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It was just a test. That’s all this was. Nothing more and nothing less.
Dream kept those thoughts on a loop. Over and over again in his mind to try to remind himself for what he was supposed to be doing. He should be exploring here. That was the point of this. He should be trying to find all the information he could so he could report it back to Punz. He should be doing so much more than just standing here but—
But he couldn’t.
Dream was known as the big bad of the server. He was the man that almost all of them were afraid of. He was the one that they had nightmares about. He was the one that brought them jumps when they walked down the paths through the SMP. He hadn’t done half the things they accused him of but it was fine if they needed the scapegoat.
Dream would still keep his plan to make them a family that could live forever.
The revival book.
He and Punz had been working on testing it for the last weeks. Trying things over and over again to make sure that it would actually work and get the information they needed about how it worked. They wanted to make sure that it was actually safe before they were using it on the ones that mattered to them.
So naturally, since no one else could be sacrificed. They tested it on themselves.
Dream went first.
Admin magic able to help him push through on his own and come back through XD if he needed to. He wouldn’t be lost like this if the book was a dud. It was the safest way for them to test it and the both of them knew it.
He wouldn’t tell Punz he could still feel his sword through his stomach.
They knew the book worked. They knew they could bring all their friends back to life. The rule of lives that had held every server in place for as long as their histories went and it was Dream that had broken it. Dream and Punz.
The two of them together through the whole of the plan.
The worst man on the server and his mercenary.
Dream believed they were more than that.
He liked to think of them as friends. As being the pushed away of the server but not evil.
He didn’t think any of them were evil.
They still needed to know more about the void before they could start actually using the book on the ones that had died. They needed to know if there was a time limit to the use.
Dream was the only one of them that could safely die and return over and over again. If there were any long term effects of this or if a revival didn’t go the way they’d planned then he had XD and the server that would put him back together. All it would take is one summon from Punz and the entity he’d made to defend the server in his place would appear to save the Admin.
One of the perks of his station, Dream would say.
He was the one that died. Over and over again he was being murdered and more for the sake of the server.
The tests they’d done where he’d done it himself still had something of a hold in his mind. He tried his best not to think about it. He didn’t want to worry Punz with it. He could manage it. All the harsh words their family and friends had given him time and time again. All the pain and hurt that had left him feeling numb. He’d needed something. He’d always resisted. But they’d needed that test and now that the door was open he could feel it there in his thoughts.
Dream resisted all the same.
Murder.
He’d rather be murdered than do it himself.
They were testing what it was like if he was here for days. If he was dead for a week at least before they attempted the revival. Punz would go about his normal business. He would do what he wanted to do and he wouldn’t look back. He would act like everything was fine.
Dream’s corpse would be laying on his death bed in their secret base. He would be there and ready for Punz to come back after some time and use the book on him. While he was dead, Dream was meant to be exploring the void. He was meant to be understanding it more and figure out limbo.
They already knew that it was changed depending on the way that someone died. They knew that it was based on a variety of things and so far they hadn’t found a stable pattern that they thought it would work for everyone. It would just be an acceptable fact. That every limbo was different and that no two were the same when it came to it. They would just have to handle it.
Dream had had something to explore in each and every time.
But this one?
This one he tried to turn his head and he couldn’t even feel it. He tried to look around himself and he saw nothing but darkness. Nothing but a starless void circling around him and swallowing him whole. He tried to move his limbs. He couldn’t find them. He tried to look towards his body and all he saw was the dark.
Pitch black.
Not an ounce of light for him to see and his Admin magic failing to summon anything to him.
Because he was dead.
He wasn’t alive anymore to use the magic.
He wasn’t alive to do anything anymore.
Everything was to Punz and to his friend to bring him back.
He’d been fine at first. Floating there and thinking and running through the memories of everything in his head. He’d wanted to have at least some kind of entertainment and if he couldn’t explore then it was going to be reflection. That was the best and only path he really had at the moment.
But the more he thought the more he felt like the darkness was somehow getting darker.
He and Punz had just staged an argument for the sake of the server. He knew that they were making plans to try to take him down. He knew that anyone who was still associated with him was going to be attacked in this as well. All he’d wanted was his family safe. Time and time again people seemed to forget that Dream was not some loner. He had a family. He had people that he loved.
In publicity, he wasn’t allowed that.
His affection would get all of them killed.
It wasn’t safe for them with him.
They knew that Punz was his mercenary. They knew that the two of them worked well together and that they did it often. It would be a logical step for them to go after his friend and Dream just couldn’t allow for that. He needed to keep Punz safe so the two of them could keep working and they could get their home back once and for all.
All this fighting that had to do with the lives that were gained or lost. The power imbalance and the fear that they felt.
They would never need to be afraid again. He would make it so that they would never have to truly confront death again. They would be safe.
