Chapter Text
> [BLANK]: Be future [BLANK]
You are now FUTURE [BLANK].
Another ice cold bland piece of shit nothing ROCK flies in and hits the floor. You are so worried about this, and the various other rocks that not-so-delightfully decorate the floor, that you don’t even know that you’re not CURRENT [BLANK]. The infinite expanse that is outer space sends its regards to you and your only planet by wreaking havoc upon all of humanity and all animals and all plants and microbes and also buildings and all that other neat stuff. You wonder where the hell Jupiter is in that case. Jupiter’s supposed to stop most destruction causing asteroids, you think. The Earth gets the brunt of the meteor storm, you think. But, of course, some hit the moon as well. It’s not as though it has that scarred, dented, bruised surface for nothing. You need to wake up. This dream has become too stressful.
> [BLANK]: Be even-more future [BLANK]
Instead of waking up, you jump forward at least FOUR ACTS and are now EVEN-MORE FUTURE [BLANK].
You have quite a lot on your plate.
If you are not mistaken, then across this scarlet-red scorched hot planet, as though you opened a crack in the ground to peer into the mantle of the Earth, there stands over a thousand pairs of sunglasses and the boy attached to them, and this number is rapidly growing. You feel as though the amount will near collapse the metal skeleton that is the only traversable land. You gape at your viewport.
> [BLANK]: Pester…
No no no. This is much too far into the future. You will surely spoil yourself! No, you will not be gallivanting carelessly through time just to see what you are going to do. That sort of defeats the whole point of you being here, does it not? Did you forget?
Sure. Maybe there is not a limited amount in which you can time travel. But regardless, time travel is really just not your whole thing. Nothing in this game, this universe, really, is your “thing”. That’s what you get for intruding upon a preset narrative. But this doesn’t mean you can so rudely steal this bespectacled boy’s motif and arc! In fact, you’ve already halfway ruined it!
Do you know how difficult this is for me, having a variable so unproven, unpredictable, and unabashedly unaccounted for?
Extremely! Why, I’m almost a bit miffed.
> [BLANK]: Man that guy was an asshole. Fuck him. Be present [BLANK]
You are now PRESENT [BLANK]. Or is it current [BLANK]? You don’t know what ‘guy’ that… you… are talking about. Is it you? Is it your mind? Do your intrusive thoughts know something that you don’t? That’s not possible. Unless it is. Maybe you’re some kind of prophet. Some kind of… seer…
You’re getting ahead of yourself. So ahead of yourself, you’re foreshadowing things incorrectly.
> [BLANK]: stop lying all sprawled out on your bed.
No you are too busy staring at the planet earth!!!
The Motherfucking Planet of Earth stares back at you. It isn’t really interested in catering to you or the time you need to process that you are in space oh my god you are in space what the fuck.
Ow your back hurts. Ow. You aren’t reminded of another boy from another world that fell off a cliff in a similar way as you just did, because you aren’t paralyzed below the waist and you didn’t break your back and you weren’t commanded to fall and you also don’t know who he is yet.
You find it really weird how the pain remains there and will remain there for probably the next few hours, maybe the rest of your life if you fell real bad, because usually when you get hurt in a dream you don’t hurt THIS much. And this is surely a dream. It must be a dream.
> [BLANK]: get up and stop lying all sprawled out on your bed
Well, you manage to sit up, at least, with much difficulty. Above you is a dome that is made out of glass, emerging from grey walls that are twice as tall as you are. You turn behind you and discover that your bed is in the middle of the room for some reason. Is your subconscious insane? What is wrong with you? Your subconscious must know that the middle of the room is the least safe when it comes to nighttime paranoia monsters. Though if they surround you when you are in this position one would assume they come from the walls around you, so it wouldn’t be that much safer to be next to a wall.
Anyway, they’re not real. On your right is a circular door with a thin line running diagonally across it that interrupts the relief carved into the wall that is of something and you don’t know what it is. You are very very good at observing.
> [BLANK]: float back up to the dome!!!
…Float? Back… up? What?
> [BLANK]: Go back to sleep
You can’t go back to sleep because you are in a dream. Unfortunate.
