyes were that same dark purple as well.

She greeted them with a happy smile, and a relaxing, upbeat tune on the piano started playing from nowhere in particular.

"Well hello there, everyone! How are you all doing?"

Basil shivered, and took two steps back in rapid succession. Her voice-

It was too much. He saw the others' reactions out of the corners of his eyes. Kel and Sunny stayed where they were, stiffening up just a little. Aubrey and Hero paused and moved closer at different speeds than they'd been at before. Hero moved slowly, like he was afraid Mari would break at any sudden move. Aubrey sped up, moving to kneel on the blanket as if tethered to it from somewhere deep in her chest. Only Omori seemed unaffected.

"...I'm- ...I'm doing okay," Hero responded, tentative and slow. Basil didn't want to be here. He didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to be anywhere near her, not when he'd-

Sunny's hand slotted into Basil's and squeezed, a grounding force to help them both. Basil made himself take a breath.

He and Sunny sat in the grass, side by side, just next to the blanket. Actually sitting on it would be... Too much, he thought. He watched as Hero and Aubrey slowly got engrossed into a conversation with her, with Mari, and wasn't that a sight? Mari, breathing and blinking and moving and talking right there. right in front of him. Appearing alive, even though he knew she wasn't.

When Hero laughed at one of her jokes, no sadness or bittersweet grief in the sound, Basil thought he might have forgotten.

Then, after standing stiff for a while too long, Kel nudged Hero. Hero seemed startled, like he'd forgotten anyone else was there.

"The photo, Hero," Kel whisper-shouted, sounding very urgent.

"What?"

"The photo-!"

"Wh- Oh. Oh god you're right- Um- Here it is- I guess I- Uh- Set it down? When I sat, to... Talk?"

Hero seemed disoriented, once he got a look at the photo. It broke him out of his reverie, and a shadow fell across his face. He passed it over to Aubrey, and Sunny asked, "Um, can I-" He paused. None of the attention currently directed at him was positive. "...Why are you guys carrying that around?"

"Oh yeah. Never answered that one," Kel's voice was louder and more cheerful that it'd been before, "It gets our memories back? The, uh," he looked at fake-Mari, who was, by the way, right there, "The stuff about... You know..."

"Oh. That's- That's weird. It's never done that for me."

"It hasn't? Weird."

A stretch of silence followed. Well. The music was still there. But aside from that, it was silence for a long, tense moment.

"We should-" Hero cleared his throat, "We should probably get moving. I don't think this is, um, healthy. No offense, ...Mari."

"None taken," her bright voice answered, "You all go on ahead with your adventures, I'll sit this one out."

"...Okay, then," Aubrey added, after a second, shorter, heavy pause. She stood up and stepped off the blanket. Shook herself slightly. Looked around. Basil realized he also hadn't really looked at anything but fake-Mari yet. The first thing he saw was Aubrey's face harden. He followed her gaze and saw- Hm.

It was that little dinosaur. The one Sunny had drawn in his sketchbook in the hospital. The one he'd pointed to and called... Kim. He'd called it Kim.

This was not going to go well.

Aubrey stepped a little closer to the tetherball pole where the dinosaur played with the second, much bigger dinosaur that Basil suspected to be Vance.

"Sunny," Aubrey started, in a tone that said warning clear as day, "Is that supposed to be Kim?"

Technically, she was asking, but her tone was flat enough that it came out as more of a threat. He'd heard that from her a few too many times not to flinch. The music from the picnic blanket stopped when he stepped back, replaced by a cheery, honking tune that did not fit Aubrey's current, visible mood.

"Um. Her name is Berly," Sunny answered, unhelpfully. This was not going to go well.

"Berly. As in," she paused, and her face squished briefly into a level of half-amused annoyance Basil had only ever seen directed at 'The Maverick', "As in Kimberly."

Sunny hunched into himself, looking like a kid in the principles office, "Yeah..."

Aubrey took a long, deep breath through her nose. Without looking, moving, or seeming particularly serious, she said, "Sunny, I'm going to kill you."

"...That Mailbox sells Jam if you need it."

Well now she just seemed confused and angry. A rarer combination. "Wh- What the Hell does that-? You know what, I don't care."

She stomped off to the tetherball pole, and once she was gone, Kel devolved into suppressed snickers while Hero tried to shush him. Sunny was clearly squishing down a smile, Causing Basil to do the same. That could've gone a lot worse.

Eventually, everyone had scattered except for Basil, who decided he'd be sticking close to Sunny until he needed to leave. Sunny showed him around the playground, which was really cute and filled with colorful characters. Some of them were little versions of kids they played with a few times at the real park, some were Sunny's old stuffed animals, and a few were original. Or at least, Basil didn't recognize them.