All he wanted was them safe.
So he and Punz had fought. Loud and public and the two of them went at each other’s throats for it. They screamed and shouted and then they’d gone back to the base and Punz had helped him to die.
They froze him. Suffocated in ice and freezing over as he died.
They didn’t remove the ice after he was gone. Leaving him with it to thaw over time. A way for Punz to actually wait the time they needed for this experiment. They thought it was clever. The two of them needed to test it and neither of them minded this type of work.
He didn’t mind it but the longer he was here in this darkness the more he worried he wasn’t going to come back.
What if the things they’d yelled at each other back and forth were real instead of the plan they’d made? What if Punz didn’t bring him back? What if their friendship was a lie that was built off fake fronts for the sake of power.
Punz had the revival book. He could control all of it. He had the powers of a god and there wasn’t anything the rest of them could do to stop it. It would be Dream’s fault. If Punz decided that he wanted the world at his feet then he could have it. If anyone was in his way all he had to do was kill them and not bring them back.
Dream might not come back.
He’d be stuck in this darkness and void. He’d be stuck without his body and without any of his senses.
He couldn’t taste anything, couldn’t smell, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, nothing even to hear other than his own thoughts. It was going to drive him mad if he stayed here too much longer.
It felt like an eternity already. It felt like it’d been so long and he knew that it wasn’t. He knew that time moved differently here in the limbos. He knew that and still his fear was ravaging his mind like a starving animal.
His heart should be beating. It should be racing and hammering in his chest but he couldn’t feel it. He didn’t think he still had a heart and yet the thought of being alone still gave him the imagined feeling of it ripping in half in his chest. His chest that he couldn’t feel. Hands and arms he couldn’t move because they weren’t there.
Nothing was there.
He was alone. All alone.
He was scared and alone and he—
All around him was darkness. All around him was silence.
Dream couldn’t feel, couldn’t see, couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste. The only thing he had to listen to were the thoughts in his head but even those fell silent after a while.
He just floated.
Laying in the black or maybe he was standing, he didn’t know.
It wasn’t worth it to know.
He was an entity. He was something but he didn’t know what that was anymore. Just the everything and nothing all around him. Pressing on him too much and yet not giving him anything to feel. Dream was everywhere in the void and he was nowhere at all.
He didn’t want to feel.
He was too afraid to remember what it felt like.
He just remembered being sad.
Time did not exist.
Nothing was real. Nothing was around him. He wasn’t real. He was just—
He was—
He—
Dream’s eyes burned. His body screaming in agony as all of it came back at once. The feeling of something beneath him. The feeling of sheets and cloth touching his skin and brushing on him. Too much. Too much. And yet it was all still not enough. He could smell meat cooking, a stew if he had to wager a guess. The scent of candles and their wax burning and melting. The distinct scent of wet that was like a dog but he knew was his own body. Dream could smell.
He could feel a warm damp cloth over his forehead. Soft ground beneath him that his brain registered to be a bed. Wood beside him that he knew was the wall of the recovery room they had built for situations like the testing respawns. He could feel hands on him. Too much, too much. Not enough. It wasn’t enough. He needed more. He— He could feel.
He could taste the dryness of his mouth. The taste of potions that had been fed to him while he was asleep. The last thing he’d eaten before he’d died. He could taste.
The sound of air moving through the vents of their hidden base. The gentle hiss of the redstone stove and the crackle of a fireplace. The creaking of floorboards as the build settled around them and then Dream realized the voice that was starting to make it through the stuffing in his ears. The voice that was calling his name and asking him to wake up. It sounded so far away but it was enough. Enough because Dream could hear.
He had a body. Dream just had to remember how to use it. He had all of his senses so far. All but one.
He convinced his body to work. To try to make it respond to his commands and then there was light reaching him.
For the first time in what felt like eternity, Dream had something other than darkness around him.
It was blurry at first. Hazy and almost like it was covered in a film but then it was coming in. Wooden walls. A bed and the fibers of the blankets and sheets. A fireplace with the warm orange flames flickering inside. Candles that were lit around the room. The drips of the wax and the metal holders that kept them upright. The recovery room that he and Punz had built together. Hands that were on him that he could now connect with the feeling he was processing. He followed the hands up arms. Arms to a torso, torso to a head.
A worried face that was staring at him and eyes that were blue enough to make Dream swore they held the sky.
A mouth that was moving and Dream understood the sound of a voice with the call of his name.
Dream saw Punz. He saw him. He could see.
“Dream? Hey, you okay?”
He could feel the way his heart was beating in his chest. The muffling around him that was becoming more and more clear with every moment he spent alive.
Dream was alive.
He was alive.