> [BLANK]: Wake up
This does not work either.
> [BLANK]: Look at your phone read the Homestuck comic on your phone.
You feel as though there are more pressing matters at hand.
And even if you wanted to, your phone is nowhere to be found. Usually, it is kept right by your side as you sleep should you find yourself in need of late night fanfiction, but alas this is a dream and nothing makes sense and it is not next to you.
> [BLANK]: Check out that relief
Right. Yes. This thought is on task.
You do wonder if you actually can float. Sometimes you can’t in a dream, sometimes you can. You try and put your mind to “floating”. Sometimes, you are able to control your dreams in this way. Though it is less like you (your dream body? Your dream self? Who knows) are floating, and more like the whole world is moving around you while you remain utterly still as you are in your bed.
>
It does work!! You feel light, like a spider gliding on the wind on its silk. The thought of spiders does not bring to mind an alien girl from another planet and another universe with a missing eye and a missing arm and hand, as well as a knack for treasure and rhymes as she walks the infinite expanse of sand.
Woah. These intrusive thoughts are becoming really weird. Let’s dial it back.
> [BLANK]: Get diagnosed for OCD
Dial it back, you said!
>
You trace your hand along the image carved into the stone, which is that of a boy with square glasses that lives in cascadic suburbia. Then a girl with a bob and a black headband in the vague northeast, a boy wearing some very cool-guy shades at the top of a tower in the sweltering heat, and a girl with hair long and unbrushed that could rival Rapunzel’s who lives in a paradise all by herself. Between these children is a series of symbols and renderings of events you don’t really understand or know what they are. You see a boy at the top of a spire, this time, in a new land, a girl who does the opposite of what she is destined for, a broken disk, and a dream. You see twin cities represented by a crescent moon. Then, for some reason, a whole new set of children with horns. This happens twofold. Then two twins that live in the same body. Then an evil, evil man that persists throughout space and time. When you reach the end, and though it isn’t really an end because the room is a circle and the next engraving is the same one you began with of the boy with the square glasses, you aren’t quite sure what it’s supposed to be. It looks like some sort of calamity.
From where in your subconscious could any of this be emerging, you wonder. You know the dude with the square glasses, that is Mr. Homestuck himself. This is definitely his name for sure. But, like, the rest is not at all related to any media you have consumed as of late. Apart from the trolls, the alien kids. Of course you are familiar with them. They are the first thing anyone thinks of when they think of Homestuck (unless you don’t, then don’t pay attention to this sentence). Usually when you dream, it is about the media that you like. Unless it isn’t, then disregard that comment. Maybe you saw some spoilers somewhere.
>
When your hand brushes against the carving of the boy with the glasses again, you feel the wall begin to vibrate. It shakes you aggresively, uncomfortably vividly, and your fingers sharply retreat from the divot.
Darkness splits open below you. When you look closer, it is actually similar to the way the door must function, though it is a smaller circle than the door is, the diagonally split plates retreating into the floor so there is now a small round hole into darkness. You peer down into it.
> [BLANK]: Get hit in the face by computer.
God Damn It!
>
The computer is big and boxy. But it sort of just lightly floated at you, like a rectangular balloon, more than it did hit you in actuality. It’s connected to a large, thick cable that trails downward into… wherever you are. Where are you?
> [BLANK]: You’re on the moon, you idiot.
…Oh.
That makes sense, you guess. As much sense as a dream makes, which is a big whopping ZERO.
> [BLANK]: Someone is pestering you.
What does that mean?
>
Oh. The computer is alight with some kind of chat client, you assume-- you are unfamiliar with the UI. Very unfamiliar.
What the fuck is this bullshit it looks like it’s from five billion years ago. And by five million years ago you mean about sixteen years ago. Sixteen years ago is still a long time, though. Unless you are older than sixteen and then it isn’t. Your existence is particularly difficult to tack down with just words in a story format, you’ve found. Even your Name cannot be listed.