There was Daisy, who liked flowers, Shawn and Ren, who liked exercise, and a little... Marshmallow? Thing? In a box like a jack-in-the-box. It wore a little jester hat, which was really cute.

Five of Sunny's old plushies were there, with the same names and personalities as they'd been given when Sunny had been really little, before he'd decided he was too old to play pretend with stuffed animals.

All of Aubrey's gang were there, too, although they were younger and not quite so. Um. Brash, was a good word for it. All of their names were misspelled or mispronounced, Sunny had explained, so Mikhael was actually Mikal, which was pronounced like nickel. Aubrey had overheard that last bit, and gotten sort of... Laugh-mad about it? Basil hadn't paid too much attention, too busy half-hiding behind Sunny.

The scenery was fun too. A slide that two of the plushies were playing on, a swing for Mikal, a tetherball pole and monkey bars. Just like the real playground, but with a different layout. Neb, the stand-in for a then-seven year old Angel, tried to complete an all-white puzzle on the ground. A sign posted by the entrance declared the playground a "No-Boss zone" which Sunny told him not to worry about.

Once Basil had seen all he thought he needed to, he noticed the others, having wandered off to do their own exploring, glancing at Sunny and the exit in turn. Right, he was their guide. Everyone was probably starting to get restless.

Sure enough, once everyone had noticed each other looking the same way, they naturally gravitated toward the exit, slowly forming a distant, awkward group.

(He didn't like that they all hated him and Sunny now. He really, really hated it. But right now he was in Sunny's head, exploring the cute, colorful areas he'd made specifically to comfort himself over Basil's mistakes. Sunny had decided to let them in, and the place was built to make you feel better. He was going to do his best to have as good a time as possible, for as long as Sunny would let him. If that meant ignoring the group's dynamic, so be it.)

Sunny didn't seem in much of a rush to leave, once they approached the exit. Basil gave him an inquisitive look, tilting his head, and Sunny gestured back to the playground.

"Usually, Berly stops us leaving. She wants to play hide and seek."

Aubrey sighed, long and annoyed, and Sunny looked apologetic. Then, he took two big steps toward the open path, and once he'd tripped some unseen wire, Berly shouted from the tetherball pole, "hey, wait just one second! Where do y'all think you're going!?"

Aubrey cringed. It did sound a lot like Kim had as a kid. And she'd always been a little bossy.

"You can't leave without joining us for a game of hide and seek!"

Aubrey groaned. That was fair. Basil was sure he'd be weirded out by dream, kid versions of his friends. Which currently consisted of just Sunny. So yes, Basil was sure, because Omori did, in fact, weird him out a little.

Vance-dino, who was named Van, as Basil found out in the tour, added, "Stay and play with us! the more the merrier!"

Aubrey sighed again, then, "Sure, we'll play hide and seek. Bet you can't beat me."

Volunteering all of them. She seemed happier, though, now that she was in friendly competition.

"Great, great! You guys are new around here, do you know how to play?"

The group had been wandering closer for most of the interaction, but Kel stopped at that. "Do we?" he called to Sunny over his shoulder.

Sunny shrugged, "Same as real life, mostly."

"Sure, uh, Berly, was it? We know how to play," Kel gave her a friendly grin.

"Then no time to waste! C'mon, let's play! I'll round everyone up!"

Then, with a shout that was earsplittingly loud, she yelled "Ten-hut!" And the next time basil blinked, he was standing with the others in a line. Almost everyone in the playground, and everyone from real life, neatly sorted into two parallel lines in front of Berly and the tetherball pole.

Oh, that was weird. He'd been teleported in his own section but the sudden being somewhere else without any travel time or even any input was weird. Apparently the others thought so, too, if their mild panic as they looked around and at themselves was anything to go by. Thankfully, Basil was next to Sunny, so he got to squeeze his hand for comfort and stability again.

(God, he was so lucky. How could he possibly ever deserve this?)

As Berly - rather gruffly - explained the rules and passed out sticks, Basil noticed the length of his own. He didn't think it was the short straw, but he hadn't looked at any others, so how was he to know if they were longer than his? He didn't want to look at anyone else's straws, in case he somehow spoiled the game or changed the results, but was there any other way to tell?

He'd gotten too stuck in his thoughts, and hadn't noticed when the game started until Sunny tugged his hand out from Basil's hold and darted away. Oops. Everyone else had gone to hide, too. Omori was counting, facing the tetherball pole, and he had to hide soon, and fast or the game was going to start before he had a chance and-

Basil ran forward as fast as he could while keeping his footsteps soft-ish, and ducked behind a tree near the entrance.