“You—”
His mouth was dry. Throat cracking and tongue forgetting for a moment what it was meant to be doing. Punz was moving in front of him immediately. A water bottle at the ready and being held up to his lips for him to drink. He took it with greed.
Dream felt the liquid make its way through his body. He felt the way it ran down his throat and into his stomach. How it soothed through him and seemed to ease an ache through his chest that he hadn’t even noticed until it was fading away.
Breathing felt easier after.Everything felt clearer after.
“Better? Do you need more?”
Dream looked at him. Green eyes meeting to blue and all Dream saw was concern.
“Dream?”
“You brought me back?”
He could feel his lungs moving as he breathed. He could feel his heart ticking in his chest. He could feel the air around him and the world buzzing at his skin. He was alive and he was back and the only person that could have done it was Punz.
“Of course I did.”
He looked worried.
“What happened to you in there? I brought you back half a day ago. You’ve never been down for so long after. I was about to call XD here to help me save you.”
He had saved him. He got him out. He—
“Dream?”
Punz moved again. Shifting so he was in front of him more.
“Hey, you with me? Do you need me to call XD?”
His emotions caught in his throat. Choking him and making him swallow while he shook his head no. He still remembered everything. He could feel everything. He knew what their goals were and he could figure out that it was just the processing time because of what his death and limbo had been. He didn’t need XD. There was nothing that was broken in him that would need to be fixed.
“Okay, well, if you don’t want XD then you need to talk to me because you’re freaking me out.”
He could see it was the truth too. He could see the worry that was shining so brightly on Punz’s face. How worried he looked and how much he seemed like he was going to call the server entity to be with them regardless of what Dream said he did and didn’t need.
“What did you see in that limbo? What’s got you so rattled?”
Dream was known for being the level headed one with death and the things that happened after it. There were limbos before when he would come back and start telling Punz about it and he would look up to see his friend staring at him with horror written over his face.
They’d had talks before where Punz had joked that he was surprised Dream wasn’[t traumatized yet. Dream had always responded saying that it would take a lot more to make him scared. To actually get something from him.
Turned out it was less.
“Dream.” Punz’s hands squeezed his arms. He was touching him and Dream could feel it. He could feel how warm he was. The strength and kindness in his touch. God, Dream didn’t want to lose his touch. “C’mon. Let’s work through it together. What did you see in there?”
“Nothing.”
The darkness that had swallowed him whole. The lack of anything. Like he was stuck in a vacuum and he couldn’t breathe or move. He couldn’t shift himself. He wasn’t even sure that he’d had a body in there like he had in all of the other ones. He was nothing and he was everything and the longer he thought about it the more he felt like he was going to be sick.
He didn’t expect to hear anger out of Punz.
“Don’t start this shit man.”
He pulled away. Hands leaving Dream’s skin and he felt cold immediately. He grabbed onto the edge of the bed to feel something still around him. To try to keep the panic that was already starting to fray the edges of his mind at bay.
“Punz—”
“No.”
He was standing now. Walking away from him and Dream felt his heart squeezing in his chest. Threatening to burn and break and he didn’t know what to do. He was just trying to answer the question and he didn’t know how else to put it. He didn’t know how else to describe the hell scape that he’d just suffered through or the fact that it made him nauseous to think about facing death again knowing that that might be what waited for him on the other side.
“You always do this shit. You do something and get yourself hurt and then you won’t talk about it.”
“Punz, please—”
“I’m talking.”
Dream had tried to reach for him. His arm was shaking. His muscles were pulling and aching and he wondered how long it had taken for his body to figure out it was human before Punz was able to bring him back. He wondered how long it had been in real time that he’d just been a corpse stiff and solid and how long it had taken before they were able to thaw him enough to try getting his organs to work and restart. He needed comfort. He needed to know that it was real. He needed to know that he was safe.
That he hadn’t just lost his mind inside and was so far into his own memory that he was imagining all of this.
That when he opened his eyes after a blink there was still going to be a room around him and not a swallowing void.
“You make yourself this grand scheme target and don’t let anyone ever help you. I’m so sick of your ‘nothing can touch me’ attitude when you’re clearly fucked up.”
The words cut into him like knives. Dream tried to accept the way they broke into his heart and the thoughts that came spinning back to the top that Punz didn’t want him here. Punz didn’t want to deal with him. He was made at him because he was hurt. Because he hadn’t just walked it off, he’d scared him and now his reason for why he was scared wasn’t good enough. He tried to breathe but then he worried if it was going to be too loud.
Too much for Punz and he would just kill him again and send him back to the cold. He could freeze him again and Dream would be in the darkness forever and he would rather just do it himself.
Did Punz want him to do it himself?
Did he want to see Dream apologize with his blood all around him? Did he want—
“News flash Dream! You can die! All of us can die! That’s why we’re doing this. But if you’re getting hurt then you need to actually talk about it and not give me bullshit about not seeing anything when you were in there. The whole point of this is to figure out limbos. Or did you forget?”