Anyways. It is something called “Pesterchum”, which you find to be kind of a silly if not a little bit of a charming thing to say, unlike the very serious common chat clients known nowadays in the year 2025 such as “Discord” or “Slack”. You don’t think that anyone has uttered the word “chum” in a very long time, except for this website you are looking at right now on this computer that just emerged from the floor in your weird moon room in your weird moon dream.
In your window there sits a notification, from a certain… well, it is a stranger. A potential NEW CHUM, or so the display says. You will answer post-haste.
-- defaultUsername [DU] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
gardenGnostic: hi!!
gardenGnostic: sorry for the sudden message but uhm
gardenGnostic: i just saw you talking to EB!
gardenGnostic: but i cant see you before or after that….
gardenGnostic: so i was curious!!!
gardenGnostic: im jade by the way
gardenGnostic: youre awake, right?
gardenGnostic: i think so because you’re floating and i dont think people can do that in the other place yet
defaultUsername: woah
defaultUsername: i can read in a dream this is crazy this is a first
defaultUsername: if i’ve been aware that this is a dream for so long shouldn’t i have woken up by now
defaultUsername: thats kind of weird
gardenGnostic: oh is this your first time waking up?
gardenGnostic: omg…
gardenGnostic: sorry, i should explain some things <_<;
defaultUsername: dream exposition?
defaultUsername: sign me up king
defaultUsername: Royalty
defaultUsername: i use kind in a gender neutral manner
gardenGnostic: thats quite alright!!
gardenGnostic: basically when youre asleep you go to one of the two moons, prospit or derse
gardenGnostic: is it purple where you are or is it gold?
gardenGnostic: i dont see a third tower from here………
defaultUsername: i don’t really know what hyou’re talking about but well
defaultUsername: very grey
defaultUsername: grey here
defaultUsername: or is it gray?
defaultUsername: idk
defaultUsername: i think you’re right im on the moon. dream moon
gardenGnostic: oh dear 0_0
gardenGnostic: thats very strange
defaultUsername: i mean it’s all a dream none of this or us is real so like
defaultUsername: just gotta roll with the ounches
defaultUsername: *punches
gardenGnostic: well it sounds to me like you are not on prospit or derse at all!!
gardenGnostic: i didnt know that was possible
gardenGnostic: are you sure youre awake?
defaultUsername: i mean…
defaultUsername: i’m pretty sure that i’m dreaming actually
defaultUsername: on account of the fact that i’m on the moon and that i can float and that i fell asleep before this whole correspondence
defaultUsername: and a computer came out of the ground and just so happened to have this chat thing on it
defaultUsername: how did you find me on that by the way
gardenGnostic: you were talking to john!!
gardenGnostic: but you would know him as ectoBiologist
defaultUsername: …
defaultUsername: who
gardenGnostic: aw jeeeez
gardenGnostic: i just spoiled you didnt i?
gardenGnostic: sorry <_<;
defaultUsername: i mean its alright again none of this is real
gardenGnostic: it is real!!!
gardenGnostic: i just try my best not to spoil people on things like this
gardenGnostic: it makes being spacey very hard
defaultUsername: yeah well i won’t… tell anyone else?
defaultUsername: i don’t know if there is anyone else on here other than you and EB
gardenGnostic: i guess i just feel kind of bad :c
gardenGnostic: i forget a lot when im awake
defaultUsername: same
defaultUsername: its some weird dream shit
defaultUsername: i mean dreams dont have any rules none of this is like
defaultUsername: real
defaultUsername: im just talking to my subconscious
defaultUsername: you're my subconscious
gardenGnostic: no i dont think i am
gardenGnostic: this hasnt happened to me before
gardenGnostic: i know most people would respond in this way……
gardenGnostic: its the rational way to think!!
gardenGnostic: but things are a little less rational in dreams
defaultUsername: i suppose that makes sense
defaultUsername: wait, hold on
> [BLANK]: respond to message
You already did that.
defaultUsername: i’m back. i know it was like 2 seconds but im back now
gardenGnostic: what happened?
defaultUsername: i’m fighting my impulsive thoughts. in active battle with my own brain
gardenGnostic: goodness! im sorry :(
gardenGnostic: that must be difficult
defaultUsername: i mean im not literally fighting with my own thoughts
defaultUsername: its just like do this! do that!
defaultUsername: and i have to keep them under control
gardenGnostic: oh yes i know what thats like
gardenGnostic: gosh im so spacey that half the time i forget my thought before it finishes!!!
gardenGnostic: i already told you that but its true…
gardenGnostic: so i just have visual reminders instead :P
defaultUsername: fuck yesss visual reminders. i love it when there are those
> [BLANK]: Answer message
defaultUsername: hold on
> [BLANK]: Answer ectoBiologist
Ah. It is that John fellow. You see now.
defaultUsername: ok there’s actually another person and it’s john and i’m going to answer him
defaultUsername: i’ll be right back
> [BLANK]: Answer ectoBiologist
-- defaultUsername [DU] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --
ectoBiologist: hello!
ectoBiologist: who is this?
defaultUsername: i’m [BLANK]
defaultUsername: [BLANK]
defaultUsername: [BLANK]
defaultUsername: [BLANK]
defaultUsername: i’m DU i guess
defaultUsername: this computer rose out of the ground and hit me in the face and now i’m talking to myself in my subconscious
defaultUsername: “ectoBiologist”
defaultUsername: have i watched ghostbusters recently? Maybe that’s why it’s in my brain
defaultUsername: i think that ghostbusters is the one with the “ecto” stuff
defaultUsername: ghostbusters and homestuck
defaultUsername: two pieces of media that have nothing to do with each other
defaultUsername: converging into one in my dream…
ectoBiologist: …you’re a troll, aren’t you?
ectoBiologist: argh! i thought i blocked all of you
ectoBiologist: i’m sorry, but I’m a little busy right now. Maybe you could troll me later?
defaultUsername: no i’m not a troll
defaultUsername: or i’m not trying to be a troll um
defaultUsername: i just woke up
defaultUsername: or i just fell asleep
defaultUsername: not quite sure as to what is happening
ectoBiologist: hmmmm…
ectoBiologist: well i am very sure that i’m awake!
defaultUsername: like this just kind of popped out of the ground and now i’m talking to you
ectoBiologist: you sound like my friend jade.
ectoBiologist: or er, GG.
ectoBiologist: sorry jade.
ectoBiologist: i mean GG!!!
ectoBiologist: gahhh. dang it. please don’t tell her i told you her name. internet safety and all that.
defaultUsername: i already know her name though
defaultUsername: and also your name, john
ectoBiologist: what?!
defaultUsername: yeah she told me
defaultUsername: again none of this is real enough for you to worry about that. also, i’m on the moon (i think) so there isn’t much that i would be able to do to dox her other than
defaultUsername: try and look at where she is from up here i guess
defaultUsername: if i point at every place on earth probability dictates that at some point i’ll be pointing at her house.
defaultUsername: pointingly.
You point up toward Earth (or the Earth-projection? But why would there be a fake moon base in your dream. Why wouldn’t it just be a real moon base. that would be ridiculous).
defaultUsername: i’m doing it right now actually. you better watch out, John and Jade
defaultUsername: this way aliens will be able to see you and come to your location and kidnap you
ectoBiologist: oh no!
ectoBiologist: i’m going to get abducted, and then experimented upon by some sick ass alien species that needs my guts or something to power their ship!
ectoBiologist: how could you!! you haven’t even trolled me yet!!
ectoBiologist: unless this is the troll…
ectoBiologist: you guys were talking about how you were all an “alien species”.
ectoBiologist: Are you from mars, or something? are you a martian?
defaultUsername: i’m from earth. i’m an earth-ian (?)
defaultUsername: earth-ian
defaultUsername: human
defaultUsername: not nearly as nice to say as “martian”
defaultUsername: also i just met you circa 5 minutes ago, i wouldn’t even have anything to reference when it comes to trolling
defaultUsername: other than that you probably like ghostbusters but there’s not much i can insult you about with that you know
defaultUsername: boooo you like a largely beloved classic 80’s movie
defaultUsername: like this just does not work
ectoBiologist: haha!