It wasn’t bullshit. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a good enough reason for him to be hurt.
“No, that’s right, you’re Dream. You don’t forget about anything. You’re the big strong leader that everyone should follow because you’re always right.”
He’d made mistakes. He’d made so many mistakes. He just wanted his family. He was still a person. He was still learning. He was trying his best.
“Do you know how long I had to wait for you? How scared I was that I’d fucked something up because you weren’t waking up? I sat here trying to warm you up for hours. Do you understand that? I was so close to calling XD and then your hand moved and I came back over. I waited with you thinking I could have lost you and you can’t even be bothered to properly talk to me.”
He didn’t know what he could say. Punz was too angry. He was too mad at him. Dream stared. It only served to make his friend more angry.
“Fucking—”
Punz moved too fast. Storming forward and grabbing onto the collar of the shirt Dream was in. It was lightweight. To help him with his movement and keep things as consistent as possible for his death and revival. Punz grabbed him tight and he grabbed him hard. Yanking him forward off the bed and Dream felt the world go sideways.
Black spots danced around his vision as his legs stumbled to remember how to work and how to hold weight.
Panic surged through him like a desperate beast. Running and ragged and making him reach to try to cling onto his friend.
He barely registered Punz shouting in his face.
“Tell me what you saw! Talk to me goddammit! Are you so fucking—”
The color washed out of Dream’s face. Punz was moving and taking him with him and Dream couldn’t handle it. His body wasn’t ready for this much activity yet and the way it all was spinning around him was terrifying him. He didn’t want it to be dark. He didn’t want to lose the world again or be left without it. He was so scared and he didn’t know what to do.
Tears welled without him realizing it until they were falling down his cheeks and splattering to the floor.
“Dream?”
“Nothing— I saw—”
His heart was beating too fast. He was too scared. He didn’t know what to be doing with himself and it terrified him. The thought that he was going to lose it all. The thought that he wasn’t going to be able to keep up with anything. He was scared half to death and Dream couldn’t face death.
The words started. He couldn’t get them to stop.
“I didn’t see anything. It was all dark. I promise I’m not lying. I promise.”
He tried to breathe only to find the air stalling in his lungs. Punz tried to back up but Dream clung harder. He couldn’t lose the feeling.
Even if Punz hated him it was better to be hurt than to feel nothing.
“I couldn’t see anything or hear anything other than my thoughts. I couldn’t feel anything around me or smell or taste but I couldn’t— Punz, I couldn’t see—”
“Dream—”
“I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t— It was like I was standing or laying down but there was nothing there and I couldn’t—”
“Dream—”
“I wanted to die but I was inside and all my thoughts were saying to pull apart but I couldn’t find anything to pull apart and I just—”
His vision was narrowing down to a pinprick. Terror was making his heart race faster.
His head was going light. He couldn’t feel his body.
“Please don’t let me go. Please. I’d rather—” He couldn’t breathe. “I’d rather feel you hurt me than nothing. I don’t wanna die. Please, Punz I don’t—”
“Breathe.”
Punz’s breath grazed his ear. On the command he tried to obey and drag something into his lung. Half heaved and hitching but he felt Punz’s arms around him fully now. He felt him holding him to his chest tight and protectively. He felt him holding him like his life depended on it.
They were on the ground. Both of them together with Dream basically in his lap.
“You need to breathe or you’re going to make yourself pass out. Breathe. You’re alive. You’re here. I’ve got you.”
He sobbed.
Clinging his fingers into Punz’s hoodie and trembling with the weight of his terror.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I wasn’t lying. I couldn’t see—”
“Shhh, I know. I know now. I’m sorry, Dream.”
“I wasn’t trying to be bad. Please don’t throw me away. Please don’t—”
“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
He felt the way Punz tugged him closer. Their chests pressing flush together and Dream tried again to breathe. To take in the heat that Punz’s body offered to him and relax against his hold. He was terrified and he didn’t know what to do but he wanted to stay here. He wanted to be close to him.
“I have you, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I should have given you time.”
But they had time now. They were safe now. Punz knew now.
“Please don’t let me die like that again.”
Punz kissed the side of his head.
“I won’t, Dream. I swear to you I won’t. You will never freeze again.”
Months later, when Dream sat in the cell called Pandora’s Vault, he counted the cracks of the obsidian. Relishing that the weeping around him told him he wasn’t in the black nothing. The lava around him gave him pops to listen to, light, heat. The first time Quackity burned him to death, Dream screamed in pain but not in fear. Because each death had a different limbo. And while his thoughts melted away like the rest of his flesh and bone he had just one final thought.
At least he wasn’t dying cold. Punz kept his promise.