ectoBiologist: you know what, you are actually not that bad to talk to. you’re pretty funny!
defaultUsername: thanks
ectoBiologist: sorry for suspecting you out the gate.
ectoBiologist: you see, there are lots of trolling tactics that they use. most of them haven’t worked, but each one has a different way of going about it. i thought your whole gimmick was going to be that you were pretending not to be a troll… and acted like GG for some reason.
ectoBiologist: but i guess that if jade knows you, you must not be too bad.
ectoBiologist: i don’t really know. the way their brains work is weird. i think they’re all homeschooled.
defaultUsername: well no im not a troll i don’t think i could do a big government op thing like that
defaultUsername: i would get bored of it pretty quickly
ectoBiologist: i’m glad of that…
ectoBiologist: …unless this is but another trick!
defaultUsername: it’s not
defaultUsername: trust
> [BLANK]: Prankster’s gambit level: ZERO
Suddenly you feel a vague sense of missed opportunity, for some reason.
ectoBiologist: yep, you seem pretty human to me.
ectoBiologist: i mean, they’re all human.
ectoBiologist: you know what i mean.
defaultUsername: i don’t
defaultUsername: you know this is just a weird thing, but whenever you say “trolls” i think of the trolls from homestuck haha
defaultUsername: instead of internet trolls
defaultUsername: i know you probably don’t know what that is but i think it’s funny how it has such a hold on me even though i haven’t even gotten into it yet
ectoBiologist: ah shoot.
defaultUsername: what
ectoBiologist: aw jeez, it’s getting closer.
defaultUsername: what?
ectoBiologist: i have to go. it was nice talking to you though!
defaultUsername: what??
--ectoBiologist ceased pestering defaultUsername--
defaultUsername: hello??
defaultUsername: what happened??
defaultUsername: what’s getting closer???
defaultUsername: damn it
> [BLANK]: close Pesterchum
You don’t close Pesterchum. Instead, you hear a loud CLACK, like the sound of an ice cube dropping on concrete magnified by a million. A rock. There’s a hole in the clear dome above you, though instead of broken jagged and angular like glass, it diverts into itself like something organic, like some massive sturdy bubble or whatever a jellyfish is made of, until it retracts into itself, closing the hole that led into space.
> [BLANK]: examine rock
It’s… a rock. A completely dull, unremarkable rock. You can see the cold airing off of it, like how dry ice looks. The floor below, the color of a light cool gray, akin to how you imagine the color of the actual moon, was diverted under the force of the impact, a small spiderweb of cracks.
A small spiderweb of cracks right next to your feet, oh shit!!!
Why are you even worried, this is all a dream!!!!
The line of a circle slowly draws itself on the ground around the crack. The debris splinter further, and then the floor breaks apart and each piece falls individually down a long, deep, dark hole. The same as the computer emerged forth from, except this time it doesn’t close. The floor to close it is missing.
You move (float), and the whole world slides backward around you. Until your back hits the wall. You reach your hands out backward to steady yourself. It’s… smooth.
> [BLANK]: What’s up with that wall???
You see the blank-ness start to spread, the material of the wall filling in the lines of the story, starting from where your back is leaned up against the wall and branching out, like water seeping into the sidewalk cracks. It is much faster than water, though.
Soon enough that massive mural, everything, is all gone. In its place, is nothing but blank, unforgiving blankness that spans all around you, and a sinking pit in your stomach-- you cannot help but feel like you have done something horribly, abysmally wrong, and someone out there is very cross with you.
> [BLANK]: Be the someone out there that is very cross with you.
You cannot be THE SOMEONE out there that is very cross with you. They would not allow it to happen. Oh, would you stop meddling and fussing so much? Meddling and fussing and fussing and meddling! Haven’t you done enough already? You have no respect for the timeline. This all isn’t just a dream, you know? You’re screwing with the lives of millions and millions! Dozens of planets of different life forms! Not that I especially care. These concepts usually stir some kind of empathetic response within you mortal creatures.
Good luck on surviving the reckoning, because I surely cannot see if you make it.
Ta-ta.